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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,872 6,456 9,052
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.97% 18.92% 14.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.31% 21.53% 18.05%
Number of salaries quoted 4,330 3,554 5,122
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,500
25th Percentile £31,000 £29,750 £31,897
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,591 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.70% -9.80% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £73,750
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 51,923 29,990 50,144
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.51% 87.88% 79.06%
Number of salaries quoted 36,516 16,273 33,193
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,750 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,750 £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% - -8.66%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 -10 1,522 £45,000 +5.88% 704
South East -3 1,442 £45,000 +5.88% 854
Midlands -8 1,094 £42,000 +5.00% 492
North West -7 796 £45,250 -1.63% 345
South West -6 739 £44,000 +17.33% 341
West Midlands -9 612 £42,500 -5.56% 282
East of England -6 576 £42,500 +21.43% 287
Yorkshire -10 524 £42,500 +21.43% 249
East Midlands -10 478 £37,500 +5.63% 210
Scotland -7 236 £33,000 -25.42% 112
North East -15 202 £51,250 +36.67% 119
Wales -20 156 £45,000 -7.22% 69
Northern Ireland -14 126 £38,500 -30.00% 55
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 4
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
1 366 (6.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 350 (5.96%) SharePoint
3 60 (1.02%) Confluence
4 50 (0.85%) CMS
5 36 (0.61%) IIS
6 30 (0.51%) Apache
7 29 (0.49%) WordPress
8 23 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.24%) Apache Spark
10 13 (0.22%) SAS
11 11 (0.19%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
12 9 (0.15%) nginx
12 9 (0.15%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2007
13 7 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
13 7 (0.12%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
15 5 (0.085%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.068%) OpenStack
Applications
1 376 (6.40%) Microsoft Office
2 373 (6.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 45 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
5 37 (0.63%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
7 12 (0.20%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
8 8 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 8 (0.14%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.085%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.085%) Fusion 360
9 5 (0.085%) Lightworks
9 5 (0.085%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.085%) Sketch
9 5 (0.085%) Trello
10 3 (0.051%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.051%) LaTeX
10 3 (0.051%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 54 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 35 (0.60%) NetSuite
3 17 (0.29%) Magento
3 17 (0.29%) Shopify
4 16 (0.27%) SAP ERP
5 14 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 13 (0.22%) SAP Business One
7 10 (0.17%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 9 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.15%) Sage 50
9 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
9 7 (0.12%) Sage X3
10 5 (0.085%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.085%) iTrent
10 5 (0.085%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.068%) Academy Housing
11 4 (0.068%) Line 50
Cloud Services
1 1,257 (21.41%) Azure
2 1,096 (18.66%) Microsoft 365
3 625 (10.64%) AWS
4 476 (8.11%) Power Platform
5 311 (5.30%) Entra ID
6 207 (3.53%) SaaS
7 206 (3.51%) GCP
8 143 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
9 128 (2.18%) Dynamics 365
10 113 (1.92%) Serverless
11 108 (1.84%) GitHub
12 106 (1.81%) PowerApps
13 102 (1.74%) Power Automate
14 80 (1.36%) OneDrive
15 68 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
16 54 (0.92%) Amazon S3
17 52 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
18 50 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
19 47 (0.80%) IaaS
20 46 (0.78%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 413 (7.03%) Firewall
2 390 (6.64%) DNS
3 333 (5.67%) DHCP
4 221 (3.76%) VPN
5 206 (3.51%) TCP/IP
6 198 (3.37%) WAN
7 176 (3.00%) LAN
8 152 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
9 145 (2.47%) Wireless
10 119 (2.03%) VLAN
11 104 (1.77%) Broadband
12 103 (1.75%) Network Security
13 96 (1.63%) VoIP
14 40 (0.68%) Internet
15 31 (0.53%) SD-WAN
16 28 (0.48%) HTTP
17 27 (0.46%) SAN
17 27 (0.46%) SSL
18 22 (0.37%) WLAN
19 20 (0.34%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 377 (6.42%) Power BI
2 282 (4.80%) SQL Server
3 131 (2.23%) Amazon RDS
4 117 (1.99%) MySQL
5 97 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
6 87 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
7 86 (1.46%) Relational Database
8 85 (1.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 73 (1.24%) NoSQL
10 69 (1.18%) Tableau
11 66 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 48 (0.82%) Power Query
13 46 (0.78%) MongoDB
14 39 (0.66%) Big Data
15 34 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
16 33 (0.56%) Data Lake
17 29 (0.49%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
19 21 (0.36%) Star Schema
20 20 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 242 (4.12%) Git
2 193 (3.29%) JIRA
3 79 (1.35%) GitLab
4 58 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.46%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (0.44%) Cucumber
7 25 (0.43%) Selenium
8 24 (0.41%) Subversion
9 23 (0.39%) Eclipse
10 19 (0.32%) JUnit
10 19 (0.32%) Postman
11 18 (0.31%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
12 14 (0.24%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.22%) Claude Code
14 12 (0.20%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.17%) JMeter
15 10 (0.17%) Maven
15 10 (0.17%) Visual Studio
16 9 (0.15%) Burp Suite
General
1 2,822 (48.06%) Social Skills
2 1,615 (27.50%) Analytical Skills
3 923 (15.72%) Finance
4 474 (8.07%) Manufacturing
5 366 (6.23%) Organisational Skills
6 268 (4.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 264 (4.50%) Law
8 261 (4.44%) Legal
9 258 (4.39%) Public Sector
10 241 (4.10%) Retail
11 176 (3.00%) Marketing
12 158 (2.69%) Electronics
13 149 (2.54%) Telecoms
14 122 (2.08%) Banking
15 111 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
16 109 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
17 105 (1.79%) Aerospace
18 74 (1.26%) Games
19 61 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
20 58 (0.99%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 815 (13.88%) Analyst
2 665 (11.32%) IT Support
3 647 (11.02%) Senior
4 623 (10.61%) Developer
5 558 (9.50%) Support Engineer
6 379 (6.45%) IT Engineer
7 311 (5.30%) Lead
8 284 (4.84%) IT Support Engineer
9 268 (4.56%) Support Analyst
10 260 (4.43%) Support Technician
11 245 (4.17%) Systems Engineer
12 222 (3.78%) Technical Support
13 217 (3.70%) Consultant
14 212 (3.61%) IT Technician
15 199 (3.39%) Software Engineer
16 194 (3.30%) Technical Engineer
17 192 (3.27%) Architect
18 183 (3.12%) Senior Developer
19 175 (2.98%) Technical Support Engineer
20 165 (2.81%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (5.07%) .NET
2 204 (3.47%) React
3 175 (2.98%) HTML
4 169 (2.88%) REST
5 128 (2.18%) CSS
6 103 (1.75%) RESTful
7 98 (1.67%) Node.js
8 88 (1.50%) SOAP
9 79 (1.35%) Vue
10 74 (1.26%) JSON
10 74 (1.26%) Middleware
11 73 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 67 (1.14%) XML
13 59 (1.00%) ASP.NET
14 56 (0.95%) Spring
15 51 (0.87%) Spring Boot
15 51 (0.87%) Web Services
16 50 (0.85%) OAuth
17 41 (0.70%) Kafka
18 39 (0.66%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 457 (7.78%) Driving Licence
2 342 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 274 (4.67%) Self-Motivation
4 235 (4.00%) Management Information System
5 168 (2.86%) Legacy Systems
6 164 (2.79%) Cloud Native
7 149 (2.54%) Product Ownership
8 100 (1.70%) Data Centre
9 95 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
10 90 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
11 74 (1.26%) Security Posture
12 72 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
13 66 (1.12%) Mobile App
14 65 (1.11%) Social Media
15 59 (1.00%) Virtual Team
16 58 (0.99%) IoT
17 56 (0.95%) NHS
18 51 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
19 47 (0.80%) Data Structures
19 47 (0.80%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,042 (17.75%) Windows
2 497 (8.46%) Windows Server
3 446 (7.60%) Linux
4 142 (2.42%) Windows 10
5 128 (2.18%) Windows Server 2016
6 106 (1.81%) Android
7 75 (1.28%) Apple iOS
8 74 (1.26%) Mac OS
9 41 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
10 32 (0.54%) Unix
11 28 (0.48%) Ubuntu
12 23 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 21 (0.36%) CentOS
14 17 (0.29%) VMS
15 13 (0.22%) Debian
15 13 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 9 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
17 8 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
18 7 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
19 5 (0.085%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,470 (25.03%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,069 (18.21%) Customer Service
3 869 (14.80%) Agile
4 620 (10.56%) CI/CD
5 608 (10.35%) Decision-Making
6 598 (10.18%) Mentoring
7 571 (9.72%) AI
8 524 (8.92%) ITIL
9 513 (8.74%) DevOps
10 493 (8.40%) Analytics
11 476 (8.11%) Cybersecurity
11 476 (8.11%) Stakeholder Management
12 471 (8.02%) Software Engineering
13 452 (7.70%) Collaborative Working
14 437 (7.44%) Business Intelligence
15 422 (7.19%) ERP
16 410 (6.98%) Project Delivery
17 351 (5.98%) Customer Experience
18 345 (5.88%) Service Delivery
19 344 (5.86%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 943 (16.06%) SQL
2 661 (11.26%) Python
3 382 (6.51%) C#
4 379 (6.45%) JavaScript
5 255 (4.34%) Java
6 240 (4.09%) PowerShell
7 171 (2.91%) TypeScript
8 166 (2.83%) C++
9 108 (1.84%) Bash
10 73 (1.24%) PHP
11 62 (1.06%) C
12 61 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 52 (0.89%) T-SQL
14 36 (0.61%) Perl
15 35 (0.60%) Ruby
15 35 (0.60%) Shell Script
16 34 (0.58%) Go
16 34 (0.58%) PL/SQL
17 29 (0.49%) Kotlin
18 27 (0.46%) Rust
Qualifications
1 858 (14.61%) Degree
2 514 (8.75%) Security Cleared
3 378 (6.44%) SC Cleared
4 185 (3.15%) DBS Check
5 170 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 170 (2.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 100 (1.70%) DV Cleared
7 97 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 89 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
9 85 (1.45%) Azure Certification
10 63 (1.07%) CCNA
11 61 (1.04%) HNC
12 59 (1.00%) PMI Certification
13 58 (0.99%) ACCA
14 55 (0.94%) A+ Certification
14 55 (0.94%) Master's Degree
15 54 (0.92%) CIMA
15 54 (0.92%) CISSP
16 50 (0.85%) PMP
17 45 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 373 (6.35%) QA
2 250 (4.26%) Data Quality
3 194 (3.30%) Cyber Essentials
4 163 (2.78%) GDPR
5 151 (2.57%) SLA
6 136 (2.32%) PCI DSS
7 134 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 125 (2.13%) Accessibility
9 90 (1.53%) NIST
10 36 (0.61%) ISO 9001
11 30 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 28 (0.48%) PMO
13 21 (0.36%) GMP
14 18 (0.31%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.26%) GRC
16 14 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.24%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.20%) TickIT
18 10 (0.17%) ISO 14001
18 10 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 731 (12.45%) Active Directory
2 287 (4.89%) Hyper-V
3 234 (3.99%) Docker
4 195 (3.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 96 (1.63%) Terminal Server
6 46 (0.78%) Firmware
7 30 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.46%) vSphere
9 23 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
11 13 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.12%) KVM
13 6 (0.10%) XenApp
14 5 (0.085%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.085%) Squid
14 5 (0.085%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.068%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.068%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.051%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.051%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 232 (3.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 231 (3.93%) Terraform
3 210 (3.58%) Kubernetes
4 100 (1.70%) Ansible
5 62 (1.06%) Grafana
6 60 (1.02%) SCCM
7 43 (0.73%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.34%) FortiGate
9 16 (0.27%) Nagios
10 15 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
11 14 (0.24%) Puppet
12 12 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
13 11 (0.19%) Kibana
14 10 (0.17%) Autotask
14 10 (0.17%) Functional Safety
14 10 (0.17%) logstash
14 10 (0.17%) Podman
14 10 (0.17%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
15 9 (0.15%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 1,821 (31.01%) Microsoft
2 327 (5.57%) VMware
3 153 (2.61%) Veeam
4 137 (2.33%) Google
5 136 (2.32%) Splunk
6 128 (2.18%) SAP
7 127 (2.16%) Cisco
8 122 (2.08%) Oracle
8 122 (2.08%) SolarWinds
9 104 (1.77%) Tanium
10 99 (1.69%) ServiceNow
11 97 (1.65%) Nimble Storage
12 96 (1.63%) Brocade
13 83 (1.41%) Salesforce
14 71 (1.21%) Databricks
15 61 (1.04%) Apple
16 57 (0.97%) Sage
17 53 (0.90%) Fortinet
18 47 (0.80%) Dell
18 47 (0.80%) IBM