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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,715 5,235 10,507
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.15% 18.81% 15.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.96% 20.57% 18.41%
Number of salaries quoted 3,442 3,175 6,883
10th Percentile £26,265 £26,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £29,750 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £60,000 £63,625 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -9.09%

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 47,360 25,446 57,080
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.78% 91.42% 83.84%
Number of salaries quoted 29,266 13,925 40,909
10th Percentile £29,250 £27,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,250 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,114 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £59,450 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.92% +9.09% -10.57%

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 5 May 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 5 May 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 -19 1,270 £42,500 -7.61% 671
South East -8 1,135 £46,000 -8.00% 777
Midlands -22 870 £40,000 -11.11% 458
North West -16 665 £44,000 -8.03% 370
South West -8 536 £43,500 -2.44% 307
West Midlands -23 513 £42,500 -13.27% 282
Yorkshire -12 482 £40,000 - 219
East of England -10 455 £40,000 -15.79% 275
East Midlands -7 354 £35,000 -9.09% 177
Scotland -4 291 £35,500 -29.00% 134
North East -16 123 £48,500 +7.78% 88
Wales -13 113 £42,500 -15.00% 58
Northern Ireland -8 71 £39,000 -29.09% 29
Isle of Man 0 2 £48,750 +28.29% 1
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
1 273 (5.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 255 (5.41%) SharePoint
3 43 (0.91%) CMS
4 34 (0.72%) Confluence
5 23 (0.49%) IIS
5 23 (0.49%) WordPress
6 19 (0.40%) Apache
7 15 (0.32%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
9 11 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
9 11 (0.23%) SAS
10 9 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2007
10 9 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
11 7 (0.15%) nginx
12 6 (0.13%) Drupal
13 5 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 5 (0.11%) Skype for Business
14 4 (0.085%) Moodle
14 4 (0.085%) Totara
Applications
1 300 (6.36%) Microsoft Office
2 272 (5.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 40 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 36 (0.76%) MS Visio
4 36 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 14 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
7 9 (0.19%) Fusion 360
8 8 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.085%) AutoCAD
10 4 (0.085%) Simulink
11 3 (0.064%) Trello
12 2 (0.042%) Elementor
12 2 (0.042%) Sketch
12 2 (0.042%) Weka
13 1 (0.021%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.021%) Autodesk Inventor
13 1 (0.021%) CANalyzer
13 1 (0.021%) Notion
Business Applications
1 45 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 18 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
5 16 (0.34%) Shopify
6 14 (0.30%) Magento
7 13 (0.28%) iTrent
7 13 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 11 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
8 11 (0.23%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
10 7 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
10 7 (0.15%) SAP Business One
10 7 (0.15%) Workday HCM
11 6 (0.13%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 5 (0.11%) Sage X3
13 4 (0.085%) Dynamics GP
13 4 (0.085%) Markit EDM
13 4 (0.085%) Sage 200
13 4 (0.085%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 917 (19.45%) Azure
2 800 (16.97%) Microsoft 365
3 460 (9.76%) AWS
4 325 (6.89%) Power Platform
5 213 (4.52%) Entra ID
6 191 (4.05%) SaaS
7 131 (2.78%) GCP
8 120 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
9 108 (2.29%) Serverless
10 98 (2.08%) GitHub
11 83 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
12 70 (1.48%) Power Automate
13 62 (1.31%) Amazon S3
14 59 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
15 56 (1.19%) Google Workspace
16 51 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
17 48 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
17 48 (1.02%) IaaS
18 47 (1.00%) PowerApps
19 46 (0.98%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 289 (6.13%) DNS
2 285 (6.04%) Firewall
3 238 (5.05%) DHCP
4 156 (3.31%) WAN
5 151 (3.20%) VPN
6 117 (2.48%) Wi-Fi
7 116 (2.46%) LAN
8 107 (2.27%) Broadband
9 105 (2.23%) TCP/IP
10 90 (1.91%) Wireless
11 79 (1.68%) VLAN
12 67 (1.42%) VoIP
13 58 (1.23%) Network Security
14 41 (0.87%) SD-WAN
15 33 (0.70%) Internet
16 32 (0.68%) SAN
17 21 (0.45%) HTTP
18 20 (0.42%) Unified Communications
19 19 (0.40%) Wireshark
20 18 (0.38%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 268 (5.68%) Power BI
2 192 (4.07%) SQL Server
3 71 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
4 67 (1.42%) NoSQL
5 65 (1.38%) MySQL
6 60 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
7 59 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
8 58 (1.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 56 (1.19%) Relational Database
10 49 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 42 (0.89%) Power Query
11 42 (0.89%) Tableau
12 37 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 32 (0.68%) MongoDB
14 25 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
15 24 (0.51%) Big Data
15 24 (0.51%) Data Lake
16 21 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
16 21 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
17 20 (0.42%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 184 (3.90%) Git
2 144 (3.05%) JIRA
3 74 (1.57%) GitLab
4 53 (1.12%) Jenkins
5 23 (0.49%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.40%) Selenium
7 18 (0.38%) Cucumber
8 17 (0.36%) Maven
9 16 (0.34%) SonarQube
10 14 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 13 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 13 (0.28%) LabVIEW
12 9 (0.19%) JUnit
13 8 (0.17%) Visual Studio
14 7 (0.15%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.15%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.15%) Metasploit
15 6 (0.13%) JMeter
15 6 (0.13%) Postman
15 6 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 2,247 (47.66%) Social Skills
2 1,308 (27.74%) Analytical Skills
3 829 (17.58%) Finance
4 307 (6.51%) Organisational Skills
5 299 (6.34%) Manufacturing
6 223 (4.73%) Public Sector
7 214 (4.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 187 (3.97%) Marketing
9 167 (3.54%) Retail
10 165 (3.50%) Legal
11 152 (3.22%) Law
12 129 (2.74%) Telecoms
13 124 (2.63%) Electronics
14 123 (2.61%) Banking
15 86 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
16 70 (1.48%) Automotive
16 70 (1.48%) Games
17 66 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
18 59 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
19 53 (1.12%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 706 (14.97%) Analyst
2 593 (12.58%) IT Support
3 537 (11.39%) Support Engineer
4 515 (10.92%) Senior
5 361 (7.66%) Developer
6 342 (7.25%) IT Engineer
7 269 (5.71%) IT Support Engineer
8 251 (5.32%) Lead
9 210 (4.45%) Support Analyst
10 197 (4.18%) Support Technician
11 173 (3.67%) Architect
12 161 (3.41%) Systems Engineer
13 157 (3.33%) Technical Support
14 151 (3.20%) IT Technician
15 149 (3.16%) Business Analyst
16 148 (3.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 141 (2.99%) Consultant
18 137 (2.91%) 2nd Line Support
19 128 (2.71%) IT Support Technician
20 126 (2.67%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (3.22%) .NET
2 145 (3.08%) React
3 130 (2.76%) HTML
4 106 (2.25%) REST
5 101 (2.14%) CSS
6 80 (1.70%) Node.js
7 64 (1.36%) SOAP
8 55 (1.17%) RESTful
9 54 (1.15%) Middleware
10 52 (1.10%) JSON
10 52 (1.10%) XML
11 44 (0.93%) AngularJS
12 43 (0.91%) Spring
12 43 (0.91%) Vue
13 41 (0.87%) Spring Boot
14 40 (0.85%) OAuth
15 31 (0.66%) EDI
16 29 (0.62%) GraphQL
17 28 (0.59%) ASP.NET
17 28 (0.59%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 371 (7.87%) Driving Licence
2 289 (6.13%) Onboarding
3 235 (4.98%) Self-Motivation
4 163 (3.46%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.42%) Product Ownership
6 108 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
7 98 (2.08%) Cloud Native
8 96 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
9 86 (1.82%) Data Centre
10 78 (1.65%) Social Media
11 68 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
12 60 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
13 54 (1.15%) Mobile App
14 51 (1.08%) Low-Code
15 48 (1.02%) Virtual Team
16 37 (0.78%) Data Structures
17 34 (0.72%) Life Science
18 33 (0.70%) CCTV
19 32 (0.68%) IoT
20 31 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 794 (16.84%) Windows
2 355 (7.53%) Windows Server
3 286 (6.07%) Linux
4 123 (2.61%) Windows 10
5 101 (2.14%) Android
6 88 (1.87%) Windows Server 2016
7 64 (1.36%) Apple iOS
8 51 (1.08%) Mac OS
9 37 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.66%) Unix
11 25 (0.53%) CentOS
11 25 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 21 (0.45%) Ubuntu
13 20 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 13 (0.28%) VMS
14 13 (0.28%) Windows 7
15 10 (0.21%) Debian
16 8 (0.17%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
18 4 (0.085%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 957 (20.30%) Continuous Improvement
2 834 (17.69%) Customer Service
3 623 (13.21%) Agile
4 447 (9.48%) Decision-Making
5 423 (8.97%) Mentoring
6 399 (8.46%) ITIL
7 396 (8.40%) CI/CD
8 394 (8.36%) DevOps
9 378 (8.02%) Analytics
10 355 (7.53%) AI
11 351 (7.44%) Project Management
12 333 (7.06%) Business Intelligence
13 313 (6.64%) Coaching
14 292 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
15 290 (6.15%) Stakeholder Management
16 284 (6.02%) ERP
17 282 (5.98%) Computer Science
18 281 (5.96%) Software Engineering
19 272 (5.77%) Collaborative Working
20 269 (5.71%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 596 (12.64%) SQL
2 503 (10.67%) Python
3 270 (5.73%) JavaScript
4 198 (4.20%) PowerShell
5 191 (4.05%) Java
6 174 (3.69%) C#
7 104 (2.21%) TypeScript
8 85 (1.80%) Bash
9 65 (1.38%) PHP
10 63 (1.34%) C++
11 47 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 43 (0.91%) C
13 33 (0.70%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.66%) T-SQL
15 26 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 25 (0.53%) Bicep
17 24 (0.51%) R
18 23 (0.49%) Go
19 21 (0.45%) Scala
20 18 (0.38%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 749 (15.89%) Degree
2 305 (6.47%) Security Cleared
3 201 (4.26%) SC Cleared
4 198 (4.20%) DBS Check
5 146 (3.10%) Microsoft Certification
6 130 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
7 85 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 73 (1.55%) A+ Certification
9 69 (1.46%) ACCA
10 63 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
11 62 (1.31%) CIMA
12 57 (1.21%) DV Cleared
13 52 (1.10%) CCNA
14 47 (1.00%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.91%) HNC
15 43 (0.91%) Network+ Certification
15 43 (0.91%) PMI Certification
16 42 (0.89%) CISSP
17 36 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 35 (0.74%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (5.41%) QA
2 215 (4.56%) Data Quality
3 144 (3.05%) GDPR
4 112 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 111 (2.35%) SLA
6 110 (2.33%) Cyber Essentials
7 81 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 79 (1.68%) NIST
9 54 (1.15%) Accessibility
10 38 (0.81%) ISO 9001
11 20 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 18 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.36%) SOC 2
14 14 (0.30%) GMP
15 12 (0.25%) GRC
15 12 (0.25%) TickIT
16 9 (0.19%) ISO 14001
17 8 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.17%) PMO
18 6 (0.13%) HIPAA
System Software
1 557 (11.81%) Active Directory
2 173 (3.67%) Docker
3 168 (3.56%) Hyper-V
4 125 (2.65%) VMware Infrastructure
5 48 (1.02%) Terminal Server
6 26 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 25 (0.53%) Firmware
8 16 (0.34%) vSphere
9 10 (0.21%) KVM
9 10 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
11 8 (0.17%) VMware Workstation
12 6 (0.13%) XenApp
13 4 (0.085%) Embedded Firmware
13 4 (0.085%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 3 (0.064%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.064%) Virtual Servers
15 2 (0.042%) Terminal Services
15 2 (0.042%) VMware NSX
16 1 (0.021%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 199 (4.22%) Terraform
2 161 (3.41%) Microsoft Intune
3 146 (3.10%) Kubernetes
4 84 (1.78%) Ansible
5 56 (1.19%) SCCM
6 53 (1.12%) Grafana
7 31 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.42%) BMC PATROL
9 18 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (0.36%) Nagios
11 10 (0.21%) Autotask
11 10 (0.21%) Puppet
11 10 (0.21%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.19%) Kibana
13 8 (0.17%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.17%) HP Fortify
13 8 (0.17%) logstash
14 7 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
14 7 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 1,287 (27.30%) Microsoft
2 200 (4.24%) VMware
3 140 (2.97%) Oracle
4 110 (2.33%) SAP
5 97 (2.06%) Google
6 96 (2.04%) Veeam
7 93 (1.97%) Cisco
8 80 (1.70%) SolarWinds
9 79 (1.68%) Splunk
10 73 (1.55%) Databricks
11 68 (1.44%) ServiceNow
12 64 (1.36%) Apple
13 60 (1.27%) Salesforce
14 56 (1.19%) Adobe
15 49 (1.04%) Dell
15 49 (1.04%) Tanium
16 48 (1.02%) Brocade
16 48 (1.02%) Nimble Storage
17 38 (0.81%) Sage
18 35 (0.74%) HubSpot