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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 9
Rank change year-on-year -4 +5 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,478 8,907 6,902
As % of all permanent jobs in England 12.31% 18.27% 14.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.12% 20.19% 16.12%
Number of salaries quoted 4,390 3,937 4,773
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,000 £40,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,203 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.81% - -
75th Percentile £65,355 £75,000 £73,654
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £91,250
UK median annual salary £46,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -16.36% - -3.55%

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 42,844 44,109 42,817
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 81.40% 90.47% 89.81%
Number of salaries quoted 25,653 21,778 33,081
10th Percentile £28,697 £35,000 £32,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,874
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 £80,000
90th Percentile £96,750 £100,000 £100,000
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 8 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 8 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 - 948
South East -3 1,327 £42,500 -19.05% 1,302
North of England -16 1,238 £45,000 -5.26% 850
Midlands -13 896 £39,000 -22.00% 567
North West -13 690 £47,683 - 368
South West 0 583 £40,000 -27.27% 526
West Midlands -16 529 £43,105 -21.63% 253
Yorkshire -4 434 £34,500 -20.69% 352
East of England -7 404 £35,000 -31.33% 557
East Midlands +1 366 £35,000 -2.10% 309
North East -1 114 £33,500 -33.00% 141
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
1 318 (4.91%) Microsoft Exchange
2 271 (4.18%) SharePoint
3 78 (1.20%) Confluence
4 50 (0.77%) IIS
5 46 (0.71%) Apache
6 41 (0.63%) Apache Spark
7 34 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
8 29 (0.45%) CMS
9 24 (0.37%) WordPress
10 12 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 11 (0.17%) nginx
12 10 (0.15%) SAS
13 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 7 (0.11%) Apache Solr
14 6 (0.093%) HCL Notes
15 5 (0.077%) Camunda
15 5 (0.077%) Drupal
15 5 (0.077%) Exchange Server 2013
15 5 (0.077%) Umbraco
16 3 (0.046%) Liferay
Applications
1 487 (7.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 483 (7.46%) Microsoft Office
3 92 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 35 (0.54%) Maya
4 35 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 20 (0.31%) AutoCAD
8 17 (0.26%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 12 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
10 12 (0.19%) SOLIDWORKS
11 9 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
12 7 (0.11%) Simulink
13 5 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
13 5 (0.077%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.077%) Trello
14 4 (0.062%) Autodesk Inventor
14 4 (0.062%) Chatbot
14 4 (0.062%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 112 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 93 (1.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 40 (0.62%) NetSuite
4 23 (0.36%) SAP CO
5 21 (0.32%) SAP FI
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
7 15 (0.23%) Shopify
8 14 (0.22%) Endur
8 14 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 14 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.19%) SAP Business One
10 11 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
11 10 (0.15%) Sage 200
12 8 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
13 7 (0.11%) iTrent
14 6 (0.093%) Sage X3
14 6 (0.093%) SAP ERP
14 6 (0.093%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 1,434 (22.14%) Azure
2 909 (14.03%) Microsoft 365
3 701 (10.82%) AWS
4 542 (8.37%) Power Platform
5 410 (6.33%) SaaS
6 264 (4.08%) Entra ID
7 220 (3.40%) GCP
8 184 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
9 149 (2.30%) GitHub
10 136 (2.10%) Serverless
11 111 (1.71%) Power Automate
12 99 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
13 76 (1.17%) PowerApps
14 69 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
15 67 (1.03%) Amazon S3
15 67 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
16 62 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
17 58 (0.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 58 (0.90%) PaaS
18 57 (0.88%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 392 (6.05%) DNS
2 334 (5.16%) DHCP
3 324 (5.00%) Firewall
4 204 (3.15%) VPN
5 184 (2.84%) TCP/IP
6 173 (2.67%) Wi-Fi
7 165 (2.55%) WAN
8 139 (2.15%) LAN
9 114 (1.76%) VLAN
10 84 (1.30%) VoIP
11 79 (1.22%) Wireless
12 75 (1.16%) Broadband
13 65 (1.00%) Network Security
14 60 (0.93%) Remote Desktop
15 50 (0.77%) SAN
16 45 (0.69%) SD-WAN
17 42 (0.65%) Internet
18 29 (0.45%) Unified Communications
19 25 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
20 24 (0.37%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 455 (7.02%) Power BI
2 324 (5.00%) SQL Server
3 160 (2.47%) Relational Database
4 141 (2.18%) Tableau
5 135 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
6 132 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
7 124 (1.91%) MySQL
8 118 (1.82%) Data Lake
9 114 (1.76%) Amazon RDS
10 111 (1.71%) NoSQL
11 67 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 66 (1.02%) SAP BW
13 63 (0.97%) MongoDB
14 55 (0.85%) Metadata
15 50 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 43 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
16 43 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
16 43 (0.66%) Big Data
16 43 (0.66%) DynamoDB
17 32 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 273 (4.21%) Git
2 246 (3.80%) JIRA
3 90 (1.39%) Jenkins
4 79 (1.22%) GitLab
5 57 (0.88%) Selenium
6 24 (0.37%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.36%) Bitbucket
8 22 (0.34%) Cypress.io
9 20 (0.31%) LabVIEW
10 18 (0.28%) Octopus Deploy
10 18 (0.28%) TeamCity
11 17 (0.26%) Maven
11 17 (0.26%) Robot Framework
12 16 (0.25%) SonarQube
13 15 (0.23%) JUnit
14 14 (0.22%) Snyk
14 14 (0.22%) WebDriver
15 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
15 13 (0.20%) Metasploit
16 12 (0.19%) Cucumber
General
1 3,502 (54.06%) Social Skills
2 1,974 (30.47%) Analytical Skills
3 1,562 (24.11%) Finance
4 422 (6.51%) Marketing
5 367 (5.67%) Law
6 358 (5.53%) Retail
7 346 (5.34%) Manufacturing
8 332 (5.13%) Organisational Skills
9 283 (4.37%) Legal
10 266 (4.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 261 (4.03%) Public Sector
12 249 (3.84%) Banking
13 186 (2.87%) Telecoms
14 169 (2.61%) Presentation Skills
15 165 (2.55%) Electronics
16 120 (1.85%) Games
17 94 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
18 86 (1.33%) Automotive
19 81 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
20 77 (1.19%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,038 (16.02%) Analyst
2 784 (12.10%) Senior
3 659 (10.17%) IT Support
4 609 (9.40%) Support Engineer
5 606 (9.35%) Developer
6 446 (6.88%) Lead
7 355 (5.48%) Support Analyst
8 300 (4.63%) Technical Support
9 260 (4.01%) IT Engineer
10 248 (3.83%) Business Analyst
11 228 (3.52%) Consultant
12 221 (3.41%) Architect
13 213 (3.29%) IT Support Engineer
14 210 (3.24%) Technical Engineer
15 196 (3.03%) Technical Support Engineer
16 186 (2.87%) Support Technician
17 183 (2.82%) 2nd Line Support
18 168 (2.59%) Systems Engineer
19 165 (2.55%) Applications Support
20 145 (2.24%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 282 (4.35%) .NET
2 252 (3.89%) React
3 238 (3.67%) HTML
4 190 (2.93%) CSS
5 151 (2.33%) REST
6 142 (2.19%) Node.js
7 124 (1.91%) RESTful
8 99 (1.53%) AngularJS
9 73 (1.13%) XML
10 71 (1.10%) JSON
11 70 (1.08%) Spring
12 66 (1.02%) Vue
13 62 (0.96%) .NET Framework
14 59 (0.91%) ASP.NET
15 58 (0.90%) SOAP
16 56 (0.86%) Kafka
17 51 (0.79%) Middleware
18 48 (0.74%) Django
19 47 (0.73%) Web Services
20 46 (0.71%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 525 (8.10%) Onboarding
2 504 (7.78%) Driving Licence
3 416 (6.42%) Self-Motivation
4 212 (3.27%) Management Information System
5 197 (3.04%) Analytical Mindset
6 155 (2.39%) Cloud Native
7 153 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
8 145 (2.24%) Product Ownership
9 115 (1.78%) Data Centre
10 114 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
11 75 (1.16%) Algorithms
12 71 (1.10%) Data Structures
13 68 (1.05%) Virtual Team
14 64 (0.99%) FMCG
15 63 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
16 62 (0.96%) Mobile App
17 57 (0.88%) Low-Code
18 52 (0.80%) Security Posture
19 44 (0.68%) EPoS
20 43 (0.66%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 1,071 (16.53%) Windows
2 420 (6.48%) Windows Server
3 396 (6.11%) Linux
4 163 (2.52%) Windows 10
5 109 (1.68%) Windows Server 2016
6 91 (1.40%) Mac OS
7 74 (1.14%) Android
8 69 (1.07%) Apple iOS
9 61 (0.94%) Unix
10 46 (0.71%) Windows Server 2019
11 30 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
12 22 (0.34%) VMS
12 22 (0.34%) Windows 7
13 19 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 8 (0.12%) CentOS
14 8 (0.12%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.11%) Ubuntu
16 6 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
17 4 (0.062%) OpenWrt
17 4 (0.062%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,124 (17.35%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,079 (16.66%) Agile
3 941 (14.53%) Customer Service
4 736 (11.36%) Analytics
5 645 (9.96%) AI
6 637 (9.83%) Business Intelligence
7 629 (9.71%) Decision-Making
8 621 (9.59%) Mentoring
8 621 (9.59%) Project Management
9 576 (8.89%) DevOps
10 557 (8.60%) ITIL
11 515 (7.95%) CI/CD
12 504 (7.78%) Computer Science
13 490 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
14 467 (7.21%) Stakeholder Management
15 451 (6.96%) Change Management
16 447 (6.90%) ERP
17 401 (6.19%) Data Analysis
18 395 (6.10%) CRM
19 383 (5.91%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,031 (15.92%) SQL
2 866 (13.37%) Python
3 387 (5.97%) JavaScript
4 349 (5.39%) C#
5 307 (4.74%) Java
6 302 (4.66%) PowerShell
7 143 (2.21%) TypeScript
8 117 (1.81%) Bash
9 99 (1.53%) PHP
10 80 (1.23%) C++
11 62 (0.96%) T-SQL
12 52 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 42 (0.65%) R
14 37 (0.57%) C
15 35 (0.54%) Go
15 35 (0.54%) Scala
16 30 (0.46%) VBA
17 28 (0.43%) MATLAB
18 25 (0.39%) PL/SQL
19 24 (0.37%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,579 (24.37%) Degree
2 515 (7.95%) Security Cleared
3 333 (5.14%) SC Cleared
4 245 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 177 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 174 (2.69%) Master's Degree
7 139 (2.15%) DBS Check
8 129 (1.99%) DV Cleared
9 107 (1.65%) CISSP
10 102 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
11 93 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
12 84 (1.30%) ACCA
13 70 (1.08%) CIMA
14 65 (1.00%) A+ Certification
15 63 (0.97%) CCNA
15 63 (0.97%) Network+ Certification
16 60 (0.93%) PMI Certification
17 59 (0.91%) AWS Certification
17 59 (0.91%) CISM
17 59 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 365 (5.63%) QA
2 326 (5.03%) Data Quality
3 200 (3.09%) GDPR
4 177 (2.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 165 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 140 (2.16%) Accessibility
7 135 (2.08%) SLA
8 112 (1.73%) PCI DSS
9 77 (1.19%) NIST
10 49 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 33 (0.51%) ISO 9001
12 32 (0.49%) PMO
13 26 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.25%) GRC
15 15 (0.23%) SOC 2
16 14 (0.22%) COBIT
17 12 (0.19%) WCAG
18 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
19 8 (0.12%) ISAE 3402
19 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 739 (11.41%) Active Directory
2 261 (4.03%) Docker
3 227 (3.50%) Hyper-V
4 150 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 84 (1.30%) Terminal Server
6 30 (0.46%) Firmware
6 30 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 24 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 19 (0.29%) vSphere
9 15 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.077%) KVM
11 4 (0.062%) ProxySG
11 4 (0.062%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.046%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.046%) vCloud
12 3 (0.046%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.031%) Postfix
13 2 (0.031%) RHEV
13 2 (0.031%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.031%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 271 (4.18%) Microsoft Intune
2 240 (3.70%) Terraform
3 204 (3.15%) Kubernetes
4 115 (1.78%) Ansible
5 61 (0.94%) Grafana
6 57 (0.88%) SCCM
7 43 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.65%) BMC PATROL
9 30 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
10 22 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
11 19 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 18 (0.28%) Nagios
13 14 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 14 (0.22%) Cisco CUCM
14 13 (0.20%) Argo
15 12 (0.19%) FortiGate
16 11 (0.17%) PaperCut
17 10 (0.15%) ZABBIX
18 9 (0.14%) Nmap
19 8 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 1,704 (26.30%) Microsoft
2 427 (6.59%) SAP
3 288 (4.45%) Oracle
4 283 (4.37%) VMware
5 163 (2.52%) Cisco
6 148 (2.28%) Salesforce
7 138 (2.13%) Veeam
8 136 (2.10%) Google
9 132 (2.04%) ServiceNow
10 128 (1.98%) Splunk
11 125 (1.93%) SolarWinds
12 109 (1.68%) Databricks
13 87 (1.34%) Adobe
14 86 (1.33%) Nimble Storage
14 86 (1.33%) Tanium
15 84 (1.30%) Brocade
16 78 (1.20%) Apple
17 66 (1.02%) Sage
18 58 (0.90%) Dell
19 53 (0.82%) Workday