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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -6 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,466 6,148 11,224
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.83% 19.30% 14.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.14% 21.54% 18.27%
Number of salaries quoted 4,097 3,326 6,887
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,250 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.19% -6.67% -9.51%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £76,840 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,274
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.47% -10.41%

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 49,053 28,544 61,445
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.31% 89.63% 80.09%
Number of salaries quoted 34,519 14,949 42,755
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £39,238 £32,851 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.09%

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 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 2 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 -8 1,464 £44,447 +4.58% 707
South East -4 1,351 £45,000 +5.88% 842
Midlands -8 1,003 £42,000 -1.18% 467
North West -7 767 £45,000 -2.17% 391
South West -6 645 £44,000 +17.33% 347
West Midlands -9 570 £42,500 -5.56% 258
East of England -3 562 £44,750 +27.86% 292
Yorkshire -11 513 £42,500 +21.43% 223
East Midlands -10 430 £35,000 -4.11% 210
Scotland -4 252 £33,000 -27.69% 136
North East -15 184 £50,000 +25.00% 110
Wales -22 125 £42,500 -15.00% 53
Northern Ireland -10 84 £38,500 -30.00% 85
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 5
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
1 338 (6.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 336 (6.15%) SharePoint
3 53 (0.97%) Confluence
4 52 (0.95%) CMS
5 33 (0.60%) IIS
6 28 (0.51%) WordPress
7 26 (0.48%) Apache
8 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 15 (0.27%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.22%) SAS
11 11 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
11 11 (0.20%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
13 8 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 7 (0.13%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.091%) nginx
16 5 (0.091%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.073%) Moodle
Applications
1 349 (6.38%) Microsoft Office
2 332 (6.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 48 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.18%) Simulink
8 8 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.091%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.091%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.091%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.091%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.091%) Trello
11 4 (0.073%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.073%) Sketch
12 3 (0.055%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.055%) Windchill
13 2 (0.037%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 52 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.35%) Shopify
6 16 (0.29%) Magento
7 15 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 11 (0.20%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 10 (0.18%) iTrent
12 9 (0.16%) SAP Business One
13 8 (0.15%) Sage 50
14 7 (0.13%) JDE EnterpriseOne
14 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
15 6 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
15 6 (0.11%) SAP CO
16 5 (0.091%) Q-Pulse
17 4 (0.073%) Sage X3
17 4 (0.073%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,153 (21.09%) Azure
2 1,010 (18.48%) Microsoft 365
3 575 (10.52%) AWS
4 421 (7.70%) Power Platform
5 274 (5.01%) Entra ID
6 187 (3.42%) SaaS
7 183 (3.35%) GCP
8 126 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 114 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 112 (2.05%) Serverless
11 93 (1.70%) Power Automate
12 92 (1.68%) GitHub
13 87 (1.59%) PowerApps
14 72 (1.32%) OneDrive
15 54 (0.99%) Amazon S3
16 52 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
17 47 (0.86%) Google Workspace
18 46 (0.84%) IaaS
18 46 (0.84%) PaaS
19 45 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 406 (7.43%) Firewall
2 362 (6.62%) DNS
3 310 (5.67%) DHCP
4 218 (3.99%) VPN
5 195 (3.57%) WAN
6 170 (3.11%) TCP/IP
7 169 (3.09%) LAN
8 159 (2.91%) Wi-Fi
9 124 (2.27%) Wireless
10 115 (2.10%) VLAN
11 104 (1.90%) Broadband
12 93 (1.70%) Network Security
13 88 (1.61%) VoIP
14 43 (0.79%) Internet
15 37 (0.68%) SD-WAN
16 29 (0.53%) SAN
17 25 (0.46%) HTTP
18 21 (0.38%) Remote Desktop
18 21 (0.38%) SSL
18 21 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 343 (6.28%) Power BI
2 244 (4.46%) SQL Server
3 98 (1.79%) Amazon RDS
4 91 (1.66%) MySQL
5 84 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
6 76 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
6 76 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 68 (1.24%) Relational Database
8 62 (1.13%) NoSQL
8 62 (1.13%) Tableau
9 59 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 46 (0.84%) Power Query
11 39 (0.71%) MongoDB
12 36 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
13 35 (0.64%) Big Data
14 32 (0.59%) Data Lake
15 28 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
16 24 (0.44%) DynamoDB
17 23 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
18 17 (0.31%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 210 (3.84%) Git
2 157 (2.87%) JIRA
3 73 (1.34%) GitLab
4 45 (0.82%) Jenkins
5 28 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.38%) Cucumber
7 20 (0.37%) Subversion
8 18 (0.33%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.31%) JUnit
10 15 (0.27%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.26%) Cypress.io
11 14 (0.26%) Selenium
12 12 (0.22%) Maven
13 11 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
14 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) Postman
15 8 (0.15%) Burp Suite
15 8 (0.15%) Claude Code
15 8 (0.15%) MLflow
15 8 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,607 (47.69%) Social Skills
2 1,467 (26.84%) Analytical Skills
3 856 (15.66%) Finance
4 423 (7.74%) Manufacturing
5 357 (6.53%) Organisational Skills
6 254 (4.65%) Public Sector
7 236 (4.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 220 (4.02%) Law
8 220 (4.02%) Legal
9 218 (3.99%) Retail
10 178 (3.26%) Marketing
11 136 (2.49%) Electronics
12 135 (2.47%) Telecoms
13 124 (2.27%) Banking
14 111 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
15 102 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
16 81 (1.48%) Aerospace
17 72 (1.32%) Games
18 57 (1.04%) Advertising
18 57 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 765 (14.00%) Analyst
2 668 (12.22%) IT Support
3 581 (10.63%) Support Engineer
4 577 (10.56%) Senior
5 514 (9.40%) Developer
6 398 (7.28%) IT Engineer
7 300 (5.49%) IT Support Engineer
8 288 (5.27%) Lead
9 248 (4.54%) Support Technician
10 236 (4.32%) Support Analyst
11 218 (3.99%) Systems Engineer
12 203 (3.71%) IT Technician
13 200 (3.66%) Technical Support
14 181 (3.31%) Software Engineer
15 179 (3.27%) Consultant
16 170 (3.11%) Architect
17 169 (3.09%) Technical Engineer
18 160 (2.93%) Technical Support Engineer
19 159 (2.91%) IT Support Technician
20 139 (2.54%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (4.01%) .NET
2 192 (3.51%) React
3 159 (2.91%) HTML
4 145 (2.65%) REST
5 119 (2.18%) CSS
6 98 (1.79%) Node.js
7 86 (1.57%) RESTful
8 78 (1.43%) SOAP
9 74 (1.35%) Middleware
10 71 (1.30%) JSON
11 69 (1.26%) Vue
12 66 (1.21%) AngularJS
13 61 (1.12%) XML
14 46 (0.84%) Spring
15 45 (0.82%) Web Services
16 43 (0.79%) Spring Boot
17 41 (0.75%) ASP.NET
18 40 (0.73%) EDI
19 39 (0.71%) OAuth
20 29 (0.53%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 423 (7.74%) Driving Licence
2 318 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 252 (4.61%) Self-Motivation
4 197 (3.60%) Management Information System
5 152 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 134 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
7 128 (2.34%) Product Ownership
8 100 (1.83%) Data Centre
9 98 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
10 81 (1.48%) Distributed Systems
11 67 (1.23%) Social Media
12 65 (1.19%) Mobile App
12 65 (1.19%) Security Posture
13 52 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
14 50 (0.91%) Virtual Team
15 49 (0.90%) Low-Code
16 46 (0.84%) IoT
17 44 (0.80%) Algorithms
18 43 (0.79%) NHS
18 43 (0.79%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 956 (17.49%) Windows
2 460 (8.42%) Windows Server
3 383 (7.01%) Linux
4 151 (2.76%) Windows 10
5 118 (2.16%) Windows Server 2016
6 109 (1.99%) Android
7 71 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 69 (1.26%) Mac OS
9 52 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.57%) Unix
11 29 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.48%) CentOS
12 26 (0.48%) Ubuntu
13 17 (0.31%) VMS
14 15 (0.27%) Windows 7
15 14 (0.26%) Debian
15 14 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
16 7 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
16 7 (0.13%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,270 (23.23%) Continuous Improvement
2 983 (17.98%) Customer Service
3 724 (13.25%) Agile
4 559 (10.23%) Mentoring
5 554 (10.14%) Decision-Making
6 493 (9.02%) AI
7 489 (8.95%) CI/CD
8 467 (8.54%) Analytics
9 456 (8.34%) ITIL
10 442 (8.09%) DevOps
11 431 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
12 422 (7.72%) Collaborative Working
13 400 (7.32%) Software Engineering
14 396 (7.24%) Business Intelligence
15 387 (7.08%) ERP
16 376 (6.88%) Stakeholder Management
17 329 (6.02%) Project Delivery
18 328 (6.00%) Computer Science
19 316 (5.78%) Service Delivery
20 311 (5.69%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 850 (15.55%) SQL
2 630 (11.53%) Python
3 342 (6.26%) JavaScript
4 296 (5.42%) C#
5 240 (4.39%) PowerShell
6 239 (4.37%) Java
7 154 (2.82%) TypeScript
8 139 (2.54%) C++
9 107 (1.96%) Bash
10 75 (1.37%) PHP
11 58 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 55 (1.01%) C
13 46 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 38 (0.70%) PL/SQL
15 32 (0.59%) Perl
16 31 (0.57%) Shell Script
17 30 (0.55%) Go
17 30 (0.55%) Kotlin
18 28 (0.51%) R
19 27 (0.49%) Rust
Qualifications
1 778 (14.23%) Degree
2 440 (8.05%) Security Cleared
3 311 (5.69%) SC Cleared
4 207 (3.79%) DBS Check
5 163 (2.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 154 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 86 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
8 81 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
9 74 (1.35%) DV Cleared
10 67 (1.23%) Azure Certification
11 64 (1.17%) A+ Certification
12 63 (1.15%) ACCA
13 62 (1.13%) CCNA
14 59 (1.08%) CIMA
15 58 (1.06%) HNC
16 48 (0.88%) CISSP
16 48 (0.88%) PMI Certification
17 45 (0.82%) Master's Degree
18 44 (0.80%) CompTIA Security+
18 44 (0.80%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 315 (5.76%) QA
2 244 (4.46%) Data Quality
3 165 (3.02%) Cyber Essentials
4 154 (2.82%) GDPR
5 138 (2.52%) SLA
6 133 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 111 (2.03%) PCI DSS
8 99 (1.81%) Accessibility
9 84 (1.54%) NIST
10 40 (0.73%) ISO 9001
11 26 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 24 (0.44%) PMO
13 19 (0.35%) GMP
14 15 (0.27%) GRC
15 14 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.26%) Good Clinical Practice
16 13 (0.24%) ISO 14001
17 12 (0.22%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.22%) TickIT
18 8 (0.15%) Def Stans
System Software
1 692 (12.66%) Active Directory
2 257 (4.70%) Hyper-V
3 193 (3.53%) Docker
4 182 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (1.32%) Terminal Server
6 35 (0.64%) Firmware
7 31 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 26 (0.48%) vSphere
9 20 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
11 11 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
12 10 (0.18%) KVM
13 7 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.11%) XenApp
15 5 (0.091%) ClearTrust
16 4 (0.073%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 4 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
17 3 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 3 (0.055%) Terminal Services
17 3 (0.055%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 209 (3.82%) Terraform
2 206 (3.77%) Microsoft Intune
3 190 (3.48%) Kubernetes
4 104 (1.90%) Ansible
5 58 (1.06%) Grafana
6 56 (1.02%) SCCM
7 37 (0.68%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.38%) Nagios
9 18 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.22%) Kibana
11 11 (0.20%) logstash
11 11 (0.20%) Puppet
11 11 (0.20%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.18%) Podman
12 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.18%) QRadar
13 9 (0.16%) Autotask
13 9 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
13 9 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,649 (30.17%) Microsoft
2 291 (5.32%) VMware
3 129 (2.36%) Veeam
4 124 (2.27%) Google
5 116 (2.12%) Oracle
5 116 (2.12%) SAP
6 108 (1.98%) Splunk
7 107 (1.96%) Cisco
8 99 (1.81%) SolarWinds
9 79 (1.45%) Salesforce
10 76 (1.39%) ServiceNow
10 76 (1.39%) Tanium
11 73 (1.34%) Nimble Storage
12 72 (1.32%) Brocade
13 68 (1.24%) Databricks
14 59 (1.08%) Apple
15 53 (0.97%) Sage
16 51 (0.93%) Adobe
17 47 (0.86%) Dell
18 41 (0.75%) Fortinet