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 26 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,831 5,209 10,454
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.48% 19.40% 15.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.36% 21.27% 18.35%
Number of salaries quoted 3,488 3,150 6,886
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £29,750 £32,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £59,000 £63,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £79,057 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -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 46,611 24,487 56,970
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 72.18% 91.18% 84.00%
Number of salaries quoted 28,529 13,839 40,931
10th Percentile £29,000 £28,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £37,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,568 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.57%

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 26 April 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 26 April 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 -19 1,285 £42,500 -7.61% 542
South East -8 1,168 £45,000 -10.00% 697
Midlands -23 891 £39,250 -12.78% 418
North West -15 666 £42,500 -14.14% 302
South West -7 553 £43,500 -3.33% 264
West Midlands -25 530 £42,500 -15.00% 238
Yorkshire -12 489 £40,000 -4.76% 168
East of England -10 458 £40,000 -20.00% 243
East Midlands -6 358 £35,000 -9.09% 180
Scotland -5 302 £36,000 -28.00% 104
North East -14 130 £48,500 +7.78% 81
Wales -13 116 £42,500 -15.66% 47
Northern Ireland -7 85 £35,000 -36.36% 53
Isle of Man -1 1 £62,500 +64.47% 2
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
1 279 (5.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 251 (5.20%) SharePoint
3 40 (0.83%) CMS
4 37 (0.77%) Confluence
5 23 (0.48%) IIS
5 23 (0.48%) WordPress
6 17 (0.35%) Apache
7 15 (0.31%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
9 11 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
9 11 (0.23%) SAS
10 9 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2007
10 9 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
11 8 (0.17%) nginx
12 7 (0.14%) Drupal
13 5 (0.10%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 5 (0.10%) Skype for Business
14 4 (0.083%) Moodle
14 4 (0.083%) Totara
Applications
1 312 (6.46%) Microsoft Office
2 305 (6.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 47 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 36 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 33 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
8 9 (0.19%) Fusion 360
9 8 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.14%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.083%) AutoCAD
11 4 (0.083%) Simulink
12 3 (0.062%) Trello
13 2 (0.041%) Elementor
13 2 (0.041%) Sketch
13 2 (0.041%) Weka
14 1 (0.021%) Abaqus
14 1 (0.021%) Adobe XD
14 1 (0.021%) CANalyzer
14 1 (0.021%) Notion
Business Applications
1 44 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 26 (0.54%) NetSuite
4 17 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.31%) Sage X3
5 15 (0.31%) SAP ERP
5 15 (0.31%) Shopify
6 14 (0.29%) Magento
7 13 (0.27%) SAP CO
8 12 (0.25%) iTrent
9 9 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
10 7 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
10 7 (0.14%) SAP Business One
10 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.10%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 5 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
12 4 (0.083%) Dynamics GP
12 4 (0.083%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.083%) SAP FI/CO
12 4 (0.083%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 971 (20.10%) Azure
2 825 (17.08%) Microsoft 365
3 463 (9.58%) AWS
4 345 (7.14%) Power Platform
5 223 (4.62%) Entra ID
6 205 (4.24%) SaaS
7 134 (2.77%) GCP
8 121 (2.50%) Azure DevOps
9 114 (2.36%) Serverless
10 106 (2.19%) GitHub
11 81 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
12 73 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
13 70 (1.45%) Power Automate
14 66 (1.37%) Amazon S3
15 63 (1.30%) AWS Lambda
16 59 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 57 (1.18%) Google Workspace
18 54 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
19 48 (0.99%) IaaS
20 47 (0.97%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 312 (6.46%) DNS
2 291 (6.02%) Firewall
3 261 (5.40%) DHCP
4 164 (3.39%) WAN
5 157 (3.25%) VPN
6 126 (2.61%) LAN
7 125 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
8 116 (2.40%) TCP/IP
9 107 (2.21%) Broadband
10 88 (1.82%) Wireless
11 82 (1.70%) VLAN
12 68 (1.41%) VoIP
13 59 (1.22%) Network Security
14 43 (0.89%) SD-WAN
15 34 (0.70%) Internet
16 31 (0.64%) SAN
17 25 (0.52%) Remote Desktop
18 24 (0.50%) Unified Communications
19 22 (0.46%) HTTP
20 19 (0.39%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 290 (6.00%) Power BI
2 210 (4.35%) SQL Server
3 76 (1.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 73 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
5 69 (1.43%) NoSQL
6 68 (1.41%) Amazon RDS
7 64 (1.32%) MySQL
8 59 (1.22%) Relational Database
9 58 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
10 48 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 45 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
12 43 (0.89%) Power Query
13 41 (0.85%) DynamoDB
13 41 (0.85%) Tableau
14 35 (0.72%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
16 23 (0.48%) Data Lake
17 22 (0.46%) Big Data
17 22 (0.46%) Metadata
18 18 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 188 (3.89%) Git
2 145 (3.00%) JIRA
3 70 (1.45%) GitLab
4 53 (1.10%) Jenkins
5 23 (0.48%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.41%) Selenium
7 18 (0.37%) Cucumber
8 17 (0.35%) Maven
9 16 (0.33%) SonarQube
10 14 (0.29%) Bitbucket
10 14 (0.29%) Cypress.io
11 13 (0.27%) LabVIEW
12 9 (0.19%) JUnit
12 9 (0.19%) Visual Studio
13 8 (0.17%) Burp Suite
13 8 (0.17%) Metasploit
14 7 (0.14%) CircleCI
15 6 (0.12%) JMeter
15 6 (0.12%) Postman
15 6 (0.12%) Subversion
General
1 2,360 (48.85%) Social Skills
2 1,368 (28.32%) Analytical Skills
3 879 (18.19%) Finance
4 321 (6.64%) Organisational Skills
5 299 (6.19%) Manufacturing
6 226 (4.68%) Public Sector
7 210 (4.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 195 (4.04%) Retail
9 194 (4.02%) Marketing
10 181 (3.75%) Legal
11 152 (3.15%) Law
12 140 (2.90%) Banking
13 129 (2.67%) Telecoms
14 125 (2.59%) Electronics
15 91 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
16 85 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
17 74 (1.53%) Automotive
18 72 (1.49%) Games
19 59 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
20 55 (1.14%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 734 (15.19%) Analyst
2 624 (12.92%) IT Support
3 563 (11.65%) Support Engineer
4 520 (10.76%) Senior
5 368 (7.62%) Developer
6 347 (7.18%) IT Engineer
7 277 (5.73%) IT Support Engineer
8 254 (5.26%) Lead
9 222 (4.60%) Support Analyst
10 200 (4.14%) Support Technician
11 166 (3.44%) Architect
11 166 (3.44%) Systems Engineer
12 162 (3.35%) Technical Support
13 159 (3.29%) Business Analyst
13 159 (3.29%) IT Technician
14 148 (3.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 147 (3.04%) 2nd Line Support
16 141 (2.92%) Consultant
17 137 (2.84%) IT Support Technician
18 131 (2.71%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (3.35%) .NET
2 154 (3.19%) React
3 132 (2.73%) HTML
4 103 (2.13%) CSS
5 101 (2.09%) REST
6 83 (1.72%) Node.js
7 61 (1.26%) SOAP
8 57 (1.18%) RESTful
9 52 (1.08%) Middleware
10 49 (1.01%) XML
11 48 (0.99%) JSON
12 45 (0.93%) Vue
13 44 (0.91%) AngularJS
14 43 (0.89%) Spring
15 39 (0.81%) OAuth
15 39 (0.81%) Spring Boot
16 33 (0.68%) ASP.NET
17 30 (0.62%) EDI
18 29 (0.60%) GraphQL
19 27 (0.56%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 378 (7.82%) Driving Licence
2 301 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 256 (5.30%) Self-Motivation
4 166 (3.44%) Management Information System
5 135 (2.79%) Analytical Mindset
6 114 (2.36%) Product Ownership
7 103 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
8 102 (2.11%) Cloud Native
9 84 (1.74%) Data Centre
10 78 (1.61%) Social Media
11 66 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
12 62 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
13 54 (1.12%) Mobile App
14 51 (1.06%) Low-Code
15 38 (0.79%) Data Structures
16 35 (0.72%) Virtual Team
17 33 (0.68%) IoT
17 33 (0.68%) Life Science
18 31 (0.64%) CCTV
18 31 (0.64%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 836 (17.30%) Windows
2 368 (7.62%) Windows Server
3 295 (6.11%) Linux
4 128 (2.65%) Windows 10
5 104 (2.15%) Android
6 97 (2.01%) Windows Server 2016
7 67 (1.39%) Apple iOS
8 53 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 37 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.64%) Unix
11 25 (0.52%) CentOS
11 25 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 20 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 20 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 14 (0.29%) VMS
13 14 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 10 (0.21%) Debian
15 9 (0.19%) Windows 8
16 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
17 4 (0.083%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,005 (20.80%) Continuous Improvement
2 866 (17.93%) Customer Service
3 634 (13.12%) Agile
4 489 (10.12%) Decision-Making
5 437 (9.05%) Mentoring
6 424 (8.78%) ITIL
7 398 (8.24%) CI/CD
7 398 (8.24%) DevOps
8 394 (8.16%) Analytics
9 367 (7.60%) Business Intelligence
10 363 (7.51%) Project Management
11 341 (7.06%) AI
12 322 (6.67%) Coaching
13 313 (6.48%) Cybersecurity
14 295 (6.11%) Stakeholder Management
15 294 (6.09%) ERP
16 281 (5.82%) Software Engineering
17 278 (5.75%) Computer Science
18 277 (5.73%) CRM
19 275 (5.69%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 633 (13.10%) SQL
2 508 (10.52%) Python
3 274 (5.67%) JavaScript
4 212 (4.39%) PowerShell
5 188 (3.89%) Java
6 181 (3.75%) C#
7 106 (2.19%) TypeScript
8 82 (1.70%) Bash
9 72 (1.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 64 (1.32%) PHP
11 61 (1.26%) C++
12 48 (0.99%) C
13 34 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 28 (0.58%) PL/SQL
15 26 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 25 (0.52%) Bicep
17 24 (0.50%) Go
18 23 (0.48%) R
19 20 (0.41%) Scala
20 17 (0.35%) Rust
Qualifications
1 781 (16.17%) Degree
2 313 (6.48%) Security Cleared
3 207 (4.28%) SC Cleared
4 193 (4.00%) DBS Check
5 146 (3.02%) Microsoft Certification
6 126 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 88 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
8 73 (1.51%) A+ Certification
9 72 (1.49%) ACCA
10 66 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
11 64 (1.32%) CIMA
12 55 (1.14%) DV Cleared
13 54 (1.12%) CCNA
14 47 (0.97%) CISSP
14 47 (0.97%) Master's Degree
15 44 (0.91%) Network+ Certification
15 44 (0.91%) PMI Certification
16 42 (0.87%) HNC
17 40 (0.83%) AWS Certification
18 39 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 253 (5.24%) QA
2 224 (4.64%) Data Quality
3 144 (2.98%) GDPR
4 119 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials
5 115 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 108 (2.24%) SLA
7 88 (1.82%) PCI DSS
8 79 (1.64%) NIST
9 48 (0.99%) Accessibility
10 38 (0.79%) ISO 9001
11 30 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
12 21 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 16 (0.33%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.29%) GMP
15 11 (0.23%) GRC
15 11 (0.23%) TickIT
16 9 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.17%) ISO 14001
17 8 (0.17%) PMO
18 6 (0.12%) HIPAA
System Software
1 589 (12.19%) Active Directory
2 182 (3.77%) Hyper-V
3 177 (3.66%) Docker
4 131 (2.71%) VMware Infrastructure
5 56 (1.16%) Terminal Server
6 26 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 24 (0.50%) Firmware
8 17 (0.35%) vSphere
9 16 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.21%) KVM
10 10 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
11 9 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
12 6 (0.12%) XenApp
13 5 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
14 4 (0.083%) Embedded Firmware
14 4 (0.083%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.083%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.041%) VMware NSX
16 1 (0.021%) Lustre
16 1 (0.021%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 202 (4.18%) Terraform
2 166 (3.44%) Microsoft Intune
3 141 (2.92%) Kubernetes
4 86 (1.78%) Ansible
5 58 (1.20%) SCCM
6 54 (1.12%) Grafana
7 31 (0.64%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.41%) BMC PATROL
9 17 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.33%) Nagios
11 11 (0.23%) Autotask
12 10 (0.21%) Kibana
12 10 (0.21%) Puppet
12 10 (0.21%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
13 9 (0.19%) FortiGate
13 9 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.17%) HP Fortify
14 8 (0.17%) logstash
14 8 (0.17%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,332 (27.57%) Microsoft
2 214 (4.43%) VMware
3 141 (2.92%) Oracle
4 113 (2.34%) SAP
5 108 (2.24%) Veeam
6 98 (2.03%) Cisco
6 98 (2.03%) Google
7 87 (1.80%) SolarWinds
8 86 (1.78%) Splunk
9 77 (1.59%) Databricks
9 77 (1.59%) ServiceNow
10 66 (1.37%) Apple
11 62 (1.28%) Salesforce
12 59 (1.22%) Adobe
13 57 (1.18%) Tanium
14 56 (1.16%) Brocade
14 56 (1.16%) Nimble Storage
15 50 (1.03%) Sage
16 47 (0.97%) Dell
17 37 (0.77%) HubSpot