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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 8
Rank change year-on-year -4 +4 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 7,080 8,033 13,563
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.25% 19.50% 14.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.21% 21.30% 17.81%
Number of salaries quoted 5,081 4,574 8,404
10th Percentile £27,500 £26,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £32,500 £32,500 £33,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £87,850 £84,964
UK median annual salary £47,500 £49,800 £49,000
% change year-on-year -4.62% +1.63% -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 63,156 37,707 76,142
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.63% 91.52% 82.29%
Number of salaries quoted 44,618 21,070 54,965
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,822 £29,490
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,750 £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 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.09%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1,993 £70,000 +7.69% 1,403
North of England -8 1,464 £44,000 +3.53% 724
South East -4 1,343 £45,000 +5.88% 873
Midlands -8 996 £42,000 -1.18% 496
North West -7 767 £45,000 -2.17% 394
South West -6 643 £44,000 +17.33% 360
West Midlands -9 568 £42,500 -5.56% 273
East of England -3 557 £44,500 +27.14% 305
Yorkshire -12 513 £42,500 +21.43% 237
East Midlands -10 425 £35,000 -4.11% 224
North East -13 184 £50,000 +25.00% 112
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
1 395 (5.58%) SharePoint
2 386 (5.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 80 (1.13%) Confluence
4 66 (0.93%) CMS
5 52 (0.73%) Apache
6 40 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
7 38 (0.54%) Apache Spark
8 37 (0.52%) IIS
9 33 (0.47%) WordPress
10 17 (0.24%) SAS
11 15 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
12 11 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 10 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
13 10 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 10 (0.14%) WebSphere
14 8 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2007
14 8 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
15 7 (0.099%) OpenEdge
16 6 (0.085%) Drupal
16 6 (0.085%) Moodle
Applications
1 443 (6.26%) Microsoft Office
2 393 (5.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 41 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 32 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 9 (0.13%) Simulink
9 9 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
10 8 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 8 (0.11%) Trello
11 5 (0.071%) Fusion 360
11 5 (0.071%) Lightworks
11 5 (0.071%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.042%) Blender
12 3 (0.042%) Maya
12 3 (0.042%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 76 (1.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 64 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 40 (0.56%) NetSuite
4 22 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
5 20 (0.28%) Shopify
6 16 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
6 16 (0.23%) Magento
7 15 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
8 14 (0.20%) iTrent
8 14 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 11 (0.16%) Maximo
10 10 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 10 (0.14%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 9 (0.13%) Elite 3E
11 9 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
11 9 (0.13%) SAP Business One
11 9 (0.13%) SAP CO
11 9 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.11%) Sage 50
13 6 (0.085%) JDE EnterpriseOne
Cloud Services
1 1,538 (21.72%) Azure
2 1,148 (16.21%) Microsoft 365
3 915 (12.92%) AWS
4 545 (7.70%) Power Platform
5 335 (4.73%) SaaS
6 325 (4.59%) Entra ID
7 320 (4.52%) GCP
8 179 (2.53%) Serverless
9 162 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
10 153 (2.16%) GitHub
11 143 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
12 134 (1.89%) Power Automate
13 116 (1.64%) PowerApps
14 97 (1.37%) OneDrive
15 96 (1.36%) Amazon S3
16 79 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
17 76 (1.07%) Microsoft Copilot
17 76 (1.07%) PaaS
18 74 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
19 73 (1.03%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 485 (6.85%) Firewall
2 423 (5.97%) DNS
3 367 (5.18%) DHCP
4 305 (4.31%) VPN
5 239 (3.38%) WAN
6 237 (3.35%) TCP/IP
7 224 (3.16%) Wi-Fi
8 219 (3.09%) LAN
9 174 (2.46%) Broadband
10 149 (2.10%) VLAN
11 146 (2.06%) Wireless
12 108 (1.53%) Network Security
13 105 (1.48%) VoIP
14 58 (0.82%) SD-WAN
15 50 (0.71%) Internet
16 47 (0.66%) BGP
17 45 (0.64%) OSPF
18 41 (0.58%) SAN
19 39 (0.55%) HTTP
20 30 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 436 (6.16%) Power BI
2 322 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 137 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
4 106 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
5 105 (1.48%) Tableau
6 104 (1.47%) MySQL
7 100 (1.41%) NoSQL
8 99 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
8 99 (1.40%) Relational Database
9 84 (1.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 77 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 56 (0.79%) Power Query
12 54 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 52 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
14 49 (0.69%) Big Data
15 44 (0.62%) Data Lake
16 38 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
17 33 (0.47%) DynamoDB
18 31 (0.44%) Metadata
19 30 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 289 (4.08%) Git
2 215 (3.04%) JIRA
3 104 (1.47%) Jenkins
4 102 (1.44%) GitLab
5 29 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
6 25 (0.35%) Cucumber
7 24 (0.34%) Selenium
8 21 (0.30%) Cypress.io
8 21 (0.30%) JUnit
9 20 (0.28%) Eclipse
9 20 (0.28%) Subversion
10 18 (0.25%) Visual Studio
11 17 (0.24%) Chocolatey
11 17 (0.24%) SonarQube
12 16 (0.23%) Claude Code
12 16 (0.23%) Maven
13 14 (0.20%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.20%) Metasploit
13 14 (0.20%) Postman
13 14 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 3,342 (47.20%) Social Skills
2 2,026 (28.62%) Analytical Skills
3 1,373 (19.39%) Finance
4 450 (6.36%) Organisational Skills
5 435 (6.14%) Manufacturing
6 374 (5.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 343 (4.84%) Law
8 324 (4.58%) Retail
9 301 (4.25%) Marketing
10 286 (4.04%) Legal
11 280 (3.95%) Public Sector
12 270 (3.81%) Banking
13 157 (2.22%) Telecoms
14 137 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
15 134 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
16 133 (1.88%) Electronics
17 117 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
18 98 (1.38%) Aerospace
19 92 (1.30%) Advertising
20 83 (1.17%) Games
Job Titles
1 912 (12.88%) Analyst
2 863 (12.19%) Senior
3 723 (10.21%) IT Support
4 683 (9.65%) Developer
5 612 (8.64%) Support Engineer
6 432 (6.10%) IT Engineer
7 429 (6.06%) Lead
8 335 (4.73%) IT Support Engineer
9 317 (4.48%) Consultant
10 266 (3.76%) Support Analyst
11 252 (3.56%) Support Technician
12 251 (3.55%) Software Engineer
13 236 (3.33%) Systems Engineer
14 230 (3.25%) Architect
15 211 (2.98%) Technical Support
16 199 (2.81%) IT Technician
17 179 (2.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 171 (2.42%) Data Engineer
19 169 (2.39%) Administrator
20 167 (2.36%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 286 (4.04%) .NET
2 277 (3.91%) React
3 218 (3.08%) HTML
4 201 (2.84%) REST
5 179 (2.53%) CSS
6 148 (2.09%) Node.js
7 141 (1.99%) RESTful
8 105 (1.48%) SOAP
9 102 (1.44%) Middleware
10 88 (1.24%) JSON
11 84 (1.19%) Spring
11 84 (1.19%) Vue
12 81 (1.14%) AngularJS
13 68 (0.96%) XML
14 67 (0.95%) Kafka
15 66 (0.93%) Web Services
16 60 (0.85%) OAuth
17 56 (0.79%) gRPC
18 54 (0.76%) Spring Boot
19 51 (0.72%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 435 (6.14%) Driving Licence
2 417 (5.89%) Onboarding
3 344 (4.86%) Self-Motivation
4 270 (3.81%) Cloud Native
5 258 (3.64%) Management Information System
6 191 (2.70%) Product Ownership
7 173 (2.44%) Data Centre
8 166 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
9 148 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
10 122 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
11 101 (1.43%) Security Posture
12 91 (1.29%) Mobile App
13 88 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
14 86 (1.21%) Data Structures
15 80 (1.13%) Social Media
16 78 (1.10%) Algorithms
17 69 (0.97%) Low-Code
17 69 (0.97%) Public Cloud
18 65 (0.92%) Virtual Team
19 62 (0.88%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,135 (16.03%) Windows
2 494 (6.98%) Windows Server
3 480 (6.78%) Linux
4 177 (2.50%) Windows 10
5 123 (1.74%) Windows Server 2016
6 114 (1.61%) Android
7 94 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 93 (1.31%) Apple iOS
9 63 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
10 44 (0.62%) Unix
11 43 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 31 (0.44%) CentOS
12 31 (0.44%) Ubuntu
13 29 (0.41%) VMS
14 23 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 14 (0.20%) Debian
16 14 (0.20%) Mac OS X
17 7 (0.099%) FreeRTOS
17 7 (0.099%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,488 (21.02%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,101 (15.55%) Agile
3 1,045 (14.76%) Customer Service
4 791 (11.17%) AI
4 791 (11.17%) Mentoring
5 777 (10.97%) CI/CD
6 752 (10.62%) Decision-Making
7 663 (9.36%) Analytics
8 658 (9.29%) DevOps
9 630 (8.90%) Software Engineering
10 617 (8.71%) Stakeholder Management
11 586 (8.28%) ITIL
12 566 (7.99%) Cybersecurity
13 552 (7.80%) Roadmaps
14 528 (7.46%) Computer Science
15 502 (7.09%) Business Intelligence
16 483 (6.82%) Project Management
17 467 (6.60%) Collaborative Working
18 440 (6.21%) Coaching
19 431 (6.09%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 1,108 (15.65%) SQL
2 1,073 (15.16%) Python
3 478 (6.75%) JavaScript
4 377 (5.32%) C#
5 354 (5.00%) Java
6 345 (4.87%) PowerShell
7 223 (3.15%) TypeScript
8 173 (2.44%) Bash
9 167 (2.36%) C++
10 96 (1.36%) PHP
11 91 (1.29%) Go
12 65 (0.92%) C
13 63 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 60 (0.85%) T-SQL
15 55 (0.78%) Scala
16 44 (0.62%) Rust
17 43 (0.61%) PL/SQL
18 40 (0.56%) R
19 37 (0.52%) Kotlin
20 35 (0.49%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,119 (15.81%) Degree
2 572 (8.08%) Security Cleared
3 385 (5.44%) SC Cleared
4 269 (3.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 227 (3.21%) DBS Check
6 196 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 127 (1.79%) CISSP
8 126 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
9 121 (1.71%) DV Cleared
10 110 (1.55%) Azure Certification
11 109 (1.54%) Master's Degree
12 84 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
13 76 (1.07%) CCNA
13 76 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 73 (1.03%) PMP
15 71 (1.00%) A+ Certification
15 71 (1.00%) ACCA
16 66 (0.93%) CIMA
17 63 (0.89%) CISM
18 62 (0.88%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 388 (5.48%) QA
2 336 (4.75%) Data Quality
3 296 (4.18%) GDPR
4 205 (2.90%) SLA
5 200 (2.82%) Cyber Essentials
6 192 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 168 (2.37%) Accessibility
8 151 (2.13%) NIST
9 148 (2.09%) PCI DSS
10 56 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 49 (0.69%) PMO
12 37 (0.52%) ISO 9001
13 33 (0.47%) SOC 2
14 32 (0.45%) GRC
15 28 (0.40%) COBIT
16 21 (0.30%) GMP
17 18 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 16 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
19 15 (0.21%) IFRS
20 14 (0.20%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 785 (11.09%) Active Directory
2 322 (4.55%) Docker
3 260 (3.67%) Hyper-V
4 233 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (0.89%) Terminal Server
6 50 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 36 (0.51%) Firmware
8 34 (0.48%) vSphere
9 30 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.23%) KVM
11 14 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
12 11 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
13 10 (0.14%) IAG
14 7 (0.099%) VMware NSX
14 7 (0.099%) VMware Workstation
14 7 (0.099%) XenApp
15 5 (0.071%) ClearTrust
16 4 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 4 (0.056%) Virtual Servers
17 3 (0.042%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 325 (4.59%) Terraform
2 280 (3.95%) Kubernetes
3 265 (3.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 157 (2.22%) Ansible
5 99 (1.40%) Grafana
6 79 (1.12%) SCCM
7 59 (0.83%) Prometheus
8 34 (0.48%) Nagios
9 31 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 21 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 19 (0.27%) Kibana
12 17 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 17 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
13 14 (0.20%) Argo
13 14 (0.20%) Autotask
13 14 (0.20%) Puppet
14 13 (0.18%) vCenter Server
15 12 (0.17%) logstash
16 11 (0.16%) Kubeflow
16 11 (0.16%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 1,995 (28.18%) Microsoft
2 336 (4.75%) VMware
3 183 (2.58%) Oracle
4 178 (2.51%) Google
5 165 (2.33%) SAP
6 153 (2.16%) Cisco
7 150 (2.12%) Salesforce
8 136 (1.92%) ServiceNow
9 125 (1.77%) SolarWinds
10 121 (1.71%) Veeam
11 114 (1.61%) Splunk
12 108 (1.53%) Databricks
13 79 (1.12%) Apple
14 67 (0.95%) Tanium
15 64 (0.90%) Nimble Storage
16 63 (0.89%) Brocade
17 59 (0.83%) Dell
18 57 (0.81%) Adobe
19 56 (0.79%) Sage
20 55 (0.78%) Red Hat