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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 8
Rank change year-on-year -5 +4 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,754 7,928 13,711
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.13% 20.04% 14.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.14% 21.62% 17.66%
Number of salaries quoted 4,797 4,466 8,563
10th Percentile £27,450 £26,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £32,500 £32,500 £32,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £50,000 £49,500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -10.00%
75th Percentile £68,666 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £87,500 £84,964
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £48,900
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.25% -11.09%

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 60,608 36,668 77,654
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.00% 92.69% 82.00%
Number of salaries quoted 42,635 20,028 56,336
10th Percentile £30,750 £29,000 £29,266
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -6 1,960 £70,000 +7.69% 1,374
North of England -9 1,389 £42,500 - 697
South East -5 1,239 £45,000 +5.88% 860
Midlands -9 952 £42,000 -2.33% 477
North West -7 714 £45,000 -3.23% 396
South West -5 614 £44,000 +10.00% 357
West Midlands -9 542 £42,500 -5.56% 272
East of England -3 519 £45,000 +28.57% 320
Yorkshire -12 509 £40,500 +15.71% 210
East Midlands -10 407 £35,000 -6.67% 205
North East -14 166 £48,472 +21.18% 103
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
1 374 (5.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 365 (5.40%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.17%) Confluence
4 64 (0.95%) CMS
5 51 (0.76%) Apache
6 39 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 34 (0.50%) IIS
8 29 (0.43%) WordPress
9 16 (0.24%) SAS
10 14 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 10 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
13 8 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2007
13 8 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
14 7 (0.10%) nginx
14 7 (0.10%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.089%) Drupal
15 6 (0.089%) Moodle
15 6 (0.089%) WebLogic
Applications
1 413 (6.11%) Microsoft Office
2 361 (5.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 62 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 44 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
5 36 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 31 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 9 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
9 8 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
10 7 (0.10%) Fusion 360
10 7 (0.10%) Trello
11 6 (0.089%) Simulink
12 5 (0.074%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.044%) Autodesk Inventor
13 3 (0.044%) Blender
13 3 (0.044%) Maya
14 2 (0.030%) Lightworks
14 2 (0.030%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 68 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 63 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 35 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 20 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
4 20 (0.30%) Shopify
5 16 (0.24%) Magento
6 15 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
7 14 (0.21%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.18%) iTrent
9 11 (0.16%) Maximo
9 11 (0.16%) SAP CO
10 9 (0.13%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 8 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.12%) Sage 50
11 8 (0.12%) SAP Business One
11 8 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.10%) Endur
12 7 (0.10%) Fidessa
12 7 (0.10%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 1,464 (21.68%) Azure
2 1,077 (15.95%) Microsoft 365
3 866 (12.82%) AWS
4 512 (7.58%) Power Platform
5 321 (4.75%) SaaS
6 295 (4.37%) Entra ID
7 292 (4.32%) GCP
8 175 (2.59%) Serverless
9 164 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
10 148 (2.19%) GitHub
11 139 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
12 123 (1.82%) Power Automate
13 103 (1.53%) PowerApps
14 90 (1.33%) OneDrive
15 89 (1.32%) Amazon S3
16 80 (1.18%) Google Workspace
17 74 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
17 74 (1.10%) PaaS
18 70 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
19 69 (1.02%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 439 (6.50%) Firewall
2 399 (5.91%) DNS
3 346 (5.12%) DHCP
4 277 (4.10%) VPN
5 228 (3.38%) WAN
6 210 (3.11%) TCP/IP
7 205 (3.04%) Wi-Fi
8 200 (2.96%) LAN
9 183 (2.71%) Broadband
10 133 (1.97%) VLAN
11 129 (1.91%) Wireless
12 108 (1.60%) VoIP
13 94 (1.39%) Network Security
14 64 (0.95%) SD-WAN
15 47 (0.70%) BGP
16 46 (0.68%) Internet
16 46 (0.68%) SAN
17 45 (0.67%) OSPF
18 34 (0.50%) HTTP
19 30 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 407 (6.03%) Power BI
2 291 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 128 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
4 110 (1.63%) Tableau
5 107 (1.58%) NoSQL
6 104 (1.54%) Amazon RDS
7 93 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
8 90 (1.33%) MySQL
9 87 (1.29%) Relational Database
10 76 (1.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 66 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 55 (0.81%) Power Query
13 54 (0.80%) MongoDB
14 53 (0.78%) Big Data
15 46 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
16 41 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
17 40 (0.59%) Data Lake
17 40 (0.59%) Metadata
18 35 (0.52%) DynamoDB
19 24 (0.36%) Db2
Development Applications
1 277 (4.10%) Git
2 208 (3.08%) JIRA
3 98 (1.45%) Jenkins
4 95 (1.41%) GitLab
5 30 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
6 25 (0.37%) Selenium
7 21 (0.31%) JUnit
8 20 (0.30%) Cucumber
8 20 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 19 (0.28%) Chocolatey
10 18 (0.27%) Maven
10 18 (0.27%) Visual Studio
11 17 (0.25%) Burp Suite
11 17 (0.25%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.24%) Subversion
13 15 (0.22%) Claude Code
14 14 (0.21%) CircleCI
14 14 (0.21%) Eclipse
14 14 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 13 (0.19%) SonarQube
General
1 3,167 (46.89%) Social Skills
2 1,982 (29.35%) Analytical Skills
3 1,350 (19.99%) Finance
4 428 (6.34%) Organisational Skills
5 377 (5.58%) Manufacturing
6 366 (5.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 328 (4.86%) Law
8 311 (4.60%) Marketing
9 297 (4.40%) Retail
10 281 (4.16%) Legal
11 274 (4.06%) Public Sector
12 268 (3.97%) Banking
13 159 (2.35%) Telecoms
14 137 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
15 136 (2.01%) Electronics
16 123 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
17 109 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
18 89 (1.32%) Aerospace
19 87 (1.29%) Advertising
20 77 (1.14%) Games
Job Titles
1 888 (13.15%) Analyst
2 837 (12.39%) Senior
3 688 (10.19%) IT Support
4 645 (9.55%) Developer
5 588 (8.71%) Support Engineer
6 416 (6.16%) IT Engineer
7 410 (6.07%) Lead
8 326 (4.83%) IT Support Engineer
9 296 (4.38%) Consultant
10 245 (3.63%) Support Analyst
11 240 (3.55%) Support Technician
12 236 (3.49%) Architect
13 233 (3.45%) Software Engineer
14 229 (3.39%) Systems Engineer
15 188 (2.78%) Technical Support
16 182 (2.69%) IT Technician
17 181 (2.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 162 (2.40%) Senior Developer
19 161 (2.38%) 2nd Line Support
19 161 (2.38%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 272 (4.03%) .NET
2 267 (3.95%) React
3 215 (3.18%) HTML
4 185 (2.74%) REST
5 181 (2.68%) CSS
6 144 (2.13%) Node.js
7 131 (1.94%) RESTful
8 100 (1.48%) SOAP
9 93 (1.38%) Middleware
10 85 (1.26%) JSON
11 82 (1.21%) Spring
12 78 (1.15%) Vue
13 75 (1.11%) AngularJS
14 68 (1.01%) XML
15 64 (0.95%) Kafka
16 63 (0.93%) Web Services
17 62 (0.92%) OAuth
18 56 (0.83%) gRPC
19 52 (0.77%) Spring Boot
20 49 (0.73%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 401 (5.94%) Driving Licence
2 383 (5.67%) Onboarding
3 315 (4.66%) Self-Motivation
4 257 (3.81%) Management Information System
5 240 (3.55%) Cloud Native
6 188 (2.78%) Product Ownership
7 167 (2.47%) Data Centre
8 155 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
9 149 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
10 121 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
11 98 (1.45%) Mobile App
12 89 (1.32%) Security Posture
13 86 (1.27%) Data Structures
14 85 (1.26%) Social Media
15 81 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
16 73 (1.08%) Algorithms
17 68 (1.01%) Low-Code
18 65 (0.96%) Virtual Team
19 63 (0.93%) Public Cloud
20 62 (0.92%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 1,074 (15.90%) Windows
2 467 (6.91%) Windows Server
3 448 (6.63%) Linux
4 167 (2.47%) Windows 10
5 129 (1.91%) Windows Server 2016
6 108 (1.60%) Android
7 88 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 86 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 65 (0.96%) Windows Server 2019
10 44 (0.65%) Unix
11 40 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 32 (0.47%) CentOS
12 32 (0.47%) Ubuntu
13 29 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 26 (0.38%) VMS
15 14 (0.21%) Mac OS X
15 14 (0.21%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.18%) Debian
17 7 (0.10%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,363 (20.18%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,070 (15.84%) Agile
3 988 (14.63%) Customer Service
4 752 (11.13%) AI
5 747 (11.06%) Mentoring
6 730 (10.81%) CI/CD
7 724 (10.72%) Decision-Making
8 643 (9.52%) Analytics
9 633 (9.37%) DevOps
10 589 (8.72%) Software Engineering
11 569 (8.42%) Stakeholder Management
12 549 (8.13%) ITIL
13 528 (7.82%) Roadmaps
14 516 (7.64%) Computer Science
15 500 (7.40%) Cybersecurity
16 491 (7.27%) Project Management
17 474 (7.02%) Business Intelligence
18 443 (6.56%) Collaborative Working
19 438 (6.49%) Coaching
20 392 (5.80%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 1,029 (15.24%) Python
2 1,015 (15.03%) SQL
3 456 (6.75%) JavaScript
4 343 (5.08%) C#
4 343 (5.08%) Java
5 310 (4.59%) PowerShell
6 207 (3.06%) TypeScript
7 161 (2.38%) Bash
8 140 (2.07%) C++
9 92 (1.36%) PHP
10 87 (1.29%) Go
11 60 (0.89%) C
12 59 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 59 (0.87%) Scala
13 51 (0.76%) T-SQL
14 47 (0.70%) PL/SQL
15 42 (0.62%) R
16 41 (0.61%) Rust
17 37 (0.55%) Kotlin
18 35 (0.52%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,118 (16.55%) Degree
2 545 (8.07%) Security Cleared
3 376 (5.57%) SC Cleared
4 259 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 222 (3.29%) DBS Check
6 191 (2.83%) Microsoft Certification
7 122 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
8 120 (1.78%) CISSP
9 115 (1.70%) DV Cleared
10 109 (1.61%) Master's Degree
11 100 (1.48%) Azure Certification
12 81 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
12 81 (1.20%) PMI Certification
13 77 (1.14%) CCNA
14 74 (1.10%) A+ Certification
15 71 (1.05%) PMP
16 69 (1.02%) ACCA
17 64 (0.95%) CIMA
18 57 (0.84%) CCNP
18 57 (0.84%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 368 (5.45%) QA
2 323 (4.78%) Data Quality
3 272 (4.03%) GDPR
4 196 (2.90%) SLA
5 192 (2.84%) Cyber Essentials
6 170 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 161 (2.38%) Accessibility
8 146 (2.16%) PCI DSS
9 144 (2.13%) NIST
10 51 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 44 (0.65%) PMO
12 35 (0.52%) ISO 9001
13 30 (0.44%) GRC
14 29 (0.43%) SOC 2
15 25 (0.37%) COBIT
16 21 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
17 20 (0.30%) GMP
18 15 (0.22%) IFRS
18 15 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 12 (0.18%) PERC
System Software
1 737 (10.91%) Active Directory
2 301 (4.46%) Docker
3 247 (3.66%) Hyper-V
4 215 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 70 (1.04%) Terminal Server
6 47 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.52%) Firmware
8 27 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
9 25 (0.37%) vSphere
10 15 (0.22%) KVM
10 15 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.15%) IAG
12 8 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
13 7 (0.10%) VMware Workstation
13 7 (0.10%) XenApp
14 6 (0.089%) VMware NSX
15 5 (0.074%) ClearTrust
16 4 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 4 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
17 3 (0.044%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 299 (4.43%) Terraform
2 258 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
3 257 (3.81%) Kubernetes
4 145 (2.15%) Ansible
5 93 (1.38%) Grafana
6 80 (1.18%) SCCM
7 58 (0.86%) Prometheus
8 35 (0.52%) Nagios
9 32 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
10 19 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 18 (0.27%) FortiGate
11 18 (0.27%) Kibana
12 16 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.22%) vCenter Server
14 14 (0.21%) Argo
14 14 (0.21%) Autotask
15 12 (0.18%) Kubeflow
15 12 (0.18%) Puppet
16 11 (0.16%) Nessus
17 10 (0.15%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,843 (27.29%) Microsoft
2 325 (4.81%) VMware
3 187 (2.77%) Oracle
4 171 (2.53%) Google
5 156 (2.31%) SAP
6 155 (2.29%) Cisco
7 143 (2.12%) Salesforce
8 137 (2.03%) SolarWinds
9 129 (1.91%) Veeam
10 123 (1.82%) ServiceNow
10 123 (1.82%) Splunk
11 104 (1.54%) Databricks
12 81 (1.20%) Apple
13 72 (1.07%) Tanium
14 71 (1.05%) Nimble Storage
15 70 (1.04%) Brocade
16 64 (0.95%) Adobe
17 56 (0.83%) Dell
18 50 (0.74%) Red Hat
19 48 (0.71%) Meraki