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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,881 5,211 10,278
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.86% 19.80% 15.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.81% 21.69% 18.26%
Number of salaries quoted 3,513 3,124 6,868
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,750 £25,500
25th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £48,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.46% +6.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £65,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £53,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -11.21% +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 45,139 24,029 56,299
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 72.70% 91.32% 84.37%
Number of salaries quoted 27,484 13,695 40,800
10th Percentile £28,500 £28,500 £27,000
25th Percentile £36,000 £37,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,600 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.94% +5.20% -8.26%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,650 £77,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.54%

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 April 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 April 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 -18 1,289 £41,500 -9.78% 645
South East -7 1,186 £45,000 -10.00% 770
Midlands -22 906 £38,500 -18.95% 472
North West -17 663 £42,500 -13.27% 339
South West -8 553 £43,500 -5.95% 293
West Midlands -25 537 £42,500 -18.87% 274
Yorkshire -9 498 £37,500 -10.71% 219
East of England -9 455 £40,000 -20.00% 299
East Midlands -5 366 £35,000 -12.50% 199
Scotland -4 319 £35,000 -30.00% 138
North East -13 128 £48,445 +7.65% 100
Wales -13 114 £41,750 -16.83% 72
Northern Ireland -7 86 £24,500 -55.45% 30
Isle of Man -1 1 £62,500 +64.47% 2
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
1 281 (5.76%) Microsoft Exchange
2 243 (4.98%) SharePoint
3 41 (0.84%) CMS
4 39 (0.80%) Confluence
5 25 (0.51%) IIS
6 23 (0.47%) WordPress
7 18 (0.37%) Apache
8 17 (0.35%) Apache Spark
9 14 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.25%) SAS
11 11 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
12 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
13 8 (0.16%) nginx
14 7 (0.14%) Drupal
15 5 (0.10%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 5 (0.10%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.082%) Moodle
16 4 (0.082%) Totara
Applications
1 319 (6.54%) Microsoft Office
2 302 (6.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 48 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 35 (0.72%) MS Visio
5 28 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 15 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 11 (0.23%) Adobe Illustrator
8 9 (0.18%) Photoshop
9 8 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.16%) Fusion 360
10 6 (0.12%) AutoCAD
11 4 (0.082%) Simulink
11 4 (0.082%) Trello
12 3 (0.061%) Elementor
13 2 (0.041%) Adobe Captivate
13 2 (0.041%) Adobe Premiere
13 2 (0.041%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.041%) Revit
13 2 (0.041%) Sketch
13 2 (0.041%) Weka
Business Applications
1 41 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 33 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 27 (0.55%) NetSuite
4 17 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.29%) Sage X3
5 14 (0.29%) Shopify
6 13 (0.27%) Magento
6 13 (0.27%) SAP CO
7 11 (0.23%) iTrent
8 10 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.16%) SAP Business One
10 7 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 7 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
10 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.10%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 5 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
12 4 (0.082%) Dynamics GP
12 4 (0.082%) Oracle Payables
12 4 (0.082%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.082%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 988 (20.24%) Azure
2 836 (17.13%) Microsoft 365
3 462 (9.47%) AWS
4 340 (6.97%) Power Platform
5 227 (4.65%) Entra ID
6 209 (4.28%) SaaS
7 138 (2.83%) GCP
8 130 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
9 112 (2.29%) GitHub
9 112 (2.29%) Serverless
10 79 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
11 73 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
11 73 (1.50%) Power Automate
12 62 (1.27%) Amazon S3
13 61 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
14 57 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 56 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
15 56 (1.15%) Google Workspace
16 52 (1.07%) PaaS
17 47 (0.96%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 327 (6.70%) DNS
2 286 (5.86%) Firewall
3 278 (5.70%) DHCP
4 165 (3.38%) WAN
5 161 (3.30%) VPN
6 132 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
7 130 (2.66%) LAN
8 128 (2.62%) TCP/IP
9 106 (2.17%) Broadband
10 84 (1.72%) VLAN
11 82 (1.68%) Wireless
12 70 (1.43%) VoIP
13 59 (1.21%) Network Security
14 43 (0.88%) SD-WAN
15 36 (0.74%) Internet
16 31 (0.64%) SAN
17 29 (0.59%) Remote Desktop
18 24 (0.49%) Unified Communications
19 22 (0.45%) Wireshark
20 21 (0.43%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 290 (5.94%) Power BI
2 205 (4.20%) SQL Server
3 80 (1.64%) Amazon RDS
4 79 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
5 73 (1.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 69 (1.41%) Relational Database
7 68 (1.39%) NoSQL
8 64 (1.31%) MySQL
9 60 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
10 47 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 45 (0.92%) Power Query
11 45 (0.92%) Tableau
12 41 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
13 40 (0.82%) DynamoDB
14 33 (0.68%) MongoDB
15 25 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
16 24 (0.49%) Metadata
17 22 (0.45%) Big Data
17 22 (0.45%) Data Lake
18 21 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 192 (3.93%) Git
2 151 (3.09%) JIRA
3 70 (1.43%) GitLab
4 53 (1.09%) Jenkins
5 26 (0.53%) Selenium
6 19 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
7 17 (0.35%) Cucumber
8 16 (0.33%) Maven
8 16 (0.33%) SonarQube
9 14 (0.29%) Cypress.io
9 14 (0.29%) LabVIEW
10 12 (0.25%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.25%) Visual Studio
11 9 (0.18%) Burp Suite
11 9 (0.18%) JUnit
11 9 (0.18%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.18%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.14%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.14%) Snyk
13 6 (0.12%) Postman
General
1 2,414 (49.46%) Social Skills
2 1,376 (28.19%) Analytical Skills
3 905 (18.54%) Finance
4 338 (6.92%) Organisational Skills
5 298 (6.11%) Manufacturing
6 241 (4.94%) Public Sector
7 216 (4.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 211 (4.32%) Retail
9 204 (4.18%) Marketing
10 186 (3.81%) Legal
11 155 (3.18%) Law
12 139 (2.85%) Banking
13 132 (2.70%) Electronics
14 125 (2.56%) Telecoms
15 96 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
16 85 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
17 75 (1.54%) Games
18 74 (1.52%) Automotive
19 53 (1.09%) Aerospace
20 52 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 732 (15.00%) Analyst
2 664 (13.60%) IT Support
3 581 (11.90%) Support Engineer
4 529 (10.84%) Senior
5 373 (7.64%) Developer
6 356 (7.29%) IT Engineer
7 288 (5.90%) IT Support Engineer
8 257 (5.27%) Lead
9 227 (4.65%) Support Analyst
10 206 (4.22%) Support Technician
11 172 (3.52%) Technical Support
12 170 (3.48%) Systems Engineer
13 164 (3.36%) Business Analyst
14 163 (3.34%) IT Technician
15 162 (3.32%) Architect
16 159 (3.26%) 2nd Line Support
17 144 (2.95%) IT Support Technician
18 143 (2.93%) Consultant
19 142 (2.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
20 137 (2.81%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (3.36%) .NET
2 158 (3.24%) React
3 138 (2.83%) HTML
4 107 (2.19%) CSS
5 91 (1.86%) REST
6 81 (1.66%) Node.js
7 58 (1.19%) RESTful
8 52 (1.07%) Vue
9 51 (1.04%) SOAP
10 47 (0.96%) JSON
10 47 (0.96%) XML
11 44 (0.90%) AngularJS
12 42 (0.86%) Middleware
12 42 (0.86%) Spring
13 39 (0.80%) Spring Boot
14 38 (0.78%) OAuth
15 32 (0.66%) ASP.NET
16 30 (0.61%) GraphQL
16 30 (0.61%) Laravel
17 27 (0.55%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 392 (8.03%) Driving Licence
2 304 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 271 (5.55%) Self-Motivation
4 167 (3.42%) Management Information System
5 129 (2.64%) Analytical Mindset
6 112 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
7 111 (2.27%) Product Ownership
8 95 (1.95%) Cloud Native
9 90 (1.84%) Data Centre
10 78 (1.60%) Social Media
11 65 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
11 65 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
12 57 (1.17%) Mobile App
13 54 (1.11%) Low-Code
14 42 (0.86%) Data Structures
15 35 (0.72%) EPoS
15 35 (0.72%) Security Posture
15 35 (0.72%) Virtual Team
16 34 (0.70%) IoT
16 34 (0.70%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 874 (17.91%) Windows
2 385 (7.89%) Windows Server
3 308 (6.31%) Linux
4 133 (2.72%) Windows 10
5 106 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
6 104 (2.13%) Android
7 68 (1.39%) Apple iOS
8 54 (1.11%) Mac OS
9 37 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
10 32 (0.66%) Unix
11 26 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.49%) CentOS
13 20 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 19 (0.39%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.31%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.25%) VMS
17 10 (0.20%) Windows 8
18 9 (0.18%) Debian
19 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
20 4 (0.082%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 982 (20.12%) Continuous Improvement
2 869 (17.80%) Customer Service
3 652 (13.36%) Agile
4 497 (10.18%) Decision-Making
5 456 (9.34%) Mentoring
6 434 (8.89%) ITIL
7 402 (8.24%) DevOps
8 395 (8.09%) CI/CD
9 387 (7.93%) Analytics
10 376 (7.70%) Business Intelligence
11 375 (7.68%) Project Management
12 349 (7.15%) AI
13 335 (6.86%) Coaching
14 314 (6.43%) Cybersecurity
15 292 (5.98%) Stakeholder Management
16 287 (5.88%) Computer Science
17 284 (5.82%) Software Engineering
18 283 (5.80%) ERP
19 272 (5.57%) CRM
20 271 (5.55%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 624 (12.78%) SQL
2 516 (10.57%) Python
3 276 (5.65%) JavaScript
4 215 (4.40%) PowerShell
5 186 (3.81%) Java
6 182 (3.73%) C#
7 101 (2.07%) TypeScript
8 81 (1.66%) Bash
9 75 (1.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 67 (1.37%) C++
11 63 (1.29%) PHP
12 49 (1.00%) C
13 39 (0.80%) T-SQL
14 26 (0.53%) Bicep
14 26 (0.53%) Kotlin
15 25 (0.51%) Go
15 25 (0.51%) PL/SQL
16 23 (0.47%) R
17 20 (0.41%) Scala
18 17 (0.35%) Rust
Qualifications
1 854 (17.50%) Degree
2 339 (6.95%) Security Cleared
3 223 (4.57%) SC Cleared
4 182 (3.73%) DBS Check
5 145 (2.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 130 (2.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 90 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 76 (1.56%) ACCA
9 70 (1.43%) A+ Certification
10 67 (1.37%) CIMA
10 67 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
11 65 (1.33%) DV Cleared
12 56 (1.15%) CCNA
13 52 (1.07%) Master's Degree
14 49 (1.00%) CISSP
15 48 (0.98%) HNC
16 44 (0.90%) PMI Certification
17 42 (0.86%) Network+ Certification
18 40 (0.82%) AWS Certification
19 37 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (5.16%) QA
2 220 (4.51%) Data Quality
3 146 (2.99%) GDPR
4 126 (2.58%) Cyber Essentials
5 115 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 98 (2.01%) SLA
7 96 (1.97%) PCI DSS
8 79 (1.62%) NIST
9 57 (1.17%) Accessibility
10 37 (0.76%) ISO 9001
11 30 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
12 22 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 15 (0.31%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.29%) GMP
15 9 (0.18%) GRC
16 8 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 8 (0.16%) PMO
16 8 (0.16%) TickIT
17 6 (0.12%) COBIT
17 6 (0.12%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 611 (12.52%) Active Directory
2 196 (4.02%) Hyper-V
3 183 (3.75%) Docker
4 135 (2.77%) VMware Infrastructure
5 64 (1.31%) Terminal Server
6 26 (0.53%) Firmware
7 23 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 16 (0.33%) vSphere
10 10 (0.20%) KVM
10 10 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
11 6 (0.12%) XenApp
12 5 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.082%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.082%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 3 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
15 2 (0.041%) VMware NSX
16 1 (0.020%) Lustre
16 1 (0.020%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 210 (4.30%) Terraform
2 166 (3.40%) Microsoft Intune
3 142 (2.91%) Kubernetes
4 91 (1.86%) Ansible
5 62 (1.27%) SCCM
6 57 (1.17%) Grafana
7 34 (0.70%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.41%) BMC PATROL
9 18 (0.37%) Nagios
9 18 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.25%) Autotask
10 12 (0.25%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.23%) Cisco CUCM
11 11 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.20%) FortiGate
13 9 (0.18%) Nmap
13 9 (0.18%) Puppet
13 9 (0.18%) ZABBIX
14 8 (0.16%) HP Fortify
14 8 (0.16%) Kibana
Vendors
1 1,328 (27.21%) Microsoft
2 226 (4.63%) VMware
3 144 (2.95%) Oracle
4 115 (2.36%) Veeam
5 113 (2.32%) SAP
6 102 (2.09%) Google
7 99 (2.03%) Cisco
8 95 (1.95%) Splunk
9 92 (1.88%) SolarWinds
10 81 (1.66%) ServiceNow
11 75 (1.54%) Databricks
12 65 (1.33%) Apple
12 65 (1.33%) Tanium
13 64 (1.31%) Adobe
13 64 (1.31%) Brocade
13 64 (1.31%) Nimble Storage
14 61 (1.25%) Salesforce
15 52 (1.07%) Sage
16 48 (0.98%) Dell
17 37 (0.76%) HubSpot