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

6 months to
15 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 6,738 7,921 13,729
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.12% 20.03% 14.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.13% 21.61% 17.70%
Number of salaries quoted 4,791 4,463 8,574
10th Percentile £27,500 £26,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £32,500 £32,500 £32,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £50,000 £49,669
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +0.67% -9.69%
75th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £87,500 £84,964
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.04% -10.91%

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 60,527 36,659 77,560
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 72.97% 92.71% 82.14%
Number of salaries quoted 42,554 19,995 56,288
10th Percentile £30,625 £29,000 £29,290
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 15 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 15 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 1,965 £70,000 +7.69% 818
North of England -9 1,385 £42,500 - 594
South East -5 1,234 £45,000 +5.88% 763
Midlands -8 954 £41,500 -3.49% 411
North West -7 710 £45,000 -3.23% 340
South West -6 603 £43,500 +8.75% 305
West Midlands -9 543 £42,500 -5.56% 238
East of England -2 514 £45,000 +28.57% 268
Yorkshire -11 510 £41,000 +17.14% 181
East Midlands -8 408 £35,000 -6.67% 175
North East -14 165 £48,472 +21.18% 83
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
1 365 (5.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 363 (5.39%) SharePoint
3 78 (1.16%) Confluence
4 64 (0.95%) CMS
5 52 (0.77%) Apache
6 40 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 34 (0.50%) IIS
8 29 (0.43%) WordPress
9 17 (0.25%) 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
1 410 (6.08%) Microsoft Office
2 362 (5.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 62 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 46 (0.68%) 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 5 (0.074%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.074%) Simulink
12 3 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.045%) Blender
12 3 (0.045%) Maya
13 2 (0.030%) Lightworks
13 2 (0.030%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 68 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 63 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 36 (0.53%) 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 1,450 (21.52%) Azure
2 1,065 (15.81%) Microsoft 365
3 862 (12.79%) AWS
4 510 (7.57%) Power Platform
5 320 (4.75%) SaaS
6 295 (4.38%) Entra ID
7 291 (4.32%) GCP
8 174 (2.58%) Serverless
9 164 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
10 146 (2.17%) GitHub
11 139 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
12 121 (1.80%) Power Automate
13 101 (1.50%) PowerApps
14 89 (1.32%) Amazon S3
15 88 (1.31%) OneDrive
16 80 (1.19%) Google Workspace
17 74 (1.10%) PaaS
18 73 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
19 70 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
20 69 (1.02%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 436 (6.47%) Firewall
2 392 (5.82%) DNS
3 338 (5.02%) DHCP
4 276 (4.10%) VPN
5 230 (3.41%) WAN
6 210 (3.12%) TCP/IP
7 206 (3.06%) Wi-Fi
8 203 (3.01%) LAN
9 180 (2.67%) Broadband
10 135 (2.00%) VLAN
11 130 (1.93%) Wireless
12 108 (1.60%) VoIP
13 94 (1.40%) Network Security
14 65 (0.96%) SD-WAN
15 48 (0.71%) Internet
16 47 (0.70%) BGP
17 46 (0.68%) SAN
18 45 (0.67%) OSPF
19 34 (0.50%) HTTP
20 30 (0.45%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 406 (6.03%) Power BI
2 289 (4.29%) SQL Server
3 129 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
4 110 (1.63%) Tableau
5 108 (1.60%) NoSQL
6 97 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
7 93 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
8 90 (1.34%) MySQL
9 86 (1.28%) Relational Database
10 77 (1.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 66 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 55 (0.82%) Power Query
13 54 (0.80%) Big Data
13 54 (0.80%) MongoDB
14 44 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
15 42 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
16 41 (0.61%) Data Lake
17 40 (0.59%) Metadata
18 35 (0.52%) DynamoDB
19 23 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 279 (4.14%) Git
2 209 (3.10%) JIRA
3 97 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 94 (1.40%) GitLab
5 30 (0.45%) 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 14 (0.21%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.21%) Claude Code
13 14 (0.21%) Eclipse
13 14 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 13 (0.19%) Postman
General
1 3,146 (46.69%) Social Skills
2 1,979 (29.37%) Analytical Skills
3 1,352 (20.07%) Finance
4 426 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
5 375 (5.57%) Manufacturing
6 365 (5.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 329 (4.88%) Law
8 312 (4.63%) Marketing
9 294 (4.36%) Retail
10 282 (4.19%) Legal
11 272 (4.04%) Public Sector
12 268 (3.98%) Banking
13 160 (2.37%) Telecoms
14 139 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
15 135 (2.00%) Electronics
16 124 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
17 108 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
18 88 (1.31%) Aerospace
19 87 (1.29%) Advertising
20 76 (1.13%) Games
Job Titles
1 884 (13.12%) Analyst
2 837 (12.42%) Senior
3 685 (10.17%) IT Support
4 644 (9.56%) Developer
5 586 (8.70%) Support Engineer
6 416 (6.17%) IT Engineer
7 409 (6.07%) Lead
8 325 (4.82%) IT Support Engineer
9 297 (4.41%) Consultant
10 244 (3.62%) Support Analyst
11 239 (3.55%) Support Technician
12 237 (3.52%) Architect
13 232 (3.44%) Software Engineer
14 222 (3.29%) Systems Engineer
15 186 (2.76%) Technical Support
16 182 (2.70%) IT Technician
17 181 (2.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 163 (2.42%) Senior Developer
19 162 (2.40%) 2nd Line Support
20 161 (2.39%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (4.02%) .NET
2 263 (3.90%) React
3 213 (3.16%) HTML
4 184 (2.73%) REST
5 180 (2.67%) CSS
6 144 (2.14%) Node.js
7 129 (1.91%) RESTful
8 99 (1.47%) SOAP
9 91 (1.35%) Middleware
10 85 (1.26%) JSON
11 81 (1.20%) Spring
12 76 (1.13%) Vue
13 72 (1.07%) AngularJS
14 69 (1.02%) XML
15 64 (0.95%) Kafka
16 62 (0.92%) OAuth
16 62 (0.92%) Web Services
17 56 (0.83%) gRPC
18 51 (0.76%) Spring Boot
19 49 (0.73%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 404 (6.00%) Driving Licence
2 385 (5.71%) Onboarding
3 313 (4.65%) Self-Motivation
4 256 (3.80%) Management Information System
5 237 (3.52%) Cloud Native
6 189 (2.80%) Product Ownership
7 169 (2.51%) Data Centre
8 155 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
9 142 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
10 121 (1.80%) Analytical Mindset
11 97 (1.44%) Mobile App
12 87 (1.29%) Security Posture
12 87 (1.29%) Social Media
13 85 (1.26%) Data Structures
14 82 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
15 73 (1.08%) Algorithms
16 70 (1.04%) Low-Code
17 63 (0.93%) Virtual Team
18 62 (0.92%) Public Cloud
19 61 (0.91%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 1,062 (15.76%) Windows
2 458 (6.80%) Windows Server
3 443 (6.57%) Linux
4 167 (2.48%) Windows 10
5 122 (1.81%) Windows Server 2016
6 107 (1.59%) Android
7 87 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 85 (1.26%) Mac OS
9 65 (0.96%) Windows Server 2019
10 45 (0.67%) Unix
11 41 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 32 (0.47%) CentOS
12 32 (0.47%) Ubuntu
13 29 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 25 (0.37%) 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 1,345 (19.96%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,063 (15.78%) Agile
3 976 (14.49%) Customer Service
4 749 (11.12%) AI
5 740 (10.98%) Mentoring
6 726 (10.77%) CI/CD
7 724 (10.75%) Decision-Making
8 648 (9.62%) Analytics
9 631 (9.36%) DevOps
10 586 (8.70%) Software Engineering
11 564 (8.37%) Stakeholder Management
12 550 (8.16%) ITIL
13 528 (7.84%) Roadmaps
14 516 (7.66%) Computer Science
15 491 (7.29%) Project Management
16 490 (7.27%) Cybersecurity
17 474 (7.03%) Business Intelligence
18 441 (6.54%) Collaborative Working
19 440 (6.53%) Coaching
20 391 (5.80%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 1,031 (15.30%) Python
2 1,013 (15.03%) SQL
3 453 (6.72%) JavaScript
4 344 (5.11%) Java
5 341 (5.06%) C#
6 307 (4.56%) PowerShell
7 206 (3.06%) TypeScript
8 161 (2.39%) Bash
9 139 (2.06%) C++
10 92 (1.37%) PHP
11 88 (1.31%) Go
12 60 (0.89%) Scala
13 59 (0.88%) C
13 59 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 50 (0.74%) T-SQL
15 47 (0.70%) PL/SQL
16 43 (0.64%) R
17 41 (0.61%) Rust
18 37 (0.55%) Kotlin
19 35 (0.52%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,119 (16.61%) Degree
2 536 (7.95%) Security Cleared
3 368 (5.46%) SC Cleared
4 259 (3.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 225 (3.34%) DBS Check
6 189 (2.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 123 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
8 119 (1.77%) CISSP
9 115 (1.71%) DV Cleared
10 109 (1.62%) Master's Degree
11 97 (1.44%) Azure Certification
12 81 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
12 81 (1.20%) PMI Certification
13 78 (1.16%) CCNA
14 74 (1.10%) A+ Certification
15 71 (1.05%) PMP
16 69 (1.02%) ACCA
17 64 (0.95%) CIMA
18 57 (0.85%) CCNP
18 57 (0.85%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (5.43%) QA
2 324 (4.81%) Data Quality
3 271 (4.02%) GDPR
4 196 (2.91%) SLA
5 186 (2.76%) Cyber Essentials
6 171 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 158 (2.34%) Accessibility
8 146 (2.17%) NIST
9 139 (2.06%) PCI DSS
10 51 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 44 (0.65%) PMO
12 35 (0.52%) ISO 9001
13 29 (0.43%) GRC
14 28 (0.42%) SOC 2
15 26 (0.39%) COBIT
16 22 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
17 20 (0.30%) GMP
18 15 (0.22%) IFRS
18 15 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 12 (0.18%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 728 (10.80%) Active Directory
2 297 (4.41%) Docker
3 239 (3.55%) Hyper-V
4 214 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (0.93%) Terminal Server
6 45 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.52%) Firmware
8 26 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
9 24 (0.36%) 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 4 (0.059%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 296 (4.39%) Terraform
2 254 (3.77%) Kubernetes
3 253 (3.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 146 (2.17%) Ansible
5 93 (1.38%) Grafana
6 80 (1.19%) SCCM
7 58 (0.86%) Prometheus
8 36 (0.53%) 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 14 (0.21%) Argo
13 14 (0.21%) Autotask
13 14 (0.21%) vCenter Server
14 12 (0.18%) Puppet
15 11 (0.16%) Kubeflow
15 11 (0.16%) Nessus
16 10 (0.15%) Docker Swarm
Vendors
1 1,822 (27.04%) Microsoft
2 317 (4.70%) VMware
3 188 (2.79%) Oracle
4 171 (2.54%) Google
5 156 (2.32%) SAP
6 155 (2.30%) Cisco
7 142 (2.11%) Salesforce
8 131 (1.94%) SolarWinds
9 124 (1.84%) ServiceNow
10 122 (1.81%) Veeam
11 118 (1.75%) Splunk
12 104 (1.54%) Databricks
13 81 (1.20%) Apple
14 65 (0.96%) Tanium
15 64 (0.95%) Adobe
15 64 (0.95%) Nimble Storage
16 63 (0.93%) Brocade
17 56 (0.83%) Dell
18 52 (0.77%) Red Hat
19 51 (0.76%) Meraki