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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,041 1,004 1,094
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 8.04% 19.29% 14.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.01% 21.51% 18.37%
Number of salaries quoted 749 488 388
10th Percentile £26,632 £26,338 £26,925
25th Percentile £32,500 £33,125 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £48,720 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.64% +8.27% -5.26%
75th Percentile £60,750 £54,793 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £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 9,457 4,667 5,954
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 73.02% 89.68% 79.21%
Number of salaries quoted 7,057 2,174 3,200
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £30,000
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 30 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 30 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 -3 586 £47,500 +5.56% 509
Merseyside -2 172 £42,500 -19.81% 100
Cheshire -9 157 £45,000 -15.09% 114
Lancashire +4 90 £42,500 -10.53% 90
Cumbria -4 24 £31,250 -12.84% 22
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 83 (7.97%) SharePoint
2 52 (5.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.15%) IIS
4 6 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.38%) Confluence
6 3 (0.29%) Apache
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 (0.096%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.096%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.096%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.096%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.096%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.096%) WordPress
Applications
1 65 (6.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (5.76%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.54%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.19%) Windchill
6 1 (0.096%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.096%) Revit
6 1 (0.096%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 18 (1.73%) 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 (0.096%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.096%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 201 (19.31%) Azure
2 158 (15.18%) Microsoft 365
3 116 (11.14%) AWS
4 115 (11.05%) Power Platform
5 50 (4.80%) PowerApps
6 44 (4.23%) Entra ID
7 42 (4.03%) GitHub
8 39 (3.75%) SaaS
9 37 (3.55%) Power Automate
10 36 (3.46%) GCP
10 36 (3.46%) Microsoft Copilot
11 34 (3.27%) OneDrive
12 31 (2.98%) Azure DevOps
13 25 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
14 20 (1.92%) Serverless
15 19 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
16 15 (1.44%) Copilot Studio
17 13 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
18 12 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
18 12 (1.15%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 68 (6.53%) DNS
2 57 (5.48%) DHCP
3 55 (5.28%) Firewall
4 41 (3.94%) VPN
5 38 (3.65%) TCP/IP
6 30 (2.88%) Wireless
7 25 (2.40%) VLAN
8 23 (2.21%) Network Security
9 22 (2.11%) VoIP
10 21 (2.02%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (1.73%) LAN
12 15 (1.44%) WAN
13 12 (1.15%) Broadband
13 12 (1.15%) Unified Communications
14 9 (0.86%) BGP
14 9 (0.86%) SD-WAN
15 7 (0.67%) OSPF
15 7 (0.67%) SNMP
16 6 (0.58%) SAN
17 5 (0.48%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (6.72%) Power BI
2 54 (5.19%) SQL Server
3 25 (2.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 24 (2.31%) MySQL
5 22 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (1.25%) BigQuery
7 11 (1.06%) Power Query
8 10 (0.96%) Big Data
9 9 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
9 9 (0.86%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.77%) Looker
10 8 (0.77%) MongoDB
10 8 (0.77%) Redis
10 8 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
11 7 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
11 7 (0.67%) Relational Database
12 6 (0.58%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.58%) MariaDB
12 6 (0.58%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 40 (3.84%) Git
2 37 (3.55%) JIRA
3 15 (1.44%) GitLab
3 15 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.67%) Bitbucket
4 7 (0.67%) Cypress.io
5 5 (0.48%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.38%) Claude Code
6 4 (0.38%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.29%) Selenium
7 3 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.19%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.19%) Vagrant
9 1 (0.096%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.096%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.096%) gulp
9 1 (0.096%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.096%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.096%) webpack
General
1 424 (40.73%) Social Skills
2 326 (31.32%) Analytical Skills
3 177 (17.00%) Finance
4 91 (8.74%) Law
5 82 (7.88%) Manufacturing
6 76 (7.30%) Organisational Skills
7 69 (6.63%) Legal
8 63 (6.05%) Retail
9 62 (5.96%) Telecoms
10 45 (4.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 37 (3.55%) Marketing
12 31 (2.98%) Public Sector
13 27 (2.59%) Military
14 19 (1.83%) Banking
15 18 (1.73%) Aerospace
16 16 (1.54%) Electronics
17 15 (1.44%) Automotive
17 15 (1.44%) Billing
17 15 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
18 10 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 152 (14.60%) Analyst
2 141 (13.54%) Senior
3 122 (11.72%) Developer
4 66 (6.34%) IT Support
5 53 (5.09%) Support Engineer
6 48 (4.61%) Lead
7 47 (4.51%) Senior Developer
7 47 (4.51%) Support Analyst
8 43 (4.13%) Consultant
9 42 (4.03%) Software Engineer
10 34 (3.27%) Administrator
11 29 (2.79%) IT Engineer
12 28 (2.69%) Support Technician
13 27 (2.59%) Junior
14 25 (2.40%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.40%) IT Manager
14 25 (2.40%) IT Support Engineer
15 24 (2.31%) Applications Support
15 24 (2.31%) IT Technician
16 23 (2.21%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.90%) .NET
2 50 (4.80%) React
3 45 (4.32%) REST
4 41 (3.94%) HTML
5 32 (3.07%) Terraform
6 26 (2.50%) Middleware
7 21 (2.02%) AngularJS
7 21 (2.02%) Spring
8 20 (1.92%) CSS
9 19 (1.83%) Spring Boot
9 19 (1.83%) Vue
9 19 (1.83%) XML
10 17 (1.63%) SOAP
11 16 (1.54%) EDI
12 15 (1.44%) JSON
12 15 (1.44%) Node.js
13 14 (1.34%) Kafka
14 11 (1.06%) Next.js
15 10 (0.96%) Microsoft Graph
15 10 (0.96%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 72 (6.92%) Driving Licence
2 65 (6.24%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.42%) Self-Motivation
4 39 (3.75%) Product Ownership
5 37 (3.55%) Cloud Native
5 37 (3.55%) Management Information System
6 24 (2.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 20 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
7 20 (1.92%) IoT
8 19 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
9 18 (1.73%) Security Posture
10 17 (1.63%) NHS
11 14 (1.34%) Replication
12 13 (1.25%) FMCG
13 12 (1.15%) Data Centre
13 12 (1.15%) Mobile App
14 11 (1.06%) Low-Code
14 11 (1.06%) Public Cloud
15 10 (0.96%) Enterprise Cloud
16 9 (0.86%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 131 (12.58%) Windows
2 58 (5.57%) Windows Server
3 40 (3.84%) Linux
4 21 (2.02%) Windows 10
5 16 (1.54%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.86%) Mac OS
7 8 (0.77%) Android
8 7 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.48%) Unix
9 5 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.096%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.096%) Solaris
11 1 (0.096%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.096%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 307 (29.49%) Continuous Improvement
2 201 (19.31%) Customer Service
3 156 (14.99%) AI
4 153 (14.70%) Agile
5 145 (13.93%) Mentoring
5 145 (13.93%) Stakeholder Management
6 118 (11.34%) CI/CD
7 115 (11.05%) Decision-Making
8 100 (9.61%) DevOps
9 99 (9.51%) Analytics
9 99 (9.51%) ERP
9 99 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 96 (9.22%) Collaborative Working
10 96 (9.22%) CRM
10 96 (9.22%) Software Engineering
11 86 (8.26%) Project Delivery
12 85 (8.17%) Roadmaps
13 75 (7.20%) User Acceptance Testing
14 68 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
15 67 (6.44%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 179 (17.20%) SQL
2 130 (12.49%) Python
3 69 (6.63%) JavaScript
4 64 (6.15%) C#
5 54 (5.19%) Java
6 49 (4.71%) PowerShell
7 31 (2.98%) TypeScript
8 24 (2.31%) Bash
9 19 (1.83%) PHP
10 14 (1.34%) C++
11 13 (1.25%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.06%) T-SQL
13 8 (0.77%) C
13 8 (0.77%) Go
13 8 (0.77%) Ruby
14 7 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.58%) Bicep
15 6 (0.58%) R
16 5 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.48%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 138 (13.26%) Degree
2 65 (6.24%) Security Cleared
3 41 (3.94%) SC Cleared
4 37 (3.55%) HNC
5 33 (3.17%) DBS Check
6 24 (2.31%) DV Cleared
7 22 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (2.11%) Microsoft Certification
8 14 (1.34%) CCNP
8 14 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
9 13 (1.25%) Azure Certification
9 13 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 13 (1.25%) HND
10 10 (0.96%) Master's Degree
11 9 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.77%) ACCA
12 8 (0.77%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 7 (0.67%) CIMA
13 7 (0.67%) Postgraduate
14 6 (0.58%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (5.28%) Data Quality
2 48 (4.61%) Accessibility
3 40 (3.84%) QA
4 35 (3.36%) GDPR
5 15 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (1.44%) SLA
6 12 (1.15%) TickIT
7 9 (0.86%) NIST
8 5 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (0.48%) NEBOSH
8 5 (0.48%) PMO
9 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 14443
9 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 7816
10 3 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.29%) IFRS
11 2 (0.19%) WCAG
12 1 (0.096%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.096%) IFRS 9
12 1 (0.096%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.096%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 101 (9.70%) Active Directory
2 50 (4.80%) Docker
3 27 (2.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.73%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.48%) Firmware
7 4 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 42 (4.03%) Kubernetes
2 32 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 14 (1.34%) Grafana
4 11 (1.06%) FortiGate
4 11 (1.06%) Prometheus
5 10 (0.96%) BMC PATROL
5 10 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
6 9 (0.86%) Ansible
7 5 (0.48%) Argo
8 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.19%) Nagios
9 2 (0.19%) Nessus
9 2 (0.19%) Packer
9 2 (0.19%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.19%) SCCM
9 2 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 1 (0.096%) Functional Safety
10 1 (0.096%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 1 (0.096%) Podman
10 1 (0.096%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 344 (33.05%) Microsoft
2 41 (3.94%) VMware
3 39 (3.75%) SAP
4 29 (2.79%) Google
5 22 (2.11%) Cisco
5 22 (2.11%) Sage
6 21 (2.02%) YouTube
7 17 (1.63%) Oracle
8 16 (1.54%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.44%) Civica
9 15 (1.44%) Salesforce
10 14 (1.34%) Aruba
11 13 (1.25%) iManage
12 10 (0.96%) Juniper
13 9 (0.86%) Aderant
13 9 (0.86%) OpenAI
14 8 (0.77%) Databricks
14 8 (0.77%) HubSpot
14 8 (0.77%) Tanium
15 7 (0.67%) Adobe