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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +2 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,097 990 1,060
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 8.50% 20.63% 14.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.61% 23.41% 18.36%
Number of salaries quoted 780 499 337
10th Percentile £27,000 £26,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £33,688 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,500 £48,720 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.56% +2.57% -1.04%
75th Percentile £58,750 £53,750 £58,943
90th Percentile £73,750 £67,500 £72,500
England median annual salary £45,050 £45,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +0.11% -16.67% -1.82%

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 9,450 4,229 5,774
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 73.22% 88.14% 80.50%
Number of salaries quoted 6,991 2,201 2,949
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £35,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -3.85% -5.45%
75th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.32%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -3 624 £47,500 +5.56% 113
Merseyside +3 178 £44,000 -16.98% 17
Cheshire -8 156 £47,500 -10.38% 30
Lancashire -7 105 £42,500 -10.53% 35
Cumbria -4 22 £30,000 -16.33% 11
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 86 (7.84%) SharePoint
2 52 (4.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.19%) IIS
4 9 (0.82%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.46%) Apache
6 5 (0.46%) Confluence
7 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.18%) CMS
8 2 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
8 2 (0.18%) nginx
8 2 (0.18%) Sitecore CMS
9 1 (0.091%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.091%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.091%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.091%) WebSphere
Applications
1 72 (6.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (6.11%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.37%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.18%) Windchill
8 1 (0.091%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.091%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.091%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.091%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.091%) Revit
8 1 (0.091%) Simulink
8 1 (0.091%) SketchUp
Business Applications
1 15 (1.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.55%) SAP ERP
4 5 (0.46%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.27%) Oracle Cash Management
6 3 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.18%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.18%) SAP PP
8 1 (0.091%) Odoo
8 1 (0.091%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.091%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.091%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 200 (18.23%) Azure
2 168 (15.31%) Microsoft 365
3 113 (10.30%) AWS
4 109 (9.94%) Power Platform
5 51 (4.65%) Entra ID
6 49 (4.47%) PowerApps
7 41 (3.74%) SaaS
8 39 (3.56%) Microsoft Copilot
9 38 (3.46%) Power Automate
10 37 (3.37%) GCP
10 37 (3.37%) OneDrive
11 32 (2.92%) GitHub
12 22 (2.01%) Serverless
13 19 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
13 19 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
13 19 (1.73%) Microsoft Purview
14 18 (1.64%) Copilot Studio
15 12 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
15 12 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 12 (1.09%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 71 (6.47%) DNS
2 57 (5.20%) DHCP
3 55 (5.01%) Firewall
4 39 (3.56%) VPN
5 36 (3.28%) TCP/IP
6 28 (2.55%) Wireless
7 24 (2.19%) Network Security
7 24 (2.19%) VLAN
8 23 (2.10%) VoIP
9 22 (2.01%) Wi-Fi
10 18 (1.64%) LAN
11 16 (1.46%) WAN
12 14 (1.28%) Broadband
13 12 (1.09%) Unified Communications
14 10 (0.91%) BGP
15 9 (0.82%) SD-WAN
16 8 (0.73%) SNMP
17 7 (0.64%) OSPF
18 6 (0.55%) Internet
18 6 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.56%) Power BI
2 55 (5.01%) SQL Server
3 27 (2.46%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (2.10%) MySQL
5 15 (1.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 14 (1.28%) BigQuery
7 13 (1.19%) Power Query
8 12 (1.09%) Relational Database
9 11 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
9 11 (1.00%) NoSQL
10 10 (0.91%) Big Data
11 8 (0.73%) Data Lake
11 8 (0.73%) Redis
12 7 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (0.64%) Electronic Patient Records
12 7 (0.64%) Looker
12 7 (0.64%) Metadata
12 7 (0.64%) MongoDB
13 6 (0.55%) MariaDB
13 6 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 40 (3.65%) Git
2 32 (2.92%) JIRA
3 18 (1.64%) GitLab
4 14 (1.28%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.82%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.46%) Bitbucket
6 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
6 5 (0.46%) Selenium
7 4 (0.36%) Claude Code
7 4 (0.36%) REST Assured
7 4 (0.36%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.18%) Vagrant
10 1 (0.091%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.091%) Maven
10 1 (0.091%) Oracle Forms
10 1 (0.091%) Rational Rhapsody
10 1 (0.091%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.091%) Visual Website Optimizer
General
1 437 (39.84%) Social Skills
2 334 (30.45%) Analytical Skills
3 223 (20.33%) Finance
4 93 (8.48%) Manufacturing
5 92 (8.39%) Retail
6 88 (8.02%) Law
7 83 (7.57%) Organisational Skills
8 73 (6.65%) Legal
9 65 (5.93%) Telecoms
10 59 (5.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 33 (3.01%) Marketing
12 29 (2.64%) Public Sector
13 27 (2.46%) Military
14 20 (1.82%) Aerospace
15 19 (1.73%) Electronics
16 18 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
17 17 (1.55%) Automotive
18 16 (1.46%) Banking
19 15 (1.37%) Billing
20 14 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 161 (14.68%) Analyst
2 133 (12.12%) Senior
3 117 (10.67%) Developer
4 71 (6.47%) IT Support
5 52 (4.74%) Support Engineer
6 51 (4.65%) Support Analyst
7 47 (4.28%) Lead
8 43 (3.92%) Senior Developer
9 38 (3.46%) Consultant
10 36 (3.28%) Software Engineer
11 33 (3.01%) Administrator
12 29 (2.64%) Data Engineer
12 29 (2.64%) IT Engineer
12 29 (2.64%) Junior
13 27 (2.46%) IT Manager
14 26 (2.37%) IT Support Engineer
15 25 (2.28%) Architect
16 23 (2.10%) IT Technician
16 23 (2.10%) Microsoft 365 Developer
16 23 (2.10%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.56%) .NET
2 44 (4.01%) React
3 41 (3.74%) HTML
4 36 (3.28%) REST
5 34 (3.10%) Terraform
6 19 (1.73%) CSS
6 19 (1.73%) Middleware
7 18 (1.64%) Kafka
8 17 (1.55%) Vue
9 16 (1.46%) Node.js
10 15 (1.37%) AngularJS
10 15 (1.37%) Spring
11 13 (1.19%) Spring Boot
12 12 (1.09%) Web Services
13 11 (1.00%) Next.js
13 11 (1.00%) XML
14 10 (0.91%) Microsoft Graph
14 10 (0.91%) React Native
15 9 (0.82%) HTML5 Canvas
15 9 (0.82%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 107 (9.75%) Driving Licence
2 73 (6.65%) Onboarding
3 54 (4.92%) Self-Motivation
4 42 (3.83%) Management Information System
5 41 (3.74%) Product Ownership
6 33 (3.01%) Cloud Native
7 27 (2.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 23 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (2.10%) IoT
9 21 (1.91%) FMCG
10 19 (1.73%) Security Posture
11 18 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
11 18 (1.64%) NHS
12 14 (1.28%) Data Centre
12 14 (1.28%) Replication
13 13 (1.19%) Public Cloud
14 12 (1.09%) Mobile App
15 10 (0.91%) Data Structures
16 9 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
17 8 (0.73%) Cyberattack
Operating Systems
1 135 (12.31%) Windows
2 60 (5.47%) Windows Server
3 41 (3.74%) Linux
4 21 (1.91%) Windows 10
5 14 (1.28%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.82%) macOS
6 9 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (0.73%) Android
8 7 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.27%) Unix
10 1 (0.091%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.091%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.091%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.091%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 341 (31.08%) Continuous Improvement
2 199 (18.14%) Customer Service
3 174 (15.86%) Agile
4 166 (15.13%) AI
5 155 (14.13%) Stakeholder Management
6 141 (12.85%) Mentoring
7 126 (11.49%) CI/CD
7 126 (11.49%) Decision-Making
8 108 (9.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 103 (9.39%) Analytics
10 97 (8.84%) DevOps
11 95 (8.66%) ERP
12 94 (8.57%) CRM
13 93 (8.48%) Software Engineering
14 91 (8.30%) Collaborative Working
15 89 (8.11%) Project Delivery
16 85 (7.75%) Workflow
17 84 (7.66%) Roadmaps
18 77 (7.02%) Cybersecurity
19 74 (6.75%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 172 (15.68%) SQL
2 133 (12.12%) Python
3 72 (6.56%) JavaScript
4 63 (5.74%) C#
5 50 (4.56%) Java
6 47 (4.28%) PowerShell
7 32 (2.92%) TypeScript
8 23 (2.10%) Bash
9 18 (1.64%) PHP
10 13 (1.19%) Shell Script
10 13 (1.19%) T-SQL
11 12 (1.09%) C++
12 11 (1.00%) Go
13 10 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.73%) Ruby
15 7 (0.64%) C
16 6 (0.55%) R
17 5 (0.46%) ActionScript
17 5 (0.46%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.46%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 153 (13.95%) Degree
2 72 (6.56%) Security Cleared
3 45 (4.10%) SC Cleared
4 43 (3.92%) HNC
5 38 (3.46%) DBS Check
6 26 (2.37%) DV Cleared
7 25 (2.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 20 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
9 16 (1.46%) Master's Degree
10 15 (1.37%) HND
11 14 (1.28%) Azure Certification
12 13 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (1.19%) CCNP
12 13 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
13 9 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
14 8 (0.73%) ACCA
14 8 (0.73%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 7 (0.64%) Chartered Engineer
15 7 (0.64%) CIMA
15 7 (0.64%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (5.29%) Data Quality
2 53 (4.83%) Accessibility
3 44 (4.01%) QA
4 33 (3.01%) GDPR
5 21 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 13 (1.19%) SLA
7 9 (0.82%) NIST
8 8 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (0.64%) PMO
10 5 (0.46%) NEBOSH
11 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.36%) ISO 9001
11 4 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 14443
11 4 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 7816
11 4 (0.36%) TickIT
12 3 (0.27%) IFRS
13 2 (0.18%) Good Clinical Practice
13 2 (0.18%) ISO 14001
13 2 (0.18%) WCAG
14 1 (0.091%) GMP
System Software
1 107 (9.75%) Active Directory
2 48 (4.38%) Docker
3 27 (2.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.82%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.55%) Firmware
6 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.091%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 42 (3.83%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.65%) BMC PATROL
3 38 (3.46%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (1.37%) FortiGate
5 13 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (1.00%) Grafana
7 8 (0.73%) Ansible
7 8 (0.73%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
10 3 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 2 (0.18%) Nagios
11 2 (0.18%) Nessus
11 2 (0.18%) Packer
11 2 (0.18%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.18%) SCCM
12 1 (0.091%) Istio
12 1 (0.091%) linkerd
12 1 (0.091%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 1 (0.091%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 354 (32.27%) Microsoft
2 42 (3.83%) SAP
3 41 (3.74%) VMware
4 30 (2.73%) Google
5 26 (2.37%) Cisco
6 23 (2.10%) YouTube
7 22 (2.01%) Sage
8 17 (1.55%) Aruba
8 17 (1.55%) Oracle
9 16 (1.46%) ServiceNow
10 15 (1.37%) Civica
10 15 (1.37%) Salesforce
11 12 (1.09%) Databricks
11 12 (1.09%) iManage
12 10 (0.91%) Juniper
12 10 (0.91%) OpenAI
13 8 (0.73%) Aderant
13 8 (0.73%) Fortinet
13 8 (0.73%) HubSpot
13 8 (0.73%) Tanium