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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +7
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,603 6,323 10,779
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.92% 18.87% 14.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.21% 21.29% 18.16%
Number of salaries quoted 4,195 3,439 6,631
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,250
25th Percentile £30,500 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £41,750 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.80% -7.22% -8.50%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £76,250 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £49,479 £49,500
% change year-on-year -4.00% -0.04% -10.00%

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 50,003 29,702 59,344
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.70% 88.63% 80.26%
Number of salaries quoted 35,156 15,836 41,039
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £27,500
25th Percentile £39,875 £32,951 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,772 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.54% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,268 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.71%

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 10 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 10 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 -8 1,484 £45,000 +5.88% 693
South East -3 1,391 £45,000 +5.88% 825
Midlands -8 1,035 £42,000 +1.20% 418
North West -7 784 £45,000 -2.17% 361
South West -6 675 £44,000 +17.33% 333
West Midlands -9 586 £42,500 -5.56% 229
East of England -4 571 £44,000 +25.71% 267
Yorkshire -12 510 £42,500 +21.43% 228
East Midlands -10 446 £35,000 -2.78% 189
Scotland -7 234 £33,000 -27.69% 106
North East -16 190 £50,500 +27.69% 119
Wales -20 133 £43,750 -6.42% 55
Northern Ireland -14 100 £38,500 -30.00% 108
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 5
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
1 354 (6.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 342 (6.10%) SharePoint
3 54 (0.96%) Confluence
4 51 (0.91%) CMS
5 34 (0.61%) IIS
6 28 (0.50%) Apache
6 28 (0.50%) WordPress
7 18 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.27%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.21%) SAS
10 11 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
10 11 (0.20%) WebSphere
11 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
11 9 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.12%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.11%) nginx
15 5 (0.089%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.089%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 5 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 361 (6.44%) Microsoft Office
2 344 (6.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 52 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 42 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.18%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 6 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.089%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.089%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.089%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.089%) Trello
11 4 (0.071%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.071%) Sketch
12 3 (0.054%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.054%) Windchill
13 2 (0.036%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 54 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 31 (0.55%) NetSuite
3 20 (0.36%) Shopify
4 18 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 17 (0.30%) Magento
6 15 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
8 12 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 11 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.18%) SAP Business One
11 8 (0.14%) iTrent
11 8 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
12 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.089%) Dynamics GP
13 5 (0.089%) Q-Pulse
13 5 (0.089%) Sage X3
13 5 (0.089%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,189 (21.22%) Azure
2 1,045 (18.65%) Microsoft 365
3 584 (10.42%) AWS
4 436 (7.78%) Power Platform
5 285 (5.09%) Entra ID
6 192 (3.43%) GCP
7 190 (3.39%) SaaS
8 132 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
9 116 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
10 110 (1.96%) Serverless
11 96 (1.71%) GitHub
12 94 (1.68%) Power Automate
13 90 (1.61%) PowerApps
14 74 (1.32%) OneDrive
15 55 (0.98%) Microsoft Copilot
16 50 (0.89%) Amazon S3
17 47 (0.84%) Microsoft Purview
18 45 (0.80%) Google Workspace
18 45 (0.80%) IaaS
18 45 (0.80%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 421 (7.51%) Firewall
2 376 (6.71%) DNS
3 319 (5.69%) DHCP
4 222 (3.96%) VPN
5 199 (3.55%) WAN
6 184 (3.28%) TCP/IP
7 174 (3.11%) LAN
8 164 (2.93%) Wi-Fi
9 134 (2.39%) Wireless
10 120 (2.14%) VLAN
11 107 (1.91%) Broadband
12 95 (1.70%) Network Security
13 90 (1.61%) VoIP
14 43 (0.77%) Internet
15 35 (0.62%) SD-WAN
16 27 (0.48%) SAN
17 26 (0.46%) HTTP
18 23 (0.41%) SSL
19 21 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
19 21 (0.37%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 352 (6.28%) Power BI
2 253 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 105 (1.87%) Amazon RDS
4 95 (1.70%) MySQL
5 85 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
6 80 (1.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 75 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 66 (1.18%) NoSQL
10 65 (1.16%) Tableau
11 60 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.84%) Power Query
13 43 (0.77%) MongoDB
14 36 (0.64%) Big Data
15 35 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
16 33 (0.59%) Data Lake
17 28 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
18 26 (0.46%) DynamoDB
19 19 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
20 18 (0.32%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 213 (3.80%) Git
2 166 (2.96%) JIRA
3 77 (1.37%) GitLab
4 47 (0.84%) Jenkins
5 28 (0.50%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (0.43%) Cucumber
7 21 (0.37%) Subversion
8 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.34%) Selenium
9 17 (0.30%) JUnit
10 16 (0.29%) Cypress.io
10 16 (0.29%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.21%) Postman
12 11 (0.20%) Maven
12 11 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
13 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.18%) Claude Code
14 8 (0.14%) MLflow
14 8 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 7 (0.12%) Burp Suite
General
1 2,669 (47.64%) Social Skills
2 1,503 (26.82%) Analytical Skills
3 859 (15.33%) Finance
4 437 (7.80%) Manufacturing
5 372 (6.64%) Organisational Skills
6 254 (4.53%) Public Sector
7 239 (4.27%) Law
8 238 (4.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 236 (4.21%) Legal
10 228 (4.07%) Retail
11 183 (3.27%) Marketing
12 147 (2.62%) Electronics
13 142 (2.53%) Telecoms
14 110 (1.96%) Banking
15 108 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
16 102 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
17 86 (1.53%) Aerospace
18 74 (1.32%) Games
19 60 (1.07%) Advertising
20 57 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 772 (13.78%) Analyst
2 679 (12.12%) IT Support
3 609 (10.87%) Senior
4 588 (10.49%) Support Engineer
5 540 (9.64%) Developer
6 404 (7.21%) IT Engineer
7 304 (5.43%) IT Support Engineer
8 297 (5.30%) Lead
9 255 (4.55%) Support Technician
10 249 (4.44%) Support Analyst
11 231 (4.12%) Systems Engineer
12 206 (3.68%) IT Technician
12 206 (3.68%) Technical Support
13 192 (3.43%) Software Engineer
14 181 (3.23%) Consultant
15 180 (3.21%) Technical Engineer
16 177 (3.16%) Architect
17 167 (2.98%) Technical Support Engineer
18 161 (2.87%) IT Support Technician
19 148 (2.64%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (4.34%) .NET
2 191 (3.41%) React
3 161 (2.87%) HTML
4 153 (2.73%) REST
5 121 (2.16%) CSS
6 96 (1.71%) Node.js
7 91 (1.62%) RESTful
8 80 (1.43%) SOAP
9 76 (1.36%) Middleware
10 73 (1.30%) JSON
11 71 (1.27%) Vue
12 67 (1.20%) AngularJS
13 63 (1.12%) XML
14 51 (0.91%) Spring
15 47 (0.84%) Spring Boot
16 46 (0.82%) Web Services
17 44 (0.79%) ASP.NET
18 42 (0.75%) OAuth
19 39 (0.70%) EDI
20 31 (0.55%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 441 (7.87%) Driving Licence
2 327 (5.84%) Onboarding
3 258 (4.60%) Self-Motivation
4 207 (3.69%) Management Information System
5 156 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 142 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
7 134 (2.39%) Product Ownership
8 107 (1.91%) Data Centre
9 96 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 85 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
11 71 (1.27%) Security Posture
12 68 (1.21%) Social Media
13 65 (1.16%) Mobile App
14 57 (1.02%) Enterprise Software
15 54 (0.96%) IoT
16 51 (0.91%) Virtual Team
17 47 (0.84%) Algorithms
18 45 (0.80%) Low-Code
18 45 (0.80%) Robotics
19 44 (0.79%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 995 (17.76%) Windows
2 476 (8.50%) Windows Server
3 407 (7.26%) Linux
4 151 (2.69%) Windows 10
5 125 (2.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 108 (1.93%) Android
7 73 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 72 (1.29%) Apple iOS
9 49 (0.87%) Windows Server 2019
10 29 (0.52%) Unix
11 28 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 28 (0.50%) Ubuntu
12 25 (0.45%) CentOS
13 15 (0.27%) Debian
13 15 (0.27%) VMS
13 15 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
15 9 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
16 7 (0.12%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,307 (23.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,026 (18.31%) Customer Service
3 762 (13.60%) Agile
4 575 (10.26%) Mentoring
5 566 (10.10%) Decision-Making
6 529 (9.44%) CI/CD
7 520 (9.28%) AI
8 486 (8.67%) Analytics
8 486 (8.67%) ITIL
9 467 (8.33%) DevOps
10 452 (8.07%) Cybersecurity
11 440 (7.85%) Collaborative Working
11 440 (7.85%) Software Engineering
12 406 (7.25%) Business Intelligence
13 399 (7.12%) Stakeholder Management
14 392 (7.00%) ERP
15 357 (6.37%) Project Delivery
16 337 (6.01%) Computer Science
17 331 (5.91%) Service Delivery
18 324 (5.78%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 868 (15.49%) SQL
2 651 (11.62%) Python
3 351 (6.26%) JavaScript
4 322 (5.75%) C#
5 252 (4.50%) Java
6 243 (4.34%) PowerShell
7 160 (2.86%) TypeScript
8 151 (2.69%) C++
9 111 (1.98%) Bash
10 74 (1.32%) PHP
11 60 (1.07%) C
12 58 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 47 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 36 (0.64%) PL/SQL
15 33 (0.59%) Go
15 33 (0.59%) Perl
16 30 (0.54%) Rust
17 29 (0.52%) Kotlin
17 29 (0.52%) Ruby
17 29 (0.52%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 802 (14.31%) Degree
2 461 (8.23%) Security Cleared
3 327 (5.84%) SC Cleared
4 206 (3.68%) DBS Check
5 163 (2.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 160 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
7 86 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
8 83 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (1.43%) DV Cleared
10 70 (1.25%) Azure Certification
11 62 (1.11%) A+ Certification
12 61 (1.09%) ACCA
12 61 (1.09%) CCNA
13 60 (1.07%) HNC
14 57 (1.02%) CIMA
15 52 (0.93%) PMI Certification
16 49 (0.87%) Master's Degree
17 48 (0.86%) CISSP
18 46 (0.82%) PMP
19 44 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 323 (5.76%) QA
2 245 (4.37%) Data Quality
3 175 (3.12%) Cyber Essentials
4 156 (2.78%) GDPR
5 144 (2.57%) SLA
6 139 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 123 (2.20%) PCI DSS
8 105 (1.87%) Accessibility
9 89 (1.59%) NIST
10 40 (0.71%) ISO 9001
11 28 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 25 (0.45%) PMO
13 20 (0.36%) GMP
14 16 (0.29%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.27%) GRC
16 13 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.21%) ISO 14001
17 12 (0.21%) TickIT
18 8 (0.14%) Def Stans
System Software
1 709 (12.65%) Active Directory
2 270 (4.82%) Hyper-V
3 206 (3.68%) Docker
4 186 (3.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.43%) Terminal Server
6 40 (0.71%) Firmware
7 31 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.50%) vSphere
9 20 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 15 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
11 10 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
12 9 (0.16%) KVM
13 7 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.11%) XenApp
15 5 (0.089%) ClearTrust
15 5 (0.089%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.054%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.054%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 223 (3.98%) Terraform
2 216 (3.86%) Microsoft Intune
3 203 (3.62%) Kubernetes
4 110 (1.96%) Ansible
5 61 (1.09%) Grafana
6 57 (1.02%) SCCM
7 39 (0.70%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.37%) Nagios
9 18 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 13 (0.23%) Kibana
10 13 (0.23%) Puppet
11 12 (0.21%) logstash
12 10 (0.18%) Autotask
12 10 (0.18%) Functional Safety
12 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.18%) Podman
12 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.18%) QRadar
13 9 (0.16%) Single Sign-On
13 9 (0.16%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 1,715 (30.61%) Microsoft
2 301 (5.37%) VMware
3 137 (2.45%) Veeam
4 126 (2.25%) Google
5 119 (2.12%) SAP
6 118 (2.11%) Splunk
7 116 (2.07%) Cisco
8 109 (1.95%) Oracle
9 106 (1.89%) SolarWinds
10 87 (1.55%) Tanium
11 82 (1.46%) ServiceNow
12 81 (1.45%) Nimble Storage
13 80 (1.43%) Brocade
14 79 (1.41%) Salesforce
15 68 (1.21%) Databricks
16 58 (1.04%) Apple
17 52 (0.93%) Sage
18 51 (0.91%) Adobe
19 48 (0.86%) Dell
20 47 (0.84%) Fortinet