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 26 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -7 +2 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,889 5,856 10,582
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.28% 20.69% 14.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.25% 22.49% 18.16%
Number of salaries quoted 3,611 2,988 6,889
10th Percentile £26,500 £26,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% - -10.00%
75th Percentile £59,500 £61,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.04% -10.91%

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 47,684 26,044 58,283
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.02% 92.00% 82.23%
Number of salaries quoted 30,950 12,805 41,621
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £27,250
25th Percentile £38,000 £35,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £51,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% +3.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.56% +6.36% -9.84%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -11 1,340 £42,500 -5.56% 667
South East -8 1,158 £46,663 +1.44% 711
Midlands -22 901 £40,000 -11.11% 416
North West -16 687 £45,000 -4.76% 371
South West -8 564 £43,500 +8.75% 297
West Midlands -23 525 £42,500 -11.46% 259
Yorkshire -11 509 £41,500 +10.67% 228
East of England -7 489 £42,500 +4.94% 265
East Midlands -10 372 £35,000 -9.09% 158
Scotland -6 277 £35,000 -30.00% 119
North East -17 144 £48,445 +7.65% 79
Wales -11 112 £42,500 -15.00% 53
Northern Ireland -9 68 £38,750 -29.55% 61
Isle of Man +2 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
1 292 (5.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 281 (5.75%) SharePoint
3 47 (0.96%) CMS
4 37 (0.76%) Confluence
5 29 (0.59%) IIS
6 23 (0.47%) WordPress
7 22 (0.45%) Apache
8 16 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 15 (0.31%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.25%) SAS
11 11 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
12 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
13 7 (0.14%) OpenEdge
14 5 (0.10%) Skype for Business
15 4 (0.082%) Moodle
15 4 (0.082%) nginx
15 4 (0.082%) OpenStack
15 4 (0.082%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 4 (0.082%) Totara
Applications
1 294 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
2 286 (5.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 38 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 38 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
4 37 (0.76%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 9 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
7 8 (0.16%) Fusion 360
8 7 (0.14%) Simulink
9 6 (0.12%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.10%) AutoCAD
11 4 (0.082%) Trello
12 3 (0.061%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.061%) Chatbot
13 2 (0.041%) Acrobat
13 2 (0.041%) Sketch
13 2 (0.041%) SOLIDWORKS
14 1 (0.020%) Abaqus
14 1 (0.020%) Weka
Business Applications
1 47 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.43%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.39%) Shopify
6 16 (0.33%) Magento
7 14 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
8 12 (0.25%) iTrent
9 11 (0.22%) SAP CO
10 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
11 8 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 8 (0.16%) Sage 50
12 7 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
12 7 (0.14%) SAP Business One
12 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
14 4 (0.082%) Line 50
14 4 (0.082%) Markit EDM
14 4 (0.082%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 971 (19.86%) Azure
2 855 (17.49%) Microsoft 365
3 490 (10.02%) AWS
4 356 (7.28%) Power Platform
5 218 (4.46%) Entra ID
6 168 (3.44%) SaaS
7 135 (2.76%) GCP
8 116 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
9 107 (2.19%) Serverless
10 99 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
11 89 (1.82%) GitHub
12 73 (1.49%) Power Automate
13 61 (1.25%) PowerApps
14 60 (1.23%) Amazon S3
15 55 (1.12%) Google Workspace
16 53 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
17 50 (1.02%) OneDrive
18 47 (0.96%) IaaS
19 46 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
20 45 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 304 (6.22%) Firewall
2 300 (6.14%) DNS
3 245 (5.01%) DHCP
4 165 (3.37%) WAN
5 162 (3.31%) VPN
6 125 (2.56%) LAN
7 116 (2.37%) TCP/IP
8 114 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
9 105 (2.15%) Broadband
10 101 (2.07%) Wireless
11 88 (1.80%) VLAN
12 70 (1.43%) Network Security
12 70 (1.43%) VoIP
13 42 (0.86%) SD-WAN
14 35 (0.72%) Internet
15 33 (0.67%) SAN
16 21 (0.43%) Unified Communications
17 19 (0.39%) HTTP
18 16 (0.33%) Wireshark
19 15 (0.31%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 285 (5.83%) Power BI
2 201 (4.11%) SQL Server
3 73 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
4 70 (1.43%) MySQL
5 69 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
6 68 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 67 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
8 65 (1.33%) NoSQL
9 56 (1.15%) Tableau
10 52 (1.06%) Relational Database
10 52 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 44 (0.90%) Power Query
12 35 (0.72%) DynamoDB
13 34 (0.70%) Big Data
14 31 (0.63%) MongoDB
15 25 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
15 25 (0.51%) Data Lake
16 21 (0.43%) Metadata
16 21 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
17 20 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 188 (3.85%) Git
2 137 (2.80%) JIRA
3 72 (1.47%) GitLab
4 45 (0.92%) Jenkins
5 29 (0.59%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.33%) Maven
7 15 (0.31%) Selenium
8 14 (0.29%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.27%) LabVIEW
9 13 (0.27%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.22%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.22%) JUnit
11 8 (0.16%) Subversion
11 8 (0.16%) Visual Studio
12 7 (0.14%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.14%) MLflow
12 7 (0.14%) Mockito
12 7 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
12 7 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,298 (47.00%) Social Skills
2 1,369 (28.00%) Analytical Skills
3 827 (16.92%) Finance
4 328 (6.71%) Manufacturing
5 303 (6.20%) Organisational Skills
6 220 (4.50%) Public Sector
7 212 (4.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 184 (3.76%) Law
9 183 (3.74%) Legal
10 181 (3.70%) Marketing
11 165 (3.37%) Retail
12 140 (2.86%) Telecoms
13 136 (2.78%) Electronics
14 126 (2.58%) Banking
15 93 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
16 70 (1.43%) Games
16 70 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
17 67 (1.37%) Aerospace
18 56 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
19 51 (1.04%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 704 (14.40%) Analyst
2 611 (12.50%) IT Support
3 538 (11.00%) Senior
4 534 (10.92%) Support Engineer
5 409 (8.37%) Developer
6 346 (7.08%) IT Engineer
7 270 (5.52%) IT Support Engineer
8 256 (5.24%) Lead
9 227 (4.64%) Support Technician
10 204 (4.17%) Support Analyst
11 188 (3.85%) Systems Engineer
12 180 (3.68%) IT Technician
13 171 (3.50%) Architect
14 161 (3.29%) Technical Support
15 157 (3.21%) Consultant
16 154 (3.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 149 (3.05%) Software Engineer
18 145 (2.97%) IT Support Technician
19 129 (2.64%) Technical Engineer
20 128 (2.62%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 174 (3.56%) .NET
2 160 (3.27%) React
3 141 (2.88%) HTML
4 118 (2.41%) REST
5 110 (2.25%) CSS
6 77 (1.57%) Node.js
7 72 (1.47%) SOAP
8 60 (1.23%) JSON
8 60 (1.23%) RESTful
9 57 (1.17%) XML
10 56 (1.15%) Middleware
11 50 (1.02%) Vue
12 49 (1.00%) AngularJS
13 42 (0.86%) Spring
14 41 (0.84%) OAuth
15 38 (0.78%) Spring Boot
16 35 (0.72%) EDI
17 32 (0.65%) ASP.NET
18 27 (0.55%) Laravel
19 25 (0.51%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 369 (7.55%) Driving Licence
2 260 (5.32%) Onboarding
3 220 (4.50%) Self-Motivation
4 180 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 124 (2.54%) Product Ownership
6 119 (2.43%) Cloud Native
7 106 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 103 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
9 95 (1.94%) Data Centre
10 76 (1.55%) Social Media
11 71 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
12 61 (1.25%) Mobile App
13 57 (1.17%) Low-Code
14 50 (1.02%) Enterprise Software
15 44 (0.90%) Virtual Team
16 42 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 35 (0.72%) Algorithms
17 35 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
18 34 (0.70%) NHS
18 34 (0.70%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 825 (16.87%) Windows
2 385 (7.87%) Windows Server
3 310 (6.34%) Linux
4 128 (2.62%) Windows 10
5 106 (2.17%) Android
6 99 (2.02%) Windows Server 2016
7 63 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 52 (1.06%) Mac OS
9 46 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.61%) Unix
11 26 (0.53%) CentOS
12 25 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 23 (0.47%) Ubuntu
14 20 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
15 14 (0.29%) VMS
16 12 (0.25%) Windows 7
17 9 (0.18%) Debian
18 7 (0.14%) Windows 8
18 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
19 4 (0.082%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,021 (20.88%) Continuous Improvement
2 863 (17.65%) Customer Service
3 661 (13.52%) Agile
4 474 (9.70%) Mentoring
5 468 (9.57%) Decision-Making
6 420 (8.59%) CI/CD
7 400 (8.18%) Analytics
8 397 (8.12%) DevOps
9 395 (8.08%) ITIL
10 394 (8.06%) AI
11 336 (6.87%) Business Intelligence
12 330 (6.75%) Coaching
13 323 (6.61%) ERP
14 319 (6.52%) Software Engineering
15 316 (6.46%) Collaborative Working
16 314 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
17 313 (6.40%) Project Management
18 302 (6.18%) Stakeholder Management
19 296 (6.05%) Computer Science
20 290 (5.93%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 668 (13.66%) SQL
2 556 (11.37%) Python
3 303 (6.20%) JavaScript
4 224 (4.58%) C#
5 206 (4.21%) Java
6 196 (4.01%) PowerShell
7 119 (2.43%) TypeScript
8 96 (1.96%) C++
9 93 (1.90%) Bash
10 66 (1.35%) PHP
11 50 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 48 (0.98%) C
13 40 (0.82%) PL/SQL
14 37 (0.76%) T-SQL
15 28 (0.57%) R
16 26 (0.53%) Kotlin
17 22 (0.45%) Go
17 22 (0.45%) Ruby
17 22 (0.45%) Shell Script
18 21 (0.43%) Perl
Qualifications
1 757 (15.48%) Degree
2 366 (7.49%) Security Cleared
3 257 (5.26%) SC Cleared
4 205 (4.19%) DBS Check
5 154 (3.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 142 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
8 74 (1.51%) A+ Certification
9 70 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (1.37%) DV Cleared
11 64 (1.31%) ACCA
12 60 (1.23%) CIMA
13 54 (1.10%) CCNA
14 49 (1.00%) HNC
15 48 (0.98%) PMI Certification
16 46 (0.94%) Master's Degree
17 44 (0.90%) Network+ Certification
18 43 (0.88%) CISSP
19 38 (0.78%) Azure Certification
19 38 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 269 (5.50%) QA
2 227 (4.64%) Data Quality
3 146 (2.99%) GDPR
4 125 (2.56%) Cyber Essentials
5 124 (2.54%) SLA
6 107 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 90 (1.84%) PCI DSS
8 82 (1.68%) NIST
9 68 (1.39%) Accessibility
10 39 (0.80%) ISO 9001
11 20 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
12 15 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 15 (0.31%) SOC 2
13 14 (0.29%) GMP
14 13 (0.27%) ISO 14001
15 12 (0.25%) GRC
15 12 (0.25%) PMO
15 12 (0.25%) TickIT
16 8 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 6 (0.12%) COBIT
System Software
1 582 (11.90%) Active Directory
2 188 (3.85%) Hyper-V
3 164 (3.35%) Docker
4 146 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
5 56 (1.15%) Terminal Server
6 29 (0.59%) Firmware
7 26 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (0.33%) vSphere
9 15 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 14 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.20%) KVM
12 7 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.12%) XenApp
14 5 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
15 4 (0.082%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.061%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.061%) Virtual Servers
17 2 (0.041%) VMware NSX
18 1 (0.020%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 196 (4.01%) Terraform
2 172 (3.52%) Microsoft Intune
3 155 (3.17%) Kubernetes
4 88 (1.80%) Ansible
5 58 (1.19%) SCCM
6 52 (1.06%) Grafana
7 35 (0.72%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.45%) Nagios
9 14 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.22%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 9 (0.18%) Autotask
11 9 (0.18%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.18%) Kibana
11 9 (0.18%) Puppet
11 9 (0.18%) ZABBIX
12 8 (0.16%) Functional Safety
12 8 (0.16%) logstash
12 8 (0.16%) QRadar
13 7 (0.14%) Podman
Vendors
1 1,362 (27.86%) Microsoft
2 231 (4.72%) VMware
3 136 (2.78%) Oracle
4 112 (2.29%) Veeam
5 110 (2.25%) SAP
6 105 (2.15%) Cisco
7 101 (2.07%) Google
8 89 (1.82%) Splunk
9 88 (1.80%) SolarWinds
10 67 (1.37%) Databricks
11 64 (1.31%) Apple
11 64 (1.31%) ServiceNow
12 63 (1.29%) Salesforce
13 57 (1.17%) Tanium
14 56 (1.15%) Brocade
14 56 (1.15%) Nimble Storage
15 52 (1.06%) Adobe
16 46 (0.94%) Dell
17 43 (0.88%) Sage
18 36 (0.74%) HubSpot