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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,759 6,102 10,593
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.13% 20.81% 15.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.07% 22.61% 18.41%
Number of salaries quoted 3,508 3,180 6,882
10th Percentile £26,265 £26,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% - -10.00%
75th Percentile £59,406 £61,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,890 £49,500
% change year-on-year -6.66% +2.81% -10.00%

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 47,254 26,994 57,538
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.81% 92.05% 83.01%
Number of salaries quoted 30,481 13,823 41,125
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £27,003
25th Percentile £37,750 £35,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £52,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% +4.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,269 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.97% +5.94% -10.10%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 -12 1,304 £42,500 -5.56% 660
South East -8 1,131 £46,000 -1.08% 757
Midlands -22 874 £40,000 -11.11% 419
North West -17 674 £45,000 -5.26% 363
South West -8 545 £43,500 +3.02% 284
West Midlands -25 513 £42,500 -11.46% 260
Yorkshire -11 499 £41,955 +4.89% 224
East of England -7 470 £42,175 -0.76% 313
East Midlands -11 357 £35,000 -9.09% 159
Scotland -4 283 £35,000 -30.00% 129
North East -19 131 £48,472 +7.72% 84
Wales -13 106 £42,500 -15.00% 62
Northern Ireland -8 67 £38,750 -29.55% 50
Isle of Man +3 3 £35,000 -3.45% 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 (5.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 273 (5.74%) SharePoint
3 47 (0.99%) CMS
4 35 (0.74%) Confluence
5 26 (0.55%) IIS
6 23 (0.48%) WordPress
7 20 (0.42%) Apache
8 15 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.29%) Apache Spark
10 11 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
11 10 (0.21%) SAS
12 9 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
13 5 (0.11%) Drupal
13 5 (0.11%) nginx
13 5 (0.11%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.11%) Skype for Business
14 4 (0.084%) Moodle
14 4 (0.084%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 299 (6.28%) Microsoft Office
2 278 (5.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 38 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
4 36 (0.76%) MS Visio
5 35 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 9 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
7 9 (0.19%) Fusion 360
8 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.11%) Simulink
10 3 (0.063%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.063%) Trello
11 2 (0.042%) Acrobat
11 2 (0.042%) Sketch
11 2 (0.042%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.042%) Weka
12 1 (0.021%) Abaqus
12 1 (0.021%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 45 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.42%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.40%) Shopify
6 16 (0.34%) Magento
7 14 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.27%) iTrent
9 12 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
10 11 (0.23%) SAP CO
11 9 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
12 7 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 7 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
12 7 (0.15%) SAP Business One
12 7 (0.15%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.13%) Sage 50
14 5 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
15 4 (0.084%) Line 50
15 4 (0.084%) Markit EDM
15 4 (0.084%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 945 (19.86%) Azure
2 825 (17.34%) Microsoft 365
3 470 (9.88%) AWS
4 349 (7.33%) Power Platform
5 214 (4.50%) Entra ID
6 168 (3.53%) SaaS
7 131 (2.75%) GCP
8 116 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
9 107 (2.25%) Serverless
10 97 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
11 87 (1.83%) GitHub
12 72 (1.51%) Power Automate
13 60 (1.26%) PowerApps
14 59 (1.24%) Amazon S3
15 55 (1.16%) Google Workspace
16 54 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
17 49 (1.03%) OneDrive
18 48 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
19 47 (0.99%) IaaS
20 45 (0.95%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 292 (6.14%) Firewall
2 286 (6.01%) DNS
3 230 (4.83%) DHCP
4 160 (3.36%) WAN
5 156 (3.28%) VPN
6 122 (2.56%) LAN
7 114 (2.40%) Wi-Fi
8 110 (2.31%) TCP/IP
9 101 (2.12%) Broadband
10 98 (2.06%) Wireless
11 81 (1.70%) VLAN
12 68 (1.43%) VoIP
13 66 (1.39%) Network Security
14 42 (0.88%) SD-WAN
15 35 (0.74%) SAN
16 34 (0.71%) Internet
17 21 (0.44%) Unified Communications
18 20 (0.42%) HTTP
19 16 (0.34%) Wireshark
20 15 (0.32%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (5.86%) Power BI
2 195 (4.10%) SQL Server
3 68 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
4 67 (1.41%) MySQL
5 66 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 64 (1.34%) NoSQL
7 60 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
7 60 (1.26%) Data Warehouse
8 53 (1.11%) Relational Database
8 53 (1.11%) Tableau
9 52 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 43 (0.90%) Power Query
11 36 (0.76%) DynamoDB
12 31 (0.65%) MongoDB
13 25 (0.53%) Big Data
14 24 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
15 23 (0.48%) Data Lake
16 21 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
17 20 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
17 20 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 188 (3.95%) Git
2 131 (2.75%) JIRA
3 72 (1.51%) GitLab
4 47 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.38%) Maven
7 16 (0.34%) Selenium
7 16 (0.34%) SonarQube
8 14 (0.29%) Cucumber
8 14 (0.29%) Cypress.io
9 13 (0.27%) LabVIEW
10 11 (0.23%) Bitbucket
11 8 (0.17%) JUnit
11 8 (0.17%) Visual Studio
12 7 (0.15%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
12 7 (0.15%) Subversion
13 6 (0.13%) Burp Suite
13 6 (0.13%) Metasploit
13 6 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,224 (46.73%) Social Skills
2 1,319 (27.72%) Analytical Skills
3 817 (17.17%) Finance
4 316 (6.64%) Manufacturing
5 301 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
6 218 (4.58%) Public Sector
7 210 (4.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 181 (3.80%) Marketing
9 177 (3.72%) Legal
10 175 (3.68%) Law
11 159 (3.34%) Retail
12 136 (2.86%) Telecoms
13 127 (2.67%) Electronics
14 126 (2.65%) Banking
15 88 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
16 70 (1.47%) Games
17 65 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
18 59 (1.24%) Aerospace
19 56 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
20 52 (1.09%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 688 (14.46%) Analyst
2 592 (12.44%) IT Support
3 525 (11.03%) Support Engineer
4 520 (10.93%) Senior
5 391 (8.22%) Developer
6 342 (7.19%) IT Engineer
7 264 (5.55%) IT Support Engineer
8 256 (5.38%) Lead
9 212 (4.45%) Support Technician
10 200 (4.20%) Support Analyst
11 175 (3.68%) Systems Engineer
12 168 (3.53%) IT Technician
13 167 (3.51%) Architect
14 155 (3.26%) Technical Support
15 150 (3.15%) Consultant
16 149 (3.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 145 (3.05%) Software Engineer
18 136 (2.86%) IT Support Technician
19 128 (2.69%) Business Analyst
20 124 (2.61%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (3.36%) .NET
2 153 (3.21%) React
3 136 (2.86%) HTML
4 111 (2.33%) REST
5 105 (2.21%) CSS
6 75 (1.58%) Node.js
7 69 (1.45%) SOAP
8 57 (1.20%) JSON
8 57 (1.20%) RESTful
9 55 (1.16%) Middleware
9 55 (1.16%) XML
10 48 (1.01%) Vue
11 47 (0.99%) AngularJS
12 44 (0.92%) Spring
13 41 (0.86%) Spring Boot
14 38 (0.80%) OAuth
15 33 (0.69%) EDI
16 28 (0.59%) ASP.NET
16 28 (0.59%) Laravel
17 26 (0.55%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 360 (7.56%) Driving Licence
2 264 (5.55%) Onboarding
3 214 (4.50%) Self-Motivation
4 172 (3.61%) Management Information System
5 126 (2.65%) Product Ownership
6 113 (2.37%) Cloud Native
7 109 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
8 96 (2.02%) Data Centre
9 94 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
10 75 (1.58%) Social Media
11 70 (1.47%) Distributed Systems
12 58 (1.22%) Mobile App
13 56 (1.18%) Low-Code
14 52 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
15 43 (0.90%) Virtual Team
16 39 (0.82%) Data Structures
17 35 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
18 34 (0.71%) Algorithms
19 33 (0.69%) IoT
19 33 (0.69%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 794 (16.68%) Windows
2 361 (7.59%) Windows Server
3 298 (6.26%) Linux
4 125 (2.63%) Windows 10
5 105 (2.21%) Android
6 91 (1.91%) Windows Server 2016
7 63 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 52 (1.09%) Mac OS
9 43 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.65%) Unix
11 25 (0.53%) CentOS
11 25 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.46%) Ubuntu
13 20 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 14 (0.29%) VMS
15 12 (0.25%) Windows 7
16 9 (0.19%) Debian
17 7 (0.15%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
18 4 (0.084%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 987 (20.74%) Continuous Improvement
2 836 (17.57%) Customer Service
3 644 (13.53%) Agile
4 459 (9.64%) Mentoring
5 450 (9.46%) Decision-Making
6 405 (8.51%) CI/CD
7 393 (8.26%) DevOps
8 392 (8.24%) ITIL
9 386 (8.11%) Analytics
10 375 (7.88%) AI
11 331 (6.96%) Business Intelligence
12 320 (6.72%) Coaching
13 317 (6.66%) Project Management
14 309 (6.49%) ERP
15 307 (6.45%) Software Engineering
16 298 (6.26%) Collaborative Working
16 298 (6.26%) Cybersecurity
17 294 (6.18%) Stakeholder Management
18 286 (6.01%) Computer Science
19 274 (5.76%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 627 (13.18%) SQL
2 526 (11.05%) Python
3 289 (6.07%) JavaScript
4 207 (4.35%) C#
5 199 (4.18%) Java
6 190 (3.99%) PowerShell
7 116 (2.44%) TypeScript
8 90 (1.89%) Bash
9 89 (1.87%) C++
10 69 (1.45%) PHP
11 49 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 47 (0.99%) C
13 38 (0.80%) PL/SQL
14 33 (0.69%) T-SQL
15 28 (0.59%) R
16 27 (0.57%) Kotlin
17 23 (0.48%) Shell Script
18 21 (0.44%) Go
19 20 (0.42%) Perl
19 20 (0.42%) Rust
Qualifications
1 740 (15.55%) Degree
2 337 (7.08%) Security Cleared
3 235 (4.94%) SC Cleared
4 200 (4.20%) DBS Check
5 157 (3.30%) Microsoft Certification
6 139 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
7 91 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 78 (1.64%) A+ Certification
9 71 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
10 65 (1.37%) ACCA
10 65 (1.37%) DV Cleared
11 60 (1.26%) CIMA
12 56 (1.18%) CCNA
13 49 (1.03%) PMI Certification
14 46 (0.97%) HNC
14 46 (0.97%) Master's Degree
15 45 (0.95%) Network+ Certification
16 43 (0.90%) CISSP
17 37 (0.78%) Azure Certification
18 36 (0.76%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 267 (5.61%) QA
2 217 (4.56%) Data Quality
3 149 (3.13%) GDPR
4 120 (2.52%) SLA
5 114 (2.40%) Cyber Essentials
6 104 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 82 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 77 (1.62%) NIST
9 62 (1.30%) Accessibility
10 38 (0.80%) ISO 9001
11 18 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 16 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 15 (0.32%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.29%) GMP
15 12 (0.25%) PMO
15 12 (0.25%) TickIT
16 11 (0.23%) GRC
16 11 (0.23%) ISO 14001
17 8 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 6 (0.13%) COBIT
System Software
1 559 (11.75%) Active Directory
2 169 (3.55%) Hyper-V
3 163 (3.43%) Docker
4 133 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
5 48 (1.01%) Terminal Server
6 26 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 25 (0.53%) Firmware
8 17 (0.36%) vSphere
9 13 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
11 10 (0.21%) KVM
12 7 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.13%) XenApp
14 4 (0.084%) Embedded Firmware
14 4 (0.084%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 3 (0.063%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.063%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.063%) Virtual Servers
16 1 (0.021%) BitLocker
16 1 (0.021%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 194 (4.08%) Terraform
2 171 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
3 149 (3.13%) Kubernetes
4 88 (1.85%) Ansible
5 56 (1.18%) SCCM
6 49 (1.03%) Grafana
7 32 (0.67%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.46%) Nagios
9 15 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.21%) Puppet
10 10 (0.21%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 9 (0.19%) Autotask
11 9 (0.19%) Kibana
11 9 (0.19%) ZABBIX
12 8 (0.17%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.17%) HP Fortify
12 8 (0.17%) logstash
13 7 (0.15%) Podman
13 7 (0.15%) QRadar
Vendors
1 1,330 (27.95%) Microsoft
2 210 (4.41%) VMware
3 135 (2.84%) Oracle
4 108 (2.27%) SAP
5 102 (2.14%) Veeam
6 100 (2.10%) Cisco
6 100 (2.10%) Google
7 79 (1.66%) SolarWinds
7 79 (1.66%) Splunk
8 65 (1.37%) Apple
8 65 (1.37%) Databricks
9 61 (1.28%) Salesforce
9 61 (1.28%) ServiceNow
10 53 (1.11%) Adobe
11 49 (1.03%) Dell
11 49 (1.03%) Tanium
12 48 (1.01%) Brocade
12 48 (1.01%) Nimble Storage
13 38 (0.80%) Sage
14 35 (0.74%) HubSpot