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

6 months to
26 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 5,842 6,436 9,190
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.98% 18.89% 14.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.31% 21.47% 18.11%
Number of salaries quoted 4,305 3,542 5,238
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,500
25th Percentile £31,000 £29,848 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £41,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.66% -8.89% -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 51,636 29,972 50,737
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.56% 87.95% 79.26%
Number of salaries quoted 36,305 16,272 33,672
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,851 £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 £66,200 £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% - -8.33%

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 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 26 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 1,524 £45,000 +5.88% 679
South East -3 1,432 £45,000 +5.88% 821
Midlands -8 1,090 £42,000 +5.00% 446
North West -7 795 £45,000 -2.17% 336
South West -6 727 £44,000 +17.33% 330
West Midlands -9 610 £42,500 -5.56% 259
East of England -6 569 £42,500 +21.43% 291
Yorkshire -10 524 £42,500 +21.43% 228
East Midlands -10 476 £37,500 +5.63% 187
Scotland -8 237 £33,000 -25.42% 112
North East -14 205 £51,000 +36.00% 125
Wales -17 155 £43,750 -9.79% 62
Northern Ireland -14 127 £38,500 -30.00% 50
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
1 363 (6.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 347 (5.94%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.01%) Confluence
4 51 (0.87%) CMS
5 37 (0.63%) IIS
6 30 (0.51%) Apache
7 29 (0.50%) WordPress
8 21 (0.36%) 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 (0.086%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.068%) OpenStack
Applications
1 372 (6.37%) Microsoft Office
2 369 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 44 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 36 (0.62%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 12 (0.21%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
8 8 (0.14%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.12%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.086%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.086%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.086%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.086%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.086%) Sketch
10 5 (0.086%) Trello
11 3 (0.051%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.051%) LaTeX
11 3 (0.051%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 55 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.60%) NetSuite
3 34 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 18 (0.31%) Shopify
5 17 (0.29%) Magento
6 16 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
7 14 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
7 14 (0.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 13 (0.22%) SAP Business One
9 10 (0.17%) JDE EnterpriseOne
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
11 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
12 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
12 7 (0.12%) Sage X3
13 6 (0.10%) iTrent
14 5 (0.086%) Dynamics GP
14 5 (0.086%) NEC Housing
15 4 (0.068%) Line 50
15 4 (0.068%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,239 (21.21%) Azure
2 1,081 (18.50%) Microsoft 365
3 617 (10.56%) AWS
4 472 (8.08%) Power Platform
5 305 (5.22%) Entra ID
6 208 (3.56%) SaaS
7 204 (3.49%) GCP
8 142 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
9 126 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
10 112 (1.92%) Serverless
11 106 (1.81%) GitHub
11 106 (1.81%) PowerApps
12 103 (1.76%) Power Automate
13 78 (1.34%) OneDrive
14 67 (1.15%) Microsoft Copilot
15 53 (0.91%) Amazon S3
16 52 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
17 49 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
18 48 (0.82%) IaaS
19 45 (0.77%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 407 (6.97%) Firewall
2 382 (6.54%) DNS
3 327 (5.60%) DHCP
4 215 (3.68%) VPN
5 201 (3.44%) TCP/IP
6 198 (3.39%) WAN
7 176 (3.01%) LAN
8 150 (2.57%) Wi-Fi
9 143 (2.45%) Wireless
10 117 (2.00%) VLAN
11 111 (1.90%) Broadband
12 100 (1.71%) Network Security
13 94 (1.61%) VoIP
14 39 (0.67%) Internet
15 31 (0.53%) SD-WAN
16 28 (0.48%) HTTP
16 28 (0.48%) SAN
17 26 (0.45%) SSL
18 22 (0.38%) WLAN
19 20 (0.34%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 377 (6.45%) Power BI
2 279 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 130 (2.23%) Amazon RDS
4 114 (1.95%) MySQL
5 95 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
6 87 (1.49%) Relational Database
7 86 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
8 85 (1.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 71 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 69 (1.18%) Tableau
11 67 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 48 (0.82%) Power Query
13 46 (0.79%) MongoDB
14 39 (0.67%) Big Data
15 34 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
16 33 (0.56%) Data Lake
17 28 (0.48%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
19 21 (0.36%) Star Schema
20 20 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 236 (4.04%) Git
2 192 (3.29%) JIRA
3 80 (1.37%) GitLab
4 58 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.46%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (0.45%) Cucumber
7 25 (0.43%) Selenium
8 24 (0.41%) Subversion
9 23 (0.39%) Eclipse
10 19 (0.33%) JUnit
10 19 (0.33%) 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 11 (0.19%) 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 2,806 (48.03%) Social Skills
2 1,610 (27.56%) Analytical Skills
3 922 (15.78%) Finance
4 470 (8.05%) Manufacturing
5 369 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
6 265 (4.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 263 (4.50%) Law
7 263 (4.50%) Legal
8 261 (4.47%) Public Sector
9 242 (4.14%) Retail
10 184 (3.15%) Marketing
11 156 (2.67%) Electronics
12 152 (2.60%) Telecoms
13 123 (2.11%) Banking
14 112 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
15 109 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
16 101 (1.73%) Aerospace
17 78 (1.34%) Games
18 62 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
19 58 (0.99%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 812 (13.90%) Analyst
2 659 (11.28%) IT Support
3 650 (11.13%) Senior
4 619 (10.60%) Developer
5 555 (9.50%) Support Engineer
6 377 (6.45%) IT Engineer
7 312 (5.34%) Lead
8 282 (4.83%) IT Support Engineer
9 265 (4.54%) Support Analyst
10 261 (4.47%) Support Technician
11 245 (4.19%) Systems Engineer
12 218 (3.73%) Technical Support
13 215 (3.68%) Consultant
14 212 (3.63%) IT Technician
15 198 (3.39%) Software Engineer
16 192 (3.29%) Technical Engineer
17 187 (3.20%) Architect
18 183 (3.13%) Senior Developer
19 173 (2.96%) Technical Support Engineer
20 165 (2.82%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 295 (5.05%) .NET
2 202 (3.46%) React
3 178 (3.05%) HTML
4 168 (2.88%) REST
5 130 (2.23%) CSS
6 100 (1.71%) RESTful
7 98 (1.68%) Node.js
8 87 (1.49%) SOAP
9 76 (1.30%) Vue
10 75 (1.28%) JSON
11 74 (1.27%) Middleware
12 72 (1.23%) AngularJS
13 67 (1.15%) XML
14 57 (0.98%) ASP.NET
15 56 (0.96%) Spring
16 51 (0.87%) Spring Boot
16 51 (0.87%) Web Services
17 48 (0.82%) OAuth
18 41 (0.70%) Kafka
19 38 (0.65%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 450 (7.70%) Driving Licence
2 342 (5.85%) Onboarding
3 275 (4.71%) Self-Motivation
4 231 (3.95%) Management Information System
5 165 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
6 162 (2.77%) Cloud Native
7 147 (2.52%) Product Ownership
8 97 (1.66%) Data Centre
9 95 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
10 89 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
11 75 (1.28%) Security Posture
12 70 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
13 68 (1.16%) Mobile App
14 66 (1.13%) Social Media
15 58 (0.99%) IoT
15 58 (0.99%) Virtual Team
16 53 (0.91%) NHS
17 50 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
18 47 (0.80%) Data Structures
18 47 (0.80%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 1,029 (17.61%) Windows
2 489 (8.37%) Windows Server
3 445 (7.62%) Linux
4 141 (2.41%) Windows 10
5 128 (2.19%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (1.80%) Android
7 74 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 73 (1.25%) Mac OS
9 41 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
10 32 (0.55%) Unix
11 28 (0.48%) Ubuntu
12 24 (0.41%) 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 (0.086%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,455 (24.91%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,063 (18.20%) Customer Service
3 865 (14.81%) Agile
4 613 (10.49%) CI/CD
5 600 (10.27%) Decision-Making
6 597 (10.22%) Mentoring
7 561 (9.60%) AI
8 520 (8.90%) ITIL
9 510 (8.73%) DevOps
10 493 (8.44%) Analytics
11 473 (8.10%) Cybersecurity
12 470 (8.05%) Stakeholder Management
13 466 (7.98%) Software Engineering
14 456 (7.81%) Collaborative Working
15 437 (7.48%) Business Intelligence
16 418 (7.16%) ERP
17 403 (6.90%) Project Delivery
18 352 (6.03%) Customer Experience
19 346 (5.92%) Service Delivery
20 341 (5.84%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 932 (15.95%) SQL
2 652 (11.16%) Python
3 378 (6.47%) JavaScript
4 376 (6.44%) C#
5 256 (4.38%) Java
6 242 (4.14%) PowerShell
7 169 (2.89%) TypeScript
8 166 (2.84%) C++
9 108 (1.85%) Bash
10 73 (1.25%) PHP
11 62 (1.06%) C
12 60 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 51 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 35 (0.60%) Perl
14 35 (0.60%) PL/SQL
14 35 (0.60%) Ruby
14 35 (0.60%) Shell Script
15 34 (0.58%) Go
16 29 (0.50%) Kotlin
17 27 (0.46%) Rust
Qualifications
1 849 (14.53%) Degree
2 510 (8.73%) Security Cleared
3 374 (6.40%) SC Cleared
4 183 (3.13%) DBS Check
5 169 (2.89%) Microsoft Certification
6 168 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 97 (1.66%) DV Cleared
8 96 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
9 88 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
10 83 (1.42%) Azure Certification
11 62 (1.06%) CCNA
12 59 (1.01%) ACCA
12 59 (1.01%) HNC
13 58 (0.99%) PMI Certification
14 55 (0.94%) A+ Certification
14 55 (0.94%) CIMA
14 55 (0.94%) Master's Degree
15 52 (0.89%) CISSP
16 50 (0.86%) PMP
17 45 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 368 (6.30%) QA
2 250 (4.28%) Data Quality
3 193 (3.30%) Cyber Essentials
4 162 (2.77%) GDPR
5 150 (2.57%) SLA
6 136 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 136 (2.33%) PCI DSS
7 124 (2.12%) Accessibility
8 90 (1.54%) NIST
9 37 (0.63%) ISO 9001
10 30 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 27 (0.46%) PMO
12 21 (0.36%) GMP
13 18 (0.31%) Good Clinical Practice
14 15 (0.26%) GRC
15 14 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.24%) SOC 2
16 12 (0.21%) TickIT
17 10 (0.17%) ISO 14001
17 10 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 722 (12.36%) Active Directory
2 284 (4.86%) Hyper-V
3 231 (3.95%) Docker
4 192 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 96 (1.64%) Terminal Server
6 44 (0.75%) Firmware
7 30 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.46%) vSphere
9 24 (0.41%) 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 (0.086%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.086%) Squid
14 5 (0.086%) 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
1 230 (3.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 228 (3.90%) Terraform
3 210 (3.59%) Kubernetes
4 100 (1.71%) Ansible
5 64 (1.10%) Grafana
6 59 (1.01%) SCCM
7 43 (0.74%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.34%) FortiGate
9 17 (0.29%) Nagios
10 14 (0.24%) Puppet
10 14 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
12 11 (0.19%) Kibana
13 10 (0.17%) Autotask
13 10 (0.17%) Functional Safety
13 10 (0.17%) logstash
13 10 (0.17%) Podman
13 10 (0.17%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.15%) Failover Clustering
14 9 (0.15%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 1,801 (30.83%) Microsoft
2 324 (5.55%) VMware
3 153 (2.62%) Veeam
4 136 (2.33%) Splunk
5 130 (2.23%) Google
6 128 (2.19%) SAP
7 125 (2.14%) Cisco
8 123 (2.11%) Oracle
9 122 (2.09%) SolarWinds
10 104 (1.78%) Tanium
11 98 (1.68%) ServiceNow
12 97 (1.66%) Nimble Storage
13 96 (1.64%) Brocade
14 83 (1.42%) Salesforce
15 71 (1.22%) Databricks
16 60 (1.03%) Apple
17 56 (0.96%) Sage
18 52 (0.89%) Fortinet
19 47 (0.80%) Dell
19 47 (0.80%) IBM