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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -7 0 +13
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 708 992 1,476
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 6.61% 21.10% 13.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.54% 22.25% 17.05%
Number of salaries quoted 561 493 897
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £46,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +3.33% -6.25%
75th Percentile £61,250 £63,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,838
% change year-on-year -5.00% +0.33% -9.39%

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 7,424 4,458 8,659
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 69.30% 94.81% 78.88%
Number of salaries quoted 5,675 2,020 6,541
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £84,265 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £58,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% +5.45% -12.00%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 -14 376 £50,000 - 222
Merseyside -6 117 £42,500 +6.25% 22
Cheshire -11 108 £41,000 +10.81% 62
Lancashire +3 70 £40,000 +17.28% 69
Cumbria -10 32 £32,500 -0.31% 18
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 62 (8.76%) SharePoint
2 47 (6.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.85%) Confluence
4 4 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.56%) IIS
4 4 (0.56%) Moodle
4 4 (0.56%) Totara
5 2 (0.28%) Apache
5 2 (0.28%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.28%) nginx
5 2 (0.28%) WordPress
6 1 (0.14%) CMS
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.14%) Umbraco
Applications
1 44 (6.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (3.53%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.27%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.14%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.14%) Simulink
6 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (3.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.84%) SAP ERP
3 7 (0.99%) Magento
4 6 (0.85%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.56%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.56%) SAP PP
6 4 (0.56%) Shopify
7 2 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.14%) Odoo
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 165 (23.31%) Azure
2 143 (20.20%) Microsoft 365
3 81 (11.44%) AWS
4 80 (11.30%) Power Platform
5 30 (4.24%) PowerApps
6 28 (3.95%) Dynamics 365
6 28 (3.95%) Entra ID
7 26 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (3.67%) GitHub
7 26 (3.67%) SaaS
8 24 (3.39%) GCP
8 24 (3.39%) Power Automate
9 19 (2.68%) Microsoft Purview
10 16 (2.26%) Microsoft Copilot
10 16 (2.26%) OneDrive
11 15 (2.12%) Serverless
12 12 (1.69%) Boomi
13 8 (1.13%) Azure Logic Apps
13 8 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (0.99%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 63 (8.90%) Firewall
2 39 (5.51%) DNS
3 36 (5.08%) DHCP
4 33 (4.66%) VLAN
5 30 (4.24%) VPN
6 27 (3.81%) Wi-Fi
7 23 (3.25%) TCP/IP
7 23 (3.25%) VoIP
8 19 (2.68%) Wireless
9 14 (1.98%) Network Security
9 14 (1.98%) WAN
10 12 (1.69%) LAN
11 11 (1.55%) Structured Cabling
12 10 (1.41%) Broadband
13 9 (1.27%) SD-WAN
13 9 (1.27%) Unified Communications
14 6 (0.85%) IP Telephony
14 6 (0.85%) SAN
15 5 (0.71%) Wireshark
16 4 (0.56%) Telepresence
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (7.49%) Power BI
2 31 (4.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 28 (3.95%) SQL Server
4 12 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (1.41%) MySQL
5 10 (1.41%) NoSQL
6 9 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 8 (1.13%) Big Data
7 8 (1.13%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.71%) Power Query
8 5 (0.71%) Tableau
9 4 (0.56%) Looker
9 4 (0.56%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (0.42%) OLAP
10 3 (0.42%) PowerPivot
10 3 (0.42%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.42%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 30 (4.24%) Git
2 26 (3.67%) JIRA
3 7 (0.99%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.85%) GitLab
5 5 (0.71%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.28%) Claude Code
6 2 (0.28%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.28%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.14%) gulp
7 1 (0.14%) LabVIEW
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.14%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.14%) webpack
General
1 285 (40.25%) Social Skills
2 203 (28.67%) Analytical Skills
3 115 (16.24%) Finance
4 60 (8.47%) Manufacturing
5 54 (7.63%) Organisational Skills
6 48 (6.78%) Law
7 37 (5.23%) Retail
8 36 (5.08%) Legal
9 32 (4.52%) Marketing
10 30 (4.24%) Public Sector
11 19 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (2.26%) Telecoms
13 15 (2.12%) Banking
14 12 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
15 10 (1.41%) French Language
15 10 (1.41%) Games
15 10 (1.41%) Investment Banking
16 7 (0.99%) Advertising
16 7 (0.99%) Electronics
16 7 (0.99%) Italian Language
Job Titles
1 91 (12.85%) Senior
2 85 (12.01%) Developer
3 83 (11.72%) Analyst
4 78 (11.02%) IT Support
5 75 (10.59%) Support Engineer
6 51 (7.20%) IT Engineer
7 49 (6.92%) IT Support Engineer
8 41 (5.79%) Consultant
9 36 (5.08%) Lead
10 33 (4.66%) Software Engineer
10 33 (4.66%) Support Technician
11 31 (4.38%) Senior Developer
12 24 (3.39%) Business Analyst
13 18 (2.54%) Administrator
14 17 (2.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 16 (2.26%) Technical Analyst
16 15 (2.12%) 1st Line Support
16 15 (2.12%) IT Support Technician
16 15 (2.12%) IT Technician
17 14 (1.98%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (5.51%) .NET
2 35 (4.94%) React
3 33 (4.66%) REST
4 32 (4.52%) HTML
5 23 (3.25%) Spring
5 23 (3.25%) Spring Boot
6 22 (3.11%) EDI
7 21 (2.97%) CSS
8 20 (2.82%) AngularJS
9 17 (2.40%) Middleware
9 17 (2.40%) Vue
10 16 (2.26%) SOAP
11 14 (1.98%) XML
12 13 (1.84%) JSON
13 12 (1.69%) Node.js
14 10 (1.41%) RESTful
15 9 (1.27%) SAP Fiori
15 9 (1.27%) Web Services
16 8 (1.13%) Next.js
16 8 (1.13%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 64 (9.04%) Driving Licence
2 50 (7.06%) Onboarding
3 32 (4.52%) Product Ownership
4 29 (4.10%) Cloud Native
5 22 (3.11%) Data Centre
6 19 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
7 18 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (2.12%) Mobile App
9 13 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.69%) CCTV
11 10 (1.41%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
12 9 (1.27%) Social Media
13 8 (1.13%) Security Posture
14 7 (0.99%) AI Agents
14 7 (0.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 7 (0.99%) Low-Code
15 6 (0.85%) CMDB
15 6 (0.85%) FMCG
15 6 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 120 (16.95%) Windows
2 57 (8.05%) Windows Server
3 41 (5.79%) Windows 10
4 22 (3.11%) Apple iOS
5 20 (2.82%) Linux
6 15 (2.12%) Android
7 7 (0.99%) Windows 7
7 7 (0.99%) Windows 8
7 7 (0.99%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.85%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.42%) Unix
11 2 (0.28%) Solaris
12 1 (0.14%) CentOS
12 1 (0.14%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.14%) VME
12 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (22.60%) Continuous Improvement
2 153 (21.61%) Customer Service
3 107 (15.11%) Mentoring
4 86 (12.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 82 (11.58%) Decision-Making
6 81 (11.44%) Agile
7 79 (11.16%) AI
8 74 (10.45%) CI/CD
9 69 (9.75%) CRM
10 68 (9.60%) Roadmaps
11 65 (9.18%) DevOps
12 60 (8.47%) Analytics
13 58 (8.19%) Software Engineering
14 57 (8.05%) User Experience
15 56 (7.91%) ERP
16 51 (7.20%) Collaborative Working
17 48 (6.78%) Test Automation
18 44 (6.21%) Business Intelligence
18 44 (6.21%) Project Management
19 41 (5.79%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 113 (15.96%) SQL
2 87 (12.29%) Python
3 48 (6.78%) C#
4 43 (6.07%) JavaScript
5 39 (5.51%) Java
6 19 (2.68%) PowerShell
7 13 (1.84%) Bash
8 12 (1.69%) C++
9 11 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 10 (1.41%) PHP
11 9 (1.27%) T-SQL
12 8 (1.13%) Kotlin
12 8 (1.13%) Ruby
13 5 (0.71%) Bicep
13 5 (0.71%) C
13 5 (0.71%) R
14 4 (0.56%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 4 (0.56%) Scala
14 4 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 78 (11.02%) Degree
2 35 (4.94%) Security Cleared
3 23 (3.25%) SC Cleared
4 20 (2.82%) DBS Check
5 16 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (1.69%) HNC
8 11 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (1.41%) DV Cleared
10 8 (1.13%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.99%) CCNP
11 7 (0.99%) MCSA
11 7 (0.99%) Network+ Certification
12 6 (0.85%) CCNA
13 5 (0.71%) CompTIA Security+
14 4 (0.56%) ACCA
14 4 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.56%) PMI Certification
14 4 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.37%) Data Quality
2 27 (3.81%) SLA
3 26 (3.67%) GDPR
3 26 (3.67%) QA
4 16 (2.26%) Accessibility
5 13 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (1.69%) TickIT
7 9 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
8 8 (1.13%) ISO 9001
9 4 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 14443
9 4 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 7816
10 2 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.28%) NIST
10 2 (0.28%) WCAG
11 1 (0.14%) DICOM
11 1 (0.14%) IFRS
11 1 (0.14%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.14%) NEBOSH
11 1 (0.14%) PMO
11 1 (0.14%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 89 (12.57%) Active Directory
2 29 (4.10%) Docker
3 27 (3.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (2.54%) Hyper-V
5 7 (0.99%) VMware Workstation
6 3 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 32 (4.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (3.95%) Kubernetes
3 27 (3.81%) Terraform
4 17 (2.40%) SCCM
5 10 (1.41%) Ansible
5 10 (1.41%) Grafana
5 10 (1.41%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.13%) Autotask
7 6 (0.85%) FortiGate
8 4 (0.56%) Argo
8 4 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Clustering
8 4 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.28%) Nagios
10 2 (0.28%) Podman
11 1 (0.14%) Istio
11 1 (0.14%) McAfee ePO
11 1 (0.14%) SCVMM
11 1 (0.14%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 239 (33.76%) Microsoft
2 30 (4.24%) VMware
3 29 (4.10%) SAP
4 16 (2.26%) Google
5 14 (1.98%) Cisco
6 13 (1.84%) Oracle
7 11 (1.55%) ServiceNow
8 10 (1.41%) Aruba
8 10 (1.41%) HubSpot
8 10 (1.41%) iManage
9 9 (1.27%) Workday
10 8 (1.13%) Adobe
10 8 (1.13%) Apple
10 8 (1.13%) Meraki
10 8 (1.13%) Salesforce
11 7 (0.99%) ESET
12 6 (0.85%) Intapp
12 6 (0.85%) Juniper
12 6 (0.85%) SonicWALL
12 6 (0.85%) Sophos