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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,386 6,570 8,745
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.29% 18.99% 14.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.77% 21.73% 18.55%
Number of salaries quoted 4,601 3,636 4,461
10th Percentile £26,750 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £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 £61,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £73,750 £75,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £46,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.15% -7.00% -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 54,252 30,232 47,132
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.46% 87.40% 78.70%
Number of salaries quoted 38,156 16,505 29,639
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,028
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% - -8.84%

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 12 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 12 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 1,634 £45,000 +5.88% 1,328
South East -3 1,543 £45,000 +5.88% 1,439
Midlands -9 1,188 £42,500 +7.93% 845
North West -5 861 £45,000 - 758
South West -5 781 £45,000 +23.29% 684
West Midlands -9 653 £42,500 -5.56% 531
East of England -4 646 £42,500 +21.43% 585
Yorkshire -7 540 £42,500 +21.43% 404
East Midlands -9 532 £40,000 +12.68% 314
Scotland -1 273 £33,212 -24.52% 453
North East -9 233 £49,250 +29.61% 185
Northern Ireland -6 173 £42,500 -27.97% 277
Wales -19 164 £45,000 -6.49% 150
Isle of Man 0 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
1 356 (5.57%) SharePoint
2 349 (5.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 66 (1.03%) Confluence
4 45 (0.70%) CMS
4 45 (0.70%) IIS
5 34 (0.53%) WordPress
6 30 (0.47%) Apache
7 24 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.25%) Apache Spark
9 15 (0.23%) SAS
10 10 (0.16%) WebSphere
11 9 (0.14%) nginx
11 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
12 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
13 6 (0.094%) Jupyter
14 5 (0.078%) Skype for Business
15 4 (0.063%) Anypoint
15 4 (0.063%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.063%) OpenStack
15 4 (0.063%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 405 (6.34%) Microsoft Office
2 384 (6.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 52 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 40 (0.63%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 21 (0.33%) AutoCAD
8 20 (0.31%) Simulink
9 12 (0.19%) Revit
10 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
10 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.094%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.094%) EPLAN
11 6 (0.094%) Fusion 360
11 6 (0.094%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.094%) Sketch
12 5 (0.078%) Lightworks
12 5 (0.078%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.078%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 54 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 25 (0.39%) Shopify
5 18 (0.28%) Magento
6 17 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 16 (0.25%) SAP Business One
8 15 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
9 14 (0.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 13 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 12 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
11 12 (0.19%) Workday HCM
12 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
13 10 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
13 10 (0.16%) Sage X3
14 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
15 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
15 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
15 7 (0.11%) Primavera
16 6 (0.094%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 1,308 (20.48%) Azure
2 1,108 (17.35%) Microsoft 365
3 658 (10.30%) AWS
4 509 (7.97%) Power Platform
5 328 (5.14%) Entra ID
6 221 (3.46%) SaaS
7 220 (3.45%) GCP
8 161 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
9 134 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
10 122 (1.91%) Serverless
11 121 (1.89%) GitHub
12 113 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 110 (1.72%) PowerApps
14 82 (1.28%) OneDrive
15 79 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
16 56 (0.88%) Amazon S3
17 54 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
18 52 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
19 51 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
20 49 (0.77%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 414 (6.48%) Firewall
2 388 (6.08%) DNS
3 332 (5.20%) DHCP
4 235 (3.68%) VPN
5 217 (3.40%) TCP/IP
6 191 (2.99%) WAN
7 175 (2.74%) LAN
8 155 (2.43%) Wi-Fi
9 152 (2.38%) Wireless
10 124 (1.94%) VLAN
11 108 (1.69%) Network Security
12 100 (1.57%) VoIP
13 99 (1.55%) Broadband
14 43 (0.67%) Internet
15 31 (0.49%) SAN
16 29 (0.45%) HTTP
16 29 (0.45%) SSL
17 28 (0.44%) SD-WAN
18 22 (0.34%) MQTT
18 22 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 396 (6.20%) Power BI
2 307 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 127 (1.99%) MySQL
4 120 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
5 102 (1.60%) Relational Database
6 100 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
7 91 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 78 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 72 (1.13%) Tableau
11 64 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.70%) MongoDB
13 44 (0.69%) Electronic Patient Records
13 44 (0.69%) Power Query
14 42 (0.66%) Big Data
15 39 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
16 36 (0.56%) Data Lake
17 30 (0.47%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
19 22 (0.34%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 276 (4.32%) Git
2 220 (3.45%) JIRA
3 80 (1.25%) GitLab
4 66 (1.03%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.47%) Eclipse
6 29 (0.45%) Subversion
7 26 (0.41%) Cucumber
7 26 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
7 26 (0.41%) Selenium
8 24 (0.38%) JUnit
9 21 (0.33%) Postman
10 20 (0.31%) Claude Code
11 18 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 18 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
12 15 (0.23%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.22%) SonarQube
14 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
15 11 (0.17%) Maven
15 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
16 10 (0.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 3,034 (47.51%) Social Skills
2 1,779 (27.86%) Analytical Skills
3 986 (15.44%) Finance
4 581 (9.10%) Manufacturing
5 393 (6.15%) Organisational Skills
6 365 (5.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 294 (4.60%) Law
8 288 (4.51%) Public Sector
9 272 (4.26%) Legal
10 265 (4.15%) Retail
11 214 (3.35%) Electronics
12 205 (3.21%) Marketing
13 191 (2.99%) Aerospace
14 162 (2.54%) Telecoms
15 127 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
16 126 (1.97%) Banking
17 113 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
18 73 (1.14%) Games
19 69 (1.08%) Military
20 68 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 842 (13.19%) Analyst
2 678 (10.62%) Senior
3 674 (10.55%) Developer
4 655 (10.26%) IT Support
5 547 (8.57%) Support Engineer
6 366 (5.73%) IT Engineer
7 355 (5.56%) Lead
8 288 (4.51%) Support Analyst
9 277 (4.34%) Consultant
10 269 (4.21%) IT Support Engineer
11 264 (4.13%) Support Technician
12 241 (3.77%) Technical Support
13 237 (3.71%) Systems Engineer
14 225 (3.52%) IT Technician
15 214 (3.35%) Architect
16 212 (3.32%) Software Engineer
17 206 (3.23%) Technical Engineer
18 194 (3.04%) Senior Developer
19 185 (2.90%) Technical Support Engineer
20 172 (2.69%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 328 (5.14%) .NET
2 217 (3.40%) React
3 191 (2.99%) HTML
4 185 (2.90%) REST
5 141 (2.21%) CSS
6 120 (1.88%) RESTful
7 95 (1.49%) Node.js
8 92 (1.44%) SOAP
9 81 (1.27%) Vue
10 78 (1.22%) Middleware
11 76 (1.19%) AngularJS
12 73 (1.14%) ASP.NET
12 73 (1.14%) JSON
13 67 (1.05%) XML
14 64 (1.00%) Web Services
15 61 (0.96%) Spring
16 56 (0.88%) OAuth
16 56 (0.88%) Spring Boot
17 46 (0.72%) ASP.NET Core
17 46 (0.72%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 513 (8.03%) Driving Licence
2 382 (5.98%) Onboarding
3 300 (4.70%) Self-Motivation
4 265 (4.15%) Management Information System
5 180 (2.82%) Cloud Native
6 164 (2.57%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 106 (1.66%) Data Centre
9 96 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
10 93 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
11 86 (1.35%) NHS
12 84 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
13 80 (1.25%) Security Posture
14 77 (1.21%) Social Media
15 69 (1.08%) Robotics
16 67 (1.05%) Mobile App
17 62 (0.97%) IoT
18 61 (0.96%) Virtual Team
19 59 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
20 56 (0.88%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,065 (16.68%) Windows
2 493 (7.72%) Windows Server
3 452 (7.08%) Linux
4 135 (2.11%) Windows 10
5 108 (1.69%) Windows Server 2016
6 103 (1.61%) Android
7 80 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 39 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
10 37 (0.58%) Unix
11 30 (0.47%) Ubuntu
12 23 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 20 (0.31%) CentOS
14 17 (0.27%) VMS
15 14 (0.22%) Debian
16 9 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
16 9 (0.14%) Windows 7
17 5 (0.078%) OpenVMS
18 4 (0.063%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,682 (26.34%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,138 (17.82%) Customer Service
3 976 (15.28%) Agile
4 709 (11.10%) Decision-Making
5 665 (10.41%) CI/CD
6 663 (10.38%) Mentoring
7 632 (9.90%) AI
8 567 (8.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 554 (8.68%) DevOps
10 550 (8.61%) ITIL
11 524 (8.21%) Cybersecurity
12 521 (8.16%) Analytics
13 518 (8.11%) Software Engineering
14 499 (7.81%) Collaborative Working
15 478 (7.49%) Project Delivery
16 469 (7.34%) ERP
17 457 (7.16%) Business Intelligence
18 387 (6.06%) Project Management
19 378 (5.92%) Service Delivery
20 374 (5.86%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 980 (15.35%) SQL
2 696 (10.90%) Python
3 415 (6.50%) JavaScript
4 413 (6.47%) C#
5 287 (4.49%) Java
6 248 (3.88%) PowerShell
7 186 (2.91%) TypeScript
8 182 (2.85%) C++
9 115 (1.80%) Bash
10 77 (1.21%) PHP
11 72 (1.13%) C
12 57 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 52 (0.81%) T-SQL
14 44 (0.69%) Shell Script
15 41 (0.64%) Perl
16 36 (0.56%) Ruby
17 35 (0.55%) Go
18 33 (0.52%) PL/SQL
18 33 (0.52%) Rust
19 28 (0.44%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 998 (15.63%) Degree
2 592 (9.27%) Security Cleared
3 431 (6.75%) SC Cleared
4 196 (3.07%) DBS Check
5 191 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 175 (2.74%) Microsoft Certification
7 151 (2.36%) DV Cleared
8 148 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
9 113 (1.77%) HNC
10 104 (1.63%) Azure Certification
11 93 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
12 85 (1.33%) HND
13 78 (1.22%) PMI Certification
14 67 (1.05%) CISSP
15 64 (1.00%) CCNA
16 62 (0.97%) Master's Degree
17 56 (0.88%) PMP
18 54 (0.85%) A+ Certification
18 54 (0.85%) Chartered Engineer
19 53 (0.83%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 417 (6.53%) QA
2 255 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 187 (2.93%) GDPR
4 177 (2.77%) Cyber Essentials
5 164 (2.57%) SLA
6 159 (2.49%) Accessibility
7 128 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 115 (1.80%) PCI DSS
9 92 (1.44%) NIST
10 36 (0.56%) ISO 9001
11 32 (0.50%) 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
17 13 (0.20%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.19%) DO-254
18 12 (0.19%) TickIT
18 12 (0.19%) WCAG
System Software
1 735 (11.51%) Active Directory
2 282 (4.42%) Hyper-V
3 246 (3.85%) Docker
4 203 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.25%) Terminal Server
6 64 (1.00%) Firmware
7 33 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.44%) vSphere
9 25 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 19 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.23%) 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%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.047%) VMware Server
16 3 (0.047%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 253 (3.96%) Terraform
2 229 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
3 214 (3.35%) Kubernetes
4 106 (1.66%) Ansible
5 61 (0.96%) SCCM
6 57 (0.89%) Grafana
7 41 (0.64%) Prometheus
8 26 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 18 (0.28%) Puppet
11 15 (0.23%) Nagios
12 14 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
13 12 (0.19%) Functional Safety
14 11 (0.17%) Kibana
14 11 (0.17%) Nmap
14 11 (0.17%) Proxmox
15 10 (0.16%) logstash
15 10 (0.16%) Podman
16 9 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
16 9 (0.14%) QRadar
Vendors
1 1,917 (30.02%) Microsoft
2 322 (5.04%) VMware
3 160 (2.51%) SAP
4 154 (2.41%) Google
5 150 (2.35%) Oracle
6 137 (2.15%) Veeam
7 134 (2.10%) Cisco
8 122 (1.91%) Splunk
9 110 (1.72%) ServiceNow
10 105 (1.64%) SolarWinds
11 88 (1.38%) Tanium
12 87 (1.36%) Salesforce
13 81 (1.27%) Nimble Storage
14 80 (1.25%) Brocade
15 77 (1.21%) Databricks
15 77 (1.21%) Workday
16 62 (0.97%) Sage
17 60 (0.94%) Apple
18 58 (0.91%) Fortinet
19 47 (0.74%) SonicWALL