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

6 months to
31 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 6,569 8,585 9,308
As % of all permanent jobs in England 11.71% 18.34% 15.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.59% 20.01% 16.93%
Number of salaries quoted 4,485 3,897 6,773
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,000 £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% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £71,725
90th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £87,500
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 45,020 42,905 54,980
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 80.22% 91.64% 88.64%
Number of salaries quoted 27,200 20,892 43,493
10th Percentile £28,803 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £38,750 £46,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,206 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.14% +6.45% -8.00%
75th Percentile £77,031 £81,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £96,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £56,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +6.19% -9.60%

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 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 31 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 1,969 £65,000 - 853
South East -3 1,337 £41,500 -20.95% 848
North of England -17 1,286 £42,500 -10.53% 565
Midlands -15 864 £37,500 -26.11% 449
North West -14 706 £47,500 -5.00% 310
South West -3 586 £40,000 -25.08% 336
West Midlands -18 502 £42,500 -22.73% 282
Yorkshire -5 449 £34,000 -21.84% 193
East of England -5 424 £35,000 -31.33% 262
East Midlands +1 361 £33,000 -5.71% 167
North East -4 131 £40,662 -18.68% 73
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
1 322 (4.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 285 (4.34%) SharePoint
3 77 (1.17%) Confluence
4 54 (0.82%) Apache
5 50 (0.76%) IIS
6 41 (0.62%) Apache Spark
7 40 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
8 38 (0.58%) CMS
9 27 (0.41%) WordPress
10 19 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
11 12 (0.18%) nginx
12 11 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 10 (0.15%) SAS
14 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 7 (0.11%) Apache Solr
15 5 (0.076%) Drupal
15 5 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
15 5 (0.076%) HCL Notes
15 5 (0.076%) Umbraco
16 4 (0.061%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 448 (6.82%) Microsoft Office
2 443 (6.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 92 (1.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 35 (0.53%) Maya
6 29 (0.44%) MS Visio
7 27 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
8 20 (0.30%) 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 (0.091%) 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 83 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 25 (0.38%) SAP CO
5 18 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
7 15 (0.23%) 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 1,481 (22.55%) Azure
2 965 (14.69%) Microsoft 365
3 743 (11.31%) AWS
4 532 (8.10%) Power Platform
5 402 (6.12%) SaaS
6 268 (4.08%) Entra ID
7 232 (3.53%) GCP
8 180 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
9 156 (2.37%) GitHub
10 150 (2.28%) Serverless
11 121 (1.84%) Power Automate
12 98 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
13 79 (1.20%) PowerApps
14 76 (1.16%) Amazon S3
15 72 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
15 72 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
16 69 (1.05%) Google Workspace
17 67 (1.02%) PaaS
18 63 (0.96%) Figma
19 62 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 431 (6.56%) DNS
2 370 (5.63%) DHCP
3 353 (5.37%) Firewall
4 217 (3.30%) VPN
5 200 (3.04%) TCP/IP
6 193 (2.94%) Wi-Fi
7 176 (2.68%) WAN
8 147 (2.24%) LAN
9 125 (1.90%) VLAN
10 108 (1.64%) Broadband
11 94 (1.43%) VoIP
12 87 (1.32%) Wireless
13 53 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
14 52 (0.79%) Network Security
15 51 (0.78%) SD-WAN
16 47 (0.72%) Internet
16 47 (0.72%) SAN
17 29 (0.44%) Unified Communications
18 27 (0.41%) BGP
18 27 (0.41%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 442 (6.73%) Power BI
2 306 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 154 (2.34%) Relational Database
4 139 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
5 137 (2.09%) Tableau
6 123 (1.87%) NoSQL
7 120 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
7 120 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
8 116 (1.77%) Data Lake
9 111 (1.69%) MySQL
10 66 (1.00%) SAP BW
10 66 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 57 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 55 (0.84%) Metadata
13 50 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 49 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
15 44 (0.67%) Big Data
15 44 (0.67%) DynamoDB
16 41 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
17 30 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 267 (4.06%) Git
2 235 (3.58%) JIRA
3 96 (1.46%) Jenkins
4 78 (1.19%) GitLab
5 57 (0.87%) Selenium
6 23 (0.35%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 20 (0.30%) Cypress.io
7 20 (0.30%) Maven
8 19 (0.29%) LabVIEW
8 19 (0.29%) TeamCity
9 18 (0.27%) Robot Framework
10 17 (0.26%) Burp Suite
10 17 (0.26%) Metasploit
10 17 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
11 16 (0.24%) JUnit
12 14 (0.21%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.21%) Snyk
12 14 (0.21%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.21%) WebDriver
General
1 3,476 (52.92%) Social Skills
2 1,993 (30.34%) Analytical Skills
3 1,563 (23.79%) Finance
4 390 (5.94%) Marketing
5 369 (5.62%) Organisational Skills
6 359 (5.47%) Law
7 336 (5.11%) Retail
8 335 (5.10%) Manufacturing
9 297 (4.52%) Legal
10 296 (4.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 281 (4.28%) Public Sector
12 263 (4.00%) Banking
13 180 (2.74%) Presentation Skills
13 180 (2.74%) Telecoms
14 153 (2.33%) Electronics
15 119 (1.81%) Games
16 96 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
17 87 (1.32%) Financial Institution
18 85 (1.29%) Automotive
19 84 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,045 (15.91%) Analyst
2 822 (12.51%) Senior
3 720 (10.96%) IT Support
4 645 (9.82%) Support Engineer
5 591 (9.00%) Developer
6 446 (6.79%) Lead
7 343 (5.22%) Support Analyst
8 319 (4.86%) IT Engineer
9 278 (4.23%) Technical Support
10 266 (4.05%) IT Support Engineer
11 252 (3.84%) Business Analyst
12 221 (3.36%) Consultant
13 218 (3.32%) Architect
14 193 (2.94%) Technical Engineer
15 189 (2.88%) Support Technician
16 185 (2.82%) 2nd Line Support
17 181 (2.76%) Technical Support Engineer
18 163 (2.48%) IT Analyst
19 160 (2.44%) Software Engineer
20 159 (2.42%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 285 (4.34%) .NET
2 255 (3.88%) React
3 237 (3.61%) HTML
4 191 (2.91%) CSS
5 148 (2.25%) REST
6 145 (2.21%) Node.js
7 111 (1.69%) RESTful
8 94 (1.43%) AngularJS
9 72 (1.10%) Vue
10 70 (1.07%) Spring
11 69 (1.05%) JSON
12 67 (1.02%) XML
13 65 (0.99%) Middleware
14 63 (0.96%) SOAP
15 59 (0.90%) Kafka
16 57 (0.87%) .NET Framework
17 52 (0.79%) ASP.NET
18 51 (0.78%) Django
19 46 (0.70%) Flask
20 45 (0.69%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 522 (7.95%) Driving Licence
2 512 (7.79%) Onboarding
3 414 (6.30%) Self-Motivation
4 214 (3.26%) Management Information System
5 199 (3.03%) Analytical Mindset
6 171 (2.60%) Cloud Native
7 161 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
8 159 (2.42%) Product Ownership
9 128 (1.95%) Data Centre
10 117 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
11 82 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
12 79 (1.20%) Mobile App
13 71 (1.08%) Algorithms
13 71 (1.08%) Data Structures
14 66 (1.00%) Low-Code
15 64 (0.97%) Virtual Team
16 55 (0.84%) FMCG
16 55 (0.84%) Social Media
17 51 (0.78%) Security Posture
18 50 (0.76%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 1,113 (16.94%) Windows
2 450 (6.85%) Windows Server
3 418 (6.36%) Linux
4 157 (2.39%) Windows 10
5 132 (2.01%) Windows Server 2016
6 94 (1.43%) Mac OS
7 82 (1.25%) Android
8 69 (1.05%) 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 22 (0.33%) Windows 7
15 14 (0.21%) CentOS
16 9 (0.14%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.091%) Debian
17 6 (0.091%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
18 4 (0.061%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,116 (16.99%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,082 (16.47%) Agile
3 976 (14.86%) Customer Service
4 747 (11.37%) Analytics
5 665 (10.12%) Mentoring
6 655 (9.97%) AI
7 640 (9.74%) Decision-Making
8 611 (9.30%) Business Intelligence
9 608 (9.26%) Project Management
10 585 (8.91%) DevOps
11 566 (8.62%) CI/CD
12 544 (8.28%) ITIL
13 531 (8.08%) Computer Science
14 488 (7.43%) Cybersecurity
15 484 (7.37%) Stakeholder Management
16 435 (6.62%) Change Management
17 434 (6.61%) ERP
18 423 (6.44%) Software Engineering
19 394 (6.00%) CRM
20 380 (5.78%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 977 (14.87%) SQL
2 936 (14.25%) Python
3 411 (6.26%) JavaScript
4 338 (5.15%) C#
5 328 (4.99%) PowerShell
6 319 (4.86%) Java
7 162 (2.47%) TypeScript
8 141 (2.15%) Bash
9 106 (1.61%) PHP
10 83 (1.26%) C++
11 57 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 51 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 48 (0.73%) Go
14 43 (0.65%) C
15 41 (0.62%) Scala
16 36 (0.55%) R
17 27 (0.41%) Bicep
18 24 (0.37%) MATLAB
19 23 (0.35%) Perl
19 23 (0.35%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,570 (23.90%) Degree
2 539 (8.21%) Security Cleared
3 342 (5.21%) SC Cleared
4 253 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 179 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
6 172 (2.62%) DBS Check
7 171 (2.60%) Master's Degree
8 125 (1.90%) DV Cleared
9 109 (1.66%) CISSP
10 96 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
11 79 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
12 78 (1.19%) A+ Certification
13 76 (1.16%) ACCA
14 68 (1.04%) Network+ Certification
15 62 (0.94%) CIMA
15 62 (0.94%) PMI Certification
16 60 (0.91%) CISM
17 58 (0.88%) AWS Certification
18 55 (0.84%) HND
19 52 (0.79%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 349 (5.31%) QA
2 338 (5.15%) Data Quality
3 217 (3.30%) GDPR
4 183 (2.79%) Cyber Essentials
5 165 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 143 (2.18%) Accessibility
7 130 (1.98%) PCI DSS
8 129 (1.96%) SLA
9 85 (1.29%) 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 19 (0.29%) SOC 2
15 16 (0.24%) COBIT
16 15 (0.23%) GRC
17 12 (0.18%) WCAG
18 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
18 9 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
19 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 780 (11.87%) Active Directory
2 268 (4.08%) Docker
3 253 (3.85%) Hyper-V
4 148 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 91 (1.39%) Terminal Server
6 29 (0.44%) Firmware
7 25 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 21 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
9 18 (0.27%) 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 (0.030%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.030%) HDFS
15 2 (0.030%) Postfix
15 2 (0.030%) RHEV
15 2 (0.030%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 273 (4.16%) Terraform
2 270 (4.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 208 (3.17%) Kubernetes
4 139 (2.12%) Ansible
5 75 (1.14%) Grafana
6 61 (0.93%) SCCM
7 49 (0.75%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.64%) BMC PATROL
9 28 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
10 21 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 19 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 19 (0.29%) Nagios
12 14 (0.21%) Argo
12 14 (0.21%) Cisco CUCM
12 14 (0.21%) vCenter Server
13 12 (0.18%) FortiGate
13 12 (0.18%) Kibana
14 10 (0.15%) Nmap
15 9 (0.14%) Autotask
15 9 (0.14%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,702 (25.91%) Microsoft
2 405 (6.17%) SAP
3 289 (4.40%) VMware
4 267 (4.06%) Oracle
5 164 (2.50%) Salesforce
6 151 (2.30%) Veeam
7 148 (2.25%) Cisco
8 139 (2.12%) Google
8 139 (2.12%) Splunk
9 131 (1.99%) SolarWinds
10 125 (1.90%) ServiceNow
11 106 (1.61%) Adobe
11 106 (1.61%) Databricks
12 92 (1.40%) Tanium
13 91 (1.39%) Brocade
13 91 (1.39%) Nimble Storage
14 69 (1.05%) Apple
15 59 (0.90%) Sage
16 55 (0.84%) Dell
17 53 (0.81%) HubSpot