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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,048 1,014 1,104
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 8.08% 19.40% 14.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.07% 21.65% 18.43%
Number of salaries quoted 757 501 394
10th Percentile £26,614 £26,500 £27,000
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 £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 9,463 4,684 5,991
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 72.99% 89.59% 79.39%
Number of salaries quoted 7,048 2,198 3,222
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £30,500
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 2 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 2 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 -3 588 £47,500 +5.56% 614
Merseyside -1 173 £42,500 -19.81% 107
Cheshire -8 159 £47,500 -10.38% 128
Lancashire +6 93 £42,500 -10.87% 107
Cumbria -6 23 £30,000 -16.33% 21
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 (7.92%) SharePoint
2 53 (5.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.15%) IIS
4 6 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.57%) 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 (0.095%) 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 (6.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 59 (5.63%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.53%) 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 (1.72%) 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%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.095%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.095%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 200 (19.08%) Azure
2 156 (14.89%) Microsoft 365
3 116 (11.07%) AWS
4 111 (10.59%) Power Platform
5 48 (4.58%) PowerApps
6 46 (4.39%) Entra ID
7 42 (4.01%) SaaS
8 41 (3.91%) GitHub
9 37 (3.53%) GCP
10 36 (3.44%) Microsoft Copilot
11 35 (3.34%) Power Automate
12 34 (3.24%) OneDrive
13 31 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
14 23 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
15 20 (1.91%) Serverless
16 19 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
17 15 (1.43%) Copilot Studio
18 13 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
19 11 (1.05%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 69 (6.58%) DNS
2 58 (5.53%) DHCP
3 53 (5.06%) Firewall
4 40 (3.82%) VPN
5 37 (3.53%) TCP/IP
6 29 (2.77%) Wireless
7 25 (2.39%) VLAN
8 23 (2.19%) Network Security
9 22 (2.10%) VoIP
10 21 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (1.72%) LAN
12 16 (1.53%) WAN
13 12 (1.15%) Broadband
13 12 (1.15%) 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 67 (6.39%) Power BI
2 53 (5.06%) SQL Server
3 24 (2.29%) MySQL
3 24 (2.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 21 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (1.24%) BigQuery
6 11 (1.05%) Power Query
7 10 (0.95%) Big Data
8 9 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
8 9 (0.86%) NoSQL
9 8 (0.76%) Looker
9 8 (0.76%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.76%) Redis
10 7 (0.67%) Data Lake
10 7 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
10 7 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
10 7 (0.67%) Relational Database
10 7 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 6 (0.57%) MariaDB
11 6 (0.57%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 40 (3.82%) Git
2 37 (3.53%) JIRA
3 16 (1.53%) 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%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.095%) Rational Rhapsody
10 1 (0.095%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.095%) webpack
General
1 424 (40.46%) Social Skills
2 329 (31.39%) Analytical Skills
3 190 (18.13%) Finance
4 89 (8.49%) Law
5 82 (7.82%) Manufacturing
6 76 (7.25%) Organisational Skills
7 74 (7.06%) Retail
8 70 (6.68%) Legal
9 62 (5.92%) Telecoms
10 49 (4.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 40 (3.82%) Marketing
12 32 (3.05%) Public Sector
13 27 (2.58%) Military
14 18 (1.72%) Aerospace
15 17 (1.62%) Electronics
16 16 (1.53%) Banking
16 16 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
17 15 (1.43%) Automotive
17 15 (1.43%) Billing
18 13 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 155 (14.79%) Analyst
2 142 (13.55%) Senior
3 119 (11.35%) Developer
4 65 (6.20%) IT Support
5 53 (5.06%) Support Engineer
6 48 (4.58%) Support Analyst
7 47 (4.48%) Lead
8 46 (4.39%) Senior Developer
9 43 (4.10%) Consultant
10 40 (3.82%) Software Engineer
11 33 (3.15%) Administrator
12 28 (2.67%) IT Engineer
12 28 (2.67%) Junior
13 27 (2.58%) Support Technician
14 25 (2.39%) Applications Support
14 25 (2.39%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.39%) IT Support Engineer
15 24 (2.29%) IT Manager
16 23 (2.19%) Architect
16 23 (2.19%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.77%) .NET
2 47 (4.48%) React
3 41 (3.91%) HTML
4 40 (3.82%) REST
5 34 (3.24%) Terraform
6 25 (2.39%) Middleware
7 20 (1.91%) CSS
8 19 (1.81%) Vue
9 18 (1.72%) XML
10 17 (1.62%) AngularJS
10 17 (1.62%) Spring
11 16 (1.53%) Node.js
11 16 (1.53%) SOAP
12 15 (1.43%) EDI
12 15 (1.43%) Kafka
12 15 (1.43%) Spring Boot
13 14 (1.34%) JSON
14 11 (1.05%) Next.js
15 10 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
15 10 (0.95%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 82 (7.82%) Driving Licence
2 68 (6.49%) Onboarding
3 48 (4.58%) Self-Motivation
4 38 (3.63%) Product Ownership
5 37 (3.53%) Cloud Native
5 37 (3.53%) Management Information System
6 24 (2.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 20 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
7 20 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
7 20 (1.91%) IoT
8 18 (1.72%) NHS
8 18 (1.72%) Security Posture
9 14 (1.34%) Replication
10 13 (1.24%) FMCG
11 12 (1.15%) Data Centre
11 12 (1.15%) Mobile App
12 11 (1.05%) Low-Code
12 11 (1.05%) Public Cloud
13 9 (0.86%) AI Agents
13 9 (0.86%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.40%) Windows
2 59 (5.63%) Windows Server
3 40 (3.82%) 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
1 310 (29.58%) Continuous Improvement
2 198 (18.89%) Customer Service
3 161 (15.36%) AI
4 153 (14.60%) Agile
5 145 (13.84%) Stakeholder Management
6 140 (13.36%) Mentoring
7 119 (11.35%) CI/CD
8 116 (11.07%) Decision-Making
9 102 (9.73%) DevOps
10 99 (9.45%) Analytics
10 99 (9.45%) CRM
10 99 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 98 (9.35%) ERP
12 97 (9.26%) Collaborative Working
13 96 (9.16%) Software Engineering
14 87 (8.30%) Project Delivery
15 83 (7.92%) Roadmaps
16 76 (7.25%) User Acceptance Testing
17 70 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
18 68 (6.49%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 174 (16.60%) SQL
2 131 (12.50%) Python
3 70 (6.68%) JavaScript
4 63 (6.01%) C#
5 50 (4.77%) Java
5 50 (4.77%) PowerShell
6 32 (3.05%) TypeScript
7 24 (2.29%) Bash
8 19 (1.81%) PHP
9 14 (1.34%) C++
10 13 (1.24%) Shell Script
11 11 (1.05%) T-SQL
12 8 (0.76%) C
12 8 (0.76%) Go
12 8 (0.76%) Ruby
13 7 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 6 (0.57%) Bicep
14 6 (0.57%) R
15 5 (0.48%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.48%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 143 (13.65%) Degree
2 66 (6.30%) Security Cleared
3 42 (4.01%) SC Cleared
4 37 (3.53%) HNC
5 34 (3.24%) DBS Check
6 24 (2.29%) DV Cleared
7 23 (2.19%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.34%) Azure Certification
9 14 (1.34%) CCNP
9 14 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
10 13 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
10 13 (1.24%) HND
10 13 (1.24%) Master's Degree
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 (5.34%) Data Quality
2 48 (4.58%) Accessibility
3 40 (3.82%) QA
4 35 (3.34%) GDPR
5 15 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 13 (1.24%) SLA
7 11 (1.05%) TickIT
8 9 (0.86%) NIST
9 5 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.48%) NEBOSH
9 5 (0.48%) PMO
10 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 14443
10 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 7816
11 3 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.29%) IFRS
12 2 (0.19%) Good Clinical Practice
12 2 (0.19%) WCAG
13 1 (0.095%) GxP
13 1 (0.095%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.095%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 102 (9.73%) Active Directory
2 51 (4.87%) Docker
3 27 (2.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.72%) 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 43 (4.10%) Kubernetes
2 34 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (1.91%) BMC PATROL
4 14 (1.34%) Grafana
5 12 (1.15%) FortiGate
6 11 (1.05%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (0.86%) Ansible
8 5 (0.48%) Argo
9 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (0.19%) Nagios
10 2 (0.19%) Nessus
10 2 (0.19%) Packer
10 2 (0.19%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.19%) SCCM
10 2 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 1 (0.095%) Istio
11 1 (0.095%) linkerd
11 1 (0.095%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 1 (0.095%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 339 (32.35%) Microsoft
2 42 (4.01%) VMware
3 39 (3.72%) SAP
4 30 (2.86%) Google
5 22 (2.10%) Cisco
5 22 (2.10%) Sage
6 21 (2.00%) YouTube
7 16 (1.53%) Oracle
7 16 (1.53%) 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%) Juniper
11 9 (0.86%) Aderant
11 9 (0.86%) Databricks
11 9 (0.86%) OpenAI
12 8 (0.76%) HubSpot
12 8 (0.76%) Tanium
13 7 (0.67%) Adobe