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

6 months to
2 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 6,105 6,510 8,590
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.14% 18.94% 14.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.53% 21.62% 18.25%
Number of salaries quoted 4,463 3,603 4,564
10th Percentile £26,750 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £29,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,101 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.98% -10.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £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 52,958 30,111 47,065
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.62% 87.62% 78.50%
Number of salaries quoted 37,197 16,469 30,349
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -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% - -8.33%

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 2 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 2 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 1,583 £45,000 +5.88% 815
South East -3 1,496 £45,000 +5.88% 997
Midlands -9 1,136 £42,000 +5.00% 584
North West -6 830 £45,125 -1.90% 427
South West -6 757 £44,500 +18.67% 447
West Midlands -10 632 £42,500 -5.56% 355
East of England -5 602 £42,500 +21.43% 363
Yorkshire -9 535 £42,500 +21.43% 278
East Midlands -10 500 £39,250 +10.56% 229
Scotland -4 247 £33,000 -25.00% 174
North East -14 218 £50,000 +34.23% 121
Wales -20 158 £45,000 -6.49% 85
Northern Ireland -13 142 £38,500 -30.00% 136
Isle of Man 0 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
1 362 (5.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 354 (5.80%) SharePoint
3 65 (1.06%) Confluence
4 47 (0.77%) CMS
5 41 (0.67%) IIS
6 32 (0.52%) WordPress
7 30 (0.49%) Apache
8 23 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.23%) Apache Spark
10 13 (0.21%) SAS
11 11 (0.18%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.15%) WebLogic
13 8 (0.13%) nginx
14 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.098%) Jupyter
16 5 (0.082%) Exchange Server 2007
16 5 (0.082%) Exchange Server 2010
16 5 (0.082%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.066%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 386 (6.32%) Microsoft Office
2 385 (6.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 55 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 47 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
5 38 (0.62%) MS Visio
6 23 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 14 (0.23%) Simulink
8 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
8 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.098%) Revit
10 5 (0.082%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.082%) EPLAN
10 5 (0.082%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.082%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.082%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.082%) Sketch
10 5 (0.082%) Trello
11 3 (0.049%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 54 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 36 (0.59%) NetSuite
3 19 (0.31%) Shopify
4 18 (0.29%) Magento
5 16 (0.26%) SAP ERP
6 14 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
6 14 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 13 (0.21%) SAP Business One
8 10 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
9 9 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.15%) Sage 50
9 9 (0.15%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
11 6 (0.098%) NEC Housing
11 6 (0.098%) Workday HCM
12 5 (0.082%) Dynamics GP
12 5 (0.082%) Infor CloudSuite
12 5 (0.082%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,274 (20.87%) Azure
2 1,095 (17.94%) Microsoft 365
3 650 (10.65%) AWS
4 491 (8.04%) Power Platform
5 316 (5.18%) Entra ID
6 214 (3.51%) GCP
7 213 (3.49%) SaaS
8 147 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
9 134 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
10 117 (1.92%) Serverless
11 113 (1.85%) GitHub
12 106 (1.74%) PowerApps
13 105 (1.72%) Power Automate
14 79 (1.29%) OneDrive
15 70 (1.15%) Microsoft Copilot
16 56 (0.92%) Amazon S3
17 53 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
17 53 (0.87%) Microsoft Purview
18 49 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
19 46 (0.75%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 413 (6.76%) Firewall
2 384 (6.29%) DNS
3 328 (5.37%) DHCP
4 225 (3.69%) VPN
5 208 (3.41%) TCP/IP
6 195 (3.19%) WAN
7 176 (2.88%) LAN
8 153 (2.51%) Wi-Fi
9 149 (2.44%) Wireless
10 122 (2.00%) VLAN
11 106 (1.74%) Network Security
12 105 (1.72%) Broadband
13 100 (1.64%) VoIP
14 41 (0.67%) Internet
15 29 (0.48%) SAN
15 29 (0.48%) SD-WAN
15 29 (0.48%) SSL
16 28 (0.46%) HTTP
17 22 (0.36%) WLAN
18 20 (0.33%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 387 (6.34%) Power BI
2 292 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 126 (2.06%) Amazon RDS
4 121 (1.98%) MySQL
5 97 (1.59%) Data Warehouse
6 94 (1.54%) Relational Database
7 89 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 75 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 72 (1.18%) Tableau
11 65 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 48 (0.79%) Power Query
13 45 (0.74%) MongoDB
14 40 (0.66%) Big Data
15 34 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
15 34 (0.56%) Data Lake
16 29 (0.48%) DynamoDB
17 25 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
17 25 (0.41%) Electronic Patient Records
18 21 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 260 (4.26%) Git
2 208 (3.41%) JIRA
3 83 (1.36%) GitLab
4 63 (1.03%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.44%) Eclipse
5 27 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
5 27 (0.44%) Subversion
6 26 (0.43%) Cucumber
6 26 (0.43%) Selenium
7 22 (0.36%) JUnit
8 20 (0.33%) Postman
9 18 (0.29%) Cypress.io
10 17 (0.28%) Claude Code
11 16 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
12 14 (0.23%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.23%) SonarQube
13 11 (0.18%) Burp Suite
14 10 (0.16%) JMeter
14 10 (0.16%) Maven
14 10 (0.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,925 (47.91%) Social Skills
2 1,713 (28.06%) Analytical Skills
3 957 (15.68%) Finance
4 518 (8.48%) Manufacturing
5 389 (6.37%) Organisational Skills
6 302 (4.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 283 (4.64%) Law
8 269 (4.41%) Public Sector
9 266 (4.36%) Legal
10 251 (4.11%) Retail
11 186 (3.05%) Marketing
12 175 (2.87%) Electronics
13 157 (2.57%) Telecoms
14 136 (2.23%) Aerospace
15 127 (2.08%) Banking
16 118 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
17 111 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
18 75 (1.23%) Games
19 66 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
20 59 (0.97%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 838 (13.73%) Analyst
2 670 (10.97%) Senior
3 656 (10.75%) IT Support
4 648 (10.61%) Developer
5 546 (8.94%) Support Engineer
6 370 (6.06%) IT Engineer
7 332 (5.44%) Lead
8 282 (4.62%) Support Analyst
9 273 (4.47%) IT Support Engineer
10 261 (4.28%) Support Technician
11 242 (3.96%) Systems Engineer
12 237 (3.88%) Consultant
13 229 (3.75%) Technical Support
14 216 (3.54%) IT Technician
15 207 (3.39%) Software Engineer
16 199 (3.26%) Architect
17 197 (3.23%) Technical Engineer
18 192 (3.14%) Senior Developer
19 178 (2.92%) Technical Support Engineer
20 166 (2.72%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 312 (5.11%) .NET
2 214 (3.51%) React
3 187 (3.06%) HTML
4 179 (2.93%) REST
5 138 (2.26%) CSS
6 111 (1.82%) RESTful
7 98 (1.61%) Node.js
8 90 (1.47%) SOAP
9 78 (1.28%) Vue
10 77 (1.26%) Middleware
11 76 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 74 (1.21%) JSON
13 68 (1.11%) XML
14 65 (1.06%) ASP.NET
15 57 (0.93%) Spring
15 57 (0.93%) Web Services
16 52 (0.85%) Spring Boot
17 51 (0.84%) OAuth
18 43 (0.70%) Kafka
19 41 (0.67%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 475 (7.78%) Driving Licence
2 357 (5.85%) Onboarding
3 291 (4.77%) Self-Motivation
4 249 (4.08%) Management Information System
5 171 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 162 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
7 153 (2.51%) Product Ownership
8 104 (1.70%) Data Centre
9 95 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
10 88 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
11 79 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
12 76 (1.24%) Security Posture
13 71 (1.16%) Social Media
14 69 (1.13%) Mobile App
15 67 (1.10%) NHS
16 61 (1.00%) IoT
17 60 (0.98%) Virtual Team
18 58 (0.95%) Robotics
19 56 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
20 53 (0.87%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,047 (17.15%) Windows
2 493 (8.08%) Windows Server
3 448 (7.34%) Linux
4 140 (2.29%) Windows 10
5 119 (1.95%) Windows Server 2016
6 108 (1.77%) Android
7 78 (1.28%) Apple iOS
8 76 (1.24%) Mac OS
9 41 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
10 34 (0.56%) Unix
11 28 (0.46%) Ubuntu
12 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 21 (0.34%) CentOS
14 17 (0.28%) VMS
15 13 (0.21%) Debian
16 11 (0.18%) Windows 7
17 9 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
18 8 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
19 6 (0.098%) Windows Server 2012
20 5 (0.082%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,572 (25.75%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,093 (17.90%) Customer Service
3 920 (15.07%) Agile
4 650 (10.65%) CI/CD
5 645 (10.57%) Decision-Making
6 626 (10.25%) Mentoring
7 603 (9.88%) AI
8 545 (8.93%) ITIL
9 537 (8.80%) DevOps
10 515 (8.44%) Stakeholder Management
11 508 (8.32%) Analytics
12 497 (8.14%) Cybersecurity
13 496 (8.12%) Software Engineering
14 480 (7.86%) Collaborative Working
15 450 (7.37%) Business Intelligence
16 447 (7.32%) Project Delivery
17 442 (7.24%) ERP
18 363 (5.95%) Computer Science
19 362 (5.93%) Project Management
20 357 (5.85%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 966 (15.82%) SQL
2 687 (11.25%) Python
3 406 (6.65%) JavaScript
4 395 (6.47%) C#
5 269 (4.41%) Java
6 241 (3.95%) PowerShell
7 183 (3.00%) TypeScript
8 176 (2.88%) C++
9 113 (1.85%) Bash
10 76 (1.24%) PHP
11 67 (1.10%) C
12 61 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 52 (0.85%) T-SQL
14 39 (0.64%) Perl
14 39 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 35 (0.57%) Go
15 35 (0.57%) Ruby
16 34 (0.56%) PL/SQL
17 31 (0.51%) Rust
18 29 (0.48%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 924 (15.14%) Degree
2 550 (9.01%) Security Cleared
3 403 (6.60%) SC Cleared
4 192 (3.14%) DBS Check
5 182 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 173 (2.83%) Microsoft Certification
7 122 (2.00%) DV Cleared
8 118 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
9 90 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
10 89 (1.46%) Azure Certification
11 82 (1.34%) HNC
12 68 (1.11%) PMI Certification
13 62 (1.02%) CCNA
14 61 (1.00%) Master's Degree
15 58 (0.95%) CISSP
16 56 (0.92%) ACCA
17 54 (0.88%) HND
17 54 (0.88%) PMP
18 53 (0.87%) A+ Certification
19 52 (0.85%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 395 (6.47%) QA
2 256 (4.19%) Data Quality
3 187 (3.06%) Cyber Essentials
4 176 (2.88%) GDPR
5 156 (2.56%) SLA
6 137 (2.24%) Accessibility
7 134 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 128 (2.10%) PCI DSS
9 91 (1.49%) NIST
10 36 (0.59%) ISO 9001
11 32 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 30 (0.49%) PMO
13 23 (0.38%) GMP
14 18 (0.29%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.25%) GRC
16 14 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.20%) TickIT
18 11 (0.18%) WCAG
19 10 (0.16%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 725 (11.88%) Active Directory
2 280 (4.59%) Hyper-V
3 242 (3.96%) Docker
4 197 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.44%) Terminal Server
6 51 (0.84%) Firmware
7 29 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.46%) vSphere
9 22 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
11 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
12 9 (0.15%) KVM
13 6 (0.098%) XenApp
14 5 (0.082%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.082%) Squid
14 5 (0.082%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.066%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.066%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.049%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.049%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 247 (4.05%) Terraform
2 237 (3.88%) Microsoft Intune
3 219 (3.59%) Kubernetes
4 104 (1.70%) Ansible
5 62 (1.02%) Grafana
6 60 (0.98%) SCCM
7 44 (0.72%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.33%) FortiGate
9 19 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (0.28%) Puppet
11 16 (0.26%) Nagios
12 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
13 11 (0.18%) Functional Safety
13 11 (0.18%) Kibana
13 11 (0.18%) Podman
13 11 (0.18%) Proxmox
14 10 (0.16%) logstash
14 10 (0.16%) ZABBIX
15 9 (0.15%) Autotask
15 9 (0.15%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,857 (30.42%) Microsoft
2 324 (5.31%) VMware
3 146 (2.39%) Veeam
4 141 (2.31%) Google
4 141 (2.31%) SAP
5 132 (2.16%) Cisco
5 132 (2.16%) Oracle
6 128 (2.10%) Splunk
7 115 (1.88%) SolarWinds
8 105 (1.72%) ServiceNow
9 96 (1.57%) Tanium
10 89 (1.46%) Nimble Storage
11 88 (1.44%) Brocade
12 83 (1.36%) Salesforce
13 73 (1.20%) Databricks
14 63 (1.03%) Apple
15 60 (0.98%) Sage
16 55 (0.90%) Fortinet
17 48 (0.79%) Meraki
18 46 (0.75%) IBM