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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,728 5,226 10,497
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.25% 19.18% 15.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.08% 21.00% 18.38%
Number of salaries quoted 3,445 3,167 6,887
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £29,750 £31,250 £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 46,916 24,887 57,107
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.90% 91.35% 83.95%
Number of salaries quoted 28,853 13,847 40,960
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 £68,375 £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 1 May 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 May 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 1,258 £42,500 -7.61% 569
South East -8 1,148 £45,000 -10.00% 707
Midlands -21 882 £38,500 -14.44% 417
North West -15 657 £42,500 -13.27% 317
South West -8 525 £43,500 -3.33% 265
West Midlands -23 523 £42,500 -15.00% 257
Yorkshire -12 480 £40,000 -1.67% 185
East of England -10 460 £40,000 -16.67% 241
East Midlands -6 356 £35,000 -9.09% 161
Scotland -6 291 £35,500 -29.00% 135
North East -18 121 £48,500 +7.78% 76
Wales -12 114 £42,500 -15.33% 52
Northern Ireland -8 78 £37,000 -32.73% 26
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 (5.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 250 (5.29%) SharePoint
3 42 (0.89%) CMS
4 35 (0.74%) 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 (0.085%) Moodle
14 4 (0.085%) Totara
Applications
1 313 (6.62%) Microsoft Office
2 281 (5.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 44 (0.93%) 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 4 (0.085%) AutoCAD
11 4 (0.085%) Simulink
12 3 (0.063%) Trello
13 2 (0.042%) Elementor
13 2 (0.042%) Sketch
13 2 (0.042%) Weka
14 1 (0.021%) Adobe XD
14 1 (0.021%) Autodesk Inventor
14 1 (0.021%) CANalyzer
14 1 (0.021%) Notion
Business Applications
1 45 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 17 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 16 (0.34%) Shopify
6 14 (0.30%) Magento
6 14 (0.30%) Sage X3
7 13 (0.27%) iTrent
7 13 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.25%) SAP CO
9 10 (0.21%) 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 (0.085%) Dynamics GP
12 4 (0.085%) Line 50
12 4 (0.085%) Markit EDM
12 4 (0.085%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 917 (19.40%) Azure
2 802 (16.96%) Microsoft 365
3 455 (9.62%) AWS
4 325 (6.87%) Power Platform
5 218 (4.61%) Entra ID
6 196 (4.15%) SaaS
7 132 (2.79%) GCP
8 120 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
9 107 (2.26%) Serverless
10 101 (2.14%) GitHub
11 84 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
12 70 (1.48%) Power Automate
13 62 (1.31%) Amazon S3
14 58 (1.23%) AWS Lambda
15 56 (1.18%) Google Workspace
16 51 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
17 50 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
18 48 (1.02%) IaaS
19 47 (0.99%) PaaS
20 45 (0.95%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 295 (6.24%) DNS
2 288 (6.09%) Firewall
3 244 (5.16%) DHCP
4 161 (3.41%) WAN
5 153 (3.24%) VPN
6 122 (2.58%) LAN
7 119 (2.52%) Wi-Fi
8 111 (2.35%) TCP/IP
9 108 (2.28%) Broadband
10 93 (1.97%) Wireless
11 80 (1.69%) VLAN
12 68 (1.44%) VoIP
13 59 (1.25%) Network Security
14 42 (0.89%) SD-WAN
15 34 (0.72%) Internet
16 31 (0.66%) SAN
17 22 (0.47%) HTTP
17 22 (0.47%) Unified Communications
18 21 (0.44%) Remote Desktop
19 19 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 270 (5.71%) Power BI
2 188 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 70 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
4 67 (1.42%) NoSQL
5 63 (1.33%) MySQL
6 60 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
6 60 (1.27%) Relational Database
7 59 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
8 57 (1.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 49 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 43 (0.91%) Power Query
11 40 (0.85%) Tableau
12 37 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 32 (0.68%) 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 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
18 19 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 180 (3.81%) Git
2 145 (3.07%) JIRA
3 72 (1.52%) 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 14 (0.30%) Bitbucket
10 14 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 13 (0.27%) LabVIEW
12 9 (0.19%) JUnit
13 8 (0.17%) Visual Studio
14 7 (0.15%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.15%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.15%) Metasploit
15 6 (0.13%) JMeter
15 6 (0.13%) Postman
15 6 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 2,277 (48.16%) Social Skills
2 1,308 (27.66%) Analytical Skills
3 822 (17.39%) Finance
4 313 (6.62%) Organisational Skills
5 299 (6.32%) Manufacturing
6 208 (4.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 203 (4.29%) Public Sector
8 190 (4.02%) Marketing
9 170 (3.60%) Retail
10 169 (3.57%) Legal
11 152 (3.21%) Law
12 129 (2.73%) Banking
13 127 (2.69%) Telecoms
14 125 (2.64%) Electronics
15 86 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
16 74 (1.57%) Automotive
17 71 (1.50%) Games
18 67 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
19 59 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
20 54 (1.14%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 709 (15.00%) Analyst
2 610 (12.90%) IT Support
3 555 (11.74%) Support Engineer
4 517 (10.93%) Senior
5 362 (7.66%) Developer
6 343 (7.25%) IT Engineer
7 273 (5.77%) IT Support Engineer
8 252 (5.33%) Lead
9 213 (4.51%) Support Analyst
10 201 (4.25%) Support Technician
11 166 (3.51%) Technical Support
12 160 (3.38%) Systems Engineer
13 156 (3.30%) IT Technician
14 152 (3.21%) Architect
15 151 (3.19%) Business Analyst
16 150 (3.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 146 (3.09%) 2nd Line Support
18 141 (2.98%) Consultant
19 135 (2.86%) Technical Engineer
20 134 (2.83%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 154 (3.26%) .NET
2 145 (3.07%) React
3 129 (2.73%) HTML
4 106 (2.24%) REST
5 101 (2.14%) CSS
6 80 (1.69%) Node.js
7 62 (1.31%) SOAP
8 53 (1.12%) Middleware
8 53 (1.12%) RESTful
9 51 (1.08%) JSON
10 50 (1.06%) XML
11 44 (0.93%) AngularJS
11 44 (0.93%) Vue
12 42 (0.89%) Spring
13 40 (0.85%) Spring Boot
14 39 (0.82%) OAuth
15 31 (0.66%) EDI
16 29 (0.61%) ASP.NET
16 29 (0.61%) GraphQL
17 28 (0.59%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 374 (7.91%) Driving Licence
2 292 (6.18%) Onboarding
3 241 (5.10%) Self-Motivation
4 166 (3.51%) Management Information System
5 112 (2.37%) Product Ownership
6 109 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
7 97 (2.05%) Cloud Native
8 95 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
9 83 (1.76%) Data Centre
10 78 (1.65%) Social Media
11 66 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
12 62 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
13 54 (1.14%) Mobile App
14 51 (1.08%) Low-Code
15 37 (0.78%) Data Structures
16 33 (0.70%) CCTV
16 33 (0.70%) Life Science
17 31 (0.66%) FMCG
17 31 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
17 31 (0.66%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 810 (17.13%) Windows
2 359 (7.59%) Windows Server
3 282 (5.96%) Linux
4 123 (2.60%) Windows 10
5 101 (2.14%) Android
6 89 (1.88%) Windows Server 2016
7 64 (1.35%) Apple iOS
8 52 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 37 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.66%) 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 13 (0.27%) VMS
13 13 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 10 (0.21%) Debian
15 8 (0.17%) Windows 8
16 7 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
17 4 (0.085%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 964 (20.39%) Continuous Improvement
2 848 (17.94%) Customer Service
3 623 (13.18%) Agile
4 459 (9.71%) Decision-Making
5 425 (8.99%) Mentoring
6 409 (8.65%) ITIL
7 390 (8.25%) DevOps
8 387 (8.19%) CI/CD
9 358 (7.57%) Analytics
10 340 (7.19%) Business Intelligence
11 334 (7.06%) Project Management
12 329 (6.96%) AI
13 310 (6.56%) Coaching
14 305 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
15 294 (6.22%) Stakeholder Management
16 293 (6.20%) ERP
17 281 (5.94%) Computer Science
18 275 (5.82%) Software Engineering
19 272 (5.75%) Collaborative Working
20 271 (5.73%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 600 (12.69%) SQL
2 505 (10.68%) Python
3 267 (5.65%) JavaScript
4 204 (4.31%) PowerShell
5 188 (3.98%) Java
6 175 (3.70%) C#
7 101 (2.14%) TypeScript
8 84 (1.78%) Bash
9 65 (1.37%) PHP
10 62 (1.31%) C++
11 49 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 46 (0.97%) C
13 32 (0.68%) 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
1 765 (16.18%) Degree
2 301 (6.37%) Security Cleared
3 199 (4.21%) DBS Check
4 198 (4.19%) SC Cleared
5 145 (3.07%) Microsoft Certification
6 129 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
7 85 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 73 (1.54%) A+ Certification
8 73 (1.54%) ACCA
9 65 (1.37%) CIMA
10 63 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.21%) DV Cleared
12 52 (1.10%) CCNA
13 47 (0.99%) Master's Degree
14 44 (0.93%) HNC
14 44 (0.93%) PMI Certification
15 43 (0.91%) CISSP
15 43 (0.91%) Network+ Certification
16 38 (0.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 37 (0.78%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (5.33%) QA
2 216 (4.57%) Data Quality
3 143 (3.02%) GDPR
4 114 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 112 (2.37%) Cyber Essentials
6 106 (2.24%) SLA
7 81 (1.71%) PCI DSS
8 79 (1.67%) NIST
9 50 (1.06%) 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%) HIPAA
System Software
1 570 (12.06%) Active Directory
2 173 (3.66%) Hyper-V
3 172 (3.64%) Docker
4 130 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
5 48 (1.02%) 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 (0.085%) Embedded Firmware
13 4 (0.085%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 3 (0.063%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.063%) Virtual Servers
15 2 (0.042%) VMware NSX
16 1 (0.021%) Lustre
16 1 (0.021%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 199 (4.21%) Terraform
2 163 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 141 (2.98%) Kubernetes
4 84 (1.78%) Ansible
5 57 (1.21%) SCCM
6 53 (1.12%) Grafana
7 31 (0.66%) 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%) logstash
14 7 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 1,312 (27.75%) Microsoft
2 206 (4.36%) VMware
3 137 (2.90%) Oracle
4 111 (2.35%) SAP
5 98 (2.07%) Veeam
6 97 (2.05%) Google
7 93 (1.97%) Cisco
8 80 (1.69%) SolarWinds
9 78 (1.65%) Splunk
10 75 (1.59%) Databricks
11 72 (1.52%) ServiceNow
12 63 (1.33%) Apple
13 60 (1.27%) Salesforce
14 59 (1.25%) Adobe
15 50 (1.06%) Sage
16 49 (1.04%) Tanium
17 48 (1.02%) Brocade
17 48 (1.02%) Nimble Storage
18 47 (0.99%) Dell
19 34 (0.72%) Red Hat