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 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 4 9
Rank change year-on-year -4 +5 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,590 9,064 6,627
As % of all permanent jobs in England 12.67% 18.21% 14.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.40% 20.19% 16.07%
Number of salaries quoted 4,431 4,024 4,662
10th Percentile £26,650 £31,000 £28,000
25th Percentile £31,000 £40,000 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,497 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.28% - -
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £91,934
UK median annual salary £46,261 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -15.89% - -0.90%

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 42,784 44,895 41,229
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 82.28% 90.18% 91.26%
Number of salaries quoted 25,500 22,481 31,965
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £76,000 £81,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £100,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025. 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 -1 1,958 £65,000 - 1,894
South East -3 1,357 £41,500 -20.57% 3,014
North of England -14 1,257 £45,000 -5.26% 2,636
Midlands -12 915 £38,500 -23.00% 2,008
North West -9 708 £47,592 -0.19% 1,355
South West 0 589 £40,000 -27.27% 1,287
West Midlands -16 544 £42,920 -21.96% 1,033
Yorkshire -4 439 £37,500 -13.79% 1,063
East of England -6 420 £35,000 -31.33% 1,740
East Midlands +1 370 £34,000 -6.85% 870
North East -2 110 £33,500 -33.00% 231
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
1 325 (4.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 282 (4.28%) SharePoint
3 77 (1.17%) Confluence
4 50 (0.76%) IIS
5 46 (0.70%) Apache
6 42 (0.64%) Apache Spark
7 35 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
8 30 (0.46%) CMS
9 25 (0.38%) WordPress
10 11 (0.17%) nginx
10 11 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 11 (0.17%) SAS
11 8 (0.12%) Headless CMS
12 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 7 (0.11%) Apache Solr
13 6 (0.091%) HCL Notes
14 5 (0.076%) Camunda
14 5 (0.076%) Drupal
14 5 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.076%) Umbraco
Applications
1 508 (7.71%) Microsoft Office
2 502 (7.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 94 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 35 (0.53%) Maya
5 34 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
6 30 (0.46%) MS Visio
7 23 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
8 20 (0.30%) AutoCAD
9 17 (0.26%) Photoshop
10 15 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 12 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
11 12 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
12 9 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
12 9 (0.14%) Simulink
13 5 (0.076%) Adobe After Effects
13 5 (0.076%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.076%) Trello
14 4 (0.061%) Autodesk Inventor
14 4 (0.061%) Chatbot
14 4 (0.061%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 112 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 94 (1.43%) Dynamics CRM
3 45 (0.68%) NetSuite
4 22 (0.33%) Shopify
5 21 (0.32%) SAP CO
5 21 (0.32%) SAP FI
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
7 14 (0.21%) Endur
7 14 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
8 13 (0.20%) SAP Business One
9 12 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
11 10 (0.15%) Sage 200
12 8 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
13 6 (0.091%) Exchequer
13 6 (0.091%) Sage X3
13 6 (0.091%) SAP ERP
13 6 (0.091%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 1,448 (21.97%) Azure
2 924 (14.02%) Microsoft 365
3 708 (10.74%) AWS
4 547 (8.30%) Power Platform
5 420 (6.37%) SaaS
6 275 (4.17%) Entra ID
7 227 (3.44%) GCP
8 182 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
9 148 (2.25%) GitHub
10 139 (2.11%) Serverless
11 109 (1.65%) Power Automate
12 101 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
13 75 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
13 75 (1.14%) PowerApps
14 71 (1.08%) Amazon S3
15 67 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
16 61 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
17 60 (0.91%) OneDrive
18 58 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 57 (0.86%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 397 (6.02%) DNS
2 338 (5.13%) DHCP
2 338 (5.13%) Firewall
3 214 (3.25%) VPN
4 187 (2.84%) TCP/IP
5 175 (2.66%) WAN
5 175 (2.66%) Wi-Fi
6 149 (2.26%) LAN
7 118 (1.79%) VLAN
8 86 (1.31%) VoIP
9 83 (1.26%) Wireless
10 74 (1.12%) Broadband
11 64 (0.97%) Network Security
12 61 (0.93%) Remote Desktop
13 52 (0.79%) SAN
14 47 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 45 (0.68%) Internet
16 29 (0.44%) Unified Communications
17 26 (0.39%) BGP
17 26 (0.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 461 (7.00%) Power BI
2 322 (4.89%) SQL Server
3 161 (2.44%) Relational Database
4 140 (2.12%) Tableau
5 135 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
6 129 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
7 125 (1.90%) MySQL
8 118 (1.79%) Data Lake
8 118 (1.79%) NoSQL
9 115 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
10 68 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 66 (1.00%) SAP BW
12 60 (0.91%) MongoDB
13 55 (0.83%) Metadata
14 48 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 44 (0.67%) Big Data
15 44 (0.67%) DynamoDB
16 41 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
17 39 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
18 37 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 274 (4.16%) Git
2 246 (3.73%) JIRA
3 92 (1.40%) Jenkins
4 81 (1.23%) GitLab
5 57 (0.86%) Selenium
6 28 (0.42%) Cypress.io
7 25 (0.38%) Visual Studio
8 23 (0.35%) Bitbucket
9 19 (0.29%) LabVIEW
10 17 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
10 17 (0.26%) Robot Framework
11 16 (0.24%) Maven
11 16 (0.24%) SonarQube
11 16 (0.24%) TeamCity
12 14 (0.21%) JUnit
12 14 (0.21%) Snyk
12 14 (0.21%) WebDriver
13 12 (0.18%) Cucumber
14 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
14 11 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 3,594 (54.54%) Social Skills
2 2,003 (30.39%) Analytical Skills
3 1,591 (24.14%) Finance
4 434 (6.59%) Marketing
5 387 (5.87%) Retail
6 371 (5.63%) Law
7 344 (5.22%) Manufacturing
8 330 (5.01%) Organisational Skills
9 285 (4.32%) Legal
10 275 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 264 (4.01%) Public Sector
12 253 (3.84%) Banking
13 194 (2.94%) Telecoms
14 169 (2.56%) Electronics
15 168 (2.55%) Presentation Skills
16 121 (1.84%) Games
17 96 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
18 88 (1.34%) Automotive
19 82 (1.24%) Documentation Skills
20 77 (1.17%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,050 (15.93%) Analyst
2 799 (12.12%) Senior
3 661 (10.03%) IT Support
4 609 (9.24%) Support Engineer
5 607 (9.21%) Developer
6 459 (6.97%) Lead
7 367 (5.57%) Support Analyst
8 303 (4.60%) Technical Support
9 257 (3.90%) IT Engineer
10 243 (3.69%) Business Analyst
11 232 (3.52%) Consultant
12 223 (3.38%) Architect
13 213 (3.23%) Technical Engineer
14 209 (3.17%) IT Support Engineer
15 199 (3.02%) Technical Support Engineer
16 193 (2.93%) 2nd Line Support
17 189 (2.87%) Support Technician
18 171 (2.59%) Systems Engineer
19 169 (2.56%) Applications Support
20 146 (2.22%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 285 (4.32%) .NET
2 258 (3.92%) React
3 244 (3.70%) HTML
4 197 (2.99%) CSS
5 152 (2.31%) REST
6 147 (2.23%) Node.js
7 131 (1.99%) RESTful
8 99 (1.50%) AngularJS
9 76 (1.15%) XML
10 75 (1.14%) JSON
11 70 (1.06%) Spring
12 65 (0.99%) Vue
13 62 (0.94%) .NET Framework
14 59 (0.90%) ASP.NET
15 58 (0.88%) Kafka
15 58 (0.88%) SOAP
16 49 (0.74%) Django
16 49 (0.74%) Middleware
16 49 (0.74%) Web Services
17 45 (0.68%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 536 (8.13%) Onboarding
2 505 (7.66%) Driving Licence
3 419 (6.36%) Self-Motivation
4 217 (3.29%) Management Information System
5 200 (3.03%) Analytical Mindset
6 159 (2.41%) Cloud Native
7 151 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
8 147 (2.23%) Product Ownership
9 120 (1.82%) Data Centre
10 114 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
11 80 (1.21%) FMCG
12 79 (1.20%) Algorithms
13 71 (1.08%) Data Structures
14 68 (1.03%) Virtual Team
15 65 (0.99%) Distributed Systems
16 60 (0.91%) Mobile App
17 57 (0.86%) Security Posture
18 55 (0.83%) Low-Code
19 45 (0.68%) EPoS
20 44 (0.67%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 1,087 (16.49%) Windows
2 424 (6.43%) Windows Server
3 395 (5.99%) Linux
4 170 (2.58%) Windows 10
5 108 (1.64%) Windows Server 2016
6 90 (1.37%) Mac OS
7 76 (1.15%) Android
8 70 (1.06%) Apple iOS
9 60 (0.91%) Unix
10 45 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
11 27 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
12 22 (0.33%) Windows 7
13 21 (0.32%) VMS
14 18 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 9 (0.14%) Mac OS X
16 8 (0.12%) CentOS
17 7 (0.11%) Ubuntu
18 6 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
19 4 (0.061%) OpenWrt
19 4 (0.061%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,163 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,105 (16.77%) Agile
3 958 (14.54%) Customer Service
4 758 (11.50%) Analytics
5 648 (9.83%) AI
6 643 (9.76%) Business Intelligence
7 634 (9.62%) Decision-Making
8 627 (9.51%) Mentoring
9 624 (9.47%) Project Management
10 582 (8.83%) DevOps
11 572 (8.68%) ITIL
12 514 (7.80%) CI/CD
13 508 (7.71%) Cybersecurity
14 497 (7.54%) Computer Science
15 471 (7.15%) Stakeholder Management
16 459 (6.97%) ERP
17 454 (6.89%) Change Management
18 419 (6.36%) Data Analysis
19 406 (6.16%) CRM
20 397 (6.02%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,042 (15.81%) SQL
2 870 (13.20%) Python
3 397 (6.02%) JavaScript
4 352 (5.34%) C#
5 308 (4.67%) Java
6 302 (4.58%) PowerShell
7 148 (2.25%) TypeScript
8 115 (1.75%) Bash
9 99 (1.50%) PHP
10 83 (1.26%) C++
11 61 (0.93%) T-SQL
12 51 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 44 (0.67%) R
14 37 (0.56%) C
15 35 (0.53%) Go
15 35 (0.53%) Scala
16 34 (0.52%) VBA
17 28 (0.42%) MATLAB
18 25 (0.38%) Bicep
19 24 (0.36%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,598 (24.25%) Degree
2 520 (7.89%) Security Cleared
3 336 (5.10%) SC Cleared
4 245 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 181 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
6 180 (2.73%) Master's Degree
7 137 (2.08%) DBS Check
8 130 (1.97%) DV Cleared
9 111 (1.68%) CISSP
10 104 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
11 101 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
12 89 (1.35%) ACCA
13 75 (1.14%) CIMA
14 65 (0.99%) CCNA
14 65 (0.99%) CISM
14 65 (0.99%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 64 (0.97%) PMI Certification
16 63 (0.96%) A+ Certification
17 61 (0.93%) Network+ Certification
18 59 (0.90%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (5.55%) QA
2 327 (4.96%) Data Quality
3 206 (3.13%) GDPR
4 178 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials
5 169 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 149 (2.26%) Accessibility
7 138 (2.09%) SLA
8 112 (1.70%) PCI DSS
9 82 (1.24%) NIST
10 51 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.49%) ISO 9001
11 32 (0.49%) PMO
12 25 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
13 20 (0.30%) GRC
13 20 (0.30%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.21%) COBIT
15 13 (0.20%) WCAG
16 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
17 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 19770
17 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 746 (11.32%) Active Directory
2 262 (3.98%) Docker
3 228 (3.46%) Hyper-V
4 151 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 84 (1.27%) Terminal Server
6 33 (0.50%) Firmware
7 31 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.29%) vSphere
10 15 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
11 5 (0.076%) KVM
12 4 (0.061%) ProxySG
12 4 (0.061%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.061%) XenApp
13 3 (0.046%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.046%) vCloud
13 3 (0.046%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.030%) HDFS
14 2 (0.030%) RHEV
14 2 (0.030%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 279 (4.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 244 (3.70%) Terraform
3 208 (3.16%) Kubernetes
4 122 (1.85%) Ansible
5 58 (0.88%) Grafana
5 58 (0.88%) SCCM
6 43 (0.65%) Prometheus
7 42 (0.64%) BMC PATROL
8 29 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
9 22 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
10 18 (0.27%) Nagios
10 18 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 15 (0.23%) Cisco CUCM
12 13 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.20%) Argo
13 12 (0.18%) FortiGate
13 12 (0.18%) PaperCut
14 10 (0.15%) ZABBIX
15 8 (0.12%) Nmap
16 7 (0.11%) QRadar
Vendors
1 1,731 (26.27%) Microsoft
2 431 (6.54%) SAP
3 285 (4.32%) Oracle
4 284 (4.31%) VMware
5 177 (2.69%) Cisco
6 149 (2.26%) Salesforce
7 141 (2.14%) ServiceNow
8 138 (2.09%) Veeam
9 134 (2.03%) Google
10 128 (1.94%) Splunk
11 126 (1.91%) SolarWinds
12 110 (1.67%) Databricks
13 87 (1.32%) Adobe
14 86 (1.31%) Nimble Storage
14 86 (1.31%) Tanium
15 84 (1.27%) Apple
15 84 (1.27%) Brocade
16 66 (1.00%) Workday
17 65 (0.99%) Sage
18 59 (0.90%) Dell