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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,993 6,696 5,888
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 11.58% 18.72% 15.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.81% 21.00% 17.99%
Number of salaries quoted 3,450 2,706 3,852
10th Percentile £26,000 £28,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £29,000 £36,250 £31,428
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £56,838 £67,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £71,250 £82,500 £73,750
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -8.70%

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 33,725 31,892 32,736
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.25% 89.15% 88.29%
Number of salaries quoted 19,447 14,332 24,508
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £33,750 £41,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +3.45% -7.20%

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 January 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 January 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
South East -3 1,336 £41,000 -21.90% 1,251
North of England -15 1,252 £45,000 -5.26% 758
Midlands -15 875 £38,500 -23.00% 550
North West -14 688 £47,500 -4.01% 354
South West 0 584 £40,000 -27.27% 490
West Midlands -18 510 £42,500 -22.73% 272
Yorkshire -4 441 £37,000 -14.94% 293
East of England -7 414 £35,000 -31.33% 487
East Midlands +1 364 £35,000 - 271
Scotland -3 349 £33,500 -33.00% 143
Wales +6 146 £45,500 -9.00% 149
North East -3 123 £33,500 -33.00% 123
Northern Ireland +1 60 £50,000 -16.67% 62
Isle of Man +1 1 £62,500 +150.00% 2
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
1 275 (5.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 212 (4.25%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.98%) IIS
4 45 (0.90%) Confluence
5 24 (0.48%) Apache
6 22 (0.44%) Apache Spark
6 22 (0.44%) CMS
6 22 (0.44%) WordPress
7 15 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 8 (0.16%) nginx
10 6 (0.12%) Drupal
10 6 (0.12%) HCL Notes
11 5 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
11 5 (0.10%) SAS
12 4 (0.080%) Apache Solr
12 4 (0.080%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.080%) Camunda
13 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.060%) govService
Applications
1 411 (8.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 405 (8.11%) Microsoft Office
3 67 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 30 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 25 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.38%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
7 15 (0.30%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
9 11 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
10 9 (0.18%) Adobe Premiere
11 5 (0.10%) Adobe After Effects
11 5 (0.10%) Simulink
12 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.080%) CATIA
12 4 (0.080%) Fusion 360
12 4 (0.080%) Oracle Smart View
12 4 (0.080%) Trello
13 3 (0.060%) Autodesk Inventor
Business Applications
1 90 (1.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 57 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 26 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 18 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
4 18 (0.36%) SAP CO
5 16 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
5 16 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
6 14 (0.28%) SAP FI
7 13 (0.26%) Sage X3
8 11 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
9 10 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
9 10 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
9 10 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
10 9 (0.18%) iTrent
10 9 (0.18%) SAP Business One
10 9 (0.18%) Shopify
11 8 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 8 (0.16%) Oracle Financials
12 6 (0.12%) Markit EDM
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 1,083 (21.69%) Azure
2 796 (15.94%) Microsoft 365
3 410 (8.21%) AWS
4 357 (7.15%) Power Platform
5 276 (5.53%) SaaS
6 224 (4.49%) Entra ID
7 144 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
8 111 (2.22%) GCP
9 102 (2.04%) GitHub
10 81 (1.62%) Serverless
11 70 (1.40%) Power Automate
12 52 (1.04%) Amazon S3
12 52 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
12 52 (1.04%) Dynamics 365
13 51 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
14 44 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 43 (0.86%) AWS CloudFormation
15 43 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
16 42 (0.84%) PaaS
17 41 (0.82%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 362 (7.25%) DNS
2 313 (6.27%) DHCP
3 242 (4.85%) Firewall
4 152 (3.04%) TCP/IP
5 146 (2.92%) VPN
6 141 (2.82%) Wi-Fi
7 116 (2.32%) WAN
8 109 (2.18%) LAN
9 94 (1.88%) VLAN
10 85 (1.70%) VoIP
11 81 (1.62%) Broadband
12 64 (1.28%) Wireless
13 57 (1.14%) Remote Desktop
14 50 (1.00%) Network Security
15 38 (0.76%) Internet
16 36 (0.72%) SAN
17 30 (0.60%) Unified Communications
18 29 (0.58%) SD-WAN
19 24 (0.48%) Ethernet
20 17 (0.34%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 306 (6.13%) Power BI
2 222 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 120 (2.40%) Amazon RDS
4 95 (1.90%) Relational Database
5 82 (1.64%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.64%) MySQL
5 82 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
6 64 (1.28%) SAP BW
6 64 (1.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 62 (1.24%) NoSQL
8 61 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
9 42 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 41 (0.82%) Tableau
11 35 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
12 31 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
12 31 (0.62%) DynamoDB
12 31 (0.62%) GIS
13 30 (0.60%) Metadata
14 28 (0.56%) MongoDB
15 26 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 180 (3.61%) Git
2 161 (3.22%) JIRA
3 52 (1.04%) GitLab
4 46 (0.92%) Jenkins
5 32 (0.64%) Selenium
6 19 (0.38%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.32%) Bitbucket
7 16 (0.32%) LabVIEW
7 16 (0.32%) SonarQube
8 15 (0.30%) Robot Framework
9 14 (0.28%) Maven
9 14 (0.28%) Snyk
10 12 (0.24%) JUnit
10 12 (0.24%) TeamCity
11 11 (0.22%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.22%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.22%) Octopus Deploy
12 10 (0.20%) Burp Suite
12 10 (0.20%) Metasploit
13 9 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,677 (53.62%) Social Skills
2 1,393 (27.90%) Analytical Skills
3 1,066 (21.35%) Finance
4 318 (6.37%) Manufacturing
5 297 (5.95%) Retail
6 257 (5.15%) Organisational Skills
7 254 (5.09%) Marketing
8 197 (3.95%) Public Sector
9 173 (3.46%) Legal
10 162 (3.24%) Law
11 143 (2.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 141 (2.82%) Telecoms
13 127 (2.54%) Electronics
14 114 (2.28%) Banking
15 109 (2.18%) Presentation Skills
16 82 (1.64%) Automotive
17 77 (1.54%) Games
18 68 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
19 63 (1.26%) Aerospace
20 59 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 870 (17.42%) Analyst
2 661 (13.24%) IT Support
3 561 (11.24%) Senior
4 526 (10.53%) Support Engineer
5 379 (7.59%) Developer
6 325 (6.51%) Lead
7 313 (6.27%) Support Analyst
8 259 (5.19%) Technical Support
9 253 (5.07%) IT Engineer
10 222 (4.45%) IT Support Engineer
11 210 (4.21%) Business Analyst
12 175 (3.50%) 2nd Line Support
13 174 (3.48%) Technical Engineer
14 172 (3.44%) Systems Engineer
15 167 (3.34%) Support Technician
16 160 (3.20%) Technical Support Engineer
17 140 (2.80%) IT Analyst
18 136 (2.72%) Architect
19 135 (2.70%) Applications Support
20 130 (2.60%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (4.03%) .NET
2 158 (3.16%) HTML
3 150 (3.00%) React
4 124 (2.48%) CSS
5 94 (1.88%) REST
6 60 (1.20%) RESTful
7 57 (1.14%) Node.js
8 52 (1.04%) ASP.NET
9 51 (1.02%) SOAP
10 50 (1.00%) AngularJS
10 50 (1.00%) JSON
11 45 (0.90%) XML
12 42 (0.84%) Vue
13 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
13 37 (0.74%) Django
13 37 (0.74%) Spring
14 31 (0.62%) EDI
15 26 (0.52%) Spring Boot
16 24 (0.48%) Entity Framework
16 24 (0.48%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 486 (9.73%) Driving Licence
2 393 (7.87%) Onboarding
3 316 (6.33%) Self-Motivation
4 170 (3.40%) Management Information System
5 162 (3.24%) Analytical Mindset
6 152 (3.04%) Legacy Systems
7 100 (2.00%) Product Ownership
8 93 (1.86%) Data Centre
9 74 (1.48%) Cloud Native
10 60 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
11 48 (0.96%) Virtual Team
12 47 (0.94%) FMCG
13 42 (0.84%) Social Media
14 41 (0.82%) e-Learning
14 41 (0.82%) Mobile App
15 39 (0.78%) EPoS
16 35 (0.70%) Video Conferencing
17 34 (0.68%) Data Structures
17 34 (0.68%) IoT
18 33 (0.66%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 932 (18.67%) Windows
2 399 (7.99%) Windows Server
3 320 (6.41%) Linux
4 121 (2.42%) Windows 10
5 116 (2.32%) Windows Server 2016
6 69 (1.38%) Android
7 58 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 55 (1.10%) Apple iOS
9 37 (0.74%) Unix
10 31 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
11 22 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
12 15 (0.30%) Windows 7
13 14 (0.28%) VMS
14 10 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 6 (0.12%) CentOS
16 5 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
17 4 (0.080%) Ubuntu
17 4 (0.080%) Windows 8
18 3 (0.060%) Mac OS X
19 2 (0.040%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 921 (18.45%) Customer Service
2 915 (18.33%) Continuous Improvement
3 670 (13.42%) Agile
4 488 (9.77%) Project Management
5 454 (9.09%) Mentoring
6 437 (8.75%) Analytics
7 435 (8.71%) Decision-Making
8 414 (8.29%) Business Intelligence
9 393 (7.87%) ITIL
10 380 (7.61%) ERP
11 373 (7.47%) DevOps
12 346 (6.93%) Change Management
13 321 (6.43%) CI/CD
14 307 (6.15%) Cybersecurity
15 305 (6.11%) Stakeholder Management
16 301 (6.03%) CRM
17 298 (5.97%) Computer Science
18 292 (5.85%) Process Improvement
19 291 (5.83%) AI
20 258 (5.17%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 753 (15.08%) SQL
2 460 (9.21%) Python
3 268 (5.37%) JavaScript
4 257 (5.15%) C#
5 255 (5.11%) PowerShell
6 163 (3.26%) Java
7 76 (1.52%) PHP
8 65 (1.30%) TypeScript
9 64 (1.28%) C++
10 54 (1.08%) Bash
11 51 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 49 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 38 (0.76%) C
14 27 (0.54%) MATLAB
15 21 (0.42%) PL/SQL
16 20 (0.40%) Go
17 18 (0.36%) Perl
17 18 (0.36%) R
17 18 (0.36%) VBA
18 16 (0.32%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,160 (23.23%) Degree
2 423 (8.47%) Security Cleared
3 286 (5.73%) SC Cleared
4 159 (3.18%) DBS Check
5 146 (2.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 134 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
7 108 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
8 78 (1.56%) DV Cleared
9 73 (1.46%) Master's Degree
10 71 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (1.20%) A+ Certification
11 60 (1.20%) ACCA
12 59 (1.18%) HND
13 56 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 52 (1.04%) CIMA
15 51 (1.02%) CCNA
16 48 (0.96%) Network+ Certification
17 44 (0.88%) AWS Certification
18 41 (0.82%) HNC
19 37 (0.74%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 269 (5.39%) QA
2 235 (4.71%) Data Quality
3 163 (3.26%) Cyber Essentials
4 123 (2.46%) GDPR
5 116 (2.32%) PCI DSS
6 103 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 84 (1.68%) Accessibility
8 72 (1.44%) SLA
9 41 (0.82%) NIST
10 31 (0.62%) ISO 9001
11 26 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 25 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.34%) PMO
14 9 (0.18%) ISO 13485
15 8 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 7 (0.14%) WCAG
17 6 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 6 (0.12%) SOC 2
18 5 (0.10%) GLBA
18 5 (0.10%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 641 (12.84%) Active Directory
2 222 (4.45%) Hyper-V
3 159 (3.18%) Docker
4 110 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 96 (1.92%) Terminal Server
6 31 (0.62%) Firmware
7 24 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 18 (0.36%) vSphere
9 16 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 6 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
11 6 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.060%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.060%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.040%) RHEV
13 2 (0.040%) Xen
14 1 (0.020%) HDFS
14 1 (0.020%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 1 (0.020%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 199 (3.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 190 (3.81%) Terraform
3 114 (2.28%) Kubernetes
4 70 (1.40%) Ansible
5 48 (0.96%) SCCM
6 42 (0.84%) BMC PATROL
7 41 (0.82%) Grafana
8 28 (0.56%) Prometheus
9 23 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 14 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 14 (0.28%) Nagios
12 13 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
13 10 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.20%) AWS Copilot
13 10 (0.20%) Nmap
14 9 (0.18%) ZABBIX
15 8 (0.16%) Control-M
16 7 (0.14%) FortiGate
17 5 (0.10%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 1,371 (27.46%) Microsoft
2 321 (6.43%) SAP
3 240 (4.81%) VMware
4 190 (3.81%) Oracle
5 150 (3.00%) Veeam
6 143 (2.86%) Cisco
7 121 (2.42%) SolarWinds
8 118 (2.36%) Splunk
9 97 (1.94%) Tanium
10 96 (1.92%) Brocade
10 96 (1.92%) Nimble Storage
11 95 (1.90%) Google
12 82 (1.64%) Salesforce
13 80 (1.60%) ServiceNow
14 67 (1.34%) Sage
15 65 (1.30%) Databricks
16 60 (1.20%) Apple
17 58 (1.16%) Adobe
18 56 (1.12%) BT
19 48 (0.96%) HubSpot