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

6 months to
15 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 6,378 7,397 11,313
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.69% 18.80% 15.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.43% 20.08% 17.46%
Number of salaries quoted 4,445 4,286 8,019
10th Percentile £26,800 £29,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £38,250 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £75,188 £68,750
90th Percentile £86,250 £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 51,317 36,830 64,787
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 77.99% 93.60% 87.18%
Number of salaries quoted 31,878 20,405 50,590
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,110 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £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 15 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 15 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 -3 1,942 £67,500 +3.85% 964
North of England -18 1,314 £41,955 -10.73% 629
South East -5 1,194 £43,500 -14.65% 827
Midlands -17 856 £37,500 -23.47% 432
North West -17 675 £45,000 -10.00% 349
South West -4 545 £43,500 -13.00% 310
Yorkshire -6 506 £35,000 -19.54% 212
West Midlands -22 505 £42,500 -20.84% 266
East of England -8 418 £40,000 -20.00% 253
East Midlands -2 348 £35,000 -11.39% 165
North East -8 133 £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
1 327 (5.13%) Microsoft Exchange
2 285 (4.47%) SharePoint
3 80 (1.25%) Confluence
4 58 (0.91%) CMS
5 55 (0.86%) Apache
6 44 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
7 43 (0.67%) IIS
8 39 (0.61%) Apache Spark
9 29 (0.45%) WordPress
10 20 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
11 14 (0.22%) SAS
12 11 (0.17%) nginx
13 9 (0.14%) Drupal
14 8 (0.13%) Anypoint
14 8 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2007
15 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
15 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.063%) Apache Solr
16 4 (0.063%) Moodle
Applications
1 442 (6.93%) Microsoft Office
2 342 (5.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 72 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 32 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 18 (0.28%) AutoCAD
7 18 (0.28%) Maya
8 13 (0.20%) Photoshop
9 10 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
9 10 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
10 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.078%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.063%) Fusion 360
12 4 (0.063%) Trello
13 3 (0.047%) CATIA
13 3 (0.047%) Elementor
13 3 (0.047%) InDesign
13 3 (0.047%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 61 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
2 46 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 32 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 17 (0.27%) Endur
5 17 (0.27%) SAP CO
5 17 (0.27%) Shopify
6 14 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
7 10 (0.16%) iTrent
7 10 (0.16%) Maximo
7 10 (0.16%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.16%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
9 7 (0.11%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 7 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
9 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 1,377 (21.59%) Azure
2 972 (15.24%) Microsoft 365
3 780 (12.23%) AWS
4 452 (7.09%) Power Platform
5 379 (5.94%) SaaS
6 278 (4.36%) GCP
7 277 (4.34%) Entra ID
8 171 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
9 166 (2.60%) GitHub
10 162 (2.54%) Serverless
11 125 (1.96%) Power Automate
12 103 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
13 94 (1.47%) Google Workspace
14 89 (1.40%) Amazon S3
15 83 (1.30%) PowerApps
16 81 (1.27%) AWS CloudFormation
16 81 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
17 75 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
18 71 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
18 71 (1.11%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 406 (6.37%) DNS
2 382 (5.99%) Firewall
3 342 (5.36%) DHCP
4 239 (3.75%) VPN
5 213 (3.34%) TCP/IP
6 211 (3.31%) WAN
7 202 (3.17%) Wi-Fi
8 176 (2.76%) LAN
9 175 (2.74%) Broadband
10 124 (1.94%) VLAN
11 94 (1.47%) Wireless
12 89 (1.40%) VoIP
13 68 (1.07%) SD-WAN
14 50 (0.78%) Network Security
15 48 (0.75%) Remote Desktop
16 43 (0.67%) Internet
17 42 (0.66%) SAN
18 32 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
19 29 (0.45%) BGP
20 28 (0.44%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 372 (5.83%) Power BI
2 276 (4.33%) SQL Server
3 138 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
4 126 (1.98%) Tableau
5 120 (1.88%) NoSQL
6 114 (1.79%) Relational Database
7 109 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
8 93 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
9 89 (1.40%) MySQL
10 67 (1.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 55 (0.86%) MongoDB
12 52 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
13 50 (0.78%) Metadata
13 50 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 47 (0.74%) DynamoDB
15 46 (0.72%) Power Query
16 44 (0.69%) Data Lake
17 43 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
18 38 (0.60%) Big Data
19 26 (0.41%) Redis
Development Applications
1 282 (4.42%) Git
2 233 (3.65%) JIRA
3 107 (1.68%) Jenkins
4 97 (1.52%) GitLab
5 52 (0.82%) Selenium
6 30 (0.47%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.36%) Cypress.io
8 20 (0.31%) TeamCity
9 19 (0.30%) Burp Suite
9 19 (0.30%) LabVIEW
9 19 (0.30%) Maven
9 19 (0.30%) Metasploit
10 18 (0.28%) Robot Framework
11 16 (0.25%) Bitbucket
11 16 (0.25%) CircleCI
11 16 (0.25%) Octopus Deploy
12 15 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.24%) JUnit
12 15 (0.24%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
General
1 3,177 (49.81%) Social Skills
2 1,927 (30.21%) Analytical Skills
3 1,419 (22.25%) Finance
4 442 (6.93%) Organisational Skills
5 365 (5.72%) Marketing
6 333 (5.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 312 (4.89%) Retail
8 305 (4.78%) Law
9 297 (4.66%) Banking
10 292 (4.58%) Public Sector
11 291 (4.56%) Legal
12 269 (4.22%) Manufacturing
13 172 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
14 166 (2.60%) Telecoms
15 134 (2.10%) Electronics
16 105 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
17 103 (1.61%) Games
18 87 (1.36%) Financial Institution
19 80 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
20 78 (1.22%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 954 (14.96%) Analyst
2 749 (11.74%) IT Support
3 743 (11.65%) Senior
4 648 (10.16%) Support Engineer
5 597 (9.36%) Developer
6 370 (5.80%) Lead
7 368 (5.77%) IT Engineer
8 317 (4.97%) Support Analyst
9 312 (4.89%) IT Support Engineer
10 253 (3.97%) Consultant
11 222 (3.48%) Business Analyst
12 220 (3.45%) Technical Support
13 209 (3.28%) Architect
14 205 (3.21%) Support Technician
15 201 (3.15%) 2nd Line Support
16 171 (2.68%) Software Engineer
17 169 (2.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 160 (2.51%) Technical Engineer
19 155 (2.43%) IT Analyst
20 150 (2.35%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 259 (4.06%) .NET
2 256 (4.01%) React
3 211 (3.31%) HTML
4 169 (2.65%) CSS
5 156 (2.45%) Node.js
6 124 (1.94%) REST
7 111 (1.74%) RESTful
8 73 (1.14%) AngularJS
9 68 (1.07%) Middleware
9 68 (1.07%) Spring
10 67 (1.05%) Vue
11 65 (1.02%) Kafka
12 58 (0.91%) JSON
12 58 (0.91%) SOAP
13 57 (0.89%) Django
14 56 (0.88%) XML
15 49 (0.77%) Flask
16 48 (0.75%) .NET Framework
17 47 (0.74%) Spring Boot
18 44 (0.69%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 490 (7.68%) Driving Licence
2 453 (7.10%) Onboarding
3 398 (6.24%) Self-Motivation
4 206 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 176 (2.76%) Cloud Native
6 151 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
7 141 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
8 131 (2.05%) Product Ownership
9 129 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
10 117 (1.83%) Data Centre
11 108 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
12 100 (1.57%) Mobile App
13 93 (1.46%) Social Media
14 83 (1.30%) Data Structures
15 69 (1.08%) Low-Code
16 58 (0.91%) Algorithms
16 58 (0.91%) Security Posture
17 54 (0.85%) Virtual Team
18 51 (0.80%) EPoS
19 47 (0.74%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 1,111 (17.42%) Windows
2 428 (6.71%) Windows Server
3 400 (6.27%) Linux
4 168 (2.63%) Windows 10
5 117 (1.83%) Windows Server 2016
6 114 (1.79%) Android
7 94 (1.47%) Mac OS
8 80 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 60 (0.94%) Unix
10 56 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
12 33 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 24 (0.38%) CentOS
13 24 (0.38%) Windows 7
14 20 (0.31%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.24%) VMS
16 11 (0.17%) Windows 8
17 10 (0.16%) Mac OS X
18 7 (0.11%) Debian
19 5 (0.078%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,159 (18.17%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,046 (16.40%) Agile
3 948 (14.86%) Customer Service
4 687 (10.77%) Mentoring
5 654 (10.25%) Decision-Making
6 652 (10.22%) AI
7 642 (10.07%) CI/CD
8 635 (9.96%) Analytics
9 604 (9.47%) DevOps
10 566 (8.87%) ITIL
11 563 (8.83%) Project Management
12 521 (8.17%) Business Intelligence
13 500 (7.84%) Computer Science
14 489 (7.67%) Stakeholder Management
15 437 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
16 433 (6.79%) Software Engineering
17 377 (5.91%) Coaching
18 371 (5.82%) Process Improvement
18 371 (5.82%) Roadmaps
19 366 (5.74%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 965 (15.13%) Python
2 901 (14.13%) SQL
3 423 (6.63%) JavaScript
4 322 (5.05%) PowerShell
5 318 (4.99%) Java
6 286 (4.48%) C#
7 181 (2.84%) TypeScript
8 153 (2.40%) Bash
9 86 (1.35%) PHP
10 78 (1.22%) Go
11 76 (1.19%) C++
12 66 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 58 (0.91%) Scala
14 45 (0.71%) T-SQL
15 42 (0.66%) C
16 40 (0.63%) Kotlin
17 36 (0.56%) R
18 33 (0.52%) Apex Code
19 27 (0.42%) Bicep
20 26 (0.41%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,312 (20.57%) Degree
2 484 (7.59%) Security Cleared
3 298 (4.67%) SC Cleared
4 245 (3.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 187 (2.93%) Microsoft Certification
6 179 (2.81%) DBS Check
7 122 (1.91%) Master's Degree
8 118 (1.85%) DV Cleared
9 105 (1.65%) CISSP
10 86 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
11 84 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
12 82 (1.29%) ACCA
13 79 (1.24%) A+ Certification
14 72 (1.13%) CIMA
15 64 (1.00%) PMI Certification
16 61 (0.96%) CCNA
16 61 (0.96%) Network+ Certification
17 56 (0.88%) AWS Certification
18 51 (0.80%) Azure Certification
19 50 (0.78%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 303 (4.75%) QA
2 259 (4.06%) Data Quality
3 232 (3.64%) GDPR
4 160 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 158 (2.48%) Cyber Essentials
6 137 (2.15%) SLA
7 129 (2.02%) Accessibility
8 123 (1.93%) PCI DSS
9 109 (1.71%) NIST
10 48 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 33 (0.52%) ISO 9001
12 29 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 28 (0.44%) SOC 2
14 22 (0.34%) PMO
15 21 (0.33%) GRC
16 20 (0.31%) COBIT
17 13 (0.20%) GMP
18 10 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.16%) WCAG
19 9 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 742 (11.63%) Active Directory
2 303 (4.75%) Docker
3 230 (3.61%) Hyper-V
4 161 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (0.99%) Terminal Server
6 29 (0.45%) Firmware
6 29 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 29 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.25%) vSphere
8 13 (0.20%) KVM
9 11 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
11 7 (0.11%) IAG
11 7 (0.11%) XenApp
12 6 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.063%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 2 (0.031%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.031%) vCloud
14 2 (0.031%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.016%) OpenDJ
Systems Management
1 284 (4.45%) Terraform
2 270 (4.23%) Microsoft Intune
3 226 (3.54%) Kubernetes
4 150 (2.35%) Ansible
5 90 (1.41%) Grafana
6 78 (1.22%) SCCM
7 59 (0.93%) Prometheus
8 32 (0.50%) BMC PATROL
9 29 (0.45%) Nagios
10 26 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
11 23 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 20 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.24%) Argo
13 15 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
14 14 (0.22%) Autotask
15 13 (0.20%) vCenter Server
16 12 (0.19%) Kibana
16 12 (0.19%) ZABBIX
17 11 (0.17%) FortiGate
17 11 (0.17%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,673 (26.23%) Microsoft
2 270 (4.23%) VMware
3 212 (3.32%) Oracle
4 192 (3.01%) SAP
5 165 (2.59%) Google
6 149 (2.34%) Cisco
7 148 (2.32%) Salesforce
8 128 (2.01%) Veeam
9 125 (1.96%) ServiceNow
10 121 (1.90%) SolarWinds
11 118 (1.85%) Splunk
12 107 (1.68%) Databricks
13 91 (1.43%) Adobe
14 84 (1.32%) Apple
15 64 (1.00%) Tanium
16 63 (0.99%) Brocade
16 63 (0.99%) Nimble Storage
17 56 (0.88%) Dell
17 56 (0.88%) Sage
18 48 (0.75%) Red Hat