Problem-Solving Job Trends in the North West

Problem Solving
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 6 9
Rank change year-on-year -12 +3 +13
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 686 842 590
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 10.90% 16.64% 13.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.40% 18.28% 15.03%
Number of salaries quoted 516 400 400
10th Percentile £26,750 £31,200 £26,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £36,250 £32,092
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,842 £49,482 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.32% +4.17% -
75th Percentile £53,000 £61,028 £61,519
90th Percentile £65,000 £77,500 £72,625
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year -18.18% +0.92% -0.91%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

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 the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,121 4,605 3,926
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 81.38% 91.03% 87.56%
Number of salaries quoted 2,498 2,254 3,048
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,114 £30,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,354 £68,750
90th Percentile £81,250 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the North West

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the North West over the 6 months to 11 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in the North West

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the North West region over the 6 months to 11 January 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
Manchester -17 265 £45,000 -10.00% 156
Cheshire -11 143 £53,000 +32.50% 82
Merseyside +4 128 £48,720 +49.91% 40
Lancashire -7 102 £45,000 -14.29% 87
Cumbria +7 46 £45,000 +7.14% 4
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 37 (5.39%) SharePoint
2 17 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.02%) WordPress
4 5 (0.73%) Confluence
5 4 (0.58%) Camunda
6 3 (0.44%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.29%) Apache Solr
7 2 (0.29%) FactoryTalk
7 2 (0.29%) nginx
7 2 (0.29%) WinCC
8 1 (0.15%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.15%) Apache
8 1 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
Applications
1 33 (4.81%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.44%) Simulink
5 2 (0.29%) AutoCAD
5 2 (0.29%) Revit
6 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (1.17%) SAP Business One
2 2 (0.29%) NetSuite
2 2 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
2 2 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
2 2 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
2 2 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.15%) Primavera
3 1 (0.15%) SAP WM
3 1 (0.15%) Shopify
3 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.15%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 113 (16.47%) Azure
2 78 (11.37%) Microsoft 365
3 66 (9.62%) AWS
4 51 (7.43%) Entra ID
5 47 (6.85%) Power Platform
6 35 (5.10%) GCP
7 33 (4.81%) SaaS
8 15 (2.19%) OneDrive
9 12 (1.75%) Microsoft Purview
9 12 (1.75%) Power Automate
9 12 (1.75%) Serverless
10 10 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
11 8 (1.17%) PaaS
12 7 (1.02%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (1.02%) IaaS
13 6 (0.87%) Adobe Analytics
13 6 (0.87%) Cloud Computing
13 6 (0.87%) Figma
13 6 (0.87%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (0.87%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.23%) Firewall
2 21 (3.06%) DNS
3 19 (2.77%) DHCP
4 16 (2.33%) Unified Communications
4 16 (2.33%) VoIP
5 14 (2.04%) Telepresence
5 14 (2.04%) WebEx
6 13 (1.90%) TCP/IP
7 12 (1.75%) VPN
8 11 (1.60%) VLAN
8 11 (1.60%) Wireless
9 9 (1.31%) WAN
9 9 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
10 7 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 6 (0.87%) Broadband
11 6 (0.87%) LAN
11 6 (0.87%) Structured Cabling
12 4 (0.58%) SD-WAN
13 3 (0.44%) Internet
13 3 (0.44%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (5.39%) Power BI
2 20 (2.92%) SQL Server
3 14 (2.04%) NoSQL
4 13 (1.90%) Tableau
5 10 (1.46%) MongoDB
5 10 (1.46%) MySQL
6 9 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (1.17%) Crystal Reports
8 7 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 6 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
10 5 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (0.73%) Big Data
10 5 (0.73%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.73%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.58%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.58%) Looker
11 4 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.44%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.44%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 20 (2.92%) Git
2 12 (1.75%) GitLab
3 7 (1.02%) Bitbucket
3 7 (1.02%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.02%) JIRA
4 5 (0.73%) SonarQube
4 5 (0.73%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.58%) LabVIEW
6 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
General
1 291 (42.42%) Social Skills
2 166 (24.20%) Analytical Skills
3 143 (20.85%) Finance
4 48 (7.00%) Automotive
5 32 (4.66%) Legal
6 30 (4.37%) Organisational Skills
7 23 (3.35%) Telecoms
8 22 (3.21%) Retail
9 21 (3.06%) Public Sector
10 20 (2.92%) Manufacturing
10 20 (2.92%) Presentation Skills
11 19 (2.77%) Electronics
12 17 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (2.48%) Law
13 16 (2.33%) Banking
14 15 (2.19%) Marketing
15 14 (2.04%) Advertising
16 13 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
17 9 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (1.17%) Games
Job Titles
1 85 (12.39%) Analyst
2 67 (9.77%) IT Support
3 61 (8.89%) Support Engineer
4 56 (8.16%) Senior
5 45 (6.56%) Lead
6 43 (6.27%) Developer
7 33 (4.81%) Business Analyst
8 30 (4.37%) Trainee
9 26 (3.79%) Trainee Analyst
9 26 (3.79%) Trainee Business Analyst
10 24 (3.50%) Systems Engineer
11 23 (3.35%) Architect
12 22 (3.21%) IT Engineer
12 22 (3.21%) IT Support Engineer
12 22 (3.21%) Support Technician
13 21 (3.06%) Consultant
14 20 (2.92%) Team Leader
15 19 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
16 18 (2.62%) Administrator
17 17 (2.48%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (2.92%) React
2 15 (2.19%) HTML
3 12 (1.75%) .NET
4 11 (1.60%) RESTful
5 10 (1.46%) CSS
5 10 (1.46%) REST
5 10 (1.46%) Spring
6 9 (1.31%) Node.js
6 9 (1.31%) Spring Boot
7 7 (1.02%) Hibernate
7 7 (1.02%) Vue
8 6 (0.87%) AngularJS
8 6 (0.87%) Laravel
8 6 (0.87%) Oracle Fusion
9 5 (0.73%) Django
10 4 (0.58%) Celery
10 4 (0.58%) Flask
10 4 (0.58%) JSON
10 4 (0.58%) RabbitMQ
10 4 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 186 (27.11%) Driving Licence
2 48 (7.00%) Onboarding
3 30 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
4 22 (3.21%) Analytical Mindset
5 21 (3.06%) EPoS
6 20 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
7 14 (2.04%) CCTV
8 13 (1.90%) Cloud Native
9 12 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
10 10 (1.46%) IoT
10 10 (1.46%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.17%) Video Conferencing
12 7 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (1.02%) Product Ownership
12 7 (1.02%) SCADA
12 7 (1.02%) Virtual Team
13 6 (0.87%) Greenfield Project
13 6 (0.87%) Home Automation
13 6 (0.87%) Life Science
13 6 (0.87%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 84 (12.24%) Windows
2 29 (4.23%) Windows Server
3 19 (2.77%) Linux
4 11 (1.60%) Windows 10
5 6 (0.87%) Android
6 5 (0.73%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.58%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.58%) Windows 7
7 4 (0.58%) Windows 8
8 2 (0.29%) Unix
9 1 (0.15%) CentOS
9 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.15%) Solaris
9 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (14.58%) Continuous Improvement
2 96 (13.99%) Agile
3 87 (12.68%) Decision-Making
4 79 (11.52%) Customer Service
5 73 (10.64%) Project Management
6 71 (10.35%) Mentoring
7 57 (8.31%) AI
8 54 (7.87%) Stakeholder Management
9 53 (7.73%) DevOps
10 49 (7.14%) Cybersecurity
11 42 (6.12%) Coaching
12 41 (5.98%) Business Intelligence
12 41 (5.98%) Change Management
12 41 (5.98%) ITIL
13 40 (5.83%) Analytics
13 40 (5.83%) CI/CD
13 40 (5.83%) Collaborative Culture
13 40 (5.83%) CRM
14 34 (4.96%) Business Strategy
14 34 (4.96%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 74 (10.79%) SQL
2 39 (5.69%) Python
3 24 (3.50%) Java
4 19 (2.77%) JavaScript
5 12 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.60%) C#
7 10 (1.46%) MATLAB
7 10 (1.46%) PHP
8 9 (1.31%) TypeScript
9 7 (1.02%) Go
10 5 (0.73%) Elixir
10 5 (0.73%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.73%) Ruby
11 4 (0.58%) Bash
11 4 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.58%) Scala
12 3 (0.44%) Ladder Logic
13 2 (0.29%) Bicep
13 2 (0.29%) R
13 2 (0.29%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 141 (20.55%) Degree
2 30 (4.37%) BPSS Clearance
3 22 (3.21%) DBS Check
4 19 (2.77%) Master's Degree
5 17 (2.48%) Security Cleared
6 13 (1.90%) SC Cleared
7 10 (1.46%) Azure Certification
7 10 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.17%) A+ Certification
8 8 (1.17%) HNC
9 7 (1.02%) ACCA
9 7 (1.02%) CIMA
9 7 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.02%) NVQ Level 4
10 6 (0.87%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (0.58%) HND
11 4 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.58%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (0.44%) CCNA
12 3 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.08%) QA
2 19 (2.77%) Data Quality
3 17 (2.48%) GDPR
4 10 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials
5 9 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.17%) Accessibility
7 7 (1.02%) SLA
8 6 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 5 (0.73%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 5 (0.73%) GLBA
9 5 (0.73%) PMO
10 2 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.29%) COBIT
10 2 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.29%) ITGC
10 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) ISO 14001
11 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.15%) NIST
System Software
1 65 (9.48%) Active Directory
2 28 (4.08%) Docker
3 17 (2.48%) Hyper-V
4 5 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.44%) Firmware
5 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.44%) VMware Workstation
6 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.15%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 42 (6.12%) BMC PATROL
2 33 (4.81%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (3.35%) Kubernetes
3 23 (3.35%) Terraform
4 14 (2.04%) Cisco CUCM
5 10 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (1.02%) Ansible
6 7 (1.02%) SCCM
7 4 (0.58%) Autotask
7 4 (0.58%) Grafana
7 4 (0.58%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.44%) cPanel
8 3 (0.44%) Plesk
9 2 (0.29%) AssetCenter
9 2 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.29%) Rancher
10 1 (0.15%) Argo
10 1 (0.15%) AWS Copilot
10 1 (0.15%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 125 (18.22%) Microsoft
2 27 (3.94%) Oracle
3 19 (2.77%) Cisco
4 17 (2.48%) SAP
4 17 (2.48%) ServiceNow
5 16 (2.33%) Workday
6 12 (1.75%) Siemens
7 11 (1.60%) VMware
8 10 (1.46%) Google
9 8 (1.17%) HubSpot
9 8 (1.17%) New Relic
9 8 (1.17%) Splunk
10 6 (0.87%) Adobe
10 6 (0.87%) BiZZdesign
10 6 (0.87%) iManage
10 6 (0.87%) Qualtrics
11 5 (0.73%) Apple
11 5 (0.73%) Facebook
11 5 (0.73%) SnapLogic
12 4 (0.58%) EXASOL