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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 3
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 7,883 6,275 8,117
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 9.15% 18.32% 15.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.98% 21.01% 19.29%
Number of salaries quoted 5,399 3,474 3,159
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,684 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,000 £39,919 £48,793
Median % change year-on-year +7.72% -18.19% +2.72%
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £68,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £46,500 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.33% -14.29% -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 60,715 29,871 42,085
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.44% 87.19% 79.17%
Number of salaries quoted 42,754 15,914 21,706
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,733 £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 £64,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £88,148 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -5.17% -3.33%

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 29 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 29 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 -8 1,990 £45,000 - 1,498
South East -3 1,850 £41,585 +1.43% 1,532
Midlands -7 1,424 £42,500 +11.84% 1,106
North West -3 1,032 £45,000 -7.64% 773
South West -2 969 £45,000 +25.00% 796
West Midlands -7 799 £42,500 -0.55% 665
East of England -1 796 £42,500 +30.77% 697
East Midlands -7 623 £42,000 +27.27% 441
Yorkshire -7 607 £42,500 +26.87% 511
North East +5 357 £50,000 +49.25% 228
Scotland +6 334 £36,250 -4.41% 493
Northern Ireland +8 305 £70,000 +18.64% 347
Wales -15 233 £42,500 -11.68% 178
Isle of Man +1 3 £35,000 - 8
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
1 471 (5.97%) SharePoint
2 361 (4.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 65 (0.82%) Confluence
4 62 (0.79%) CMS
5 55 (0.70%) IIS
6 35 (0.44%) Apache
7 32 (0.41%) WordPress
8 29 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 28 (0.36%) Sitecore CMS
10 20 (0.25%) Apache Spark
11 14 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 11 (0.14%) Jupyter
12 11 (0.14%) nginx
13 10 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.11%) WebLogic
15 8 (0.10%) SAS
16 7 (0.089%) OpenEdge
17 6 (0.076%) CICS
18 4 (0.051%) Headless CMS
18 4 (0.051%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 582 (7.38%) Microsoft Office
2 531 (6.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 83 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 65 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
5 45 (0.57%) AutoCAD
5 45 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 41 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
7 34 (0.43%) Simulink
8 26 (0.33%) Revit
9 18 (0.23%) EPLAN
10 14 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
11 10 (0.13%) Navisworks
12 9 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 8 (0.10%) Chatbot
13 8 (0.10%) OrCAD
14 7 (0.089%) Fusion 360
14 7 (0.089%) Siemens NX
15 6 (0.076%) Adobe Illustrator
15 6 (0.076%) Lightworks
16 5 (0.063%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 74 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (0.81%) NetSuite
3 52 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 34 (0.43%) Shopify
5 23 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
6 21 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
7 20 (0.25%) Workday HCM
8 16 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 16 (0.20%) SAP Business One
9 13 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 13 (0.16%) Magento
9 13 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 13 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 12 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
10 12 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
10 12 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 11 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
12 10 (0.13%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.13%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.11%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,398 (17.73%) Azure
2 1,265 (16.05%) Microsoft 365
3 700 (8.88%) AWS
4 625 (7.93%) Power Platform
5 433 (5.49%) Entra ID
6 285 (3.62%) SaaS
7 233 (2.96%) GCP
8 177 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
9 156 (1.98%) PowerApps
10 153 (1.94%) GitHub
11 152 (1.93%) Dynamics 365
12 147 (1.86%) Power Automate
13 120 (1.52%) OneDrive
14 118 (1.50%) Serverless
15 94 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
16 74 (0.94%) Google Workspace
17 69 (0.88%) Amazon S3
18 66 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
18 66 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
19 58 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 450 (5.71%) Firewall
2 444 (5.63%) DNS
3 369 (4.68%) DHCP
4 289 (3.67%) VPN
5 233 (2.96%) TCP/IP
6 213 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
7 197 (2.50%) WAN
8 191 (2.42%) LAN
9 175 (2.22%) Wireless
10 147 (1.86%) VLAN
11 128 (1.62%) Network Security
12 118 (1.50%) VoIP
13 63 (0.80%) Broadband
14 59 (0.75%) Internet
15 31 (0.39%) SSL
16 29 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
16 29 (0.37%) SAN
17 26 (0.33%) SD-WAN
18 25 (0.32%) Ethernet
18 25 (0.32%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 501 (6.36%) Power BI
2 336 (4.26%) SQL Server
3 138 (1.75%) MySQL
4 122 (1.55%) Relational Database
5 119 (1.51%) Amazon RDS
6 108 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
7 99 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.07%) NoSQL
9 78 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 70 (0.89%) Tableau
11 60 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 56 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 51 (0.65%) Power Query
14 49 (0.62%) Data Lake
15 47 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 47 (0.60%) Big Data
15 47 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
16 34 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
17 33 (0.42%) Metadata
18 28 (0.36%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 313 (3.97%) Git
2 254 (3.22%) JIRA
3 94 (1.19%) GitLab
4 89 (1.13%) Jenkins
5 40 (0.51%) Eclipse
6 36 (0.46%) Selenium
7 35 (0.44%) Subversion
8 33 (0.42%) Cucumber
9 29 (0.37%) Claude Code
10 26 (0.33%) JUnit
11 24 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
12 23 (0.29%) Bitbucket
12 23 (0.29%) Postman
13 22 (0.28%) Cypress.io
14 20 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
15 18 (0.23%) LabVIEW
16 14 (0.18%) Burp Suite
16 14 (0.18%) SonarQube
17 13 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
18 12 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 3,890 (49.35%) Social Skills
2 2,167 (27.49%) Analytical Skills
3 1,262 (16.01%) Finance
4 903 (11.46%) Manufacturing
5 630 (7.99%) Organisational Skills
6 420 (5.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 406 (5.15%) Retail
8 376 (4.77%) Public Sector
9 338 (4.29%) Law
10 329 (4.17%) Electronics
11 320 (4.06%) Legal
12 315 (4.00%) Aerospace
13 291 (3.69%) Marketing
14 201 (2.55%) Telecoms
15 154 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
16 142 (1.80%) Automotive
17 132 (1.67%) Banking
18 131 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
19 108 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
20 106 (1.34%) Military
Job Titles
1 1,056 (13.40%) Analyst
2 820 (10.40%) Senior
3 756 (9.59%) IT Support
4 713 (9.04%) Developer
5 600 (7.61%) Support Engineer
6 410 (5.20%) Lead
7 403 (5.11%) Support Analyst
8 399 (5.06%) IT Engineer
9 356 (4.52%) Consultant
10 304 (3.86%) IT Support Engineer
11 290 (3.68%) Technical Support
12 272 (3.45%) Support Technician
13 248 (3.15%) Technical Engineer
14 237 (3.01%) IT Technician
15 233 (2.96%) Architect
16 230 (2.92%) Systems Engineer
17 229 (2.90%) Software Engineer
18 225 (2.85%) Technical Support Engineer
19 209 (2.65%) Senior Developer
20 193 (2.45%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 371 (4.71%) .NET
2 281 (3.56%) Terraform
3 226 (2.87%) React
4 211 (2.68%) REST
5 189 (2.40%) HTML
6 140 (1.78%) CSS
7 138 (1.75%) RESTful
8 98 (1.24%) SOAP
9 95 (1.21%) Node.js
10 94 (1.19%) Web Services
11 84 (1.07%) ASP.NET
11 84 (1.07%) XML
12 80 (1.01%) Middleware
12 80 (1.01%) Spring
13 78 (0.99%) JSON
13 78 (0.99%) Vue
14 76 (0.96%) AngularJS
15 73 (0.93%) Spring Boot
16 64 (0.81%) Kafka
17 52 (0.66%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 696 (8.83%) Driving Licence
2 550 (6.98%) Onboarding
3 418 (5.30%) Self-Motivation
4 366 (4.64%) Management Information System
5 211 (2.68%) Cloud Native
6 182 (2.31%) Product Ownership
7 159 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
8 147 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
9 134 (1.70%) Robotics
10 126 (1.60%) Data Centre
11 97 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
12 94 (1.19%) NHS
13 88 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
14 82 (1.04%) IoT
15 81 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
16 80 (1.01%) Security Posture
17 76 (0.96%) CCTV
18 74 (0.94%) Social Media
19 73 (0.93%) Virtual Team
20 72 (0.91%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,207 (15.31%) Windows
2 532 (6.75%) Windows Server
3 449 (5.70%) Linux
4 126 (1.60%) Windows 10
5 99 (1.26%) Windows Server 2016
6 90 (1.14%) Apple iOS
7 86 (1.09%) Android
8 84 (1.07%) Mac OS
9 43 (0.55%) Unix
10 38 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
11 25 (0.32%) Ubuntu
12 16 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 16 (0.20%) VMS
13 15 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
14 13 (0.16%) Debian
15 10 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
16 7 (0.089%) CentOS
16 7 (0.089%) Windows Server 2012
17 6 (0.076%) Rocky
18 5 (0.063%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,159 (27.39%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,480 (18.77%) Customer Service
3 1,113 (14.12%) Agile
4 842 (10.68%) Decision-Making
5 822 (10.43%) Stakeholder Management
6 793 (10.06%) Mentoring
7 774 (9.82%) AI
8 733 (9.30%) CI/CD
9 674 (8.55%) Project Delivery
10 648 (8.22%) Collaborative Working
11 622 (7.89%) Analytics
12 601 (7.62%) DevOps
13 599 (7.60%) Software Engineering
14 598 (7.59%) ERP
15 594 (7.54%) Cybersecurity
16 571 (7.24%) ITIL
17 546 (6.93%) Project Management
18 540 (6.85%) Business Intelligence
19 491 (6.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 491 (6.23%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,116 (14.16%) SQL
2 776 (9.84%) Python
3 449 (5.70%) C#
4 437 (5.54%) JavaScript
5 325 (4.12%) Java
6 300 (3.81%) PowerShell
7 206 (2.61%) C++
8 203 (2.58%) TypeScript
9 125 (1.59%) Bash
10 82 (1.04%) C
11 65 (0.82%) PHP
12 64 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 59 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 52 (0.66%) Ruby
15 47 (0.60%) MATLAB
16 46 (0.58%) Shell Script
17 45 (0.57%) PL/SQL
18 41 (0.52%) Perl
18 41 (0.52%) Rust
19 35 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,267 (16.07%) Degree
2 736 (9.34%) Security Cleared
3 509 (6.46%) SC Cleared
4 246 (3.12%) HNC
5 226 (2.87%) DBS Check
6 210 (2.66%) HND
7 209 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 189 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 184 (2.33%) DV Cleared
10 165 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
11 137 (1.74%) Azure Certification
12 99 (1.26%) Chartered Engineer
13 90 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
14 77 (0.98%) A+ Certification
15 76 (0.96%) PMI Certification
16 68 (0.86%) Master's Degree
17 67 (0.85%) NVQ Level 3
18 62 (0.79%) CISSP
19 59 (0.75%) ACCA
20 56 (0.71%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 493 (6.25%) QA
2 302 (3.83%) Data Quality
3 235 (2.98%) GDPR
4 207 (2.63%) Accessibility
5 184 (2.33%) SLA
6 170 (2.16%) Cyber Essentials
7 134 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 105 (1.33%) PCI DSS
9 78 (0.99%) NIST
10 47 (0.60%) ISO 9001
11 41 (0.52%) PMO
12 35 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 20 (0.25%) DO-254
13 20 (0.25%) GMP
14 19 (0.24%) Good Clinical Practice
14 19 (0.24%) NCSC
15 16 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
15 16 (0.20%) GRC
16 13 (0.16%) GxP
16 13 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 857 (10.87%) Active Directory
2 291 (3.69%) Hyper-V
3 263 (3.34%) Docker
4 211 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.01%) Firmware
6 72 (0.91%) Terminal Server
7 43 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 34 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 30 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
10 27 (0.34%) vSphere
11 14 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
12 11 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.063%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.063%) Squid
14 4 (0.051%) KVM
14 4 (0.051%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.038%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.038%) VMware Server
16 2 (0.025%) Samba
16 2 (0.025%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 265 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 227 (2.88%) Kubernetes
3 110 (1.40%) Ansible
4 66 (0.84%) Grafana
5 51 (0.65%) SCCM
6 49 (0.62%) Prometheus
7 44 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
8 39 (0.49%) BMC PATROL
9 22 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
10 19 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 19 (0.24%) Functional Safety
11 15 (0.19%) Puppet
12 14 (0.18%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 13 (0.16%) Kibana
14 11 (0.14%) logstash
14 11 (0.14%) Nagios
14 11 (0.14%) Nmap
15 10 (0.13%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.11%) Argo
16 9 (0.11%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 2,389 (30.31%) Microsoft
2 340 (4.31%) VMware
3 227 (2.88%) SAP
4 220 (2.79%) Google
5 192 (2.44%) Workday
6 177 (2.25%) Oracle
7 141 (1.79%) Veeam
8 140 (1.78%) Cisco
9 127 (1.61%) ServiceNow
10 123 (1.56%) Splunk
11 107 (1.36%) Salesforce
12 104 (1.32%) Sage
13 91 (1.15%) SolarWinds
14 80 (1.01%) Tanium
15 79 (1.00%) Fortinet
16 74 (0.94%) Databricks
17 73 (0.93%) Brocade
17 73 (0.93%) Nimble Storage
18 67 (0.85%) Apple
19 63 (0.80%) Siemens