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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,545 8,488 9,504
As % of all permanent jobs in England 11.65% 18.16% 15.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.54% 19.81% 16.99%
Number of salaries quoted 4,466 3,868 6,927
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,000 £26,467
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 £65,000 £75,000 £71,250
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 45,015 42,838 55,926
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 80.15% 91.65% 88.71%
Number of salaries quoted 27,213 20,764 44,303
10th Percentile £28,865 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £38,750 £46,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,425 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.46% +6.83% -8.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,063
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,751
% change year-on-year -8.33% +7.62% -10.80%

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 February 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 February 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 1,957 £65,000 - 1,095
South East -3 1,335 £41,000 -21.90% 879
North of England -17 1,284 £42,500 -10.53% 629
Midlands -15 864 £37,500 -26.65% 500
North West -13 709 £47,500 -5.00% 355
South West -3 579 £40,000 -27.27% 349
West Midlands -18 502 £42,500 -22.73% 320
Yorkshire -5 444 £34,000 -21.84% 207
East of England -5 423 £35,250 -30.84% 271
East Midlands +1 361 £33,000 -5.71% 180
North East -4 131 £40,662 -18.68% 76
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
1 320 (4.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 285 (4.35%) SharePoint
3 75 (1.15%) Confluence
4 54 (0.83%) Apache
5 50 (0.76%) IIS
6 41 (0.63%) 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 6 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2013
16 5 (0.076%) Drupal
16 5 (0.076%) HCL Notes
16 5 (0.076%) Umbraco
17 4 (0.061%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 448 (6.84%) Microsoft Office
2 442 (6.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 92 (1.41%) 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 19 (0.29%) AutoCAD
9 14 (0.21%) Photoshop
10 12 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 9 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
11 9 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
11 9 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
12 6 (0.092%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.076%) Adobe After Effects
13 5 (0.076%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.076%) Trello
14 4 (0.061%) CATIA
14 4 (0.061%) Fusion 360
14 4 (0.061%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 109 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 82 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 25 (0.38%) SAP CO
5 17 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 17 (0.26%) SAP FI
5 17 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
6 15 (0.23%) Endur
7 14 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
8 13 (0.20%) Shopify
9 12 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.17%) iTrent
10 11 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
11 10 (0.15%) SAP Business One
11 10 (0.15%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 8 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
12 8 (0.12%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 1,473 (22.51%) Azure
2 969 (14.81%) Microsoft 365
3 741 (11.32%) AWS
4 529 (8.08%) Power Platform
5 402 (6.14%) SaaS
6 267 (4.08%) Entra ID
7 230 (3.51%) GCP
8 178 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
9 155 (2.37%) GitHub
10 149 (2.28%) Serverless
11 119 (1.82%) Power Automate
12 97 (1.48%) Dynamics 365
13 77 (1.18%) PowerApps
14 76 (1.16%) Amazon S3
15 72 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
15 72 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
16 70 (1.07%) Google Workspace
17 67 (1.02%) PaaS
18 63 (0.96%) Figma
19 61 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 433 (6.62%) DNS
2 372 (5.68%) DHCP
3 354 (5.41%) Firewall
4 219 (3.35%) VPN
5 201 (3.07%) TCP/IP
6 193 (2.95%) Wi-Fi
7 176 (2.69%) WAN
8 146 (2.23%) LAN
9 125 (1.91%) VLAN
10 107 (1.63%) Broadband
11 94 (1.44%) VoIP
12 88 (1.34%) Wireless
13 53 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
14 52 (0.79%) Network Security
14 52 (0.79%) SD-WAN
15 47 (0.72%) Internet
15 47 (0.72%) SAN
16 29 (0.44%) Unified Communications
17 27 (0.41%) BGP
18 26 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 441 (6.74%) Power BI
2 305 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 154 (2.35%) Relational Database
4 136 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.08%) Tableau
5 123 (1.88%) NoSQL
6 120 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
6 120 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
7 115 (1.76%) Data Lake
8 110 (1.68%) MySQL
9 67 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 66 (1.01%) SAP BW
11 57 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 54 (0.83%) 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 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
17 30 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 265 (4.05%) Git
2 232 (3.54%) JIRA
3 96 (1.47%) Jenkins
4 78 (1.19%) GitLab
5 57 (0.87%) Selenium
6 23 (0.35%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.31%) Bitbucket
7 20 (0.31%) Cypress.io
7 20 (0.31%) Maven
8 19 (0.29%) LabVIEW
8 19 (0.29%) TeamCity
9 18 (0.28%) 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 3,453 (52.76%) Social Skills
2 1,981 (30.27%) Analytical Skills
3 1,557 (23.79%) Finance
4 386 (5.90%) Marketing
5 371 (5.67%) Organisational Skills
6 357 (5.45%) Law
7 335 (5.12%) Retail
8 334 (5.10%) Manufacturing
9 296 (4.52%) Legal
10 295 (4.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 279 (4.26%) Public Sector
12 261 (3.99%) Banking
13 179 (2.73%) Presentation Skills
13 179 (2.73%) Telecoms
14 153 (2.34%) Electronics
15 118 (1.80%) Games
16 95 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
17 87 (1.33%) Financial Institution
18 85 (1.30%) Automotive
18 85 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,043 (15.94%) Analyst
2 821 (12.54%) Senior
3 727 (11.11%) IT Support
4 648 (9.90%) Support Engineer
5 587 (8.97%) Developer
6 446 (6.81%) Lead
7 345 (5.27%) Support Analyst
8 324 (4.95%) IT Engineer
9 279 (4.26%) Technical Support
10 271 (4.14%) IT Support Engineer
11 249 (3.80%) Business Analyst
12 219 (3.35%) Consultant
13 218 (3.33%) Architect
14 193 (2.95%) Technical Engineer
15 188 (2.87%) Support Technician
16 184 (2.81%) 2nd Line Support
17 182 (2.78%) Technical Support Engineer
18 166 (2.54%) IT Analyst
19 160 (2.44%) Software Engineer
20 156 (2.38%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (4.32%) .NET
2 255 (3.90%) React
3 236 (3.61%) HTML
4 190 (2.90%) CSS
5 147 (2.25%) REST
6 145 (2.22%) Node.js
7 111 (1.70%) RESTful
8 93 (1.42%) AngularJS
9 72 (1.10%) Vue
10 70 (1.07%) Spring
11 68 (1.04%) JSON
12 66 (1.01%) XML
13 64 (0.98%) Middleware
14 62 (0.95%) SOAP
15 58 (0.89%) 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
1 524 (8.01%) Driving Licence
2 515 (7.87%) Onboarding
3 413 (6.31%) Self-Motivation
4 211 (3.22%) Management Information System
5 198 (3.03%) Analytical Mindset
6 170 (2.60%) Cloud Native
7 161 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
8 157 (2.40%) Product Ownership
9 128 (1.96%) Data Centre
10 117 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 82 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
12 80 (1.22%) Mobile App
13 71 (1.08%) Data Structures
14 70 (1.07%) Algorithms
15 67 (1.02%) Low-Code
16 64 (0.98%) Virtual Team
17 55 (0.84%) FMCG
18 54 (0.83%) Social Media
19 51 (0.78%) Security Posture
20 50 (0.76%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 1,116 (17.05%) Windows
2 451 (6.89%) Windows Server
3 418 (6.39%) Linux
4 158 (2.41%) Windows 10
5 132 (2.02%) Windows Server 2016
6 93 (1.42%) Mac OS
7 81 (1.24%) 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 23 (0.35%) Windows 7
15 14 (0.21%) CentOS
16 9 (0.14%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.092%) Debian
17 6 (0.092%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
18 4 (0.061%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,114 (17.02%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,077 (16.46%) Agile
3 972 (14.85%) Customer Service
4 745 (11.38%) Analytics
5 666 (10.18%) Mentoring
6 652 (9.96%) AI
7 640 (9.78%) Decision-Making
8 609 (9.30%) Business Intelligence
9 603 (9.21%) Project Management
10 582 (8.89%) DevOps
11 562 (8.59%) CI/CD
12 540 (8.25%) ITIL
13 527 (8.05%) Computer Science
14 487 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
15 481 (7.35%) Stakeholder Management
16 435 (6.65%) Change Management
16 435 (6.65%) ERP
17 422 (6.45%) Software Engineering
18 391 (5.97%) CRM
19 379 (5.79%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 970 (14.82%) SQL
2 932 (14.24%) Python
3 409 (6.25%) JavaScript
4 334 (5.10%) C#
5 326 (4.98%) PowerShell
6 318 (4.86%) Java
7 162 (2.48%) TypeScript
8 139 (2.12%) Bash
9 107 (1.63%) PHP
10 83 (1.27%) C++
11 57 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 51 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 48 (0.73%) Go
14 43 (0.66%) C
15 41 (0.63%) Scala
16 36 (0.55%) R
17 27 (0.41%) Bicep
18 24 (0.37%) Kotlin
18 24 (0.37%) MATLAB
19 23 (0.35%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,561 (23.85%) Degree
2 534 (8.16%) Security Cleared
3 338 (5.16%) SC Cleared
4 251 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 179 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 171 (2.61%) DBS Check
7 169 (2.58%) Master's Degree
8 124 (1.89%) DV Cleared
9 108 (1.65%) CISSP
10 95 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
11 79 (1.21%) A+ Certification
11 79 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
12 76 (1.16%) ACCA
13 68 (1.04%) Network+ Certification
14 62 (0.95%) CIMA
15 60 (0.92%) CISM
15 60 (0.92%) PMI Certification
16 58 (0.89%) AWS Certification
17 54 (0.83%) HND
18 52 (0.79%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 345 (5.27%) QA
2 337 (5.15%) Data Quality
3 218 (3.33%) GDPR
4 183 (2.80%) Cyber Essentials
5 165 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 143 (2.18%) Accessibility
7 130 (1.99%) PCI DSS
7 130 (1.99%) SLA
8 85 (1.30%) NIST
9 48 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 30 (0.46%) ISO 9001
11 24 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
11 24 (0.37%) PMO
12 19 (0.29%) SOC 2
13 16 (0.24%) COBIT
14 15 (0.23%) GRC
15 12 (0.18%) WCAG
16 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
16 9 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 783 (11.96%) Active Directory
2 267 (4.08%) Docker
3 252 (3.85%) Hyper-V
4 148 (2.26%) 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 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (0.28%) 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
1 272 (4.16%) Terraform
2 270 (4.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 206 (3.15%) Kubernetes
4 139 (2.12%) Ansible
5 73 (1.12%) Grafana
6 62 (0.95%) SCCM
7 47 (0.72%) 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%) Nagios
12 18 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 14 (0.21%) Argo
13 14 (0.21%) Cisco CUCM
13 14 (0.21%) vCenter Server
14 12 (0.18%) FortiGate
14 12 (0.18%) Kibana
15 10 (0.15%) Nmap
16 9 (0.14%) Autotask
16 9 (0.14%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,696 (25.91%) Microsoft
2 405 (6.19%) SAP
3 288 (4.40%) VMware
4 265 (4.05%) Oracle
5 163 (2.49%) Salesforce
6 152 (2.32%) Veeam
7 146 (2.23%) Cisco
8 139 (2.12%) Google
9 138 (2.11%) Splunk
10 130 (1.99%) SolarWinds
11 124 (1.89%) ServiceNow
12 106 (1.62%) Adobe
12 106 (1.62%) Databricks
13 92 (1.41%) Tanium
14 91 (1.39%) Brocade
14 91 (1.39%) Nimble Storage
15 69 (1.05%) Apple
16 57 (0.87%) Sage
17 56 (0.86%) Dell
18 53 (0.81%) HubSpot