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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,121 5,978 11,468
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.64% 20.13% 14.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.98% 22.07% 18.24%
Number of salaries quoted 3,810 3,162 6,996
10th Percentile £26,398 £25,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - -5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £77,500 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.04% -10.91%

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 46,645 27,091 62,865
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 69.61% 91.21% 80.08%
Number of salaries quoted 32,592 13,719 43,802
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £38,968 £32,851 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 15 June 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 15 June 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 1,385 £42,500 - 597
South East -5 1,234 £45,000 +5.88% 744
Midlands -8 954 £41,500 -3.49% 416
North West -7 710 £45,000 -3.23% 333
South West -6 603 £43,500 +8.75% 299
West Midlands -9 543 £42,500 -5.56% 244
East of England -2 514 £45,000 +28.57% 264
Yorkshire -11 510 £41,000 +17.14% 191
East Midlands -8 408 £35,000 -6.67% 173
Scotland -3 263 £35,000 -28.06% 105
North East -14 165 £48,472 +21.18% 83
Wales -14 116 £45,000 -10.00% 34
Northern Ireland -8 72 £38,500 -30.00% 64
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 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
1 318 (6.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 308 (6.01%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.96%) CMS
4 47 (0.92%) Confluence
5 29 (0.57%) IIS
6 24 (0.47%) WordPress
7 23 (0.45%) Apache
8 19 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.27%) Apache Spark
10 13 (0.25%) SAS
11 11 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
12 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
13 7 (0.14%) OpenEdge
13 7 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 6 (0.12%) WebSphere
15 5 (0.098%) nginx
15 5 (0.098%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.078%) Moodle
16 4 (0.078%) OpenStack
Applications
1 311 (6.07%) Microsoft Office
2 305 (5.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 43 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 39 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 33 (0.64%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.14%) Fusion 360
10 6 (0.12%) AutoCAD
10 6 (0.12%) Simulink
11 5 (0.098%) Photoshop
12 4 (0.078%) Chatbot
12 4 (0.078%) Trello
13 3 (0.059%) Autodesk Inventor
14 2 (0.039%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.039%) Lightworks
14 2 (0.039%) Sketch
14 2 (0.039%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 48 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.37%) Shopify
6 16 (0.31%) Magento
7 14 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 11 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
9 11 (0.21%) iTrent
10 9 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 8 (0.16%) Sage 50
11 8 (0.16%) SAP Business One
11 8 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.098%) Q-Pulse
14 4 (0.078%) Dynamics GP
14 4 (0.078%) Line 50
14 4 (0.078%) Sage X3
14 4 (0.078%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,049 (20.48%) Azure
2 914 (17.85%) Microsoft 365
3 532 (10.39%) AWS
4 383 (7.48%) Power Platform
5 238 (4.65%) Entra ID
6 169 (3.30%) SaaS
7 151 (2.95%) GCP
8 117 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
9 112 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
10 110 (2.15%) Serverless
11 84 (1.64%) GitHub
12 80 (1.56%) Power Automate
13 72 (1.41%) PowerApps
14 66 (1.29%) OneDrive
15 57 (1.11%) Amazon S3
16 51 (1.00%) Google Workspace
17 49 (0.96%) AWS Lambda
18 44 (0.86%) IaaS
19 43 (0.84%) PaaS
20 41 (0.80%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 354 (6.91%) Firewall
2 325 (6.35%) DNS
3 279 (5.45%) DHCP
4 186 (3.63%) VPN
5 177 (3.46%) WAN
6 143 (2.79%) LAN
7 138 (2.69%) TCP/IP
8 133 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
9 109 (2.13%) Broadband
10 107 (2.09%) Wireless
11 103 (2.01%) VLAN
12 84 (1.64%) Network Security
12 84 (1.64%) VoIP
13 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
14 41 (0.80%) Internet
15 32 (0.62%) SAN
16 20 (0.39%) HTTP
17 19 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
18 17 (0.33%) SSL
18 17 (0.33%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 307 (5.99%) Power BI
2 212 (4.14%) SQL Server
3 96 (1.87%) Amazon RDS
4 75 (1.46%) MySQL
5 74 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
6 70 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 69 (1.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 68 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
9 60 (1.17%) Tableau
10 55 (1.07%) Relational Database
11 53 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.88%) Power Query
13 37 (0.72%) Big Data
13 37 (0.72%) MongoDB
14 30 (0.59%) Data Lake
15 29 (0.57%) DynamoDB
16 26 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
17 25 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
18 22 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
18 22 (0.43%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 190 (3.71%) Git
2 143 (2.79%) JIRA
3 63 (1.23%) GitLab
4 40 (0.78%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.59%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.31%) Cucumber
6 16 (0.31%) JUnit
6 16 (0.31%) Selenium
7 15 (0.29%) Subversion
8 14 (0.27%) Maven
9 13 (0.25%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.21%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
10 11 (0.21%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.20%) LabVIEW
12 9 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.18%) Burp Suite
12 9 (0.18%) Postman
13 8 (0.16%) Metasploit
13 8 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,442 (47.69%) Social Skills
2 1,435 (28.02%) Analytical Skills
3 828 (16.17%) Finance
4 364 (7.11%) Manufacturing
5 326 (6.37%) Organisational Skills
6 233 (4.55%) Public Sector
7 222 (4.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 198 (3.87%) Legal
9 195 (3.81%) Law
10 185 (3.61%) Retail
11 180 (3.51%) Marketing
12 139 (2.71%) Telecoms
13 135 (2.64%) Banking
14 134 (2.62%) Electronics
15 102 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
16 94 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
17 73 (1.43%) Aerospace
18 71 (1.39%) Games
19 56 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
20 53 (1.03%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 737 (14.39%) Analyst
2 626 (12.22%) IT Support
3 544 (10.62%) Support Engineer
4 540 (10.54%) Senior
5 450 (8.79%) Developer
6 369 (7.21%) IT Engineer
7 282 (5.51%) IT Support Engineer
8 266 (5.19%) Lead
9 236 (4.61%) Support Technician
10 207 (4.04%) Support Analyst
11 204 (3.98%) Systems Engineer
12 186 (3.63%) IT Technician
13 175 (3.42%) Architect
14 173 (3.38%) Consultant
14 173 (3.38%) Technical Support
15 162 (3.16%) Software Engineer
16 150 (2.93%) IT Support Technician
17 141 (2.75%) Technical Engineer
18 140 (2.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 135 (2.64%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 189 (3.69%) .NET
2 180 (3.51%) React
3 151 (2.95%) HTML
4 132 (2.58%) REST
5 116 (2.27%) CSS
6 92 (1.80%) Node.js
7 75 (1.46%) SOAP
8 70 (1.37%) RESTful
9 66 (1.29%) JSON
10 61 (1.19%) Middleware
10 61 (1.19%) Vue
11 58 (1.13%) AngularJS
11 58 (1.13%) XML
12 41 (0.80%) Spring
13 40 (0.78%) ASP.NET
14 38 (0.74%) OAuth
14 38 (0.74%) Web Services
15 37 (0.72%) Spring Boot
16 34 (0.66%) EDI
17 28 (0.55%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 389 (7.60%) Driving Licence
2 274 (5.35%) Onboarding
3 232 (4.53%) Self-Motivation
4 202 (3.94%) Management Information System
5 127 (2.48%) Cloud Native
5 127 (2.48%) Product Ownership
6 125 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
7 101 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
8 98 (1.91%) Data Centre
9 75 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
10 74 (1.45%) Social Media
11 64 (1.25%) Mobile App
12 52 (1.02%) Low-Code
12 52 (1.02%) Security Posture
13 51 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
14 45 (0.88%) Virtual Team
15 44 (0.86%) Data Structures
16 38 (0.74%) Algorithms
17 37 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
17 37 (0.72%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 868 (16.95%) Windows
2 421 (8.22%) Windows Server
3 346 (6.76%) Linux
4 138 (2.69%) Windows 10
5 117 (2.28%) Windows Server 2016
6 101 (1.97%) Android
7 65 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 55 (1.07%) Mac OS
9 52 (1.02%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.61%) Unix
11 26 (0.51%) CentOS
11 26 (0.51%) Ubuntu
12 25 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 19 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.29%) VMS
15 13 (0.25%) Windows 7
16 11 (0.21%) Debian
17 7 (0.14%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
18 5 (0.098%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,134 (22.14%) Continuous Improvement
2 914 (17.85%) Customer Service
3 674 (13.16%) Agile
4 521 (10.17%) Decision-Making
5 503 (9.82%) Mentoring
6 437 (8.53%) AI
7 433 (8.46%) Analytics
8 431 (8.42%) CI/CD
9 411 (8.03%) ITIL
10 399 (7.79%) DevOps
11 378 (7.38%) Collaborative Working
12 358 (6.99%) Business Intelligence
13 357 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
14 348 (6.80%) ERP
15 345 (6.74%) Software Engineering
16 327 (6.39%) Stakeholder Management
17 318 (6.21%) Coaching
17 318 (6.21%) Computer Science
17 318 (6.21%) Project Management
18 295 (5.76%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 751 (14.67%) SQL
2 582 (11.36%) Python
3 320 (6.25%) JavaScript
4 253 (4.94%) C#
5 222 (4.34%) Java
6 201 (3.93%) PowerShell
7 136 (2.66%) TypeScript
8 109 (2.13%) C++
9 94 (1.84%) Bash
10 71 (1.39%) PHP
11 52 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 49 (0.96%) C
13 44 (0.86%) PL/SQL
14 40 (0.78%) T-SQL
15 30 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 29 (0.57%) R
17 27 (0.53%) Perl
18 24 (0.47%) Go
18 24 (0.47%) Ruby
18 24 (0.47%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 769 (15.02%) Degree
2 401 (7.83%) Security Cleared
3 289 (5.64%) SC Cleared
4 207 (4.04%) DBS Check
5 155 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 149 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
7 84 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
8 79 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
9 69 (1.35%) DV Cleared
10 68 (1.33%) A+ Certification
11 63 (1.23%) ACCA
12 62 (1.21%) CCNA
13 59 (1.15%) CIMA
14 54 (1.05%) HNC
15 52 (1.02%) PMI Certification
16 47 (0.92%) Azure Certification
16 47 (0.92%) Master's Degree
16 47 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
17 43 (0.84%) CISSP
17 43 (0.84%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 295 (5.76%) QA
2 237 (4.63%) Data Quality
3 155 (3.03%) Cyber Essentials
4 146 (2.85%) GDPR
5 129 (2.52%) SLA
6 120 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 105 (2.05%) PCI DSS
8 85 (1.66%) Accessibility
9 80 (1.56%) NIST
10 39 (0.76%) ISO 9001
11 23 (0.45%) PMO
12 22 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 20 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.35%) GMP
15 14 (0.27%) GRC
16 13 (0.25%) ISO 14001
17 12 (0.23%) Good Clinical Practice
17 12 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.23%) TickIT
18 8 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 630 (12.30%) Active Directory
2 231 (4.51%) Hyper-V
3 172 (3.36%) Docker
4 165 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (1.41%) Terminal Server
6 30 (0.59%) Firmware
7 28 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (0.35%) vSphere
9 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.20%) KVM
12 8 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
13 7 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.12%) XenApp
15 4 (0.078%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.059%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.059%) Terminal Services
17 2 (0.039%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 188 (3.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 184 (3.59%) Terraform
3 166 (3.24%) Kubernetes
4 89 (1.74%) Ansible
5 55 (1.07%) SCCM
6 50 (0.98%) Grafana
7 34 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.41%) Nagios
9 15 (0.29%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.23%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.18%) Autotask
11 9 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.18%) Kibana
11 9 (0.18%) Puppet
11 9 (0.18%) QRadar
11 9 (0.18%) ZABBIX
12 8 (0.16%) logstash
12 8 (0.16%) Nmap
12 8 (0.16%) Podman
Vendors
1 1,470 (28.71%) Microsoft
2 269 (5.25%) VMware
3 133 (2.60%) Oracle
4 129 (2.52%) Veeam
5 110 (2.15%) Google
5 110 (2.15%) SAP
6 107 (2.09%) Cisco
6 107 (2.09%) Splunk
7 102 (1.99%) SolarWinds
8 74 (1.45%) Tanium
9 73 (1.43%) Nimble Storage
10 72 (1.41%) Brocade
10 72 (1.41%) Salesforce
11 65 (1.27%) Databricks
12 63 (1.23%) ServiceNow
13 61 (1.19%) Apple
14 51 (1.00%) Adobe
15 45 (0.88%) Sage
16 44 (0.86%) Dell
17 39 (0.76%) Meraki