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 26 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,401 7,807 4,831
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 14.51% 16.60% 16.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.62% 20.12% 17.45%
Number of salaries quoted 3,673 3,010 3,342
10th Percentile £25,750 £27,180 £26,250
25th Percentile £29,000 £35,750 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £56,750 £67,500 £63,938
90th Percentile £70,000 £81,250 £76,225
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% - -

All Process and 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 30,647 38,810 27,688
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.35% 82.51% 93.85%
Number of salaries quoted 18,664 18,874 20,649
10th Percentile £27,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £32,500 £40,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £54,439 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -12.75% +3.69% -0.19%
75th Percentile £65,000 £69,918 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025. 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 -2 1,422 £40,000 -20.00% 1,574
North of England -2 1,345 £45,000 - 1,004
Midlands +2 974 £38,000 -24.00% 755
North West -3 727 £48,000 -3.97% 566
South West +1 600 £38,500 -30.00% 508
West Midlands +1 582 £42,500 -20.04% 445
Yorkshire -4 486 £33,000 -26.67% 341
East of England -2 483 £34,550 -34.19% 469
East Midlands +3 392 £32,500 -7.14% 291
Scotland -4 349 £33,500 -33.00% 238
Wales +5 185 £47,811 -4.38% 113
North East 0 132 £33,500 +2.29% 100
Northern Ireland +4 64 £59,000 +15.43% 72
Isle of Man +2 2 £62,500 +150.00% 2
Channel Islands -3 1 £45,000 +5.88%
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
1 274 (5.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 214 (3.96%) SharePoint
3 53 (0.98%) Confluence
4 42 (0.78%) IIS
5 29 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 27 (0.50%) CMS
7 25 (0.46%) Apache
7 25 (0.46%) WordPress
8 10 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (0.19%) Camunda
9 8 (0.15%) nginx
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.11%) HCL Notes
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 5 (0.093%) Apache Solr
12 5 (0.093%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.093%) Drupal
13 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2013
13 4 (0.074%) SAS
13 4 (0.074%) Umbraco
Applications
1 474 (8.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 473 (8.76%) Microsoft Office
3 74 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.43%) AutoCAD
5 21 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
6 19 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.33%) MS Visio
8 17 (0.31%) Simulink
9 14 (0.26%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
10 12 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 11 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
12 9 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
12 9 (0.17%) Mathcad
13 5 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
13 5 (0.093%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.093%) Revit
13 5 (0.093%) Trello
14 4 (0.074%) CATIA
14 4 (0.074%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 91 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 61 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.57%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
5 18 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
6 16 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
6 16 (0.30%) SAP Business One
7 15 (0.28%) SAP FI
8 13 (0.24%) Sage X3
8 13 (0.24%) Shopify
9 12 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
10 11 (0.20%) SAP CO
10 11 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
10 11 (0.20%) SAP WM
10 11 (0.20%) Unit4 Business World
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
12 8 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 8 (0.15%) Oracle Financials
13 7 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
14 5 (0.093%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,144 (21.18%) Azure
2 805 (14.90%) Microsoft 365
3 434 (8.04%) AWS
4 378 (7.00%) Power Platform
5 276 (5.11%) SaaS
6 228 (4.22%) Entra ID
7 148 (2.74%) GCP
8 128 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
9 82 (1.52%) GitHub
10 70 (1.30%) Power Automate
11 69 (1.28%) Serverless
12 62 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
13 48 (0.89%) Azure Data Factory
14 44 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
14 44 (0.81%) OneDrive
15 43 (0.80%) Amazon S3
16 41 (0.76%) PowerApps
17 39 (0.72%) PaaS
18 36 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
19 33 (0.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 330 (6.11%) DNS
2 292 (5.41%) DHCP
3 277 (5.13%) Firewall
4 170 (3.15%) TCP/IP
5 161 (2.98%) VPN
6 149 (2.76%) Wi-Fi
7 145 (2.68%) LAN
8 127 (2.35%) WAN
9 107 (1.98%) Broadband
10 93 (1.72%) VLAN
11 80 (1.48%) VoIP
12 62 (1.15%) Remote Desktop
13 50 (0.93%) Network Security
13 50 (0.93%) Wireless
14 38 (0.70%) SAN
15 32 (0.59%) Ethernet
16 31 (0.57%) Internet
17 22 (0.41%) SD-WAN
18 19 (0.35%) Unified Communications
19 17 (0.31%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 337 (6.24%) Power BI
2 261 (4.83%) SQL Server
3 120 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
4 115 (2.13%) MySQL
5 108 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 96 (1.78%) Data Lake
7 86 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
8 74 (1.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 64 (1.18%) SAP BW
10 59 (1.09%) Data Warehouse
11 48 (0.89%) NoSQL
11 48 (0.89%) Tableau
12 43 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 38 (0.70%) GIS
14 36 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
15 29 (0.54%) MongoDB
16 28 (0.52%) Metadata
16 28 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
17 27 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
18 26 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 199 (3.68%) Git
2 178 (3.30%) JIRA
3 47 (0.87%) Jenkins
4 34 (0.63%) GitLab
5 31 (0.57%) Selenium
6 23 (0.43%) Octopus Deploy
7 22 (0.41%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.35%) JUnit
8 19 (0.35%) TeamCity
9 18 (0.33%) Maven
10 14 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 14 (0.26%) SonarQube
11 13 (0.24%) Robot Framework
12 12 (0.22%) Snyk
13 10 (0.19%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
14 9 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
15 8 (0.15%) Cucumber
15 8 (0.15%) LabVIEW
16 7 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 2,965 (54.90%) Social Skills
2 1,525 (28.24%) Analytical Skills
3 1,191 (22.05%) Finance
4 388 (7.18%) Retail
5 351 (6.50%) Manufacturing
6 327 (6.05%) Marketing
7 261 (4.83%) Organisational Skills
8 250 (4.63%) Law
9 208 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 180 (3.33%) Legal
11 178 (3.30%) Public Sector
12 148 (2.74%) Banking
13 145 (2.68%) Telecoms
14 129 (2.39%) Electronics
15 116 (2.15%) Games
16 101 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
17 100 (1.85%) Automotive
18 76 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
19 66 (1.22%) Aerospace
20 53 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 899 (16.65%) Analyst
2 642 (11.89%) IT Support
3 608 (11.26%) Senior
4 502 (9.29%) Support Engineer
5 423 (7.83%) Developer
6 396 (7.33%) Lead
7 358 (6.63%) Support Analyst
8 309 (5.72%) Technical Support
9 214 (3.96%) 2nd Line Support
9 214 (3.96%) Technical Engineer
10 202 (3.74%) IT Engineer
11 199 (3.68%) Technical Support Engineer
12 198 (3.67%) Systems Engineer
13 173 (3.20%) IT Support Engineer
14 170 (3.15%) Support Technician
15 169 (3.13%) Business Analyst
16 153 (2.83%) IT Analyst
17 146 (2.70%) Applications Support
18 140 (2.59%) Architect
19 135 (2.50%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 232 (4.30%) .NET
2 199 (3.68%) HTML
3 175 (3.24%) CSS
4 162 (3.00%) React
5 105 (1.94%) REST
6 85 (1.57%) RESTful
7 72 (1.33%) ASP.NET
8 64 (1.18%) Node.js
9 63 (1.17%) JSON
10 55 (1.02%) XML
11 52 (0.96%) Spring
12 50 (0.93%) AngularJS
13 45 (0.83%) .NET Framework
14 41 (0.76%) Django
15 40 (0.74%) SOAP
16 37 (0.69%) Vue
17 35 (0.65%) EDI
18 34 (0.63%) Spring Boot
19 33 (0.61%) Entity Framework
20 32 (0.59%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 507 (9.39%) Driving Licence
2 415 (7.68%) Onboarding
3 306 (5.67%) Self-Motivation
4 212 (3.93%) Management Information System
5 187 (3.46%) Analytical Mindset
6 141 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
7 98 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 96 (1.78%) FMCG
9 90 (1.67%) Product Ownership
10 72 (1.33%) Virtual Team
11 68 (1.26%) Operational Technology
12 60 (1.11%) Cloud Native
13 52 (0.96%) e-Learning
14 48 (0.89%) Algorithms
15 47 (0.87%) Renewable Energy
16 44 (0.81%) SCADA
17 43 (0.80%) EPoS
18 40 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
19 38 (0.70%) Mobile App
20 37 (0.69%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 968 (17.92%) Windows
2 387 (7.17%) Windows Server
3 287 (5.31%) Linux
4 152 (2.81%) Windows 10
5 99 (1.83%) Windows Server 2016
6 73 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 60 (1.11%) Android
8 50 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 39 (0.72%) Unix
10 24 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 21 (0.39%) Windows 7
12 13 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.17%) VMS
14 6 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 5 (0.093%) Mac OS X
15 5 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
16 4 (0.074%) CentOS
16 4 (0.074%) Ubuntu
16 4 (0.074%) Windows 8
17 2 (0.037%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,035 (19.16%) Customer Service
2 1,003 (18.57%) Continuous Improvement
3 749 (13.87%) Agile
4 506 (9.37%) Analytics
5 489 (9.05%) Project Management
6 487 (9.02%) Mentoring
7 453 (8.39%) Decision-Making
8 438 (8.11%) Business Intelligence
9 426 (7.89%) ERP
10 425 (7.87%) ITIL
11 376 (6.96%) Cybersecurity
11 376 (6.96%) DevOps
12 327 (6.05%) CRM
13 326 (6.04%) CI/CD
14 318 (5.89%) Process Improvement
15 311 (5.76%) Change Management
16 310 (5.74%) Stakeholder Management
17 305 (5.65%) AI
18 304 (5.63%) Data Analysis
19 303 (5.61%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 818 (15.15%) SQL
2 432 (8.00%) Python
3 293 (5.42%) C#
4 290 (5.37%) JavaScript
5 244 (4.52%) PowerShell
6 181 (3.35%) Java
7 92 (1.70%) PHP
8 87 (1.61%) C++
9 65 (1.20%) TypeScript
10 57 (1.06%) T-SQL
11 46 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 42 (0.78%) Bash
13 38 (0.70%) C
14 30 (0.56%) VBA
15 29 (0.54%) MATLAB
16 19 (0.35%) R
17 18 (0.33%) Go
18 16 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
18 16 (0.30%) Perl
19 13 (0.24%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,214 (22.48%) Degree
2 411 (7.61%) Security Cleared
3 286 (5.30%) SC Cleared
4 158 (2.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 157 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 121 (2.24%) DBS Check
7 107 (1.98%) Master's Degree
8 101 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
9 92 (1.70%) DV Cleared
10 86 (1.59%) HND
11 84 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
12 72 (1.33%) HNC
13 60 (1.11%) Network+ Certification
14 59 (1.09%) A+ Certification
14 59 (1.09%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 57 (1.06%) ACCA
15 57 (1.06%) CCNA
16 50 (0.93%) CIMA
17 36 (0.67%) CISSP
18 34 (0.63%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 228 (4.22%) QA
2 205 (3.80%) Data Quality
3 149 (2.76%) GDPR
4 142 (2.63%) Cyber Essentials
5 100 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 98 (1.81%) PCI DSS
7 93 (1.72%) SLA
8 82 (1.52%) Accessibility
9 37 (0.69%) NIST
10 28 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 26 (0.48%) ISO 9001
12 22 (0.41%) PMO
13 18 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 15288
14 9 (0.17%) Software Quality Assurance
15 7 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 7 (0.13%) ISO 13485
15 7 (0.13%) WCAG
16 6 (0.11%) GRC
16 6 (0.11%) HIPAA
System Software
1 637 (11.79%) Active Directory
2 214 (3.96%) Hyper-V
3 176 (3.26%) Docker
4 114 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.63%) Terminal Server
6 53 (0.98%) Firmware
7 23 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
8 19 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 19 (0.35%) vSphere
9 15 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 13 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
11 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.093%) HDFS
13 4 (0.074%) KVM
13 4 (0.074%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.056%) VMware Workstation
14 3 (0.056%) XenApp
15 2 (0.037%) GPFS
15 2 (0.037%) Lustre
15 2 (0.037%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 217 (4.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 172 (3.18%) Terraform
3 147 (2.72%) Kubernetes
4 58 (1.07%) Ansible
5 42 (0.78%) BMC PATROL
6 37 (0.69%) SCCM
7 34 (0.63%) Grafana
8 22 (0.41%) Prometheus
9 15 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.26%) vCenter Server
11 13 (0.24%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.19%) AWS Copilot
12 10 (0.19%) Nagios
12 10 (0.19%) ZABBIX
13 8 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
14 7 (0.13%) PaperCut
14 7 (0.13%) QRadar
15 6 (0.11%) Control-M
16 5 (0.093%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 1,422 (26.33%) Microsoft
2 345 (6.39%) SAP
3 235 (4.35%) VMware
4 179 (3.31%) Oracle
5 177 (3.28%) Cisco
6 132 (2.44%) Veeam
7 123 (2.28%) Google
8 116 (2.15%) Splunk
9 106 (1.96%) ServiceNow
9 106 (1.96%) SolarWinds
10 102 (1.89%) Salesforce
11 89 (1.65%) Tanium
12 88 (1.63%) Brocade
12 88 (1.63%) Nimble Storage
13 80 (1.48%) BT
14 69 (1.28%) Sage
15 65 (1.20%) Databricks
16 55 (1.02%) Apple
17 51 (0.94%) Adobe
18 49 (0.91%) Siemens