Problem-Solving Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Problem Solving
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,632 6,572 8,714
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.38% 18.88% 14.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.92% 21.70% 18.59%
Number of salaries quoted 4,736 3,676 4,238
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,625 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £46,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -13.98% -5.10%
75th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £47,166 £45,635 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.35% -8.73% -9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 55,644 30,284 46,881
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.29% 87.00% 78.23%
Number of salaries quoted 39,308 16,565 28,656
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,200 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 24 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 24 August 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
North of England -8 1,677 £45,000 +5.88% 819
South East -4 1,584 £42,500 - 1,005
Midlands -8 1,207 £42,500 +10.39% 642
North West -6 881 £45,250 +0.56% 403
South West -4 824 £45,000 +25.00% 517
West Midlands -9 678 £42,500 -5.56% 381
East of England -3 671 £42,500 +21.43% 380
Yorkshire -8 541 £42,500 +21.43% 300
East Midlands -9 526 £40,000 +14.29% 262
Scotland +1 300 £33,500 -24.72% 169
North East -6 255 £48,000 +20.00% 129
Northern Ireland -1 213 £56,250 -4.66% 50
Wales -22 171 £45,000 -6.49% 99
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 3
Problem-Solving
UK

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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
1 395 (5.96%) SharePoint
2 340 (5.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 66 (1.00%) CMS
3 66 (1.00%) Confluence
4 50 (0.75%) IIS
5 32 (0.48%) WordPress
6 29 (0.44%) Apache
7 27 (0.41%) Sitecore CMS
8 25 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.24%) Apache Spark
10 14 (0.21%) SAS
11 10 (0.15%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.14%) nginx
12 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
14 5 (0.075%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.075%) Skype for Business
15 4 (0.060%) Anypoint
15 4 (0.060%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 430 (6.48%) Microsoft Office
2 419 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 49 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 40 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 30 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 24 (0.36%) Simulink
8 23 (0.35%) AutoCAD
9 14 (0.21%) Revit
10 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.12%) EPLAN
11 7 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 7 (0.11%) Fusion 360
12 6 (0.090%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.090%) Navisworks
12 6 (0.090%) Sketch
13 5 (0.075%) Lightworks
13 5 (0.075%) SOLIDWORKS
14 4 (0.060%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 72 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 53 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 44 (0.66%) NetSuite
4 27 (0.41%) Shopify
5 18 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 17 (0.26%) Magento
6 17 (0.26%) SAP Business One
7 16 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
8 15 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 13 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 12 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
12 10 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.15%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
14 8 (0.12%) Primavera
15 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
15 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
16 6 (0.090%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 1,330 (20.05%) Azure
2 1,140 (17.19%) Microsoft 365
3 665 (10.03%) AWS
4 555 (8.37%) Power Platform
5 342 (5.16%) Entra ID
6 229 (3.45%) SaaS
7 227 (3.42%) GCP
8 165 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
9 144 (2.17%) PowerApps
10 141 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
11 129 (1.95%) GitHub
12 125 (1.88%) Power Automate
13 123 (1.85%) Serverless
14 80 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
14 80 (1.21%) OneDrive
15 57 (0.86%) Amazon S3
16 56 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
17 52 (0.78%) AWS CloudFormation
17 52 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
17 52 (0.78%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 418 (6.30%) Firewall
2 401 (6.05%) DNS
3 343 (5.17%) DHCP
4 245 (3.69%) VPN
5 227 (3.42%) TCP/IP
6 188 (2.83%) WAN
7 177 (2.67%) LAN
8 165 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
9 158 (2.38%) Wireless
10 131 (1.98%) VLAN
11 113 (1.70%) Network Security
12 106 (1.60%) VoIP
13 82 (1.24%) Broadband
14 43 (0.65%) Internet
15 30 (0.45%) SSL
16 29 (0.44%) SAN
17 28 (0.42%) HTTP
18 25 (0.38%) SD-WAN
19 23 (0.35%) MQTT
20 22 (0.33%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 441 (6.65%) Power BI
2 326 (4.92%) SQL Server
3 133 (2.01%) MySQL
4 125 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
5 110 (1.66%) Relational Database
6 103 (1.55%) Data Warehouse
7 91 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
8 83 (1.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 78 (1.18%) NoSQL
10 70 (1.06%) Tableau
11 62 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.71%) Electronic Patient Records
13 46 (0.69%) MongoDB
14 44 (0.66%) Big Data
15 43 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
15 43 (0.65%) Power Query
16 41 (0.62%) Data Lake
17 29 (0.44%) DynamoDB
18 26 (0.39%) Metadata
19 25 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 289 (4.36%) Git
2 228 (3.44%) JIRA
3 76 (1.15%) GitLab
4 70 (1.06%) Jenkins
5 35 (0.53%) Eclipse
6 33 (0.50%) Subversion
7 26 (0.39%) JUnit
7 26 (0.39%) Selenium
8 25 (0.38%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.32%) Claude Code
10 21 (0.32%) Postman
11 19 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
12 18 (0.27%) Bitbucket
13 16 (0.24%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.21%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.18%) Visual Studio
17 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
18 10 (0.15%) JMeter
General
1 3,196 (48.19%) Social Skills
2 1,859 (28.03%) Analytical Skills
3 1,060 (15.98%) Finance
4 619 (9.33%) Manufacturing
5 411 (6.20%) Organisational Skills
6 371 (5.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 308 (4.64%) Law
8 293 (4.42%) Public Sector
9 286 (4.31%) Legal
10 285 (4.30%) Retail
11 246 (3.71%) Marketing
12 231 (3.48%) Electronics
13 217 (3.27%) Aerospace
14 156 (2.35%) Telecoms
15 137 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
16 131 (1.98%) Banking
17 107 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
18 77 (1.16%) Military
19 74 (1.12%) Automotive
20 69 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 878 (13.24%) Analyst
2 715 (10.78%) Senior
3 699 (10.54%) Developer
4 666 (10.04%) IT Support
5 547 (8.25%) Support Engineer
6 366 (5.52%) Lead
7 361 (5.44%) IT Engineer
8 318 (4.79%) Support Analyst
9 295 (4.45%) Consultant
10 268 (4.04%) IT Support Engineer
11 262 (3.95%) Support Technician
12 257 (3.88%) Technical Support
13 233 (3.51%) Systems Engineer
14 228 (3.44%) IT Technician
15 222 (3.35%) Architect
16 218 (3.29%) Technical Engineer
17 214 (3.23%) Software Engineer
18 196 (2.96%) Senior Developer
19 195 (2.94%) Technical Support Engineer
20 177 (2.67%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 348 (5.25%) .NET
2 261 (3.94%) Terraform
3 218 (3.29%) React
4 196 (2.96%) HTML
5 191 (2.88%) REST
6 144 (2.17%) CSS
7 126 (1.90%) RESTful
8 97 (1.46%) Node.js
9 94 (1.42%) SOAP
10 82 (1.24%) Vue
11 80 (1.21%) ASP.NET
12 78 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 78 (1.18%) Middleware
13 73 (1.10%) JSON
14 72 (1.09%) Web Services
15 70 (1.06%) XML
16 64 (0.97%) Spring
17 57 (0.86%) Spring Boot
18 55 (0.83%) OAuth
19 48 (0.72%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 527 (7.95%) Driving Licence
2 417 (6.29%) Onboarding
3 334 (5.04%) Self-Motivation
4 298 (4.49%) Management Information System
5 186 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 167 (2.52%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
8 112 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 105 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
10 95 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
11 88 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
12 84 (1.27%) NHS
13 78 (1.18%) Security Posture
14 76 (1.15%) Robotics
15 69 (1.04%) Social Media
16 67 (1.01%) Mobile App
17 66 (1.00%) Virtual Team
18 65 (0.98%) Cyber Threat
19 63 (0.95%) IoT
20 59 (0.89%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,087 (16.39%) Windows
2 503 (7.58%) Windows Server
3 453 (6.83%) Linux
4 132 (1.99%) Windows 10
5 110 (1.66%) Windows Server 2016
6 91 (1.37%) Android
7 83 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 74 (1.12%) Mac OS
9 41 (0.62%) Unix
10 39 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
11 28 (0.42%) Ubuntu
12 19 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 18 (0.27%) VMS
14 14 (0.21%) CentOS
14 14 (0.21%) Debian
15 9 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
15 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
16 6 (0.090%) Windows 7
16 6 (0.090%) Windows Server 2012
17 5 (0.075%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,769 (26.67%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,198 (18.06%) Customer Service
3 1,005 (15.15%) Agile
4 754 (11.37%) Decision-Making
5 682 (10.28%) CI/CD
6 674 (10.16%) Mentoring
7 648 (9.77%) AI
8 612 (9.23%) Stakeholder Management
9 573 (8.64%) DevOps
10 564 (8.50%) Analytics
11 555 (8.37%) ITIL
12 536 (8.08%) Software Engineering
13 529 (7.98%) Cybersecurity
14 521 (7.86%) Collaborative Working
15 519 (7.83%) Project Delivery
16 493 (7.43%) ERP
17 472 (7.12%) Business Intelligence
18 438 (6.60%) Project Management
19 413 (6.23%) CRM
20 387 (5.84%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 1,017 (15.33%) SQL
2 719 (10.84%) Python
3 431 (6.50%) C#
3 431 (6.50%) JavaScript
4 293 (4.42%) Java
5 266 (4.01%) PowerShell
6 193 (2.91%) TypeScript
7 184 (2.77%) C++
8 119 (1.79%) Bash
9 74 (1.12%) PHP
10 72 (1.09%) C
11 61 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 55 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 45 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 43 (0.65%) Perl
15 40 (0.60%) Ruby
16 37 (0.56%) Go
17 33 (0.50%) PL/SQL
17 33 (0.50%) Rust
18 31 (0.47%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,045 (15.76%) Degree
2 621 (9.36%) Security Cleared
3 443 (6.68%) SC Cleared
4 202 (3.05%) DBS Check
5 193 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 183 (2.76%) Microsoft Certification
7 166 (2.50%) DV Cleared
8 152 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
9 126 (1.90%) HNC
10 117 (1.76%) Azure Certification
11 106 (1.60%) HND
12 95 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
13 79 (1.19%) PMI Certification
14 73 (1.10%) CISSP
15 66 (1.00%) CCNA
16 63 (0.95%) Chartered Engineer
16 63 (0.95%) Master's Degree
17 58 (0.87%) A+ Certification
17 58 (0.87%) PMP
18 50 (0.75%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 442 (6.66%) QA
2 265 (4.00%) Data Quality
3 196 (2.96%) GDPR
4 176 (2.65%) Cyber Essentials
5 166 (2.50%) Accessibility
5 166 (2.50%) SLA
6 126 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 114 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 94 (1.42%) NIST
9 36 (0.54%) ISO 9001
10 32 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 30 (0.45%) PMO
12 20 (0.30%) GMP
13 18 (0.27%) Good Clinical Practice
14 16 (0.24%) GRC
15 14 (0.21%) DO-254
16 12 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.18%) GxP
16 12 (0.18%) TickIT
16 12 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 758 (11.43%) Active Directory
2 282 (4.25%) Hyper-V
3 250 (3.77%) Docker
4 202 (3.05%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.21%) Terminal Server
6 67 (1.01%) Firmware
7 35 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 28 (0.42%) vSphere
9 22 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
10 15 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
11 7 (0.11%) KVM
12 5 (0.075%) ClearTrust
12 5 (0.075%) Squid
12 5 (0.075%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.075%) XenApp
13 4 (0.060%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.045%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 3 (0.045%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.045%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 230 (3.47%) Microsoft Intune
2 217 (3.27%) Kubernetes
3 107 (1.61%) Ansible
4 58 (0.87%) SCCM
5 55 (0.83%) Grafana
6 39 (0.59%) Prometheus
7 35 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 21 (0.32%) FortiGate
9 18 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
10 17 (0.26%) Puppet
11 13 (0.20%) Functional Safety
11 13 (0.20%) Nagios
12 11 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
12 11 (0.17%) Kibana
12 11 (0.17%) Nmap
13 10 (0.15%) logstash
13 10 (0.15%) Podman
13 10 (0.15%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
14 9 (0.14%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,005 (30.23%) Microsoft
2 326 (4.92%) VMware
3 176 (2.65%) SAP
4 173 (2.61%) Google
5 157 (2.37%) Oracle
6 138 (2.08%) Veeam
7 132 (1.99%) Cisco
8 123 (1.85%) Splunk
9 113 (1.70%) ServiceNow
10 102 (1.54%) SolarWinds
11 96 (1.45%) Workday
12 91 (1.37%) Salesforce
13 88 (1.33%) Tanium
14 81 (1.22%) Nimble Storage
15 80 (1.21%) Brocade
16 78 (1.18%) Databricks
17 70 (1.06%) Sage
18 62 (0.93%) Fortinet
19 57 (0.86%) Apple
20 52 (0.78%) SonicWALL