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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,834 6,403 8,326
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.47% 18.72% 14.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.06% 21.67% 18.83%
Number of salaries quoted 4,858 3,500 3,777
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,625 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -2.21%
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £71,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -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 56,679 29,550 44,225
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.22% 86.40% 77.99%
Number of salaries quoted 40,228 16,042 25,787
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -8.65% -5.04%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £66,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 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 4 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 1,714 £45,000 +10.67% 1,428
South East -4 1,625 £42,500 - 1,454
Midlands -7 1,243 £42,500 +11.84% 1,047
North West -6 887 £45,125 +0.28% 800
South West -4 847 £45,000 +28.57% 875
East of England -4 696 £42,500 +21.43% 719
West Midlands -8 692 £42,500 -0.98% 659
Yorkshire -8 557 £42,500 +21.43% 444
East Midlands -9 549 £41,000 +17.14% 390
Scotland 0 308 £33,500 -30.93% 570
North East -2 270 £48,500 +23.57% 209
Northern Ireland -1 224 £67,500 +14.41% 398
Wales -18 191 £42,500 -11.68% 166
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
1 414 (6.06%) SharePoint
2 345 (5.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 62 (0.91%) Confluence
4 61 (0.89%) CMS
5 54 (0.79%) IIS
6 31 (0.45%) WordPress
7 30 (0.44%) Apache
8 27 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.23%) Apache Spark
11 13 (0.19%) SAS
12 10 (0.15%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.13%) nginx
13 9 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 8 (0.12%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.10%) OpenEdge
15 7 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
16 5 (0.073%) CICS
16 5 (0.073%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.059%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 449 (6.57%) Microsoft Office
2 430 (6.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 59 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 51 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 37 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 33 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 28 (0.41%) Simulink
8 25 (0.37%) AutoCAD
9 17 (0.25%) Revit
10 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.12%) EPLAN
11 7 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 7 (0.10%) Fusion 360
12 6 (0.088%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.088%) Navisworks
12 6 (0.088%) Sketch
12 6 (0.088%) SOLIDWORKS
13 5 (0.073%) Lightworks
14 4 (0.059%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 71 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 54 (0.79%) NetSuite
3 48 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
4 30 (0.44%) Shopify
5 18 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
6 17 (0.25%) SAP Business One
7 16 (0.23%) Magento
7 16 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 15 (0.22%) Workday HCM
9 14 (0.20%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 14 (0.20%) SAP ERP
10 12 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 10 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 10 (0.15%) Sage X3
12 9 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
12 9 (0.13%) Sage 50
13 8 (0.12%) Primavera
14 7 (0.10%) NEC Housing
14 7 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,354 (19.81%) Azure
2 1,167 (17.08%) Microsoft 365
3 683 (9.99%) AWS
4 566 (8.28%) Power Platform
5 355 (5.19%) Entra ID
6 242 (3.54%) SaaS
7 229 (3.35%) GCP
8 172 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
9 149 (2.18%) PowerApps
10 145 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
11 136 (1.99%) GitHub
12 131 (1.92%) Power Automate
13 121 (1.77%) Serverless
14 90 (1.32%) OneDrive
15 83 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
16 60 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
17 59 (0.86%) Amazon S3
18 57 (0.83%) Google Workspace
19 56 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
20 54 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 428 (6.26%) Firewall
2 417 (6.10%) DNS
3 358 (5.24%) DHCP
4 265 (3.88%) VPN
5 231 (3.38%) TCP/IP
6 190 (2.78%) WAN
7 181 (2.65%) LAN
8 180 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
9 165 (2.41%) Wireless
10 140 (2.05%) VLAN
11 117 (1.71%) Network Security
12 110 (1.61%) VoIP
13 76 (1.11%) Broadband
14 48 (0.70%) Internet
15 31 (0.45%) SSL
16 26 (0.38%) HTTP
16 26 (0.38%) SAN
17 25 (0.37%) SD-WAN
18 23 (0.34%) MQTT
19 22 (0.32%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 453 (6.63%) Power BI
2 326 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 133 (1.95%) MySQL
4 127 (1.86%) Amazon RDS
5 113 (1.65%) Relational Database
6 103 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
7 90 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
8 79 (1.16%) NoSQL
8 79 (1.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 69 (1.01%) Tableau
10 60 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 49 (0.72%) MongoDB
12 47 (0.69%) Electronic Patient Records
13 46 (0.67%) Power Query
14 44 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
14 44 (0.64%) Big Data
15 42 (0.61%) Data Lake
16 29 (0.42%) DynamoDB
16 29 (0.42%) Metadata
17 26 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 290 (4.24%) Git
2 228 (3.34%) JIRA
3 76 (1.11%) GitLab
4 73 (1.07%) Jenkins
5 37 (0.54%) Eclipse
6 33 (0.48%) Subversion
7 29 (0.42%) Selenium
8 28 (0.41%) Cucumber
9 26 (0.38%) JUnit
10 25 (0.37%) Claude Code
11 23 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
12 22 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
13 21 (0.31%) Bitbucket
13 21 (0.31%) Postman
14 18 (0.26%) Cypress.io
15 14 (0.20%) SonarQube
16 13 (0.19%) Burp Suite
17 12 (0.18%) Visual Studio
18 11 (0.16%) LabVIEW
18 11 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 3,308 (48.41%) Social Skills
2 1,917 (28.05%) Analytical Skills
3 1,083 (15.85%) Finance
4 647 (9.47%) Manufacturing
5 444 (6.50%) Organisational Skills
6 383 (5.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 322 (4.71%) Law
8 306 (4.48%) Public Sector
9 297 (4.35%) Retail
10 292 (4.27%) Legal
11 253 (3.70%) Marketing
12 244 (3.57%) Electronics
13 231 (3.38%) Aerospace
14 153 (2.24%) Telecoms
15 141 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
16 131 (1.92%) Banking
17 106 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
18 85 (1.24%) Automotive
19 78 (1.14%) Military
20 74 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 902 (13.20%) Analyst
2 731 (10.70%) Senior
3 693 (10.14%) Developer
4 688 (10.07%) IT Support
5 545 (7.97%) Support Engineer
6 380 (5.56%) Lead
7 369 (5.40%) IT Engineer
8 341 (4.99%) Support Analyst
9 318 (4.65%) Consultant
10 277 (4.05%) IT Support Engineer
11 259 (3.79%) Support Technician
11 259 (3.79%) Technical Support
12 238 (3.48%) Systems Engineer
13 228 (3.34%) Architect
14 223 (3.26%) Software Engineer
15 222 (3.25%) IT Technician
16 221 (3.23%) Technical Engineer
17 199 (2.91%) Technical Support Engineer
18 193 (2.82%) Senior Developer
19 175 (2.56%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 349 (5.11%) .NET
2 267 (3.91%) Terraform
3 213 (3.12%) React
4 196 (2.87%) REST
5 193 (2.82%) HTML
6 141 (2.06%) CSS
7 127 (1.86%) RESTful
8 98 (1.43%) SOAP
9 94 (1.38%) Node.js
10 82 (1.20%) ASP.NET
11 81 (1.19%) Vue
11 81 (1.19%) Web Services
12 79 (1.16%) Middleware
12 79 (1.16%) XML
13 77 (1.13%) AngularJS
14 74 (1.08%) JSON
15 71 (1.04%) Spring
16 64 (0.94%) Spring Boot
17 54 (0.79%) OAuth
18 52 (0.76%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 562 (8.22%) Driving Licence
2 451 (6.60%) Onboarding
3 349 (5.11%) Self-Motivation
4 304 (4.45%) Management Information System
5 190 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 173 (2.53%) Product Ownership
7 155 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
8 122 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
9 117 (1.71%) Data Centre
10 93 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
10 93 (1.36%) Robotics
11 86 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
12 85 (1.24%) NHS
13 82 (1.20%) Security Posture
14 76 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
15 70 (1.02%) Mobile App
15 70 (1.02%) Virtual Team
16 69 (1.01%) Social Media
17 63 (0.92%) IoT
18 62 (0.91%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,119 (16.37%) Windows
2 513 (7.51%) Windows Server
3 460 (6.73%) Linux
4 126 (1.84%) Windows 10
5 110 (1.61%) Windows Server 2016
6 86 (1.26%) Android
7 84 (1.23%) Apple iOS
8 76 (1.11%) Mac OS
9 43 (0.63%) Unix
10 41 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.42%) Ubuntu
12 18 (0.26%) VMS
13 17 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 15 (0.22%) Debian
15 11 (0.16%) CentOS
15 11 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
17 7 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
18 6 (0.088%) Rocky
19 5 (0.073%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,847 (27.03%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,259 (18.42%) Customer Service
3 1,029 (15.06%) Agile
4 769 (11.25%) Decision-Making
5 703 (10.29%) Mentoring
6 695 (10.17%) CI/CD
7 676 (9.89%) AI
8 652 (9.54%) Stakeholder Management
9 579 (8.47%) DevOps
10 569 (8.33%) Analytics
11 561 (8.21%) ITIL
11 561 (8.21%) Software Engineering
12 556 (8.14%) Project Delivery
13 542 (7.93%) Collaborative Working
14 541 (7.92%) Cybersecurity
15 517 (7.57%) ERP
16 486 (7.11%) Business Intelligence
17 460 (6.73%) Project Management
18 429 (6.28%) CRM
19 406 (5.94%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,040 (15.22%) SQL
2 725 (10.61%) Python
3 433 (6.34%) JavaScript
4 432 (6.32%) C#
5 304 (4.45%) Java
6 285 (4.17%) PowerShell
7 192 (2.81%) TypeScript
8 188 (2.75%) C++
9 123 (1.80%) Bash
10 74 (1.08%) C
11 70 (1.02%) PHP
12 61 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 57 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 47 (0.69%) Ruby
15 46 (0.67%) Shell Script
16 42 (0.61%) Perl
17 40 (0.59%) PL/SQL
18 37 (0.54%) Go
19 36 (0.53%) Rust
20 35 (0.51%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,080 (15.80%) Degree
2 642 (9.39%) Security Cleared
3 454 (6.64%) SC Cleared
4 201 (2.94%) DBS Check
5 194 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
6 180 (2.63%) Microsoft Certification
7 176 (2.58%) DV Cleared
8 149 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
9 146 (2.14%) HNC
10 132 (1.93%) HND
11 125 (1.83%) Azure Certification
12 91 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
13 80 (1.17%) PMI Certification
14 73 (1.07%) CISSP
15 71 (1.04%) Chartered Engineer
16 63 (0.92%) A+ Certification
17 61 (0.89%) Master's Degree
18 60 (0.88%) CCNA
19 59 (0.86%) PMP
20 50 (0.73%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 453 (6.63%) QA
2 273 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 210 (3.07%) GDPR
4 175 (2.56%) Cyber Essentials
5 172 (2.52%) Accessibility
6 168 (2.46%) SLA
7 134 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 114 (1.67%) PCI DSS
9 95 (1.39%) NIST
10 35 (0.51%) ISO 9001
11 33 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 32 (0.47%) PMO
13 18 (0.26%) GMP
13 18 (0.26%) Good Clinical Practice
14 17 (0.25%) DO-254
15 15 (0.22%) GRC
15 15 (0.22%) NCSC
16 13 (0.19%) GxP
17 12 (0.18%) TickIT
17 12 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 778 (11.38%) Active Directory
2 294 (4.30%) Hyper-V
3 254 (3.72%) Docker
4 207 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.17%) Terminal Server
6 71 (1.04%) Firmware
7 38 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 32 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
9 28 (0.41%) vSphere
10 25 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 6 (0.088%) KVM
12 6 (0.088%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.073%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.073%) Squid
14 4 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.059%) XenApp
15 3 (0.044%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 3 (0.044%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.044%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 241 (3.53%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.22%) Kubernetes
3 107 (1.57%) Ansible
4 58 (0.85%) Grafana
5 54 (0.79%) SCCM
6 42 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
7 41 (0.60%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.31%) FortiGate
9 20 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
10 17 (0.25%) Puppet
11 14 (0.20%) BMC PATROL
11 14 (0.20%) Functional Safety
12 11 (0.16%) Kibana
12 11 (0.16%) Nagios
12 11 (0.16%) Nmap
13 10 (0.15%) logstash
13 10 (0.15%) Podman
13 10 (0.15%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
14 9 (0.13%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,080 (30.44%) Microsoft
2 337 (4.93%) VMware
3 190 (2.78%) SAP
4 181 (2.65%) Google
5 165 (2.41%) Oracle
6 141 (2.06%) Veeam
7 134 (1.96%) Cisco
8 124 (1.81%) Splunk
9 118 (1.73%) ServiceNow
9 118 (1.73%) Workday
10 101 (1.48%) SolarWinds
11 95 (1.39%) Salesforce
12 88 (1.29%) Tanium
13 81 (1.19%) Nimble Storage
14 80 (1.17%) Brocade
15 79 (1.16%) Databricks
16 78 (1.14%) Sage
17 68 (1.00%) Fortinet
18 58 (0.85%) Apple
19 55 (0.80%) SonicWALL