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 18 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 6 9
Rank change year-on-year -14 +3 +13
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 687 845 624
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 10.55% 16.65% 12.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.09% 18.21% 14.84%
Number of salaries quoted 521 412 430
10th Percentile £26,750 £31,250 £26,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £36,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £49,982 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.97% +5.23% -
75th Percentile £53,000 £61,145 £62,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £77,500 £75,000
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -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 5,248 4,641 4,204
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 80.58% 91.47% 86.88%
Number of salaries quoted 2,597 2,273 3,292
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,188 £29,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £38,964
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £67,500
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 18 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 18 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 -18 267 £45,000 -10.00% 191
Cheshire -9 143 £50,000 +25.00% 99
Merseyside +3 126 £48,720 +49.91% 44
Lancashire -7 104 £45,249 -13.81% 86
Cumbria +6 45 £45,000 +9.76% 7
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 36 (5.24%) SharePoint
2 19 (2.77%) 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 31 (4.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (4.37%) Microsoft Office
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 (1.16%) SAP Business One
2 3 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.29%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
3 2 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (0.29%) Shopify
4 1 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.15%) Magento
4 1 (0.15%) Primavera
4 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 118 (17.18%) Azure
2 85 (12.37%) Microsoft 365
3 68 (9.90%) AWS
4 52 (7.57%) Entra ID
5 47 (6.84%) Power Platform
6 34 (4.95%) GCP
7 31 (4.51%) SaaS
8 15 (2.18%) 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 (1.16%) PaaS
12 7 (1.02%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (1.02%) IaaS
13 6 (0.87%) Adobe Analytics
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.87%) Figma
13 6 (0.87%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (0.87%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 36 (5.24%) Firewall
2 25 (3.64%) DNS
3 23 (3.35%) DHCP
4 16 (2.33%) Unified Communications
4 16 (2.33%) VoIP
4 16 (2.33%) VPN
5 15 (2.18%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.18%) VLAN
6 14 (2.04%) Telepresence
6 14 (2.04%) WebEx
7 13 (1.89%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (1.60%) Wireless
9 10 (1.46%) WAN
10 7 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 6 (0.87%) Broadband
11 6 (0.87%) LAN
11 6 (0.87%) Structured Cabling
12 5 (0.73%) SD-WAN
13 3 (0.44%) Internet
13 3 (0.44%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (5.39%) Power BI
2 18 (2.62%) SQL Server
3 15 (2.18%) NoSQL
4 13 (1.89%) Tableau
5 9 (1.31%) MongoDB
5 9 (1.31%) MySQL
6 8 (1.16%) Crystal Reports
6 8 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
8 6 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (0.73%) Big Data
9 5 (0.73%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.58%) BigQuery
10 4 (0.58%) DynamoDB
10 4 (0.58%) Looker
10 4 (0.58%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.44%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 22 (3.20%) Git
2 13 (1.89%) GitLab
3 8 (1.16%) Bitbucket
4 7 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.02%) JIRA
5 5 (0.73%) SonarQube
5 5 (0.73%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.44%) LabVIEW
7 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
General
1 291 (42.36%) Social Skills
2 170 (24.75%) Analytical Skills
3 142 (20.67%) Finance
4 47 (6.84%) Automotive
5 32 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
6 28 (4.08%) Legal
7 23 (3.35%) Telecoms
8 22 (3.20%) Retail
9 21 (3.06%) Public Sector
10 20 (2.91%) Presentation Skills
11 19 (2.77%) Electronics
11 19 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (2.77%) Manufacturing
12 16 (2.33%) Banking
12 16 (2.33%) Law
13 14 (2.04%) Advertising
13 14 (2.04%) Marketing
14 13 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
15 9 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 85 (12.37%) Analyst
2 72 (10.48%) IT Support
3 66 (9.61%) Support Engineer
4 58 (8.44%) Senior
5 40 (5.82%) Developer
6 39 (5.68%) Lead
7 33 (4.80%) Business Analyst
8 30 (4.37%) Trainee
9 26 (3.78%) IT Engineer
9 26 (3.78%) IT Support Engineer
9 26 (3.78%) Trainee Analyst
9 26 (3.78%) Trainee Business Analyst
10 23 (3.35%) Architect
11 22 (3.20%) Support Technician
12 21 (3.06%) Systems Engineer
13 20 (2.91%) Consultant
14 19 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
15 18 (2.62%) Administrator
15 18 (2.62%) Technical Support
15 18 (2.62%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (2.91%) React
2 14 (2.04%) HTML
3 11 (1.60%) .NET
4 10 (1.46%) REST
4 10 (1.46%) RESTful
4 10 (1.46%) Spring
5 9 (1.31%) CSS
5 9 (1.31%) Node.js
5 9 (1.31%) Spring Boot
6 7 (1.02%) Hibernate
6 7 (1.02%) Vue
7 6 (0.87%) Laravel
8 5 (0.73%) AngularJS
8 5 (0.73%) Django
8 5 (0.73%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (0.58%) Celery
9 4 (0.58%) Flask
9 4 (0.58%) JSON
9 4 (0.58%) RabbitMQ
9 4 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 189 (27.51%) Driving Licence
2 48 (6.99%) Onboarding
3 30 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
4 24 (3.49%) Analytical Mindset
5 21 (3.06%) EPoS
6 20 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (2.18%) CCTV
8 13 (1.89%) Cloud Native
9 12 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
10 10 (1.46%) IoT
11 9 (1.31%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.31%) Product Ownership
12 8 (1.16%) Video Conferencing
13 7 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (1.02%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.87%) Greenfield Project
14 6 (0.87%) Home Automation
14 6 (0.87%) Life Science
14 6 (0.87%) Operational Technology
14 6 (0.87%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 90 (13.10%) Windows
2 32 (4.66%) Windows Server
3 21 (3.06%) Linux
4 16 (2.33%) Windows 10
5 8 (1.16%) Android
6 7 (1.02%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.73%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.73%) Windows 7
7 5 (0.73%) Windows 8
8 2 (0.29%) Unix
8 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.15%) CentOS
9 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.15%) Solaris
9 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (13.68%) Agile
2 93 (13.54%) Continuous Improvement
3 85 (12.37%) Decision-Making
4 81 (11.79%) Customer Service
5 73 (10.63%) Mentoring
6 70 (10.19%) Project Management
7 58 (8.44%) AI
8 54 (7.86%) Stakeholder Management
9 53 (7.71%) DevOps
10 51 (7.42%) Cybersecurity
11 46 (6.70%) Coaching
12 42 (6.11%) Collaborative Culture
13 41 (5.97%) Analytics
13 41 (5.97%) Business Intelligence
14 40 (5.82%) CI/CD
14 40 (5.82%) ITIL
15 39 (5.68%) Change Management
16 38 (5.53%) CRM
17 34 (4.95%) Process Improvement
17 34 (4.95%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 74 (10.77%) SQL
2 42 (6.11%) Python
3 25 (3.64%) Java
4 18 (2.62%) JavaScript
5 12 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.46%) C#
6 10 (1.46%) PHP
7 9 (1.31%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.16%) Go
8 8 (1.16%) MATLAB
9 5 (0.73%) Elixir
9 5 (0.73%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.73%) Ruby
10 4 (0.58%) Bash
10 4 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (0.58%) Scala
11 3 (0.44%) Ladder Logic
12 2 (0.29%) Bicep
12 2 (0.29%) R
12 2 (0.29%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 134 (19.51%) Degree
2 27 (3.93%) BPSS Clearance
3 22 (3.20%) DBS Check
4 18 (2.62%) Master's Degree
5 17 (2.47%) Security Cleared
6 13 (1.89%) SC Cleared
7 10 (1.46%) Azure Certification
7 10 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.16%) A+ Certification
8 8 (1.16%) 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 5 (0.73%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (0.73%) Network+ Certification
11 4 (0.58%) HND
11 4 (0.58%) ITIL 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 15 (2.18%) GDPR
4 11 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
5 9 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.16%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 6 (0.87%) SLA
8 5 (0.73%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (0.73%) GLBA
8 5 (0.73%) PMO
9 2 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.29%) COBIT
9 2 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.29%) ITGC
9 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.15%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.15%) NIST
System Software
1 70 (10.19%) Active Directory
2 26 (3.78%) Docker
3 18 (2.62%) Hyper-V
4 6 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.58%) VMware Workstation
6 3 (0.44%) Firmware
6 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.15%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 42 (6.11%) BMC PATROL
2 35 (5.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (3.78%) Terraform
4 24 (3.49%) Kubernetes
5 14 (2.04%) Cisco CUCM
6 10 (1.46%) Ansible
6 10 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (1.31%) SCCM
8 5 (0.73%) Autotask
9 4 (0.58%) Grafana
9 4 (0.58%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.44%) cPanel
10 3 (0.44%) Plesk
10 3 (0.44%) Rancher
11 2 (0.29%) AssetCenter
11 2 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.15%) Argo
12 1 (0.15%) AWS Copilot
12 1 (0.15%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 131 (19.07%) Microsoft
2 26 (3.78%) Oracle
3 19 (2.77%) Cisco
4 17 (2.47%) SAP
5 13 (1.89%) ServiceNow
6 12 (1.75%) Siemens
6 12 (1.75%) VMware
6 12 (1.75%) Workday
7 11 (1.60%) Google
8 9 (1.31%) HubSpot
9 8 (1.16%) New Relic
9 8 (1.16%) 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%) ESET
11 5 (0.73%) Facebook
11 5 (0.73%) SnapLogic