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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,567 6,568 8,607
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.40% 18.90% 14.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.93% 21.65% 18.49%
Number of salaries quoted 4,684 3,660 4,349
10th Percentile £26,875 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £46,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -13.04% -8.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £76,250
UK median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -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 55,038 30,334 46,537
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.39% 87.27% 78.38%
Number of salaries quoted 38,742 16,516 29,114
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 1,675 £45,000 +5.88% 1,217
South East -3 1,566 £42,500 - 1,344
Midlands -8 1,199 £42,500 +10.39% 840
North West -4 879 £45,000 - 656
South West -4 806 £45,000 +25.00% 677
West Midlands -9 668 £42,500 -3.41% 536
East of England -3 663 £42,500 +21.43% 622
Yorkshire -8 550 £42,500 +21.43% 397
East Midlands -9 528 £41,000 +17.14% 305
Scotland -1 292 £33,500 -24.72% 414
North East -7 246 £48,500 +21.25% 185
Northern Ireland -3 213 £45,000 -23.73% 272
Wales -25 168 £45,000 -6.49% 149
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 1
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
1 391 (5.95%) SharePoint
2 346 (5.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 68 (1.04%) CMS
4 65 (0.99%) Confluence
5 50 (0.76%) IIS
6 33 (0.50%) WordPress
7 30 (0.46%) Apache
8 27 (0.41%) Sitecore CMS
9 24 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.24%) Apache Spark
11 15 (0.23%) SAS
12 10 (0.15%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.14%) nginx
13 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 7 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
15 5 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
15 5 (0.076%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.061%) OpenStack
16 4 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 422 (6.43%) Microsoft Office
2 412 (6.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 51 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 40 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 30 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 23 (0.35%) Simulink
8 21 (0.32%) AutoCAD
9 13 (0.20%) Revit
10 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
10 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.091%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.091%) EPLAN
11 6 (0.091%) Fusion 360
11 6 (0.091%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.091%) Sketch
12 5 (0.076%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.076%) SOLIDWORKS
12 5 (0.076%) Trello
Business Applications
1 70 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 54 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
3 41 (0.62%) NetSuite
4 28 (0.43%) Shopify
5 18 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 17 (0.26%) Magento
7 16 (0.24%) SAP Business One
8 15 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
8 15 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 13 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 12 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
12 10 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.15%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
14 8 (0.12%) Primavera
15 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
15 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
16 6 (0.091%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 1,327 (20.21%) Azure
2 1,134 (17.27%) Microsoft 365
3 667 (10.16%) AWS
4 543 (8.27%) Power Platform
5 336 (5.12%) Entra ID
6 228 (3.47%) GCP
6 228 (3.47%) SaaS
7 161 (2.45%) Azure DevOps
8 139 (2.12%) PowerApps
9 136 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
10 129 (1.96%) GitHub
11 126 (1.92%) Serverless
12 120 (1.83%) Power Automate
13 81 (1.23%) OneDrive
14 80 (1.22%) Microsoft Copilot
15 59 (0.90%) Amazon S3
16 57 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
17 54 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
18 52 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
19 51 (0.78%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 421 (6.41%) Firewall
2 397 (6.05%) DNS
3 339 (5.16%) DHCP
4 239 (3.64%) VPN
5 224 (3.41%) TCP/IP
6 188 (2.86%) WAN
7 174 (2.65%) LAN
8 160 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
9 153 (2.33%) Wireless
10 128 (1.95%) VLAN
11 111 (1.69%) Network Security
12 105 (1.60%) VoIP
13 93 (1.42%) Broadband
14 42 (0.64%) Internet
15 31 (0.47%) SAN
16 30 (0.46%) SSL
17 29 (0.44%) HTTP
18 27 (0.41%) SD-WAN
19 22 (0.34%) MQTT
19 22 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 428 (6.52%) Power BI
2 323 (4.92%) SQL Server
3 135 (2.06%) MySQL
4 125 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
5 106 (1.61%) Relational Database
6 100 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
7 93 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
8 83 (1.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 78 (1.19%) NoSQL
10 71 (1.08%) Tableau
11 63 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.72%) Electronic Patient Records
13 46 (0.70%) MongoDB
14 44 (0.67%) Big Data
15 42 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
16 41 (0.62%) Power Query
17 39 (0.59%) Data Lake
18 30 (0.46%) DynamoDB
19 25 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
20 23 (0.35%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 285 (4.34%) Git
2 222 (3.38%) JIRA
3 79 (1.20%) GitLab
4 68 (1.04%) Jenkins
5 32 (0.49%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.47%) Subversion
7 25 (0.38%) Cucumber
7 25 (0.38%) JUnit
8 24 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
8 24 (0.37%) Selenium
9 21 (0.32%) Claude Code
10 20 (0.30%) Postman
11 19 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
12 16 (0.24%) Cypress.io
13 15 (0.23%) Bitbucket
14 14 (0.21%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.18%) Visual Studio
17 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
18 10 (0.15%) Maven
General
1 3,151 (47.98%) Social Skills
2 1,835 (27.94%) Analytical Skills
3 1,040 (15.84%) Finance
4 605 (9.21%) Manufacturing
5 401 (6.11%) Organisational Skills
6 372 (5.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 304 (4.63%) Law
8 295 (4.49%) Public Sector
9 282 (4.29%) Legal
10 278 (4.23%) Retail
11 243 (3.70%) Marketing
12 225 (3.43%) Electronics
13 209 (3.18%) Aerospace
14 158 (2.41%) Telecoms
15 133 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
16 132 (2.01%) Banking
17 111 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
18 75 (1.14%) Military
19 73 (1.11%) Games
20 69 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 860 (13.10%) Analyst
2 720 (10.96%) Senior
3 695 (10.58%) Developer
4 661 (10.07%) IT Support
5 550 (8.38%) Support Engineer
6 363 (5.53%) Lead
7 362 (5.51%) IT Engineer
8 305 (4.64%) Support Analyst
9 294 (4.48%) Consultant
10 268 (4.08%) IT Support Engineer
11 264 (4.02%) Support Technician
12 249 (3.79%) Technical Support
13 235 (3.58%) Systems Engineer
14 228 (3.47%) IT Technician
15 217 (3.30%) Architect
16 215 (3.27%) Software Engineer
17 213 (3.24%) Technical Engineer
18 198 (3.02%) Senior Developer
19 189 (2.88%) Technical Support Engineer
20 176 (2.68%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 343 (5.22%) .NET
2 219 (3.33%) React
3 198 (3.02%) HTML
4 190 (2.89%) REST
5 146 (2.22%) CSS
6 122 (1.86%) RESTful
7 99 (1.51%) Node.js
8 92 (1.40%) SOAP
9 81 (1.23%) Vue
10 78 (1.19%) AngularJS
10 78 (1.19%) ASP.NET
10 78 (1.19%) Middleware
11 73 (1.11%) JSON
12 69 (1.05%) XML
13 67 (1.02%) Web Services
14 63 (0.96%) Spring
15 57 (0.87%) OAuth
15 57 (0.87%) Spring Boot
16 48 (0.73%) Kafka
17 47 (0.72%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 520 (7.92%) Driving Licence
2 402 (6.12%) Onboarding
3 332 (5.06%) Self-Motivation
4 298 (4.54%) Management Information System
5 185 (2.82%) Cloud Native
6 164 (2.50%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 109 (1.66%) Data Centre
9 101 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
10 97 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
11 89 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
12 85 (1.29%) NHS
13 80 (1.22%) Social Media
14 79 (1.20%) Security Posture
15 74 (1.13%) Robotics
16 72 (1.10%) Mobile App
17 64 (0.97%) Virtual Team
18 63 (0.96%) Cyber Threat
18 63 (0.96%) IoT
19 58 (0.88%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,084 (16.51%) Windows
2 505 (7.69%) Windows Server
3 455 (6.93%) Linux
4 135 (2.06%) Windows 10
5 111 (1.69%) Windows Server 2016
6 100 (1.52%) Android
7 80 (1.22%) Apple iOS
8 76 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 39 (0.59%) Unix
9 39 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
10 29 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 21 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 18 (0.27%) CentOS
12 18 (0.27%) VMS
13 14 (0.21%) Debian
14 9 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
14 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
15 7 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 6 (0.091%) Windows Server 2012
17 5 (0.076%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,740 (26.50%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,168 (17.79%) Customer Service
3 995 (15.15%) Agile
4 744 (11.33%) Decision-Making
5 686 (10.45%) CI/CD
6 676 (10.29%) Mentoring
7 651 (9.91%) AI
8 596 (9.08%) Stakeholder Management
9 570 (8.68%) DevOps
10 562 (8.56%) Analytics
11 561 (8.54%) ITIL
12 530 (8.07%) Cybersecurity
13 528 (8.04%) Software Engineering
14 515 (7.84%) Collaborative Working
14 515 (7.84%) Project Delivery
15 485 (7.39%) ERP
16 460 (7.00%) Business Intelligence
17 430 (6.55%) Project Management
18 401 (6.11%) CRM
19 382 (5.82%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 1,006 (15.32%) SQL
2 716 (10.90%) Python
3 432 (6.58%) JavaScript
4 426 (6.49%) C#
5 294 (4.48%) Java
6 259 (3.94%) PowerShell
7 192 (2.92%) TypeScript
8 183 (2.79%) C++
9 123 (1.87%) Bash
10 76 (1.16%) PHP
11 72 (1.10%) C
12 59 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 53 (0.81%) T-SQL
14 46 (0.70%) Shell Script
15 42 (0.64%) Perl
16 38 (0.58%) Ruby
17 37 (0.56%) Go
18 34 (0.52%) Rust
19 32 (0.49%) PL/SQL
20 30 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,025 (15.61%) Degree
2 610 (9.29%) Security Cleared
3 437 (6.65%) SC Cleared
4 197 (3.00%) DBS Check
5 193 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 177 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
7 162 (2.47%) DV Cleared
8 152 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
9 121 (1.84%) HNC
10 114 (1.74%) Azure Certification
11 96 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
11 96 (1.46%) HND
12 78 (1.19%) PMI Certification
13 72 (1.10%) CISSP
14 66 (1.01%) CCNA
15 63 (0.96%) Master's Degree
16 58 (0.88%) A+ Certification
16 58 (0.88%) Chartered Engineer
17 56 (0.85%) PMP
18 49 (0.75%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 430 (6.55%) QA
2 261 (3.97%) Data Quality
3 190 (2.89%) GDPR
4 176 (2.68%) Cyber Essentials
5 170 (2.59%) SLA
6 164 (2.50%) Accessibility
7 125 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 114 (1.74%) PCI DSS
9 92 (1.40%) NIST
10 35 (0.53%) ISO 9001
11 31 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 30 (0.46%) PMO
13 24 (0.37%) GMP
14 18 (0.27%) Good Clinical Practice
15 16 (0.24%) GRC
16 14 (0.21%) DO-254
17 13 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.18%) NCSC
18 12 (0.18%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.18%) TickIT
System Software
1 753 (11.47%) Active Directory
2 285 (4.34%) Hyper-V
3 254 (3.87%) Docker
4 204 (3.11%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.22%) Terminal Server
6 66 (1.01%) Firmware
7 34 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
8 29 (0.44%) vSphere
9 27 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
10 20 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
12 8 (0.12%) KVM
13 6 (0.091%) XenApp
14 5 (0.076%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.076%) Squid
14 5 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.046%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.046%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.046%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 266 (4.05%) Terraform
2 230 (3.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 219 (3.33%) Kubernetes
4 109 (1.66%) Ansible
5 60 (0.91%) SCCM
6 57 (0.87%) Grafana
7 41 (0.62%) Prometheus
8 31 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 18 (0.27%) Puppet
11 16 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
12 14 (0.21%) Nagios
13 12 (0.18%) Functional Safety
14 11 (0.17%) Kibana
14 11 (0.17%) Nmap
15 10 (0.15%) logstash
15 10 (0.15%) Podman
15 10 (0.15%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.14%) QRadar
16 9 (0.14%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 1,970 (30.00%) Microsoft
2 327 (4.98%) VMware
3 170 (2.59%) SAP
4 165 (2.51%) Google
5 154 (2.35%) Oracle
6 140 (2.13%) Veeam
7 134 (2.04%) Cisco
8 124 (1.89%) Splunk
9 113 (1.72%) ServiceNow
10 104 (1.58%) SolarWinds
11 88 (1.34%) Tanium
12 87 (1.32%) Salesforce
12 87 (1.32%) Workday
13 81 (1.23%) Nimble Storage
14 80 (1.22%) Brocade
15 77 (1.17%) Databricks
16 68 (1.04%) Sage
17 61 (0.93%) Fortinet
18 59 (0.90%) Apple
19 50 (0.76%) SonicWALL