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

6 months to
17 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 5,684 6,384 10,282
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.94% 18.89% 14.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.25% 21.40% 18.10%
Number of salaries quoted 4,241 3,477 6,216
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,500
25th Percentile £30,500 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £41,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.41% -7.78% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £73,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £49,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -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 50,527 29,838 56,810
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.54% 88.27% 79.94%
Number of salaries quoted 35,584 16,032 38,818
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,851 £36,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +5.26% +3.64% -8.84%

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 17 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 17 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 -9 1,498 £45,000 +5.88% 589
South East -3 1,396 £45,000 +5.88% 693
Midlands -8 1,059 £42,000 +1.20% 353
North West -7 794 £45,000 -2.17% 304
South West -6 687 £43,750 +16.67% 280
West Midlands -8 595 £42,500 -5.56% 196
East of England -4 574 £42,500 +21.43% 230
Yorkshire -10 512 £42,500 +21.43% 199
East Midlands -8 460 £35,000 -4.11% 157
Scotland -8 234 £33,000 -25.84% 91
North East -17 192 £52,315 +32.28% 95
Wales -20 144 £43,750 -6.42% 53
Northern Ireland -13 112 £38,500 -30.00% 17
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 6
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
1 361 (6.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 345 (6.07%) SharePoint
3 54 (0.95%) Confluence
4 51 (0.90%) CMS
5 35 (0.62%) IIS
6 29 (0.51%) WordPress
7 27 (0.48%) Apache
8 18 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.23%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.23%) SAS
10 11 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 10 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 8 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
12 8 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.12%) nginx
13 7 (0.12%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
15 5 (0.088%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 368 (6.47%) Microsoft Office
2 359 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 42 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
7 11 (0.19%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.088%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.088%) Fusion 360
11 5 (0.088%) Lightworks
11 5 (0.088%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.088%) Sketch
11 5 (0.088%) Trello
12 3 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.053%) LaTeX
12 3 (0.053%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 32 (0.56%) NetSuite
3 18 (0.32%) Shopify
4 16 (0.28%) Magento
4 16 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 15 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
7 13 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 11 (0.19%) SAP Business One
9 10 (0.18%) JDE EnterpriseOne
9 10 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
11 7 (0.12%) iTrent
11 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 5 (0.088%) Dynamics GP
12 5 (0.088%) Q-Pulse
12 5 (0.088%) Sage X3
12 5 (0.088%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,196 (21.04%) Azure
2 1,064 (18.72%) Microsoft 365
3 581 (10.22%) AWS
4 446 (7.85%) Power Platform
5 294 (5.17%) Entra ID
6 198 (3.48%) SaaS
7 195 (3.43%) GCP
8 132 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
9 119 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 107 (1.88%) Serverless
11 100 (1.76%) Power Automate
11 100 (1.76%) PowerApps
12 97 (1.71%) GitHub
13 76 (1.34%) OneDrive
14 61 (1.07%) Microsoft Copilot
15 48 (0.84%) Amazon S3
15 48 (0.84%) Microsoft Purview
16 45 (0.79%) IaaS
17 44 (0.77%) Google Workspace
17 44 (0.77%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 414 (7.28%) Firewall
2 376 (6.62%) DNS
3 322 (5.67%) DHCP
4 213 (3.75%) VPN
5 201 (3.54%) WAN
6 191 (3.36%) TCP/IP
7 177 (3.11%) LAN
8 159 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
9 139 (2.45%) Wireless
10 119 (2.09%) VLAN
11 111 (1.95%) Broadband
12 96 (1.69%) Network Security
13 91 (1.60%) VoIP
14 41 (0.72%) Internet
15 33 (0.58%) SD-WAN
16 26 (0.46%) HTTP
16 26 (0.46%) SAN
17 23 (0.40%) SSL
18 21 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
18 21 (0.37%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 356 (6.26%) Power BI
2 264 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 115 (2.02%) Amazon RDS
4 100 (1.76%) MySQL
5 88 (1.55%) Data Warehouse
6 82 (1.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 80 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
8 78 (1.37%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.18%) Tableau
10 64 (1.13%) NoSQL
10 64 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 46 (0.81%) Power Query
12 44 (0.77%) MongoDB
13 37 (0.65%) Big Data
14 35 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
15 33 (0.58%) Data Lake
16 26 (0.46%) DynamoDB
17 25 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
18 19 (0.33%) Star Schema
19 17 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 217 (3.82%) Git
2 171 (3.01%) JIRA
3 78 (1.37%) GitLab
4 46 (0.81%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.48%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (0.42%) Cucumber
7 22 (0.39%) Eclipse
7 22 (0.39%) Subversion
8 21 (0.37%) Selenium
9 17 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 17 (0.30%) JUnit
10 14 (0.25%) Postman
10 14 (0.25%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
12 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
13 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.16%) Visual Studio
14 8 (0.14%) JMeter
14 8 (0.14%) Maven
14 8 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,727 (47.98%) Social Skills
2 1,530 (26.92%) Analytical Skills
3 868 (15.27%) Finance
4 453 (7.97%) Manufacturing
5 380 (6.69%) Organisational Skills
6 251 (4.42%) Legal
7 246 (4.33%) Public Sector
8 244 (4.29%) Law
9 239 (4.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 228 (4.01%) Retail
11 181 (3.18%) Marketing
12 152 (2.67%) Electronics
13 145 (2.55%) Telecoms
14 114 (2.01%) Banking
15 104 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
16 103 (1.81%) Influencing Skills
17 84 (1.48%) Aerospace
18 76 (1.34%) Games
19 61 (1.07%) Advertising
20 56 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 783 (13.78%) Analyst
2 675 (11.88%) IT Support
3 627 (11.03%) Senior
4 582 (10.24%) Developer
5 579 (10.19%) Support Engineer
6 394 (6.93%) IT Engineer
7 300 (5.28%) Lead
8 296 (5.21%) IT Support Engineer
9 259 (4.56%) Support Technician
10 256 (4.50%) Support Analyst
11 236 (4.15%) Systems Engineer
12 213 (3.75%) Technical Support
13 209 (3.68%) IT Technician
14 194 (3.41%) Software Engineer
15 188 (3.31%) Technical Engineer
16 186 (3.27%) Consultant
17 179 (3.15%) Architect
18 171 (3.01%) Technical Support Engineer
19 166 (2.92%) Senior Developer
20 164 (2.89%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 272 (4.79%) .NET
2 196 (3.45%) React
3 170 (2.99%) HTML
4 158 (2.78%) REST
5 126 (2.22%) CSS
6 100 (1.76%) Node.js
7 95 (1.67%) RESTful
8 84 (1.48%) SOAP
9 75 (1.32%) Middleware
10 74 (1.30%) Vue
11 73 (1.28%) JSON
12 69 (1.21%) AngularJS
13 63 (1.11%) XML
14 51 (0.90%) Spring
15 50 (0.88%) ASP.NET
16 47 (0.83%) Spring Boot
16 47 (0.83%) Web Services
17 43 (0.76%) OAuth
18 37 (0.65%) EDI
19 36 (0.63%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 447 (7.86%) Driving Licence
2 329 (5.79%) Onboarding
3 263 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
4 216 (3.80%) Management Information System
5 153 (2.69%) Cloud Native
5 153 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
6 140 (2.46%) Product Ownership
7 101 (1.78%) Data Centre
8 95 (1.67%) Analytical Mindset
9 87 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
10 71 (1.25%) Security Posture
11 66 (1.16%) Social Media
12 65 (1.14%) Mobile App
13 62 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
14 57 (1.00%) IoT
15 56 (0.99%) Virtual Team
16 48 (0.84%) Algorithms
17 45 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
17 45 (0.79%) Robotics
18 44 (0.77%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,011 (17.79%) Windows
2 479 (8.43%) Windows Server
3 415 (7.30%) Linux
4 147 (2.59%) Windows 10
5 128 (2.25%) Windows Server 2016
6 110 (1.94%) Android
7 74 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 45 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.53%) Unix
11 27 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 27 (0.48%) Ubuntu
12 24 (0.42%) CentOS
13 16 (0.28%) VMS
14 15 (0.26%) Windows 7
15 14 (0.25%) Debian
16 10 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
17 9 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
18 7 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
18 7 (0.12%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,360 (23.93%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,048 (18.44%) Customer Service
3 800 (14.07%) Agile
4 572 (10.06%) Mentoring
5 569 (10.01%) Decision-Making
6 558 (9.82%) CI/CD
7 534 (9.39%) AI
8 497 (8.74%) ITIL
9 487 (8.57%) Analytics
10 475 (8.36%) DevOps
11 460 (8.09%) Cybersecurity
12 455 (8.00%) Software Engineering
13 447 (7.86%) Collaborative Working
14 418 (7.35%) Stakeholder Management
15 413 (7.27%) Business Intelligence
16 405 (7.13%) ERP
17 372 (6.54%) Project Delivery
18 343 (6.03%) Computer Science
19 342 (6.02%) Service Delivery
20 338 (5.95%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 881 (15.50%) SQL
2 638 (11.22%) Python
3 357 (6.28%) JavaScript
4 351 (6.18%) C#
5 251 (4.42%) Java
6 242 (4.26%) PowerShell
7 161 (2.83%) TypeScript
8 158 (2.78%) C++
9 105 (1.85%) Bash
10 74 (1.30%) PHP
11 62 (1.09%) C
12 58 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 48 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 34 (0.60%) Perl
14 34 (0.60%) PL/SQL
15 32 (0.56%) Go
15 32 (0.56%) Ruby
16 29 (0.51%) Kotlin
16 29 (0.51%) Shell Script
17 27 (0.48%) Rust
Qualifications
1 826 (14.53%) Degree
2 467 (8.22%) Security Cleared
3 343 (6.03%) SC Cleared
4 197 (3.47%) DBS Check
5 165 (2.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 163 (2.87%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
8 83 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
9 80 (1.41%) DV Cleared
10 74 (1.30%) Azure Certification
11 62 (1.09%) CCNA
12 61 (1.07%) ACCA
13 59 (1.04%) HNC
14 58 (1.02%) A+ Certification
15 57 (1.00%) CIMA
16 54 (0.95%) PMI Certification
17 53 (0.93%) Master's Degree
18 48 (0.84%) CISSP
19 47 (0.83%) PMP
20 43 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 340 (5.98%) QA
2 242 (4.26%) Data Quality
3 184 (3.24%) Cyber Essentials
4 157 (2.76%) GDPR
5 146 (2.57%) SLA
6 135 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 130 (2.29%) PCI DSS
8 114 (2.01%) Accessibility
9 89 (1.57%) NIST
10 39 (0.69%) ISO 9001
11 29 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 24 (0.42%) PMO
13 21 (0.37%) GMP
14 17 (0.30%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.26%) GRC
16 14 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.21%) TickIT
19 11 (0.19%) ISO 14001
20 9 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 713 (12.54%) Active Directory
2 277 (4.87%) Hyper-V
3 211 (3.71%) Docker
4 185 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.55%) Terminal Server
6 43 (0.76%) Firmware
7 31 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.48%) vSphere
9 22 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
11 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.12%) KVM
12 7 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.11%) XenApp
14 5 (0.088%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.070%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.070%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.053%) Squid
16 3 (0.053%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.053%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 223 (3.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 219 (3.85%) Terraform
3 201 (3.54%) Kubernetes
4 100 (1.76%) Ansible
5 61 (1.07%) Grafana
6 58 (1.02%) SCCM
7 41 (0.72%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.33%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.33%) Nagios
9 13 (0.23%) Puppet
10 11 (0.19%) Autotask
10 11 (0.19%) Kibana
11 10 (0.18%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.18%) logstash
11 10 (0.18%) Podman
11 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
11 10 (0.18%) QRadar
12 9 (0.16%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,754 (30.86%) Microsoft
2 307 (5.40%) VMware
3 143 (2.52%) Veeam
4 129 (2.27%) Google
5 128 (2.25%) Splunk
6 125 (2.20%) SAP
7 121 (2.13%) Cisco
8 114 (2.01%) SolarWinds
9 112 (1.97%) Oracle
10 95 (1.67%) Tanium
11 91 (1.60%) ServiceNow
12 89 (1.57%) Nimble Storage
13 88 (1.55%) Brocade
14 81 (1.43%) Salesforce
15 67 (1.18%) Databricks
16 59 (1.04%) Apple
17 53 (0.93%) Sage
18 52 (0.91%) Adobe
19 48 (0.84%) Fortinet
20 47 (0.83%) Dell