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

6 months to
10 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 7,180 6,518 8,259
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.68% 18.85% 14.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.35% 21.79% 18.94%
Number of salaries quoted 5,093 3,565 3,522
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,684 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -1.04%
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £71,150 £80,000
UK median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £51,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -12.62% -6.36%

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 58,130 29,915 43,610
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.26% 86.53% 78.16%
Number of salaries quoted 41,309 16,248 24,257
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £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 £88,750 £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 10 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 10 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 1,798 £45,000 +7.14% 922
South East -4 1,716 £42,500 - 1,135
Midlands -7 1,299 £42,500 +11.84% 781
North West -5 938 £45,000 -5.26% 460
South West -4 902 £45,000 +28.57% 559
East of England -2 726 £42,500 +21.43% 434
West Midlands -8 715 £42,500 -3.41% 466
East Midlands -8 582 £41,000 +17.14% 317
Yorkshire -7 572 £42,500 +24.09% 332
Scotland +1 313 £33,500 -21.18% 263
North East -2 288 £48,000 +28.00% 147
Northern Ireland +1 239 £70,000 +18.64% 124
Wales -18 202 £42,500 -11.68% 101
Isle of Man +1 3 £35,000 - 7
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
1 436 (6.07%) SharePoint
2 349 (4.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 65 (0.91%) Confluence
4 60 (0.84%) CMS
5 54 (0.75%) IIS
6 31 (0.43%) Apache
7 30 (0.42%) WordPress
8 27 (0.38%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.22%) Apache Spark
11 13 (0.18%) SAS
12 10 (0.14%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.13%) nginx
13 9 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
13 9 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 8 (0.11%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.097%) OpenEdge
16 5 (0.070%) CICS
16 5 (0.070%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.056%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 503 (7.01%) Microsoft Office
2 463 (6.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 58 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
5 42 (0.58%) MS Visio
6 37 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
7 32 (0.45%) AutoCAD
8 30 (0.42%) Simulink
9 23 (0.32%) Revit
10 10 (0.14%) EPLAN
11 9 (0.13%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 8 (0.11%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.11%) Fusion 360
13 7 (0.097%) SOLIDWORKS
14 6 (0.084%) Adobe Illustrator
14 6 (0.084%) Adobe XD
14 6 (0.084%) Sketch
15 5 (0.070%) Lightworks
16 4 (0.056%) Autodesk Inventor
Business Applications
1 74 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 61 (0.85%) NetSuite
3 48 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
4 30 (0.42%) Shopify
5 20 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
6 18 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
6 18 (0.25%) Workday HCM
7 17 (0.24%) SAP Business One
8 16 (0.22%) Magento
9 14 (0.19%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 14 (0.19%) SAP ERP
10 13 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
11 11 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
11 11 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
12 10 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.14%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
13 9 (0.13%) Sage 50
14 8 (0.11%) Primavera
15 7 (0.097%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,367 (19.04%) Azure
2 1,198 (16.69%) Microsoft 365
3 694 (9.67%) AWS
4 584 (8.13%) Power Platform
5 365 (5.08%) Entra ID
6 259 (3.61%) SaaS
7 234 (3.26%) GCP
8 174 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
9 151 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
9 151 (2.10%) PowerApps
10 136 (1.89%) GitHub
11 135 (1.88%) Power Automate
12 124 (1.73%) Serverless
13 98 (1.36%) OneDrive
14 86 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
15 62 (0.86%) Amazon S3
16 60 (0.84%) Google Workspace
17 59 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
19 57 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 436 (6.07%) Firewall
2 418 (5.82%) DNS
3 357 (4.97%) DHCP
4 274 (3.82%) VPN
5 234 (3.26%) TCP/IP
6 196 (2.73%) WAN
7 191 (2.66%) Wi-Fi
8 185 (2.58%) LAN
9 168 (2.34%) Wireless
10 143 (1.99%) VLAN
11 120 (1.67%) Network Security
12 113 (1.57%) VoIP
13 72 (1.00%) Broadband
14 48 (0.67%) Internet
15 31 (0.43%) SSL
16 28 (0.39%) SAN
16 28 (0.39%) SD-WAN
17 26 (0.36%) HTTP
18 25 (0.35%) Remote Desktop
19 23 (0.32%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 469 (6.53%) Power BI
2 329 (4.58%) SQL Server
3 136 (1.89%) MySQL
4 119 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
5 116 (1.62%) Relational Database
6 104 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
7 92 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
8 82 (1.14%) NoSQL
9 80 (1.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 71 (0.99%) Tableau
11 60 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 51 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 48 (0.67%) Power Query
14 47 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 47 (0.65%) Electronic Patient Records
15 46 (0.64%) Big Data
16 44 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
17 29 (0.40%) DynamoDB
17 29 (0.40%) Metadata
18 28 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 296 (4.12%) Git
2 236 (3.29%) JIRA
3 76 (1.06%) GitLab
3 76 (1.06%) Jenkins
4 38 (0.53%) Eclipse
5 33 (0.46%) Subversion
6 30 (0.42%) Cucumber
6 30 (0.42%) Selenium
7 26 (0.36%) JUnit
8 25 (0.35%) Claude Code
9 23 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
10 22 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
11 21 (0.29%) Bitbucket
11 21 (0.29%) Postman
12 19 (0.26%) Cypress.io
13 15 (0.21%) SonarQube
14 13 (0.18%) Burp Suite
15 12 (0.17%) LabVIEW
15 12 (0.17%) Visual Studio
16 11 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 3,516 (48.97%) Social Skills
2 1,988 (27.69%) Analytical Skills
3 1,137 (15.84%) Finance
4 705 (9.82%) Manufacturing
5 507 (7.06%) Organisational Skills
6 393 (5.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 338 (4.71%) Law
8 329 (4.58%) Retail
9 319 (4.44%) Public Sector
10 303 (4.22%) Legal
11 274 (3.82%) Marketing
12 270 (3.76%) Electronics
13 255 (3.55%) Aerospace
14 176 (2.45%) Telecoms
15 145 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
16 134 (1.87%) Banking
17 112 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
18 105 (1.46%) Automotive
19 94 (1.31%) Military
20 84 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 931 (12.97%) Analyst
2 756 (10.53%) Senior
3 708 (9.86%) IT Support
4 707 (9.85%) Developer
5 560 (7.80%) Support Engineer
6 390 (5.43%) Lead
7 378 (5.26%) IT Engineer
8 361 (5.03%) Support Analyst
9 331 (4.61%) Consultant
10 282 (3.93%) IT Support Engineer
11 270 (3.76%) Technical Support
12 267 (3.72%) Support Technician
13 236 (3.29%) Architect
14 235 (3.27%) Systems Engineer
15 232 (3.23%) Technical Engineer
16 228 (3.18%) IT Technician
17 225 (3.13%) Software Engineer
18 210 (2.92%) Technical Support Engineer
19 197 (2.74%) Senior Developer
20 181 (2.52%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 355 (4.94%) .NET
2 267 (3.72%) Terraform
3 216 (3.01%) React
4 197 (2.74%) REST
5 193 (2.69%) HTML
6 141 (1.96%) CSS
7 131 (1.82%) RESTful
8 98 (1.36%) SOAP
9 94 (1.31%) Node.js
10 85 (1.18%) Web Services
11 83 (1.16%) ASP.NET
12 82 (1.14%) Vue
13 81 (1.13%) XML
14 79 (1.10%) Middleware
15 78 (1.09%) AngularJS
15 78 (1.09%) JSON
16 74 (1.03%) Spring
17 67 (0.93%) Spring Boot
18 54 (0.75%) Kafka
19 53 (0.74%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 610 (8.50%) Driving Licence
2 485 (6.75%) Onboarding
3 381 (5.31%) Self-Motivation
4 322 (4.48%) Management Information System
5 197 (2.74%) Cloud Native
6 179 (2.49%) Product Ownership
7 150 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
8 128 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
9 126 (1.75%) Data Centre
10 103 (1.43%) Robotics
11 97 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
12 89 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
13 88 (1.23%) NHS
14 80 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 74 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
15 74 (1.03%) Mobile App
16 73 (1.02%) Virtual Team
17 70 (0.97%) CCTV
18 69 (0.96%) Social Media
19 68 (0.95%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,145 (15.95%) Windows
2 513 (7.14%) Windows Server
3 457 (6.36%) Linux
4 128 (1.78%) Windows 10
5 102 (1.42%) Windows Server 2016
6 90 (1.25%) Android
7 89 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.07%) Mac OS
9 43 (0.60%) Unix
10 42 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 18 (0.25%) VMS
13 17 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 15 (0.21%) Debian
15 13 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
16 11 (0.15%) CentOS
17 9 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
18 7 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
19 6 (0.084%) Rocky
20 5 (0.070%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,932 (26.91%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,331 (18.54%) Customer Service
3 1,048 (14.60%) Agile
4 798 (11.11%) Decision-Making
5 727 (10.13%) Mentoring
6 714 (9.94%) AI
7 706 (9.83%) CI/CD
8 702 (9.78%) Stakeholder Management
9 602 (8.38%) Project Delivery
10 586 (8.16%) DevOps
11 585 (8.15%) Analytics
12 580 (8.08%) Collaborative Working
13 575 (8.01%) ITIL
14 573 (7.98%) Software Engineering
15 551 (7.67%) ERP
16 546 (7.60%) Cybersecurity
17 503 (7.01%) Business Intelligence
18 494 (6.88%) Project Management
19 461 (6.42%) CRM
20 435 (6.06%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,069 (14.89%) SQL
2 738 (10.28%) Python
3 440 (6.13%) C#
4 438 (6.10%) JavaScript
5 319 (4.44%) Java
6 291 (4.05%) PowerShell
7 200 (2.79%) C++
8 194 (2.70%) TypeScript
9 121 (1.69%) Bash
10 80 (1.11%) C
11 71 (0.99%) PHP
12 64 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 59 (0.82%) T-SQL
14 47 (0.65%) Ruby
15 46 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 42 (0.58%) Perl
17 41 (0.57%) PL/SQL
18 39 (0.54%) MATLAB
19 38 (0.53%) Go
20 37 (0.52%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,148 (15.99%) Degree
2 669 (9.32%) Security Cleared
3 468 (6.52%) SC Cleared
4 210 (2.92%) DBS Check
5 202 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 185 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
7 180 (2.51%) DV Cleared
8 169 (2.35%) HNC
9 153 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
10 150 (2.09%) HND
11 127 (1.77%) Azure Certification
12 93 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
13 81 (1.13%) Chartered Engineer
14 80 (1.11%) PMI Certification
15 70 (0.97%) A+ Certification
15 70 (0.97%) CISSP
16 65 (0.91%) Master's Degree
17 62 (0.86%) CCNA
18 59 (0.82%) PMP
19 54 (0.75%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 471 (6.56%) QA
2 288 (4.01%) Data Quality
3 219 (3.05%) GDPR
4 181 (2.52%) Accessibility
5 176 (2.45%) SLA
6 166 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials
7 133 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 106 (1.48%) PCI DSS
9 90 (1.25%) NIST
10 37 (0.52%) ISO 9001
11 34 (0.47%) PMO
12 32 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 18 (0.25%) DO-254
13 18 (0.25%) GMP
13 18 (0.25%) Good Clinical Practice
14 16 (0.22%) NCSC
15 14 (0.19%) GRC
16 13 (0.18%) GxP
17 12 (0.17%) TickIT
17 12 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 796 (11.09%) Active Directory
2 288 (4.01%) Hyper-V
3 256 (3.57%) Docker
4 211 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
5 74 (1.03%) Firmware
6 72 (1.00%) Terminal Server
7 39 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 32 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 28 (0.39%) vSphere
10 26 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.097%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.084%) KVM
14 5 (0.070%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.070%) Squid
15 4 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.056%) XenApp
16 3 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.042%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.042%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 247 (3.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.06%) Kubernetes
3 107 (1.49%) Ansible
4 60 (0.84%) Grafana
5 53 (0.74%) SCCM
6 43 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
7 41 (0.57%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.31%) BMC PATROL
9 21 (0.29%) FortiGate
10 20 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
11 17 (0.24%) Puppet
12 15 (0.21%) Functional Safety
13 13 (0.18%) Kibana
14 11 (0.15%) logstash
14 11 (0.15%) Nmap
15 10 (0.14%) Nagios
15 10 (0.14%) Podman
15 10 (0.14%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
16 9 (0.13%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,177 (30.32%) Microsoft
2 337 (4.69%) VMware
3 203 (2.83%) SAP
4 193 (2.69%) Google
5 166 (2.31%) Oracle
6 142 (1.98%) Workday
7 138 (1.92%) Cisco
8 133 (1.85%) Veeam
9 118 (1.64%) Splunk
10 117 (1.63%) ServiceNow
11 100 (1.39%) Salesforce
12 98 (1.36%) Sage
13 93 (1.30%) SolarWinds
14 80 (1.11%) Databricks
14 80 (1.11%) Tanium
15 73 (1.02%) Fortinet
15 73 (1.02%) Nimble Storage
16 72 (1.00%) Brocade
17 62 (0.86%) Apple
18 56 (0.78%) SonicWALL