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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 8 8
Rank change year-on-year -16 0 +13
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 660 716 1,234
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 6.32% 16.93% 13.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.58% 17.78% 16.21%
Number of salaries quoted 496 546 889
10th Percentile £27,250 £27,093 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,000 £35,563 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £47,842 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.16% +6.31% -5.26%
75th Percentile £60,000 £65,000 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,750 £77,500 £77,700
England median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -9.09%

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 7,691 4,028 7,611
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 73.64% 95.25% 82.19%
Number of salaries quoted 4,563 2,189 6,042
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,200 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,750 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,603
90th Percentile £88,630 £83,850 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%

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 4 May 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 4 May 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 -23 313 £50,000 -3.85% 204
Merseyside +1 114 £39,000 +20.00% 40
Cheshire -16 106 £42,500 +16.44% 71
Lancashire -3 76 £36,500 -23.45% 75
Cumbria +4 49 £42,500 +8.28% 12
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 50 (7.58%) SharePoint
2 39 (5.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.21%) Confluence
4 4 (0.61%) Moodle
4 4 (0.61%) Totara
5 3 (0.45%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.45%) WordPress
6 2 (0.30%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.30%) CMS
7 1 (0.15%) Apache
7 1 (0.15%) Umbraco
Applications
1 39 (5.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (3.94%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.91%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.45%) Simulink
4 3 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 25 (3.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.97%) SAP ERP
3 7 (1.06%) Magento
4 6 (0.91%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.61%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.61%) SAP PP
6 4 (0.61%) Shopify
7 1 (0.15%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 147 (22.27%) Azure
2 128 (19.39%) Microsoft 365
3 69 (10.45%) Power Platform
4 60 (9.09%) AWS
5 39 (5.91%) Entra ID
6 28 (4.24%) SaaS
7 27 (4.09%) Dynamics 365
8 26 (3.94%) GCP
9 25 (3.79%) GitHub
10 20 (3.03%) Power Automate
11 19 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
11 19 (2.88%) Microsoft Purview
11 19 (2.88%) PowerApps
12 13 (1.97%) Serverless
13 12 (1.82%) Boomi
14 10 (1.52%) Azure Monitor
14 10 (1.52%) OneDrive
15 9 (1.36%) Microsoft Copilot
16 8 (1.21%) Azure Logic Apps
16 8 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 57 (8.64%) Firewall
2 33 (5.00%) DNS
3 31 (4.70%) DHCP
4 30 (4.55%) VLAN
5 28 (4.24%) VPN
6 24 (3.64%) Wi-Fi
7 21 (3.18%) Wireless
8 18 (2.73%) TCP/IP
8 18 (2.73%) VoIP
8 18 (2.73%) WAN
9 12 (1.82%) Broadband
9 12 (1.82%) Structured Cabling
10 11 (1.67%) LAN
10 11 (1.67%) Unified Communications
11 10 (1.52%) SD-WAN
12 8 (1.21%) Network Security
13 7 (1.06%) Telepresence
13 7 (1.06%) WebEx
14 6 (0.91%) IP Telephony
15 5 (0.76%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (7.27%) Power BI
2 26 (3.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 17 (2.58%) SQL Server
4 11 (1.67%) NoSQL
5 9 (1.36%) MySQL
5 9 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (1.21%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.61%) DynamoDB
8 4 (0.61%) Looker
9 3 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.45%) Big Data
9 3 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.45%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.45%) SAP HANA
10 2 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.30%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.30%) Power Query
11 1 (0.15%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.15%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 28 (4.24%) Git
2 26 (3.94%) JIRA
3 8 (1.21%) GitLab
4 7 (1.06%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.45%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.15%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.15%) gulp
6 1 (0.15%) LabVIEW
6 1 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 295 (44.70%) Social Skills
2 176 (26.67%) Analytical Skills
3 112 (16.97%) Finance
4 57 (8.64%) Organisational Skills
5 50 (7.58%) Manufacturing
6 36 (5.45%) Retail
7 33 (5.00%) Marketing
8 31 (4.70%) Law
8 31 (4.70%) Public Sector
9 25 (3.79%) Legal
10 24 (3.64%) Automotive
11 22 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (2.42%) Telecoms
13 14 (2.12%) Advertising
14 13 (1.97%) Banking
15 10 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
15 10 (1.52%) French Language
16 9 (1.36%) Games
16 9 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
17 8 (1.21%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 83 (12.58%) Analyst
2 78 (11.82%) Senior
2 78 (11.82%) Support Engineer
3 77 (11.67%) IT Support
4 55 (8.33%) Developer
5 47 (7.12%) IT Engineer
6 45 (6.82%) IT Support Engineer
7 35 (5.30%) Support Technician
8 31 (4.70%) Consultant
9 30 (4.55%) Lead
10 28 (4.24%) Business Analyst
11 25 (3.79%) Senior Developer
12 19 (2.88%) Architect
12 19 (2.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 19 (2.88%) Software Engineer
13 17 (2.58%) IT Support Technician
13 17 (2.58%) IT Technician
14 16 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
14 16 (2.42%) Technical Engineer
14 16 (2.42%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (4.24%) React
2 25 (3.79%) .NET
3 24 (3.64%) REST
4 23 (3.48%) HTML
5 22 (3.33%) EDI
6 20 (3.03%) Spring
6 20 (3.03%) Spring Boot
7 15 (2.27%) CSS
8 14 (2.12%) AngularJS
8 14 (2.12%) XML
9 13 (1.97%) SOAP
10 12 (1.82%) JSON
10 12 (1.82%) Middleware
11 11 (1.67%) SAP Fiori
11 11 (1.67%) Vue
12 10 (1.52%) RESTful
13 9 (1.36%) Node.js
14 8 (1.21%) Web Services
15 7 (1.06%) OAuth
15 7 (1.06%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 84 (12.73%) Driving Licence
2 50 (7.58%) Onboarding
3 22 (3.33%) Self-Motivation
4 17 (2.58%) Analytical Mindset
5 15 (2.27%) CCTV
5 15 (2.27%) Data Centre
5 15 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
6 13 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
7 12 (1.82%) Cloud Native
7 12 (1.82%) Product Ownership
8 11 (1.67%) EPoS
8 11 (1.67%) Management Information System
8 11 (1.67%) Social Media
9 9 (1.36%) CMDB
9 9 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
10 8 (1.21%) FMCG
11 7 (1.06%) Security Posture
12 6 (0.91%) AI Agents
12 6 (0.91%) Mobile App
12 6 (0.91%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 115 (17.42%) Windows
2 50 (7.58%) Windows Server
3 35 (5.30%) Windows 10
4 22 (3.33%) Apple iOS
5 20 (3.03%) Linux
6 14 (2.12%) Android
7 8 (1.21%) Windows 7
7 8 (1.21%) Windows 8
7 8 (1.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (1.06%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.61%) Unix
11 3 (0.45%) Solaris
12 1 (0.15%) CentOS
12 1 (0.15%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.15%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (21.21%) Customer Service
2 116 (17.58%) Continuous Improvement
3 93 (14.09%) Mentoring
4 79 (11.97%) Stakeholder Management
5 77 (11.67%) Decision-Making
6 72 (10.91%) Agile
7 65 (9.85%) AI
8 52 (7.88%) CI/CD
8 52 (7.88%) DevOps
9 49 (7.42%) Collaborative Working
9 49 (7.42%) CRM
9 49 (7.42%) ERP
10 48 (7.27%) Project Management
10 48 (7.27%) Roadmaps
11 46 (6.97%) User Experience
12 43 (6.52%) Software Engineering
13 42 (6.36%) Coaching
14 41 (6.21%) Analytics
15 40 (6.06%) Business Intelligence
15 40 (6.06%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 84 (12.73%) SQL
2 50 (7.58%) Python
3 32 (4.85%) C#
3 32 (4.85%) JavaScript
4 29 (4.39%) Java
5 14 (2.12%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.52%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.36%) Kotlin
8 8 (1.21%) Bash
9 6 (0.91%) C++
9 6 (0.91%) PHP
10 4 (0.61%) Bicep
10 4 (0.61%) C
10 4 (0.61%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.45%) Go
11 3 (0.45%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.45%) Scala
11 3 (0.45%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.45%) Swift
12 2 (0.30%) VBA
Qualifications
1 77 (11.67%) Degree
2 24 (3.64%) DBS Check
3 20 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (2.42%) Security Cleared
5 11 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (1.36%) HNC
7 8 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.21%) Network+ Certification
7 8 (1.21%) SC Cleared
8 6 (0.91%) CCNA
9 5 (0.76%) Azure Certification
9 5 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
9 5 (0.76%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.61%) HND
10 4 (0.61%) MCSA
11 3 (0.45%) CCNP
11 3 (0.45%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.45%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.30%) QA
2 27 (4.09%) SLA
3 24 (3.64%) Data Quality
4 20 (3.03%) GDPR
5 12 (1.82%) TickIT
6 11 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
8 8 (1.21%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.91%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) DICOM
11 1 (0.15%) GMP
11 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 14443
11 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 7816
11 1 (0.15%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 89 (13.48%) Active Directory
2 22 (3.33%) Docker
2 22 (3.33%) Hyper-V
3 18 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.21%) VMware Workstation
5 4 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.30%) Firmware
8 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 34 (5.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 31 (4.70%) Terraform
3 21 (3.18%) Kubernetes
4 20 (3.03%) BMC PATROL
4 20 (3.03%) SCCM
5 12 (1.82%) Ansible
6 10 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (1.36%) Autotask
8 7 (1.06%) Cisco CUCM
9 5 (0.76%) FortiGate
10 4 (0.61%) Grafana
10 4 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.61%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.45%) Podman
11 3 (0.45%) Rancher
12 2 (0.30%) cPanel
12 2 (0.30%) Plesk
13 1 (0.15%) McAfee ePO
13 1 (0.15%) SCVMM
13 1 (0.15%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 210 (31.82%) Microsoft
2 27 (4.09%) SAP
3 20 (3.03%) VMware
4 17 (2.58%) Google
5 14 (2.12%) Oracle
6 13 (1.97%) Cisco
7 11 (1.67%) Apple
7 11 (1.67%) ServiceNow
7 11 (1.67%) Workday
8 9 (1.36%) iManage
9 8 (1.21%) ESET
9 8 (1.21%) Meraki
9 8 (1.21%) New Relic
9 8 (1.21%) Splunk
10 7 (1.06%) Aruba
11 5 (0.76%) Aderant
11 5 (0.76%) Adobe
11 5 (0.76%) BiZZdesign
11 5 (0.76%) Intapp
11 5 (0.76%) Siemens