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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 6 8
Rank change year-on-year -14 +2 +17
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 737 798 881
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 9.90% 17.64% 13.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.71% 18.91% 15.42%
Number of salaries quoted 570 434 655
10th Percentile £26,725 £31,250 £26,000
25th Percentile £30,500 £37,574 £32,046
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +5.26% -2.81%
75th Percentile £53,000 £65,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £81,250 £72,750
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -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 5,797 4,220 5,714
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 77.91% 93.28% 85.80%
Number of salaries quoted 3,063 2,108 4,653
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,620 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -8.90%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £66,778
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £80,070
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -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 19 February 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 19 February 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 -17 301 £45,000 -14.29% 196
Cheshire -11 138 £48,720 +21.80% 84
Merseyside +1 135 £48,000 +47.69% 34
Lancashire -9 113 £40,000 -23.81% 71
Cumbria +5 49 £45,000 +9.76% 14
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 44 (5.97%) SharePoint
2 19 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (0.95%) Confluence
3 7 (0.95%) WordPress
4 3 (0.41%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.41%) Moodle
4 3 (0.41%) Totara
5 2 (0.27%) FactoryTalk
5 2 (0.27%) nginx
5 2 (0.27%) WinCC
6 1 (0.14%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.14%) Apache
6 1 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.14%) Apache Solr
6 1 (0.14%) CMS
Applications
1 40 (5.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (3.53%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.41%) Simulink
4 2 (0.27%) AutoCAD
4 2 (0.27%) Revit
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (1.09%) SAP Business One
2 6 (0.81%) Workday HCM
3 5 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.54%) Shopify
5 2 (0.27%) Magento
5 2 (0.27%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.14%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.14%) Primavera
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 135 (18.32%) Azure
2 105 (14.25%) Microsoft 365
3 77 (10.45%) AWS
4 53 (7.19%) Entra ID
5 50 (6.78%) Power Platform
6 36 (4.88%) GCP
7 33 (4.48%) SaaS
8 15 (2.04%) OneDrive
9 13 (1.76%) Power Automate
9 13 (1.76%) Serverless
10 10 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
10 10 (1.36%) Microsoft Purview
11 9 (1.22%) Azure Sentinel
11 9 (1.22%) Cloud Computing
11 9 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (1.22%) Google Workspace
12 8 (1.09%) PaaS
13 7 (0.95%) Adobe Analytics
13 7 (0.95%) IaaS
13 7 (0.95%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 46 (6.24%) Firewall
2 32 (4.34%) DNS
3 30 (4.07%) DHCP
4 22 (2.99%) VPN
5 21 (2.85%) VLAN
6 20 (2.71%) Wi-Fi
7 16 (2.17%) TCP/IP
7 16 (2.17%) Unified Communications
7 16 (2.17%) VoIP
8 15 (2.04%) WAN
9 14 (1.90%) Telepresence
9 14 (1.90%) WebEx
10 13 (1.76%) Wireless
11 11 (1.49%) Broadband
12 10 (1.36%) Structured Cabling
13 9 (1.22%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.95%) Ethernet
14 7 (0.95%) LAN
15 4 (0.54%) VXLAN
15 4 (0.54%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (5.16%) Power BI
2 18 (2.44%) SQL Server
3 14 (1.90%) NoSQL
4 13 (1.76%) Tableau
5 11 (1.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 10 (1.36%) MongoDB
6 10 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (1.09%) Crystal Reports
7 8 (1.09%) MySQL
8 6 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
9 5 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (0.68%) Big Data
9 5 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (0.68%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.54%) BigQuery
10 4 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.54%) DynamoDB
10 4 (0.54%) Looker
11 3 (0.41%) Hadoop
12 2 (0.27%) Data Mart
Development Applications
1 24 (3.26%) Git
2 9 (1.22%) JIRA
3 7 (0.95%) GitLab
4 3 (0.41%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.14%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
General
1 313 (42.47%) Social Skills
2 179 (24.29%) Analytical Skills
3 144 (19.54%) Finance
4 54 (7.33%) Organisational Skills
5 45 (6.11%) Automotive
6 29 (3.93%) Legal
7 27 (3.66%) Public Sector
8 24 (3.26%) Telecoms
9 23 (3.12%) Retail
10 22 (2.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 22 (2.99%) Manufacturing
10 22 (2.99%) Presentation Skills
11 17 (2.31%) Banking
11 17 (2.31%) Electronics
12 16 (2.17%) Law
13 15 (2.04%) Marketing
14 13 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
15 12 (1.63%) Advertising
15 12 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
16 11 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 96 (13.03%) Analyst
2 91 (12.35%) IT Support
3 83 (11.26%) Support Engineer
4 70 (9.50%) Senior
5 42 (5.70%) IT Engineer
5 42 (5.70%) IT Support Engineer
6 36 (4.88%) Business Analyst
7 34 (4.61%) Lead
8 30 (4.07%) Developer
8 30 (4.07%) Trainee
9 26 (3.53%) Trainee Analyst
9 26 (3.53%) Trainee Business Analyst
10 24 (3.26%) Consultant
10 24 (3.26%) Support Technician
11 23 (3.12%) Architect
12 21 (2.85%) Technical Engineer
12 21 (2.85%) Technical Support
12 21 (2.85%) Technical Support Engineer
13 20 (2.71%) 1st Line Support
14 19 (2.58%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (2.99%) React
2 18 (2.44%) HTML
3 14 (1.90%) .NET
4 13 (1.76%) CSS
5 12 (1.63%) Spring
6 11 (1.49%) RESTful
6 11 (1.49%) Spring Boot
7 9 (1.22%) Vue
8 8 (1.09%) Node.js
9 7 (0.95%) Hibernate
9 7 (0.95%) Laravel
10 6 (0.81%) Django
10 6 (0.81%) EDI
10 6 (0.81%) FastAPI
11 5 (0.68%) AngularJS
11 5 (0.68%) Celery
11 5 (0.68%) Flask
11 5 (0.68%) OAuth
11 5 (0.68%) REST
12 4 (0.54%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 200 (27.14%) Driving Licence
2 51 (6.92%) Onboarding
3 30 (4.07%) Self-Motivation
4 25 (3.39%) EPoS
5 24 (3.26%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
7 16 (2.17%) Data Centre
8 15 (2.04%) Cloud Native
9 14 (1.90%) CCTV
10 13 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (1.63%) Product Ownership
12 8 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
13 7 (0.95%) IoT
13 7 (0.95%) Management Information System
13 7 (0.95%) Renewable Energy
13 7 (0.95%) Social Media
13 7 (0.95%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
14 6 (0.81%) Home Automation
Operating Systems
1 109 (14.79%) Windows
2 42 (5.70%) Windows Server
3 26 (3.53%) Windows 10
4 23 (3.12%) Linux
5 14 (1.90%) Android
6 13 (1.76%) Apple iOS
7 9 (1.22%) Windows 7
7 9 (1.22%) Windows 8
8 7 (0.95%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.27%) Unix
12 1 (0.14%) CentOS
12 1 (0.14%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (13.70%) Continuous Improvement
1 101 (13.70%) Customer Service
2 94 (12.75%) Decision-Making
3 92 (12.48%) Agile
4 88 (11.94%) Mentoring
5 68 (9.23%) AI
5 68 (9.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 64 (8.68%) Project Management
7 57 (7.73%) Coaching
7 57 (7.73%) Cybersecurity
8 46 (6.24%) Analytics
9 45 (6.11%) ITIL
10 44 (5.97%) CI/CD
11 41 (5.56%) Business Intelligence
11 41 (5.56%) Process Improvement
12 40 (5.43%) DevOps
13 39 (5.29%) Service Delivery
13 39 (5.29%) Visualisation
14 38 (5.16%) Change Management
14 38 (5.16%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 71 (9.63%) SQL
2 50 (6.78%) Python
3 22 (2.99%) Java
4 21 (2.85%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.90%) C#
6 10 (1.36%) PHP
6 10 (1.36%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.36%) TypeScript
7 7 (0.95%) Kotlin
8 4 (0.54%) Bash
8 4 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (0.54%) MATLAB
8 4 (0.54%) Scala
9 3 (0.41%) Go
9 3 (0.41%) Ladder Logic
10 2 (0.27%) Bicep
10 2 (0.27%) C
10 2 (0.27%) R
10 2 (0.27%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.14%) VB
Qualifications
1 126 (17.10%) Degree
2 33 (4.48%) DBS Check
3 22 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (2.17%) Master's Degree
5 15 (2.04%) Security Cleared
6 10 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (1.36%) SC Cleared
7 9 (1.22%) Azure Certification
7 9 (1.22%) HNC
8 8 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
9 7 (0.95%) A+ Certification
9 7 (0.95%) NVQ Level 4
10 6 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.68%) HND
12 4 (0.54%) ACCA
12 4 (0.54%) CIMA
12 4 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.41%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (3.53%) QA
2 19 (2.58%) GDPR
3 18 (2.44%) Data Quality
4 17 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.90%) Cyber Essentials
6 10 (1.36%) SLA
7 8 (1.09%) Accessibility
7 8 (1.09%) ISO 9001
8 6 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 4 (0.54%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 4 (0.54%) GLBA
10 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.27%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.14%) NIST
11 1 (0.14%) PMO
System Software
1 79 (10.72%) Active Directory
2 25 (3.39%) Docker
3 22 (2.99%) Hyper-V
4 10 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (1.09%) VMware Workstation
6 3 (0.41%) Firmware
6 3 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 42 (5.70%) BMC PATROL
2 41 (5.56%) Microsoft Intune
3 27 (3.66%) Terraform
4 23 (3.12%) Kubernetes
5 17 (2.31%) SCCM
6 14 (1.90%) Cisco CUCM
7 10 (1.36%) Ansible
7 10 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
8 9 (1.22%) Autotask
9 3 (0.41%) cPanel
9 3 (0.41%) Grafana
9 3 (0.41%) Plesk
9 3 (0.41%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.41%) Rancher
10 2 (0.27%) AssetCenter
10 2 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.14%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.14%) McAfee ePO
11 1 (0.14%) Nagios
11 1 (0.14%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 150 (20.35%) Microsoft
2 23 (3.12%) Oracle
3 19 (2.58%) Cisco
3 19 (2.58%) SAP
4 16 (2.17%) Google
5 15 (2.04%) VMware
5 15 (2.04%) Workday
6 10 (1.36%) HubSpot
6 10 (1.36%) ServiceNow
6 10 (1.36%) Siemens
7 9 (1.22%) ESET
8 8 (1.09%) New Relic
8 8 (1.09%) Splunk
9 7 (0.95%) Adobe
9 7 (0.95%) Apple
9 7 (0.95%) Qualtrics
10 6 (0.81%) BiZZdesign
10 6 (0.81%) iManage
11 5 (0.68%) BT
11 5 (0.68%) Facebook