Problem-Solving Job Trends in England

Problem Solving
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 8
Rank change year-on-year -4 +4 +2
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 8,209 8,431 10,575
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.65% 19.17% 14.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.75% 21.47% 18.06%
Number of salaries quoted 5,741 4,816 5,485
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,250 £26,750
25th Percentile £33,125 £31,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £66,250 £67,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £85,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Problem-Solving falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 69,838 39,267 58,550
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.63% 89.29% 81.16%
Number of salaries quoted 49,329 22,677 38,246
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in England

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in England over the 6 months to 17 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in England

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the England region over the 6 months to 17 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -5 2,242 £65,000 - 3,377
North of England -9 1,665 £45,000 +5.88% 1,219
South East -3 1,566 £42,750 +0.59% 1,288
Midlands -8 1,197 £42,500 +10.39% 799
North West -5 874 £45,250 +0.56% 658
South West -4 799 £45,000 +25.00% 651
West Midlands -9 665 £42,500 -4.59% 508
East of England -3 661 £42,500 +21.43% 598
Yorkshire -8 547 £42,500 +21.43% 400
East Midlands -9 529 £41,000 +17.14% 292
North East -7 244 £48,500 +25.00% 180
Problem-Solving
UK

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 449 (5.47%) SharePoint
2 397 (4.84%) Microsoft Exchange
3 98 (1.19%) Confluence
4 57 (0.69%) CMS
5 56 (0.68%) IIS
6 49 (0.60%) Apache
7 37 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 37 (0.45%) Apache Spark
8 36 (0.44%) WordPress
9 21 (0.26%) SAS
10 13 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.13%) nginx
11 11 (0.13%) WebLogic
11 11 (0.13%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 8 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2013
13 8 (0.097%) Jupyter
14 7 (0.085%) OpenEdge
14 7 (0.085%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.073%) Drupal
Applications
1 526 (6.41%) Microsoft Office
2 468 (5.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 81 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 48 (0.58%) MS Visio
4 48 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 43 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
6 32 (0.39%) AutoCAD
7 17 (0.21%) Simulink
8 16 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 15 (0.18%) Revit
10 11 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
11 9 (0.11%) Trello
12 8 (0.097%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 7 (0.085%) Adobe Illustrator
14 6 (0.073%) Fusion 360
14 6 (0.073%) Navisworks
15 5 (0.061%) Autodesk Flame
15 5 (0.061%) Baselight
15 5 (0.061%) Lightworks
16 4 (0.049%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 83 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 81 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 57 (0.69%) NetSuite
4 30 (0.37%) Shopify
5 21 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 18 (0.22%) Magento
7 16 (0.19%) SAP ERP
8 15 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 15 (0.18%) SAP Business One
9 14 (0.17%) Elite 3E
10 13 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 11 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
11 11 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
12 10 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
12 10 (0.12%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.11%) iTrent
13 9 (0.11%) Primavera
13 9 (0.11%) Sage 50
13 9 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,700 (20.71%) Azure
2 1,272 (15.50%) Microsoft 365
3 1,015 (12.36%) AWS
4 683 (8.32%) Power Platform
5 387 (4.71%) Entra ID
6 366 (4.46%) SaaS
7 354 (4.31%) GCP
8 200 (2.44%) GitHub
9 197 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
10 193 (2.35%) Serverless
11 176 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
12 172 (2.10%) Power Automate
13 147 (1.79%) PowerApps
14 113 (1.38%) Microsoft Copilot
15 110 (1.34%) OneDrive
16 101 (1.23%) Amazon S3
17 92 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
18 91 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
19 82 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
20 76 (0.93%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 500 (6.09%) Firewall
2 454 (5.53%) DNS
3 383 (4.67%) DHCP
4 307 (3.74%) VPN
5 281 (3.42%) TCP/IP
6 208 (2.53%) WAN
7 203 (2.47%) Wi-Fi
8 201 (2.45%) LAN
9 168 (2.05%) Wireless
10 156 (1.90%) VLAN
11 146 (1.78%) Network Security
12 133 (1.62%) Broadband
13 107 (1.30%) VoIP
14 45 (0.55%) Internet
15 44 (0.54%) HTTP
16 43 (0.52%) SAN
17 41 (0.50%) SD-WAN
18 39 (0.48%) OSPF
19 38 (0.46%) BGP
20 33 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 532 (6.48%) Power BI
2 416 (5.07%) SQL Server
3 145 (1.77%) MySQL
4 144 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
5 136 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
6 135 (1.64%) Relational Database
7 122 (1.49%) PostgreSQL
8 121 (1.47%) Tableau
9 107 (1.30%) NoSQL
10 96 (1.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 88 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 63 (0.77%) MongoDB
13 62 (0.76%) Big Data
14 57 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
15 56 (0.68%) Data Lake
16 51 (0.62%) Power Query
17 44 (0.54%) Metadata
18 43 (0.52%) DynamoDB
19 41 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
20 33 (0.40%) Looker
Development Applications
1 372 (4.53%) Git
2 287 (3.50%) JIRA
3 127 (1.55%) Jenkins
4 109 (1.33%) GitLab
5 35 (0.43%) Selenium
6 34 (0.41%) Eclipse
7 31 (0.38%) Claude Code
7 31 (0.38%) Subversion
8 30 (0.37%) JUnit
9 28 (0.34%) Cucumber
10 26 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
11 25 (0.30%) Postman
12 22 (0.27%) Cypress.io
13 20 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 20 (0.24%) Visual Studio
14 19 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
15 18 (0.22%) SonarQube
16 15 (0.18%) Chocolatey
17 14 (0.17%) MLflow
17 14 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 3,975 (48.42%) Social Skills
2 2,485 (30.27%) Analytical Skills
3 1,614 (19.66%) Finance
4 624 (7.60%) Manufacturing
5 513 (6.25%) Organisational Skills
6 493 (6.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 480 (5.85%) Law
8 406 (4.95%) Retail
9 358 (4.36%) Marketing
10 323 (3.93%) Public Sector
11 308 (3.75%) Legal
12 301 (3.67%) Banking
13 215 (2.62%) Electronics
14 201 (2.45%) Aerospace
15 191 (2.33%) Telecoms
16 169 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
17 150 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
18 112 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
19 92 (1.12%) Advertising
20 90 (1.10%) Games
Job Titles
1 1,055 (12.85%) Analyst
2 926 (11.28%) Senior
3 817 (9.95%) Developer
4 704 (8.58%) IT Support
5 571 (6.96%) Support Engineer
6 509 (6.20%) Lead
7 407 (4.96%) Consultant
8 394 (4.80%) IT Engineer
9 329 (4.01%) Support Analyst
10 307 (3.74%) Software Engineer
11 301 (3.67%) IT Support Engineer
12 278 (3.39%) Architect
13 258 (3.14%) Systems Engineer
14 254 (3.09%) Technical Support
15 252 (3.07%) Support Technician
16 221 (2.69%) IT Technician
17 208 (2.53%) Technical Engineer
18 194 (2.36%) Data Engineer
19 185 (2.25%) Technical Support Engineer
20 176 (2.14%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 372 (4.53%) .NET
2 312 (3.80%) React
3 261 (3.18%) HTML
4 260 (3.17%) REST
5 203 (2.47%) CSS
6 175 (2.13%) RESTful
7 152 (1.85%) Node.js
8 114 (1.39%) SOAP
9 106 (1.29%) Spring
10 105 (1.28%) AngularJS
11 100 (1.22%) JSON
12 95 (1.16%) Vue
13 91 (1.11%) ASP.NET
14 90 (1.10%) Kafka
14 90 (1.10%) Middleware
15 81 (0.99%) Web Services
16 78 (0.95%) OAuth
17 75 (0.91%) XML
18 70 (0.85%) Spring Boot
19 57 (0.69%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 528 (6.43%) Onboarding
2 524 (6.38%) Driving Licence
3 419 (5.10%) Self-Motivation
4 342 (4.17%) Management Information System
5 304 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 233 (2.84%) Product Ownership
7 177 (2.16%) Data Centre
8 174 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
9 162 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
10 141 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
11 124 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
12 116 (1.41%) Data Structures
13 111 (1.35%) Security Posture
14 103 (1.25%) NHS
15 100 (1.22%) Algorithms
16 94 (1.15%) AI Agents
17 90 (1.10%) Social Media
18 86 (1.05%) Robotics
19 85 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
19 85 (1.04%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,247 (15.19%) Windows
2 562 (6.85%) Linux
3 538 (6.55%) Windows Server
4 159 (1.94%) Windows 10
5 113 (1.38%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (1.28%) Android
6 105 (1.28%) Mac OS
7 92 (1.12%) Apple iOS
8 53 (0.65%) Unix
9 46 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 35 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 29 (0.35%) VMS
13 22 (0.27%) CentOS
14 13 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
15 12 (0.15%) Debian
16 9 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
16 9 (0.11%) Mac OS X
17 7 (0.085%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,010 (24.49%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,347 (16.41%) Agile
3 1,220 (14.86%) Customer Service
4 1,056 (12.86%) AI
5 992 (12.08%) Decision-Making
6 905 (11.02%) CI/CD
7 888 (10.82%) Mentoring
8 881 (10.73%) Stakeholder Management
9 780 (9.50%) Analytics
10 762 (9.28%) Software Engineering
11 754 (9.19%) DevOps
12 676 (8.23%) Cybersecurity
13 665 (8.10%) ITIL
14 664 (8.09%) Roadmaps
15 606 (7.38%) Business Intelligence
16 603 (7.35%) Project Delivery
17 600 (7.31%) Project Management
18 599 (7.30%) Computer Science
19 538 (6.55%) Collaborative Working
20 537 (6.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 1,297 (15.80%) SQL
2 1,190 (14.50%) Python
3 576 (7.02%) JavaScript
4 476 (5.80%) C#
5 424 (5.17%) Java
6 354 (4.31%) PowerShell
7 254 (3.09%) TypeScript
8 221 (2.69%) C++
9 178 (2.17%) Bash
10 94 (1.15%) PHP
11 91 (1.11%) C
12 83 (1.01%) Go
13 70 (0.85%) T-SQL
14 66 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 50 (0.61%) Shell Script
16 46 (0.56%) Perl
16 46 (0.56%) Rust
17 44 (0.54%) R
18 43 (0.52%) Scala
19 39 (0.48%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,413 (17.21%) Degree
2 749 (9.12%) Security Cleared
3 506 (6.16%) SC Cleared
4 314 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 228 (2.78%) DBS Check
6 199 (2.42%) Microsoft Certification
7 180 (2.19%) DV Cleared
8 157 (1.91%) Azure Certification
9 152 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 145 (1.77%) CISSP
11 138 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
12 125 (1.52%) Master's Degree
13 115 (1.40%) HNC
14 104 (1.27%) PMI Certification
15 90 (1.10%) HND
16 84 (1.02%) CCNA
17 83 (1.01%) PMP
18 80 (0.97%) CISM
19 77 (0.94%) CCNP
20 69 (0.84%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 473 (5.76%) QA
2 406 (4.95%) Data Quality
3 337 (4.11%) GDPR
4 232 (2.83%) Accessibility
5 231 (2.81%) SLA
6 204 (2.49%) Cyber Essentials
7 189 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 161 (1.96%) NIST
9 146 (1.78%) PCI DSS
10 64 (0.78%) PMO
11 54 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 40 (0.49%) GRC
13 34 (0.41%) ISO 9001
14 26 (0.32%) GMP
14 26 (0.32%) SOC 2
15 23 (0.28%) COBIT
16 22 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
17 20 (0.24%) NCSC
17 20 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 20 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 830 (10.11%) Active Directory
2 372 (4.53%) Docker
3 274 (3.34%) Hyper-V
4 250 (3.05%) VMware Infrastructure
5 70 (0.85%) Terminal Server
6 56 (0.68%) Firmware
7 49 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
8 38 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 35 (0.43%) vSphere
10 18 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
10 18 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
11 14 (0.17%) KVM
12 7 (0.085%) XenApp
13 5 (0.061%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.061%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 5 (0.061%) Squid
13 5 (0.061%) VMware NSX
14 4 (0.049%) GPFS
14 4 (0.049%) StorNext
14 4 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 369 (4.50%) Terraform
2 328 (4.00%) Kubernetes
3 276 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
4 157 (1.91%) Ansible
5 96 (1.17%) Grafana
6 76 (0.93%) SCCM
7 56 (0.68%) Prometheus
8 55 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 27 (0.33%) Nagios
10 26 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
11 25 (0.30%) FortiGate
12 20 (0.24%) Puppet
13 15 (0.18%) Argo
14 13 (0.16%) Kibana
15 12 (0.15%) Autotask
15 12 (0.15%) Functional Safety
15 12 (0.15%) Proxmox
16 11 (0.13%) logstash
16 11 (0.13%) Nmap
17 10 (0.12%) Podman
Vendors
1 2,356 (28.70%) Microsoft
2 364 (4.43%) VMware
3 239 (2.91%) SAP
4 236 (2.87%) Google
5 234 (2.85%) Oracle
6 174 (2.12%) Cisco
7 167 (2.03%) ServiceNow
8 159 (1.94%) Salesforce
9 132 (1.61%) Veeam
10 130 (1.58%) Databricks
11 123 (1.50%) Splunk
12 116 (1.41%) SolarWinds
13 78 (0.95%) Tanium
14 76 (0.93%) Apple
15 75 (0.91%) Sage
16 71 (0.86%) Nimble Storage
17 70 (0.85%) Brocade
18 65 (0.79%) Fortinet
19 58 (0.71%) Dell
19 58 (0.71%) Palo Alto