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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,479 8,861 7,266
As % of all permanent jobs in England 12.20% 18.37% 14.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.04% 20.22% 16.50%
Number of salaries quoted 4,428 3,918 5,031
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £30,780 £40,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £54,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +0.92% -0.91%
75th Percentile £65,473 £75,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £88,750 £90,000
UK median annual salary £45,203 £55,000 £52,510
% change year-on-year -17.81% +4.74% -8.68%

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 43,077 43,814 44,043
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 81.14% 90.86% 89.76%
Number of salaries quoted 25,929 21,493 34,060
10th Percentile £28,750 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £79,563
90th Percentile £97,500 £100,000 £98,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 15 January 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 15 January 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 1,940 £65,000 - 790
South East -3 1,328 £41,500 -20.95% 1,221
North of England -17 1,240 £45,000 -5.26% 742
Midlands -14 885 £38,500 -23.00% 524
North West -13 683 £48,000 -0.71% 347
South West +1 581 £40,000 -27.27% 452
West Midlands -18 519 £42,500 -22.73% 273
Yorkshire -4 436 £36,500 -16.09% 278
East of England -6 412 £35,000 -31.33% 487
East Midlands +1 365 £35,000 - 246
North East -3 121 £33,500 -33.00% 128
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
1 311 (4.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 271 (4.18%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.22%) Confluence
4 52 (0.80%) IIS
5 48 (0.74%) Apache
6 43 (0.66%) Apache Spark
7 35 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 30 (0.46%) CMS
9 24 (0.37%) WordPress
10 13 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 10 (0.15%) nginx
11 10 (0.15%) SAS
12 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 7 (0.11%) Apache Solr
13 6 (0.093%) HCL Notes
14 5 (0.077%) Camunda
14 5 (0.077%) Drupal
14 5 (0.077%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.077%) Umbraco
15 3 (0.046%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 472 (7.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 469 (7.24%) Microsoft Office
3 92 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 36 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
5 35 (0.54%) Maya
6 29 (0.45%) MS Visio
7 27 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
8 20 (0.31%) AutoCAD
9 16 (0.25%) Photoshop
10 14 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 12 (0.19%) SOLIDWORKS
12 11 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
13 9 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
14 5 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
14 5 (0.077%) Adobe XD
14 5 (0.077%) Chatbot
14 5 (0.077%) Trello
15 4 (0.062%) Autodesk Inventor
15 4 (0.062%) Fusion 360
15 4 (0.062%) Notion
Business Applications
1 113 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 36 (0.56%) NetSuite
4 24 (0.37%) SAP CO
5 20 (0.31%) SAP FI
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
7 15 (0.23%) Endur
7 15 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 14 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.20%) Shopify
10 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
11 11 (0.17%) Sage 200
11 11 (0.17%) SAP Business One
12 10 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
13 9 (0.14%) iTrent
14 8 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
14 8 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
15 6 (0.093%) Oracle EBS
15 6 (0.093%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,430 (22.07%) Azure
2 921 (14.22%) Microsoft 365
3 703 (10.85%) AWS
4 535 (8.26%) Power Platform
5 411 (6.34%) SaaS
6 264 (4.07%) Entra ID
7 207 (3.19%) GCP
8 184 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
9 152 (2.35%) GitHub
10 142 (2.19%) Serverless
11 112 (1.73%) Power Automate
12 96 (1.48%) Dynamics 365
13 75 (1.16%) PowerApps
14 73 (1.13%) Amazon S3
14 73 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
15 65 (1.00%) Azure Data Factory
16 64 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
17 61 (0.94%) Google Workspace
17 61 (0.94%) PaaS
18 57 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 402 (6.20%) DNS
2 342 (5.28%) DHCP
3 328 (5.06%) Firewall
4 207 (3.19%) VPN
5 183 (2.82%) TCP/IP
6 178 (2.75%) Wi-Fi
7 166 (2.56%) WAN
8 141 (2.18%) LAN
9 115 (1.77%) VLAN
10 88 (1.36%) VoIP
11 84 (1.30%) Wireless
12 75 (1.16%) Broadband
13 59 (0.91%) Network Security
14 56 (0.86%) Remote Desktop
15 49 (0.76%) SAN
16 45 (0.69%) SD-WAN
17 44 (0.68%) Internet
18 29 (0.45%) Unified Communications
19 26 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
20 24 (0.37%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 448 (6.91%) Power BI
2 315 (4.86%) SQL Server
3 157 (2.42%) Relational Database
4 141 (2.18%) Tableau
5 134 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
6 126 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
7 118 (1.82%) Data Lake
8 117 (1.81%) MySQL
9 114 (1.76%) Amazon RDS
10 110 (1.70%) NoSQL
11 66 (1.02%) SAP BW
11 66 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 60 (0.93%) MongoDB
13 57 (0.88%) Metadata
14 49 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 47 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
16 43 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
16 43 (0.66%) Big Data
16 43 (0.66%) DynamoDB
17 27 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 253 (3.90%) Git
2 246 (3.80%) JIRA
3 94 (1.45%) Jenkins
4 79 (1.22%) GitLab
5 58 (0.90%) Selenium
6 23 (0.35%) Bitbucket
7 22 (0.34%) Cypress.io
7 22 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.32%) LabVIEW
9 18 (0.28%) TeamCity
10 17 (0.26%) Maven
10 17 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
10 17 (0.26%) Robot Framework
10 17 (0.26%) SonarQube
11 16 (0.25%) JUnit
12 15 (0.23%) Burp Suite
12 15 (0.23%) Metasploit
13 14 (0.22%) Snyk
13 14 (0.22%) WebDriver
14 13 (0.20%) Cucumber
General
1 3,481 (53.73%) Social Skills
2 1,966 (30.34%) Analytical Skills
3 1,550 (23.92%) Finance
4 397 (6.13%) Marketing
5 350 (5.40%) Retail
6 347 (5.36%) Law
7 344 (5.31%) Manufacturing
8 337 (5.20%) Organisational Skills
9 288 (4.45%) Legal
10 278 (4.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 262 (4.04%) Public Sector
12 253 (3.90%) Banking
13 180 (2.78%) Telecoms
14 168 (2.59%) Presentation Skills
15 161 (2.48%) Electronics
16 119 (1.84%) Games
17 94 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
18 89 (1.37%) Automotive
19 79 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
20 77 (1.19%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,046 (16.14%) Analyst
2 785 (12.12%) Senior
3 676 (10.43%) IT Support
4 620 (9.57%) Support Engineer
5 584 (9.01%) Developer
6 449 (6.93%) Lead
7 354 (5.46%) Support Analyst
8 297 (4.58%) Technical Support
9 273 (4.21%) IT Engineer
10 251 (3.87%) Business Analyst
11 228 (3.52%) IT Support Engineer
12 227 (3.50%) Consultant
13 214 (3.30%) Architect
14 205 (3.16%) Technical Engineer
15 191 (2.95%) Technical Support Engineer
16 186 (2.87%) 2nd Line Support
17 185 (2.86%) Support Technician
18 165 (2.55%) Systems Engineer
19 162 (2.50%) Applications Support
20 154 (2.38%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 275 (4.24%) .NET
2 245 (3.78%) React
3 221 (3.41%) HTML
4 173 (2.67%) CSS
5 154 (2.38%) REST
6 132 (2.04%) Node.js
7 106 (1.64%) RESTful
8 97 (1.50%) AngularJS
9 72 (1.11%) XML
10 70 (1.08%) JSON
11 69 (1.06%) Spring
12 66 (1.02%) Vue
13 62 (0.96%) SOAP
14 58 (0.90%) .NET Framework
15 57 (0.88%) ASP.NET
15 57 (0.88%) Kafka
16 55 (0.85%) Middleware
17 48 (0.74%) Django
18 46 (0.71%) Web Services
19 45 (0.69%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 520 (8.03%) Onboarding
2 507 (7.83%) Driving Licence
3 417 (6.44%) Self-Motivation
4 210 (3.24%) Management Information System
5 198 (3.06%) Analytical Mindset
6 160 (2.47%) Cloud Native
7 154 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
8 149 (2.30%) Product Ownership
9 117 (1.81%) Data Centre
10 116 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 72 (1.11%) Algorithms
12 69 (1.06%) Data Structures
13 67 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
14 66 (1.02%) Mobile App
14 66 (1.02%) Virtual Team
15 63 (0.97%) FMCG
16 58 (0.90%) Low-Code
17 48 (0.74%) Security Posture
18 46 (0.71%) EPoS
19 44 (0.68%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 1,086 (16.76%) Windows
2 427 (6.59%) Windows Server
3 399 (6.16%) Linux
4 164 (2.53%) Windows 10
5 114 (1.76%) Windows Server 2016
6 94 (1.45%) Mac OS
7 76 (1.17%) Android
8 68 (1.05%) Apple iOS
9 60 (0.93%) Unix
10 50 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
11 32 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
12 23 (0.35%) VMS
13 22 (0.34%) Windows 7
14 21 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 10 (0.15%) CentOS
16 8 (0.12%) Ubuntu
17 7 (0.11%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
19 4 (0.062%) OpenWrt
19 4 (0.062%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,116 (17.22%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,067 (16.47%) Agile
3 953 (14.71%) Customer Service
4 737 (11.38%) Analytics
5 648 (10.00%) AI
6 632 (9.75%) Decision-Making
7 631 (9.74%) Mentoring
8 628 (9.69%) Business Intelligence
9 619 (9.55%) Project Management
10 571 (8.81%) DevOps
11 553 (8.54%) ITIL
12 514 (7.93%) CI/CD
13 508 (7.84%) Computer Science
14 491 (7.58%) Cybersecurity
15 472 (7.29%) Stakeholder Management
16 445 (6.87%) Change Management
17 442 (6.82%) ERP
18 394 (6.08%) Data Analysis
19 390 (6.02%) CRM
20 384 (5.93%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,014 (15.65%) SQL
2 885 (13.66%) Python
3 378 (5.83%) JavaScript
4 341 (5.26%) C#
5 309 (4.77%) PowerShell
6 307 (4.74%) Java
7 151 (2.33%) TypeScript
8 122 (1.88%) Bash
9 97 (1.50%) PHP
10 81 (1.25%) C++
11 59 (0.91%) T-SQL
12 53 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.63%) C
14 39 (0.60%) R
15 37 (0.57%) Go
16 34 (0.52%) Scala
17 27 (0.42%) MATLAB
18 26 (0.40%) VBA
19 25 (0.39%) PL/SQL
20 23 (0.35%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,573 (24.28%) Degree
2 533 (8.23%) Security Cleared
3 339 (5.23%) SC Cleared
4 244 (3.77%) Computer Science Degree
5 175 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 173 (2.67%) Master's Degree
7 154 (2.38%) DBS Check
8 133 (2.05%) DV Cleared
9 106 (1.64%) CISSP
10 104 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
11 84 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
12 79 (1.22%) ACCA
13 71 (1.10%) A+ Certification
14 65 (1.00%) CIMA
15 64 (0.99%) Network+ Certification
16 60 (0.93%) AWS Certification
16 60 (0.93%) PMI Certification
17 57 (0.88%) CISM
18 56 (0.86%) CCNA
18 56 (0.86%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 356 (5.49%) QA
2 337 (5.20%) Data Quality
3 197 (3.04%) GDPR
4 177 (2.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 163 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 139 (2.15%) Accessibility
7 137 (2.11%) SLA
8 114 (1.76%) PCI DSS
9 79 (1.22%) NIST
10 48 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.49%) ISO 9001
12 31 (0.48%) PMO
13 25 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.23%) COBIT
14 15 (0.23%) GRC
15 14 (0.22%) SOC 2
16 12 (0.19%) WCAG
17 11 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
19 8 (0.12%) ISAE 3402
System Software
1 758 (11.70%) Active Directory
2 245 (3.78%) Docker
3 232 (3.58%) Hyper-V
4 146 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 84 (1.30%) Terminal Server
6 28 (0.43%) Firmware
6 28 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
7 21 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 17 (0.26%) vSphere
9 16 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 8 (0.12%) KVM
11 5 (0.077%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.062%) ProxySG
13 3 (0.046%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.046%) vCloud
13 3 (0.046%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.031%) HDFS
14 2 (0.031%) Postfix
14 2 (0.031%) RHEV
14 2 (0.031%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 276 (4.26%) Microsoft Intune
2 248 (3.83%) Terraform
3 195 (3.01%) Kubernetes
4 121 (1.87%) Ansible
5 65 (1.00%) Grafana
6 61 (0.94%) SCCM
7 44 (0.68%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.65%) BMC PATROL
9 32 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
10 22 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
11 20 (0.31%) Nagios
12 17 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 17 (0.26%) vCenter Server
13 14 (0.22%) Cisco CUCM
14 13 (0.20%) Argo
15 12 (0.19%) FortiGate
16 10 (0.15%) Kibana
16 10 (0.15%) Nmap
16 10 (0.15%) PaperCut
16 10 (0.15%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,699 (26.22%) Microsoft
2 420 (6.48%) SAP
3 284 (4.38%) Oracle
4 280 (4.32%) VMware
5 156 (2.41%) Cisco
6 154 (2.38%) Salesforce
7 140 (2.16%) Veeam
8 134 (2.07%) Google
9 128 (1.98%) Splunk
10 125 (1.93%) ServiceNow
10 125 (1.93%) SolarWinds
11 112 (1.73%) Databricks
12 87 (1.34%) Adobe
13 86 (1.33%) Tanium
14 84 (1.30%) Brocade
14 84 (1.30%) Nimble Storage
15 77 (1.19%) Apple
16 65 (1.00%) Sage
17 55 (0.85%) Dell
18 50 (0.77%) Fortinet