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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,028 6,467 8,969
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.08% 18.90% 14.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.46% 21.53% 18.17%
Number of salaries quoted 4,438 3,568 4,929
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,500
25th Percentile £31,000 £29,750 £32,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.94% -10.00% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,250
90th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £73,750
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -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 52,597 30,040 49,350
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.53% 87.79% 78.91%
Number of salaries quoted 37,034 16,317 32,343
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,656 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% 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 31 July 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 31 July 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 1,569 £45,000 +5.88% 725
South East -3 1,482 £45,000 +5.88% 878
Midlands -8 1,117 £42,000 +5.00% 515
North West -6 824 £45,000 -2.17% 363
South West -6 750 £44,000 +17.33% 369
West Midlands -10 623 £42,500 -5.56% 304
East of England -5 597 £42,500 +21.43% 320
Yorkshire -9 533 £42,500 +21.43% 256
East Midlands -10 490 £37,500 +5.63% 211
Scotland -6 240 £33,000 -25.84% 114
North East -13 212 £50,000 +33.33% 116
Wales -19 158 £45,000 -6.49% 70
Northern Ireland -11 131 £38,500 -30.00% 38
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 4
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
1 359 (5.96%) Microsoft Exchange
2 351 (5.82%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.06%) Confluence
4 45 (0.75%) CMS
5 39 (0.65%) IIS
6 30 (0.50%) Apache
7 29 (0.48%) WordPress
8 23 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.23%) Apache Spark
10 13 (0.22%) SAS
11 11 (0.18%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.15%) WebLogic
13 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
13 8 (0.13%) nginx
14 7 (0.12%) OpenEdge
15 6 (0.100%) Exchange Server 2007
15 6 (0.100%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.100%) Jupyter
16 5 (0.083%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.066%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 388 (6.44%) Microsoft Office
2 383 (6.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 55 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 45 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 38 (0.63%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
7 14 (0.23%) Simulink
8 12 (0.20%) AutoCAD
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.083%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.083%) EPLAN
10 5 (0.083%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.083%) Lightworks
10 5 (0.083%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.083%) Revit
10 5 (0.083%) Sketch
10 5 (0.083%) Trello
11 3 (0.050%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 54 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.60%) NetSuite
3 35 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 19 (0.32%) Shopify
5 18 (0.30%) Magento
6 16 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
7 14 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
7 14 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 13 (0.22%) SAP Business One
9 10 (0.17%) JDE EnterpriseOne
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.15%) Sage 50
10 9 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
12 6 (0.100%) NEC Housing
13 5 (0.083%) Dynamics GP
13 5 (0.083%) Infor CloudSuite
13 5 (0.083%) iTrent
13 5 (0.083%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,263 (20.95%) Azure
2 1,097 (18.20%) Microsoft 365
3 636 (10.55%) AWS
4 485 (8.05%) Power Platform
5 315 (5.23%) Entra ID
6 209 (3.47%) GCP
6 209 (3.47%) SaaS
7 146 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
8 133 (2.21%) Dynamics 365
9 116 (1.92%) Serverless
10 111 (1.84%) GitHub
11 105 (1.74%) PowerApps
12 104 (1.73%) Power Automate
13 78 (1.29%) OneDrive
14 69 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
15 56 (0.93%) Amazon S3
16 53 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
17 52 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
18 49 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
19 48 (0.80%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 413 (6.85%) Firewall
2 382 (6.34%) DNS
3 325 (5.39%) DHCP
4 224 (3.72%) VPN
5 209 (3.47%) TCP/IP
6 199 (3.30%) WAN
7 177 (2.94%) LAN
8 150 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
9 147 (2.44%) Wireless
10 120 (1.99%) VLAN
11 105 (1.74%) Network Security
12 104 (1.73%) Broadband
13 97 (1.61%) VoIP
14 40 (0.66%) Internet
15 31 (0.51%) SD-WAN
16 29 (0.48%) SAN
17 28 (0.46%) HTTP
17 28 (0.46%) SSL
18 22 (0.36%) WLAN
19 19 (0.32%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 382 (6.34%) Power BI
2 289 (4.79%) SQL Server
3 126 (2.09%) Amazon RDS
4 117 (1.94%) MySQL
5 96 (1.59%) Data Warehouse
6 91 (1.51%) Relational Database
7 87 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
8 84 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 75 (1.24%) NoSQL
10 69 (1.14%) Tableau
11 64 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 48 (0.80%) Power Query
13 45 (0.75%) MongoDB
14 39 (0.65%) Big Data
15 34 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
16 33 (0.55%) Data Lake
17 29 (0.48%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
19 23 (0.38%) Electronic Patient Records
20 21 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 252 (4.18%) Git
2 202 (3.35%) JIRA
3 82 (1.36%) GitLab
4 62 (1.03%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.45%) Eclipse
5 27 (0.45%) Rational DOORS
5 27 (0.45%) Subversion
6 26 (0.43%) Cucumber
6 26 (0.43%) Selenium
7 22 (0.36%) JUnit
8 20 (0.33%) Postman
9 18 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 16 (0.27%) Claude Code
11 15 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
12 14 (0.23%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.23%) SonarQube
13 10 (0.17%) JMeter
13 10 (0.17%) Maven
14 9 (0.15%) Burp Suite
14 9 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,894 (48.01%) Social Skills
2 1,670 (27.70%) Analytical Skills
3 939 (15.58%) Finance
4 508 (8.43%) Manufacturing
5 385 (6.39%) Organisational Skills
6 279 (4.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 278 (4.61%) Law
8 263 (4.36%) Public Sector
9 262 (4.35%) Legal
10 250 (4.15%) Retail
11 182 (3.02%) Marketing
12 172 (2.85%) Electronics
13 154 (2.55%) Telecoms
14 126 (2.09%) Aerospace
15 125 (2.07%) Banking
16 115 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
17 111 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
18 75 (1.24%) Games
19 64 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
20 59 (0.98%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 828 (13.74%) Analyst
2 663 (11.00%) IT Support
3 660 (10.95%) Senior
4 633 (10.50%) Developer
5 556 (9.22%) Support Engineer
6 379 (6.29%) IT Engineer
7 320 (5.31%) Lead
8 282 (4.68%) IT Support Engineer
9 275 (4.56%) Support Analyst
10 261 (4.33%) Support Technician
11 239 (3.96%) Systems Engineer
12 230 (3.82%) Consultant
13 229 (3.80%) Technical Support
14 216 (3.58%) IT Technician
15 202 (3.35%) Software Engineer
16 198 (3.28%) Architect
16 198 (3.28%) Technical Engineer
17 184 (3.05%) Senior Developer
18 179 (2.97%) Technical Support Engineer
19 166 (2.75%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 304 (5.04%) .NET
2 210 (3.48%) React
3 180 (2.99%) HTML
4 175 (2.90%) REST
5 132 (2.19%) CSS
6 110 (1.82%) RESTful
7 96 (1.59%) Node.js
8 90 (1.49%) SOAP
9 78 (1.29%) Vue
10 76 (1.26%) Middleware
11 74 (1.23%) AngularJS
12 73 (1.21%) JSON
13 67 (1.11%) XML
14 63 (1.05%) ASP.NET
15 57 (0.95%) Spring
16 55 (0.91%) Web Services
17 52 (0.86%) OAuth
17 52 (0.86%) Spring Boot
18 41 (0.68%) ASP.NET Core
18 41 (0.68%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 472 (7.83%) Driving Licence
2 348 (5.77%) Onboarding
3 289 (4.79%) Self-Motivation
4 242 (4.01%) Management Information System
5 168 (2.79%) Cloud Native
6 161 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
7 151 (2.50%) Product Ownership
8 101 (1.68%) Data Centre
9 95 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
10 88 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
11 77 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
12 74 (1.23%) Security Posture
13 71 (1.18%) Social Media
14 69 (1.14%) Mobile App
15 64 (1.06%) NHS
16 60 (1.00%) Virtual Team
17 58 (0.96%) IoT
18 55 (0.91%) Cyber Threat
19 50 (0.83%) Robotics
20 49 (0.81%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,050 (17.42%) Windows
2 491 (8.15%) Windows Server
3 445 (7.38%) Linux
4 142 (2.36%) Windows 10
5 119 (1.97%) Windows Server 2016
6 106 (1.76%) Android
7 77 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 76 (1.26%) Apple iOS
9 40 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
10 34 (0.56%) Unix
11 28 (0.46%) Ubuntu
12 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 21 (0.35%) CentOS
14 17 (0.28%) VMS
15 13 (0.22%) Debian
15 13 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 9 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
17 8 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
18 6 (0.100%) Windows Server 2012
19 5 (0.083%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,534 (25.45%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,085 (18.00%) Customer Service
3 893 (14.81%) Agile
4 636 (10.55%) CI/CD
4 636 (10.55%) Decision-Making
5 616 (10.22%) Mentoring
6 591 (9.80%) AI
7 536 (8.89%) ITIL
8 532 (8.83%) DevOps
9 504 (8.36%) Stakeholder Management
10 501 (8.31%) Analytics
11 487 (8.08%) Cybersecurity
12 482 (8.00%) Software Engineering
13 468 (7.76%) Collaborative Working
14 446 (7.40%) Business Intelligence
15 440 (7.30%) ERP
16 430 (7.13%) Project Delivery
17 356 (5.91%) Computer Science
17 356 (5.91%) Service Delivery
18 352 (5.84%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 956 (15.86%) SQL
2 675 (11.20%) Python
3 392 (6.50%) JavaScript
4 388 (6.44%) C#
5 265 (4.40%) Java
6 240 (3.98%) PowerShell
7 177 (2.94%) TypeScript
8 173 (2.87%) C++
9 112 (1.86%) Bash
10 74 (1.23%) PHP
11 67 (1.11%) C
12 60 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 52 (0.86%) T-SQL
14 39 (0.65%) Perl
15 38 (0.63%) Shell Script
16 35 (0.58%) Ruby
17 34 (0.56%) Go
17 34 (0.56%) PL/SQL
18 29 (0.48%) Kotlin
19 28 (0.46%) Rust
Qualifications
1 891 (14.78%) Degree
2 532 (8.83%) Security Cleared
3 387 (6.42%) SC Cleared
4 187 (3.10%) DBS Check
5 178 (2.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 172 (2.85%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (1.91%) DV Cleared
8 109 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
9 90 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (1.46%) Azure Certification
11 72 (1.19%) HNC
12 65 (1.08%) PMI Certification
13 62 (1.03%) CCNA
14 58 (0.96%) ACCA
14 58 (0.96%) CISSP
15 57 (0.95%) Master's Degree
16 54 (0.90%) A+ Certification
16 54 (0.90%) CIMA
17 53 (0.88%) PMP
18 47 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 381 (6.32%) QA
2 254 (4.21%) Data Quality
3 187 (3.10%) Cyber Essentials
4 174 (2.89%) GDPR
5 153 (2.54%) SLA
6 133 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 129 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 128 (2.12%) PCI DSS
9 91 (1.51%) NIST
10 36 (0.60%) ISO 9001
11 31 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 29 (0.48%) PMO
13 24 (0.40%) GMP
14 18 (0.30%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.25%) GRC
16 14 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 14 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.20%) TickIT
18 10 (0.17%) ISO 14001
18 10 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 730 (12.11%) Active Directory
2 278 (4.61%) Hyper-V
3 239 (3.96%) Docker
4 196 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.46%) Terminal Server
6 49 (0.81%) Firmware
7 28 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 28 (0.46%) vSphere
8 22 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 16 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
10 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
11 9 (0.15%) KVM
12 6 (0.100%) XenApp
13 5 (0.083%) ClearTrust
13 5 (0.083%) Squid
13 5 (0.083%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
14 4 (0.066%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.050%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.050%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 245 (4.06%) Terraform
2 236 (3.92%) Microsoft Intune
3 216 (3.58%) Kubernetes
4 102 (1.69%) Ansible
5 62 (1.03%) Grafana
5 62 (1.03%) SCCM
6 44 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 20 (0.33%) FortiGate
8 19 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.27%) Nagios
9 16 (0.27%) Puppet
10 13 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.18%) Functional Safety
11 11 (0.18%) Kibana
11 11 (0.18%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.17%) Autotask
12 10 (0.17%) logstash
12 10 (0.17%) Podman
12 10 (0.17%) ZABBIX
13 9 (0.15%) QRadar
Vendors
1 1,849 (30.67%) Microsoft
2 323 (5.36%) VMware
3 145 (2.41%) Veeam
4 143 (2.37%) Google
5 139 (2.31%) SAP
6 129 (2.14%) Cisco
6 129 (2.14%) Oracle
7 128 (2.12%) Splunk
8 115 (1.91%) SolarWinds
9 103 (1.71%) ServiceNow
10 96 (1.59%) Tanium
11 89 (1.48%) Nimble Storage
12 88 (1.46%) Brocade
13 83 (1.38%) Salesforce
14 71 (1.18%) Databricks
15 63 (1.05%) Apple
16 60 (1.00%) Sage
17 53 (0.88%) Fortinet
18 47 (0.78%) Dell
18 47 (0.78%) Meraki