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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 3
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 7,465 6,430 8,258
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.87% 18.72% 14.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.62% 21.58% 19.02%
Number of salaries quoted 5,196 3,534 3,428
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,684 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £32,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,750 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.88% -15.79% -
75th Percentile £59,125 £57,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £47,000 £46,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.17% -12.38% -4.55%

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 59,175 29,796 43,420
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.29% 86.74% 78.53%
Number of salaries quoted 41,818 16,132 23,550
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 September 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 September 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 1,886 £45,000 +5.88% 1,540
South East -4 1,755 £42,500 - 1,688
Midlands -7 1,348 £42,500 +11.84% 1,187
North West -5 981 £45,000 -6.64% 840
South West -4 937 £45,000 +25.00% 804
East of England -2 750 £42,500 +25.74% 795
West Midlands -8 747 £42,500 -5.56% 718
East Midlands -8 599 £41,250 +17.86% 469
Yorkshire -8 590 £42,500 +26.87% 496
Scotland +6 335 £33,500 -30.21% 548
North East 0 315 £48,000 +37.14% 222
Northern Ireland +3 255 £70,000 +18.64% 324
Wales -18 214 £42,500 -11.68% 166
Isle of Man +1 3 £35,000 - 11
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
1 448 (6.00%) SharePoint
2 355 (4.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 65 (0.87%) Confluence
4 58 (0.78%) CMS
5 55 (0.74%) IIS
6 32 (0.43%) Apache
7 31 (0.42%) WordPress
8 27 (0.36%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.21%) Apache Spark
11 14 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 10 (0.13%) SAS
12 10 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.12%) nginx
13 9 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 8 (0.11%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.094%) OpenEdge
16 5 (0.067%) CICS
16 5 (0.067%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.054%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 538 (7.21%) Microsoft Office
2 493 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 71 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 63 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
5 42 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 38 (0.51%) AutoCAD
6 38 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
7 33 (0.44%) Simulink
8 23 (0.31%) Revit
9 14 (0.19%) EPLAN
10 12 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
11 9 (0.12%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 8 (0.11%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.11%) Fusion 360
13 7 (0.094%) Siemens NX
14 6 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
14 6 (0.080%) Lightworks
15 5 (0.067%) Adobe XD
15 5 (0.067%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 76 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 63 (0.84%) NetSuite
3 51 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
4 31 (0.42%) Shopify
5 23 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 20 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
7 19 (0.25%) Workday HCM
8 17 (0.23%) SAP Business One
9 16 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
10 15 (0.20%) Magento
11 14 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
12 13 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 13 (0.17%) SAP ERP
13 12 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
13 12 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 11 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
14 11 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.13%) JDE EnterpriseOne
15 10 (0.13%) Sage X3
16 9 (0.12%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,374 (18.41%) Azure
2 1,233 (16.52%) Microsoft 365
3 695 (9.31%) AWS
4 612 (8.20%) Power Platform
5 379 (5.08%) Entra ID
6 276 (3.70%) SaaS
7 232 (3.11%) GCP
8 174 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
9 157 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
10 155 (2.08%) PowerApps
11 144 (1.93%) Power Automate
12 141 (1.89%) GitHub
13 124 (1.66%) Serverless
14 104 (1.39%) OneDrive
15 89 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
16 66 (0.88%) Amazon S3
16 66 (0.88%) Google Workspace
17 63 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
18 60 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
19 59 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 439 (5.88%) Firewall
2 426 (5.71%) DNS
3 360 (4.82%) DHCP
4 280 (3.75%) VPN
5 231 (3.09%) TCP/IP
6 198 (2.65%) WAN
7 196 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
8 188 (2.52%) LAN
9 172 (2.30%) Wireless
10 143 (1.92%) VLAN
11 122 (1.63%) Network Security
12 116 (1.55%) VoIP
13 63 (0.84%) Broadband
14 55 (0.74%) Internet
15 31 (0.42%) SSL
16 29 (0.39%) SAN
17 28 (0.38%) Remote Desktop
17 28 (0.38%) SD-WAN
18 25 (0.33%) Ethernet
18 25 (0.33%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 494 (6.62%) Power BI
2 332 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 140 (1.88%) MySQL
4 119 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
5 117 (1.57%) Relational Database
6 106 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
7 96 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
8 83 (1.11%) NoSQL
9 78 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 73 (0.98%) Tableau
11 59 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 53 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 49 (0.66%) Power Query
14 47 (0.63%) Data Lake
14 47 (0.63%) Electronic Patient Records
15 46 (0.62%) Big Data
16 45 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
17 32 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
18 31 (0.42%) Metadata
19 29 (0.39%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 300 (4.02%) Git
2 246 (3.30%) JIRA
3 80 (1.07%) Jenkins
4 79 (1.06%) GitLab
5 39 (0.52%) Eclipse
6 35 (0.47%) Subversion
7 33 (0.44%) Selenium
8 30 (0.40%) Cucumber
9 27 (0.36%) Claude Code
10 26 (0.35%) JUnit
11 23 (0.31%) Bitbucket
11 23 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
12 22 (0.29%) Postman
12 22 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
13 20 (0.27%) Cypress.io
14 15 (0.20%) LabVIEW
14 15 (0.20%) SonarQube
15 14 (0.19%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
16 12 (0.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 3,682 (49.32%) Social Skills
2 2,051 (27.47%) Analytical Skills
3 1,203 (16.12%) Finance
4 780 (10.45%) Manufacturing
5 557 (7.46%) Organisational Skills
6 417 (5.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 366 (4.90%) Retail
8 348 (4.66%) Law
9 341 (4.57%) Public Sector
10 314 (4.21%) Legal
11 292 (3.91%) Electronics
12 282 (3.78%) Aerospace
13 278 (3.72%) Marketing
14 191 (2.56%) Telecoms
15 151 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
16 143 (1.92%) Banking
17 119 (1.59%) Automotive
18 117 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
19 103 (1.38%) Military
20 95 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 980 (13.13%) Analyst
2 793 (10.62%) Senior
3 727 (9.74%) IT Support
4 706 (9.46%) Developer
5 574 (7.69%) Support Engineer
6 393 (5.26%) Lead
7 387 (5.18%) IT Engineer
8 382 (5.12%) Support Analyst
9 339 (4.54%) Consultant
10 289 (3.87%) IT Support Engineer
11 276 (3.70%) Technical Support
12 273 (3.66%) Support Technician
13 241 (3.23%) Systems Engineer
14 237 (3.17%) Technical Engineer
15 236 (3.16%) Architect
15 236 (3.16%) IT Technician
16 225 (3.01%) Software Engineer
17 214 (2.87%) Technical Support Engineer
18 204 (2.73%) Senior Developer
19 187 (2.51%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 359 (4.81%) .NET
2 275 (3.68%) Terraform
3 220 (2.95%) React
4 202 (2.71%) REST
5 195 (2.61%) HTML
6 143 (1.92%) CSS
7 136 (1.82%) RESTful
8 99 (1.33%) SOAP
9 92 (1.23%) Node.js
10 90 (1.21%) Web Services
11 88 (1.18%) XML
12 82 (1.10%) ASP.NET
12 82 (1.10%) Vue
13 79 (1.06%) JSON
13 79 (1.06%) Middleware
14 78 (1.04%) AngularJS
15 75 (1.00%) Spring
16 68 (0.91%) Spring Boot
17 56 (0.75%) Kafka
18 51 (0.68%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 637 (8.53%) Driving Licence
2 517 (6.93%) Onboarding
3 387 (5.18%) Self-Motivation
4 344 (4.61%) Management Information System
5 207 (2.77%) Cloud Native
6 181 (2.42%) Product Ownership
7 144 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
8 140 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
9 128 (1.71%) Data Centre
10 116 (1.55%) Robotics
11 95 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 90 (1.21%) NHS
13 88 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
14 81 (1.09%) Security Posture
15 76 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
16 75 (1.00%) Virtual Team
17 74 (0.99%) IoT
18 71 (0.95%) CCTV
19 69 (0.92%) Mobile App
20 67 (0.90%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,174 (15.73%) Windows
2 518 (6.94%) Windows Server
3 460 (6.16%) Linux
4 131 (1.75%) Windows 10
5 99 (1.33%) Windows Server 2016
6 92 (1.23%) Apple iOS
7 87 (1.17%) Android
8 83 (1.11%) Mac OS
9 45 (0.60%) Unix
10 40 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.39%) Ubuntu
12 17 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 17 (0.23%) VMS
13 14 (0.19%) Debian
13 14 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
14 10 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
15 9 (0.12%) CentOS
16 8 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 6 (0.080%) Rocky
18 5 (0.067%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,013 (26.97%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,405 (18.82%) Customer Service
3 1,075 (14.40%) Agile
4 809 (10.84%) Decision-Making
5 764 (10.23%) Mentoring
6 750 (10.05%) Stakeholder Management
7 738 (9.89%) AI
8 704 (9.43%) CI/CD
9 641 (8.59%) Project Delivery
10 607 (8.13%) Collaborative Working
11 600 (8.04%) Analytics
12 589 (7.89%) DevOps
13 588 (7.88%) Software Engineering
14 584 (7.82%) ERP
15 580 (7.77%) ITIL
16 555 (7.43%) Cybersecurity
17 532 (7.13%) Business Intelligence
18 522 (6.99%) Project Management
19 467 (6.26%) CRM
20 464 (6.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 1,098 (14.71%) SQL
2 756 (10.13%) Python
3 446 (5.97%) C#
4 444 (5.95%) JavaScript
5 314 (4.21%) Java
6 295 (3.95%) PowerShell
7 204 (2.73%) C++
8 197 (2.64%) TypeScript
9 123 (1.65%) Bash
10 81 (1.09%) C
11 67 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 67 (0.90%) PHP
12 61 (0.82%) T-SQL
13 48 (0.64%) PL/SQL
14 47 (0.63%) Ruby
15 46 (0.62%) Shell Script
16 44 (0.59%) MATLAB
17 41 (0.55%) Perl
18 38 (0.51%) Go
19 37 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,203 (16.12%) Degree
2 702 (9.40%) Security Cleared
3 490 (6.56%) SC Cleared
4 216 (2.89%) DBS Check
5 204 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 198 (2.65%) HNC
7 189 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
8 182 (2.44%) DV Cleared
9 181 (2.42%) HND
10 161 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
11 134 (1.80%) Azure Certification
12 96 (1.29%) Chartered Engineer
13 92 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
14 77 (1.03%) A+ Certification
15 76 (1.02%) PMI Certification
16 72 (0.96%) Master's Degree
17 67 (0.90%) CISSP
18 59 (0.79%) CCNA
19 58 (0.78%) Network+ Certification
20 56 (0.75%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 479 (6.42%) QA
2 299 (4.01%) Data Quality
3 218 (2.92%) GDPR
4 202 (2.71%) Accessibility
5 176 (2.36%) SLA
6 167 (2.24%) Cyber Essentials
7 136 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 105 (1.41%) PCI DSS
9 86 (1.15%) NIST
10 41 (0.55%) ISO 9001
11 36 (0.48%) PMO
12 32 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 19 (0.25%) DO-254
13 19 (0.25%) GMP
13 19 (0.25%) Good Clinical Practice
14 17 (0.23%) NCSC
15 14 (0.19%) GRC
16 13 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.17%) GxP
17 12 (0.16%) TickIT
System Software
1 817 (10.94%) Active Directory
2 284 (3.80%) Hyper-V
3 259 (3.47%) Docker
4 214 (2.87%) VMware Infrastructure
5 74 (0.99%) Firmware
6 72 (0.96%) Terminal Server
7 41 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 34 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 29 (0.39%) vSphere
10 28 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
11 16 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.067%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.067%) Squid
14 4 (0.054%) KVM
14 4 (0.054%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.040%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.040%) VMware Server
16 2 (0.027%) Samba
16 2 (0.027%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 253 (3.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 221 (2.96%) Kubernetes
3 109 (1.46%) Ansible
4 61 (0.82%) Grafana
5 52 (0.70%) SCCM
6 44 (0.59%) Prometheus
6 44 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
7 26 (0.35%) BMC PATROL
8 20 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
9 19 (0.25%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.21%) Functional Safety
10 16 (0.21%) Puppet
11 13 (0.17%) Kibana
12 11 (0.15%) logstash
12 11 (0.15%) Nmap
13 10 (0.13%) Nagios
13 10 (0.13%) Podman
13 10 (0.13%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.12%) Argo
14 9 (0.12%) QRadar
Vendors
1 2,255 (30.21%) Microsoft
2 342 (4.58%) VMware
3 217 (2.91%) SAP
4 203 (2.72%) Google
5 172 (2.30%) Oracle
6 158 (2.12%) Workday
7 137 (1.84%) Cisco
8 135 (1.81%) Veeam
9 124 (1.66%) ServiceNow
10 122 (1.63%) Splunk
11 103 (1.38%) Sage
11 103 (1.38%) Salesforce
12 92 (1.23%) SolarWinds
13 80 (1.07%) Tanium
14 76 (1.02%) Databricks
15 75 (1.00%) Fortinet
16 73 (0.98%) Nimble Storage
17 72 (0.96%) Brocade
18 66 (0.88%) Apple
19 57 (0.76%) SonicWALL