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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,979 6,783 5,205
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 11.76% 18.55% 15.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.91% 20.95% 17.76%
Number of salaries quoted 3,407 2,732 3,346
10th Percentile £26,170 £28,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £29,000 £36,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,662 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.68% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £57,250 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £71,250 £82,500 £75,000
UK median annual salary £46,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -16.36% - -3.13%

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 33,392 32,378 29,303
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.87% 88.54% 89.15%
Number of salaries quoted 19,133 14,700 21,744
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £33,375 £41,250 £38,039
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,778
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 7 January 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 7 January 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
South East -3 1,334 £42,500 -19.05% 988
North of England -16 1,237 £45,000 -5.26% 633
Midlands -13 903 £39,000 -22.00% 412
North West -13 690 £47,683 - 298
South West 0 583 £40,000 -27.27% 359
West Midlands -16 535 £42,735 -22.30% 213
Yorkshire -4 435 £34,500 -20.69% 240
East of England -8 409 £35,000 -31.33% 345
East Midlands +1 367 £35,000 -2.10% 194
Scotland -7 328 £33,500 -33.00% 113
Wales +5 153 £47,500 -5.00% 104
North East 0 112 £33,500 -33.00% 104
Northern Ireland 0 56 £50,000 -16.67% 44
Isle of Man +2 1 £62,500 +150.00% 1
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
1 277 (5.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 209 (4.20%) SharePoint
3 48 (0.96%) IIS
4 46 (0.92%) Confluence
5 22 (0.44%) WordPress
6 20 (0.40%) Apache
6 20 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.40%) CMS
7 13 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
8 8 (0.16%) nginx
8 8 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.12%) Drupal
9 6 (0.12%) HCL Notes
10 5 (0.10%) SAS
11 4 (0.080%) Apache Solr
11 4 (0.080%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.080%) Camunda
11 4 (0.080%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
12 3 (0.060%) govService
Applications
1 433 (8.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 417 (8.38%) Microsoft Office
3 69 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
5 25 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.38%) AutoCAD
7 16 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
7 16 (0.32%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 12 (0.24%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.24%) SOLIDWORKS
10 9 (0.18%) Adobe Premiere
11 8 (0.16%) Simulink
12 5 (0.10%) Adobe After Effects
13 4 (0.080%) Autodesk Inventor
13 4 (0.080%) CATIA
13 4 (0.080%) Fusion 360
13 4 (0.080%) Oracle Smart View
13 4 (0.080%) Revit
13 4 (0.080%) Trello
Business Applications
1 89 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 59 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.62%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
5 18 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
6 17 (0.34%) SAP CO
7 16 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
8 15 (0.30%) SAP FI
9 13 (0.26%) Sage X3
10 11 (0.22%) SAP Business One
10 11 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
11 10 (0.20%) Shopify
12 8 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 8 (0.16%) Oracle Financials
13 7 (0.14%) iTrent
14 6 (0.12%) Markit EDM
14 6 (0.12%) Sage 200
15 5 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,080 (21.69%) Azure
2 776 (15.59%) Microsoft 365
3 402 (8.07%) AWS
4 357 (7.17%) Power Platform
5 278 (5.58%) SaaS
6 215 (4.32%) Entra ID
7 145 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
8 123 (2.47%) GCP
9 98 (1.97%) GitHub
10 74 (1.49%) Serverless
11 70 (1.41%) Power Automate
12 53 (1.06%) Dynamics 365
13 52 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
14 47 (0.94%) Amazon S3
14 47 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
15 42 (0.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 42 (0.84%) OneDrive
16 41 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
16 41 (0.82%) Snowflake
17 40 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 345 (6.93%) DNS
2 301 (6.05%) DHCP
3 233 (4.68%) Firewall
4 149 (2.99%) TCP/IP
5 138 (2.77%) VPN
6 132 (2.65%) Wi-Fi
7 115 (2.31%) WAN
8 107 (2.15%) LAN
9 90 (1.81%) VLAN
10 81 (1.63%) VoIP
11 79 (1.59%) Broadband
12 61 (1.23%) Wireless
13 60 (1.21%) Remote Desktop
14 48 (0.96%) Network Security
15 38 (0.76%) SAN
16 34 (0.68%) Internet
17 32 (0.64%) SD-WAN
18 30 (0.60%) Unified Communications
19 25 (0.50%) Ethernet
20 16 (0.32%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 309 (6.21%) Power BI
2 227 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 119 (2.39%) Amazon RDS
4 98 (1.97%) Relational Database
5 89 (1.79%) MySQL
6 86 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
7 82 (1.65%) Data Lake
8 65 (1.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 64 (1.29%) SAP BW
10 61 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
11 57 (1.14%) NoSQL
12 46 (0.92%) Tableau
13 44 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 35 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 33 (0.66%) GIS
16 32 (0.64%) MongoDB
16 32 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
17 30 (0.60%) DynamoDB
18 29 (0.58%) Metadata
19 28 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 192 (3.86%) Git
2 161 (3.23%) JIRA
3 49 (0.98%) GitLab
4 41 (0.82%) Jenkins
5 32 (0.64%) Selenium
6 21 (0.42%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.32%) LabVIEW
8 15 (0.30%) Bitbucket
8 15 (0.30%) Robot Framework
9 14 (0.28%) Snyk
9 14 (0.28%) SonarQube
9 14 (0.28%) TeamCity
10 13 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
11 11 (0.22%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.22%) JUnit
11 11 (0.22%) Maven
12 9 (0.18%) Burp Suite
12 9 (0.18%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.18%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,685 (53.93%) Social Skills
2 1,396 (28.04%) Analytical Skills
3 1,087 (21.83%) Finance
4 323 (6.49%) Retail
5 315 (6.33%) Manufacturing
6 283 (5.68%) Marketing
7 244 (4.90%) Organisational Skills
8 186 (3.74%) Public Sector
9 180 (3.62%) Law
10 170 (3.41%) Legal
11 144 (2.89%) Telecoms
12 140 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 132 (2.65%) Electronics
14 110 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
15 101 (2.03%) Banking
16 82 (1.65%) Automotive
17 77 (1.55%) Games
18 62 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
19 59 (1.18%) Aerospace
20 58 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 852 (17.11%) Analyst
2 629 (12.63%) IT Support
3 566 (11.37%) Senior
4 509 (10.22%) Support Engineer
5 393 (7.89%) Developer
6 329 (6.61%) Lead
7 313 (6.29%) Support Analyst
8 262 (5.26%) Technical Support
9 228 (4.58%) IT Engineer
10 211 (4.24%) Business Analyst
11 199 (4.00%) IT Support Engineer
12 179 (3.60%) Technical Engineer
13 176 (3.53%) Systems Engineer
14 174 (3.49%) 2nd Line Support
15 169 (3.39%) Support Technician
16 165 (3.31%) Technical Support Engineer
17 141 (2.83%) Applications Support
18 137 (2.75%) Architect
19 135 (2.71%) Consultant
20 130 (2.61%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (4.18%) .NET
2 174 (3.49%) HTML
3 157 (3.15%) React
4 140 (2.81%) CSS
5 93 (1.87%) REST
6 76 (1.53%) RESTful
7 66 (1.33%) Node.js
8 54 (1.08%) ASP.NET
9 53 (1.06%) JSON
10 51 (1.02%) SOAP
11 50 (1.00%) AngularJS
12 47 (0.94%) XML
13 39 (0.78%) Vue
14 38 (0.76%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.74%) Django
16 34 (0.68%) Spring
17 32 (0.64%) EDI
18 27 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
19 25 (0.50%) Entity Framework
20 24 (0.48%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 483 (9.70%) Driving Licence
2 394 (7.91%) Onboarding
3 310 (6.23%) Self-Motivation
4 171 (3.43%) Management Information System
5 160 (3.21%) Analytical Mindset
6 152 (3.05%) Legacy Systems
7 95 (1.91%) Product Ownership
8 84 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 66 (1.33%) Cloud Native
10 61 (1.23%) FMCG
11 58 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
12 55 (1.10%) Virtual Team
13 42 (0.84%) e-Learning
14 39 (0.78%) Mobile App
15 38 (0.76%) Social Media
16 37 (0.74%) EPoS
16 37 (0.74%) Video Conferencing
17 34 (0.68%) IoT
18 33 (0.66%) Data Structures
19 31 (0.62%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 916 (18.40%) Windows
2 386 (7.75%) Windows Server
3 309 (6.21%) Linux
4 118 (2.37%) Windows 10
5 109 (2.19%) Windows Server 2016
6 67 (1.35%) Android
7 56 (1.12%) Mac OS
8 54 (1.08%) Apple iOS
9 37 (0.74%) Unix
10 27 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 20 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 15 (0.30%) Windows 7
13 13 (0.26%) VMS
14 9 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 4 (0.080%) CentOS
15 4 (0.080%) Mac OS X
15 4 (0.080%) Windows 8
15 4 (0.080%) Windows Server 2008
16 3 (0.060%) Ubuntu
17 2 (0.040%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 912 (18.32%) Continuous Improvement
2 906 (18.20%) Customer Service
3 678 (13.62%) Agile
4 497 (9.98%) Project Management
5 450 (9.04%) Mentoring
6 441 (8.86%) Analytics
7 428 (8.60%) Decision-Making
8 419 (8.42%) Business Intelligence
9 396 (7.95%) ITIL
10 387 (7.77%) ERP
11 376 (7.55%) DevOps
12 344 (6.91%) Change Management
13 324 (6.51%) CI/CD
14 303 (6.09%) CRM
14 303 (6.09%) Cybersecurity
14 303 (6.09%) Stakeholder Management
15 296 (5.94%) Computer Science
16 295 (5.92%) Process Improvement
17 289 (5.80%) AI
18 266 (5.34%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 763 (15.32%) SQL
2 435 (8.74%) Python
3 272 (5.46%) JavaScript
4 263 (5.28%) C#
5 253 (5.08%) PowerShell
6 155 (3.11%) Java
7 76 (1.53%) PHP
8 65 (1.31%) C++
9 56 (1.12%) TypeScript
10 50 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 50 (1.00%) T-SQL
11 48 (0.96%) Bash
12 36 (0.72%) C
13 28 (0.56%) MATLAB
14 22 (0.44%) R
14 22 (0.44%) VBA
15 18 (0.36%) Go
15 18 (0.36%) PL/SQL
16 17 (0.34%) Perl
17 15 (0.30%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,176 (23.62%) Degree
2 416 (8.36%) Security Cleared
3 290 (5.82%) SC Cleared
4 146 (2.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 142 (2.85%) DBS Check
6 137 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 106 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
8 79 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
9 77 (1.55%) DV Cleared
9 77 (1.55%) Master's Degree
10 64 (1.29%) ACCA
11 59 (1.18%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 58 (1.16%) CCNA
12 58 (1.16%) HND
13 56 (1.12%) CIMA
14 53 (1.06%) A+ Certification
15 47 (0.94%) Network+ Certification
16 44 (0.88%) AWS Certification
17 39 (0.78%) HNC
18 36 (0.72%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 258 (5.18%) QA
2 223 (4.48%) Data Quality
3 164 (3.29%) Cyber Essentials
4 122 (2.45%) GDPR
5 115 (2.31%) PCI DSS
6 101 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 85 (1.71%) Accessibility
8 72 (1.45%) SLA
9 40 (0.80%) NIST
10 30 (0.60%) ISO 9001
11 28 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 26 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.32%) PMO
14 9 (0.18%) ISO 13485
15 7 (0.14%) Software Quality Assurance
15 7 (0.14%) WCAG
16 6 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 6 (0.12%) SOC 2
17 5 (0.10%) COBIT
17 5 (0.10%) GLBA
System Software
1 616 (12.37%) Active Directory
2 215 (4.32%) Hyper-V
3 176 (3.53%) Docker
4 114 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 96 (1.93%) Terminal Server
6 36 (0.72%) Firmware
7 23 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
9 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 17 (0.34%) vSphere
10 7 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
11 5 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.080%) KVM
13 3 (0.060%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.040%) RHEV
14 2 (0.040%) Xen
15 1 (0.020%) HDFS
15 1 (0.020%) iptables
15 1 (0.020%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 1 (0.020%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 197 (3.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 179 (3.60%) Terraform
3 120 (2.41%) Kubernetes
4 58 (1.16%) Ansible
5 47 (0.94%) SCCM
6 42 (0.84%) BMC PATROL
7 37 (0.74%) Grafana
8 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
9 21 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (0.34%) vCenter Server
11 14 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
12 13 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
13 12 (0.24%) Nagios
14 10 (0.20%) AWS Copilot
15 9 (0.18%) Nmap
15 9 (0.18%) ZABBIX
16 7 (0.14%) Control-M
16 7 (0.14%) FortiGate
17 6 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
18 5 (0.10%) Autotask
Vendors
1 1,361 (27.33%) Microsoft
2 327 (6.57%) SAP
3 245 (4.92%) VMware
4 192 (3.86%) Oracle
5 155 (3.11%) Cisco
6 147 (2.95%) Veeam
7 122 (2.45%) SolarWinds
8 116 (2.33%) Splunk
9 98 (1.97%) Tanium
10 96 (1.93%) Brocade
10 96 (1.93%) Google
10 96 (1.93%) Nimble Storage
11 87 (1.75%) ServiceNow
12 83 (1.67%) Salesforce
13 69 (1.39%) Sage
14 62 (1.25%) Apple
15 61 (1.23%) Databricks
16 59 (1.18%) Adobe
17 57 (1.14%) BT
18 44 (0.88%) HubSpot