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 8 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -6 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,507 7,118 11,898
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.85% 19.47% 15.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.60% 20.89% 17.41%
Number of salaries quoted 4,517 4,480 8,306
10th Percentile £27,000 £28,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £37,500 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £68,750 £75,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £86,500 £90,000 £86,250
UK median annual salary £47,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -14.55% +10.00% -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 56,082 34,068 68,327
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.26% 93.20% 86.14%
Number of salaries quoted 35,346 20,472 52,516
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £56,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +9.09% -10.57%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 -4 2,000 £67,500 +3.85% 986
North of England -19 1,306 £41,250 -10.33% 662
South East -7 1,196 £45,000 -11.71% 802
Midlands -19 897 £38,750 -18.42% 478
North West -18 673 £41,500 -13.54% 365
South West -7 554 £43,500 -8.42% 308
West Midlands -24 533 £42,500 -19.05% 278
Yorkshire -8 504 £36,000 -15.29% 222
East of England -9 454 £40,000 -20.00% 288
East Midlands -3 361 £35,000 -11.39% 199
North East -12 129 £45,497 +1.10% 92
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
1 343 (5.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 289 (4.44%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.21%) Confluence
4 56 (0.86%) CMS
5 54 (0.83%) Apache
6 44 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
7 36 (0.55%) Apache Spark
8 33 (0.51%) IIS
9 29 (0.45%) WordPress
10 16 (0.25%) SAS
11 14 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
12 12 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 12 (0.18%) nginx
13 10 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
14 9 (0.14%) Anypoint
14 9 (0.14%) Drupal
15 6 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.077%) OpenStack
17 4 (0.061%) Totara
Applications
1 447 (6.87%) Microsoft Office
2 354 (5.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 37 (0.57%) MS Visio
4 37 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 13 (0.20%) AutoCAD
7 12 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
7 12 (0.18%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 9 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.14%) Maya
10 8 (0.12%) Fusion 360
11 6 (0.092%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.077%) SOLIDWORKS
13 4 (0.061%) Trello
14 3 (0.046%) Elementor
14 3 (0.046%) InDesign
14 3 (0.046%) Simulink
15 2 (0.031%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 61 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 44 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 18 (0.28%) Shopify
6 17 (0.26%) SAP CO
7 16 (0.25%) Endur
8 15 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
9 13 (0.20%) Maximo
10 12 (0.18%) Magento
11 10 (0.15%) iTrent
11 10 (0.15%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.12%) SAP FI
12 8 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
13 7 (0.11%) Elite 3E
13 7 (0.11%) IBM Planning Analytics
13 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
13 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
13 7 (0.11%) SAP ERP
14 6 (0.092%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 1,406 (21.61%) Azure
2 1,010 (15.52%) Microsoft 365
3 808 (12.42%) AWS
4 487 (7.48%) Power Platform
5 361 (5.55%) SaaS
6 301 (4.63%) GCP
7 278 (4.27%) Entra ID
8 179 (2.75%) GitHub
9 171 (2.63%) Serverless
10 169 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
11 134 (2.06%) Power Automate
12 114 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
13 91 (1.40%) Amazon S3
14 88 (1.35%) Google Workspace
15 85 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
16 84 (1.29%) PowerApps
17 82 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
18 81 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
19 79 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
19 79 (1.21%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 412 (6.33%) DNS
2 382 (5.87%) Firewall
3 353 (5.42%) DHCP
4 258 (3.96%) VPN
5 220 (3.38%) WAN
6 210 (3.23%) Wi-Fi
7 209 (3.21%) TCP/IP
8 185 (2.84%) Broadband
9 183 (2.81%) LAN
10 122 (1.87%) VLAN
11 105 (1.61%) Wireless
12 90 (1.38%) VoIP
13 69 (1.06%) SD-WAN
14 58 (0.89%) Network Security
15 48 (0.74%) SAN
16 41 (0.63%) Internet
17 34 (0.52%) Remote Desktop
18 32 (0.49%) Structured Cabling
19 30 (0.46%) BGP
20 29 (0.45%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 409 (6.29%) Power BI
2 277 (4.26%) SQL Server
3 134 (2.06%) Tableau
4 127 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
5 119 (1.83%) NoSQL
6 105 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
6 105 (1.61%) Relational Database
7 94 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
8 83 (1.28%) MySQL
9 70 (1.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 57 (0.88%) Power Query
11 55 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 53 (0.81%) MongoDB
13 48 (0.74%) DynamoDB
14 47 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
15 46 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
16 41 (0.63%) Metadata
17 38 (0.58%) Big Data
17 38 (0.58%) Data Lake
18 26 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 281 (4.32%) Git
2 227 (3.49%) JIRA
3 117 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 99 (1.52%) GitLab
5 50 (0.77%) Selenium
6 29 (0.45%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.37%) Cypress.io
8 20 (0.31%) Cucumber
8 20 (0.31%) Maven
8 20 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (0.29%) Burp Suite
9 19 (0.29%) Metasploit
9 19 (0.29%) SonarQube
10 18 (0.28%) Chocolatey
11 17 (0.26%) Bitbucket
11 17 (0.26%) CircleCI
11 17 (0.26%) LabVIEW
12 16 (0.25%) TeamCity
13 14 (0.22%) JUnit
13 14 (0.22%) Robot Framework
General
1 3,156 (48.50%) Social Skills
2 1,983 (30.47%) Analytical Skills
3 1,414 (21.73%) Finance
4 455 (6.99%) Organisational Skills
5 368 (5.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 367 (5.64%) Marketing
7 315 (4.84%) Law
8 310 (4.76%) Retail
9 305 (4.69%) Banking
10 304 (4.67%) Legal
10 304 (4.67%) Manufacturing
11 291 (4.47%) Public Sector
12 161 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
13 153 (2.35%) Telecoms
14 149 (2.29%) Electronics
15 101 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
16 87 (1.34%) Games
17 84 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
18 77 (1.18%) Financial Institution
19 76 (1.17%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 932 (14.32%) Analyst
2 783 (12.03%) Senior
3 755 (11.60%) IT Support
4 648 (9.96%) Support Engineer
5 584 (8.97%) Developer
6 403 (6.19%) Lead
7 397 (6.10%) IT Engineer
8 329 (5.06%) IT Support Engineer
9 293 (4.50%) Support Analyst
10 248 (3.81%) Consultant
11 221 (3.40%) Support Technician
12 218 (3.35%) Architect
13 207 (3.18%) Business Analyst
14 191 (2.94%) 2nd Line Support
14 191 (2.94%) Technical Support
15 190 (2.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 184 (2.83%) Software Engineer
17 181 (2.78%) Systems Engineer
18 169 (2.60%) IT Technician
19 153 (2.35%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (3.84%) React
2 247 (3.80%) .NET
3 224 (3.44%) HTML
4 183 (2.81%) CSS
5 152 (2.34%) Node.js
6 130 (2.00%) REST
7 125 (1.92%) RESTful
8 71 (1.09%) Middleware
9 70 (1.08%) Vue
10 69 (1.06%) Spring
11 68 (1.05%) Django
11 68 (1.05%) JSON
12 66 (1.01%) Kafka
13 65 (1.00%) AngularJS
13 65 (1.00%) XML
14 64 (0.98%) SOAP
15 59 (0.91%) Flask
16 50 (0.77%) gRPC
17 49 (0.75%) FastAPI
18 48 (0.74%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 435 (6.69%) Onboarding
2 433 (6.65%) Driving Licence
3 373 (5.73%) Self-Motivation
4 207 (3.18%) Management Information System
5 177 (2.72%) Cloud Native
6 156 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
7 152 (2.34%) Product Ownership
8 150 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
9 144 (2.21%) Data Centre
10 136 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
11 102 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
12 96 (1.48%) Social Media
13 95 (1.46%) Mobile App
14 85 (1.31%) Data Structures
15 74 (1.14%) Low-Code
16 64 (0.98%) Security Posture
17 58 (0.89%) Algorithms
17 58 (0.89%) Video\Live Streaming
17 58 (0.89%) Virtual Team
18 51 (0.78%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,119 (17.20%) Windows
2 427 (6.56%) Linux
2 427 (6.56%) Windows Server
3 174 (2.67%) Windows 10
4 124 (1.91%) Windows Server 2016
5 108 (1.66%) Android
6 91 (1.40%) Apple iOS
7 87 (1.34%) Mac OS
8 64 (0.98%) Unix
9 56 (0.86%) Windows Server 2019
10 41 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 38 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
12 32 (0.49%) CentOS
13 27 (0.41%) Ubuntu
14 22 (0.34%) Windows 7
15 21 (0.32%) VMS
16 18 (0.28%) Mac OS X
17 11 (0.17%) Windows 8
18 10 (0.15%) Debian
19 8 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,163 (17.87%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,048 (16.11%) Agile
3 967 (14.86%) Customer Service
4 696 (10.70%) Mentoring
5 689 (10.59%) AI
6 675 (10.37%) Decision-Making
7 672 (10.33%) CI/CD
8 664 (10.20%) Analytics
9 623 (9.57%) DevOps
10 598 (9.19%) ITIL
11 548 (8.42%) Business Intelligence
12 546 (8.39%) Project Management
13 500 (7.68%) Stakeholder Management
14 497 (7.64%) Computer Science
15 452 (6.95%) Software Engineering
16 426 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
17 423 (6.50%) Roadmaps
18 405 (6.22%) Coaching
19 374 (5.75%) Process Improvement
20 353 (5.42%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 1,007 (15.48%) Python
2 910 (13.98%) SQL
3 429 (6.59%) JavaScript
4 331 (5.09%) Java
5 309 (4.75%) PowerShell
6 270 (4.15%) C#
7 182 (2.80%) TypeScript
8 158 (2.43%) Bash
9 91 (1.40%) C++
10 90 (1.38%) Go
11 83 (1.28%) PHP
12 80 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 67 (1.03%) Scala
14 53 (0.81%) C
15 48 (0.74%) T-SQL
16 41 (0.63%) Kotlin
17 34 (0.52%) Bicep
18 33 (0.51%) R
19 32 (0.49%) Rust
20 31 (0.48%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,271 (19.53%) Degree
2 466 (7.16%) Security Cleared
3 292 (4.49%) SC Cleared
4 254 (3.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 190 (2.92%) DBS Check
6 185 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
7 131 (2.01%) Master's Degree
8 111 (1.71%) CISSP
9 109 (1.68%) DV Cleared
10 95 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
11 89 (1.37%) ACCA
12 85 (1.31%) A+ Certification
13 84 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
14 77 (1.18%) CIMA
15 76 (1.17%) PMI Certification
16 68 (1.05%) CCNA
17 61 (0.94%) PMP
18 60 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
19 55 (0.85%) AWS Certification
19 55 (0.85%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 309 (4.75%) QA
2 290 (4.46%) Data Quality
3 247 (3.80%) GDPR
4 162 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 161 (2.47%) Cyber Essentials
6 158 (2.43%) SLA
7 131 (2.01%) PCI DSS
8 127 (1.95%) NIST
9 115 (1.77%) Accessibility
10 52 (0.80%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 33 (0.51%) SOC 2
12 32 (0.49%) ISO 9001
13 30 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 26 (0.40%) PMO
15 22 (0.34%) COBIT
16 21 (0.32%) GRC
17 14 (0.22%) GMP
18 11 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 10 (0.15%) HIPAA
19 10 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 752 (11.56%) Active Directory
2 313 (4.81%) Docker
3 221 (3.40%) Hyper-V
4 173 (2.66%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (0.97%) Terminal Server
6 35 (0.54%) Firmware
6 35 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 32 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
8 16 (0.25%) vSphere
9 14 (0.22%) KVM
10 10 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
11 9 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.11%) IAG
12 7 (0.11%) XenApp
13 6 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.077%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 4 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 2 (0.031%) BitLocker
16 2 (0.031%) VMware NSX
17 1 (0.015%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 302 (4.64%) Terraform
2 260 (4.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 231 (3.55%) Kubernetes
4 157 (2.41%) Ansible
5 96 (1.48%) Grafana
6 87 (1.34%) SCCM
7 57 (0.88%) Prometheus
8 30 (0.46%) Nagios
9 26 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
10 24 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 22 (0.34%) BMC PATROL
12 18 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 16 (0.25%) Kibana
13 16 (0.25%) vCenter Server
14 15 (0.23%) Argo
15 14 (0.22%) Autotask
15 14 (0.22%) Cisco CUCM
15 14 (0.22%) FortiGate
16 13 (0.20%) Nessus
16 13 (0.20%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,705 (26.20%) Microsoft
2 276 (4.24%) VMware
3 185 (2.84%) Oracle
4 167 (2.57%) SAP
5 163 (2.50%) Google
6 147 (2.26%) ServiceNow
7 145 (2.23%) Cisco
8 134 (2.06%) Salesforce
9 125 (1.92%) SolarWinds
10 121 (1.86%) Veeam
11 120 (1.84%) Splunk
12 118 (1.81%) Databricks
13 86 (1.32%) Adobe
13 86 (1.32%) Apple
14 74 (1.14%) Dell
15 64 (0.98%) Tanium
16 63 (0.97%) Brocade
16 63 (0.97%) Nimble Storage
17 56 (0.86%) Red Hat
18 50 (0.77%) Sage