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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,377 6,549 8,754
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.27% 18.94% 14.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.73% 21.66% 18.57%
Number of salaries quoted 4,599 3,639 4,468
10th Percentile £26,750 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,188 £29,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £61,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £73,750 £75,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.06% -6.00% -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 54,375 30,230 47,147
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.50% 87.42% 78.71%
Number of salaries quoted 38,201 16,507 29,656
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £48,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.58% -4.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -9.09%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 1,637 £45,000 +5.88% 889
South East -3 1,538 £45,000 +5.88% 1,125
Midlands -9 1,186 £42,500 +6.90% 634
North West -5 861 £45,000 - 461
South West -5 781 £45,000 +20.00% 480
West Midlands -10 654 £42,500 -5.56% 380
East of England -4 646 £42,500 +21.43% 400
Yorkshire -7 544 £42,500 +21.43% 304
East Midlands -9 529 £40,000 +12.68% 254
Scotland -2 271 £33,500 -23.86% 212
North East -10 232 £50,000 +31.58% 139
Northern Ireland -7 171 £42,500 -27.97% 107
Wales -24 162 £43,750 -9.09% 96
Isle of Man -1 3 £35,000 +1.45% 3
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
1 356 (5.58%) SharePoint
2 348 (5.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 64 (1.00%) Confluence
4 45 (0.71%) CMS
5 44 (0.69%) IIS
6 34 (0.53%) WordPress
7 30 (0.47%) Apache
8 24 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.25%) Apache Spark
10 15 (0.24%) SAS
11 10 (0.16%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.14%) nginx
12 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.094%) Jupyter
15 5 (0.078%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.063%) Anypoint
16 4 (0.063%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.063%) OpenStack
16 4 (0.063%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 406 (6.37%) Microsoft Office
2 383 (6.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 52 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 39 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 21 (0.33%) AutoCAD
8 19 (0.30%) Simulink
9 12 (0.19%) Revit
10 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
10 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.094%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.094%) EPLAN
11 6 (0.094%) Fusion 360
11 6 (0.094%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.094%) Sketch
12 5 (0.078%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.078%) SOLIDWORKS
12 5 (0.078%) Trello
Business Applications
1 54 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 25 (0.39%) Shopify
5 18 (0.28%) Magento
6 17 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 15 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
7 15 (0.24%) SAP Business One
8 14 (0.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 13 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
10 12 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 12 (0.19%) Workday HCM
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
12 10 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.16%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
14 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
14 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
14 7 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
15 6 (0.094%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 1,305 (20.46%) Azure
2 1,110 (17.41%) Microsoft 365
3 661 (10.37%) AWS
4 507 (7.95%) Power Platform
5 327 (5.13%) Entra ID
6 222 (3.48%) GCP
7 220 (3.45%) SaaS
8 158 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
9 133 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 122 (1.91%) Serverless
11 120 (1.88%) GitHub
12 113 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 110 (1.72%) PowerApps
14 83 (1.30%) OneDrive
15 79 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
16 56 (0.88%) Amazon S3
17 53 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
18 52 (0.82%) Microsoft Purview
19 51 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
20 49 (0.77%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 411 (6.45%) Firewall
2 384 (6.02%) DNS
3 328 (5.14%) DHCP
4 231 (3.62%) VPN
5 214 (3.36%) TCP/IP
6 191 (3.00%) WAN
7 174 (2.73%) LAN
8 155 (2.43%) Wi-Fi
9 150 (2.35%) Wireless
10 124 (1.94%) VLAN
11 107 (1.68%) Network Security
12 102 (1.60%) Broadband
13 101 (1.58%) VoIP
14 43 (0.67%) Internet
15 29 (0.45%) HTTP
15 29 (0.45%) SAN
15 29 (0.45%) SSL
16 28 (0.44%) SD-WAN
17 22 (0.34%) MQTT
17 22 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 394 (6.18%) Power BI
2 306 (4.80%) SQL Server
3 127 (1.99%) MySQL
4 120 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
5 101 (1.58%) Relational Database
6 100 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
7 91 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 77 (1.21%) NoSQL
10 72 (1.13%) Tableau
11 64 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 44 (0.69%) Power Query
14 42 (0.66%) Big Data
14 42 (0.66%) Electronic Patient Records
15 39 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
16 36 (0.56%) Data Lake
17 30 (0.47%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
19 22 (0.34%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 275 (4.31%) Git
2 218 (3.42%) JIRA
3 80 (1.25%) GitLab
4 65 (1.02%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.47%) Eclipse
6 29 (0.45%) Subversion
7 27 (0.42%) Rational DOORS
8 26 (0.41%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.41%) Selenium
9 24 (0.38%) JUnit
10 21 (0.33%) Postman
11 20 (0.31%) Claude Code
12 18 (0.28%) Cypress.io
12 18 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
13 15 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 14 (0.22%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
16 11 (0.17%) Maven
16 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
17 10 (0.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 3,034 (47.58%) Social Skills
2 1,770 (27.76%) Analytical Skills
3 986 (15.46%) Finance
4 581 (9.11%) Manufacturing
5 393 (6.16%) Organisational Skills
6 361 (5.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 296 (4.64%) Law
8 286 (4.48%) Public Sector
9 271 (4.25%) Legal
10 265 (4.16%) Retail
11 211 (3.31%) Electronics
12 206 (3.23%) Marketing
13 184 (2.89%) Aerospace
14 163 (2.56%) Telecoms
15 127 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
16 125 (1.96%) Banking
17 113 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
18 73 (1.14%) Games
19 68 (1.07%) Military
19 68 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 839 (13.16%) Analyst
2 680 (10.66%) Senior
3 671 (10.52%) Developer
4 654 (10.26%) IT Support
5 544 (8.53%) Support Engineer
6 362 (5.68%) IT Engineer
7 354 (5.55%) Lead
8 288 (4.52%) Support Analyst
9 275 (4.31%) Consultant
10 267 (4.19%) IT Support Engineer
11 264 (4.14%) Support Technician
12 240 (3.76%) Technical Support
13 237 (3.72%) Systems Engineer
14 223 (3.50%) IT Technician
15 215 (3.37%) Architect
16 211 (3.31%) Software Engineer
17 205 (3.21%) Technical Engineer
18 193 (3.03%) Senior Developer
19 184 (2.89%) Technical Support Engineer
20 171 (2.68%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 325 (5.10%) .NET
2 216 (3.39%) React
3 191 (3.00%) HTML
4 184 (2.89%) REST
5 141 (2.21%) CSS
6 119 (1.87%) RESTful
7 95 (1.49%) Node.js
8 91 (1.43%) SOAP
9 80 (1.25%) Vue
10 77 (1.21%) Middleware
11 75 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 73 (1.14%) JSON
13 72 (1.13%) ASP.NET
14 67 (1.05%) XML
15 64 (1.00%) Web Services
16 60 (0.94%) Spring
17 56 (0.88%) OAuth
18 55 (0.86%) Spring Boot
19 46 (0.72%) Kafka
20 45 (0.71%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 513 (8.04%) Driving Licence
2 382 (5.99%) Onboarding
3 301 (4.72%) Self-Motivation
4 264 (4.14%) Management Information System
5 179 (2.81%) Cloud Native
6 163 (2.56%) Product Ownership
7 154 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
8 104 (1.63%) Data Centre
9 94 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
10 90 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
11 87 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
12 83 (1.30%) NHS
13 80 (1.25%) Security Posture
14 76 (1.19%) Social Media
15 70 (1.10%) Robotics
16 67 (1.05%) Mobile App
17 62 (0.97%) IoT
18 61 (0.96%) Virtual Team
19 59 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
20 56 (0.88%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,067 (16.73%) Windows
2 494 (7.75%) Windows Server
3 450 (7.06%) Linux
4 136 (2.13%) Windows 10
5 108 (1.69%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (1.65%) Android
7 81 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 39 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
10 36 (0.56%) Unix
11 29 (0.45%) Ubuntu
12 23 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 20 (0.31%) CentOS
14 17 (0.27%) VMS
15 13 (0.20%) Debian
16 9 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
16 9 (0.14%) Windows 7
17 5 (0.078%) OpenVMS
18 4 (0.063%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,679 (26.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,136 (17.81%) Customer Service
3 971 (15.23%) Agile
4 704 (11.04%) Decision-Making
5 667 (10.46%) CI/CD
6 660 (10.35%) Mentoring
7 633 (9.93%) AI
8 566 (8.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 552 (8.66%) DevOps
10 551 (8.64%) ITIL
11 523 (8.20%) Cybersecurity
12 519 (8.14%) Analytics
13 518 (8.12%) Software Engineering
14 498 (7.81%) Collaborative Working
15 476 (7.46%) Project Delivery
16 468 (7.34%) ERP
17 455 (7.14%) Business Intelligence
18 384 (6.02%) Project Management
19 378 (5.93%) Service Delivery
20 373 (5.85%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 976 (15.31%) SQL
2 697 (10.93%) Python
3 414 (6.49%) JavaScript
4 410 (6.43%) C#
5 284 (4.45%) Java
6 247 (3.87%) PowerShell
7 186 (2.92%) TypeScript
8 180 (2.82%) C++
9 116 (1.82%) Bash
10 77 (1.21%) PHP
11 71 (1.11%) C
12 57 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 52 (0.82%) T-SQL
14 44 (0.69%) Shell Script
15 41 (0.64%) Perl
16 37 (0.58%) Go
17 36 (0.56%) Ruby
18 33 (0.52%) Rust
19 32 (0.50%) PL/SQL
20 28 (0.44%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 990 (15.52%) Degree
2 588 (9.22%) Security Cleared
3 427 (6.70%) SC Cleared
4 196 (3.07%) DBS Check
5 188 (2.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 171 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
7 148 (2.32%) DV Cleared
8 144 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 112 (1.76%) HNC
10 103 (1.62%) Azure Certification
11 90 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
12 84 (1.32%) HND
13 78 (1.22%) PMI Certification
14 66 (1.03%) CISSP
15 62 (0.97%) Master's Degree
16 61 (0.96%) CCNA
17 56 (0.88%) PMP
18 53 (0.83%) A+ Certification
18 53 (0.83%) ACCA
18 53 (0.83%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 417 (6.54%) QA
2 255 (4.00%) Data Quality
3 187 (2.93%) GDPR
4 176 (2.76%) Cyber Essentials
5 164 (2.57%) SLA
6 157 (2.46%) Accessibility
7 129 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 115 (1.80%) PCI DSS
9 92 (1.44%) NIST
10 36 (0.56%) ISO 9001
11 31 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 30 (0.47%) PMO
13 24 (0.38%) GMP
14 18 (0.28%) Good Clinical Practice
15 16 (0.25%) GRC
16 14 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
17 13 (0.20%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.19%) TickIT
18 12 (0.19%) WCAG
19 11 (0.17%) DO-254
System Software
1 733 (11.49%) Active Directory
2 279 (4.38%) Hyper-V
3 248 (3.89%) Docker
4 201 (3.15%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.25%) Terminal Server
6 62 (0.97%) Firmware
7 32 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.44%) vSphere
9 25 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 19 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
12 10 (0.16%) KVM
13 6 (0.094%) XenApp
14 5 (0.078%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.078%) Squid
14 5 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.063%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.047%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.047%) VMware Server
16 3 (0.047%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 252 (3.95%) Terraform
2 229 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
3 214 (3.36%) Kubernetes
4 106 (1.66%) Ansible
5 61 (0.96%) SCCM
6 58 (0.91%) Grafana
7 41 (0.64%) Prometheus
8 26 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 18 (0.28%) Puppet
11 15 (0.24%) Nagios
12 14 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
13 11 (0.17%) Functional Safety
13 11 (0.17%) Kibana
13 11 (0.17%) Nmap
13 11 (0.17%) Proxmox
14 10 (0.16%) logstash
14 10 (0.16%) Podman
15 9 (0.14%) vCenter Server
15 9 (0.14%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,916 (30.05%) Microsoft
2 323 (5.07%) VMware
3 157 (2.46%) SAP
4 153 (2.40%) Google
5 149 (2.34%) Oracle
6 138 (2.16%) Veeam
7 132 (2.07%) Cisco
8 123 (1.93%) Splunk
9 110 (1.72%) ServiceNow
10 106 (1.66%) SolarWinds
11 88 (1.38%) Tanium
12 87 (1.36%) Salesforce
13 81 (1.27%) Nimble Storage
14 80 (1.25%) Brocade
15 76 (1.19%) Databricks
15 76 (1.19%) Workday
16 62 (0.97%) Apple
16 62 (0.97%) Sage
17 57 (0.89%) Fortinet
18 46 (0.72%) SonicWALL