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

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,402 7,671 10,560
As % of all permanent jobs in England 10.33% 18.42% 15.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.13% 19.76% 17.33%
Number of salaries quoted 4,449 3,996 7,588
10th Percentile £26,750 £30,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £38,750 £33,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,497 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.28% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £66,250 £76,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £87,500
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -10.71%

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 48,744 38,824 60,949
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 78.62% 93.20% 87.81%
Number of salaries quoted 29,892 19,866 47,964
10th Percentile £29,250 £33,000 £29,750
25th Percentile £39,625 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £82,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £103,750 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%

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 2 March 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 2 March 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 1,886 £67,500 +3.85% 972
North of England -17 1,355 £42,500 -9.57% 761
South East -4 1,229 £42,500 -19.05% 1,074
Midlands -16 851 £37,500 -26.11% 557
North West -15 718 £45,000 -10.00% 398
South West -3 561 £42,500 -19.05% 400
West Midlands -20 501 £42,500 -22.73% 302
Yorkshire -5 498 £35,000 -17.65% 279
East of England -7 415 £40,000 -20.00% 434
East Midlands -1 347 £35,000 -4.11% 249
North East -4 139 £45,000 - 98
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 (4.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 276 (4.31%) SharePoint
3 80 (1.25%) Confluence
4 59 (0.92%) Apache
5 49 (0.77%) CMS
6 48 (0.75%) IIS
7 46 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
8 42 (0.66%) Apache Spark
9 32 (0.50%) WordPress
10 16 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.17%) nginx
12 10 (0.16%) SAS
13 8 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 7 (0.11%) Drupal
15 6 (0.094%) Exchange Server 2007
15 6 (0.094%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.094%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.062%) Apache Solr
16 4 (0.062%) Totara
Applications
1 442 (6.90%) Microsoft Office
2 348 (5.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 79 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (0.47%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 26 (0.41%) Maya
8 17 (0.27%) AutoCAD
9 13 (0.20%) Photoshop
10 10 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 10 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
11 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.078%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.078%) Trello
13 4 (0.062%) CATIA
13 4 (0.062%) Fusion 360
14 3 (0.047%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.047%) CINEMA 4D
14 3 (0.047%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 78 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 19 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
5 17 (0.27%) Endur
5 17 (0.27%) SAP CO
6 16 (0.25%) Shopify
7 14 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
8 10 (0.16%) iTrent
8 10 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 10 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 9 (0.14%) Maximo
9 9 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.14%) SAP Business One
10 8 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.12%) SAP FI
10 8 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
11 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
11 7 (0.11%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,369 (21.38%) Azure
2 971 (15.17%) Microsoft 365
3 762 (11.90%) AWS
4 460 (7.19%) Power Platform
5 367 (5.73%) SaaS
6 280 (4.37%) Entra ID
7 259 (4.05%) GCP
8 179 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
9 162 (2.53%) GitHub
10 158 (2.47%) Serverless
11 129 (2.01%) Power Automate
12 107 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
13 93 (1.45%) Google Workspace
14 87 (1.36%) Amazon S3
15 81 (1.27%) PowerApps
16 80 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
16 80 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
17 68 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
18 67 (1.05%) PaaS
19 65 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 415 (6.48%) DNS
2 365 (5.70%) Firewall
3 354 (5.53%) DHCP
4 239 (3.73%) VPN
5 212 (3.31%) TCP/IP
6 204 (3.19%) WAN
7 201 (3.14%) Wi-Fi
8 171 (2.67%) LAN
9 143 (2.23%) Broadband
10 128 (2.00%) VLAN
11 92 (1.44%) VoIP
12 91 (1.42%) Wireless
13 66 (1.03%) SD-WAN
14 53 (0.83%) Remote Desktop
15 50 (0.78%) Internet
16 48 (0.75%) Network Security
17 47 (0.73%) SAN
18 33 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
19 30 (0.47%) Unified Communications
20 29 (0.45%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 374 (5.84%) Power BI
2 277 (4.33%) SQL Server
3 144 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
4 133 (2.08%) Tableau
5 125 (1.95%) Relational Database
6 116 (1.81%) NoSQL
7 108 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
8 98 (1.53%) Amazon RDS
9 88 (1.37%) MySQL
10 66 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 56 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
11 56 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 52 (0.81%) Data Lake
12 52 (0.81%) Metadata
13 47 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 45 (0.70%) DynamoDB
15 43 (0.67%) Power Query
16 41 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 39 (0.61%) Big Data
18 26 (0.41%) Redis
Development Applications
1 272 (4.25%) Git
2 231 (3.61%) JIRA
3 102 (1.59%) Jenkins
4 90 (1.41%) GitLab
5 55 (0.86%) Selenium
6 27 (0.42%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.36%) Cypress.io
8 19 (0.30%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.30%) Maven
8 19 (0.30%) Metasploit
8 19 (0.30%) TeamCity
9 18 (0.28%) Bitbucket
9 18 (0.28%) LabVIEW
9 18 (0.28%) Robot Framework
10 16 (0.25%) Octopus Deploy
11 15 (0.23%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.23%) JUnit
11 15 (0.23%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.22%) Snyk
13 13 (0.20%) CircleCI
General
1 3,252 (50.80%) Social Skills
2 1,944 (30.37%) Analytical Skills
3 1,462 (22.84%) Finance
4 429 (6.70%) Organisational Skills
5 361 (5.64%) Marketing
6 325 (5.08%) Law
7 319 (4.98%) Retail
8 309 (4.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 292 (4.56%) Legal
10 288 (4.50%) Public Sector
11 286 (4.47%) Manufacturing
12 277 (4.33%) Banking
13 178 (2.78%) Presentation Skills
14 177 (2.76%) Telecoms
15 134 (2.09%) Electronics
16 109 (1.70%) Games
17 102 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
18 89 (1.39%) Automotive
19 87 (1.36%) Financial Institution
20 84 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 961 (15.01%) Analyst
2 791 (12.36%) Senior
3 755 (11.79%) IT Support
4 643 (10.04%) Support Engineer
5 582 (9.09%) Developer
6 382 (5.97%) Lead
7 352 (5.50%) IT Engineer
8 330 (5.15%) Support Analyst
9 298 (4.65%) IT Support Engineer
10 239 (3.73%) Consultant
10 239 (3.73%) Technical Support
11 223 (3.48%) Business Analyst
12 215 (3.36%) Architect
13 205 (3.20%) Support Technician
14 195 (3.05%) 2nd Line Support
15 170 (2.66%) Technical Engineer
16 168 (2.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 163 (2.55%) Technical Support Engineer
18 161 (2.51%) IT Analyst
18 161 (2.51%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 266 (4.15%) .NET
2 251 (3.92%) React
3 223 (3.48%) HTML
4 174 (2.72%) CSS
5 146 (2.28%) Node.js
6 131 (2.05%) REST
7 110 (1.72%) RESTful
8 80 (1.25%) AngularJS
9 69 (1.08%) Middleware
9 69 (1.08%) Vue
10 65 (1.02%) Spring
11 63 (0.98%) Kafka
12 62 (0.97%) SOAP
13 58 (0.91%) JSON
14 56 (0.87%) XML
15 53 (0.83%) Django
16 48 (0.75%) .NET Framework
16 48 (0.75%) Flask
17 44 (0.69%) Spring Boot
18 43 (0.67%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 540 (8.43%) Driving Licence
2 475 (7.42%) Onboarding
3 415 (6.48%) Self-Motivation
4 210 (3.28%) Management Information System
5 183 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
6 173 (2.70%) Cloud Native
7 142 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
8 138 (2.16%) Data Centre
8 138 (2.16%) Product Ownership
9 112 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
10 110 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
11 93 (1.45%) Mobile App
12 81 (1.27%) Social Media
13 72 (1.12%) Low-Code
14 71 (1.11%) Data Structures
15 63 (0.98%) Algorithms
16 56 (0.87%) Security Posture
16 56 (0.87%) Virtual Team
17 53 (0.83%) EPoS
18 51 (0.80%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 1,116 (17.43%) Windows
2 430 (6.72%) Windows Server
3 399 (6.23%) Linux
4 166 (2.59%) Windows 10
5 116 (1.81%) Windows Server 2016
6 111 (1.73%) Android
7 97 (1.52%) Mac OS
8 80 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 58 (0.91%) Unix
10 53 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
11 32 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 32 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
12 26 (0.41%) Windows 7
13 22 (0.34%) CentOS
14 16 (0.25%) Ubuntu
14 16 (0.25%) VMS
15 10 (0.16%) Windows 8
16 9 (0.14%) Mac OS X
17 7 (0.11%) Debian
18 4 (0.062%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,146 (17.90%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,022 (15.96%) Agile
3 950 (14.84%) Customer Service
4 660 (10.31%) Analytics
4 660 (10.31%) Mentoring
5 630 (9.84%) AI
6 628 (9.81%) Decision-Making
7 609 (9.51%) CI/CD
8 600 (9.37%) DevOps
9 582 (9.09%) Project Management
10 542 (8.47%) ITIL
11 537 (8.39%) Business Intelligence
12 510 (7.97%) Computer Science
13 493 (7.70%) Stakeholder Management
14 454 (7.09%) Cybersecurity
15 411 (6.42%) Software Engineering
16 396 (6.19%) Change Management
17 379 (5.92%) CRM
18 368 (5.75%) Process Improvement
19 366 (5.72%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 942 (14.71%) Python
2 921 (14.39%) SQL
3 412 (6.44%) JavaScript
4 325 (5.08%) PowerShell
5 316 (4.94%) Java
6 297 (4.64%) C#
7 171 (2.67%) TypeScript
8 146 (2.28%) Bash
9 94 (1.47%) PHP
10 78 (1.22%) C++
11 66 (1.03%) Go
12 65 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 51 (0.80%) Scala
14 46 (0.72%) T-SQL
15 45 (0.70%) C
16 37 (0.58%) R
17 31 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 31 (0.48%) Kotlin
18 27 (0.42%) Bicep
19 25 (0.39%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,360 (21.24%) Degree
2 510 (7.97%) Security Cleared
3 323 (5.05%) SC Cleared
4 241 (3.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 180 (2.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 163 (2.55%) DBS Check
7 141 (2.20%) Master's Degree
8 114 (1.78%) DV Cleared
9 102 (1.59%) CISSP
10 98 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
11 84 (1.31%) ACCA
12 83 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
13 81 (1.27%) A+ Certification
14 71 (1.11%) CIMA
15 65 (1.02%) Network+ Certification
16 63 (0.98%) PMI Certification
17 56 (0.87%) CCNA
18 54 (0.84%) AWS Certification
19 50 (0.78%) CISM
20 49 (0.77%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 305 (4.76%) QA
2 252 (3.94%) Data Quality
3 222 (3.47%) GDPR
4 167 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 165 (2.58%) Cyber Essentials
6 135 (2.11%) SLA
7 132 (2.06%) Accessibility
8 121 (1.89%) PCI DSS
9 96 (1.50%) NIST
10 48 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.50%) ISO 9001
12 28 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
13 24 (0.37%) SOC 2
14 21 (0.33%) PMO
15 19 (0.30%) COBIT
15 19 (0.30%) GRC
16 11 (0.17%) GMP
17 10 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 10 (0.16%) WCAG
18 9 (0.14%) ITGC
System Software
1 753 (11.76%) Active Directory
2 292 (4.56%) Docker
3 239 (3.73%) Hyper-V
4 159 (2.48%) VMware Infrastructure
5 70 (1.09%) Terminal Server
6 26 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 24 (0.37%) Firmware
7 24 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.27%) vSphere
9 12 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.17%) KVM
11 9 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 7 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.094%) IAG
14 4 (0.062%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.062%) XenApp
15 3 (0.047%) vCloud
15 3 (0.047%) VMware NSX
16 2 (0.031%) Postfix
16 2 (0.031%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 277 (4.33%) Terraform
2 274 (4.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 217 (3.39%) Kubernetes
4 146 (2.28%) Ansible
5 80 (1.25%) Grafana
6 73 (1.14%) SCCM
7 54 (0.84%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.66%) BMC PATROL
9 27 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
10 25 (0.39%) Nagios
11 21 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.23%) Argo
14 14 (0.22%) Cisco CUCM
15 13 (0.20%) vCenter Server
15 13 (0.20%) ZABBIX
16 12 (0.19%) Autotask
16 12 (0.19%) Kibana
17 11 (0.17%) Nessus
18 10 (0.16%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,675 (26.16%) Microsoft
2 279 (4.36%) VMware
3 251 (3.92%) SAP
4 232 (3.62%) Oracle
5 161 (2.51%) Google
6 154 (2.41%) Salesforce
7 147 (2.30%) Cisco
8 135 (2.11%) Veeam
9 123 (1.92%) SolarWinds
10 122 (1.91%) Splunk
11 121 (1.89%) ServiceNow
12 102 (1.59%) Databricks
13 99 (1.55%) Adobe
14 79 (1.23%) Apple
15 71 (1.11%) Tanium
16 70 (1.09%) Brocade
16 70 (1.09%) Nimble Storage
17 58 (0.91%) Dell
18 56 (0.87%) Sage
19 50 (0.78%) HubSpot