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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,214 6,516 8,615
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.19% 18.94% 14.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.62% 21.63% 18.30%
Number of salaries quoted 4,527 3,603 4,524
10th Percentile £26,646 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £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 £59,250 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,750 £73,750 £75,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -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 53,472 30,130 47,073
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.47% 87.60% 78.53%
Number of salaries quoted 37,635 16,450 30,039
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £48,750 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.82% -2.50% -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% - -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 6 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 6 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 1,612 £45,000 +5.88% 885
South East -3 1,511 £45,000 +5.88% 1,123
Midlands -9 1,161 £42,000 +5.00% 652
North West -5 850 £45,000 -1.10% 456
South West -5 764 £44,000 +17.33% 475
West Midlands -10 644 £42,500 -5.56% 381
East of England -5 617 £42,500 +21.43% 420
Yorkshire -7 538 £42,500 +21.43% 309
East Midlands -8 514 £40,000 +12.68% 271
Scotland -3 256 £33,000 -25.00% 210
North East -13 224 £50,000 +34.23% 131
Wales -22 158 £45,000 -6.49% 106
Northern Ireland -10 151 £38,500 -33.04% 113
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 2
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
1 353 (5.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 352 (5.66%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.03%) Confluence
4 45 (0.72%) CMS
5 42 (0.68%) IIS
6 33 (0.53%) WordPress
7 30 (0.48%) Apache
8 24 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
9 15 (0.24%) Apache Spark
10 14 (0.23%) SAS
11 11 (0.18%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 8 (0.13%) nginx
14 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.097%) Jupyter
16 5 (0.080%) Exchange Server 2007
16 5 (0.080%) Exchange Server 2010
16 5 (0.080%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.064%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 402 (6.47%) Microsoft Office
2 390 (6.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 55 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
5 39 (0.63%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 16 (0.26%) AutoCAD
8 15 (0.24%) Simulink
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.13%) Revit
10 6 (0.097%) Fusion 360
11 5 (0.080%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.080%) EPLAN
11 5 (0.080%) Lightworks
11 5 (0.080%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.080%) Sketch
11 5 (0.080%) Trello
12 4 (0.064%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 54 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 36 (0.58%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.32%) Shopify
5 18 (0.29%) Magento
6 17 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 16 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
8 15 (0.24%) SAP Business One
9 14 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 13 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
11 12 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 10 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
13 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
14 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
15 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
15 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
15 7 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
16 5 (0.080%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 1,291 (20.78%) Azure
2 1,106 (17.80%) Microsoft 365
3 655 (10.54%) AWS
4 497 (8.00%) Power Platform
5 324 (5.21%) Entra ID
6 219 (3.52%) GCP
7 216 (3.48%) SaaS
8 154 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
9 135 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
10 119 (1.92%) Serverless
11 117 (1.88%) GitHub
12 109 (1.75%) Power Automate
13 108 (1.74%) PowerApps
14 82 (1.32%) OneDrive
15 77 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
16 54 (0.87%) Amazon S3
16 54 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
17 52 (0.84%) Microsoft Purview
18 49 (0.79%) Google Workspace
19 48 (0.77%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 419 (6.74%) Firewall
2 384 (6.18%) DNS
3 328 (5.28%) DHCP
4 231 (3.72%) VPN
5 216 (3.48%) TCP/IP
6 196 (3.15%) WAN
7 177 (2.85%) LAN
8 153 (2.46%) Wi-Fi
9 151 (2.43%) Wireless
10 124 (2.00%) VLAN
11 108 (1.74%) Network Security
12 102 (1.64%) Broadband
13 99 (1.59%) VoIP
14 42 (0.68%) Internet
15 30 (0.48%) SD-WAN
16 29 (0.47%) SAN
16 29 (0.47%) SSL
17 28 (0.45%) HTTP
18 22 (0.35%) WLAN
19 21 (0.34%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 390 (6.28%) Power BI
2 297 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 122 (1.96%) MySQL
4 117 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
5 99 (1.59%) Data Warehouse
6 98 (1.58%) Relational Database
7 90 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 75 (1.21%) NoSQL
10 72 (1.16%) Tableau
11 64 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 49 (0.79%) Power Query
13 44 (0.71%) MongoDB
14 40 (0.64%) Big Data
15 37 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
16 35 (0.56%) Data Lake
17 33 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
18 30 (0.48%) DynamoDB
19 25 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
20 21 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 267 (4.30%) Git
2 214 (3.44%) JIRA
3 84 (1.35%) GitLab
4 65 (1.05%) Jenkins
5 28 (0.45%) Eclipse
5 28 (0.45%) Subversion
6 27 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
7 26 (0.42%) Cucumber
7 26 (0.42%) Selenium
8 23 (0.37%) JUnit
9 20 (0.32%) Postman
10 19 (0.31%) Claude Code
11 18 (0.29%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
13 14 (0.23%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.23%) SonarQube
14 11 (0.18%) Burp Suite
14 11 (0.18%) Maven
15 10 (0.16%) JMeter
15 10 (0.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,969 (47.78%) Social Skills
2 1,739 (27.99%) Analytical Skills
3 970 (15.61%) Finance
4 539 (8.67%) Manufacturing
5 393 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
6 325 (5.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 287 (4.62%) Law
8 278 (4.47%) Public Sector
9 270 (4.35%) Legal
10 257 (4.14%) Retail
11 194 (3.12%) Marketing
12 182 (2.93%) Electronics
13 156 (2.51%) Telecoms
14 155 (2.49%) Aerospace
15 126 (2.03%) Banking
16 122 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
17 112 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
18 73 (1.17%) Games
19 65 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
20 60 (0.97%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 842 (13.55%) Analyst
2 677 (10.89%) Senior
3 666 (10.72%) IT Support
4 662 (10.65%) Developer
5 558 (8.98%) Support Engineer
6 373 (6.00%) IT Engineer
7 342 (5.50%) Lead
8 286 (4.60%) Support Analyst
9 279 (4.49%) IT Support Engineer
10 264 (4.25%) Support Technician
11 256 (4.12%) Consultant
12 235 (3.78%) Systems Engineer
12 235 (3.78%) Technical Support
13 221 (3.56%) IT Technician
14 208 (3.35%) Software Engineer
15 204 (3.28%) Architect
16 203 (3.27%) Technical Engineer
17 193 (3.11%) Senior Developer
18 182 (2.93%) Technical Support Engineer
19 171 (2.75%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 323 (5.20%) .NET
2 217 (3.49%) React
3 189 (3.04%) HTML
4 181 (2.91%) REST
5 138 (2.22%) CSS
6 114 (1.83%) RESTful
7 97 (1.56%) Node.js
8 90 (1.45%) SOAP
9 80 (1.29%) Vue
10 77 (1.24%) AngularJS
10 77 (1.24%) Middleware
11 72 (1.16%) JSON
12 70 (1.13%) ASP.NET
13 68 (1.09%) XML
14 59 (0.95%) Spring
14 59 (0.95%) Web Services
15 54 (0.87%) OAuth
15 54 (0.87%) Spring Boot
16 44 (0.71%) Kafka
17 43 (0.69%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 491 (7.90%) Driving Licence
2 370 (5.95%) Onboarding
3 296 (4.76%) Self-Motivation
4 252 (4.06%) Management Information System
5 174 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 156 (2.51%) Product Ownership
7 155 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
8 102 (1.64%) Data Centre
9 93 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
10 87 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
11 83 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
12 77 (1.24%) Security Posture
13 74 (1.19%) NHS
13 74 (1.19%) Social Media
14 68 (1.09%) Mobile App
15 60 (0.97%) IoT
15 60 (0.97%) Robotics
15 60 (0.97%) Virtual Team
16 58 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
17 54 (0.87%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,059 (17.04%) Windows
2 496 (7.98%) Windows Server
3 447 (7.19%) Linux
4 142 (2.29%) Windows 10
5 110 (1.77%) Windows Server 2016
6 108 (1.74%) Android
7 81 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 79 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 40 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
10 35 (0.56%) Unix
11 30 (0.48%) Ubuntu
12 24 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 21 (0.34%) CentOS
14 17 (0.27%) VMS
15 14 (0.23%) Debian
16 11 (0.18%) Windows 7
17 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
18 8 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
19 6 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
20 5 (0.080%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,624 (26.13%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,104 (17.77%) Customer Service
3 946 (15.22%) Agile
4 675 (10.86%) Decision-Making
5 660 (10.62%) CI/CD
6 643 (10.35%) Mentoring
7 618 (9.95%) AI
8 546 (8.79%) DevOps
9 545 (8.77%) ITIL
10 536 (8.63%) Stakeholder Management
11 511 (8.22%) Analytics
12 508 (8.18%) Cybersecurity
13 507 (8.16%) Software Engineering
14 483 (7.77%) Collaborative Working
15 463 (7.45%) ERP
16 458 (7.37%) Project Delivery
17 452 (7.27%) Business Intelligence
18 371 (5.97%) Project Management
19 367 (5.91%) Computer Science
20 364 (5.86%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 972 (15.64%) SQL
2 690 (11.10%) Python
3 409 (6.58%) JavaScript
4 405 (6.52%) C#
5 276 (4.44%) Java
6 248 (3.99%) PowerShell
7 183 (2.94%) TypeScript
8 178 (2.86%) C++
9 114 (1.83%) Bash
10 78 (1.26%) PHP
11 69 (1.11%) C
12 59 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 54 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 41 (0.66%) Shell Script
15 40 (0.64%) Perl
16 36 (0.58%) Go
17 35 (0.56%) Ruby
18 33 (0.53%) PL/SQL
19 31 (0.50%) Rust
20 29 (0.47%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 949 (15.27%) Degree
2 560 (9.01%) Security Cleared
3 409 (6.58%) SC Cleared
4 193 (3.11%) DBS Check
5 186 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 173 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
7 135 (2.17%) DV Cleared
8 125 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 97 (1.56%) Azure Certification
10 90 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
11 88 (1.42%) HNC
12 72 (1.16%) PMI Certification
13 63 (1.01%) CISSP
14 61 (0.98%) CCNA
15 60 (0.97%) HND
15 60 (0.97%) Master's Degree
16 55 (0.89%) ACCA
17 54 (0.87%) PMP
18 51 (0.82%) A+ Certification
18 51 (0.82%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 405 (6.52%) QA
2 258 (4.15%) Data Quality
3 184 (2.96%) GDPR
4 178 (2.86%) Cyber Essentials
5 160 (2.57%) SLA
6 144 (2.32%) Accessibility
7 129 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 119 (1.92%) PCI DSS
9 92 (1.48%) NIST
10 36 (0.58%) ISO 9001
11 31 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 30 (0.48%) PMO
13 25 (0.40%) GMP
14 18 (0.29%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.24%) GRC
16 14 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.19%) TickIT
17 12 (0.19%) WCAG
18 10 (0.16%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 730 (11.75%) Active Directory
2 282 (4.54%) Hyper-V
3 246 (3.96%) Docker
4 204 (3.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.29%) Terminal Server
6 57 (0.92%) Firmware
7 32 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.45%) vSphere
9 26 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
10 17 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
12 10 (0.16%) KVM
13 6 (0.097%) XenApp
14 5 (0.080%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.080%) Squid
14 5 (0.080%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.064%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.064%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.048%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.048%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 250 (4.02%) Terraform
2 232 (3.73%) Microsoft Intune
3 219 (3.52%) Kubernetes
4 107 (1.72%) Ansible
5 62 (1.00%) Grafana
5 62 (1.00%) SCCM
6 44 (0.71%) Prometheus
7 21 (0.34%) FortiGate
7 21 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.29%) Puppet
9 16 (0.26%) Nagios
10 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.18%) Functional Safety
11 11 (0.18%) Kibana
11 11 (0.18%) Podman
11 11 (0.18%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.16%) logstash
13 9 (0.14%) Nmap
13 9 (0.14%) QRadar
13 9 (0.14%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,899 (30.56%) Microsoft
2 323 (5.20%) VMware
3 149 (2.40%) Google
4 146 (2.35%) SAP
5 142 (2.29%) Oracle
6 139 (2.24%) Veeam
7 132 (2.12%) Cisco
8 122 (1.96%) Splunk
9 107 (1.72%) ServiceNow
10 106 (1.71%) SolarWinds
11 88 (1.42%) Salesforce
11 88 (1.42%) Tanium
12 81 (1.30%) Nimble Storage
13 80 (1.29%) Brocade
14 73 (1.17%) Databricks
15 64 (1.03%) Apple
16 60 (0.97%) Sage
17 56 (0.90%) Fortinet
18 52 (0.84%) Workday
19 46 (0.74%) IBM