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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 8,751 8,278 10,380
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.81% 19.07% 15.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.01% 21.52% 18.56%
Number of salaries quoted 6,051 4,630 4,605
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £32,754 £31,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £45,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -14.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,125 £85,000
UK median annual salary £47,166 £45,000 £51,350
% change year-on-year +4.81% -12.37% -6.64%

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 72,872 38,466 55,924
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.38% 88.62% 81.15%
Number of salaries quoted 51,860 22,142 32,761
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,750
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 £95,000
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 9 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 9 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 2,307 £65,000 - 4,880
North of England -9 1,781 £45,000 +7.14% 1,369
South East -4 1,689 £42,500 - 1,443
Midlands -7 1,286 £42,500 +11.84% 1,040
North West -5 930 £45,000 -5.26% 750
South West -4 886 £45,000 +28.57% 797
East of England -2 719 £42,500 +21.43% 704
West Midlands -8 711 £42,500 -3.41% 646
East Midlands -9 573 £41,000 +17.14% 396
Yorkshire -8 569 £42,500 +21.43% 452
North East -2 282 £48,250 +33.10% 192
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
1 512 (5.85%) SharePoint
2 396 (4.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 106 (1.21%) Confluence
4 60 (0.69%) IIS
5 48 (0.55%) Apache
6 44 (0.50%) CMS
7 40 (0.46%) Apache Spark
8 37 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
9 35 (0.40%) WordPress
10 19 (0.22%) SAS
11 13 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
12 11 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 11 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 10 (0.11%) nginx
14 9 (0.10%) Jupyter
14 9 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 8 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
16 7 (0.080%) Exchange Server 2013
16 7 (0.080%) OpenEdge
16 7 (0.080%) Tomcat
Applications
1 581 (6.64%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (5.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 102 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 53 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
5 50 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 46 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
7 38 (0.43%) AutoCAD
8 26 (0.30%) Simulink
9 24 (0.27%) Revit
10 16 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 11 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
12 10 (0.11%) Autodesk Flame
12 10 (0.11%) Baselight
13 8 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 8 (0.091%) EPLAN
13 8 (0.091%) Fusion 360
13 8 (0.091%) Navisworks
13 8 (0.091%) Trello
14 7 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
15 5 (0.057%) Lightworks
Business Applications
1 89 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 84 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 79 (0.90%) NetSuite
4 33 (0.38%) Shopify
5 29 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 16 (0.18%) Magento
7 14 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
7 14 (0.16%) Elite 3E
7 14 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 14 (0.16%) SAP Business One
8 13 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.14%) Dynamics NAV
9 12 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.14%) SAP ERP
10 11 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 10 (0.11%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 10 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
11 10 (0.11%) Sage X3
11 10 (0.11%) Workday HCM
12 9 (0.10%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 1,757 (20.08%) Azure
2 1,368 (15.63%) Microsoft 365
3 1,049 (11.99%) AWS
4 737 (8.42%) Power Platform
5 422 (4.82%) Entra ID
6 384 (4.39%) SaaS
7 353 (4.03%) GCP
8 223 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
9 215 (2.46%) GitHub
10 192 (2.19%) Power Automate
11 190 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
11 190 (2.17%) Serverless
12 163 (1.86%) PowerApps
13 133 (1.52%) OneDrive
14 128 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
15 106 (1.21%) Amazon S3
16 101 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
17 89 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
18 85 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
19 84 (0.96%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 517 (5.91%) Firewall
2 481 (5.50%) DNS
3 408 (4.66%) DHCP
4 341 (3.90%) VPN
5 294 (3.36%) TCP/IP
6 223 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
7 198 (2.26%) WAN
8 194 (2.22%) LAN
9 190 (2.17%) Wireless
10 181 (2.07%) VLAN
11 153 (1.75%) Network Security
12 109 (1.25%) VoIP
13 102 (1.17%) Broadband
14 54 (0.62%) Internet
15 41 (0.47%) SAN
16 40 (0.46%) HTTP
17 35 (0.40%) BGP
17 35 (0.40%) SD-WAN
18 34 (0.39%) OSPF
18 34 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 579 (6.62%) Power BI
2 426 (4.87%) SQL Server
3 148 (1.69%) Relational Database
4 146 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
5 139 (1.59%) MySQL
6 131 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
7 128 (1.46%) Tableau
8 117 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
9 105 (1.20%) NoSQL
10 95 (1.09%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 85 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 66 (0.75%) Big Data
13 64 (0.73%) Data Lake
14 63 (0.72%) MongoDB
15 62 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
16 57 (0.65%) Power Query
17 53 (0.61%) Metadata
18 44 (0.50%) DynamoDB
19 41 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
20 38 (0.43%) Looker
Development Applications
1 379 (4.33%) Git
2 304 (3.47%) JIRA
3 142 (1.62%) Jenkins
4 107 (1.22%) GitLab
5 40 (0.46%) Eclipse
5 40 (0.46%) Selenium
6 39 (0.45%) Claude Code
7 35 (0.40%) JUnit
8 33 (0.38%) Subversion
9 29 (0.33%) Cucumber
10 24 (0.27%) Postman
10 24 (0.27%) Rational DOORS
11 23 (0.26%) Cypress.io
12 22 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
13 21 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 19 (0.22%) SonarQube
15 16 (0.18%) Chocolatey
15 16 (0.18%) Visual Studio
16 15 (0.17%) MLflow
17 14 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 4,330 (49.48%) Social Skills
2 2,634 (30.10%) Analytical Skills
3 1,724 (19.70%) Finance
4 721 (8.24%) Manufacturing
5 602 (6.88%) Organisational Skills
6 528 (6.03%) Law
7 515 (5.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 432 (4.94%) Retail
9 374 (4.27%) Marketing
10 346 (3.95%) Public Sector
11 334 (3.82%) Legal
12 297 (3.39%) Banking
13 262 (2.99%) Electronics
14 240 (2.74%) Aerospace
15 207 (2.37%) Telecoms
16 188 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
17 166 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
18 114 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
19 113 (1.29%) Automotive
20 100 (1.14%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 1,133 (12.95%) Analyst
2 948 (10.83%) Senior
3 820 (9.37%) Developer
4 739 (8.44%) IT Support
5 589 (6.73%) Support Engineer
6 526 (6.01%) Lead
7 427 (4.88%) Consultant
8 404 (4.62%) IT Engineer
9 381 (4.35%) Support Analyst
10 322 (3.68%) Software Engineer
11 310 (3.54%) IT Support Engineer
12 283 (3.23%) Architect
13 268 (3.06%) Technical Support
14 258 (2.95%) Support Technician
15 251 (2.87%) Systems Engineer
16 228 (2.61%) IT Technician
17 222 (2.54%) Technical Engineer
18 198 (2.26%) Data Engineer
18 198 (2.26%) Technical Support Engineer
19 197 (2.25%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 386 (4.41%) .NET
2 372 (4.25%) Terraform
3 309 (3.53%) React
4 283 (3.23%) REST
5 265 (3.03%) HTML
6 203 (2.32%) CSS
7 182 (2.08%) RESTful
8 148 (1.69%) Node.js
9 120 (1.37%) Spring
10 119 (1.36%) SOAP
11 106 (1.21%) JSON
12 104 (1.19%) AngularJS
13 100 (1.14%) Web Services
14 98 (1.12%) ASP.NET
15 93 (1.06%) Vue
16 91 (1.04%) Kafka
17 88 (1.01%) Middleware
17 88 (1.01%) XML
18 78 (0.89%) Spring Boot
19 72 (0.82%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 596 (6.81%) Driving Licence
2 595 (6.80%) Onboarding
3 462 (5.28%) Self-Motivation
4 365 (4.17%) Management Information System
5 317 (3.62%) Cloud Native
6 253 (2.89%) Product Ownership
7 192 (2.19%) Data Centre
8 172 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
9 162 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
10 149 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
11 119 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
12 116 (1.33%) Data Structures
13 113 (1.29%) Security Posture
14 112 (1.28%) Robotics
15 109 (1.25%) Cyber Threat
16 107 (1.22%) AI Agents
16 107 (1.22%) NHS
17 92 (1.05%) IoT
18 91 (1.04%) Algorithms
19 87 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1,327 (15.16%) Windows
2 562 (6.42%) Linux
3 550 (6.28%) Windows Server
4 161 (1.84%) Windows 10
5 110 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 104 (1.19%) Windows Server 2016
7 101 (1.15%) Apple iOS
8 98 (1.12%) Android
9 55 (0.63%) Unix
10 50 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 33 (0.38%) VMS
12 32 (0.37%) Ubuntu
13 28 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 13 (0.15%) CentOS
15 12 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
16 11 (0.13%) Debian
16 11 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
17 9 (0.10%) FreeRTOS
17 9 (0.10%) Mac OS X
17 9 (0.10%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,206 (25.21%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,409 (16.10%) Agile
3 1,362 (15.56%) Customer Service
4 1,130 (12.91%) AI
5 1,036 (11.84%) Decision-Making
6 1,012 (11.56%) Stakeholder Management
7 937 (10.71%) Mentoring
8 926 (10.58%) CI/CD
9 810 (9.26%) Analytics
10 802 (9.16%) Software Engineering
11 769 (8.79%) DevOps
12 712 (8.14%) Cybersecurity
13 700 (8.00%) Project Delivery
14 679 (7.76%) Roadmaps
15 673 (7.69%) ITIL
16 655 (7.48%) Business Intelligence
17 647 (7.39%) Project Management
18 626 (7.15%) Computer Science
19 605 (6.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 588 (6.72%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 1,350 (15.43%) SQL
2 1,197 (13.68%) Python
3 581 (6.64%) JavaScript
4 495 (5.66%) C#
5 443 (5.06%) Java
6 390 (4.46%) PowerShell
7 263 (3.01%) TypeScript
8 236 (2.70%) C++
9 171 (1.95%) Bash
10 99 (1.13%) C
11 85 (0.97%) PHP
12 77 (0.88%) Go
13 75 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 75 (0.86%) T-SQL
14 48 (0.55%) Shell Script
15 47 (0.54%) Perl
15 47 (0.54%) Rust
16 45 (0.51%) R
16 45 (0.51%) Ruby
17 44 (0.50%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,544 (17.64%) Degree
2 812 (9.28%) Security Cleared
3 541 (6.18%) SC Cleared
4 328 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 245 (2.80%) DBS Check
6 207 (2.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 195 (2.23%) DV Cleared
8 177 (2.02%) Azure Certification
9 156 (1.78%) HNC
10 147 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
10 147 (1.68%) CISSP
11 145 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 141 (1.61%) HND
13 136 (1.55%) Master's Degree
14 106 (1.21%) PMI Certification
15 85 (0.97%) CISM
16 83 (0.95%) PMP
17 82 (0.94%) CCNA
18 76 (0.87%) AWS Certification
18 76 (0.87%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 507 (5.79%) QA
2 441 (5.04%) Data Quality
3 369 (4.22%) GDPR
4 247 (2.82%) Accessibility
5 233 (2.66%) SLA
6 203 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 192 (2.19%) Cyber Essentials
8 156 (1.78%) NIST
9 135 (1.54%) PCI DSS
10 66 (0.75%) PMO
11 53 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 42 (0.48%) GRC
13 37 (0.42%) ISO 9001
14 26 (0.30%) NCSC
14 26 (0.30%) SOC 2
15 24 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
16 23 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 21 (0.24%) COBIT
18 20 (0.23%) DO-254
19 18 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 882 (10.08%) Active Directory
2 371 (4.24%) Docker
3 281 (3.21%) Hyper-V
4 261 (2.98%) VMware Infrastructure
5 65 (0.74%) Firmware
6 63 (0.72%) Terminal Server
7 53 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
8 47 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
9 35 (0.40%) vSphere
10 23 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
11 19 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 11 (0.13%) KVM
13 10 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 9 (0.10%) GPFS
14 9 (0.10%) StorNext
15 6 (0.069%) IAG
16 5 (0.057%) ClearTrust
16 5 (0.057%) Squid
16 5 (0.057%) VMware NSX
16 5 (0.057%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 335 (3.83%) Kubernetes
2 294 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
3 152 (1.74%) Ansible
4 94 (1.07%) Grafana
5 73 (0.83%) SCCM
6 68 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
7 51 (0.58%) Prometheus
8 28 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
9 26 (0.30%) FortiGate
10 19 (0.22%) BMC PATROL
10 19 (0.22%) Nagios
10 19 (0.22%) Puppet
11 17 (0.19%) Argo
12 14 (0.16%) Functional Safety
13 13 (0.15%) Kibana
14 11 (0.13%) logstash
14 11 (0.13%) Nmap
14 11 (0.13%) Proxmox
14 11 (0.13%) vCenter Server
15 10 (0.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 2,580 (29.48%) Microsoft
2 382 (4.37%) VMware
3 284 (3.25%) SAP
4 259 (2.96%) Google
5 249 (2.85%) Oracle
6 177 (2.02%) ServiceNow
7 170 (1.94%) Cisco
8 169 (1.93%) Salesforce
9 136 (1.55%) Databricks
10 127 (1.45%) Veeam
11 119 (1.36%) Splunk
12 104 (1.19%) Sage
13 99 (1.13%) SolarWinds
14 78 (0.89%) Apple
15 71 (0.81%) Tanium
16 69 (0.79%) Fortinet
17 65 (0.74%) Workday
18 64 (0.73%) Nimble Storage
19 63 (0.72%) Brocade
20 62 (0.71%) HubSpot