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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,593 6,281 10,947
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.94% 19.11% 14.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.24% 21.45% 18.30%
Number of salaries quoted 4,187 3,416 6,730
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,250
25th Percentile £30,500 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.19% -6.67% -9.09%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £76,250 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,329
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.36% -10.31%

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 49,781 29,281 59,807
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.65% 89.08% 80.41%
Number of salaries quoted 35,027 15,551 41,458
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,733 £27,500
25th Percentile £39,750 £32,851 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,068 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.14% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,295 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.71%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -9 1,472 £45,000 +5.88% 747
South East -3 1,394 £45,000 +5.88% 813
Midlands -8 1,026 £42,000 - 482
North West -7 775 £45,000 -2.17% 402
South West -6 662 £44,000 +17.33% 326
West Midlands -9 579 £42,500 -5.56% 248
East of England -4 574 £42,500 +21.43% 289
Yorkshire -12 514 £42,500 +21.43% 243
East Midlands -10 444 £35,000 -4.11% 234
Scotland -6 255 £33,000 -27.69% 133
North East -15 183 £51,250 +28.13% 116
Wales -22 130 £45,000 -10.00% 68
Northern Ireland -15 100 £38,500 -30.00% 97
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 6
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
1 344 (6.15%) SharePoint
2 343 (6.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 54 (0.97%) Confluence
4 52 (0.93%) CMS
5 35 (0.63%) IIS
6 28 (0.50%) WordPress
7 27 (0.48%) Apache
8 19 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 15 (0.27%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.21%) SAS
11 11 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
11 11 (0.20%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
13 8 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 7 (0.13%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.11%) nginx
16 5 (0.089%) OpenStack
16 5 (0.089%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 361 (6.45%) Microsoft Office
2 342 (6.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 51 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 40 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.18%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.089%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.089%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.089%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.089%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.089%) Trello
11 4 (0.072%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.072%) Sketch
12 3 (0.054%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.054%) Windchill
13 2 (0.036%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 53 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.55%) NetSuite
3 30 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.34%) Shopify
6 16 (0.29%) Magento
7 15 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 14 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 12 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.16%) iTrent
10 9 (0.16%) SAP Business One
11 8 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
12 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
14 5 (0.089%) Q-Pulse
15 4 (0.072%) Dynamics GP
15 4 (0.072%) Sage X3
15 4 (0.072%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,184 (21.17%) Azure
2 1,034 (18.49%) Microsoft 365
3 586 (10.48%) AWS
4 435 (7.78%) Power Platform
5 282 (5.04%) Entra ID
6 195 (3.49%) SaaS
7 191 (3.41%) GCP
8 133 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
9 116 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
10 112 (2.00%) Serverless
11 94 (1.68%) GitHub
11 94 (1.68%) Power Automate
12 90 (1.61%) PowerApps
13 74 (1.32%) OneDrive
14 54 (0.97%) Microsoft Copilot
15 52 (0.93%) Amazon S3
16 46 (0.82%) IaaS
16 46 (0.82%) PaaS
17 45 (0.80%) Google Workspace
17 45 (0.80%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 422 (7.55%) Firewall
2 370 (6.62%) DNS
3 313 (5.60%) DHCP
4 223 (3.99%) VPN
5 198 (3.54%) WAN
6 179 (3.20%) TCP/IP
7 173 (3.09%) LAN
8 160 (2.86%) Wi-Fi
9 128 (2.29%) Wireless
10 116 (2.07%) VLAN
11 109 (1.95%) Broadband
12 92 (1.64%) Network Security
13 91 (1.63%) VoIP
14 45 (0.80%) Internet
15 35 (0.63%) SD-WAN
16 28 (0.50%) SAN
17 27 (0.48%) HTTP
18 23 (0.41%) SSL
19 21 (0.38%) Remote Desktop
19 21 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 350 (6.26%) Power BI
2 251 (4.49%) SQL Server
3 98 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
4 94 (1.68%) MySQL
5 85 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
6 79 (1.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 76 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.25%) Relational Database
9 66 (1.18%) NoSQL
10 65 (1.16%) Tableau
11 61 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 48 (0.86%) Power Query
13 43 (0.77%) MongoDB
14 36 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
14 36 (0.64%) Big Data
15 32 (0.57%) Data Lake
16 28 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
17 25 (0.45%) DynamoDB
18 20 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
19 18 (0.32%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 210 (3.75%) Git
2 165 (2.95%) JIRA
3 74 (1.32%) GitLab
4 46 (0.82%) Jenkins
5 28 (0.50%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.39%) Cucumber
7 20 (0.36%) Subversion
8 18 (0.32%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.30%) Selenium
10 16 (0.29%) Cypress.io
10 16 (0.29%) JUnit
11 15 (0.27%) SonarQube
12 11 (0.20%) Maven
12 11 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
13 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.18%) Postman
14 9 (0.16%) Claude Code
15 8 (0.14%) MLflow
15 8 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
16 7 (0.13%) Burp Suite
General
1 2,672 (47.77%) Social Skills
2 1,488 (26.60%) Analytical Skills
3 865 (15.47%) Finance
4 435 (7.78%) Manufacturing
5 369 (6.60%) Organisational Skills
6 254 (4.54%) Public Sector
7 240 (4.29%) Law
8 239 (4.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 236 (4.22%) Legal
10 229 (4.09%) Retail
11 183 (3.27%) Marketing
12 144 (2.57%) Electronics
13 142 (2.54%) Telecoms
14 128 (2.29%) Banking
15 110 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
16 102 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
17 83 (1.48%) Aerospace
18 74 (1.32%) Games
19 60 (1.07%) Advertising
20 56 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 783 (14.00%) Analyst
2 679 (12.14%) IT Support
3 599 (10.71%) Senior
4 592 (10.58%) Support Engineer
5 541 (9.67%) Developer
6 402 (7.19%) IT Engineer
7 304 (5.44%) IT Support Engineer
8 295 (5.27%) Lead
9 253 (4.52%) Support Technician
10 249 (4.45%) Support Analyst
11 223 (3.99%) Systems Engineer
12 209 (3.74%) Technical Support
13 206 (3.68%) IT Technician
14 191 (3.41%) Software Engineer
15 179 (3.20%) Consultant
16 178 (3.18%) Technical Engineer
17 174 (3.11%) Architect
18 167 (2.99%) Technical Support Engineer
19 161 (2.88%) IT Support Technician
20 143 (2.56%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 240 (4.29%) .NET
2 194 (3.47%) React
3 160 (2.86%) HTML
4 152 (2.72%) REST
5 120 (2.15%) CSS
6 99 (1.77%) Node.js
7 90 (1.61%) RESTful
8 80 (1.43%) SOAP
9 75 (1.34%) Middleware
10 71 (1.27%) JSON
10 71 (1.27%) Vue
11 68 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 61 (1.09%) XML
13 51 (0.91%) Spring
14 46 (0.82%) Spring Boot
14 46 (0.82%) Web Services
15 44 (0.79%) ASP.NET
16 41 (0.73%) OAuth
17 40 (0.72%) EDI
18 31 (0.55%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 436 (7.80%) Driving Licence
2 328 (5.86%) Onboarding
3 259 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
4 205 (3.67%) Management Information System
5 157 (2.81%) Cloud Native
6 135 (2.41%) Product Ownership
7 134 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 103 (1.84%) Data Centre
9 98 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 85 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
11 68 (1.22%) Security Posture
12 66 (1.18%) Social Media
13 65 (1.16%) Mobile App
14 56 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
15 52 (0.93%) IoT
16 51 (0.91%) Virtual Team
17 48 (0.86%) Low-Code
18 46 (0.82%) Algorithms
19 45 (0.80%) Robotics
20 44 (0.79%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 981 (17.54%) Windows
2 469 (8.39%) Windows Server
3 395 (7.06%) Linux
4 154 (2.75%) Windows 10
5 118 (2.11%) Windows Server 2016
6 110 (1.97%) Android
7 71 (1.27%) Apple iOS
7 71 (1.27%) Mac OS
8 51 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
9 29 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 29 (0.52%) Unix
10 27 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 26 (0.46%) CentOS
12 16 (0.29%) VMS
13 15 (0.27%) Debian
13 15 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 13 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
15 8 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
16 7 (0.13%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,314 (23.49%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,013 (18.11%) Customer Service
3 758 (13.55%) Agile
4 572 (10.23%) Mentoring
5 561 (10.03%) Decision-Making
6 526 (9.40%) CI/CD
7 515 (9.21%) AI
8 481 (8.60%) Analytics
9 478 (8.55%) ITIL
10 468 (8.37%) DevOps
11 448 (8.01%) Cybersecurity
12 436 (7.80%) Software Engineering
13 435 (7.78%) Collaborative Working
14 407 (7.28%) Business Intelligence
15 394 (7.04%) Stakeholder Management
16 391 (6.99%) ERP
17 347 (6.20%) Project Delivery
18 335 (5.99%) Computer Science
19 329 (5.88%) Service Delivery
20 313 (5.60%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 870 (15.56%) SQL
2 647 (11.57%) Python
3 352 (6.29%) JavaScript
4 321 (5.74%) C#
5 245 (4.38%) Java
6 244 (4.36%) PowerShell
7 159 (2.84%) TypeScript
8 145 (2.59%) C++
9 107 (1.91%) Bash
10 75 (1.34%) PHP
11 60 (1.07%) C
12 58 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 47 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 36 (0.64%) PL/SQL
15 32 (0.57%) Perl
16 30 (0.54%) Go
16 30 (0.54%) Shell Script
17 29 (0.52%) Kotlin
18 28 (0.50%) Ruby
18 28 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 793 (14.18%) Degree
2 449 (8.03%) Security Cleared
3 317 (5.67%) SC Cleared
4 207 (3.70%) DBS Check
5 162 (2.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 159 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 86 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
8 80 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
9 78 (1.39%) DV Cleared
10 70 (1.25%) Azure Certification
11 64 (1.14%) A+ Certification
12 62 (1.11%) ACCA
13 61 (1.09%) CCNA
14 58 (1.04%) CIMA
14 58 (1.04%) HNC
15 50 (0.89%) PMI Certification
16 49 (0.88%) Master's Degree
17 48 (0.86%) CISSP
18 44 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
18 44 (0.79%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 336 (6.01%) QA
2 246 (4.40%) Data Quality
3 167 (2.99%) Cyber Essentials
4 156 (2.79%) GDPR
5 142 (2.54%) SLA
6 136 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 114 (2.04%) PCI DSS
8 102 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 86 (1.54%) NIST
10 41 (0.73%) ISO 9001
11 28 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 25 (0.45%) PMO
13 19 (0.34%) GMP
14 15 (0.27%) GRC
15 14 (0.25%) Good Clinical Practice
16 13 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.23%) ISO 14001
16 13 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.21%) TickIT
18 8 (0.14%) Def Stans
System Software
1 702 (12.55%) Active Directory
2 262 (4.68%) Hyper-V
3 204 (3.65%) Docker
4 185 (3.31%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (1.29%) Terminal Server
6 39 (0.70%) Firmware
7 31 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.48%) vSphere
9 20 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 14 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
11 11 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
12 10 (0.18%) KVM
13 7 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.11%) XenApp
15 5 (0.089%) ClearTrust
15 5 (0.089%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.054%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.054%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 220 (3.93%) Terraform
2 214 (3.83%) Microsoft Intune
3 200 (3.58%) Kubernetes
4 108 (1.93%) Ansible
5 59 (1.05%) Grafana
6 57 (1.02%) SCCM
7 38 (0.68%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.38%) Nagios
9 18 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.21%) Kibana
10 12 (0.21%) Puppet
11 11 (0.20%) logstash
12 10 (0.18%) Autotask
12 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.18%) Podman
12 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.18%) QRadar
12 10 (0.18%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.16%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.16%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 1,701 (30.41%) Microsoft
2 293 (5.24%) VMware
3 130 (2.32%) Veeam
4 125 (2.23%) Google
5 116 (2.07%) SAP
6 112 (2.00%) Oracle
7 111 (1.98%) Cisco
8 110 (1.97%) Splunk
9 99 (1.77%) SolarWinds
10 81 (1.45%) ServiceNow
11 79 (1.41%) Salesforce
12 77 (1.38%) Tanium
13 73 (1.31%) Nimble Storage
14 72 (1.29%) Brocade
15 67 (1.20%) Databricks
16 58 (1.04%) Apple
17 53 (0.95%) Sage
18 51 (0.91%) Adobe
19 48 (0.86%) Dell
20 45 (0.80%) Fortinet