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 20 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 9,242 8,178 10,531
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.02% 18.98% 15.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.29% 21.38% 18.68%
Number of salaries quoted 6,258 4,605 4,535
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,250 £27,350
25th Percentile £32,750 £31,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -14.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £71,222
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,750 £85,000
UK median annual salary £46,743 £45,102 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.64% -14.09% -4.55%

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 75,204 38,242 56,374
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.41% 88.75% 81.74%
Number of salaries quoted 53,160 22,012 31,934
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £42,215 £37,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 20 September 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 20 September 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 -6 2,362 £65,000 - 5,200
North of England -8 1,920 £45,000 +5.88% 1,460
South East -4 1,799 £42,250 -0.59% 1,635
Midlands -7 1,381 £42,500 +10.39% 1,142
North West -5 991 £45,000 -7.64% 802
South West -4 943 £45,000 +25.00% 795
West Midlands -7 767 £42,500 -4.59% 688
East of England -2 757 £43,500 +29.85% 746
East Midlands -8 612 £41,500 +18.57% 453
Yorkshire -7 601 £42,500 +28.79% 460
North East +1 331 £49,250 +40.71% 215
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
1 546 (5.91%) SharePoint
2 407 (4.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 115 (1.24%) Confluence
4 62 (0.67%) IIS
5 49 (0.53%) Apache
6 46 (0.50%) CMS
7 44 (0.48%) Apache Spark
8 36 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 36 (0.39%) WordPress
9 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 15 (0.16%) SAS
11 12 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 11 (0.12%) nginx
12 11 (0.12%) WebSphere
13 10 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 10 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 9 (0.097%) Palantir Foundry
15 7 (0.076%) OpenEdge
16 6 (0.065%) CICS
16 6 (0.065%) Tomcat
Applications
1 648 (7.01%) Microsoft Office
2 580 (6.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 118 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 62 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
5 56 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 53 (0.57%) AutoCAD
7 48 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
8 29 (0.31%) Simulink
9 27 (0.29%) Revit
10 18 (0.19%) SOLIDWORKS
11 17 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 11 (0.12%) Autodesk Flame
12 11 (0.12%) Baselight
12 11 (0.12%) EPLAN
13 10 (0.11%) Navisworks
14 8 (0.087%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 8 (0.087%) Fusion 360
14 8 (0.087%) Trello
15 6 (0.065%) Lightworks
15 6 (0.065%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 92 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 90 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
3 82 (0.89%) NetSuite
4 39 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
5 33 (0.36%) Shopify
6 23 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 21 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
8 16 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
9 15 (0.16%) Magento
9 15 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 14 (0.15%) Dynamics NAV
10 14 (0.15%) SAP Business One
10 14 (0.15%) Workday HCM
11 13 (0.14%) Elite 3E
11 13 (0.14%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 13 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
12 12 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
13 11 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
13 11 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 11 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 1,787 (19.34%) Azure
2 1,437 (15.55%) Microsoft 365
3 1,055 (11.42%) AWS
4 794 (8.59%) Power Platform
5 450 (4.87%) Entra ID
6 402 (4.35%) SaaS
7 350 (3.79%) GCP
8 236 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
9 222 (2.40%) GitHub
10 205 (2.22%) Power Automate
11 201 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
12 191 (2.07%) Serverless
13 170 (1.84%) PowerApps
14 146 (1.58%) OneDrive
15 144 (1.56%) Microsoft Copilot
16 112 (1.21%) Amazon S3
17 103 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
18 91 (0.98%) Google Workspace
19 90 (0.97%) AWS Lambda
20 87 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 527 (5.70%) Firewall
2 502 (5.43%) DNS
3 421 (4.56%) DHCP
4 357 (3.86%) VPN
5 297 (3.21%) TCP/IP
6 240 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
7 201 (2.17%) WAN
8 198 (2.14%) LAN
8 198 (2.14%) Wireless
9 182 (1.97%) VLAN
10 161 (1.74%) Network Security
11 108 (1.17%) VoIP
12 69 (0.75%) Broadband
13 62 (0.67%) Internet
14 43 (0.47%) SAN
15 38 (0.41%) HTTP
16 36 (0.39%) SD-WAN
17 35 (0.38%) SSL
18 34 (0.37%) BGP
19 32 (0.35%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 623 (6.74%) Power BI
2 434 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 156 (1.69%) Relational Database
4 151 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
5 141 (1.53%) MySQL
6 132 (1.43%) Tableau
7 131 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
8 121 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
9 103 (1.11%) NoSQL
10 93 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 82 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 70 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
13 69 (0.75%) Big Data
14 68 (0.74%) Data Lake
15 65 (0.70%) MongoDB
16 60 (0.65%) Metadata
16 60 (0.65%) Power Query
17 43 (0.47%) DynamoDB
18 40 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
19 37 (0.40%) Looker
Development Applications
1 389 (4.21%) Git
2 323 (3.49%) JIRA
3 147 (1.59%) Jenkins
4 111 (1.20%) GitLab
5 42 (0.45%) Claude Code
6 41 (0.44%) Eclipse
6 41 (0.44%) Selenium
7 35 (0.38%) JUnit
8 34 (0.37%) Subversion
9 32 (0.35%) Cucumber
10 25 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
10 25 (0.27%) Postman
11 24 (0.26%) Cypress.io
12 23 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
13 22 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 20 (0.22%) SonarQube
15 19 (0.21%) TeamCity
16 15 (0.16%) Chocolatey
16 15 (0.16%) Maven
17 14 (0.15%) MLflow
General
1 4,629 (50.09%) Social Skills
2 2,744 (29.69%) Analytical Skills
3 1,823 (19.73%) Finance
4 844 (9.13%) Manufacturing
5 699 (7.56%) Organisational Skills
6 550 (5.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 545 (5.90%) Law
8 498 (5.39%) Retail
9 392 (4.24%) Marketing
10 383 (4.14%) Public Sector
11 359 (3.88%) Legal
12 296 (3.20%) Banking
13 286 (3.09%) Electronics
14 278 (3.01%) Aerospace
15 230 (2.49%) Telecoms
16 199 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
17 175 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
18 137 (1.48%) Automotive
19 120 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
20 108 (1.17%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 1,196 (12.94%) Analyst
2 996 (10.78%) Senior
3 815 (8.82%) Developer
4 764 (8.27%) IT Support
5 606 (6.56%) Support Engineer
6 532 (5.76%) Lead
7 435 (4.71%) Consultant
8 416 (4.50%) IT Engineer
9 405 (4.38%) Support Analyst
10 325 (3.52%) Software Engineer
11 318 (3.44%) IT Support Engineer
12 289 (3.13%) Architect
13 276 (2.99%) Technical Support
14 268 (2.90%) Support Technician
15 245 (2.65%) Systems Engineer
16 243 (2.63%) IT Technician
17 230 (2.49%) Technical Engineer
18 222 (2.40%) Administrator
19 208 (2.25%) Data Engineer
20 206 (2.23%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 394 (4.26%) .NET
2 383 (4.14%) Terraform
3 311 (3.37%) React
4 296 (3.20%) REST
5 269 (2.91%) HTML
6 203 (2.20%) CSS
7 184 (1.99%) RESTful
8 146 (1.58%) Node.js
9 121 (1.31%) Spring
10 119 (1.29%) SOAP
11 113 (1.22%) Web Services
12 107 (1.16%) AngularJS
13 106 (1.15%) JSON
14 97 (1.05%) ASP.NET
14 97 (1.05%) XML
15 93 (1.01%) Kafka
15 93 (1.01%) Vue
16 92 (1.00%) Middleware
17 79 (0.85%) Spring Boot
18 69 (0.75%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 658 (7.12%) Driving Licence
2 647 (7.00%) Onboarding
3 483 (5.23%) Self-Motivation
4 408 (4.41%) Management Information System
5 330 (3.57%) Cloud Native
6 262 (2.83%) Product Ownership
7 191 (2.07%) Data Centre
8 175 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
9 165 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
10 140 (1.51%) Distributed Systems
11 126 (1.36%) Robotics
12 119 (1.29%) Cyber Threat
13 117 (1.27%) AI Agents
13 117 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
14 115 (1.24%) Data Structures
14 115 (1.24%) Security Posture
15 110 (1.19%) NHS
16 102 (1.10%) IoT
17 96 (1.04%) Algorithms
18 85 (0.92%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,384 (14.98%) Windows
2 566 (6.12%) Windows Server
3 563 (6.09%) Linux
4 164 (1.77%) Windows 10
5 120 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 108 (1.17%) Apple iOS
7 99 (1.07%) Windows Server 2016
8 98 (1.06%) Android
9 56 (0.61%) Unix
10 48 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
11 32 (0.35%) Ubuntu
11 32 (0.35%) VMS
12 29 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 15 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
14 10 (0.11%) CentOS
14 10 (0.11%) Debian
14 10 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
14 10 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
15 8 (0.087%) Rocky
16 7 (0.076%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,362 (25.56%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,487 (16.09%) Customer Service
3 1,455 (15.74%) Agile
4 1,185 (12.82%) AI
5 1,115 (12.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,075 (11.63%) Decision-Making
7 974 (10.54%) Mentoring
8 938 (10.15%) CI/CD
9 835 (9.03%) Analytics
10 806 (8.72%) Software Engineering
11 792 (8.57%) DevOps
12 768 (8.31%) Project Delivery
13 746 (8.07%) Cybersecurity
14 701 (7.58%) Business Intelligence
15 678 (7.34%) Project Management
16 675 (7.30%) ITIL
16 675 (7.30%) Roadmaps
17 649 (7.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 642 (6.95%) Computer Science
19 635 (6.87%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 1,396 (15.10%) SQL
2 1,205 (13.04%) Python
3 588 (6.36%) JavaScript
4 501 (5.42%) C#
5 447 (4.84%) Java
6 393 (4.25%) PowerShell
7 269 (2.91%) TypeScript
8 248 (2.68%) C++
9 174 (1.88%) Bash
10 100 (1.08%) C
11 82 (0.89%) PHP
12 81 (0.88%) T-SQL
13 78 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 72 (0.78%) Go
15 56 (0.61%) PL/SQL
16 50 (0.54%) R
17 49 (0.53%) Rust
18 47 (0.51%) Shell Script
19 45 (0.49%) Perl
19 45 (0.49%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,626 (17.59%) Degree
2 863 (9.34%) Security Cleared
3 579 (6.26%) SC Cleared
4 332 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 268 (2.90%) DBS Check
6 223 (2.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 208 (2.25%) HNC
8 197 (2.13%) DV Cleared
9 190 (2.06%) Azure Certification
10 182 (1.97%) HND
11 156 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
12 150 (1.62%) Master's Degree
13 149 (1.61%) CISSP
14 146 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
15 105 (1.14%) PMI Certification
16 85 (0.92%) CISM
17 84 (0.91%) AWS Certification
18 83 (0.90%) Chartered Engineer
19 82 (0.89%) ACCA
19 82 (0.89%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 523 (5.66%) QA
2 461 (4.99%) Data Quality
3 374 (4.05%) GDPR
4 267 (2.89%) Accessibility
5 242 (2.62%) SLA
6 216 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 191 (2.07%) Cyber Essentials
8 155 (1.68%) NIST
9 132 (1.43%) PCI DSS
10 67 (0.72%) PMO
11 50 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 46 (0.50%) GRC
13 43 (0.47%) ISO 9001
14 30 (0.32%) NCSC
15 24 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
15 24 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 22 (0.24%) SOC 2
17 20 (0.22%) DO-254
18 19 (0.21%) COBIT
18 19 (0.21%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 914 (9.89%) Active Directory
2 373 (4.04%) Docker
3 284 (3.07%) Hyper-V
4 264 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
5 65 (0.70%) Firmware
6 63 (0.68%) Terminal Server
7 53 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 48 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
9 37 (0.40%) vSphere
10 26 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
11 21 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
12 12 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
13 10 (0.11%) GPFS
13 10 (0.11%) StorNext
14 9 (0.097%) KVM
15 7 (0.076%) IAG
16 6 (0.065%) VMware NSX
17 5 (0.054%) ClearTrust
17 5 (0.054%) Squid
18 4 (0.043%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 351 (3.80%) Kubernetes
2 305 (3.30%) Microsoft Intune
3 151 (1.63%) Ansible
4 92 (1.00%) Grafana
5 72 (0.78%) SCCM
6 71 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
7 52 (0.56%) Prometheus
8 27 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
9 26 (0.28%) BMC PATROL
10 24 (0.26%) FortiGate
11 22 (0.24%) Argo
12 17 (0.18%) Puppet
13 16 (0.17%) Functional Safety
13 16 (0.17%) Nagios
14 15 (0.16%) Kibana
15 12 (0.13%) logstash
15 12 (0.13%) Progress Chef
16 11 (0.12%) Nmap
17 10 (0.11%) Docker Swarm
17 10 (0.11%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,747 (29.72%) Microsoft
2 389 (4.21%) VMware
3 311 (3.37%) SAP
4 273 (2.95%) Google
5 268 (2.90%) Oracle
6 189 (2.05%) ServiceNow
7 173 (1.87%) Salesforce
8 169 (1.83%) Cisco
9 142 (1.54%) Databricks
10 129 (1.40%) Veeam
11 122 (1.32%) Splunk
12 118 (1.28%) Sage
13 96 (1.04%) SolarWinds
14 86 (0.93%) Apple
15 83 (0.90%) Workday
16 74 (0.80%) Fortinet
17 71 (0.77%) Tanium
18 65 (0.70%) HubSpot
19 64 (0.69%) Nimble Storage
20 63 (0.68%) Brocade