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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 3
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 7,373 6,430 8,258
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.82% 18.72% 14.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.56% 21.58% 19.02%
Number of salaries quoted 5,150 3,534 3,428
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,684 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £32,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £47,000 £46,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.17% -12.38% -4.55%

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 58,718 29,796 43,420
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.21% 86.74% 78.53%
Number of salaries quoted 41,569 16,132 23,550
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 -9 1,859 £45,000 +5.88% 1,785
South East -4 1,736 £42,500 - 1,797
Midlands -7 1,323 £42,500 +11.84% 1,304
North West -5 964 £45,000 -6.64% 1,012
South West -4 927 £45,000 +25.00% 929
East of England -2 744 £42,500 +25.74% 860
West Midlands -8 732 £42,500 -5.56% 820
East Midlands -8 589 £41,500 +18.57% 483
Yorkshire -8 585 £42,500 +26.87% 551
Scotland +6 332 £33,500 -30.21% 693
North East 0 310 £48,000 +37.14% 244
Northern Ireland +3 254 £70,000 +18.64% 484
Wales -17 213 £42,500 -11.68% 193
Isle of Man +1 3 £35,000 - 11
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
1 439 (5.95%) SharePoint
2 349 (4.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 64 (0.87%) Confluence
4 57 (0.77%) CMS
5 54 (0.73%) IIS
6 32 (0.43%) Apache
7 31 (0.42%) WordPress
8 27 (0.37%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.22%) Apache Spark
11 14 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 10 (0.14%) SAS
12 10 (0.14%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.12%) nginx
13 9 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 8 (0.11%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.095%) OpenEdge
16 5 (0.068%) CICS
16 5 (0.068%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.054%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 534 (7.24%) Microsoft Office
2 481 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 62 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
5 41 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 38 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
7 36 (0.49%) AutoCAD
8 32 (0.43%) Simulink
9 23 (0.31%) Revit
10 13 (0.18%) EPLAN
11 11 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
12 9 (0.12%) Navisworks
13 8 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 8 (0.11%) Chatbot
13 8 (0.11%) Fusion 360
14 6 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
14 6 (0.081%) Siemens NX
15 5 (0.068%) Adobe XD
15 5 (0.068%) Lightworks
15 5 (0.068%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 75 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 63 (0.85%) NetSuite
3 51 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
4 31 (0.42%) Shopify
5 23 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 20 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
7 18 (0.24%) Workday HCM
8 17 (0.23%) SAP Business One
9 16 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 15 (0.20%) Magento
11 14 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
12 13 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 13 (0.18%) SAP ERP
13 12 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
13 12 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 11 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
14 11 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
15 10 (0.14%) Sage X3
16 9 (0.12%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,363 (18.49%) Azure
2 1,215 (16.48%) Microsoft 365
3 692 (9.39%) AWS
4 604 (8.19%) Power Platform
5 374 (5.07%) Entra ID
6 270 (3.66%) SaaS
7 231 (3.13%) GCP
8 174 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
9 154 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 153 (2.08%) PowerApps
11 141 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 139 (1.89%) GitHub
13 123 (1.67%) Serverless
14 99 (1.34%) OneDrive
15 88 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
16 65 (0.88%) Amazon S3
17 64 (0.87%) Google Workspace
18 63 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
19 60 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
20 58 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 435 (5.90%) Firewall
2 420 (5.70%) DNS
3 356 (4.83%) DHCP
4 279 (3.78%) VPN
5 230 (3.12%) TCP/IP
6 196 (2.66%) WAN
7 193 (2.62%) Wi-Fi
8 187 (2.54%) LAN
9 169 (2.29%) Wireless
10 143 (1.94%) VLAN
11 120 (1.63%) Network Security
12 116 (1.57%) VoIP
13 63 (0.85%) Broadband
14 55 (0.75%) Internet
15 31 (0.42%) SSL
16 29 (0.39%) SAN
17 28 (0.38%) Remote Desktop
18 27 (0.37%) SD-WAN
19 25 (0.34%) HTTP
20 24 (0.33%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 487 (6.61%) Power BI
2 326 (4.42%) SQL Server
3 137 (1.86%) MySQL
4 118 (1.60%) Amazon RDS
5 115 (1.56%) Relational Database
6 105 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
7 94 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
8 83 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 78 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 73 (0.99%) Tableau
11 59 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 53 (0.72%) MongoDB
13 48 (0.65%) Power Query
14 47 (0.64%) Data Lake
14 47 (0.64%) Electronic Patient Records
15 46 (0.62%) Big Data
16 43 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
17 32 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
18 30 (0.41%) Metadata
19 29 (0.39%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 299 (4.06%) Git
2 240 (3.26%) JIRA
3 79 (1.07%) GitLab
4 78 (1.06%) Jenkins
5 39 (0.53%) Eclipse
6 35 (0.47%) Subversion
7 31 (0.42%) Selenium
8 30 (0.41%) Cucumber
9 26 (0.35%) JUnit
10 25 (0.34%) Claude Code
11 23 (0.31%) Bitbucket
12 22 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
12 22 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
13 21 (0.28%) Postman
14 19 (0.26%) Cypress.io
15 15 (0.20%) LabVIEW
15 15 (0.20%) SonarQube
16 14 (0.19%) Burp Suite
17 12 (0.16%) Visual Studio
18 11 (0.15%) JMeter
General
1 3,627 (49.19%) Social Skills
2 2,019 (27.38%) Analytical Skills
3 1,180 (16.00%) Finance
4 772 (10.47%) Manufacturing
5 543 (7.36%) Organisational Skills
6 413 (5.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 358 (4.86%) Retail
8 343 (4.65%) Law
9 337 (4.57%) Public Sector
10 311 (4.22%) Legal
11 289 (3.92%) Electronics
12 277 (3.76%) Aerospace
13 274 (3.72%) Marketing
14 191 (2.59%) Telecoms
15 148 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
16 142 (1.93%) Banking
17 116 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
18 115 (1.56%) Automotive
19 103 (1.40%) Military
20 93 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 965 (13.09%) Analyst
2 783 (10.62%) Senior
3 716 (9.71%) IT Support
4 697 (9.45%) Developer
5 570 (7.73%) Support Engineer
6 389 (5.28%) Lead
7 383 (5.19%) IT Engineer
8 376 (5.10%) Support Analyst
9 333 (4.52%) Consultant
10 285 (3.87%) IT Support Engineer
11 275 (3.73%) Technical Support
12 268 (3.63%) Support Technician
13 239 (3.24%) Systems Engineer
14 237 (3.21%) Technical Engineer
15 235 (3.19%) Architect
16 229 (3.11%) IT Technician
17 221 (3.00%) Software Engineer
18 214 (2.90%) Technical Support Engineer
19 202 (2.74%) Senior Developer
20 182 (2.47%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 353 (4.79%) .NET
2 275 (3.73%) Terraform
3 217 (2.94%) React
4 198 (2.69%) REST
5 192 (2.60%) HTML
6 140 (1.90%) CSS
7 134 (1.82%) RESTful
8 98 (1.33%) SOAP
9 91 (1.23%) Node.js
10 89 (1.21%) Web Services
11 85 (1.15%) XML
12 81 (1.10%) ASP.NET
12 81 (1.10%) Vue
13 79 (1.07%) Middleware
14 77 (1.04%) AngularJS
14 77 (1.04%) JSON
15 75 (1.02%) Spring
16 68 (0.92%) Spring Boot
17 56 (0.76%) Kafka
18 50 (0.68%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 629 (8.53%) Driving Licence
2 514 (6.97%) Onboarding
3 384 (5.21%) Self-Motivation
4 339 (4.60%) Management Information System
5 207 (2.81%) Cloud Native
6 179 (2.43%) Product Ownership
7 144 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
8 137 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
9 125 (1.70%) Data Centre
10 115 (1.56%) Robotics
11 93 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
12 89 (1.21%) NHS
13 86 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
14 81 (1.10%) Security Posture
15 76 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
16 75 (1.02%) Virtual Team
17 73 (0.99%) IoT
18 71 (0.96%) CCTV
19 67 (0.91%) Mobile App
19 67 (0.91%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,160 (15.73%) Windows
2 515 (6.98%) Windows Server
3 458 (6.21%) Linux
4 128 (1.74%) Windows 10
5 99 (1.34%) Windows Server 2016
6 90 (1.22%) Apple iOS
7 86 (1.17%) Android
8 83 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 45 (0.61%) Unix
10 40 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.39%) Ubuntu
12 17 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 17 (0.23%) VMS
13 14 (0.19%) Debian
13 14 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
14 9 (0.12%) CentOS
14 9 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
15 8 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 6 (0.081%) Rocky
17 5 (0.068%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,986 (26.94%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,391 (18.87%) Customer Service
3 1,062 (14.40%) Agile
4 799 (10.84%) Decision-Making
5 751 (10.19%) Mentoring
6 730 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
7 723 (9.81%) AI
8 697 (9.45%) CI/CD
9 632 (8.57%) Project Delivery
10 602 (8.16%) Collaborative Working
11 593 (8.04%) Analytics
12 588 (7.98%) DevOps
13 580 (7.87%) Software Engineering
14 575 (7.80%) ERP
14 575 (7.80%) ITIL
15 548 (7.43%) Cybersecurity
16 522 (7.08%) Business Intelligence
17 511 (6.93%) Project Management
18 465 (6.31%) CRM
19 455 (6.17%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,087 (14.74%) SQL
2 748 (10.15%) Python
3 439 (5.95%) C#
4 438 (5.94%) JavaScript
5 312 (4.23%) Java
6 293 (3.97%) PowerShell
7 203 (2.75%) C++
8 194 (2.63%) TypeScript
9 123 (1.67%) Bash
10 79 (1.07%) C
11 66 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 66 (0.90%) PHP
12 59 (0.80%) T-SQL
13 47 (0.64%) PL/SQL
13 47 (0.64%) Ruby
14 46 (0.62%) Shell Script
15 43 (0.58%) MATLAB
16 41 (0.56%) Perl
17 38 (0.52%) Go
18 36 (0.49%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,191 (16.15%) Degree
2 697 (9.45%) Security Cleared
3 487 (6.61%) SC Cleared
4 216 (2.93%) DBS Check
5 199 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 197 (2.67%) HNC
7 188 (2.55%) Microsoft Certification
8 180 (2.44%) DV Cleared
9 178 (2.41%) HND
10 159 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
11 134 (1.82%) Azure Certification
12 96 (1.30%) Chartered Engineer
13 92 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
14 76 (1.03%) A+ Certification
14 76 (1.03%) PMI Certification
15 71 (0.96%) Master's Degree
16 67 (0.91%) CISSP
17 59 (0.80%) CCNA
18 58 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
19 56 (0.76%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 472 (6.40%) QA
2 293 (3.97%) Data Quality
3 218 (2.96%) GDPR
4 202 (2.74%) Accessibility
5 175 (2.37%) SLA
6 167 (2.27%) Cyber Essentials
7 135 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 103 (1.40%) PCI DSS
9 86 (1.17%) NIST
10 41 (0.56%) ISO 9001
11 35 (0.47%) PMO
12 32 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 19 (0.26%) Good Clinical Practice
14 18 (0.24%) GMP
15 17 (0.23%) DO-254
15 17 (0.23%) NCSC
16 14 (0.19%) GRC
17 13 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
17 13 (0.18%) GxP
18 12 (0.16%) TickIT
System Software
1 805 (10.92%) Active Directory
2 283 (3.84%) Hyper-V
3 258 (3.50%) Docker
4 211 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
5 74 (1.00%) Firmware
6 72 (0.98%) Terminal Server
7 40 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 34 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 29 (0.39%) vSphere
10 28 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
11 16 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.068%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.068%) Squid
14 4 (0.054%) KVM
14 4 (0.054%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.041%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.041%) VMware Server
16 2 (0.027%) Samba
16 2 (0.027%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 253 (3.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 221 (3.00%) Kubernetes
3 109 (1.48%) Ansible
4 61 (0.83%) Grafana
5 52 (0.71%) SCCM
6 44 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 44 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (0.34%) BMC PATROL
8 20 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
9 18 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.22%) Puppet
11 15 (0.20%) Functional Safety
12 13 (0.18%) Kibana
13 11 (0.15%) logstash
13 11 (0.15%) Nmap
14 10 (0.14%) Nagios
14 10 (0.14%) Podman
14 10 (0.14%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.12%) Argo
15 9 (0.12%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 2,218 (30.08%) Microsoft
2 338 (4.58%) VMware
3 215 (2.92%) SAP
4 199 (2.70%) Google
5 169 (2.29%) Oracle
6 156 (2.12%) Workday
7 135 (1.83%) Cisco
8 133 (1.80%) Veeam
9 122 (1.65%) ServiceNow
10 121 (1.64%) Splunk
11 102 (1.38%) Sage
11 102 (1.38%) Salesforce
12 92 (1.25%) SolarWinds
13 80 (1.09%) Tanium
14 75 (1.02%) Databricks
14 75 (1.02%) Fortinet
15 73 (0.99%) Nimble Storage
16 72 (0.98%) Brocade
17 66 (0.90%) Apple
18 57 (0.77%) SonicWALL