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

6 months to
10 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 6,278 7,478 12,645
As % of all permanent jobs in England 7.76% 19.10% 15.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.43% 20.45% 17.66%
Number of salaries quoted 4,428 4,611 8,498
10th Percentile £27,500 £27,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £35,000 £32,761
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £72,500 £68,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £88,750 £85,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -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 60,165 36,570 71,620
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.33% 93.39% 85.20%
Number of salaries quoted 38,947 20,678 53,805
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,338 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £42,000 £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 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -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 10 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 10 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 -5 1,901 £70,000 +7.69% 1,067
North of England -19 1,266 £42,500 -5.56% 614
South East -9 1,141 £46,288 -7.43% 772
Midlands -21 877 £40,000 -11.11% 404
North West -15 657 £45,000 -5.26% 354
South West -8 544 £43,500 +2.35% 278
West Midlands -24 523 £42,500 -11.46% 244
Yorkshire -12 483 £40,500 +1.25% 194
East of England -8 462 £40,839 -14.02% 263
East Midlands -10 351 £35,000 -12.50% 161
North East -18 126 £48,500 +7.78% 71
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
1 334 (5.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 309 (4.92%) SharePoint
3 65 (1.04%) Confluence
4 59 (0.94%) CMS
5 57 (0.91%) Apache
6 45 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
7 32 (0.51%) Apache Spark
8 28 (0.45%) WordPress
9 27 (0.43%) IIS
10 15 (0.24%) SAS
11 14 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
12 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
12 10 (0.16%) nginx
13 8 (0.13%) Drupal
13 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2007
13 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
14 5 (0.080%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.080%) Skype for Business
15 4 (0.064%) Moodle
15 4 (0.064%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 409 (6.51%) Microsoft Office
2 323 (5.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 52 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 47 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 38 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
8 9 (0.14%) Fusion 360
8 9 (0.14%) Maya
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.11%) AutoCAD
11 6 (0.096%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.080%) SOLIDWORKS
13 4 (0.064%) Simulink
14 3 (0.048%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.048%) Trello
15 2 (0.032%) Autodesk Inventor
15 2 (0.032%) Notion
15 2 (0.032%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 62 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 57 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 22 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 18 (0.29%) Shopify
6 16 (0.25%) Magento
7 15 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
7 15 (0.24%) SAP CO
8 14 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 13 (0.21%) iTrent
10 11 (0.18%) Endur
10 11 (0.18%) Maximo
11 10 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
12 9 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
12 9 (0.14%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.11%) Elite 3E
13 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
13 7 (0.11%) SAP Business One
14 6 (0.096%) IBM Planning Analytics
14 6 (0.096%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 1,314 (20.93%) Azure
2 965 (15.37%) Microsoft 365
3 787 (12.54%) AWS
4 473 (7.53%) Power Platform
5 315 (5.02%) SaaS
6 289 (4.60%) GCP
7 261 (4.16%) Entra ID
8 170 (2.71%) Serverless
9 164 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
10 154 (2.45%) GitHub
11 119 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
12 118 (1.88%) Power Automate
13 89 (1.42%) Amazon S3
14 86 (1.37%) Google Workspace
15 85 (1.35%) PowerApps
16 78 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
16 78 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
17 76 (1.21%) PaaS
18 73 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
18 73 (1.16%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 370 (5.89%) Firewall
2 362 (5.77%) DNS
3 296 (4.71%) DHCP
4 251 (4.00%) VPN
5 220 (3.50%) WAN
6 191 (3.04%) LAN
7 189 (3.01%) Wi-Fi
8 179 (2.85%) TCP/IP
9 173 (2.76%) Broadband
10 118 (1.88%) Wireless
11 108 (1.72%) VLAN
12 93 (1.48%) VoIP
13 65 (1.04%) Network Security
13 65 (1.04%) SD-WAN
14 53 (0.84%) SAN
15 39 (0.62%) Internet
16 36 (0.57%) HTTP
17 32 (0.51%) OSPF
18 31 (0.49%) BGP
19 30 (0.48%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 389 (6.20%) Power BI
2 277 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 124 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
4 107 (1.70%) Tableau
5 106 (1.69%) NoSQL
6 91 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (1.32%) MySQL
8 80 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 65 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
11 63 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 57 (0.91%) Power Query
13 48 (0.76%) MongoDB
14 47 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
15 41 (0.65%) Big Data
15 41 (0.65%) Data Lake
15 41 (0.65%) DynamoDB
16 36 (0.57%) Metadata
17 34 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
18 27 (0.43%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 276 (4.40%) Git
2 207 (3.30%) JIRA
3 106 (1.69%) Jenkins
4 103 (1.64%) GitLab
5 34 (0.54%) Selenium
6 25 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
7 22 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.33%) Cypress.io
8 21 (0.33%) Maven
9 20 (0.32%) Chocolatey
10 19 (0.30%) Cucumber
10 19 (0.30%) SonarQube
11 17 (0.27%) Bitbucket
11 17 (0.27%) CircleCI
12 16 (0.25%) Burp Suite
12 16 (0.25%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.25%) TeamCity
13 13 (0.21%) LabVIEW
13 13 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 11 (0.18%) JUnit
General
1 2,893 (46.08%) Social Skills
2 1,853 (29.52%) Analytical Skills
3 1,310 (20.87%) Finance
4 409 (6.51%) Organisational Skills
5 367 (5.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 329 (5.24%) Marketing
7 325 (5.18%) Manufacturing
8 313 (4.99%) Law
9 266 (4.24%) Banking
10 264 (4.21%) Retail
11 262 (4.17%) Public Sector
12 257 (4.09%) Legal
13 154 (2.45%) Telecoms
14 139 (2.21%) Electronics
15 129 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
16 101 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
17 88 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
18 86 (1.37%) Games
19 80 (1.27%) Advertising
20 69 (1.10%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 852 (13.57%) Analyst
2 774 (12.33%) Senior
3 653 (10.40%) IT Support
4 582 (9.27%) Developer
5 566 (9.02%) Support Engineer
6 406 (6.47%) Lead
7 385 (6.13%) IT Engineer
8 297 (4.73%) IT Support Engineer
9 255 (4.06%) Consultant
10 248 (3.95%) Support Analyst
11 216 (3.44%) Architect
11 216 (3.44%) Support Technician
12 193 (3.07%) Software Engineer
13 190 (3.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 183 (2.91%) Systems Engineer
15 171 (2.72%) Business Analyst
16 168 (2.68%) 2nd Line Support
17 166 (2.64%) Technical Support
18 159 (2.53%) IT Technician
19 153 (2.44%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 240 (3.82%) .NET
2 239 (3.81%) React
3 209 (3.33%) HTML
4 178 (2.84%) CSS
5 155 (2.47%) REST
6 135 (2.15%) Node.js
7 113 (1.80%) RESTful
8 88 (1.40%) Middleware
9 86 (1.37%) SOAP
10 69 (1.10%) JSON
11 67 (1.07%) Spring
12 65 (1.04%) XML
13 59 (0.94%) AngularJS
13 59 (0.94%) Kafka
14 58 (0.92%) Vue
15 53 (0.84%) OAuth
16 51 (0.81%) Spring Boot
17 50 (0.80%) gRPC
18 48 (0.76%) EDI
19 46 (0.73%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 391 (6.23%) Driving Licence
2 385 (6.13%) Onboarding
3 312 (4.97%) Self-Motivation
4 203 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 194 (3.09%) Cloud Native
6 172 (2.74%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.44%) Data Centre
8 150 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
9 140 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
10 108 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
11 97 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
12 92 (1.47%) Mobile App
13 89 (1.42%) Social Media
14 78 (1.24%) Data Structures
15 68 (1.08%) Low-Code
16 63 (1.00%) Algorithms
17 62 (0.99%) Security Posture
18 57 (0.91%) Video\Live Streaming
19 56 (0.89%) Virtual Team
20 53 (0.84%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 976 (15.55%) Windows
2 386 (6.15%) Linux
3 375 (5.97%) Windows Server
4 162 (2.58%) Windows 10
5 105 (1.67%) Android
6 98 (1.56%) Windows Server 2016
7 88 (1.40%) Apple iOS
8 82 (1.31%) Mac OS
9 54 (0.86%) Windows Server 2019
10 45 (0.72%) Unix
11 43 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 33 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (0.51%) CentOS
14 26 (0.41%) Ubuntu
15 23 (0.37%) VMS
16 17 (0.27%) Windows 7
17 14 (0.22%) Mac OS X
18 10 (0.16%) Debian
19 7 (0.11%) Windows 8
19 7 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,162 (18.51%) Continuous Improvement
2 990 (15.77%) Agile
3 894 (14.24%) Customer Service
4 682 (10.86%) CI/CD
5 681 (10.85%) AI
6 660 (10.51%) Mentoring
7 648 (10.32%) Decision-Making
8 611 (9.73%) DevOps
9 610 (9.72%) Analytics
10 536 (8.54%) ITIL
11 508 (8.09%) Stakeholder Management
12 490 (7.81%) Project Management
13 485 (7.73%) Computer Science
14 481 (7.66%) Business Intelligence
14 481 (7.66%) Software Engineering
15 456 (7.26%) Roadmaps
16 421 (6.71%) Cybersecurity
17 419 (6.67%) Coaching
18 363 (5.78%) Collaborative Working
19 349 (5.56%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 963 (15.34%) Python
2 858 (13.67%) SQL
3 411 (6.55%) JavaScript
4 323 (5.14%) Java
5 283 (4.51%) PowerShell
6 269 (4.28%) C#
7 187 (2.98%) TypeScript
8 156 (2.48%) Bash
9 105 (1.67%) C++
10 88 (1.40%) PHP
11 87 (1.39%) Go
12 63 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 61 (0.97%) Scala
14 53 (0.84%) C
15 41 (0.65%) T-SQL
16 38 (0.61%) Rust
17 36 (0.57%) R
18 35 (0.56%) Kotlin
19 34 (0.54%) Apex Code
19 34 (0.54%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,132 (18.03%) Degree
2 440 (7.01%) Security Cleared
3 279 (4.44%) SC Cleared
4 250 (3.98%) Computer Science Degree
5 216 (3.44%) DBS Check
6 182 (2.90%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (1.85%) Master's Degree
8 108 (1.72%) CISSP
8 108 (1.72%) DV Cleared
9 100 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (1.40%) A+ Certification
11 81 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
12 79 (1.26%) PMI Certification
13 74 (1.18%) ACCA
14 67 (1.07%) Azure Certification
14 67 (1.07%) CCNA
15 66 (1.05%) CIMA
16 64 (1.02%) PMP
17 58 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
18 50 (0.80%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 321 (5.11%) QA
2 299 (4.76%) Data Quality
3 253 (4.03%) GDPR
4 182 (2.90%) SLA
5 150 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 141 (2.25%) Cyber Essentials
7 137 (2.18%) NIST
8 119 (1.90%) Accessibility
9 111 (1.77%) PCI DSS
10 46 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 33 (0.53%) ISO 9001
12 32 (0.51%) SOC 2
13 27 (0.43%) GRC
14 26 (0.41%) COBIT
14 26 (0.41%) PMO
15 19 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.22%) GMP
17 12 (0.19%) IFRS
17 12 (0.19%) TickIT
18 11 (0.18%) PERC
System Software
1 663 (10.56%) Active Directory
2 280 (4.46%) Docker
3 178 (2.84%) Hyper-V
4 168 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 42 (0.67%) Terminal Server
6 40 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.56%) Firmware
8 22 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 21 (0.33%) vSphere
10 15 (0.24%) KVM
11 12 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 10 (0.16%) IAG
13 7 (0.11%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.096%) XenApp
15 4 (0.064%) Embedded Firmware
15 4 (0.064%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 4 (0.064%) VMware NSX
16 3 (0.048%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.048%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 294 (4.68%) Terraform
2 233 (3.71%) Kubernetes
2 233 (3.71%) Microsoft Intune
3 148 (2.36%) Ansible
4 87 (1.39%) Grafana
5 82 (1.31%) SCCM
6 49 (0.78%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 31 (0.49%) Nagios
9 23 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 18 (0.29%) Kibana
11 14 (0.22%) Argo
11 14 (0.22%) Autotask
12 13 (0.21%) Puppet
13 12 (0.19%) Nessus
13 12 (0.19%) vCenter Server
14 10 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
14 10 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
14 10 (0.16%) WSUS
15 9 (0.14%) logstash
Vendors
1 1,649 (26.27%) Microsoft
2 252 (4.01%) VMware
3 177 (2.82%) Oracle
4 162 (2.58%) Google
5 156 (2.48%) SAP
6 135 (2.15%) Salesforce
7 134 (2.13%) Cisco
8 133 (2.12%) ServiceNow
9 112 (1.78%) SolarWinds
10 109 (1.74%) Databricks
11 96 (1.53%) Veeam
12 92 (1.47%) Splunk
13 79 (1.26%) Apple
14 73 (1.16%) Adobe
15 64 (1.02%) Dell
16 61 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 48 (0.76%) Dynatrace
18 46 (0.73%) Meraki
19 45 (0.72%) Typelevel
20 44 (0.70%) Fortinet