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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 8
Rank change year-on-year -5 +4 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,551 7,809 10,135
As % of all permanent jobs in England 10.68% 18.31% 15.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.51% 19.70% 17.23%
Number of salaries quoted 4,517 3,940 7,350
10th Percentile £26,750 £30,225 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,000 £40,000 £33,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,640 £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% -11.44%

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 48,506 39,645 58,832
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 79.09% 92.95% 88.22%
Number of salaries quoted 29,755 20,008 46,455
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,000 £29,750
25th Percentile £39,000 £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 25 February 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 25 February 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 -2 1,908 £67,500 +3.85% 815
North of England -16 1,370 £42,500 -10.53% 606
South East -3 1,280 £42,500 -19.05% 825
Midlands -15 869 £37,500 -28.57% 420
North West -16 731 £46,000 -8.00% 340
South West -3 589 £40,000 -23.81% 273
West Midlands -20 505 £42,500 -22.73% 258
Yorkshire -6 499 £36,500 -15.99% 200
East of England -6 426 £40,000 -21.52% 275
East Midlands -1 361 £35,000 -5.41% 162
North East -5 140 £45,000 - 81
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
1 346 (5.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 284 (4.34%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.21%) Confluence
4 58 (0.89%) Apache
5 49 (0.75%) IIS
6 46 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
7 45 (0.69%) CMS
8 42 (0.64%) Apache Spark
9 31 (0.47%) WordPress
10 16 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
11 12 (0.18%) nginx
12 10 (0.15%) SAS
13 9 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 7 (0.11%) Drupal
15 6 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2007
15 6 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.061%) Apache Solr
16 4 (0.061%) Moodle
Applications
1 439 (6.70%) Microsoft Office
2 378 (5.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 80 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 39 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
7 26 (0.40%) Maya
8 17 (0.26%) AutoCAD
9 13 (0.20%) Photoshop
10 10 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 10 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
11 9 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
12 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.076%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.076%) Trello
14 4 (0.061%) Adobe Premiere
14 4 (0.061%) CATIA
14 4 (0.061%) Fusion 360
15 3 (0.046%) Elementor
15 3 (0.046%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 88 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 19 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 18 (0.27%) SAP CO
6 17 (0.26%) Endur
6 17 (0.26%) Shopify
7 14 (0.21%) Dynamics NAV
8 11 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.15%) iTrent
9 10 (0.15%) Workday HCM
10 9 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.14%) SAP Business One
10 9 (0.14%) SAP FI
10 9 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
11 8 (0.12%) Maximo
11 8 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
12 7 (0.11%) Exchequer
12 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 1,429 (21.81%) Azure
2 1,005 (15.34%) Microsoft 365
3 763 (11.65%) AWS
4 483 (7.37%) Power Platform
5 372 (5.68%) SaaS
6 284 (4.34%) Entra ID
7 256 (3.91%) GCP
8 180 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
9 162 (2.47%) GitHub
10 158 (2.41%) Serverless
11 132 (2.01%) Power Automate
12 109 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
13 92 (1.40%) Google Workspace
14 86 (1.31%) Amazon S3
15 85 (1.30%) PowerApps
16 80 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
17 79 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
18 71 (1.08%) PaaS
19 66 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
20 64 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 441 (6.73%) DNS
2 382 (5.83%) DHCP
3 370 (5.65%) Firewall
4 241 (3.68%) VPN
5 206 (3.14%) TCP/IP
6 205 (3.13%) Wi-Fi
7 204 (3.11%) WAN
8 170 (2.60%) LAN
9 135 (2.06%) Broadband
10 127 (1.94%) VLAN
11 95 (1.45%) Wireless
12 94 (1.43%) VoIP
13 65 (0.99%) SD-WAN
14 52 (0.79%) Internet
14 52 (0.79%) Remote Desktop
15 50 (0.76%) Network Security
16 47 (0.72%) SAN
17 30 (0.46%) BGP
17 30 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
18 29 (0.44%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 392 (5.98%) Power BI
2 280 (4.27%) SQL Server
3 146 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 134 (2.05%) Tableau
5 132 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 126 (1.92%) Amazon RDS
7 118 (1.80%) NoSQL
8 108 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
9 91 (1.39%) MySQL
10 69 (1.05%) Data Lake
11 67 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 57 (0.87%) MongoDB
13 56 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
14 52 (0.79%) Metadata
15 47 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 46 (0.70%) DynamoDB
17 42 (0.64%) Power Query
18 41 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
19 40 (0.61%) Big Data
20 26 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 275 (4.20%) Git
2 232 (3.54%) JIRA
3 104 (1.59%) Jenkins
4 91 (1.39%) GitLab
5 55 (0.84%) Selenium
6 25 (0.38%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.34%) Cypress.io
8 20 (0.31%) Maven
9 19 (0.29%) Burp Suite
9 19 (0.29%) Metasploit
9 19 (0.29%) TeamCity
10 18 (0.27%) Bitbucket
10 18 (0.27%) LabVIEW
10 18 (0.27%) Robot Framework
11 16 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.24%) Octopus Deploy
11 16 (0.24%) SonarQube
12 15 (0.23%) JUnit
13 14 (0.21%) Snyk
14 13 (0.20%) CircleCI
General
1 3,356 (51.23%) Social Skills
2 1,995 (30.45%) Analytical Skills
3 1,501 (22.91%) Finance
4 429 (6.55%) Organisational Skills
5 365 (5.57%) Marketing
6 336 (5.13%) Law
7 320 (4.88%) Retail
8 312 (4.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 303 (4.63%) Manufacturing
10 293 (4.47%) Public Sector
11 290 (4.43%) Legal
12 274 (4.18%) Banking
13 187 (2.85%) Telecoms
14 182 (2.78%) Presentation Skills
15 148 (2.26%) Electronics
16 108 (1.65%) Games
17 102 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
18 89 (1.36%) Automotive
19 87 (1.33%) Financial Institution
20 85 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 994 (15.17%) Analyst
2 817 (12.47%) Senior
3 765 (11.68%) IT Support
4 651 (9.94%) Support Engineer
5 590 (9.01%) Developer
6 403 (6.15%) Lead
7 356 (5.43%) IT Engineer
8 335 (5.11%) Support Analyst
9 300 (4.58%) IT Support Engineer
10 247 (3.77%) Consultant
11 245 (3.74%) Technical Support
12 235 (3.59%) Business Analyst
13 222 (3.39%) Architect
14 202 (3.08%) Support Technician
15 193 (2.95%) 2nd Line Support
16 175 (2.67%) Technical Engineer
17 171 (2.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 169 (2.58%) IT Analyst
19 167 (2.55%) Technical Support Engineer
20 164 (2.50%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (4.14%) .NET
2 257 (3.92%) React
3 234 (3.57%) HTML
4 184 (2.81%) CSS
5 149 (2.27%) Node.js
6 137 (2.09%) REST
7 111 (1.69%) RESTful
8 82 (1.25%) AngularJS
9 70 (1.07%) Middleware
10 68 (1.04%) Spring
10 68 (1.04%) Vue
11 63 (0.96%) Kafka
11 63 (0.96%) SOAP
12 61 (0.93%) JSON
13 57 (0.87%) XML
14 53 (0.81%) Django
15 52 (0.79%) .NET Framework
16 48 (0.73%) Flask
17 45 (0.69%) Spring Boot
18 44 (0.67%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 553 (8.44%) Driving Licence
2 481 (7.34%) Onboarding
3 420 (6.41%) Self-Motivation
4 213 (3.25%) Management Information System
5 190 (2.90%) Analytical Mindset
6 174 (2.66%) Cloud Native
7 171 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
8 144 (2.20%) Data Centre
9 142 (2.17%) Product Ownership
10 111 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
11 100 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
12 94 (1.43%) Mobile App
13 79 (1.21%) Social Media
14 73 (1.11%) Low-Code
15 71 (1.08%) Data Structures
16 62 (0.95%) Algorithms
17 59 (0.90%) Virtual Team
18 55 (0.84%) EPoS
19 54 (0.82%) Security Posture
20 53 (0.81%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 1,145 (17.48%) Windows
2 460 (7.02%) Windows Server
3 430 (6.56%) Linux
4 162 (2.47%) Windows 10
5 143 (2.18%) Windows Server 2016
6 109 (1.66%) Android
7 97 (1.48%) Mac OS
8 80 (1.22%) Apple iOS
9 59 (0.90%) Unix
10 54 (0.82%) Windows Server 2019
11 32 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
12 31 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 26 (0.40%) Windows 7
14 20 (0.31%) CentOS
15 16 (0.24%) VMS
16 15 (0.23%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.15%) Windows 8
18 9 (0.14%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.12%) Debian
20 4 (0.061%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,152 (17.59%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,049 (16.01%) Agile
3 983 (15.01%) Customer Service
4 687 (10.49%) Analytics
5 673 (10.27%) Mentoring
6 638 (9.74%) AI
7 637 (9.72%) Decision-Making
8 602 (9.19%) Project Management
9 601 (9.17%) DevOps
10 600 (9.16%) CI/CD
11 564 (8.61%) Business Intelligence
12 543 (8.29%) ITIL
13 528 (8.06%) Computer Science
14 502 (7.66%) Stakeholder Management
15 468 (7.14%) Cybersecurity
16 421 (6.43%) Change Management
17 406 (6.20%) Software Engineering
18 394 (6.01%) ERP
19 386 (5.89%) CRM
20 376 (5.74%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 937 (14.30%) Python
2 932 (14.23%) SQL
3 419 (6.40%) JavaScript
4 328 (5.01%) PowerShell
5 320 (4.88%) Java
6 305 (4.66%) C#
7 172 (2.63%) TypeScript
8 145 (2.21%) Bash
9 95 (1.45%) PHP
10 75 (1.14%) C++
11 63 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 58 (0.89%) Go
13 47 (0.72%) C
14 45 (0.69%) Scala
14 45 (0.69%) T-SQL
15 36 (0.55%) R
16 32 (0.49%) Kotlin
17 30 (0.46%) Apex Code
18 28 (0.43%) Bicep
19 24 (0.37%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,430 (21.83%) Degree
2 544 (8.30%) Security Cleared
3 355 (5.42%) SC Cleared
4 242 (3.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 185 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
6 165 (2.52%) DBS Check
7 154 (2.35%) Master's Degree
8 115 (1.76%) DV Cleared
9 109 (1.66%) CISSP
10 98 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
11 85 (1.30%) ACCA
12 83 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
13 82 (1.25%) A+ Certification
14 71 (1.08%) CIMA
15 67 (1.02%) Network+ Certification
16 63 (0.96%) PMI Certification
17 56 (0.85%) AWS Certification
17 56 (0.85%) CCNA
17 56 (0.85%) CISM
18 50 (0.76%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 314 (4.79%) QA
2 275 (4.20%) Data Quality
3 227 (3.47%) GDPR
4 193 (2.95%) Cyber Essentials
5 170 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 149 (2.27%) PCI DSS
7 140 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 131 (2.00%) SLA
9 95 (1.45%) NIST
10 49 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.49%) ISO 9001
12 28 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
13 24 (0.37%) SOC 2
14 19 (0.29%) COBIT
14 19 (0.29%) PMO
15 18 (0.27%) GRC
16 11 (0.17%) WCAG
17 10 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 9 (0.14%) GMP
18 9 (0.14%) ITGC
System Software
1 791 (12.07%) Active Directory
2 286 (4.37%) Docker
3 268 (4.09%) Hyper-V
4 158 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
5 98 (1.50%) Terminal Server
6 27 (0.41%) Firmware
6 27 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 24 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.26%) vSphere
9 15 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.17%) KVM
11 9 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 7 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.092%) IAG
14 4 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.061%) XenApp
15 3 (0.046%) vCloud
15 3 (0.046%) VMware NSX
16 2 (0.031%) Postfix
16 2 (0.031%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 284 (4.34%) Terraform
2 279 (4.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 220 (3.36%) Kubernetes
4 147 (2.24%) Ansible
5 82 (1.25%) Grafana
6 73 (1.11%) SCCM
7 54 (0.82%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.64%) BMC PATROL
9 29 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 22 (0.34%) Nagios
11 20 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.23%) Argo
14 14 (0.21%) Cisco CUCM
14 14 (0.21%) vCenter Server
15 12 (0.18%) Autotask
15 12 (0.18%) Kibana
16 11 (0.17%) Nessus
16 11 (0.17%) ZABBIX
17 10 (0.15%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,714 (26.16%) Microsoft
2 309 (4.72%) VMware
3 294 (4.49%) SAP
4 236 (3.60%) Oracle
5 162 (2.47%) Veeam
6 161 (2.46%) Google
7 159 (2.43%) Salesforce
8 152 (2.32%) Cisco
9 150 (2.29%) Splunk
10 149 (2.27%) SolarWinds
11 123 (1.88%) ServiceNow
12 104 (1.59%) Databricks
13 99 (1.51%) Adobe
13 99 (1.51%) Tanium
14 98 (1.50%) Brocade
14 98 (1.50%) Nimble Storage
15 79 (1.21%) Apple
16 58 (0.89%) Dell
17 56 (0.85%) Sage
18 51 (0.78%) HubSpot