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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,903 5,152 10,068
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.20% 19.95% 15.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.19% 21.85% 18.23%
Number of salaries quoted 3,515 3,081 6,729
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £29,500 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £49,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.27% +8.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £65,000 £61,123
90th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -14.55% +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 43,800 23,580 55,218
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 73.24% 91.29% 84.50%
Number of salaries quoted 26,768 13,715 40,184
10th Percentile £28,500 £28,822 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -8.26%
75th Percentile £68,750 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £57,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% +9.09% -10.57%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 -18 1,300 £41,500 -9.78% 662
South East -7 1,198 £45,000 -11.71% 802
Midlands -19 900 £38,500 -18.95% 478
North West -17 672 £42,500 -15.00% 365
South West -5 555 £43,500 -5.95% 308
West Midlands -24 534 £42,500 -19.05% 278
Yorkshire -8 503 £36,000 -15.29% 222
East of England -9 453 £40,000 -20.00% 288
East Midlands -3 363 £35,000 -12.50% 199
Scotland -5 324 £33,500 -33.00% 127
North East -13 125 £45,497 +1.10% 92
Wales -10 111 £41,000 -18.64% 81
Northern Ireland -6 89 £35,000 -36.36% 19
Isle of Man -1 1 £62,500 +64.47% 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
1 287 (5.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 241 (4.92%) SharePoint
3 43 (0.88%) CMS
3 43 (0.88%) Confluence
4 29 (0.59%) IIS
5 22 (0.45%) WordPress
6 17 (0.35%) Apache
6 17 (0.35%) Apache Spark
7 14 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
8 12 (0.24%) SAS
9 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
9 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2010
10 8 (0.16%) nginx
11 7 (0.14%) Drupal
12 5 (0.10%) Anypoint
12 5 (0.10%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.082%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.082%) Moodle
Applications
1 336 (6.85%) Microsoft Office
2 307 (6.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 51 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 35 (0.71%) MS Visio
5 25 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 11 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
8 10 (0.20%) Photoshop
9 9 (0.18%) AutoCAD
10 8 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.16%) Fusion 360
11 4 (0.082%) Simulink
11 4 (0.082%) Trello
12 3 (0.061%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.061%) Elementor
13 2 (0.041%) Adobe Premiere
13 2 (0.041%) InDesign
13 2 (0.041%) Revit
13 2 (0.041%) Sketch
13 2 (0.041%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 41 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 32 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 25 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 15 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.29%) Shopify
6 13 (0.27%) Sage X3
6 13 (0.27%) SAP CO
7 12 (0.24%) Magento
8 11 (0.22%) iTrent
9 10 (0.20%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 7 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
10 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
11 6 (0.12%) SAP Business One
12 5 (0.10%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 5 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
13 4 (0.082%) Dynamics GP
13 4 (0.082%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.082%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.082%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 1,008 (20.56%) Azure
2 849 (17.32%) Microsoft 365
3 465 (9.48%) AWS
4 338 (6.89%) Power Platform
5 228 (4.65%) Entra ID
6 216 (4.41%) SaaS
7 138 (2.81%) GCP
8 131 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
9 112 (2.28%) Serverless
10 111 (2.26%) GitHub
11 77 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
11 77 (1.57%) Power Automate
12 72 (1.47%) Azure Data Factory
13 61 (1.24%) Amazon S3
14 60 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
15 56 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 56 (1.14%) Google Workspace
16 54 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
17 51 (1.04%) PaaS
18 46 (0.94%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 341 (6.95%) DNS
2 290 (5.91%) DHCP
3 285 (5.81%) Firewall
4 160 (3.26%) VPN
4 160 (3.26%) WAN
5 134 (2.73%) Wi-Fi
6 132 (2.69%) TCP/IP
7 127 (2.59%) LAN
8 107 (2.18%) Broadband
9 86 (1.75%) VLAN
10 81 (1.65%) Wireless
11 69 (1.41%) VoIP
12 57 (1.16%) Network Security
13 44 (0.90%) SD-WAN
14 36 (0.73%) Internet
15 35 (0.71%) Remote Desktop
16 32 (0.65%) SAN
17 25 (0.51%) Unified Communications
18 22 (0.45%) Wireshark
19 20 (0.41%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 285 (5.81%) Power BI
2 204 (4.16%) SQL Server
3 88 (1.79%) Amazon RDS
4 78 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
5 73 (1.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 72 (1.47%) Relational Database
7 68 (1.39%) NoSQL
8 66 (1.35%) MySQL
9 59 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
10 47 (0.96%) Power Query
11 46 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.92%) Tableau
13 42 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
14 37 (0.75%) DynamoDB
15 33 (0.67%) MongoDB
16 26 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
17 23 (0.47%) Metadata
18 22 (0.45%) Data Lake
19 20 (0.41%) Big Data
20 18 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 192 (3.92%) Git
2 151 (3.08%) JIRA
3 65 (1.33%) GitLab
4 51 (1.04%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.55%) Selenium
6 19 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
7 16 (0.33%) Maven
8 15 (0.31%) Cucumber
8 15 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 15 (0.31%) LabVIEW
9 14 (0.29%) SonarQube
9 14 (0.29%) Visual Studio
10 10 (0.20%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.20%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.20%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.20%) Robot Framework
11 9 (0.18%) JUnit
11 9 (0.18%) Snyk
12 7 (0.14%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.12%) Subversion
General
1 2,454 (50.05%) Social Skills
2 1,392 (28.39%) Analytical Skills
3 914 (18.64%) Finance
4 338 (6.89%) Organisational Skills
5 289 (5.89%) Manufacturing
6 233 (4.75%) Public Sector
7 214 (4.36%) Retail
8 212 (4.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 212 (4.32%) Marketing
9 196 (4.00%) Legal
10 167 (3.41%) Law
11 140 (2.86%) Banking
12 131 (2.67%) Electronics
13 126 (2.57%) Telecoms
14 95 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
15 84 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
16 74 (1.51%) Games
17 71 (1.45%) Automotive
18 54 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
19 53 (1.08%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 745 (15.19%) Analyst
2 685 (13.97%) IT Support
3 592 (12.07%) Support Engineer
4 521 (10.63%) Senior
5 380 (7.75%) Developer
6 357 (7.28%) IT Engineer
7 296 (6.04%) IT Support Engineer
8 252 (5.14%) Lead
9 232 (4.73%) Support Analyst
10 199 (4.06%) Support Technician
11 176 (3.59%) Technical Support
12 174 (3.55%) Systems Engineer
13 173 (3.53%) Business Analyst
14 163 (3.32%) 2nd Line Support
15 157 (3.20%) IT Technician
16 155 (3.16%) Architect
17 146 (2.98%) Consultant
18 140 (2.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 139 (2.83%) IT Support Technician
20 137 (2.79%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (3.41%) .NET
2 159 (3.24%) React
3 145 (2.96%) HTML
4 111 (2.26%) CSS
5 84 (1.71%) REST
6 82 (1.67%) Node.js
7 60 (1.22%) RESTful
8 55 (1.12%) Vue
9 47 (0.96%) SOAP
10 44 (0.90%) JSON
11 43 (0.88%) AngularJS
11 43 (0.88%) XML
12 41 (0.84%) Spring
13 38 (0.78%) OAuth
13 38 (0.78%) Spring Boot
14 36 (0.73%) ASP.NET
14 36 (0.73%) Middleware
15 32 (0.65%) Laravel
16 30 (0.61%) Django
16 30 (0.61%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 393 (8.02%) Driving Licence
2 305 (6.22%) Onboarding
3 274 (5.59%) Self-Motivation
4 171 (3.49%) Management Information System
5 123 (2.51%) Analytical Mindset
6 121 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
7 109 (2.22%) Product Ownership
8 91 (1.86%) Cloud Native
9 89 (1.82%) Data Centre
10 79 (1.61%) Social Media
11 66 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
12 63 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
13 59 (1.20%) Mobile App
14 53 (1.08%) Low-Code
15 42 (0.86%) Data Structures
16 37 (0.75%) EPoS
17 35 (0.71%) Life Science
17 35 (0.71%) Security Posture
18 34 (0.69%) Virtual Team
19 33 (0.67%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 906 (18.48%) Windows
2 392 (8.00%) Windows Server
3 318 (6.49%) Linux
4 133 (2.71%) Windows 10
5 115 (2.35%) Windows Server 2016
6 104 (2.12%) Android
7 68 (1.39%) Apple iOS
8 54 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 37 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
10 34 (0.69%) Unix
11 26 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.49%) CentOS
13 22 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
14 19 (0.39%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.31%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.24%) VMS
17 10 (0.20%) Windows 8
18 9 (0.18%) Debian
19 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
20 4 (0.082%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 978 (19.95%) Continuous Improvement
2 880 (17.95%) Customer Service
3 657 (13.40%) Agile
4 499 (10.18%) Decision-Making
5 459 (9.36%) Mentoring
6 428 (8.73%) ITIL
7 401 (8.18%) DevOps
8 392 (8.00%) CI/CD
9 385 (7.85%) Project Management
10 384 (7.83%) Analytics
11 373 (7.61%) Business Intelligence
12 352 (7.18%) AI
13 326 (6.65%) Coaching
14 311 (6.34%) Cybersecurity
15 290 (5.91%) Stakeholder Management
16 284 (5.79%) Computer Science
17 279 (5.69%) ERP
18 277 (5.65%) Process Improvement
19 276 (5.63%) Software Engineering
20 275 (5.61%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 632 (12.89%) SQL
2 514 (10.48%) Python
3 278 (5.67%) JavaScript
4 217 (4.43%) PowerShell
5 188 (3.83%) C#
6 176 (3.59%) Java
7 94 (1.92%) TypeScript
8 78 (1.59%) Bash
9 75 (1.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 65 (1.33%) PHP
11 62 (1.26%) C++
12 48 (0.98%) C
13 44 (0.90%) T-SQL
14 26 (0.53%) Kotlin
14 26 (0.53%) PL/SQL
15 25 (0.51%) Bicep
16 24 (0.49%) R
17 23 (0.47%) Go
18 20 (0.41%) Scala
19 19 (0.39%) VBA
Qualifications
1 880 (17.95%) Degree
2 343 (7.00%) Security Cleared
3 229 (4.67%) SC Cleared
4 180 (3.67%) DBS Check
5 148 (3.02%) Microsoft Certification
6 131 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 92 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 80 (1.63%) ACCA
9 70 (1.43%) CIMA
10 69 (1.41%) A+ Certification
11 68 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
12 62 (1.26%) DV Cleared
13 57 (1.16%) CCNA
14 54 (1.10%) Master's Degree
15 49 (1.00%) CISSP
16 47 (0.96%) HNC
17 44 (0.90%) PMI Certification
18 41 (0.84%) Network+ Certification
19 40 (0.82%) AWS Certification
20 36 (0.73%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 253 (5.16%) QA
2 210 (4.28%) Data Quality
3 148 (3.02%) GDPR
4 138 (2.81%) Cyber Essentials
5 116 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 105 (2.14%) PCI DSS
7 94 (1.92%) SLA
8 75 (1.53%) NIST
9 66 (1.35%) Accessibility
10 36 (0.73%) ISO 9001
11 31 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
12 22 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 15 (0.31%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.29%) GMP
15 8 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 8 (0.16%) PMO
16 6 (0.12%) COBIT
16 6 (0.12%) GRC
17 5 (0.10%) HIPAA
17 5 (0.10%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 630 (12.85%) Active Directory
2 206 (4.20%) Hyper-V
3 188 (3.83%) Docker
4 135 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (1.47%) Terminal Server
6 27 (0.55%) Firmware
7 21 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.31%) vSphere
10 11 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.20%) KVM
11 10 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
12 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 6 (0.12%) XenApp
13 4 (0.082%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.082%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 3 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
15 2 (0.041%) VMware NSX
16 1 (0.020%) Lustre
16 1 (0.020%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 208 (4.24%) Terraform
2 170 (3.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 140 (2.86%) Kubernetes
4 87 (1.77%) Ansible
5 61 (1.24%) SCCM
6 54 (1.10%) Grafana
7 33 (0.67%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.43%) BMC PATROL
9 18 (0.37%) Nagios
9 18 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 12 (0.24%) Autotask
11 12 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
11 12 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.20%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.20%) Nmap
13 9 (0.18%) Puppet
13 9 (0.18%) ZABBIX
14 8 (0.16%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.16%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 1,342 (27.37%) Microsoft
2 234 (4.77%) VMware
3 144 (2.94%) Oracle
4 127 (2.59%) Veeam
5 116 (2.37%) SAP
6 104 (2.12%) Cisco
6 104 (2.12%) Google
7 102 (2.08%) Splunk
8 100 (2.04%) SolarWinds
9 81 (1.65%) ServiceNow
10 74 (1.51%) Databricks
11 73 (1.49%) Tanium
12 72 (1.47%) Brocade
12 72 (1.47%) Nimble Storage
13 68 (1.39%) Adobe
14 67 (1.37%) Apple
15 58 (1.18%) Salesforce
16 56 (1.14%) Sage
17 48 (0.98%) Dell
18 36 (0.73%) HubSpot