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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -7 0 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 799 1,036 1,221
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 6.96% 20.09% 13.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.75% 22.07% 17.75%
Number of salaries quoted 630 513 640
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,017 £26,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,625 £46,000 £47,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.82% -2.13% -1.05%
75th Percentile £61,063 £61,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £73,875
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%

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 8,194 4,694 6,877
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 71.41% 91.04% 78.14%
Number of salaries quoted 6,269 2,293 4,813
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £29,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,055 £51,364
Median % change year-on-year +9.88% -2.55% -6.61%
75th Percentile £75,000 £67,500 £65,603
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,200 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £56,185 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.79% +2.16% -11.29%

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 29 July 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 29 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
Manchester -12 422 £50,000 - 174
Merseyside -7 135 £42,500 -7.61% 49
Cheshire -9 134 £41,000 +9.33% 81
Lancashire 0 73 £40,000 +18.64% 70
Cumbria -6 29 £32,500 -0.31% 8
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 69 (8.64%) SharePoint
2 53 (6.63%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.38%) IIS
4 5 (0.63%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.63%) Confluence
5 3 (0.38%) Moodle
5 3 (0.38%) Totara
6 2 (0.25%) Apache
6 2 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.25%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.25%) nginx
6 2 (0.25%) WordPress
7 1 (0.13%) CMS
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.13%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 49 (6.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (4.01%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.88%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.25%) Windchill
7 1 (0.13%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.13%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 22 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.63%) SAP ERP
3 7 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.75%) Magento
5 4 (0.50%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.50%) SAP PP
6 3 (0.38%) NEC Housing
6 3 (0.38%) Shopify
7 2 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.13%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.13%) Odoo
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.13%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 184 (23.03%) Azure
2 160 (20.03%) Microsoft 365
3 96 (12.02%) AWS
4 95 (11.89%) Power Platform
5 43 (5.38%) PowerApps
6 33 (4.13%) Power Automate
7 31 (3.88%) GCP
8 30 (3.75%) SaaS
9 28 (3.50%) Dynamics 365
10 27 (3.38%) GitHub
10 27 (3.38%) Microsoft Copilot
11 26 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
11 26 (3.25%) Entra ID
12 24 (3.00%) OneDrive
13 21 (2.63%) Microsoft Purview
14 15 (1.88%) Serverless
15 12 (1.50%) Boomi
16 10 (1.25%) Copilot Studio
16 10 (1.25%) Snowflake
17 9 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 66 (8.26%) Firewall
2 50 (6.26%) DNS
3 46 (5.76%) DHCP
4 37 (4.63%) TCP/IP
5 35 (4.38%) VPN
6 30 (3.75%) VLAN
7 27 (3.38%) Wi-Fi
7 27 (3.38%) Wireless
8 25 (3.13%) VoIP
9 21 (2.63%) Network Security
10 18 (2.25%) WAN
11 17 (2.13%) Broadband
11 17 (2.13%) LAN
12 11 (1.38%) SD-WAN
12 11 (1.38%) Structured Cabling
13 6 (0.75%) IP Telephony
13 6 (0.75%) SAN
14 5 (0.63%) BGP
14 5 (0.63%) OSPF
14 5 (0.63%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (7.13%) Power BI
2 47 (5.88%) SQL Server
3 32 (4.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 20 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (2.50%) MySQL
5 11 (1.38%) NoSQL
6 10 (1.25%) Big Data
6 10 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 7 (0.88%) MongoDB
9 6 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
9 6 (0.75%) Redis
9 6 (0.75%) Tableau
10 5 (0.63%) BigQuery
10 5 (0.63%) Power Query
11 4 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (0.50%) Looker
11 4 (0.50%) MariaDB
11 4 (0.50%) Neo4j
12 3 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 31 (3.88%) Git
2 28 (3.50%) JIRA
3 10 (1.25%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.88%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.63%) GitLab
6 4 (0.50%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.50%) Cypress.io
6 4 (0.50%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.38%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.13%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.13%) gulp
9 1 (0.13%) LabVIEW
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.13%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.13%) webpack
General
1 312 (39.05%) Social Skills
2 224 (28.04%) Analytical Skills
3 119 (14.89%) Finance
4 67 (8.39%) Manufacturing
5 64 (8.01%) Law
6 54 (6.76%) Organisational Skills
7 46 (5.76%) Legal
8 37 (4.63%) Retail
9 32 (4.01%) Marketing
10 25 (3.13%) Public Sector
11 19 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 18 (2.25%) Telecoms
13 15 (1.88%) Banking
14 14 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
15 13 (1.63%) Games
16 10 (1.25%) Aerospace
17 9 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (1.13%) Investment Banking
18 7 (0.88%) Advertising
18 7 (0.88%) Billing
Job Titles
1 114 (14.27%) Senior
2 110 (13.77%) Developer
3 103 (12.89%) Analyst
4 73 (9.14%) IT Support
5 63 (7.88%) Support Engineer
6 44 (5.51%) Lead
7 42 (5.26%) Senior Developer
8 41 (5.13%) Consultant
9 40 (5.01%) IT Engineer
10 39 (4.88%) Software Engineer
11 37 (4.63%) IT Support Engineer
12 36 (4.51%) Support Technician
13 25 (3.13%) Support Analyst
14 22 (2.75%) Administrator
15 21 (2.63%) IT Technician
15 21 (2.63%) Technical Analyst
16 19 (2.38%) Business Analyst
16 19 (2.38%) IT Support Technician
16 19 (2.38%) Senior Analyst
17 18 (2.25%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (6.26%) .NET
2 42 (5.26%) HTML
2 42 (5.26%) React
3 33 (4.13%) REST
4 24 (3.00%) AngularJS
5 23 (2.88%) Middleware
5 23 (2.88%) Spring
6 22 (2.75%) CSS
6 22 (2.75%) Vue
7 21 (2.63%) Spring Boot
8 17 (2.13%) EDI
8 17 (2.13%) XML
9 16 (2.00%) SOAP
10 13 (1.63%) JSON
10 13 (1.63%) Node.js
11 11 (1.38%) Next.js
11 11 (1.38%) Web Services
12 10 (1.25%) React Native
13 9 (1.13%) Laravel
13 9 (1.13%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 59 (7.38%) Driving Licence
2 47 (5.88%) Onboarding
3 33 (4.13%) Product Ownership
4 32 (4.01%) Cloud Native
5 26 (3.25%) Self-Motivation
6 19 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
7 15 (1.88%) Mobile App
8 14 (1.75%) Data Centre
8 14 (1.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 13 (1.63%) Management Information System
9 13 (1.63%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.50%) Replication
11 11 (1.38%) CCTV
12 9 (1.13%) Enterprise Cloud
13 8 (1.00%) AI Agents
14 7 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
14 7 (0.88%) Low-Code
14 7 (0.88%) Social Media
15 6 (0.75%) IoT
15 6 (0.75%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 134 (16.77%) Windows
2 65 (8.14%) Windows Server
3 38 (4.76%) Windows 10
4 29 (3.63%) Linux
5 17 (2.13%) Apple iOS
6 12 (1.50%) Android
7 5 (0.63%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.63%) Windows 7
7 5 (0.63%) Windows 8
7 5 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
8 4 (0.50%) Unix
9 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.25%) Solaris
11 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.13%) VME
11 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (26.03%) Continuous Improvement
2 179 (22.40%) Customer Service
3 108 (13.52%) Mentoring
4 100 (12.52%) Agile
4 100 (12.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 92 (11.51%) CI/CD
6 90 (11.26%) AI
6 90 (11.26%) Decision-Making
7 83 (10.39%) CRM
8 78 (9.76%) Roadmaps
9 76 (9.51%) DevOps
10 73 (9.14%) Software Engineering
11 68 (8.51%) Analytics
11 68 (8.51%) ERP
12 65 (8.14%) User Experience
13 56 (7.01%) Collaborative Working
14 52 (6.51%) Test Automation
15 51 (6.38%) Business Intelligence
16 46 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
17 45 (5.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 151 (18.90%) SQL
2 100 (12.52%) Python
3 64 (8.01%) C#
4 54 (6.76%) JavaScript
5 42 (5.26%) Java
6 27 (3.38%) PowerShell
7 18 (2.25%) TypeScript
8 17 (2.13%) PHP
9 15 (1.88%) Bash
10 13 (1.63%) C++
11 10 (1.25%) Shell Script
11 10 (1.25%) T-SQL
12 8 (1.00%) Ruby
13 6 (0.75%) C
13 6 (0.75%) Kotlin
13 6 (0.75%) R
14 5 (0.63%) Bicep
14 5 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.50%) Apex Code
15 4 (0.50%) Go
Qualifications
1 92 (11.51%) Degree
2 44 (5.51%) Security Cleared
3 23 (2.88%) SC Cleared
4 20 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
5 16 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
5 16 (2.00%) DBS Check
5 16 (2.00%) DV Cleared
6 15 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 14 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
8 12 (1.50%) CCNP
8 12 (1.50%) HNC
9 10 (1.25%) Azure Certification
10 9 (1.13%) Master's Degree
11 8 (1.00%) CCNA
12 7 (0.88%) MCSA
12 7 (0.88%) Postgraduate
13 6 (0.75%) ACCA
14 5 (0.63%) CIMA
14 5 (0.63%) PMI Certification
15 4 (0.50%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (5.51%) Data Quality
2 34 (4.26%) QA
3 33 (4.13%) GDPR
4 30 (3.75%) Accessibility
5 27 (3.38%) SLA
6 16 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 12 (1.50%) TickIT
8 8 (1.00%) NIST
9 5 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.63%) ISO 9001
10 4 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 14443
10 4 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 7816
11 2 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.25%) PMO
11 2 (0.25%) WCAG
12 1 (0.13%) DICOM
12 1 (0.13%) IFRS
12 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
12 1 (0.13%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.13%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 96 (12.02%) Active Directory
2 39 (4.88%) Docker
3 37 (4.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (2.88%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.63%) VMware Workstation
6 4 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.25%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 32 (4.01%) Kubernetes
2 30 (3.75%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (2.88%) Terraform
4 14 (1.75%) Grafana
5 13 (1.63%) SCCM
6 11 (1.38%) FortiGate
6 11 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 9 (1.13%) Ansible
8 6 (0.75%) Autotask
9 4 (0.50%) Argo
9 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Clustering
10 3 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
10 3 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.25%) Nagios
11 2 (0.25%) Podman
12 1 (0.13%) Istio
12 1 (0.13%) linkerd
12 1 (0.13%) Nessus
12 1 (0.13%) vCenter Server
12 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 285 (35.67%) Microsoft
2 42 (5.26%) VMware
3 28 (3.50%) SAP
4 20 (2.50%) Google
5 15 (1.88%) Cisco
6 13 (1.63%) ServiceNow
7 12 (1.50%) iManage
8 10 (1.25%) Adobe
8 10 (1.25%) Aruba
8 10 (1.25%) Salesforce
9 9 (1.13%) HubSpot
9 9 (1.13%) Oracle
9 9 (1.13%) SonicWALL
9 9 (1.13%) Sophos
10 8 (1.00%) Meraki
10 8 (1.00%) Tanium
11 7 (0.88%) Aderant
11 7 (0.88%) Juniper
11 7 (0.88%) OpenAI
12 6 (0.75%) Intapp