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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 7 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,050 1,014 1,108
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 8.10% 19.39% 14.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.10% 21.66% 18.52%
Number of salaries quoted 759 501 390
10th Percentile £26,632 £26,375 £26,750
25th Percentile £32,500 £33,125 £31,438
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,250 £48,979 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.61% +8.84% -5.26%
75th Percentile £60,000 £54,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £74,000 £67,500 £73,750
England median annual salary £46,500 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.33% -14.29% -4.55%

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 9,458 4,682 5,984
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 72.92% 89.54% 79.54%
Number of salaries quoted 7,042 2,196 3,205
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £30,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £35,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -0.99% -8.18%
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% -2.44%

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 3 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 3 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 -3 594 £47,500 +5.56% 623
Merseyside -1 172 £42,500 -19.81% 108
Cheshire -9 156 £45,000 -15.09% 146
Lancashire +7 94 £42,500 -10.70% 119
Cumbria -8 22 £31,250 -12.84% 28
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 84 (8.00%) SharePoint
2 51 (4.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.14%) IIS
4 7 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.38%) Apache
5 4 (0.38%) Confluence
6 3 (0.29%) CMS
6 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (0.19%) nginx
7 2 (0.19%) Sitecore CMS
8 1 (0.095%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.095%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.095%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.095%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.095%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.095%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.095%) WordPress
Applications
1 65 (6.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 59 (5.62%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.52%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.19%) Windchill
7 1 (0.095%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.095%) Revit
7 1 (0.095%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 18 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.67%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.38%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.38%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.38%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
5 3 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
5 3 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.19%) Elite 3E
6 2 (0.19%) Magento
6 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.095%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.095%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.095%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 195 (18.57%) Azure
2 156 (14.86%) Microsoft 365
3 116 (11.05%) AWS
4 109 (10.38%) Power Platform
5 48 (4.57%) PowerApps
6 46 (4.38%) Entra ID
7 42 (4.00%) SaaS
8 40 (3.81%) GitHub
9 38 (3.62%) GCP
10 37 (3.52%) Microsoft Copilot
11 35 (3.33%) OneDrive
11 35 (3.33%) Power Automate
12 28 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
13 21 (2.00%) Serverless
14 20 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
15 19 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
16 16 (1.52%) Copilot Studio
17 12 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
17 12 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
18 10 (0.95%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 70 (6.67%) DNS
2 58 (5.52%) DHCP
3 54 (5.14%) Firewall
4 40 (3.81%) VPN
5 37 (3.52%) TCP/IP
6 29 (2.76%) Wireless
7 25 (2.38%) VLAN
8 24 (2.29%) Network Security
9 22 (2.10%) VoIP
10 21 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (1.71%) LAN
12 16 (1.52%) WAN
13 12 (1.14%) Broadband
13 12 (1.14%) Unified Communications
14 10 (0.95%) SD-WAN
15 9 (0.86%) BGP
16 8 (0.76%) SNMP
17 7 (0.67%) OSPF
18 6 (0.57%) SAN
19 5 (0.48%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (6.10%) Power BI
2 53 (5.05%) SQL Server
3 24 (2.29%) MySQL
4 22 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (2.10%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 14 (1.33%) BigQuery
6 12 (1.14%) Power Query
7 10 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
7 10 (0.95%) Big Data
7 10 (0.95%) NoSQL
8 8 (0.76%) Looker
8 8 (0.76%) MongoDB
8 8 (0.76%) Redis
9 7 (0.67%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
9 7 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
9 7 (0.67%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.57%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 41 (3.90%) Git
2 36 (3.43%) JIRA
3 16 (1.52%) GitLab
4 15 (1.43%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.67%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.67%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.48%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.38%) Claude Code
7 4 (0.38%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.29%) Selenium
8 3 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.19%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.19%) Vagrant
10 1 (0.095%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.095%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.095%) gulp
10 1 (0.095%) Maven
10 1 (0.095%) Oracle Forms
10 1 (0.095%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.095%) webpack
General
1 423 (40.29%) Social Skills
2 328 (31.24%) Analytical Skills
3 190 (18.10%) Finance
4 89 (8.48%) Law
5 84 (8.00%) Manufacturing
6 76 (7.24%) Organisational Skills
7 74 (7.05%) Retail
8 70 (6.67%) Legal
9 62 (5.90%) Telecoms
10 51 (4.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 39 (3.71%) Marketing
12 32 (3.05%) Public Sector
13 27 (2.57%) Military
14 18 (1.71%) Aerospace
14 18 (1.71%) Electronics
15 17 (1.62%) Banking
16 16 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
17 15 (1.43%) Automotive
17 15 (1.43%) Billing
18 13 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 156 (14.86%) Analyst
2 140 (13.33%) Senior
3 118 (11.24%) Developer
4 65 (6.19%) IT Support
5 53 (5.05%) Support Engineer
6 48 (4.57%) Support Analyst
7 46 (4.38%) Lead
8 45 (4.29%) Senior Developer
9 43 (4.10%) Consultant
10 40 (3.81%) Software Engineer
11 33 (3.14%) Administrator
12 28 (2.67%) IT Engineer
12 28 (2.67%) Junior
13 26 (2.48%) Support Technician
14 25 (2.38%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.38%) IT Support Engineer
15 24 (2.29%) Applications Support
15 24 (2.29%) IT Manager
16 23 (2.19%) Architect
16 23 (2.19%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.76%) .NET
2 47 (4.48%) React
3 42 (4.00%) HTML
4 38 (3.62%) REST
5 33 (3.14%) Terraform
6 23 (2.19%) Middleware
7 20 (1.90%) CSS
8 19 (1.81%) Vue
9 17 (1.62%) AngularJS
9 17 (1.62%) Spring
10 16 (1.52%) Kafka
10 16 (1.52%) Node.js
10 16 (1.52%) XML
11 15 (1.43%) Spring Boot
12 14 (1.33%) SOAP
13 13 (1.24%) EDI
14 12 (1.14%) JSON
15 11 (1.05%) Next.js
15 11 (1.05%) Web Services
16 10 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 82 (7.81%) Driving Licence
2 68 (6.48%) Onboarding
3 48 (4.57%) Self-Motivation
4 38 (3.62%) Product Ownership
5 37 (3.52%) Management Information System
6 36 (3.43%) Cloud Native
7 25 (2.38%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 21 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
9 20 (1.90%) IoT
10 19 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
11 18 (1.71%) NHS
11 18 (1.71%) Security Posture
12 15 (1.43%) FMCG
13 14 (1.33%) Replication
14 13 (1.24%) Data Centre
15 12 (1.14%) Mobile App
15 12 (1.14%) Public Cloud
16 11 (1.05%) Low-Code
17 9 (0.86%) AI Agents
17 9 (0.86%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.38%) Windows
2 59 (5.62%) Windows Server
3 40 (3.81%) Linux
4 21 (2.00%) Windows 10
5 15 (1.43%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.86%) Mac OS
6 9 (0.86%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (0.76%) Android
8 7 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.48%) Unix
10 2 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.095%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.095%) Solaris
11 1 (0.095%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.095%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 313 (29.81%) Continuous Improvement
2 195 (18.57%) Customer Service
3 161 (15.33%) AI
4 156 (14.86%) Agile
5 146 (13.90%) Stakeholder Management
6 140 (13.33%) Mentoring
7 120 (11.43%) CI/CD
8 119 (11.33%) Decision-Making
9 102 (9.71%) Analytics
9 102 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 100 (9.52%) DevOps
11 97 (9.24%) CRM
12 96 (9.14%) ERP
13 95 (9.05%) Collaborative Working
13 95 (9.05%) Software Engineering
14 87 (8.29%) Project Delivery
15 81 (7.71%) Roadmaps
16 76 (7.24%) User Acceptance Testing
17 69 (6.57%) Cybersecurity
18 68 (6.48%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 174 (16.57%) SQL
2 132 (12.57%) Python
3 71 (6.76%) JavaScript
4 63 (6.00%) C#
5 50 (4.76%) Java
6 49 (4.67%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.05%) TypeScript
8 23 (2.19%) Bash
9 19 (1.81%) PHP
10 14 (1.33%) C++
11 13 (1.24%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.05%) T-SQL
13 8 (0.76%) C
13 8 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.76%) Go
13 8 (0.76%) Ruby
14 6 (0.57%) Bicep
14 6 (0.57%) R
15 5 (0.48%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.48%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 144 (13.71%) Degree
2 66 (6.29%) Security Cleared
3 42 (4.00%) SC Cleared
4 37 (3.52%) HNC
5 35 (3.33%) DBS Check
6 24 (2.29%) DV Cleared
7 23 (2.19%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.33%) Azure Certification
9 14 (1.33%) CCNP
9 14 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
9 14 (1.33%) Master's Degree
10 13 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
10 13 (1.24%) HND
11 9 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.76%) ACCA
12 8 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 7 (0.67%) CIMA
13 7 (0.67%) Postgraduate
14 6 (0.57%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (5.33%) Data Quality
2 49 (4.67%) Accessibility
3 41 (3.90%) QA
4 35 (3.33%) GDPR
5 15 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 13 (1.24%) SLA
7 9 (0.86%) NIST
7 9 (0.86%) TickIT
8 5 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (0.48%) NEBOSH
8 5 (0.48%) PMO
9 4 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 14443
9 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 7816
10 3 (0.29%) IFRS
11 2 (0.19%) Good Clinical Practice
11 2 (0.19%) WCAG
12 1 (0.095%) GxP
12 1 (0.095%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.095%) JSP 440
System Software
1 102 (9.71%) Active Directory
2 51 (4.86%) Docker
3 27 (2.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.71%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.48%) Firmware
7 4 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.095%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 42 (4.00%) Kubernetes
2 34 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (1.90%) BMC PATROL
4 13 (1.24%) Grafana
5 12 (1.14%) FortiGate
6 11 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.95%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.76%) Ansible
9 5 (0.48%) Argo
10 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
11 2 (0.19%) Nagios
11 2 (0.19%) Nessus
11 2 (0.19%) Packer
11 2 (0.19%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.19%) SCCM
11 2 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 1 (0.095%) Functional Safety
12 1 (0.095%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 1 (0.095%) Podman
12 1 (0.095%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 337 (32.10%) Microsoft
2 42 (4.00%) VMware
3 39 (3.71%) SAP
4 31 (2.95%) Google
5 22 (2.10%) Cisco
5 22 (2.10%) Sage
6 21 (2.00%) YouTube
7 16 (1.52%) Oracle
7 16 (1.52%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.43%) Aruba
8 15 (1.43%) Civica
8 15 (1.43%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.24%) iManage
10 10 (0.95%) Databricks
10 10 (0.95%) Juniper
11 9 (0.86%) Aderant
11 9 (0.86%) OpenAI
12 8 (0.76%) HubSpot
12 8 (0.76%) Tanium
13 7 (0.67%) Adobe