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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 8,179 6,249 7,866
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 9.45% 18.07% 15.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.39% 20.74% 19.24%
Number of salaries quoted 5,510 3,484 2,987
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,684 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £33,557
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,000 £38,625 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.33% -22.75% +5.26%
75th Percentile £58,750 £55,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £72,500 £68,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £46,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.22% -14.29% -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 61,101 30,133 40,894
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.62% 87.15% 79.69%
Number of salaries quoted 42,822 16,129 20,591
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,733 £30,422
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £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 £63,750 £67,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £81,250
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -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 10 October 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 October 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 -6 2,061 £45,000 - 1,725
South East -1 1,923 £41,500 +3.75% 1,778
Midlands -6 1,471 £42,500 +12.58% 1,156
North West -1 1,067 £46,500 -4.56% 872
South West -2 992 £45,000 +20.00% 852
East of England -1 843 £43,500 +33.85% 912
West Midlands -5 827 £42,500 - 704
East Midlands -7 642 £42,000 +29.23% 451
Yorkshire -7 612 £42,500 +28.79% 594
North East +4 391 £50,000 +49.25% 275
Northern Ireland +7 338 £70,000 +16.67% 347
Scotland +5 330 £37,625 +12.31% 619
Wales -14 238 £42,500 -11.68% 215
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 - 10
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
1 475 (5.81%) SharePoint
2 365 (4.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 66 (0.81%) Confluence
4 60 (0.73%) CMS
5 55 (0.67%) IIS
6 40 (0.49%) Apache
7 32 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 30 (0.37%) WordPress
9 28 (0.34%) Sitecore CMS
10 25 (0.31%) Apache Spark
11 14 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 13 (0.16%) Jupyter
13 12 (0.15%) nginx
14 10 (0.12%) WebSphere
15 9 (0.11%) WebLogic
16 8 (0.098%) CICS
16 8 (0.098%) SAS
17 7 (0.086%) OpenEdge
18 4 (0.049%) Oracle SOA Suite
18 4 (0.049%) Tomcat
Applications
1 614 (7.51%) Microsoft Office
2 556 (6.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 88 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 63 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
5 48 (0.59%) AutoCAD
6 45 (0.55%) MS Visio
7 40 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
8 39 (0.48%) Simulink
9 27 (0.33%) Revit
10 23 (0.28%) EPLAN
11 16 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
12 12 (0.15%) OrCAD
13 11 (0.13%) Navisworks
14 9 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
15 8 (0.098%) Chatbot
16 7 (0.086%) Lightworks
16 7 (0.086%) Siemens NX
17 5 (0.061%) Adobe Illustrator
17 5 (0.061%) Adobe XD
17 5 (0.061%) Mathematica
Business Applications
1 74 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 61 (0.75%) NetSuite
3 45 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
4 34 (0.42%) Shopify
5 22 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 21 (0.26%) Workday HCM
7 18 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
8 15 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
9 14 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
9 14 (0.17%) SAP Business One
10 12 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 12 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
10 12 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 12 (0.15%) SAP ERP
11 11 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
11 11 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
12 10 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.12%) Magento
12 10 (0.12%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.11%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,425 (17.42%) Azure
2 1,313 (16.05%) Microsoft 365
3 697 (8.52%) AWS
4 615 (7.52%) Power Platform
5 470 (5.75%) Entra ID
6 294 (3.59%) SaaS
7 235 (2.87%) GCP
8 176 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
9 156 (1.91%) GitHub
10 154 (1.88%) PowerApps
11 144 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
12 143 (1.75%) Power Automate
13 131 (1.60%) OneDrive
14 114 (1.39%) Serverless
15 99 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
16 81 (0.99%) Google Workspace
17 71 (0.87%) Amazon S3
18 69 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
19 68 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
20 57 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 461 (5.64%) DNS
2 460 (5.62%) Firewall
3 380 (4.65%) DHCP
4 297 (3.63%) VPN
5 239 (2.92%) TCP/IP
6 216 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
7 202 (2.47%) WAN
8 198 (2.42%) LAN
9 180 (2.20%) Wireless
10 155 (1.90%) VLAN
11 132 (1.61%) Network Security
12 114 (1.39%) VoIP
13 67 (0.82%) Internet
14 65 (0.79%) Broadband
15 32 (0.39%) SAN
16 31 (0.38%) Remote Desktop
16 31 (0.38%) SSL
17 27 (0.33%) 5G
17 27 (0.33%) Ethernet
17 27 (0.33%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 484 (5.92%) Power BI
2 333 (4.07%) SQL Server
3 138 (1.69%) MySQL
4 124 (1.52%) Relational Database
5 123 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
6 107 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
7 97 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
8 85 (1.04%) NoSQL
9 66 (0.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 65 (0.79%) Tableau
11 56 (0.68%) MongoDB
12 51 (0.62%) Data Lake
12 51 (0.62%) Power Query
13 50 (0.61%) Big Data
14 49 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 48 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 47 (0.57%) Electronic Patient Records
17 35 (0.43%) Metadata
18 33 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
19 26 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 316 (3.86%) Git
2 247 (3.02%) JIRA
3 103 (1.26%) GitLab
4 95 (1.16%) Jenkins
5 40 (0.49%) Eclipse
6 37 (0.45%) Selenium
7 34 (0.42%) Cucumber
7 34 (0.42%) Subversion
8 30 (0.37%) Claude Code
9 26 (0.32%) JUnit
10 25 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
11 24 (0.29%) Cypress.io
12 23 (0.28%) Postman
13 22 (0.27%) LabVIEW
13 22 (0.27%) Rational DOORS
14 21 (0.26%) Bitbucket
15 16 (0.20%) Burp Suite
16 14 (0.17%) SonarQube
16 14 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
17 13 (0.16%) Metasploit
General
1 4,025 (49.21%) Social Skills
2 2,253 (27.55%) Analytical Skills
3 1,313 (16.05%) Finance
4 1,001 (12.24%) Manufacturing
5 684 (8.36%) Organisational Skills
6 455 (5.56%) Retail
7 447 (5.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 388 (4.74%) Public Sector
9 379 (4.63%) Electronics
10 337 (4.12%) Aerospace
11 336 (4.11%) Legal
12 334 (4.08%) Law
13 296 (3.62%) Marketing
14 208 (2.54%) Telecoms
15 160 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
16 152 (1.86%) Automotive
17 142 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
18 127 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
19 115 (1.41%) Banking
20 107 (1.31%) Military
Job Titles
1 1,084 (13.25%) Analyst
2 841 (10.28%) Senior
3 773 (9.45%) IT Support
4 729 (8.91%) Developer
5 603 (7.37%) Support Engineer
6 418 (5.11%) Lead
7 417 (5.10%) Support Analyst
8 393 (4.80%) IT Engineer
9 362 (4.43%) Consultant
10 303 (3.70%) IT Support Engineer
11 296 (3.62%) Technical Support
12 270 (3.30%) Support Technician
13 251 (3.07%) Technical Engineer
14 244 (2.98%) IT Technician
15 231 (2.82%) Architect
16 226 (2.76%) Technical Support Engineer
17 222 (2.71%) Software Engineer
17 222 (2.71%) Systems Engineer
18 213 (2.60%) Senior Developer
19 197 (2.41%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 380 (4.65%) .NET
2 287 (3.51%) Terraform
3 216 (2.64%) React
4 195 (2.38%) REST
5 188 (2.30%) HTML
6 141 (1.72%) CSS
7 139 (1.70%) RESTful
8 97 (1.19%) Node.js
9 93 (1.14%) Web Services
10 88 (1.08%) SOAP
11 87 (1.06%) ASP.NET
12 83 (1.01%) Spring
13 77 (0.94%) Vue
14 76 (0.93%) Spring Boot
15 74 (0.90%) XML
16 71 (0.87%) AngularJS
17 70 (0.86%) Kafka
17 70 (0.86%) Middleware
18 65 (0.79%) JSON
19 54 (0.66%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 781 (9.55%) Driving Licence
2 582 (7.12%) Onboarding
3 439 (5.37%) Self-Motivation
4 381 (4.66%) Management Information System
5 215 (2.63%) Cloud Native
6 176 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
6 176 (2.15%) Product Ownership
7 154 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
8 152 (1.86%) Robotics
9 134 (1.64%) Data Centre
10 97 (1.19%) NHS
11 90 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
12 89 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
13 87 (1.06%) Cyber Threat
13 87 (1.06%) IoT
14 85 (1.04%) CCTV
15 83 (1.01%) Security Posture
16 81 (0.99%) Social Media
17 75 (0.92%) SCADA
18 73 (0.89%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1,244 (15.21%) Windows
2 544 (6.65%) Windows Server
3 446 (5.45%) Linux
4 126 (1.54%) Windows 10
5 103 (1.26%) Windows Server 2016
6 89 (1.09%) Apple iOS
7 87 (1.06%) Android
7 87 (1.06%) Mac OS
8 41 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
9 37 (0.45%) Unix
10 25 (0.31%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
12 14 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 14 (0.17%) VMS
13 12 (0.15%) Debian
14 8 (0.098%) FreeRTOS
15 7 (0.086%) Rocky
15 7 (0.086%) Windows Server 2012
16 6 (0.073%) CentOS
17 5 (0.061%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,245 (27.45%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,522 (18.61%) Customer Service
3 1,127 (13.78%) Agile
4 876 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 863 (10.55%) Decision-Making
6 822 (10.05%) AI
7 800 (9.78%) Mentoring
8 753 (9.21%) CI/CD
9 715 (8.74%) Project Delivery
10 666 (8.14%) Collaborative Working
11 631 (7.71%) Cybersecurity
12 605 (7.40%) DevOps
13 604 (7.38%) Analytics
14 599 (7.32%) Software Engineering
15 586 (7.16%) ERP
16 574 (7.02%) ITIL
17 566 (6.92%) Project Management
18 531 (6.49%) Business Intelligence
19 512 (6.26%) Validation
20 510 (6.24%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 1,099 (13.44%) SQL
2 787 (9.62%) Python
3 453 (5.54%) C#
4 433 (5.29%) JavaScript
5 320 (3.91%) Java
6 307 (3.75%) PowerShell
7 215 (2.63%) C++
8 200 (2.45%) TypeScript
9 126 (1.54%) Bash
10 88 (1.08%) C
11 64 (0.78%) PHP
12 62 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 58 (0.71%) T-SQL
14 55 (0.67%) MATLAB
15 54 (0.66%) Ruby
16 46 (0.56%) Shell Script
17 45 (0.55%) PL/SQL
18 44 (0.54%) Rust
19 41 (0.50%) Perl
20 36 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,348 (16.48%) Degree
2 777 (9.50%) Security Cleared
3 540 (6.60%) SC Cleared
4 283 (3.46%) HNC
5 237 (2.90%) DBS Check
6 233 (2.85%) HND
7 206 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 196 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 193 (2.36%) DV Cleared
10 173 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
11 146 (1.79%) Azure Certification
12 110 (1.34%) Chartered Engineer
13 92 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
14 91 (1.11%) NVQ Level 3
15 88 (1.08%) Master's Degree
16 74 (0.90%) A+ Certification
17 70 (0.86%) PMI Certification
18 63 (0.77%) City & Guilds
19 60 (0.73%) CISSP
20 58 (0.71%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 500 (6.11%) QA
2 304 (3.72%) Data Quality
3 231 (2.82%) GDPR
4 221 (2.70%) Accessibility
5 181 (2.21%) SLA
6 172 (2.10%) Cyber Essentials
7 136 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 104 (1.27%) PCI DSS
9 70 (0.86%) NIST
10 55 (0.67%) ISO 9001
11 49 (0.60%) PMO
12 35 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 23 (0.28%) DO-254
14 22 (0.27%) GMP
15 20 (0.24%) Good Clinical Practice
15 20 (0.24%) NCSC
16 18 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
17 15 (0.18%) GRC
18 13 (0.16%) Def Stans
18 13 (0.16%) GxP
System Software
1 900 (11.00%) Active Directory
2 301 (3.68%) Hyper-V
3 272 (3.33%) Docker
4 215 (2.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.08%) Firmware
6 72 (0.88%) Terminal Server
7 46 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 36 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 31 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
10 25 (0.31%) vSphere
11 14 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
12 12 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.061%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 5 (0.061%) Squid
14 4 (0.049%) KVM
15 3 (0.037%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.037%) VMware Server
16 2 (0.024%) Samba
16 2 (0.024%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 283 (3.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 233 (2.85%) Kubernetes
3 106 (1.30%) Ansible
4 70 (0.86%) BMC PATROL
5 68 (0.83%) Grafana
6 56 (0.68%) SCCM
7 51 (0.62%) Prometheus
8 47 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
9 25 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
10 22 (0.27%) FortiGate
11 20 (0.24%) Functional Safety
12 16 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 15 (0.18%) Puppet
14 13 (0.16%) Kibana
14 13 (0.16%) Nmap
15 11 (0.13%) logstash
15 11 (0.13%) Nagios
16 10 (0.12%) Failover Clustering
16 10 (0.12%) Progress Chef
16 10 (0.12%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 2,493 (30.48%) Microsoft
2 343 (4.19%) VMware
3 239 (2.92%) Google
4 229 (2.80%) SAP
5 215 (2.63%) Workday
6 177 (2.16%) Oracle
7 154 (1.88%) Cisco
8 147 (1.80%) Veeam
9 129 (1.58%) ServiceNow
10 126 (1.54%) Splunk
11 114 (1.39%) Salesforce
12 103 (1.26%) Sage
13 96 (1.17%) SolarWinds
14 83 (1.01%) Fortinet
15 80 (0.98%) Tanium
16 79 (0.97%) Siemens
17 75 (0.92%) Databricks
18 73 (0.89%) Brocade
18 73 (0.89%) Nimble Storage
19 69 (0.84%) Apple