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

6 months to
4 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 5,492 6,208 11,124
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.86% 19.15% 14.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.16% 21.45% 18.23%
Number of salaries quoted 4,120 3,373 6,805
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,125
25th Percentile £30,250 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,134 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.87% -6.37% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £76,250 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.04% -10.91%

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 49,223 28,941 61,023
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.46% 89.29% 79.97%
Number of salaries quoted 34,638 15,278 42,344
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,701 £27,500
25th Percentile £39,225 £32,951 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,738 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.48% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,295 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.09%

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 4 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 4 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 -8 1,465 £44,224 +4.06% 695
South East -4 1,361 £45,000 +5.88% 834
Midlands -8 1,003 £42,000 -1.18% 454
North West -7 770 £45,000 -2.17% 383
South West -6 655 £44,000 +17.33% 338
West Midlands -9 567 £42,500 -5.56% 247
East of England -4 563 £42,500 +21.43% 289
Yorkshire -12 512 £42,500 +21.43% 219
East Midlands -10 433 £35,000 -4.11% 208
Scotland -3 253 £32,500 -34.21% 132
North East -15 183 £50,000 +25.00% 110
Wales -21 128 £45,000 -10.00% 54
Northern Ireland -12 84 £38,500 -30.00% 79
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 5
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
1 340 (6.19%) Microsoft Exchange
2 337 (6.14%) SharePoint
3 53 (0.97%) Confluence
4 52 (0.95%) CMS
5 34 (0.62%) IIS
6 28 (0.51%) WordPress
7 26 (0.47%) Apache
8 19 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
9 15 (0.27%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.22%) SAS
11 11 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
11 11 (0.20%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
13 8 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 7 (0.13%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.091%) nginx
16 5 (0.091%) OpenStack
16 5 (0.091%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 352 (6.41%) Microsoft Office
2 332 (6.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 48 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
5 30 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.18%) Simulink
8 8 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.091%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.091%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.091%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.091%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.091%) Trello
11 4 (0.073%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.073%) Sketch
12 3 (0.055%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.055%) Windchill
13 2 (0.036%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 52 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.35%) Shopify
6 16 (0.29%) Magento
7 15 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 11 (0.20%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 9 (0.16%) iTrent
11 9 (0.16%) SAP Business One
12 8 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 8 (0.15%) Sage 50
13 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.11%) Raiser’s Edge
15 5 (0.091%) Q-Pulse
15 5 (0.091%) SAP CO
16 4 (0.073%) Dynamics GP
16 4 (0.073%) Line 50
Cloud Services
1 1,162 (21.16%) Azure
2 1,019 (18.55%) Microsoft 365
3 579 (10.54%) AWS
4 423 (7.70%) Power Platform
5 276 (5.03%) Entra ID
6 187 (3.40%) GCP
7 186 (3.39%) SaaS
8 129 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
9 114 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
10 112 (2.04%) Serverless
11 94 (1.71%) GitHub
12 93 (1.69%) Power Automate
13 87 (1.58%) PowerApps
14 72 (1.31%) OneDrive
15 53 (0.97%) Amazon S3
16 52 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
17 46 (0.84%) Google Workspace
17 46 (0.84%) IaaS
17 46 (0.84%) PaaS
18 44 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 409 (7.45%) Firewall
2 363 (6.61%) DNS
3 309 (5.63%) DHCP
4 222 (4.04%) VPN
5 194 (3.53%) WAN
6 175 (3.19%) TCP/IP
7 169 (3.08%) LAN
8 159 (2.90%) Wi-Fi
9 125 (2.28%) Wireless
10 114 (2.08%) VLAN
11 105 (1.91%) Broadband
12 92 (1.68%) Network Security
13 89 (1.62%) VoIP
14 44 (0.80%) Internet
15 36 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 28 (0.51%) SAN
17 25 (0.46%) HTTP
18 21 (0.38%) SSL
18 21 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
19 20 (0.36%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 343 (6.25%) Power BI
2 247 (4.50%) SQL Server
3 97 (1.77%) Amazon RDS
4 92 (1.68%) MySQL
5 83 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
6 77 (1.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 75 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
8 69 (1.26%) Relational Database
9 64 (1.17%) NoSQL
10 63 (1.15%) Tableau
11 58 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.86%) Power Query
13 42 (0.76%) MongoDB
14 36 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
15 35 (0.64%) Big Data
16 32 (0.58%) Data Lake
17 28 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
18 24 (0.44%) DynamoDB
19 22 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
20 17 (0.31%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 211 (3.84%) Git
2 159 (2.90%) JIRA
3 74 (1.35%) GitLab
4 46 (0.84%) Jenkins
5 28 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.40%) Cucumber
7 20 (0.36%) Subversion
8 18 (0.33%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.31%) JUnit
10 15 (0.27%) Cypress.io
10 15 (0.27%) Selenium
10 15 (0.27%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.22%) Maven
12 11 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
13 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.18%) Postman
14 9 (0.16%) Claude Code
15 8 (0.15%) Burp Suite
15 8 (0.15%) MLflow
15 8 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,620 (47.71%) Social Skills
2 1,475 (26.86%) Analytical Skills
3 859 (15.64%) Finance
4 428 (7.79%) Manufacturing
5 359 (6.54%) Organisational Skills
6 256 (4.66%) Public Sector
7 240 (4.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 223 (4.06%) Retail
9 221 (4.02%) Law
10 220 (4.01%) Legal
11 180 (3.28%) Marketing
12 140 (2.55%) Electronics
13 137 (2.49%) Telecoms
14 125 (2.28%) Banking
15 111 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
16 102 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
17 82 (1.49%) Aerospace
18 72 (1.31%) Games
19 58 (1.06%) Advertising
19 58 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 771 (14.04%) Analyst
2 673 (12.25%) IT Support
3 588 (10.71%) Support Engineer
4 574 (10.45%) Senior
5 514 (9.36%) Developer
6 403 (7.34%) IT Engineer
7 305 (5.55%) IT Support Engineer
8 289 (5.26%) Lead
9 247 (4.50%) Support Technician
10 241 (4.39%) Support Analyst
11 219 (3.99%) Systems Engineer
12 203 (3.70%) Technical Support
13 201 (3.66%) IT Technician
14 183 (3.33%) Software Engineer
15 180 (3.28%) Consultant
16 171 (3.11%) Architect
16 171 (3.11%) Technical Engineer
17 161 (2.93%) Technical Support Engineer
18 157 (2.86%) IT Support Technician
19 140 (2.55%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (4.01%) .NET
2 192 (3.50%) React
3 160 (2.91%) HTML
4 146 (2.66%) REST
5 120 (2.18%) CSS
6 99 (1.80%) Node.js
7 89 (1.62%) RESTful
8 77 (1.40%) SOAP
9 74 (1.35%) Middleware
10 70 (1.27%) JSON
11 69 (1.26%) Vue
12 67 (1.22%) AngularJS
13 61 (1.11%) XML
14 49 (0.89%) Spring
15 45 (0.82%) Spring Boot
15 45 (0.82%) Web Services
16 41 (0.75%) ASP.NET
17 40 (0.73%) EDI
18 39 (0.71%) OAuth
19 29 (0.53%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 425 (7.74%) Driving Licence
2 324 (5.90%) Onboarding
3 255 (4.64%) Self-Motivation
4 197 (3.59%) Management Information System
5 156 (2.84%) Cloud Native
6 134 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
7 131 (2.39%) Product Ownership
8 101 (1.84%) Data Centre
9 97 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
10 84 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
11 68 (1.24%) Security Posture
11 68 (1.24%) Social Media
12 65 (1.18%) Mobile App
13 54 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
14 51 (0.93%) Virtual Team
15 49 (0.89%) Low-Code
16 48 (0.87%) IoT
17 45 (0.82%) Algorithms
18 43 (0.78%) NHS
18 43 (0.78%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 968 (17.63%) Windows
2 465 (8.47%) Windows Server
3 386 (7.03%) Linux
4 152 (2.77%) Windows 10
5 118 (2.15%) Windows Server 2016
6 109 (1.98%) Android
7 71 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 70 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 51 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.55%) Unix
11 29 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.47%) CentOS
12 26 (0.47%) Ubuntu
13 16 (0.29%) VMS
14 15 (0.27%) Windows 7
15 14 (0.25%) Debian
16 13 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
17 8 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
18 7 (0.13%) Windows 8
19 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,274 (23.20%) Continuous Improvement
2 992 (18.06%) Customer Service
3 730 (13.29%) Agile
4 560 (10.20%) Mentoring
5 557 (10.14%) Decision-Making
6 499 (9.09%) AI
6 499 (9.09%) CI/CD
7 469 (8.54%) Analytics
8 461 (8.39%) ITIL
9 453 (8.25%) DevOps
10 439 (7.99%) Cybersecurity
11 429 (7.81%) Collaborative Working
12 404 (7.36%) Software Engineering
13 395 (7.19%) Business Intelligence
14 386 (7.03%) ERP
15 381 (6.94%) Stakeholder Management
16 333 (6.06%) Project Delivery
17 329 (5.99%) Computer Science
18 319 (5.81%) Service Delivery
19 312 (5.68%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 851 (15.50%) SQL
2 634 (11.54%) Python
3 346 (6.30%) JavaScript
4 297 (5.41%) C#
5 244 (4.44%) PowerShell
6 240 (4.37%) Java
7 156 (2.84%) TypeScript
8 141 (2.57%) C++
9 107 (1.95%) Bash
10 74 (1.35%) PHP
11 58 (1.06%) C
12 57 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 46 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 37 (0.67%) PL/SQL
15 32 (0.58%) Perl
16 30 (0.55%) Go
16 30 (0.55%) Shell Script
17 29 (0.53%) Kotlin
18 28 (0.51%) R
19 27 (0.49%) Rust
Qualifications
1 780 (14.20%) Degree
2 444 (8.08%) Security Cleared
3 314 (5.72%) SC Cleared
4 207 (3.77%) DBS Check
5 162 (2.95%) Microsoft Certification
6 154 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
7 86 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
8 81 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
9 76 (1.38%) DV Cleared
10 67 (1.22%) Azure Certification
11 64 (1.17%) A+ Certification
12 62 (1.13%) CCNA
13 61 (1.11%) ACCA
14 58 (1.06%) HNC
15 57 (1.04%) CIMA
16 49 (0.89%) CISSP
17 48 (0.87%) PMI Certification
18 46 (0.84%) Master's Degree
19 44 (0.80%) Network+ Certification
19 44 (0.80%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 316 (5.75%) QA
2 243 (4.42%) Data Quality
3 165 (3.00%) Cyber Essentials
4 155 (2.82%) GDPR
5 138 (2.51%) SLA
6 134 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 113 (2.06%) PCI DSS
8 102 (1.86%) Accessibility
9 85 (1.55%) NIST
10 40 (0.73%) ISO 9001
11 27 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 25 (0.46%) PMO
13 19 (0.35%) GMP
14 15 (0.27%) GRC
15 14 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.25%) Good Clinical Practice
16 13 (0.24%) ISO 14001
17 12 (0.22%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.22%) TickIT
18 8 (0.15%) Def Stans
System Software
1 693 (12.62%) Active Directory
2 258 (4.70%) Hyper-V
3 201 (3.66%) Docker
4 182 (3.31%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (1.31%) Terminal Server
6 37 (0.67%) Firmware
7 31 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 26 (0.47%) vSphere
9 20 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 14 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
11 10 (0.18%) KVM
11 10 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.11%) XenApp
14 5 (0.091%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.073%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.055%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.055%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 215 (3.91%) Terraform
2 207 (3.77%) Microsoft Intune
3 198 (3.61%) Kubernetes
4 106 (1.93%) Ansible
5 59 (1.07%) Grafana
6 55 (1.00%) SCCM
7 38 (0.69%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.38%) Nagios
9 18 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.22%) Kibana
11 11 (0.20%) logstash
11 11 (0.20%) Puppet
12 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.18%) Podman
12 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.18%) QRadar
12 10 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.18%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.16%) Autotask
13 9 (0.16%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 1,662 (30.26%) Microsoft
2 290 (5.28%) VMware
3 128 (2.33%) Veeam
4 124 (2.26%) Google
5 116 (2.11%) SAP
6 114 (2.08%) Oracle
7 110 (2.00%) Splunk
8 106 (1.93%) Cisco
9 98 (1.78%) SolarWinds
10 79 (1.44%) Salesforce
11 78 (1.42%) ServiceNow
12 76 (1.38%) Tanium
13 73 (1.33%) Nimble Storage
14 72 (1.31%) Brocade
15 66 (1.20%) Databricks
16 59 (1.07%) Apple
17 52 (0.95%) Sage
18 51 (0.93%) Adobe
19 47 (0.86%) Dell
20 42 (0.76%) Fortinet