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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,571 6,555 8,672
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.38% 18.89% 14.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.91% 21.67% 18.56%
Number of salaries quoted 4,691 3,658 4,293
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,656 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £46,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -13.98% -7.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £76,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -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 55,169 30,250 46,713
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.33% 87.19% 78.32%
Number of salaries quoted 38,899 16,486 28,866
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,507
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -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 21 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 21 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 -8 1,671 £45,000 +5.88% 830
South East -3 1,569 £43,000 +1.18% 1,055
Midlands -8 1,198 £42,500 +10.39% 630
North West -6 879 £45,250 +0.56% 405
South West -4 811 £45,000 +25.00% 503
West Midlands -9 667 £42,500 -4.00% 377
East of England -3 661 £42,500 +21.43% 372
Yorkshire -8 545 £42,500 +21.43% 306
East Midlands -9 528 £40,500 +15.71% 253
Scotland 0 298 £33,500 -24.72% 171
North East -6 247 £48,500 +21.25% 136
Northern Ireland 0 209 £55,000 -6.78% 102
Wales -22 170 £45,000 -6.49% 105
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 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
1 390 (5.94%) SharePoint
2 341 (5.19%) Microsoft Exchange
3 66 (1.00%) CMS
3 66 (1.00%) Confluence
4 49 (0.75%) IIS
5 33 (0.50%) WordPress
6 29 (0.44%) Apache
7 27 (0.41%) Sitecore CMS
8 25 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.24%) Apache Spark
10 14 (0.21%) SAS
11 10 (0.15%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.14%) nginx
12 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
14 5 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.076%) Skype for Business
15 4 (0.061%) OpenStack
15 4 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 420 (6.39%) Microsoft Office
2 413 (6.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 51 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 40 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 30 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 23 (0.35%) AutoCAD
7 23 (0.35%) Simulink
8 14 (0.21%) Revit
9 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.11%) EPLAN
11 6 (0.091%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.091%) Fusion 360
11 6 (0.091%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.091%) Sketch
12 5 (0.076%) Lightworks
12 5 (0.076%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.076%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 70 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 53 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 41 (0.62%) NetSuite
4 27 (0.41%) Shopify
5 17 (0.26%) Magento
5 17 (0.26%) SAP Business One
5 17 (0.26%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
6 15 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 13 (0.20%) Workday HCM
8 12 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
8 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
10 10 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
12 8 (0.12%) Primavera
13 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.091%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 1,326 (20.18%) Azure
2 1,118 (17.01%) Microsoft 365
3 665 (10.12%) AWS
4 549 (8.35%) Power Platform
5 338 (5.14%) Entra ID
6 228 (3.47%) SaaS
7 227 (3.45%) GCP
8 164 (2.50%) Azure DevOps
9 141 (2.15%) PowerApps
10 137 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 131 (1.99%) GitHub
12 123 (1.87%) Serverless
13 122 (1.86%) Power Automate
14 81 (1.23%) OneDrive
15 80 (1.22%) Microsoft Copilot
16 58 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
17 57 (0.87%) Amazon S3
18 52 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
18 52 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
18 52 (0.79%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 413 (6.29%) Firewall
2 396 (6.03%) DNS
3 339 (5.16%) DHCP
4 239 (3.64%) VPN
5 224 (3.41%) TCP/IP
6 188 (2.86%) WAN
7 175 (2.66%) LAN
8 160 (2.43%) Wi-Fi
9 154 (2.34%) Wireless
10 125 (1.90%) VLAN
11 111 (1.69%) Network Security
12 105 (1.60%) VoIP
13 91 (1.38%) Broadband
14 43 (0.65%) Internet
15 30 (0.46%) SAN
16 29 (0.44%) SSL
17 28 (0.43%) HTTP
18 26 (0.40%) SD-WAN
19 23 (0.35%) MQTT
20 22 (0.33%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 435 (6.62%) Power BI
2 324 (4.93%) SQL Server
3 135 (2.05%) MySQL
4 125 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
5 108 (1.64%) Relational Database
6 104 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
7 91 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
8 83 (1.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 78 (1.19%) NoSQL
10 69 (1.05%) Tableau
11 62 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.72%) Electronic Patient Records
13 46 (0.70%) MongoDB
14 44 (0.67%) Power Query
15 43 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
15 43 (0.65%) Big Data
16 40 (0.61%) Data Lake
17 29 (0.44%) DynamoDB
18 26 (0.40%) Metadata
19 25 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 290 (4.41%) Git
2 225 (3.42%) JIRA
3 79 (1.20%) GitLab
4 70 (1.07%) Jenkins
5 34 (0.52%) Eclipse
6 33 (0.50%) Subversion
7 26 (0.40%) JUnit
8 25 (0.38%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.38%) Selenium
9 24 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.32%) Claude Code
10 21 (0.32%) Postman
11 19 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
12 16 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 15 (0.23%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.21%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.18%) Visual Studio
17 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
18 10 (0.15%) JMeter
General
1 3,156 (48.03%) Social Skills
2 1,845 (28.08%) Analytical Skills
3 1,046 (15.92%) Finance
4 605 (9.21%) Manufacturing
5 402 (6.12%) Organisational Skills
6 374 (5.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 304 (4.63%) Law
8 293 (4.46%) Public Sector
9 281 (4.28%) Legal
10 277 (4.22%) Retail
11 242 (3.68%) Marketing
12 228 (3.47%) Electronics
13 211 (3.21%) Aerospace
14 157 (2.39%) Telecoms
15 136 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
16 131 (1.99%) Banking
17 107 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
18 76 (1.16%) Military
19 72 (1.10%) Games
20 69 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 867 (13.19%) Analyst
2 713 (10.85%) Senior
3 700 (10.65%) Developer
4 653 (9.94%) IT Support
5 544 (8.28%) Support Engineer
6 361 (5.49%) Lead
7 359 (5.46%) IT Engineer
8 308 (4.69%) Support Analyst
9 291 (4.43%) Consultant
10 265 (4.03%) IT Support Engineer
11 258 (3.93%) Support Technician
12 255 (3.88%) Technical Support
13 234 (3.56%) Systems Engineer
14 225 (3.42%) IT Technician
15 223 (3.39%) Architect
16 217 (3.30%) Technical Engineer
17 214 (3.26%) Software Engineer
18 196 (2.98%) Senior Developer
19 194 (2.95%) Technical Support Engineer
20 174 (2.65%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 346 (5.27%) .NET
2 265 (4.03%) Terraform
3 217 (3.30%) React
4 198 (3.01%) HTML
5 190 (2.89%) REST
6 146 (2.22%) CSS
7 125 (1.90%) RESTful
8 97 (1.48%) Node.js
9 94 (1.43%) SOAP
10 82 (1.25%) Vue
11 79 (1.20%) ASP.NET
12 78 (1.19%) AngularJS
12 78 (1.19%) Middleware
13 73 (1.11%) JSON
14 71 (1.08%) Web Services
15 70 (1.07%) XML
16 64 (0.97%) Spring
17 57 (0.87%) OAuth
17 57 (0.87%) Spring Boot
18 48 (0.73%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 520 (7.91%) Driving Licence
2 405 (6.16%) Onboarding
3 334 (5.08%) Self-Motivation
4 298 (4.54%) Management Information System
5 185 (2.82%) Cloud Native
6 165 (2.51%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 111 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 105 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
10 95 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
11 88 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
12 85 (1.29%) NHS
13 78 (1.19%) Security Posture
13 78 (1.19%) Social Media
14 73 (1.11%) Robotics
15 72 (1.10%) Mobile App
16 67 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
17 65 (0.99%) Virtual Team
18 63 (0.96%) IoT
19 58 (0.88%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,069 (16.27%) Windows
2 501 (7.62%) Windows Server
3 452 (6.88%) Linux
4 132 (2.01%) Windows 10
5 110 (1.67%) Windows Server 2016
6 98 (1.49%) Android
7 80 (1.22%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 40 (0.61%) Unix
10 38 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.44%) Ubuntu
12 20 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 18 (0.27%) VMS
14 16 (0.24%) CentOS
15 14 (0.21%) Debian
16 9 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
17 7 (0.11%) Windows 7
18 6 (0.091%) Windows Server 2012
19 5 (0.076%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,755 (26.71%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,169 (17.79%) Customer Service
3 1,004 (15.28%) Agile
4 748 (11.38%) Decision-Making
5 688 (10.47%) CI/CD
6 676 (10.29%) Mentoring
7 651 (9.91%) AI
8 603 (9.18%) Stakeholder Management
9 572 (8.70%) DevOps
10 562 (8.55%) Analytics
11 554 (8.43%) ITIL
12 531 (8.08%) Software Engineering
13 528 (8.04%) Cybersecurity
14 511 (7.78%) Collaborative Working
15 510 (7.76%) Project Delivery
16 481 (7.32%) ERP
17 465 (7.08%) Business Intelligence
18 429 (6.53%) Project Management
19 401 (6.10%) CRM
20 382 (5.81%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 1,011 (15.39%) SQL
2 718 (10.93%) Python
3 433 (6.59%) JavaScript
4 428 (6.51%) C#
5 296 (4.50%) Java
6 264 (4.02%) PowerShell
7 192 (2.92%) TypeScript
8 183 (2.78%) C++
9 122 (1.86%) Bash
10 74 (1.13%) PHP
11 71 (1.08%) C
12 61 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 55 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 45 (0.68%) Shell Script
15 43 (0.65%) Perl
16 38 (0.58%) Ruby
17 37 (0.56%) Go
18 33 (0.50%) PL/SQL
18 33 (0.50%) Rust
19 30 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,028 (15.64%) Degree
2 615 (9.36%) Security Cleared
3 439 (6.68%) SC Cleared
4 195 (2.97%) DBS Check
5 193 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 179 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 165 (2.51%) DV Cleared
8 150 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
9 122 (1.86%) HNC
10 116 (1.77%) Azure Certification
11 98 (1.49%) HND
12 94 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
13 78 (1.19%) PMI Certification
14 73 (1.11%) CISSP
15 65 (0.99%) CCNA
16 62 (0.94%) Master's Degree
17 58 (0.88%) Chartered Engineer
18 57 (0.87%) PMP
19 55 (0.84%) A+ Certification
20 48 (0.73%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 433 (6.59%) QA
2 263 (4.00%) Data Quality
3 191 (2.91%) GDPR
4 174 (2.65%) Cyber Essentials
5 168 (2.56%) SLA
6 164 (2.50%) Accessibility
7 126 (1.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 114 (1.73%) PCI DSS
9 94 (1.43%) NIST
10 34 (0.52%) ISO 9001
11 30 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 30 (0.46%) PMO
12 22 (0.33%) GMP
13 18 (0.27%) Good Clinical Practice
14 16 (0.24%) GRC
15 14 (0.21%) DO-254
16 13 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.18%) NCSC
17 12 (0.18%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 748 (11.38%) Active Directory
2 282 (4.29%) Hyper-V
3 253 (3.85%) Docker
4 201 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.22%) Terminal Server
6 67 (1.02%) Firmware
7 34 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.43%) vSphere
9 27 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
10 21 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.11%) KVM
13 6 (0.091%) XenApp
14 5 (0.076%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.076%) Squid
14 5 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.046%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.046%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.046%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 226 (3.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.35%) Kubernetes
3 109 (1.66%) Ansible
4 58 (0.88%) SCCM
5 57 (0.87%) Grafana
6 41 (0.62%) Prometheus
7 35 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 21 (0.32%) FortiGate
9 18 (0.27%) Puppet
10 16 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.21%) Nagios
12 13 (0.20%) Functional Safety
13 11 (0.17%) Kibana
13 11 (0.17%) Nmap
14 10 (0.15%) logstash
14 10 (0.15%) Podman
14 10 (0.15%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
15 9 (0.14%) QRadar
15 9 (0.14%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 1,965 (29.90%) Microsoft
2 323 (4.92%) VMware
3 172 (2.62%) SAP
4 163 (2.48%) Google
5 155 (2.36%) Oracle
6 137 (2.08%) Veeam
7 130 (1.98%) Cisco
8 124 (1.89%) Splunk
9 114 (1.73%) ServiceNow
10 102 (1.55%) SolarWinds
11 92 (1.40%) Workday
12 89 (1.35%) Salesforce
13 88 (1.34%) Tanium
14 81 (1.23%) Nimble Storage
15 80 (1.22%) Brocade
16 78 (1.19%) Databricks
17 67 (1.02%) Sage
18 61 (0.93%) Fortinet
19 57 (0.87%) Apple
20 50 (0.76%) SonicWALL