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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,318 8,037 12,667
As % of all permanent jobs in England 7.69% 20.40% 14.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.43% 21.85% 17.63%
Number of salaries quoted 4,446 4,538 8,466
10th Percentile £27,500 £27,500 £26,117
25th Percentile £31,250 £34,000 £32,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £50,967 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.80% +1.93% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £71,250 £68,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £88,750 £85,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,890 £49,500
% change year-on-year -6.66% +2.81% -10.00%

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 60,581 36,790 71,865
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.71% 93.38% 84.81%
Number of salaries quoted 39,954 20,282 53,813
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £73,700
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,269 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.97% +5.94% -10.10%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 1,905 £70,000 +7.69% 1,035
North of England -12 1,304 £42,500 -5.56% 700
South East -8 1,131 £46,000 -1.08% 789
Midlands -22 874 £40,000 -11.11% 435
North West -17 674 £45,000 -5.26% 382
South West -8 545 £43,500 +3.02% 302
West Midlands -25 513 £42,500 -11.46% 261
Yorkshire -11 499 £41,955 +4.89% 239
East of England -7 470 £42,175 -0.76% 307
East Midlands -11 357 £35,000 -9.09% 174
North East -19 131 £48,472 +7.72% 89
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
1 328 (5.19%) Microsoft Exchange
2 314 (4.97%) SharePoint
3 70 (1.11%) Confluence
4 62 (0.98%) CMS
5 53 (0.84%) Apache
6 39 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
7 32 (0.51%) Apache Spark
8 29 (0.46%) IIS
9 27 (0.43%) WordPress
10 14 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
10 14 (0.22%) SAS
11 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
12 8 (0.13%) Drupal
12 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2007
12 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.13%) nginx
13 5 (0.079%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.079%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.079%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 5 (0.079%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 406 (6.43%) Microsoft Office
2 328 (5.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 51 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 48 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 36 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
8 9 (0.14%) Fusion 360
8 9 (0.14%) Maya
9 8 (0.13%) AutoCAD
9 8 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
10 6 (0.095%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.063%) Simulink
12 3 (0.047%) Acrobat
12 3 (0.047%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.047%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.047%) Trello
13 2 (0.032%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 60 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
2 59 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 23 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 19 (0.30%) Shopify
6 16 (0.25%) Magento
7 15 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
8 14 (0.22%) SAP CO
8 14 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 13 (0.21%) iTrent
9 13 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 11 (0.17%) Maximo
11 9 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
11 9 (0.14%) Endur
11 9 (0.14%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.11%) Elite 3E
12 7 (0.11%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
12 7 (0.11%) SAP Business One
13 6 (0.095%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 1,328 (21.02%) Azure
2 966 (15.29%) Microsoft 365
3 802 (12.69%) AWS
4 472 (7.47%) Power Platform
5 313 (4.95%) SaaS
6 279 (4.42%) GCP
7 262 (4.15%) Entra ID
8 171 (2.71%) Serverless
9 164 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
10 145 (2.30%) GitHub
11 124 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
12 115 (1.82%) Power Automate
13 91 (1.44%) Amazon S3
13 91 (1.44%) PowerApps
14 86 (1.36%) Google Workspace
15 76 (1.20%) PaaS
16 75 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
16 75 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
17 73 (1.16%) IaaS
18 70 (1.11%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 373 (5.90%) Firewall
2 356 (5.63%) DNS
3 289 (4.57%) DHCP
4 245 (3.88%) VPN
5 214 (3.39%) WAN
6 189 (2.99%) Wi-Fi
7 187 (2.96%) LAN
8 180 (2.85%) TCP/IP
9 172 (2.72%) Broadband
10 118 (1.87%) Wireless
11 111 (1.76%) VLAN
12 94 (1.49%) VoIP
13 70 (1.11%) Network Security
14 66 (1.04%) SD-WAN
15 53 (0.84%) SAN
16 41 (0.65%) Internet
17 40 (0.63%) BGP
18 38 (0.60%) OSPF
19 34 (0.54%) HTTP
20 32 (0.51%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 378 (5.98%) Power BI
2 279 (4.42%) SQL Server
3 120 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
4 108 (1.71%) Tableau
5 103 (1.63%) NoSQL
6 91 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
7 80 (1.27%) MySQL
8 77 (1.22%) Relational Database
9 74 (1.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 66 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
11 65 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 52 (0.82%) Power Query
13 48 (0.76%) MongoDB
14 46 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
14 46 (0.73%) Big Data
15 43 (0.68%) DynamoDB
16 37 (0.59%) Metadata
17 36 (0.57%) Data Lake
18 35 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
19 26 (0.41%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 280 (4.43%) Git
2 201 (3.18%) JIRA
3 107 (1.69%) Jenkins
4 105 (1.66%) GitLab
5 32 (0.51%) Selenium
6 27 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
7 22 (0.35%) Maven
7 22 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.33%) Chocolatey
9 20 (0.32%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.30%) Cucumber
11 18 (0.28%) SonarQube
12 17 (0.27%) CircleCI
13 15 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 15 (0.24%) Burp Suite
13 15 (0.24%) Metasploit
13 15 (0.24%) TeamCity
14 13 (0.21%) JUnit
14 13 (0.21%) LabVIEW
14 13 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,871 (45.44%) Social Skills
2 1,861 (29.46%) Analytical Skills
3 1,316 (20.83%) Finance
4 403 (6.38%) Organisational Skills
5 360 (5.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 331 (5.24%) Manufacturing
7 324 (5.13%) Law
7 324 (5.13%) Marketing
8 267 (4.23%) Banking
9 266 (4.21%) Public Sector
10 265 (4.19%) Retail
11 264 (4.18%) Legal
12 156 (2.47%) Telecoms
13 136 (2.15%) Electronics
14 134 (2.12%) Presentation Skills
15 101 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
16 90 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
17 86 (1.36%) Games
18 82 (1.30%) Advertising
19 72 (1.14%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 837 (13.25%) Analyst
2 793 (12.55%) Senior
3 649 (10.27%) IT Support
4 585 (9.26%) Developer
5 563 (8.91%) Support Engineer
6 407 (6.44%) Lead
7 388 (6.14%) IT Engineer
8 301 (4.76%) IT Support Engineer
9 271 (4.29%) Consultant
10 240 (3.80%) Support Analyst
11 220 (3.48%) Architect
12 219 (3.47%) Support Technician
13 211 (3.34%) Software Engineer
14 193 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 192 (3.04%) Systems Engineer
16 167 (2.64%) Technical Support
17 165 (2.61%) IT Technician
18 162 (2.56%) Business Analyst
19 157 (2.48%) 2nd Line Support
20 150 (2.37%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (3.88%) .NET
2 234 (3.70%) React
3 204 (3.23%) HTML
4 171 (2.71%) CSS
5 155 (2.45%) REST
6 126 (1.99%) Node.js
7 115 (1.82%) RESTful
8 89 (1.41%) SOAP
9 84 (1.33%) Middleware
10 78 (1.23%) Spring
11 73 (1.16%) JSON
12 67 (1.06%) XML
13 62 (0.98%) Kafka
14 60 (0.95%) Vue
15 59 (0.93%) AngularJS
16 55 (0.87%) gRPC
16 55 (0.87%) OAuth
16 55 (0.87%) Spring Boot
17 49 (0.78%) EDI
18 47 (0.74%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 382 (6.05%) Driving Licence
2 381 (6.03%) Onboarding
3 300 (4.75%) Self-Motivation
4 207 (3.28%) Management Information System
5 206 (3.26%) Cloud Native
6 183 (2.90%) Product Ownership
7 161 (2.55%) Data Centre
8 148 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
9 136 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
10 111 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
11 93 (1.47%) Mobile App
12 91 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
13 90 (1.42%) Social Media
14 80 (1.27%) Data Structures
15 70 (1.11%) Low-Code
16 67 (1.06%) Algorithms
17 64 (1.01%) Virtual Team
18 60 (0.95%) Security Posture
19 59 (0.93%) Video\Live Streaming
20 52 (0.82%) Over-the-Top Content
Operating Systems
1 972 (15.38%) Windows
2 390 (6.17%) Linux
3 386 (6.11%) Windows Server
4 161 (2.55%) Windows 10
5 107 (1.69%) Android
6 100 (1.58%) Windows Server 2016
7 85 (1.35%) Apple iOS
8 80 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 58 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
10 45 (0.71%) Unix
11 41 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 32 (0.51%) CentOS
12 32 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
13 27 (0.43%) Ubuntu
14 24 (0.38%) VMS
15 16 (0.25%) Windows 7
16 14 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.16%) Debian
18 7 (0.11%) Windows 8
18 7 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,182 (18.71%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,006 (15.92%) Agile
3 895 (14.17%) Customer Service
4 696 (11.02%) AI
5 691 (10.94%) CI/CD
5 691 (10.94%) Mentoring
6 661 (10.46%) Decision-Making
7 608 (9.62%) Analytics
8 607 (9.61%) DevOps
9 526 (8.33%) ITIL
10 516 (8.17%) Stakeholder Management
11 508 (8.04%) Software Engineering
12 481 (7.61%) Computer Science
12 481 (7.61%) Roadmaps
13 469 (7.42%) Project Management
14 458 (7.25%) Business Intelligence
15 432 (6.84%) Coaching
16 430 (6.81%) Cybersecurity
17 372 (5.89%) Collaborative Working
18 359 (5.68%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 962 (15.23%) Python
2 867 (13.72%) SQL
3 416 (6.58%) JavaScript
4 327 (5.18%) Java
5 291 (4.61%) C#
6 282 (4.46%) PowerShell
7 188 (2.98%) TypeScript
8 154 (2.44%) Bash
9 118 (1.87%) C++
10 88 (1.39%) PHP
11 85 (1.35%) Go
12 63 (1.00%) Scala
13 57 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 56 (0.89%) C
15 42 (0.66%) T-SQL
16 41 (0.65%) R
16 41 (0.65%) Rust
17 39 (0.62%) PL/SQL
18 35 (0.55%) Kotlin
19 34 (0.54%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,119 (17.71%) Degree
2 458 (7.25%) Security Cleared
3 297 (4.70%) SC Cleared
4 249 (3.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 214 (3.39%) DBS Check
6 185 (2.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 114 (1.80%) Master's Degree
8 111 (1.76%) DV Cleared
9 107 (1.69%) CISSP
10 104 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
11 88 (1.39%) A+ Certification
12 85 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
13 84 (1.33%) PMI Certification
14 79 (1.25%) Azure Certification
15 71 (1.12%) ACCA
16 70 (1.11%) PMP
17 66 (1.04%) CCNA
18 65 (1.03%) CIMA
19 57 (0.90%) Network+ Certification
20 49 (0.78%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 322 (5.10%) QA
2 294 (4.65%) Data Quality
3 255 (4.04%) GDPR
4 192 (3.04%) SLA
5 146 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 143 (2.26%) Cyber Essentials
7 134 (2.12%) NIST
8 127 (2.01%) Accessibility
9 109 (1.73%) PCI DSS
10 43 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 34 (0.54%) ISO 9001
12 31 (0.49%) PMO
12 31 (0.49%) SOC 2
13 27 (0.43%) GRC
14 24 (0.38%) COBIT
15 20 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.22%) GMP
17 12 (0.19%) IFRS
17 12 (0.19%) TickIT
18 11 (0.17%) PERC
System Software
1 654 (10.35%) Active Directory
2 279 (4.42%) Docker
3 179 (2.83%) Hyper-V
4 174 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
5 42 (0.66%) Terminal Server
5 42 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
6 34 (0.54%) Firmware
7 22 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
8 20 (0.32%) vSphere
9 15 (0.24%) KVM
10 13 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.16%) IAG
12 7 (0.11%) VMware Workstation
12 7 (0.11%) XenApp
13 4 (0.063%) Embedded Firmware
13 4 (0.063%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 4 (0.063%) VMware NSX
14 3 (0.047%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.047%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.047%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 294 (4.65%) Terraform
2 237 (3.75%) Microsoft Intune
3 232 (3.67%) Kubernetes
4 147 (2.33%) Ansible
5 88 (1.39%) Grafana
6 82 (1.30%) SCCM
7 52 (0.82%) Prometheus
8 37 (0.59%) Nagios
9 31 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
10 22 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 18 (0.28%) Kibana
12 14 (0.22%) Autotask
13 13 (0.21%) Puppet
14 12 (0.19%) vCenter Server
15 11 (0.17%) Argo
15 11 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
15 11 (0.17%) Nessus
16 10 (0.16%) WSUS
16 10 (0.16%) ZABBIX
17 9 (0.14%) logstash
Vendors
1 1,661 (26.29%) Microsoft
2 257 (4.07%) VMware
3 184 (2.91%) Oracle
4 166 (2.63%) Google
5 154 (2.44%) SAP
6 143 (2.26%) Cisco
7 135 (2.14%) Salesforce
8 126 (1.99%) ServiceNow
9 110 (1.74%) SolarWinds
10 107 (1.69%) Databricks
11 98 (1.55%) Veeam
12 89 (1.41%) Splunk
13 79 (1.25%) Apple
14 71 (1.12%) Adobe
15 63 (1.00%) Dell
16 55 (0.87%) Red Hat
17 50 (0.79%) Dynatrace
18 49 (0.78%) Meraki
19 45 (0.71%) Typelevel
20 44 (0.70%) Fortinet