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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,742 5,216 10,468
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.28% 19.11% 15.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.12% 20.94% 18.35%
Number of salaries quoted 3,452 3,158 6,877
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £29,750 £31,750 £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 £58,750 £63,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £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 46,842 24,905 57,046
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.92% 91.25% 83.95%
Number of salaries quoted 28,795 13,837 40,932
10th Percentile £29,000 £28,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £36,750 £37,000 £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 £68,525 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £57,946 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -3.42% +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 30 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 30 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 1,259 £42,500 -7.61% 543
South East -8 1,155 £45,000 -10.00% 659
Midlands -22 884 £38,500 -14.44% 392
North West -15 656 £42,500 -13.27% 302
South West -8 530 £43,500 -3.33% 249
West Midlands -24 523 £42,500 -15.00% 239
Yorkshire -11 481 £40,000 -3.12% 172
East of England -10 460 £40,000 -19.19% 236
East Midlands -6 358 £35,000 -9.09% 154
Scotland -8 290 £36,000 -28.00% 97
North East -15 122 £49,750 +10.56% 78
Wales -12 114 £42,500 -15.33% 49
Northern Ireland -8 78 £35,000 -36.36% 61
Isle of Man -1 1 £62,500 +64.47% 1
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
1 271 (5.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 252 (5.31%) SharePoint
3 42 (0.89%) CMS
4 37 (0.78%) Confluence
5 24 (0.51%) IIS
5 24 (0.51%) WordPress
6 19 (0.40%) Apache
7 16 (0.34%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.30%) 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 (0.15%) Drupal
13 5 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 5 (0.11%) Skype for Business
14 4 (0.084%) Moodle
14 4 (0.084%) Totara
Applications
1 312 (6.58%) Microsoft Office
2 282 (5.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 45 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 36 (0.76%) MS Visio
5 34 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
6 15 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
8 9 (0.19%) Fusion 360
9 8 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.15%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.11%) AutoCAD
12 4 (0.084%) Simulink
13 3 (0.063%) Trello
14 2 (0.042%) Elementor
14 2 (0.042%) Sketch
14 2 (0.042%) Weka
15 1 (0.021%) Autodesk Inventor
15 1 (0.021%) CANalyzer
15 1 (0.021%) Chatbot
15 1 (0.021%) Notion
Business Applications
1 46 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 17 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 16 (0.34%) Shopify
6 15 (0.32%) Sage X3
7 14 (0.30%) Magento
7 14 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.27%) iTrent
8 13 (0.27%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
10 7 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
10 7 (0.15%) SAP Business One
10 7 (0.15%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.11%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 5 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
12 4 (0.084%) Dynamics GP
12 4 (0.084%) Line 50
12 4 (0.084%) Sage 200
12 4 (0.084%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 923 (19.46%) Azure
2 808 (17.04%) Microsoft 365
3 456 (9.62%) AWS
4 321 (6.77%) Power Platform
5 219 (4.62%) Entra ID
6 198 (4.18%) SaaS
7 132 (2.78%) GCP
8 120 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
9 109 (2.30%) Serverless
10 103 (2.17%) GitHub
11 81 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
12 70 (1.48%) Power Automate
13 63 (1.33%) Amazon S3
14 59 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
15 56 (1.18%) Google Workspace
16 51 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
16 51 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
17 48 (1.01%) IaaS
18 47 (0.99%) PaaS
19 45 (0.95%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 296 (6.24%) DNS
2 290 (6.12%) Firewall
3 245 (5.17%) DHCP
4 163 (3.44%) WAN
5 154 (3.25%) VPN
6 124 (2.61%) LAN
7 122 (2.57%) Wi-Fi
8 111 (2.34%) TCP/IP
9 107 (2.26%) Broadband
10 93 (1.96%) Wireless
11 81 (1.71%) VLAN
12 69 (1.46%) VoIP
13 59 (1.24%) Network Security
14 43 (0.91%) SD-WAN
15 34 (0.72%) Internet
16 31 (0.65%) SAN
17 22 (0.46%) HTTP
17 22 (0.46%) Unified Communications
18 21 (0.44%) Remote Desktop
19 19 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 266 (5.61%) Power BI
2 188 (3.96%) SQL Server
3 71 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
4 67 (1.41%) NoSQL
5 64 (1.35%) MySQL
6 61 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
7 59 (1.24%) Data Warehouse
7 59 (1.24%) Relational Database
8 56 (1.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 49 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 43 (0.91%) Power Query
11 39 (0.82%) Tableau
12 38 (0.80%) DynamoDB
13 33 (0.70%) MongoDB
14 25 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
15 24 (0.51%) Big Data
15 24 (0.51%) Data Lake
16 23 (0.49%) Metadata
17 22 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
18 19 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 181 (3.82%) Git
2 147 (3.10%) JIRA
3 73 (1.54%) GitLab
4 53 (1.12%) Jenkins
5 23 (0.49%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.40%) Selenium
7 18 (0.38%) Cucumber
8 17 (0.36%) Maven
9 16 (0.34%) SonarQube
10 15 (0.32%) Bitbucket
11 14 (0.30%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.27%) LabVIEW
13 9 (0.19%) JUnit
14 8 (0.17%) Visual Studio
15 7 (0.15%) Burp Suite
15 7 (0.15%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.15%) Metasploit
16 6 (0.13%) JMeter
16 6 (0.13%) Postman
16 6 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 2,292 (48.33%) Social Skills
2 1,310 (27.63%) Analytical Skills
3 816 (17.21%) Finance
4 316 (6.66%) Organisational Skills
5 301 (6.35%) Manufacturing
6 209 (4.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 208 (4.39%) Public Sector
8 191 (4.03%) Marketing
9 170 (3.58%) Legal
10 169 (3.56%) Retail
11 154 (3.25%) Law
12 129 (2.72%) Banking
13 127 (2.68%) Telecoms
14 125 (2.64%) Electronics
15 85 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
16 74 (1.56%) Automotive
17 71 (1.50%) Games
18 67 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
19 59 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
20 54 (1.14%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 709 (14.95%) Analyst
2 616 (12.99%) IT Support
3 556 (11.73%) Support Engineer
4 517 (10.90%) Senior
5 363 (7.65%) Developer
6 344 (7.25%) IT Engineer
7 274 (5.78%) IT Support Engineer
8 252 (5.31%) Lead
9 216 (4.56%) Support Analyst
10 203 (4.28%) Support Technician
11 166 (3.50%) Technical Support
12 159 (3.35%) Systems Engineer
13 158 (3.33%) IT Technician
14 153 (3.23%) Architect
15 151 (3.18%) Business Analyst
16 150 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 146 (3.08%) 2nd Line Support
18 139 (2.93%) Consultant
19 136 (2.87%) IT Support Technician
20 135 (2.85%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (3.23%) .NET
2 147 (3.10%) React
3 131 (2.76%) HTML
4 106 (2.24%) REST
5 103 (2.17%) CSS
6 80 (1.69%) Node.js
7 62 (1.31%) SOAP
8 54 (1.14%) Middleware
9 53 (1.12%) RESTful
10 51 (1.08%) JSON
11 50 (1.05%) XML
12 45 (0.95%) Vue
13 44 (0.93%) AngularJS
14 42 (0.89%) Spring
15 40 (0.84%) Spring Boot
16 39 (0.82%) OAuth
17 31 (0.65%) EDI
18 29 (0.61%) GraphQL
19 28 (0.59%) ASP.NET
19 28 (0.59%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 377 (7.95%) Driving Licence
2 295 (6.22%) Onboarding
3 240 (5.06%) Self-Motivation
4 165 (3.48%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.38%) Product Ownership
6 111 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
7 97 (2.05%) Cloud Native
8 95 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
9 84 (1.77%) Data Centre
10 78 (1.64%) Social Media
11 66 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
12 62 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
13 54 (1.14%) Mobile App
14 51 (1.08%) Low-Code
15 38 (0.80%) Data Structures
16 34 (0.72%) Life Science
17 32 (0.67%) CCTV
18 31 (0.65%) FMCG
18 31 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
18 31 (0.65%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 815 (17.19%) Windows
2 360 (7.59%) Windows Server
3 283 (5.97%) Linux
4 125 (2.64%) Windows 10
5 102 (2.15%) Android
6 89 (1.88%) Windows Server 2016
7 65 (1.37%) Apple iOS
8 52 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 37 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.65%) Unix
11 25 (0.53%) CentOS
11 25 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 20 (0.42%) Ubuntu
12 20 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 14 (0.30%) VMS
14 13 (0.27%) Windows 7
15 10 (0.21%) Debian
16 8 (0.17%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
18 4 (0.084%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 967 (20.39%) Continuous Improvement
2 852 (17.97%) Customer Service
3 625 (13.18%) Agile
4 458 (9.66%) Decision-Making
5 427 (9.00%) Mentoring
6 413 (8.71%) ITIL
7 392 (8.27%) DevOps
8 389 (8.20%) CI/CD
9 358 (7.55%) Analytics
10 340 (7.17%) Business Intelligence
11 335 (7.06%) Project Management
12 327 (6.90%) AI
13 311 (6.56%) Coaching
14 307 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
15 297 (6.26%) Stakeholder Management
16 289 (6.09%) ERP
17 283 (5.97%) Computer Science
18 277 (5.84%) Software Engineering
19 274 (5.78%) CRM
20 272 (5.74%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 601 (12.67%) SQL
2 508 (10.71%) Python
3 271 (5.71%) JavaScript
4 205 (4.32%) PowerShell
5 189 (3.99%) Java
6 173 (3.65%) C#
7 102 (2.15%) TypeScript
8 84 (1.77%) Bash
9 65 (1.37%) PHP
10 62 (1.31%) C++
11 49 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 46 (0.97%) C
13 33 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 30 (0.63%) PL/SQL
15 26 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 25 (0.53%) Bicep
17 23 (0.49%) Go
17 23 (0.49%) R
18 20 (0.42%) Scala
19 17 (0.36%) Rust
Qualifications
1 768 (16.20%) Degree
2 305 (6.43%) Security Cleared
3 200 (4.22%) SC Cleared
4 199 (4.20%) DBS Check
5 146 (3.08%) Microsoft Certification
6 130 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
8 73 (1.54%) A+ Certification
9 72 (1.52%) ACCA
10 64 (1.35%) CIMA
10 64 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.18%) DV Cleared
12 53 (1.12%) CCNA
13 47 (0.99%) Master's Degree
14 44 (0.93%) CISSP
14 44 (0.93%) HNC
14 44 (0.93%) PMI Certification
15 43 (0.91%) Network+ Certification
16 38 (0.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 37 (0.78%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (5.31%) QA
2 212 (4.47%) Data Quality
3 143 (3.02%) GDPR
4 113 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 111 (2.34%) Cyber Essentials
6 106 (2.24%) SLA
7 80 (1.69%) PCI DSS
8 79 (1.67%) NIST
9 48 (1.01%) Accessibility
10 38 (0.80%) ISO 9001
11 21 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 18 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.36%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.30%) GMP
15 12 (0.25%) GRC
15 12 (0.25%) TickIT
16 9 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.17%) ISO 14001
17 8 (0.17%) PMO
18 6 (0.13%) COBIT
System Software
1 571 (12.04%) Active Directory
2 173 (3.65%) Docker
3 172 (3.63%) Hyper-V
4 130 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
5 48 (1.01%) Terminal Server
6 28 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
7 25 (0.53%) Firmware
8 16 (0.34%) vSphere
9 11 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.21%) KVM
10 10 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
11 8 (0.17%) VMware Workstation
12 6 (0.13%) XenApp
13 4 (0.084%) Embedded Firmware
13 4 (0.084%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.084%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 4 (0.084%) Virtual Servers
14 2 (0.042%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.021%) BitLocker
15 1 (0.021%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 199 (4.20%) Terraform
2 164 (3.46%) Microsoft Intune
3 141 (2.97%) Kubernetes
4 85 (1.79%) Ansible
5 57 (1.20%) SCCM
6 53 (1.12%) Grafana
7 31 (0.65%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.42%) BMC PATROL
9 18 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.34%) Nagios
11 10 (0.21%) Autotask
11 10 (0.21%) Kibana
11 10 (0.21%) Puppet
11 10 (0.21%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.19%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.17%) Cisco CUCM
13 8 (0.17%) HP Fortify
13 8 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.17%) logstash
Vendors
1 1,319 (27.82%) Microsoft
2 206 (4.34%) VMware
3 139 (2.93%) Oracle
4 111 (2.34%) SAP
5 98 (2.07%) Veeam
6 97 (2.05%) Google
7 95 (2.00%) Cisco
8 80 (1.69%) SolarWinds
9 78 (1.64%) Splunk
10 76 (1.60%) Databricks
11 74 (1.56%) ServiceNow
12 64 (1.35%) Apple
13 61 (1.29%) Salesforce
14 59 (1.24%) Adobe
15 49 (1.03%) Sage
15 49 (1.03%) Tanium
16 48 (1.01%) Brocade
16 48 (1.01%) Nimble Storage
17 47 (0.99%) Dell
18 36 (0.76%) HubSpot