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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,769 6,570 8,518
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.42% 18.85% 14.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.99% 21.75% 18.66%
Number of salaries quoted 4,816 3,640 3,982
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -3.06%
75th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £47,203 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +4.90% -10.00% -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 56,440 30,201 45,648
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.22% 86.63% 78.34%
Number of salaries quoted 40,032 16,583 26,983
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £51,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -6.86% -6.87%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%

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 1 September 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 1 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
North of England -8 1,698 £45,000 +7.14% 1,432
South East -4 1,613 £42,500 - 1,444
Midlands -7 1,231 £42,500 +10.39% 979
North West -6 883 £45,000 - 800
South West -4 838 £45,000 +25.00% 862
East of England -4 689 £42,500 +21.43% 663
West Midlands -8 689 £42,500 -0.28% 615
Yorkshire -8 551 £42,500 +21.43% 444
East Midlands -9 540 £41,000 +17.14% 366
Scotland 0 308 £33,500 -24.72% 523
North East -4 264 £48,250 +26.97% 210
Northern Ireland -1 219 £62,500 +5.93% 375
Wales -21 186 £43,000 -10.64% 159
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 8
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
1 410 (6.06%) SharePoint
2 346 (5.11%) Microsoft Exchange
3 63 (0.93%) Confluence
4 61 (0.90%) CMS
5 53 (0.78%) IIS
6 31 (0.46%) WordPress
7 30 (0.44%) Apache
8 27 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.24%) Apache Spark
11 15 (0.22%) SAS
12 10 (0.15%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.13%) nginx
13 9 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 8 (0.12%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.10%) OpenEdge
16 5 (0.074%) Oracle Workflow
16 5 (0.074%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.059%) OpenStack
17 4 (0.059%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 442 (6.53%) Microsoft Office
2 427 (6.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 57 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 37 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 32 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
7 27 (0.40%) Simulink
8 24 (0.35%) AutoCAD
9 16 (0.24%) Revit
10 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.12%) EPLAN
11 7 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 7 (0.10%) Fusion 360
12 6 (0.089%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.089%) Navisworks
12 6 (0.089%) Sketch
12 6 (0.089%) SOLIDWORKS
13 5 (0.074%) Lightworks
14 4 (0.059%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 73 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 53 (0.78%) NetSuite
3 50 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
4 30 (0.44%) Shopify
5 17 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
5 17 (0.25%) Magento
5 17 (0.25%) SAP Business One
6 15 (0.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 15 (0.22%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.21%) Workday HCM
8 12 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
8 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 10 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
9 10 (0.15%) Sage X3
10 9 (0.13%) Sage 50
11 8 (0.12%) Primavera
12 7 (0.10%) NEC Housing
12 7 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.10%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 1,346 (19.88%) Azure
2 1,159 (17.12%) Microsoft 365
3 679 (10.03%) AWS
4 559 (8.26%) Power Platform
5 347 (5.13%) Entra ID
6 236 (3.49%) SaaS
7 228 (3.37%) GCP
8 167 (2.47%) Azure DevOps
9 147 (2.17%) PowerApps
10 144 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
11 133 (1.96%) GitHub
12 128 (1.89%) Power Automate
13 123 (1.82%) Serverless
14 86 (1.27%) OneDrive
15 83 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
16 58 (0.86%) Amazon S3
16 58 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
17 56 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
18 55 (0.81%) Google Workspace
19 54 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 429 (6.34%) Firewall
2 409 (6.04%) DNS
3 350 (5.17%) DHCP
4 257 (3.80%) VPN
5 230 (3.40%) TCP/IP
6 189 (2.79%) WAN
7 179 (2.64%) LAN
8 176 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
9 164 (2.42%) Wireless
10 138 (2.04%) VLAN
11 118 (1.74%) Network Security
12 110 (1.63%) VoIP
13 78 (1.15%) Broadband
14 45 (0.66%) Internet
15 31 (0.46%) SSL
16 27 (0.40%) HTTP
16 27 (0.40%) SAN
17 25 (0.37%) SD-WAN
18 23 (0.34%) MQTT
19 21 (0.31%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 445 (6.57%) Power BI
2 325 (4.80%) SQL Server
3 134 (1.98%) MySQL
4 127 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
5 112 (1.65%) Relational Database
6 103 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
7 90 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
8 80 (1.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 79 (1.17%) NoSQL
10 69 (1.02%) Tableau
11 60 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 49 (0.72%) MongoDB
13 47 (0.69%) Electronic Patient Records
14 46 (0.68%) Big Data
15 44 (0.65%) Power Query
16 43 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 41 (0.61%) Data Lake
18 29 (0.43%) DynamoDB
19 28 (0.41%) Metadata
20 25 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 291 (4.30%) Git
2 229 (3.38%) JIRA
3 76 (1.12%) GitLab
4 71 (1.05%) Jenkins
5 36 (0.53%) Eclipse
6 33 (0.49%) Subversion
7 29 (0.43%) Selenium
8 28 (0.41%) Cucumber
9 26 (0.38%) JUnit
10 24 (0.35%) Claude Code
10 24 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
11 21 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
11 21 (0.31%) Postman
12 20 (0.30%) Bitbucket
13 18 (0.27%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.21%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.19%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.18%) LabVIEW
16 12 (0.18%) Visual Studio
17 11 (0.16%) Metasploit
General
1 3,278 (48.43%) Social Skills
2 1,894 (27.98%) Analytical Skills
3 1,073 (15.85%) Finance
4 635 (9.38%) Manufacturing
5 436 (6.44%) Organisational Skills
6 377 (5.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 318 (4.70%) Law
8 296 (4.37%) Public Sector
8 296 (4.37%) Retail
9 287 (4.24%) Legal
10 251 (3.71%) Marketing
11 239 (3.53%) Electronics
12 226 (3.34%) Aerospace
13 155 (2.29%) Telecoms
14 141 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
15 132 (1.95%) Banking
16 107 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
17 83 (1.23%) Automotive
18 78 (1.15%) Military
19 75 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 887 (13.10%) Analyst
2 720 (10.64%) Senior
3 698 (10.31%) Developer
4 682 (10.08%) IT Support
5 552 (8.15%) Support Engineer
6 374 (5.53%) Lead
7 368 (5.44%) IT Engineer
8 333 (4.92%) Support Analyst
9 307 (4.54%) Consultant
10 275 (4.06%) IT Support Engineer
11 260 (3.84%) Support Technician
11 260 (3.84%) Technical Support
12 241 (3.56%) Systems Engineer
13 227 (3.35%) Architect
14 223 (3.29%) IT Technician
15 222 (3.28%) Software Engineer
16 221 (3.26%) Technical Engineer
17 198 (2.93%) Technical Support Engineer
18 193 (2.85%) Senior Developer
19 176 (2.60%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 350 (5.17%) .NET
2 265 (3.91%) Terraform
3 215 (3.18%) React
4 194 (2.87%) REST
5 193 (2.85%) HTML
6 142 (2.10%) CSS
7 127 (1.88%) RESTful
8 96 (1.42%) SOAP
9 95 (1.40%) Node.js
10 81 (1.20%) ASP.NET
10 81 (1.20%) Vue
11 79 (1.17%) Middleware
12 77 (1.14%) AngularJS
12 77 (1.14%) Web Services
13 75 (1.11%) JSON
13 75 (1.11%) XML
14 69 (1.02%) Spring
15 62 (0.92%) Spring Boot
16 54 (0.80%) OAuth
17 51 (0.75%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 554 (8.18%) Driving Licence
2 440 (6.50%) Onboarding
3 345 (5.10%) Self-Motivation
4 304 (4.49%) Management Information System
5 189 (2.79%) Cloud Native
6 172 (2.54%) Product Ownership
7 156 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
8 114 (1.68%) Data Centre
8 114 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
9 93 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
10 87 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
11 85 (1.26%) Robotics
12 84 (1.24%) NHS
13 81 (1.20%) Security Posture
14 73 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
15 70 (1.03%) Virtual Team
16 68 (1.00%) Mobile App
17 66 (0.98%) Social Media
18 62 (0.92%) IoT
19 60 (0.89%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,106 (16.34%) Windows
2 508 (7.50%) Windows Server
3 460 (6.80%) Linux
4 129 (1.91%) Windows 10
5 109 (1.61%) Windows Server 2016
6 84 (1.24%) Android
6 84 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 76 (1.12%) Mac OS
8 42 (0.62%) Unix
9 39 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
10 29 (0.43%) Ubuntu
11 18 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 18 (0.27%) VMS
12 15 (0.22%) Debian
13 13 (0.19%) CentOS
14 10 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
15 9 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
16 8 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
17 5 (0.074%) Rocky
17 5 (0.074%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,815 (26.81%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,236 (18.26%) Customer Service
3 1,027 (15.17%) Agile
4 768 (11.35%) Decision-Making
5 696 (10.28%) Mentoring
6 692 (10.22%) CI/CD
7 665 (9.82%) AI
8 638 (9.43%) Stakeholder Management
9 578 (8.54%) DevOps
10 565 (8.35%) Analytics
11 560 (8.27%) ITIL
12 557 (8.23%) Project Delivery
13 556 (8.21%) Software Engineering
14 540 (7.98%) Cybersecurity
15 538 (7.95%) Collaborative Working
16 508 (7.50%) ERP
17 477 (7.05%) Business Intelligence
18 456 (6.74%) Project Management
19 426 (6.29%) CRM
20 402 (5.94%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,031 (15.23%) SQL
2 724 (10.70%) Python
3 433 (6.40%) C#
4 432 (6.38%) JavaScript
5 299 (4.42%) Java
6 277 (4.09%) PowerShell
7 192 (2.84%) TypeScript
8 187 (2.76%) C++
9 122 (1.80%) Bash
10 74 (1.09%) C
11 73 (1.08%) PHP
12 60 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 54 (0.80%) T-SQL
14 46 (0.68%) Shell Script
15 45 (0.66%) Ruby
16 43 (0.64%) Perl
17 38 (0.56%) Rust
18 37 (0.55%) Go
19 36 (0.53%) PL/SQL
20 34 (0.50%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,069 (15.79%) Degree
2 637 (9.41%) Security Cleared
3 451 (6.66%) SC Cleared
4 208 (3.07%) DBS Check
5 199 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 183 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
7 174 (2.57%) DV Cleared
8 149 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
9 138 (2.04%) HNC
10 121 (1.79%) Azure Certification
11 119 (1.76%) HND
12 93 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
13 79 (1.17%) PMI Certification
14 77 (1.14%) CISSP
15 70 (1.03%) Chartered Engineer
16 63 (0.93%) Master's Degree
17 62 (0.92%) CCNA
18 60 (0.89%) A+ Certification
19 58 (0.86%) PMP
20 50 (0.74%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 453 (6.69%) QA
2 270 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 205 (3.03%) GDPR
4 174 (2.57%) Cyber Essentials
5 169 (2.50%) Accessibility
6 161 (2.38%) SLA
7 134 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 114 (1.68%) PCI DSS
9 99 (1.46%) NIST
10 35 (0.52%) ISO 9001
11 33 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 32 (0.47%) PMO
13 19 (0.28%) GMP
14 18 (0.27%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.22%) GRC
16 14 (0.21%) DO-254
16 14 (0.21%) NCSC
17 13 (0.19%) GxP
18 12 (0.18%) TickIT
18 12 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 769 (11.36%) Active Directory
2 290 (4.28%) Hyper-V
3 253 (3.74%) Docker
4 206 (3.04%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.18%) Terminal Server
6 69 (1.02%) Firmware
7 37 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 29 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 28 (0.41%) vSphere
10 24 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.10%) KVM
13 6 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.074%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.074%) Squid
14 5 (0.074%) XenApp
15 4 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.044%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.044%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.044%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 231 (3.41%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.25%) Kubernetes
3 107 (1.58%) Ansible
4 57 (0.84%) Grafana
5 56 (0.83%) SCCM
6 40 (0.59%) Prometheus
7 39 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
8 21 (0.31%) FortiGate
9 18 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
10 17 (0.25%) Puppet
11 14 (0.21%) BMC PATROL
11 14 (0.21%) Functional Safety
12 11 (0.16%) Kibana
12 11 (0.16%) Nagios
12 11 (0.16%) Nmap
13 10 (0.15%) logstash
13 10 (0.15%) Podman
13 10 (0.15%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
14 9 (0.13%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,056 (30.37%) Microsoft
2 333 (4.92%) VMware
3 189 (2.79%) SAP
4 179 (2.64%) Google
5 162 (2.39%) Oracle
6 140 (2.07%) Veeam
7 135 (1.99%) Cisco
8 124 (1.83%) Splunk
9 116 (1.71%) ServiceNow
10 107 (1.58%) Workday
11 100 (1.48%) SolarWinds
12 95 (1.40%) Salesforce
13 88 (1.30%) Tanium
14 81 (1.20%) Nimble Storage
15 80 (1.18%) Brocade
16 78 (1.15%) Databricks
17 76 (1.12%) Sage
18 67 (0.99%) Fortinet
19 56 (0.83%) Apple
20 55 (0.81%) SonicWALL