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 28 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,556 8,734 9,038
As % of all permanent jobs in England 11.81% 18.50% 14.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.70% 20.20% 16.86%
Number of salaries quoted 4,484 3,894 6,531
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,075 £26,500
25th Percentile £30,750 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.74%
75th Percentile £65,118 £75,000 £72,433
90th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £88,750
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -13.04%

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 44,593 43,236 53,592
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 80.34% 91.57% 88.63%
Number of salaries quoted 26,934 20,949 42,299
10th Percentile £29,000 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £38,750 £46,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.84% +6.09% -8.00%
75th Percentile £77,000 £81,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £96,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 -1 1,970 £65,000 - 867
South East -3 1,335 £41,250 -21.05% 1,219
North of England -15 1,285 £45,000 -5.26% 720
Midlands -15 867 £37,500 -25.37% 573
North West -13 710 £47,500 -5.00% 361
South West -3 574 £40,000 -27.27% 473
West Midlands -16 504 £42,500 -22.73% 314
Yorkshire -4 446 £34,000 -21.84% 265
East of England -5 424 £35,000 -31.33% 451
East Midlands +1 362 £33,000 -5.71% 256
North East -3 129 £33,500 -33.00% 105
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
1 313 (4.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 281 (4.29%) SharePoint
3 77 (1.17%) Confluence
4 53 (0.81%) Apache
5 50 (0.76%) IIS
6 42 (0.64%) Apache Spark
7 39 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
8 33 (0.50%) CMS
9 27 (0.41%) WordPress
10 11 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 10 (0.15%) nginx
11 10 (0.15%) SAS
12 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 7 (0.11%) Apache Solr
13 5 (0.076%) Drupal
13 5 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.076%) HCL Notes
13 5 (0.076%) Umbraco
14 3 (0.046%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.046%) HCL Domino
Applications
1 453 (6.91%) Microsoft Office
2 446 (6.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 93 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 41 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
5 35 (0.53%) Maya
6 30 (0.46%) MS Visio
7 27 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
8 20 (0.31%) AutoCAD
9 14 (0.21%) Photoshop
10 12 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 10 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
12 9 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
12 9 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
13 6 (0.092%) Chatbot
14 5 (0.076%) Adobe After Effects
14 5 (0.076%) Adobe XD
14 5 (0.076%) Trello
15 4 (0.061%) CATIA
15 4 (0.061%) Fusion 360
15 4 (0.061%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 109 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 87 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 24 (0.37%) SAP CO
5 19 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI
7 16 (0.24%) SAP FI/CO
8 14 (0.21%) Endur
8 14 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
10 12 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 12 (0.18%) Shopify
11 11 (0.17%) iTrent
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
12 10 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
12 10 (0.15%) SAP Business One
12 10 (0.15%) Workday HCM
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 200
14 8 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
14 8 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 1,469 (22.41%) Azure
2 954 (14.55%) Microsoft 365
3 725 (11.06%) AWS
4 531 (8.10%) Power Platform
5 404 (6.16%) SaaS
6 267 (4.07%) Entra ID
7 220 (3.36%) GCP
8 184 (2.81%) Azure DevOps
9 158 (2.41%) GitHub
10 145 (2.21%) Serverless
11 120 (1.83%) Power Automate
12 98 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
13 77 (1.17%) PowerApps
14 74 (1.13%) Amazon S3
15 71 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
16 70 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
17 69 (1.05%) Google Workspace
18 65 (0.99%) PaaS
19 62 (0.95%) Figma
20 60 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 424 (6.47%) DNS
2 361 (5.51%) DHCP
3 350 (5.34%) Firewall
4 218 (3.33%) VPN
5 197 (3.00%) TCP/IP
6 192 (2.93%) Wi-Fi
7 174 (2.65%) WAN
8 146 (2.23%) LAN
9 122 (1.86%) VLAN
10 99 (1.51%) Broadband
11 92 (1.40%) VoIP
12 90 (1.37%) Wireless
13 52 (0.79%) Network Security
13 52 (0.79%) Remote Desktop
14 51 (0.78%) SD-WAN
15 48 (0.73%) Internet
15 48 (0.73%) SAN
16 29 (0.44%) Unified Communications
17 27 (0.41%) BGP
17 27 (0.41%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 440 (6.71%) Power BI
2 310 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 154 (2.35%) Relational Database
4 135 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
4 135 (2.06%) Tableau
5 121 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
6 120 (1.83%) NoSQL
7 115 (1.75%) Data Lake
8 112 (1.71%) Amazon RDS
9 111 (1.69%) MySQL
10 66 (1.01%) SAP BW
11 63 (0.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 57 (0.87%) Metadata
13 55 (0.84%) MongoDB
14 47 (0.72%) Amazon Redshift
14 47 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 44 (0.67%) Big Data
15 44 (0.67%) DynamoDB
16 42 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 29 (0.44%) Redis
Development Applications
1 262 (4.00%) Git
2 242 (3.69%) JIRA
3 97 (1.48%) Jenkins
4 81 (1.24%) GitLab
5 58 (0.88%) Selenium
6 22 (0.34%) Bitbucket
6 22 (0.34%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 20 (0.31%) Maven
9 19 (0.29%) LabVIEW
9 19 (0.29%) TeamCity
10 18 (0.27%) Burp Suite
10 18 (0.27%) Metasploit
10 18 (0.27%) Robot Framework
11 17 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
12 16 (0.24%) JUnit
12 16 (0.24%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.21%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.21%) Snyk
13 14 (0.21%) WebDriver
General
1 3,471 (52.94%) Social Skills
2 1,980 (30.20%) Analytical Skills
3 1,559 (23.78%) Finance
4 389 (5.93%) Marketing
5 365 (5.57%) Organisational Skills
6 359 (5.48%) Law
7 337 (5.14%) Manufacturing
8 335 (5.11%) Retail
9 293 (4.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 292 (4.45%) Legal
11 278 (4.24%) Public Sector
12 262 (4.00%) Banking
13 183 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
14 178 (2.72%) Telecoms
15 153 (2.33%) Electronics
16 120 (1.83%) Games
17 98 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
18 87 (1.33%) Financial Institution
19 86 (1.31%) Automotive
20 84 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,055 (16.09%) Analyst
2 824 (12.57%) Senior
3 716 (10.92%) IT Support
4 641 (9.78%) Support Engineer
5 587 (8.95%) Developer
6 449 (6.85%) Lead
7 349 (5.32%) Support Analyst
8 315 (4.80%) IT Engineer
9 283 (4.32%) Technical Support
10 262 (4.00%) IT Support Engineer
11 253 (3.86%) Business Analyst
12 221 (3.37%) Consultant
13 215 (3.28%) Architect
14 194 (2.96%) Technical Engineer
15 185 (2.82%) Support Technician
16 182 (2.78%) Technical Support Engineer
17 180 (2.75%) 2nd Line Support
18 164 (2.50%) IT Analyst
19 159 (2.43%) Applications Support
20 156 (2.38%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 282 (4.30%) .NET
2 251 (3.83%) React
3 238 (3.63%) HTML
4 189 (2.88%) CSS
5 151 (2.30%) REST
6 139 (2.12%) Node.js
7 110 (1.68%) RESTful
8 96 (1.46%) AngularJS
9 70 (1.07%) Spring
10 69 (1.05%) JSON
10 69 (1.05%) Vue
10 69 (1.05%) XML
11 63 (0.96%) Middleware
12 62 (0.95%) SOAP
13 58 (0.88%) .NET Framework
14 57 (0.87%) Kafka
15 53 (0.81%) ASP.NET
16 50 (0.76%) Django
17 46 (0.70%) Flask
18 45 (0.69%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 519 (7.92%) Driving Licence
1 519 (7.92%) Onboarding
2 423 (6.45%) Self-Motivation
3 216 (3.29%) Management Information System
4 199 (3.04%) Analytical Mindset
5 167 (2.55%) Cloud Native
6 162 (2.47%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 125 (1.91%) Data Centre
9 117 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
10 80 (1.22%) Mobile App
11 72 (1.10%) Data Structures
11 72 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
12 71 (1.08%) Algorithms
13 65 (0.99%) Low-Code
13 65 (0.99%) Virtual Team
14 55 (0.84%) FMCG
14 55 (0.84%) Social Media
15 52 (0.79%) Security Posture
16 49 (0.75%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 1,110 (16.93%) Windows
2 439 (6.70%) Windows Server
3 413 (6.30%) Linux
4 161 (2.46%) Windows 10
5 123 (1.88%) Windows Server 2016
6 93 (1.42%) Mac OS
7 80 (1.22%) Android
8 67 (1.02%) Apple iOS
9 59 (0.90%) Unix
10 55 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
11 33 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
12 25 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 24 (0.37%) VMS
14 23 (0.35%) Windows 7
15 14 (0.21%) CentOS
16 9 (0.14%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.092%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
18 5 (0.076%) Debian
18 5 (0.076%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,119 (17.07%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,087 (16.58%) Agile
3 966 (14.73%) Customer Service
4 748 (11.41%) Analytics
5 667 (10.17%) Mentoring
6 658 (10.04%) AI
7 638 (9.73%) Decision-Making
8 613 (9.35%) Project Management
9 612 (9.33%) Business Intelligence
10 586 (8.94%) DevOps
11 549 (8.37%) ITIL
12 548 (8.36%) CI/CD
13 534 (8.15%) Computer Science
14 493 (7.52%) Cybersecurity
15 484 (7.38%) Stakeholder Management
16 441 (6.73%) Change Management
17 438 (6.68%) ERP
18 413 (6.30%) Software Engineering
19 396 (6.04%) CRM
20 388 (5.92%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 987 (15.05%) SQL
2 922 (14.06%) Python
3 404 (6.16%) JavaScript
4 337 (5.14%) C#
5 326 (4.97%) PowerShell
6 317 (4.84%) Java
7 160 (2.44%) TypeScript
8 138 (2.10%) Bash
9 103 (1.57%) PHP
10 83 (1.27%) C++
11 54 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 52 (0.79%) T-SQL
13 43 (0.66%) C
14 41 (0.63%) Go
15 33 (0.50%) R
15 33 (0.50%) Scala
16 28 (0.43%) Bicep
17 24 (0.37%) MATLAB
17 24 (0.37%) Perl
17 24 (0.37%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,573 (23.99%) Degree
2 533 (8.13%) Security Cleared
3 332 (5.06%) SC Cleared
4 255 (3.89%) Computer Science Degree
5 179 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 176 (2.68%) DBS Check
7 172 (2.62%) Master's Degree
8 127 (1.94%) DV Cleared
9 108 (1.65%) CISSP
10 98 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
11 78 (1.19%) A+ Certification
11 78 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
12 76 (1.16%) ACCA
13 67 (1.02%) Network+ Certification
14 63 (0.96%) PMI Certification
15 62 (0.95%) CIMA
16 59 (0.90%) AWS Certification
16 59 (0.90%) CISM
17 56 (0.85%) HND
18 51 (0.78%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 352 (5.37%) QA
2 338 (5.16%) Data Quality
3 216 (3.29%) GDPR
4 176 (2.68%) Cyber Essentials
5 163 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 144 (2.20%) Accessibility
7 130 (1.98%) SLA
8 120 (1.83%) PCI DSS
9 84 (1.28%) NIST
10 49 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 31 (0.47%) ISO 9001
12 26 (0.40%) PMO
13 24 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.26%) COBIT
14 17 (0.26%) SOC 2
15 15 (0.23%) GRC
16 12 (0.18%) WCAG
17 10 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
19 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 777 (11.85%) Active Directory
2 255 (3.89%) Docker
3 241 (3.68%) Hyper-V
4 148 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 84 (1.28%) Terminal Server
6 29 (0.44%) Firmware
7 24 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 19 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 19 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (0.27%) vSphere
10 9 (0.14%) KVM
11 7 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.076%) VMware Workstation
13 4 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.046%) vCloud
15 2 (0.031%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.031%) HDFS
15 2 (0.031%) Postfix
15 2 (0.031%) RHEV
15 2 (0.031%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 276 (4.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 271 (4.13%) Terraform
3 208 (3.17%) Kubernetes
4 138 (2.10%) Ansible
5 72 (1.10%) Grafana
6 63 (0.96%) SCCM
7 47 (0.72%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.64%) BMC PATROL
9 29 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 20 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 20 (0.31%) Nagios
11 18 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
12 15 (0.23%) vCenter Server
13 14 (0.21%) Argo
13 14 (0.21%) Cisco CUCM
14 12 (0.18%) FortiGate
14 12 (0.18%) Kibana
15 10 (0.15%) Nessus
15 10 (0.15%) Nmap
16 9 (0.14%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,704 (25.99%) Microsoft
2 405 (6.18%) SAP
3 282 (4.30%) VMware
4 272 (4.15%) Oracle
5 163 (2.49%) Salesforce
6 150 (2.29%) Cisco
7 144 (2.20%) Veeam
8 140 (2.14%) Google
9 132 (2.01%) Splunk
10 126 (1.92%) SolarWinds
11 124 (1.89%) ServiceNow
12 107 (1.63%) Adobe
12 107 (1.63%) Databricks
13 85 (1.30%) Tanium
14 84 (1.28%) Brocade
14 84 (1.28%) Nimble Storage
15 73 (1.11%) Apple
16 59 (0.90%) Sage
17 55 (0.84%) Dell
18 53 (0.81%) HubSpot