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

6 months to
10 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 6,371 6,543 8,681
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.28% 18.89% 14.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.74% 21.61% 18.55%
Number of salaries quoted 4,598 3,639 4,467
10th Percentile £26,750 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,125 £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 £61,375
90th Percentile £73,750 £73,750 £75,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,021 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.02% -5.96% -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 54,267 30,278 46,796
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.56% 87.43% 78.66%
Number of salaries quoted 38,117 16,567 29,647
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% - -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 10 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 10 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% 1,237
South East -3 1,539 £45,000 +5.88% 1,378
Midlands -9 1,181 £42,500 +6.47% 824
North West -5 861 £45,000 - 665
South West -5 781 £45,000 +20.00% 616
West Midlands -10 650 £42,500 -5.56% 505
East of England -3 647 £42,500 +21.43% 557
Yorkshire -7 543 £42,500 +21.43% 412
East Midlands -9 528 £40,000 +12.68% 319
Scotland -1 272 £33,500 -24.29% 398
North East -11 233 £50,000 +31.58% 179
Northern Ireland -7 166 £41,750 -29.24% 257
Wales -20 163 £45,000 -6.49% 150
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
1 354 (5.56%) SharePoint
2 351 (5.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 67 (1.05%) Confluence
4 45 (0.71%) CMS
5 44 (0.69%) IIS
6 34 (0.53%) WordPress
7 31 (0.49%) Apache
8 24 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.25%) Apache Spark
10 15 (0.24%) SAS
11 11 (0.17%) 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%) Exchange Server 2013
15 5 (0.078%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.063%) Anypoint
16 4 (0.063%) OpenStack
16 4 (0.063%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 406 (6.37%) Microsoft Office
2 384 (6.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 52 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 40 (0.63%) MS Visio
6 28 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 19 (0.30%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.30%) Simulink
8 10 (0.16%) Revit
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.094%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.094%) EPLAN
10 6 (0.094%) Fusion 360
10 6 (0.094%) Sketch
11 5 (0.078%) Navisworks
11 5 (0.078%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.078%) SOLIDWORKS
11 5 (0.078%) Trello
Business Applications
1 54 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.63%) 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
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
13 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
14 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
14 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
14 7 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
15 6 (0.094%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 1,301 (20.42%) Azure
2 1,110 (17.42%) Microsoft 365
3 666 (10.45%) AWS
4 501 (7.86%) Power Platform
5 329 (5.16%) Entra ID
6 226 (3.55%) GCP
7 220 (3.45%) SaaS
8 155 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
9 133 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 123 (1.93%) Serverless
11 118 (1.85%) GitHub
12 111 (1.74%) Power Automate
13 109 (1.71%) PowerApps
14 83 (1.30%) OneDrive
15 78 (1.22%) Microsoft Copilot
16 57 (0.89%) Amazon S3
17 53 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
18 52 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
18 52 (0.82%) Microsoft Purview
19 49 (0.77%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 413 (6.48%) Firewall
2 385 (6.04%) DNS
3 330 (5.18%) DHCP
4 231 (3.63%) VPN
5 215 (3.37%) TCP/IP
6 191 (3.00%) WAN
7 174 (2.73%) LAN
8 156 (2.45%) Wi-Fi
9 151 (2.37%) Wireless
10 125 (1.96%) VLAN
11 107 (1.68%) Network Security
12 103 (1.62%) Broadband
13 101 (1.59%) VoIP
14 43 (0.67%) Internet
15 29 (0.46%) HTTP
15 29 (0.46%) SAN
15 29 (0.46%) SSL
16 28 (0.44%) SD-WAN
17 22 (0.35%) WLAN
18 21 (0.33%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 392 (6.15%) Power BI
2 307 (4.82%) SQL Server
3 127 (1.99%) MySQL
4 120 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
5 101 (1.59%) Data Warehouse
6 100 (1.57%) Relational Database
7 92 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 77 (1.21%) NoSQL
10 71 (1.11%) Tableau
11 64 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 44 (0.69%) Power Query
14 41 (0.64%) Big Data
15 38 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 38 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
16 35 (0.55%) Data Lake
17 30 (0.47%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
19 22 (0.35%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 277 (4.35%) Git
2 218 (3.42%) JIRA
3 83 (1.30%) GitLab
4 65 (1.02%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.47%) Eclipse
6 29 (0.46%) Subversion
7 27 (0.42%) Rational DOORS
8 26 (0.41%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.41%) Selenium
9 24 (0.38%) JUnit
10 22 (0.35%) 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 3,030 (47.56%) Social Skills
2 1,772 (27.81%) Analytical Skills
3 991 (15.55%) Finance
4 579 (9.09%) Manufacturing
5 391 (6.14%) Organisational Skills
6 362 (5.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 297 (4.66%) Law
8 285 (4.47%) Public Sector
9 271 (4.25%) Legal
10 265 (4.16%) Retail
11 211 (3.31%) Electronics
12 207 (3.25%) Marketing
13 180 (2.83%) Aerospace
14 161 (2.53%) Telecoms
15 128 (2.01%) Banking
16 127 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
17 114 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
18 72 (1.13%) Games
19 68 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
20 66 (1.04%) Military
Job Titles
1 838 (13.15%) Analyst
2 685 (10.75%) Senior
3 670 (10.52%) Developer
4 658 (10.33%) IT Support
5 546 (8.57%) Support Engineer
6 364 (5.71%) IT Engineer
7 352 (5.53%) Lead
8 286 (4.49%) Support Analyst
9 269 (4.22%) IT Support Engineer
10 268 (4.21%) Consultant
11 265 (4.16%) Support Technician
12 240 (3.77%) Technical Support
13 237 (3.72%) Systems Engineer
14 223 (3.50%) IT Technician
15 211 (3.31%) Architect
15 211 (3.31%) Software Engineer
16 205 (3.22%) Technical Engineer
17 193 (3.03%) Senior Developer
18 184 (2.89%) Technical Support Engineer
19 171 (2.68%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 325 (5.10%) .NET
2 218 (3.42%) React
3 193 (3.03%) HTML
4 185 (2.90%) REST
5 143 (2.24%) CSS
6 119 (1.87%) RESTful
7 97 (1.52%) Node.js
8 91 (1.43%) SOAP
9 80 (1.26%) Vue
10 77 (1.21%) Middleware
11 76 (1.19%) AngularJS
12 72 (1.13%) ASP.NET
13 71 (1.11%) JSON
14 66 (1.04%) XML
15 64 (1.00%) Web Services
16 60 (0.94%) Spring
17 55 (0.86%) OAuth
17 55 (0.86%) Spring Boot
18 46 (0.72%) Kafka
19 45 (0.71%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 509 (7.99%) Driving Licence
2 383 (6.01%) Onboarding
3 302 (4.74%) Self-Motivation
4 264 (4.14%) Management Information System
5 180 (2.83%) Cloud Native
6 163 (2.56%) Product Ownership
7 154 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
8 101 (1.59%) Data Centre
9 94 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
10 88 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
11 87 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
12 80 (1.26%) Security Posture
13 79 (1.24%) NHS
14 77 (1.21%) Social Media
15 70 (1.10%) Robotics
16 68 (1.07%) Mobile App
17 64 (1.00%) IoT
18 61 (0.96%) Virtual Team
19 59 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
20 56 (0.88%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,069 (16.78%) Windows
2 496 (7.79%) Windows Server
3 452 (7.09%) Linux
4 137 (2.15%) Windows 10
5 109 (1.71%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (1.65%) Android
7 80 (1.26%) Apple iOS
8 78 (1.22%) Mac OS
9 40 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
10 36 (0.57%) Unix
11 30 (0.47%) Ubuntu
12 24 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 21 (0.33%) 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
17 5 (0.078%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,670 (26.21%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,129 (17.72%) Customer Service
3 976 (15.32%) Agile
4 701 (11.00%) Decision-Making
5 668 (10.49%) CI/CD
6 660 (10.36%) Mentoring
7 629 (9.87%) AI
8 559 (8.77%) Stakeholder Management
9 553 (8.68%) DevOps
10 549 (8.62%) ITIL
11 523 (8.21%) Analytics
12 519 (8.15%) Cybersecurity
13 517 (8.11%) Software Engineering
14 497 (7.80%) Collaborative Working
15 476 (7.47%) Project Delivery
16 467 (7.33%) ERP
17 452 (7.09%) Business Intelligence
18 385 (6.04%) Project Management
19 376 (5.90%) Service Delivery
20 372 (5.84%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 977 (15.34%) SQL
2 697 (10.94%) Python
3 415 (6.51%) JavaScript
4 406 (6.37%) C#
5 283 (4.44%) Java
6 248 (3.89%) PowerShell
7 188 (2.95%) TypeScript
8 180 (2.83%) C++
9 117 (1.84%) Bash
10 78 (1.22%) PHP
11 71 (1.11%) C
12 57 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 54 (0.85%) T-SQL
14 44 (0.69%) Shell Script
15 41 (0.64%) Perl
16 37 (0.58%) Go
17 36 (0.57%) Ruby
18 33 (0.52%) Rust
19 32 (0.50%) PL/SQL
20 28 (0.44%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 986 (15.48%) Degree
2 590 (9.26%) Security Cleared
3 425 (6.67%) SC Cleared
4 197 (3.09%) DBS Check
5 189 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 171 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
7 147 (2.31%) DV Cleared
8 141 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
9 110 (1.73%) HNC
10 102 (1.60%) Azure Certification
11 90 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
12 81 (1.27%) HND
13 74 (1.16%) PMI Certification
14 66 (1.04%) CISSP
15 62 (0.97%) Master's Degree
16 61 (0.96%) CCNA
17 54 (0.85%) PMP
18 53 (0.83%) ACCA
19 52 (0.82%) A+ Certification
19 52 (0.82%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 415 (6.51%) QA
2 257 (4.03%) Data Quality
3 188 (2.95%) GDPR
4 177 (2.78%) Cyber Essentials
5 164 (2.57%) SLA
6 155 (2.43%) Accessibility
7 131 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 117 (1.84%) PCI DSS
9 93 (1.46%) NIST
10 37 (0.58%) 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
16 14 (0.22%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.19%) TickIT
17 12 (0.19%) WCAG
18 11 (0.17%) DO-254
System Software
1 733 (11.51%) Active Directory
2 280 (4.39%) Hyper-V
3 250 (3.92%) Docker
4 202 (3.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.26%) Terminal Server
6 61 (0.96%) Firmware
7 32 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.44%) vSphere
9 26 (0.41%) 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
1 255 (4.00%) Terraform
2 232 (3.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 219 (3.44%) Kubernetes
4 108 (1.70%) Ansible
5 61 (0.96%) SCCM
6 60 (0.94%) Grafana
7 43 (0.67%) Prometheus
8 26 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 18 (0.28%) Puppet
11 16 (0.25%) 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%) Podman
13 11 (0.17%) Proxmox
14 10 (0.16%) logstash
15 9 (0.14%) QRadar
15 9 (0.14%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,918 (30.11%) Microsoft
2 324 (5.09%) VMware
3 156 (2.45%) Google
4 155 (2.43%) SAP
5 147 (2.31%) Oracle
6 139 (2.18%) Veeam
7 132 (2.07%) Cisco
8 124 (1.95%) Splunk
9 108 (1.70%) ServiceNow
10 106 (1.66%) SolarWinds
11 88 (1.38%) Salesforce
11 88 (1.38%) Tanium
12 81 (1.27%) Nimble Storage
13 80 (1.26%) Brocade
14 75 (1.18%) Databricks
15 71 (1.11%) Workday
16 64 (1.00%) Apple
17 61 (0.96%) Sage
18 57 (0.89%) Fortinet
19 46 (0.72%) IBM