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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 3
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 8,088 6,283 7,926
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 9.36% 18.08% 15.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.25% 20.74% 19.28%
Number of salaries quoted 5,497 3,486 3,042
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,684 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £33,219
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,000 £39,068 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.07% -20.27% +3.16%
75th Percentile £58,750 £55,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £68,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £46,053 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.34% -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 61,022 30,294 41,102
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.58% 87.19% 79.36%
Number of salaries quoted 42,966 16,100 20,920
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,250 £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 £67,500
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 7 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 7 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 -7 2,039 £45,000 - 1,744
South East -2 1,903 £41,585 +3.96% 1,928
Midlands -6 1,458 £42,500 +11.84% 1,214
North West -2 1,049 £45,000 -10.00% 884
South West -2 979 £45,000 +20.81% 856
East of England -1 825 £42,500 +30.77% 875
West Midlands -5 820 £42,500 - 733
East Midlands -6 636 £42,000 +29.23% 480
Yorkshire -7 612 £42,500 +28.79% 605
North East +6 387 £50,000 +49.25% 269
Northern Ireland +9 334 £70,000 +17.65% 315
Scotland +4 330 £37,750 +12.69% 561
Wales -12 237 £42,500 -11.68% 205
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
1 476 (5.89%) SharePoint
2 365 (4.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 66 (0.82%) Confluence
4 61 (0.75%) CMS
5 56 (0.69%) IIS
6 37 (0.46%) Apache
7 31 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 31 (0.38%) WordPress
8 28 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
9 24 (0.30%) Apache Spark
10 14 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
11 13 (0.16%) Jupyter
12 12 (0.15%) nginx
13 10 (0.12%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.11%) WebLogic
15 8 (0.099%) SAS
16 7 (0.087%) CICS
16 7 (0.087%) OpenEdge
17 4 (0.049%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 4 (0.049%) Tomcat
Applications
1 607 (7.50%) Microsoft Office
2 546 (6.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 88 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 66 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
5 46 (0.57%) AutoCAD
6 43 (0.53%) MS Visio
7 40 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
8 37 (0.46%) Simulink
9 27 (0.33%) Revit
10 21 (0.26%) EPLAN
11 16 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
12 11 (0.14%) Navisworks
13 10 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 10 (0.12%) OrCAD
14 8 (0.099%) Chatbot
15 7 (0.087%) Siemens NX
16 6 (0.074%) Adobe Illustrator
16 6 (0.074%) Lightworks
17 5 (0.062%) Adobe XD
17 5 (0.062%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 76 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (0.79%) NetSuite
3 51 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
4 33 (0.41%) Shopify
5 22 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 21 (0.26%) Workday HCM
7 19 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
8 15 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
8 15 (0.19%) SAP Business One
9 14 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 13 (0.16%) SAP ERP
11 12 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 12 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
11 12 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 11 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
12 11 (0.14%) Magento
12 11 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
13 10 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
13 10 (0.12%) Sage X3
14 9 (0.11%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,409 (17.42%) Azure
2 1,295 (16.01%) Microsoft 365
3 698 (8.63%) AWS
4 618 (7.64%) Power Platform
5 461 (5.70%) Entra ID
6 296 (3.66%) SaaS
7 236 (2.92%) GCP
8 174 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
9 158 (1.95%) PowerApps
10 153 (1.89%) GitHub
11 149 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
12 146 (1.81%) Power Automate
13 128 (1.58%) OneDrive
14 114 (1.41%) Serverless
15 97 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
16 80 (0.99%) Google Workspace
17 71 (0.88%) Amazon S3
18 70 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
19 67 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
20 57 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 457 (5.65%) DNS
2 454 (5.61%) Firewall
3 376 (4.65%) DHCP
4 297 (3.67%) VPN
5 238 (2.94%) TCP/IP
6 217 (2.68%) Wi-Fi
7 199 (2.46%) WAN
8 195 (2.41%) LAN
9 180 (2.23%) Wireless
10 152 (1.88%) VLAN
11 130 (1.61%) Network Security
12 115 (1.42%) VoIP
13 65 (0.80%) Broadband
14 60 (0.74%) Internet
15 31 (0.38%) SSL
16 30 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
16 30 (0.37%) SAN
17 27 (0.33%) SD-WAN
18 26 (0.32%) Ethernet
18 26 (0.32%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 488 (6.03%) Power BI
2 337 (4.17%) SQL Server
3 137 (1.69%) MySQL
4 122 (1.51%) Relational Database
5 121 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
6 105 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
7 100 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
8 86 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 70 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 67 (0.83%) Tableau
11 57 (0.70%) MongoDB
12 51 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 50 (0.62%) Big Data
13 50 (0.62%) Data Lake
14 49 (0.61%) Power Query
15 47 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
16 46 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
17 35 (0.43%) Metadata
18 34 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
19 27 (0.33%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 316 (3.91%) Git
2 248 (3.07%) JIRA
3 101 (1.25%) GitLab
4 91 (1.13%) Jenkins
5 40 (0.49%) Eclipse
6 38 (0.47%) Selenium
7 34 (0.42%) Subversion
8 32 (0.40%) Cucumber
9 30 (0.37%) Claude Code
10 26 (0.32%) JUnit
11 25 (0.31%) Cypress.io
11 25 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
12 23 (0.28%) Bitbucket
12 23 (0.28%) Postman
13 21 (0.26%) LabVIEW
14 19 (0.23%) Rational DOORS
15 15 (0.19%) Burp Suite
16 14 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
17 13 (0.16%) Visual Studio
18 12 (0.15%) Metasploit
General
1 3,988 (49.31%) Social Skills
2 2,224 (27.50%) Analytical Skills
3 1,291 (15.96%) Finance
4 974 (12.04%) Manufacturing
5 664 (8.21%) Organisational Skills
6 430 (5.32%) Retail
7 427 (5.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 386 (4.77%) Public Sector
9 361 (4.46%) Electronics
10 333 (4.12%) Legal
11 332 (4.10%) Law
12 326 (4.03%) Aerospace
13 294 (3.64%) Marketing
14 206 (2.55%) Telecoms
15 156 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
16 150 (1.85%) Automotive
17 138 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
18 120 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
19 116 (1.43%) Banking
20 110 (1.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 1,081 (13.37%) Analyst
2 845 (10.45%) Senior
3 773 (9.56%) IT Support
4 721 (8.91%) Developer
5 605 (7.48%) Support Engineer
6 419 (5.18%) Lead
7 411 (5.08%) Support Analyst
8 397 (4.91%) IT Engineer
9 364 (4.50%) Consultant
10 306 (3.78%) IT Support Engineer
11 293 (3.62%) Technical Support
12 275 (3.40%) Support Technician
13 248 (3.07%) Technical Engineer
14 245 (3.03%) IT Technician
15 229 (2.83%) Architect
16 225 (2.78%) Technical Support Engineer
17 222 (2.74%) Software Engineer
18 221 (2.73%) Systems Engineer
19 212 (2.62%) Senior Developer
20 194 (2.40%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 375 (4.64%) .NET
2 284 (3.51%) Terraform
3 221 (2.73%) React
4 201 (2.49%) REST
5 189 (2.34%) HTML
6 139 (1.72%) CSS
7 137 (1.69%) RESTful
8 98 (1.21%) Node.js
9 94 (1.16%) Web Services
10 93 (1.15%) SOAP
11 87 (1.08%) ASP.NET
12 80 (0.99%) Spring
13 77 (0.95%) Vue
13 77 (0.95%) XML
14 73 (0.90%) Middleware
14 73 (0.90%) Spring Boot
15 72 (0.89%) AngularJS
16 69 (0.85%) JSON
17 68 (0.84%) Kafka
18 55 (0.68%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 740 (9.15%) Driving Licence
2 572 (7.07%) Onboarding
3 424 (5.24%) Self-Motivation
4 373 (4.61%) Management Information System
5 213 (2.63%) Cloud Native
6 178 (2.20%) Product Ownership
7 169 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
8 151 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
9 145 (1.79%) Robotics
10 133 (1.64%) Data Centre
11 95 (1.17%) NHS
12 94 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
13 88 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
14 84 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
14 84 (1.04%) Security Posture
15 83 (1.03%) IoT
16 80 (0.99%) CCTV
17 74 (0.91%) Social Media
17 74 (0.91%) Virtual Team
18 73 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 1,233 (15.24%) Windows
2 539 (6.66%) Windows Server
3 446 (5.51%) Linux
4 127 (1.57%) Windows 10
5 102 (1.26%) Windows Server 2016
6 89 (1.10%) Apple iOS
7 87 (1.08%) Android
8 86 (1.06%) Mac OS
9 40 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 39 (0.48%) Unix
11 24 (0.30%) Ubuntu
12 15 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
12 15 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 15 (0.19%) VMS
13 13 (0.16%) Debian
14 9 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
15 7 (0.087%) Rocky
15 7 (0.087%) Windows Server 2012
16 6 (0.074%) CentOS
17 5 (0.062%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,212 (27.35%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,522 (18.82%) Customer Service
3 1,116 (13.80%) Agile
4 854 (10.56%) Decision-Making
5 850 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 803 (9.93%) Mentoring
7 800 (9.89%) AI
8 751 (9.29%) CI/CD
9 698 (8.63%) Project Delivery
10 653 (8.07%) Collaborative Working
11 624 (7.72%) Cybersecurity
12 612 (7.57%) Analytics
13 602 (7.44%) DevOps
14 599 (7.41%) ERP
15 597 (7.38%) Software Engineering
16 573 (7.08%) ITIL
17 563 (6.96%) Project Management
18 533 (6.59%) Business Intelligence
19 510 (6.31%) CRM
20 506 (6.26%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,103 (13.64%) SQL
2 780 (9.64%) Python
3 452 (5.59%) C#
4 436 (5.39%) JavaScript
5 319 (3.94%) Java
6 303 (3.75%) PowerShell
7 208 (2.57%) C++
8 201 (2.49%) TypeScript
9 123 (1.52%) Bash
10 84 (1.04%) C
11 63 (0.78%) PHP
12 62 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 58 (0.72%) T-SQL
14 54 (0.67%) Ruby
15 51 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 46 (0.57%) Shell Script
17 45 (0.56%) PL/SQL
18 42 (0.52%) Rust
19 40 (0.49%) Perl
20 34 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,321 (16.33%) Degree
2 757 (9.36%) Security Cleared
3 528 (6.53%) SC Cleared
4 273 (3.38%) HNC
5 234 (2.89%) DBS Check
6 228 (2.82%) HND
7 214 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 195 (2.41%) Microsoft Certification
9 188 (2.32%) DV Cleared
10 169 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
11 140 (1.73%) Azure Certification
12 106 (1.31%) Chartered Engineer
13 91 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
14 84 (1.04%) NVQ Level 3
15 80 (0.99%) Master's Degree
16 75 (0.93%) A+ Certification
17 72 (0.89%) PMI Certification
18 61 (0.75%) CISSP
18 61 (0.75%) City & Guilds
19 56 (0.69%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 500 (6.18%) QA
2 305 (3.77%) Data Quality
3 235 (2.91%) GDPR
4 209 (2.58%) Accessibility
5 186 (2.30%) SLA
6 171 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
7 137 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 104 (1.29%) PCI DSS
9 74 (0.91%) NIST
10 52 (0.64%) ISO 9001
11 42 (0.52%) PMO
12 35 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 23 (0.28%) DO-254
14 20 (0.25%) GMP
14 20 (0.25%) Good Clinical Practice
15 19 (0.23%) NCSC
16 16 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
16 16 (0.20%) GRC
17 13 (0.16%) GxP
17 13 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 895 (11.07%) Active Directory
2 298 (3.68%) Hyper-V
3 270 (3.34%) Docker
4 215 (2.66%) VMware Infrastructure
5 86 (1.06%) Firmware
6 72 (0.89%) Terminal Server
7 45 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 37 (0.46%) 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 (0.062%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.062%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 5 (0.062%) Squid
14 4 (0.049%) KVM
15 3 (0.037%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.037%) VMware Server
16 2 (0.025%) Samba
16 2 (0.025%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 278 (3.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 232 (2.87%) Kubernetes
3 106 (1.31%) Ansible
4 66 (0.82%) Grafana
5 52 (0.64%) SCCM
6 50 (0.62%) BMC PATROL
6 50 (0.62%) Prometheus
7 46 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
8 24 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
9 21 (0.26%) FortiGate
10 19 (0.23%) Functional Safety
11 15 (0.19%) Puppet
11 15 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 12 (0.15%) Kibana
12 12 (0.15%) Nmap
13 11 (0.14%) Nagios
14 10 (0.12%) Failover Clustering
14 10 (0.12%) logstash
14 10 (0.12%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.11%) Argo
Vendors
1 2,476 (30.61%) Microsoft
2 344 (4.25%) VMware
3 235 (2.91%) SAP
4 230 (2.84%) Google
5 212 (2.62%) Workday
6 180 (2.23%) Oracle
7 146 (1.81%) Veeam
8 144 (1.78%) Cisco
9 129 (1.59%) ServiceNow
10 123 (1.52%) Splunk
11 112 (1.38%) Salesforce
12 101 (1.25%) Sage
13 93 (1.15%) SolarWinds
14 80 (0.99%) Fortinet
14 80 (0.99%) Tanium
15 73 (0.90%) Brocade
15 73 (0.90%) Databricks
15 73 (0.90%) Nimble Storage
16 69 (0.85%) Siemens
17 66 (0.82%) Apple