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

6 months to
25 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 5,811 6,410 9,278
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.96% 18.89% 14.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.29% 21.46% 18.08%
Number of salaries quoted 4,286 3,522 5,311
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,500
25th Percentile £31,000 £29,774 £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 51,477 29,874 51,314
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.56% 88.02% 79.34%
Number of salaries quoted 36,161 16,209 34,136
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,119
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 £66,215 £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 25 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 25 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 1,516 £45,000 +5.88% 669
South East -4 1,427 £45,000 +5.88% 819
Midlands -8 1,083 £42,000 +5.00% 459
North West -7 791 £46,500 +1.09% 336
South West -6 721 £44,000 +17.33% 333
West Midlands -9 605 £42,500 -5.56% 255
East of England -5 564 £42,500 +21.43% 285
Yorkshire -10 522 £42,500 +21.43% 228
East Midlands -10 474 £37,500 +5.63% 203
Scotland -9 237 £33,000 -25.00% 105
North East -14 203 £51,250 +36.67% 114
Wales -17 154 £45,000 -7.22% 66
Northern Ireland -15 128 £38,500 -30.00% 37
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 (6.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 346 (5.95%) SharePoint
3 58 (1.00%) Confluence
4 51 (0.88%) CMS
5 37 (0.64%) IIS
6 30 (0.52%) 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 (0.069%) OpenStack
Applications
1 369 (6.35%) Microsoft Office
2 367 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 43 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 35 (0.60%) 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 (0.052%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.052%) LaTeX
11 3 (0.052%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 55 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.60%) NetSuite
3 34 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
4 18 (0.31%) Shopify
5 17 (0.29%) Magento
6 16 (0.28%) 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 (0.069%) Line 50
15 4 (0.069%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,233 (21.22%) Azure
2 1,073 (18.46%) Microsoft 365
3 613 (10.55%) AWS
4 469 (8.07%) Power Platform
5 303 (5.21%) Entra ID
6 206 (3.55%) SaaS
7 201 (3.46%) GCP
8 140 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
9 125 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
10 112 (1.93%) Serverless
11 106 (1.82%) PowerApps
12 104 (1.79%) GitHub
13 103 (1.77%) Power Automate
14 77 (1.33%) OneDrive
15 67 (1.15%) Microsoft Copilot
16 53 (0.91%) Amazon S3
17 51 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
18 48 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
19 47 (0.81%) IaaS
20 45 (0.77%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 405 (6.97%) Firewall
2 381 (6.56%) DNS
3 326 (5.61%) DHCP
4 215 (3.70%) VPN
5 198 (3.41%) TCP/IP
6 197 (3.39%) WAN
7 175 (3.01%) LAN
8 150 (2.58%) Wi-Fi
9 142 (2.44%) Wireless
10 117 (2.01%) VLAN
11 111 (1.91%) Broadband
12 100 (1.72%) Network Security
13 94 (1.62%) 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
1 374 (6.44%) Power BI
2 278 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
4 113 (1.94%) MySQL
5 95 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
6 85 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (1.46%) Relational Database
6 85 (1.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 71 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 69 (1.19%) Tableau
9 66 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 48 (0.83%) Power Query
11 46 (0.79%) MongoDB
12 39 (0.67%) Big Data
13 34 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
14 33 (0.57%) Data Lake
15 28 (0.48%) DynamoDB
16 25 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
17 20 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
17 20 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 235 (4.04%) Git
2 189 (3.25%) JIRA
3 80 (1.38%) GitLab
4 57 (0.98%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.46%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (0.45%) Cucumber
7 25 (0.43%) Selenium
8 24 (0.41%) Subversion
9 23 (0.40%) 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 2,789 (48.00%) Social Skills
2 1,600 (27.53%) Analytical Skills
3 916 (15.76%) Finance
4 465 (8.00%) Manufacturing
5 368 (6.33%) Organisational Skills
6 263 (4.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 263 (4.53%) Law
7 262 (4.51%) Legal
8 259 (4.46%) Public Sector
9 236 (4.06%) Retail
10 184 (3.17%) Marketing
11 156 (2.68%) Electronics
12 152 (2.62%) Telecoms
13 123 (2.12%) Banking
14 111 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
15 108 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
16 99 (1.70%) Aerospace
17 78 (1.34%) Games
18 61 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
19 58 (1.00%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 806 (13.87%) Analyst
2 654 (11.25%) IT Support
3 648 (11.15%) Senior
4 617 (10.62%) Developer
5 549 (9.45%) Support Engineer
6 374 (6.44%) IT Engineer
7 311 (5.35%) Lead
8 279 (4.80%) IT Support Engineer
9 262 (4.51%) Support Analyst
10 260 (4.47%) Support Technician
11 245 (4.22%) Systems Engineer
12 215 (3.70%) Technical Support
13 212 (3.65%) Consultant
14 211 (3.63%) IT Technician
15 196 (3.37%) Software Engineer
16 189 (3.25%) Technical Engineer
17 188 (3.24%) Architect
18 183 (3.15%) Senior Developer
19 170 (2.93%) Technical Support Engineer
20 164 (2.82%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 292 (5.02%) .NET
2 201 (3.46%) React
3 177 (3.05%) HTML
4 166 (2.86%) REST
5 130 (2.24%) CSS
6 100 (1.72%) RESTful
7 98 (1.69%) Node.js
8 86 (1.48%) SOAP
9 76 (1.31%) Vue
10 74 (1.27%) JSON
11 73 (1.26%) Middleware
12 72 (1.24%) AngularJS
13 66 (1.14%) XML
14 56 (0.96%) ASP.NET
15 55 (0.95%) Spring
16 51 (0.88%) Web Services
17 50 (0.86%) Spring Boot
18 48 (0.83%) OAuth
19 41 (0.71%) Kafka
20 38 (0.65%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 446 (7.68%) Driving Licence
2 338 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 272 (4.68%) Self-Motivation
4 230 (3.96%) Management Information System
5 164 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
6 161 (2.77%) Cloud Native
7 145 (2.50%) Product Ownership
8 96 (1.65%) Data Centre
9 95 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
10 89 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
11 75 (1.29%) Security Posture
12 68 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
13 67 (1.15%) Mobile App
14 66 (1.14%) Social Media
15 58 (1.00%) IoT
15 58 (1.00%) Virtual Team
16 50 (0.86%) NHS
17 49 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
18 47 (0.81%) Data Structures
18 47 (0.81%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 1,024 (17.62%) Windows
2 488 (8.40%) Windows Server
3 443 (7.62%) Linux
4 141 (2.43%) Windows 10
5 128 (2.20%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (1.81%) Android
7 73 (1.26%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.24%) Mac OS
9 41 (0.71%) 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 16 (0.28%) 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 1,443 (24.83%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,059 (18.22%) Customer Service
3 860 (14.80%) Agile
4 610 (10.50%) CI/CD
5 599 (10.31%) Decision-Making
6 590 (10.15%) Mentoring
7 558 (9.60%) AI
8 518 (8.91%) ITIL
9 507 (8.72%) DevOps
10 490 (8.43%) Analytics
11 470 (8.09%) Cybersecurity
12 467 (8.04%) Stakeholder Management
13 462 (7.95%) Software Engineering
14 456 (7.85%) Collaborative Working
15 434 (7.47%) Business Intelligence
16 415 (7.14%) ERP
17 397 (6.83%) Project Delivery
18 350 (6.02%) Customer Experience
19 341 (5.87%) Service Delivery
20 339 (5.83%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 925 (15.92%) SQL
2 647 (11.13%) Python
3 374 (6.44%) C#
3 374 (6.44%) JavaScript
4 255 (4.39%) Java
5 239 (4.11%) PowerShell
6 168 (2.89%) TypeScript
7 165 (2.84%) C++
8 108 (1.86%) Bash
9 73 (1.26%) PHP
10 61 (1.05%) C
11 60 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 50 (0.86%) T-SQL
13 35 (0.60%) Perl
13 35 (0.60%) PL/SQL
13 35 (0.60%) Ruby
13 35 (0.60%) Shell Script
14 33 (0.57%) Go
15 29 (0.50%) Kotlin
16 27 (0.46%) Rust
Qualifications
1 845 (14.54%) Degree
2 507 (8.72%) Security Cleared
3 372 (6.40%) SC Cleared
4 183 (3.15%) DBS Check
5 169 (2.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 167 (2.87%) Computer Science Degree
7 96 (1.65%) DV Cleared
8 95 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
9 88 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
10 83 (1.43%) Azure Certification
11 62 (1.07%) CCNA
12 60 (1.03%) ACCA
13 59 (1.02%) HNC
14 58 (1.00%) PMI Certification
15 56 (0.96%) CIMA
16 55 (0.95%) A+ Certification
16 55 (0.95%) Master's Degree
17 52 (0.89%) CISSP
18 50 (0.86%) PMP
19 45 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (6.30%) QA
2 249 (4.28%) Data Quality
3 191 (3.29%) Cyber Essentials
4 161 (2.77%) GDPR
5 149 (2.56%) SLA
6 136 (2.34%) PCI DSS
7 135 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 124 (2.13%) Accessibility
9 90 (1.55%) NIST
10 37 (0.64%) ISO 9001
11 29 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 27 (0.46%) PMO
13 21 (0.36%) GMP
14 18 (0.31%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.26%) GRC
16 14 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.24%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.21%) TickIT
18 10 (0.17%) ISO 14001
18 10 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 720 (12.39%) Active Directory
2 283 (4.87%) Hyper-V
3 230 (3.96%) Docker
4 191 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 96 (1.65%) Terminal Server
6 44 (0.76%) Firmware
7 30 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.46%) vSphere
9 23 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.28%) 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 (0.069%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.069%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.052%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.052%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 228 (3.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 227 (3.91%) Terraform
3 210 (3.61%) Kubernetes
4 100 (1.72%) Ansible
5 64 (1.10%) Grafana
6 59 (1.02%) 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 1,789 (30.79%) Microsoft
2 323 (5.56%) VMware
3 152 (2.62%) Veeam
4 135 (2.32%) Splunk
5 128 (2.20%) Google
5 128 (2.20%) SAP
6 125 (2.15%) Cisco
7 122 (2.10%) Oracle
7 122 (2.10%) SolarWinds
8 104 (1.79%) Tanium
9 97 (1.67%) Nimble Storage
10 96 (1.65%) Brocade
10 96 (1.65%) ServiceNow
11 83 (1.43%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.20%) Databricks
13 59 (1.02%) Apple
14 56 (0.96%) Sage
15 52 (0.89%) Fortinet
16 47 (0.81%) Dell
17 46 (0.79%) IBM