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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,407 6,998 11,770
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.10% 19.15% 15.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.86% 20.54% 17.44%
Number of salaries quoted 4,446 4,381 8,251
10th Percentile £27,000 £29,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £37,500 £33,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,042 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -14.47% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £75,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £86,376 £90,000 £87,000
UK median annual salary £45,497 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -17.28% +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 54,028 34,071 67,502
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.72% 93.22% 86.35%
Number of salaries quoted 33,923 20,346 52,125
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,844 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £98,750 £103,750 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +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 1 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 1 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 -3 1,978 £67,500 +3.85% 986
North of England -18 1,289 £41,000 -10.87% 662
South East -7 1,195 £45,000 -11.71% 802
Midlands -19 867 £38,500 -19.79% 478
North West -17 652 £41,000 -17.17% 365
South West -6 542 £43,500 -8.42% 308
West Midlands -25 512 £42,500 -20.26% 278
Yorkshire -8 509 £35,000 -17.65% 222
East of England -9 437 £40,000 -20.00% 288
East Midlands -2 352 £35,000 -11.95% 199
North East -10 128 £45,000 - 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
1 340 (5.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 288 (4.50%) SharePoint
3 75 (1.17%) Confluence
4 55 (0.86%) CMS
5 51 (0.80%) Apache
6 45 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
7 35 (0.55%) Apache Spark
7 35 (0.55%) IIS
8 27 (0.42%) WordPress
9 16 (0.25%) SAS
10 14 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
11 12 (0.19%) nginx
12 11 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
13 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
14 9 (0.14%) Anypoint
14 9 (0.14%) Drupal
15 6 (0.094%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 4 (0.062%) Apache Solr
16 4 (0.062%) OpenStack
Applications
1 449 (7.01%) Microsoft Office
2 343 (5.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 71 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 36 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
5 34 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.22%) AutoCAD
8 12 (0.19%) Photoshop
9 11 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 10 (0.16%) Maya
11 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.094%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.094%) Fusion 360
12 6 (0.094%) SOLIDWORKS
13 4 (0.062%) Trello
14 3 (0.047%) Elementor
14 3 (0.047%) InDesign
14 3 (0.047%) Simulink
15 2 (0.031%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 59 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 30 (0.47%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
5 17 (0.27%) Endur
5 17 (0.27%) SAP CO
5 17 (0.27%) Shopify
6 14 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
7 12 (0.19%) Maximo
8 10 (0.16%) iTrent
8 10 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 9 (0.14%) Magento
10 8 (0.12%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.12%) SAP FI
10 8 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
11 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
11 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
12 6 (0.094%) Dynamics AX
12 6 (0.094%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.094%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 1,389 (21.68%) Azure
2 992 (15.48%) Microsoft 365
3 794 (12.39%) AWS
4 460 (7.18%) Power Platform
5 365 (5.70%) SaaS
6 296 (4.62%) GCP
7 272 (4.25%) Entra ID
8 169 (2.64%) GitHub
9 167 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
10 166 (2.59%) Serverless
11 127 (1.98%) Power Automate
12 105 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (1.36%) Amazon S3
13 87 (1.36%) Google Workspace
14 81 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
15 80 (1.25%) PowerApps
16 79 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
16 79 (1.23%) AWS Lambda
16 79 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
17 77 (1.20%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 410 (6.40%) DNS
2 382 (5.96%) Firewall
3 348 (5.43%) DHCP
4 254 (3.96%) VPN
5 215 (3.36%) WAN
6 211 (3.29%) TCP/IP
7 206 (3.22%) Wi-Fi
8 187 (2.92%) Broadband
9 180 (2.81%) LAN
10 126 (1.97%) VLAN
11 101 (1.58%) Wireless
12 82 (1.28%) VoIP
13 68 (1.06%) SD-WAN
14 54 (0.84%) Network Security
15 44 (0.69%) SAN
16 39 (0.61%) Internet
17 36 (0.56%) Remote Desktop
18 32 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
19 29 (0.45%) BGP
20 28 (0.44%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 385 (6.01%) Power BI
2 276 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 130 (2.03%) Tableau
4 127 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
5 121 (1.89%) NoSQL
6 110 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
7 109 (1.70%) Relational Database
8 93 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
9 92 (1.44%) MySQL
10 64 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 56 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 52 (0.81%) Power Query
13 51 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 47 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
14 47 (0.73%) DynamoDB
15 45 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
16 42 (0.66%) Metadata
17 41 (0.64%) Data Lake
18 39 (0.61%) Big Data
19 26 (0.41%) Redis
Development Applications
1 286 (4.46%) Git
2 224 (3.50%) JIRA
3 112 (1.75%) Jenkins
4 97 (1.51%) GitLab
5 53 (0.83%) Selenium
6 30 (0.47%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.37%) Cypress.io
8 19 (0.30%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.30%) Maven
8 19 (0.30%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.28%) Chocolatey
9 18 (0.28%) LabVIEW
9 18 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
9 18 (0.28%) Robot Framework
10 17 (0.27%) CircleCI
10 17 (0.27%) Cucumber
10 17 (0.27%) TeamCity
11 16 (0.25%) SonarQube
12 15 (0.23%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.22%) JUnit
General
1 3,136 (48.95%) Social Skills
2 1,942 (30.31%) Analytical Skills
3 1,394 (21.76%) Finance
4 448 (6.99%) Organisational Skills
5 369 (5.76%) Marketing
6 357 (5.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 317 (4.95%) Law
8 309 (4.82%) Retail
9 306 (4.78%) Banking
10 303 (4.73%) Legal
11 288 (4.50%) Public Sector
12 283 (4.42%) Manufacturing
13 161 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
14 152 (2.37%) Telecoms
15 146 (2.28%) Electronics
16 100 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
17 93 (1.45%) Games
18 81 (1.26%) Financial Institution
18 81 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
19 74 (1.15%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 935 (14.59%) Analyst
2 756 (11.80%) IT Support
3 752 (11.74%) Senior
4 644 (10.05%) Support Engineer
5 591 (9.22%) Developer
6 390 (6.09%) IT Engineer
7 386 (6.02%) Lead
8 327 (5.10%) IT Support Engineer
9 301 (4.70%) Support Analyst
10 246 (3.84%) Consultant
11 219 (3.42%) Support Technician
12 215 (3.36%) Architect
13 214 (3.34%) Business Analyst
14 194 (3.03%) Technical Support
15 193 (3.01%) 2nd Line Support
16 179 (2.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 176 (2.75%) Software Engineer
18 168 (2.62%) Systems Engineer
19 167 (2.61%) IT Technician
20 151 (2.36%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (3.89%) React
2 248 (3.87%) .NET
3 223 (3.48%) HTML
4 179 (2.79%) CSS
5 160 (2.50%) Node.js
6 125 (1.95%) REST
7 120 (1.87%) RESTful
8 71 (1.11%) Spring
8 71 (1.11%) Vue
9 69 (1.08%) AngularJS
10 67 (1.05%) Django
11 65 (1.01%) Kafka
12 64 (1.00%) Middleware
13 61 (0.95%) SOAP
14 58 (0.91%) Flask
15 57 (0.89%) JSON
15 57 (0.89%) XML
16 50 (0.78%) FastAPI
16 50 (0.78%) gRPC
16 50 (0.78%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 435 (6.79%) Driving Licence
2 428 (6.68%) Onboarding
3 378 (5.90%) Self-Motivation
4 200 (3.12%) Management Information System
5 174 (2.72%) Cloud Native
6 152 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
7 147 (2.29%) Product Ownership
8 142 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
9 138 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
10 136 (2.12%) Data Centre
11 101 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
12 95 (1.48%) Mobile App
13 94 (1.47%) Social Media
14 85 (1.33%) Data Structures
15 72 (1.12%) Low-Code
16 60 (0.94%) Security Posture
17 58 (0.91%) Video\Live Streaming
17 58 (0.91%) Virtual Team
18 56 (0.87%) Algorithms
19 51 (0.80%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 1,120 (17.48%) Windows
2 425 (6.63%) Windows Server
3 421 (6.57%) Linux
4 172 (2.68%) Windows 10
5 123 (1.92%) Windows Server 2016
6 109 (1.70%) Android
7 88 (1.37%) Apple iOS
7 88 (1.37%) Mac OS
8 62 (0.97%) Unix
9 57 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
10 39 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 37 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
12 29 (0.45%) CentOS
13 25 (0.39%) Ubuntu
14 22 (0.34%) Windows 7
15 19 (0.30%) VMS
16 13 (0.20%) Mac OS X
17 11 (0.17%) Windows 8
18 9 (0.14%) Debian
18 9 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,156 (18.04%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,042 (16.26%) Agile
3 954 (14.89%) Customer Service
4 684 (10.68%) AI
5 683 (10.66%) Mentoring
6 664 (10.36%) CI/CD
7 658 (10.27%) Decision-Making
8 638 (9.96%) Analytics
9 615 (9.60%) DevOps
10 595 (9.29%) ITIL
11 544 (8.49%) Project Management
12 532 (8.30%) Business Intelligence
13 498 (7.77%) Computer Science
14 489 (7.63%) Stakeholder Management
15 442 (6.90%) Software Engineering
16 420 (6.56%) Cybersecurity
17 402 (6.27%) Roadmaps
18 397 (6.20%) Coaching
19 370 (5.77%) Process Improvement
20 350 (5.46%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 992 (15.48%) Python
2 894 (13.95%) SQL
3 432 (6.74%) JavaScript
4 320 (4.99%) Java
5 312 (4.87%) PowerShell
6 268 (4.18%) C#
7 177 (2.76%) TypeScript
8 153 (2.39%) Bash
9 88 (1.37%) PHP
10 87 (1.36%) Go
11 84 (1.31%) C++
12 76 (1.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 68 (1.06%) Scala
14 49 (0.76%) C
15 47 (0.73%) T-SQL
16 40 (0.62%) Kotlin
17 34 (0.53%) R
18 33 (0.52%) Apex Code
19 28 (0.44%) Bicep
20 27 (0.42%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,294 (20.20%) Degree
2 479 (7.48%) Security Cleared
3 299 (4.67%) SC Cleared
4 247 (3.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 187 (2.92%) DBS Check
6 183 (2.86%) Microsoft Certification
7 131 (2.04%) Master's Degree
8 116 (1.81%) DV Cleared
9 106 (1.65%) CISSP
10 91 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
11 89 (1.39%) ACCA
12 84 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
13 82 (1.28%) A+ Certification
14 77 (1.20%) CIMA
15 71 (1.11%) PMI Certification
16 66 (1.03%) CCNA
17 59 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
18 57 (0.89%) PMP
19 55 (0.86%) AWS Certification
20 51 (0.80%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 301 (4.70%) QA
2 279 (4.35%) Data Quality
3 243 (3.79%) GDPR
4 161 (2.51%) Cyber Essentials
5 157 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 151 (2.36%) SLA
7 125 (1.95%) PCI DSS
8 117 (1.83%) Accessibility
9 116 (1.81%) NIST
10 52 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.50%) SOC 2
12 31 (0.48%) ISO 9001
13 28 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 26 (0.41%) PMO
15 20 (0.31%) COBIT
15 20 (0.31%) GRC
16 14 (0.22%) GMP
17 11 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 10 (0.16%) ITGC
System Software
1 749 (11.69%) Active Directory
2 305 (4.76%) Docker
3 225 (3.51%) Hyper-V
4 171 (2.67%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (0.98%) Terminal Server
6 35 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 33 (0.52%) Firmware
8 31 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.23%) vSphere
10 14 (0.22%) KVM
11 10 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
12 9 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
13 7 (0.11%) IAG
13 7 (0.11%) XenApp
14 6 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.062%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.062%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 2 (0.031%) BitLocker
16 2 (0.031%) VMware NSX
17 1 (0.016%) OpenDJ
Systems Management
1 291 (4.54%) Terraform
2 265 (4.14%) Microsoft Intune
3 221 (3.45%) Kubernetes
4 158 (2.47%) Ansible
5 92 (1.44%) Grafana
6 85 (1.33%) SCCM
7 56 (0.87%) Prometheus
8 29 (0.45%) Nagios
9 25 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
10 24 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 22 (0.34%) BMC PATROL
12 19 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
13 17 (0.27%) Argo
14 15 (0.23%) Cisco CUCM
15 14 (0.22%) vCenter Server
16 13 (0.20%) Autotask
16 13 (0.20%) FortiGate
17 12 (0.19%) Kibana
17 12 (0.19%) Nessus
17 12 (0.19%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,675 (26.14%) Microsoft
2 276 (4.31%) VMware
3 193 (3.01%) Oracle
4 161 (2.51%) SAP
5 160 (2.50%) Google
6 146 (2.28%) Cisco
7 140 (2.19%) ServiceNow
8 138 (2.15%) Salesforce
9 123 (1.92%) SolarWinds
9 123 (1.92%) Veeam
10 119 (1.86%) Splunk
11 115 (1.79%) Databricks
12 83 (1.30%) Adobe
12 83 (1.30%) Apple
13 71 (1.11%) Dell
14 64 (1.00%) Tanium
15 63 (0.98%) Brocade
15 63 (0.98%) Nimble Storage
16 54 (0.84%) Red Hat
17 51 (0.80%) Sage