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

6 months to
16 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 5,654 6,388 10,586
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.90% 18.90% 14.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.19% 21.39% 18.08%
Number of salaries quoted 4,216 3,481 6,463
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,275
25th Percentile £30,500 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £41,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.41% -7.78% -9.35%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £49,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -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 50,529 29,863 58,539
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.59% 88.35% 79.99%
Number of salaries quoted 35,494 16,025 40,293
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,851 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £79,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,201 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.89% +4.00% -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 16 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 16 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 -9 1,483 £45,000 +5.88% 784
South East -3 1,392 £45,000 +5.88% 860
Midlands -8 1,051 £42,000 +3.70% 468
North West -7 788 £45,000 -2.17% 387
South West -6 686 £43,500 +16.00% 347
West Midlands -9 591 £42,500 -5.56% 240
East of England -4 571 £42,500 +21.43% 330
Yorkshire -11 506 £42,500 +21.43% 297
East Midlands -10 456 £35,000 -4.11% 227
Scotland -8 233 £33,000 -27.69% 171
North East -15 189 £52,500 +31.25% 110
Wales -20 142 £45,000 - 95
Northern Ireland -15 116 £38,500 -30.00% 111
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 6
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
1 361 (6.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 346 (6.12%) SharePoint
3 54 (0.96%) Confluence
4 52 (0.92%) CMS
5 35 (0.62%) IIS
6 29 (0.51%) WordPress
7 26 (0.46%) Apache
8 18 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.23%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.23%) SAS
10 11 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 10 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 8 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
12 8 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.12%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 6 (0.11%) nginx
15 5 (0.088%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 365 (6.46%) Microsoft Office
2 351 (6.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 44 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
7 11 (0.19%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.088%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.088%) Fusion 360
11 5 (0.088%) Lightworks
11 5 (0.088%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.088%) Sketch
11 5 (0.088%) Trello
12 3 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.053%) LaTeX
12 3 (0.053%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 32 (0.57%) NetSuite
3 18 (0.32%) Shopify
4 16 (0.28%) Magento
4 16 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 15 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
7 13 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 10 (0.18%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 10 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.18%) SAP Business One
9 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
10 7 (0.12%) iTrent
10 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
10 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.088%) Dynamics GP
11 5 (0.088%) Q-Pulse
11 5 (0.088%) Sage X3
11 5 (0.088%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,192 (21.08%) Azure
2 1,065 (18.84%) Microsoft 365
3 578 (10.22%) AWS
4 447 (7.91%) Power Platform
5 292 (5.16%) Entra ID
6 196 (3.47%) SaaS
7 193 (3.41%) GCP
8 133 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
9 117 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
10 106 (1.87%) Serverless
11 99 (1.75%) Power Automate
11 99 (1.75%) PowerApps
12 97 (1.72%) GitHub
13 77 (1.36%) OneDrive
14 60 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
15 48 (0.85%) Amazon S3
15 48 (0.85%) Microsoft Purview
16 44 (0.78%) GitHub Actions
16 44 (0.78%) IaaS
16 44 (0.78%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 414 (7.32%) Firewall
2 379 (6.70%) DNS
3 325 (5.75%) DHCP
4 218 (3.86%) VPN
5 202 (3.57%) WAN
6 191 (3.38%) TCP/IP
7 178 (3.15%) LAN
8 158 (2.79%) Wi-Fi
9 138 (2.44%) Wireless
10 121 (2.14%) VLAN
11 109 (1.93%) Broadband
12 99 (1.75%) Network Security
13 92 (1.63%) VoIP
14 43 (0.76%) Internet
15 33 (0.58%) SD-WAN
16 26 (0.46%) SAN
17 25 (0.44%) HTTP
18 23 (0.41%) SSL
19 21 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
19 21 (0.37%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 356 (6.30%) Power BI
2 260 (4.60%) SQL Server
3 114 (2.02%) Amazon RDS
4 99 (1.75%) MySQL
5 87 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
6 82 (1.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 79 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
8 78 (1.38%) Relational Database
9 65 (1.15%) Tableau
10 64 (1.13%) NoSQL
11 63 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.83%) Power Query
13 44 (0.78%) MongoDB
14 37 (0.65%) Big Data
15 35 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
16 33 (0.58%) Data Lake
17 26 (0.46%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
19 19 (0.34%) Star Schema
20 17 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 218 (3.86%) Git
2 172 (3.04%) JIRA
3 78 (1.38%) GitLab
4 46 (0.81%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.48%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (0.42%) Cucumber
7 22 (0.39%) Eclipse
7 22 (0.39%) Subversion
8 21 (0.37%) Selenium
9 17 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 17 (0.30%) JUnit
10 14 (0.25%) Postman
10 14 (0.25%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
12 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
13 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.14%) JMeter
14 8 (0.14%) Maven
14 8 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 8 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,701 (47.77%) Social Skills
2 1,515 (26.80%) Analytical Skills
3 864 (15.28%) Finance
4 445 (7.87%) Manufacturing
5 377 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
6 255 (4.51%) Legal
7 245 (4.33%) Public Sector
8 242 (4.28%) Law
9 239 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 227 (4.01%) Retail
11 181 (3.20%) Marketing
12 150 (2.65%) Electronics
13 144 (2.55%) Telecoms
14 114 (2.02%) Banking
15 106 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
16 102 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
17 83 (1.47%) Aerospace
18 76 (1.34%) Games
19 61 (1.08%) Advertising
20 55 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 775 (13.71%) Analyst
2 674 (11.92%) IT Support
3 625 (11.05%) Senior
4 581 (10.28%) Developer
5 577 (10.21%) Support Engineer
6 394 (6.97%) IT Engineer
7 298 (5.27%) Lead
8 296 (5.24%) IT Support Engineer
9 259 (4.58%) Support Technician
10 253 (4.47%) Support Analyst
11 236 (4.17%) Systems Engineer
12 211 (3.73%) Technical Support
13 209 (3.70%) IT Technician
14 193 (3.41%) Software Engineer
15 185 (3.27%) Technical Engineer
16 183 (3.24%) Consultant
17 176 (3.11%) Architect
18 169 (2.99%) Technical Support Engineer
19 165 (2.92%) Senior Developer
20 164 (2.90%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 269 (4.76%) .NET
2 193 (3.41%) React
3 168 (2.97%) HTML
4 158 (2.79%) REST
5 125 (2.21%) CSS
6 98 (1.73%) Node.js
7 95 (1.68%) RESTful
8 85 (1.50%) SOAP
9 75 (1.33%) Middleware
10 73 (1.29%) JSON
10 73 (1.29%) Vue
11 69 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 64 (1.13%) XML
13 51 (0.90%) Spring
14 48 (0.85%) ASP.NET
15 47 (0.83%) Spring Boot
16 46 (0.81%) Web Services
17 43 (0.76%) OAuth
18 38 (0.67%) EDI
19 36 (0.64%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 445 (7.87%) Driving Licence
2 329 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 262 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
4 212 (3.75%) Management Information System
5 153 (2.71%) Cloud Native
6 152 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
7 141 (2.49%) Product Ownership
8 102 (1.80%) Data Centre
9 94 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
10 87 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
11 71 (1.26%) Security Posture
12 68 (1.20%) Social Media
13 65 (1.15%) Mobile App
14 62 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
15 56 (0.99%) IoT
16 54 (0.96%) Virtual Team
17 48 (0.85%) Algorithms
18 45 (0.80%) Low-Code
18 45 (0.80%) Robotics
19 44 (0.78%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,010 (17.86%) Windows
2 479 (8.47%) Windows Server
3 413 (7.30%) Linux
4 149 (2.64%) Windows 10
5 129 (2.28%) Windows Server 2016
6 109 (1.93%) Android
7 74 (1.31%) Apple iOS
8 73 (1.29%) Mac OS
9 46 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.53%) Unix
11 27 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 27 (0.48%) Ubuntu
12 24 (0.42%) CentOS
13 15 (0.27%) VMS
13 15 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 14 (0.25%) Debian
15 10 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
16 9 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
17 7 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
17 7 (0.12%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,346 (23.81%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,036 (18.32%) Customer Service
3 795 (14.06%) Agile
4 572 (10.12%) Mentoring
5 570 (10.08%) Decision-Making
6 556 (9.83%) CI/CD
7 535 (9.46%) AI
8 493 (8.72%) ITIL
9 487 (8.61%) Analytics
10 472 (8.35%) DevOps
11 464 (8.21%) Cybersecurity
12 452 (7.99%) Software Engineering
13 445 (7.87%) Collaborative Working
14 419 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
15 412 (7.29%) Business Intelligence
16 398 (7.04%) ERP
17 370 (6.54%) Project Delivery
18 337 (5.96%) Computer Science
18 337 (5.96%) Service Delivery
19 334 (5.91%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 876 (15.49%) SQL
2 636 (11.25%) Python
3 357 (6.31%) JavaScript
4 350 (6.19%) C#
5 251 (4.44%) Java
6 239 (4.23%) PowerShell
7 159 (2.81%) TypeScript
8 156 (2.76%) C++
9 105 (1.86%) Bash
10 74 (1.31%) PHP
11 60 (1.06%) C
12 59 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 47 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 35 (0.62%) PL/SQL
15 34 (0.60%) Perl
16 32 (0.57%) Ruby
17 31 (0.55%) Go
18 29 (0.51%) Kotlin
18 29 (0.51%) Shell Script
19 27 (0.48%) Rust
Qualifications
1 821 (14.52%) Degree
2 461 (8.15%) Security Cleared
3 339 (6.00%) SC Cleared
4 199 (3.52%) DBS Check
5 165 (2.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 161 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 82 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
9 78 (1.38%) DV Cleared
10 71 (1.26%) Azure Certification
11 62 (1.10%) CCNA
12 60 (1.06%) ACCA
13 59 (1.04%) HNC
14 58 (1.03%) A+ Certification
15 56 (0.99%) CIMA
16 54 (0.96%) PMI Certification
17 51 (0.90%) Master's Degree
18 48 (0.85%) CISSP
19 47 (0.83%) PMP
20 43 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 338 (5.98%) QA
2 237 (4.19%) Data Quality
3 183 (3.24%) Cyber Essentials
4 155 (2.74%) GDPR
5 144 (2.55%) SLA
6 135 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 130 (2.30%) PCI DSS
8 113 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 89 (1.57%) NIST
10 39 (0.69%) ISO 9001
11 29 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 25 (0.44%) PMO
13 21 (0.37%) GMP
14 17 (0.30%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.27%) GRC
16 14 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.21%) TickIT
19 11 (0.19%) ISO 14001
20 9 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 716 (12.66%) Active Directory
2 276 (4.88%) Hyper-V
3 211 (3.73%) Docker
4 184 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.56%) Terminal Server
6 42 (0.74%) Firmware
7 31 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.48%) vSphere
9 21 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
11 10 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.12%) KVM
12 7 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.11%) XenApp
14 5 (0.088%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.071%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.071%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.053%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.053%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.053%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 223 (3.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 218 (3.86%) Terraform
3 200 (3.54%) Kubernetes
4 100 (1.77%) Ansible
5 61 (1.08%) Grafana
6 59 (1.04%) SCCM
7 41 (0.73%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.34%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.34%) Nagios
9 13 (0.23%) Puppet
10 11 (0.19%) Autotask
10 11 (0.19%) Kibana
11 10 (0.18%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.18%) logstash
11 10 (0.18%) Podman
11 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
11 10 (0.18%) QRadar
12 9 (0.16%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,746 (30.88%) Microsoft
2 306 (5.41%) VMware
3 143 (2.53%) Veeam
4 128 (2.26%) Google
5 127 (2.25%) Splunk
6 123 (2.18%) SAP
7 120 (2.12%) Cisco
8 114 (2.02%) SolarWinds
9 113 (2.00%) Oracle
10 95 (1.68%) Tanium
11 91 (1.61%) ServiceNow
12 89 (1.57%) Nimble Storage
13 88 (1.56%) Brocade
14 81 (1.43%) Salesforce
15 66 (1.17%) Databricks
16 58 (1.03%) Apple
17 53 (0.94%) Sage
18 52 (0.92%) Adobe
19 49 (0.87%) Fortinet
20 47 (0.83%) Dell