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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -5 -2 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 964 997 1,067
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 7.64% 19.39% 13.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.51% 21.72% 17.72%
Number of salaries quoted 711 488 411
10th Percentile £26,561 £26,250 £26,750
25th Percentile £31,771 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £48,202 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.64% +7.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £60,000 £57,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £67,500 £78,500
England median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -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 9,172 4,591 6,020
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 72.67% 89.30% 77.91%
Number of salaries quoted 6,908 2,186 3,447
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,055
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -0.11% -8.99%
75th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -7.26%

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 September 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 September 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 -7 539 £47,500 +6.74% 734
Merseyside -4 152 £42,500 -19.81% 91
Cheshire -10 148 £42,500 -19.81% 145
Lancashire +2 83 £42,500 -10.53% 120
Cumbria -4 33 £32,500 -9.35% 15
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 79 (8.20%) SharePoint
2 52 (5.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.24%) IIS
4 5 (0.52%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.21%) Apache
6 2 (0.21%) CMS
6 2 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
6 2 (0.21%) nginx
7 1 (0.10%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.10%) Confluence
7 1 (0.10%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
7 1 (0.10%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.10%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.10%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 55 (5.71%) Microsoft Office
2 51 (5.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.66%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.21%) Windchill
7 1 (0.10%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.10%) Revit
7 1 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 17 (1.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.73%) SAP ERP
4 4 (0.41%) Magento
4 4 (0.41%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.41%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.41%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
5 3 (0.31%) Oracle Cash Management
5 3 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.10%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.10%) Odoo
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.10%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 192 (19.92%) Azure
2 157 (16.29%) Microsoft 365
3 110 (11.41%) AWS
4 108 (11.20%) Power Platform
5 48 (4.98%) PowerApps
6 39 (4.05%) SaaS
7 37 (3.84%) Entra ID
7 37 (3.84%) GCP
8 34 (3.53%) GitHub
8 34 (3.53%) Power Automate
9 32 (3.32%) Microsoft Copilot
10 31 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 31 (3.22%) OneDrive
11 26 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
12 19 (1.97%) Microsoft Purview
12 19 (1.97%) Serverless
13 12 (1.24%) Boomi
13 12 (1.24%) Copilot Studio
13 12 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
14 11 (1.14%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 63 (6.54%) DNS
2 56 (5.81%) DHCP
3 53 (5.50%) Firewall
4 42 (4.36%) VPN
5 39 (4.05%) TCP/IP
6 30 (3.11%) Wireless
7 26 (2.70%) VLAN
8 23 (2.39%) VoIP
9 22 (2.28%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (2.07%) Network Security
11 17 (1.76%) LAN
12 13 (1.35%) WAN
13 12 (1.24%) Broadband
14 11 (1.14%) Unified Communications
15 8 (0.83%) SD-WAN
16 7 (0.73%) BGP
16 7 (0.73%) OSPF
17 6 (0.62%) SAN
17 6 (0.62%) SNMP
17 6 (0.62%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (7.05%) Power BI
2 52 (5.39%) SQL Server
3 26 (2.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 24 (2.49%) MySQL
5 21 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
6 11 (1.14%) BigQuery
6 11 (1.14%) NoSQL
7 10 (1.04%) Big Data
8 9 (0.93%) Looker
8 9 (0.93%) Power Query
9 8 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
9 8 (0.83%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (0.83%) Redis
9 8 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 7 (0.73%) Electronic Patient Records
11 6 (0.62%) Relational Database
12 5 (0.52%) MariaDB
12 5 (0.52%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 5 (0.52%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 39 (4.05%) Git
2 33 (3.42%) JIRA
3 12 (1.24%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.83%) GitLab
5 7 (0.73%) Bitbucket
6 6 (0.62%) Cypress.io
7 5 (0.52%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.41%) Robot Framework
9 3 (0.31%) Claude Code
9 3 (0.31%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.21%) Selenium
10 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.10%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.10%) gulp
11 1 (0.10%) Maven
11 1 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
11 1 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
11 1 (0.10%) Rational Rhapsody
11 1 (0.10%) Vagrant
11 1 (0.10%) webpack
General
1 410 (42.53%) Social Skills
2 296 (30.71%) Analytical Skills
3 156 (16.18%) Finance
4 90 (9.34%) Law
5 72 (7.47%) Manufacturing
5 72 (7.47%) Organisational Skills
6 67 (6.95%) Legal
7 51 (5.29%) Telecoms
8 50 (5.19%) Retail
9 38 (3.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 37 (3.84%) Marketing
11 26 (2.70%) Military
11 26 (2.70%) Public Sector
12 18 (1.87%) Banking
13 17 (1.76%) Aerospace
14 13 (1.35%) Billing
15 12 (1.24%) Documentation Skills
15 12 (1.24%) Electronics
16 10 (1.04%) Automotive
16 10 (1.04%) Games
Job Titles
1 133 (13.80%) Analyst
1 133 (13.80%) Senior
2 119 (12.34%) Developer
3 63 (6.54%) IT Support
4 54 (5.60%) Support Engineer
5 45 (4.67%) Lead
6 44 (4.56%) Senior Developer
7 43 (4.46%) Support Analyst
8 42 (4.36%) Consultant
8 42 (4.36%) Software Engineer
9 34 (3.53%) Administrator
9 34 (3.53%) Support Technician
10 28 (2.90%) IT Engineer
11 27 (2.80%) Junior
12 26 (2.70%) Applications Support
12 26 (2.70%) IT Technician
13 24 (2.49%) IT Support Engineer
14 22 (2.28%) Data Engineer
15 21 (2.18%) IT Support Technician
15 21 (2.18%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (5.29%) .NET
2 46 (4.77%) HTML
3 45 (4.67%) React
4 40 (4.15%) REST
5 27 (2.80%) Terraform
6 24 (2.49%) Middleware
7 23 (2.39%) AngularJS
7 23 (2.39%) CSS
8 21 (2.18%) Spring
9 20 (2.07%) Vue
9 20 (2.07%) XML
10 19 (1.97%) Spring Boot
11 17 (1.76%) SOAP
12 16 (1.66%) EDI
13 15 (1.56%) JSON
14 13 (1.35%) Node.js
15 12 (1.24%) Web Services
16 11 (1.14%) Next.js
17 10 (1.04%) Kafka
17 10 (1.04%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 66 (6.85%) Driving Licence
2 61 (6.33%) Onboarding
3 41 (4.25%) Self-Motivation
4 37 (3.84%) Cloud Native
5 36 (3.73%) Product Ownership
6 32 (3.32%) Management Information System
7 21 (2.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 18 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
9 16 (1.66%) IoT
9 16 (1.66%) NHS
9 16 (1.66%) Security Posture
10 14 (1.45%) Replication
11 13 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
12 12 (1.24%) Mobile App
13 11 (1.14%) FMCG
13 11 (1.14%) Low-Code
14 9 (0.93%) AI Agents
14 9 (0.93%) Data Centre
14 9 (0.93%) Enterprise Cloud
15 8 (0.83%) Cyberattack
Operating Systems
1 133 (13.80%) Windows
2 61 (6.33%) Windows Server
3 40 (4.15%) Linux
4 22 (2.28%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.87%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.93%) Android
6 9 (0.93%) Mac OS
7 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.62%) Unix
8 6 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.21%) Solaris
10 2 (0.21%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 268 (27.80%) Continuous Improvement
2 197 (20.44%) Customer Service
3 136 (14.11%) Mentoring
4 135 (14.00%) AI
5 133 (13.80%) Agile
6 124 (12.86%) Stakeholder Management
7 110 (11.41%) Decision-Making
8 102 (10.58%) CI/CD
9 97 (10.06%) CRM
10 91 (9.44%) ERP
11 90 (9.34%) DevOps
11 90 (9.34%) Software Engineering
12 85 (8.82%) Collaborative Working
13 84 (8.71%) Analytics
14 82 (8.51%) Project Delivery
14 82 (8.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 80 (8.30%) Roadmaps
16 63 (6.54%) User Acceptance Testing
16 63 (6.54%) User Experience
17 61 (6.33%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 177 (18.36%) SQL
2 121 (12.55%) Python
3 69 (7.16%) JavaScript
4 65 (6.74%) C#
5 51 (5.29%) Java
6 45 (4.67%) PowerShell
7 26 (2.70%) TypeScript
8 22 (2.28%) Bash
9 20 (2.07%) PHP
10 17 (1.76%) C++
11 13 (1.35%) Shell Script
12 10 (1.04%) T-SQL
13 9 (0.93%) C
14 8 (0.83%) Ruby
15 7 (0.73%) Go
16 6 (0.62%) Bicep
16 6 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.62%) R
17 5 (0.52%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.52%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 129 (13.38%) Degree
2 57 (5.91%) Security Cleared
3 34 (3.53%) SC Cleared
4 29 (3.01%) HNC
5 27 (2.80%) DBS Check
6 23 (2.39%) DV Cleared
7 22 (2.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 17 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.45%) CCNP
9 14 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
10 13 (1.35%) Azure Certification
11 11 (1.14%) HND
12 9 (0.93%) Master's Degree
13 8 (0.83%) ACCA
13 8 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 7 (0.73%) CIMA
14 7 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
14 7 (0.73%) Postgraduate
15 6 (0.62%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (5.29%) Data Quality
2 43 (4.46%) Accessibility
3 40 (4.15%) QA
4 35 (3.63%) GDPR
5 14 (1.45%) SLA
6 12 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (1.24%) TickIT
7 9 (0.93%) NIST
8 4 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 14443
8 4 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 7816
9 3 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.31%) NEBOSH
9 3 (0.31%) PMO
10 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.21%) WCAG
11 1 (0.10%) DICOM
11 1 (0.10%) GMP
11 1 (0.10%) Good Clinical Practice
11 1 (0.10%) GxP
11 1 (0.10%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 98 (10.17%) Active Directory
2 48 (4.98%) Docker
3 31 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.97%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.31%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 38 (3.94%) Kubernetes
2 30 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 14 (1.45%) Grafana
4 11 (1.14%) Prometheus
4 11 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (1.04%) Ansible
5 10 (1.04%) FortiGate
6 5 (0.52%) Argo
7 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.21%) Nagios
8 2 (0.21%) Nessus
8 2 (0.21%) Podman
9 1 (0.10%) Istio
9 1 (0.10%) linkerd
9 1 (0.10%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.10%) Packer
9 1 (0.10%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.10%) SCCM
9 1 (0.10%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.10%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 318 (32.99%) Microsoft
2 43 (4.46%) VMware
3 36 (3.73%) SAP
4 29 (3.01%) Google
5 23 (2.39%) Sage
6 18 (1.87%) Cisco
6 18 (1.87%) YouTube
7 17 (1.76%) ServiceNow
8 16 (1.66%) Salesforce
9 15 (1.56%) Civica
10 14 (1.45%) Oracle
11 13 (1.35%) Aruba
11 13 (1.35%) iManage
12 9 (0.93%) Adobe
12 9 (0.93%) HubSpot
12 9 (0.93%) Juniper
13 8 (0.83%) Aderant
13 8 (0.83%) OpenAI
13 8 (0.83%) Tanium
14 6 (0.62%) Sophos