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

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,609 6,538 8,670
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.40% 18.86% 14.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.94% 21.65% 18.59%
Number of salaries quoted 4,719 3,644 4,279
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,625 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £46,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -13.98% -7.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £76,700
UK median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -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 55,362 30,195 46,644
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.37% 87.09% 78.27%
Number of salaries quoted 39,016 16,455 28,804
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,572
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,100 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

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 22 August 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 22 August 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 -8 1,678 £45,000 +5.88% 1,249
South East -3 1,579 £43,000 +1.18% 1,297
Midlands -8 1,204 £42,500 +10.39% 826
North West -6 881 £45,625 +1.39% 671
South West -4 819 £45,000 +25.00% 740
West Midlands -9 674 £42,500 -4.00% 516
East of England -3 662 £42,500 +21.43% 629
Yorkshire -8 546 £42,500 +21.43% 416
East Midlands -9 527 £41,000 +17.14% 311
Scotland 0 300 £33,500 -24.29% 414
North East -6 251 £48,000 +20.00% 184
Northern Ireland -2 210 £55,000 -6.78% 227
Wales -20 173 £45,000 -6.49% 147
Isle of Man 0 3 £35,000 +1.45% 3
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
1 396 (5.99%) SharePoint
2 342 (5.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 67 (1.01%) Confluence
4 65 (0.98%) CMS
5 50 (0.76%) IIS
6 32 (0.48%) WordPress
7 29 (0.44%) Apache
8 27 (0.41%) Sitecore CMS
9 25 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.24%) Apache Spark
11 14 (0.21%) SAS
12 10 (0.15%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.14%) nginx
13 9 (0.14%) WebLogic
14 7 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 7 (0.11%) OpenEdge
15 5 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
15 5 (0.076%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.061%) OpenStack
16 4 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 427 (6.46%) Microsoft Office
2 416 (6.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 52 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 40 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 30 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 23 (0.35%) AutoCAD
7 23 (0.35%) Simulink
8 14 (0.21%) Revit
9 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 7 (0.11%) EPLAN
11 6 (0.091%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.091%) Fusion 360
11 6 (0.091%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.091%) Sketch
12 5 (0.076%) Lightworks
12 5 (0.076%) SOLIDWORKS
13 4 (0.061%) Trello
Business Applications
1 72 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 53 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 43 (0.65%) NetSuite
4 27 (0.41%) Shopify
5 18 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 17 (0.26%) Magento
6 17 (0.26%) SAP Business One
7 16 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
8 15 (0.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 13 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 12 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
12 10 (0.15%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.15%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.14%) Sage 50
14 8 (0.12%) Primavera
15 7 (0.11%) NEC Housing
15 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
16 6 (0.091%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 1,333 (20.17%) Azure
2 1,126 (17.04%) Microsoft 365
3 666 (10.08%) AWS
4 556 (8.41%) Power Platform
5 341 (5.16%) Entra ID
6 228 (3.45%) SaaS
7 227 (3.43%) GCP
8 166 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
9 144 (2.18%) PowerApps
10 141 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
11 131 (1.98%) GitHub
12 125 (1.89%) Power Automate
13 123 (1.86%) Serverless
14 82 (1.24%) OneDrive
15 81 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
16 58 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
17 57 (0.86%) Amazon S3
18 52 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
18 52 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
18 52 (0.79%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 415 (6.28%) Firewall
2 400 (6.05%) DNS
3 343 (5.19%) DHCP
4 244 (3.69%) VPN
5 225 (3.40%) TCP/IP
6 190 (2.87%) WAN
7 179 (2.71%) LAN
8 165 (2.50%) Wi-Fi
9 156 (2.36%) Wireless
10 127 (1.92%) VLAN
11 113 (1.71%) Network Security
12 106 (1.60%) VoIP
13 91 (1.38%) Broadband
14 43 (0.65%) Internet
15 30 (0.45%) SAN
15 30 (0.45%) SSL
16 28 (0.42%) HTTP
17 25 (0.38%) SD-WAN
18 23 (0.35%) MQTT
19 22 (0.33%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 441 (6.67%) Power BI
2 326 (4.93%) SQL Server
3 135 (2.04%) MySQL
4 125 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
5 108 (1.63%) Relational Database
6 104 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
7 91 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
8 83 (1.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 78 (1.18%) NoSQL
10 70 (1.06%) Tableau
11 62 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.71%) Electronic Patient Records
13 46 (0.70%) MongoDB
14 44 (0.67%) Big Data
14 44 (0.67%) Power Query
15 43 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
16 41 (0.62%) Data Lake
17 29 (0.44%) DynamoDB
18 26 (0.39%) Metadata
19 25 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 292 (4.42%) Git
2 229 (3.46%) JIRA
3 79 (1.20%) GitLab
4 70 (1.06%) Jenkins
5 34 (0.51%) Eclipse
6 33 (0.50%) Subversion
7 26 (0.39%) JUnit
7 26 (0.39%) Selenium
8 25 (0.38%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (0.32%) Claude Code
10 21 (0.32%) Postman
11 19 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
12 18 (0.27%) Bitbucket
13 16 (0.24%) Cypress.io
14 14 (0.21%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.20%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.18%) Visual Studio
17 11 (0.17%) Metasploit
18 10 (0.15%) JMeter
General
1 3,181 (48.13%) Social Skills
2 1,857 (28.10%) Analytical Skills
3 1,059 (16.02%) Finance
4 609 (9.21%) Manufacturing
5 409 (6.19%) Organisational Skills
6 377 (5.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 307 (4.65%) Law
8 293 (4.43%) Public Sector
9 285 (4.31%) Legal
10 281 (4.25%) Retail
11 244 (3.69%) Marketing
12 229 (3.46%) Electronics
13 215 (3.25%) Aerospace
14 157 (2.38%) Telecoms
15 136 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
16 131 (1.98%) Banking
17 109 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
18 77 (1.17%) Military
19 72 (1.09%) Games
20 69 (1.04%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 870 (13.16%) Analyst
2 715 (10.82%) Senior
3 702 (10.62%) Developer
4 655 (9.91%) IT Support
5 545 (8.25%) Support Engineer
6 365 (5.52%) Lead
7 360 (5.45%) IT Engineer
8 310 (4.69%) Support Analyst
9 293 (4.43%) Consultant
10 266 (4.02%) IT Support Engineer
11 257 (3.89%) Support Technician
12 254 (3.84%) Technical Support
13 233 (3.53%) Systems Engineer
14 224 (3.39%) IT Technician
15 223 (3.37%) Architect
16 216 (3.27%) Technical Engineer
17 214 (3.24%) Software Engineer
18 196 (2.97%) Senior Developer
19 193 (2.92%) Technical Support Engineer
20 173 (2.62%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 348 (5.27%) .NET
2 265 (4.01%) Terraform
3 218 (3.30%) React
4 198 (3.00%) HTML
5 191 (2.89%) REST
6 146 (2.21%) CSS
7 126 (1.91%) RESTful
8 97 (1.47%) Node.js
9 94 (1.42%) SOAP
10 82 (1.24%) Vue
11 80 (1.21%) ASP.NET
12 78 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 78 (1.18%) Middleware
13 73 (1.10%) JSON
14 72 (1.09%) Web Services
15 70 (1.06%) XML
16 64 (0.97%) Spring
17 57 (0.86%) OAuth
17 57 (0.86%) Spring Boot
18 48 (0.73%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 524 (7.93%) Driving Licence
2 409 (6.19%) Onboarding
3 336 (5.08%) Self-Motivation
4 296 (4.48%) Management Information System
5 186 (2.81%) Cloud Native
6 167 (2.53%) Product Ownership
7 153 (2.32%) Legacy Systems
8 112 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 105 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
10 95 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
11 88 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
12 84 (1.27%) NHS
13 78 (1.18%) Security Posture
14 77 (1.17%) Social Media
15 74 (1.12%) Robotics
16 73 (1.10%) Mobile App
17 67 (1.01%) Cyber Threat
18 66 (1.00%) Virtual Team
19 63 (0.95%) IoT
20 58 (0.88%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,075 (16.27%) Windows
2 504 (7.63%) Windows Server
3 453 (6.85%) Linux
4 131 (1.98%) Windows 10
5 110 (1.66%) Windows Server 2016
6 99 (1.50%) Android
7 83 (1.26%) Apple iOS
8 73 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 40 (0.61%) Unix
10 39 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
11 28 (0.42%) Ubuntu
12 20 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 18 (0.27%) VMS
14 15 (0.23%) CentOS
15 14 (0.21%) Debian
16 9 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
17 6 (0.091%) Windows 7
17 6 (0.091%) Windows Server 2012
18 5 (0.076%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,766 (26.72%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,178 (17.82%) Customer Service
3 1,009 (15.27%) Agile
4 750 (11.35%) Decision-Making
5 690 (10.44%) CI/CD
6 680 (10.29%) Mentoring
7 653 (9.88%) AI
8 610 (9.23%) Stakeholder Management
9 575 (8.70%) DevOps
10 563 (8.52%) Analytics
11 557 (8.43%) ITIL
12 533 (8.06%) Software Engineering
13 530 (8.02%) Cybersecurity
14 517 (7.82%) Collaborative Working
15 515 (7.79%) Project Delivery
16 490 (7.41%) ERP
17 472 (7.14%) Business Intelligence
18 432 (6.54%) Project Management
19 407 (6.16%) CRM
20 387 (5.86%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 1,014 (15.34%) SQL
2 720 (10.89%) Python
3 435 (6.58%) JavaScript
4 431 (6.52%) C#
5 297 (4.49%) Java
6 269 (4.07%) PowerShell
7 193 (2.92%) TypeScript
8 184 (2.78%) C++
9 122 (1.85%) Bash
10 74 (1.12%) PHP
11 71 (1.07%) C
12 61 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 55 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 45 (0.68%) Shell Script
15 43 (0.65%) Perl
16 38 (0.57%) Ruby
17 37 (0.56%) Go
18 33 (0.50%) PL/SQL
18 33 (0.50%) Rust
19 30 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,037 (15.69%) Degree
2 620 (9.38%) Security Cleared
3 442 (6.69%) SC Cleared
4 197 (2.98%) DBS Check
5 193 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 183 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 167 (2.53%) DV Cleared
8 151 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
9 122 (1.85%) HNC
10 117 (1.77%) Azure Certification
11 101 (1.53%) HND
12 95 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
13 79 (1.20%) PMI Certification
14 73 (1.10%) CISSP
15 66 (1.00%) CCNA
16 62 (0.94%) Master's Degree
17 59 (0.89%) Chartered Engineer
18 58 (0.88%) PMP
19 56 (0.85%) A+ Certification
20 50 (0.76%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 438 (6.63%) QA
2 265 (4.01%) Data Quality
3 194 (2.94%) GDPR
4 176 (2.66%) Cyber Essentials
5 169 (2.56%) SLA
6 166 (2.51%) Accessibility
7 126 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 114 (1.72%) PCI DSS
9 94 (1.42%) NIST
10 34 (0.51%) ISO 9001
11 32 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 30 (0.45%) PMO
13 21 (0.32%) GMP
14 18 (0.27%) Good Clinical Practice
15 16 (0.24%) GRC
16 14 (0.21%) DO-254
17 13 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.18%) NCSC
18 12 (0.18%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 752 (11.38%) Active Directory
2 284 (4.30%) Hyper-V
3 253 (3.83%) Docker
4 202 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.21%) Terminal Server
6 67 (1.01%) Firmware
7 35 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
8 28 (0.42%) vSphere
9 27 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
10 21 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.11%) KVM
13 6 (0.091%) XenApp
14 5 (0.076%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.076%) Squid
14 5 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.045%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.045%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.045%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 228 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.33%) Kubernetes
3 109 (1.65%) Ansible
4 57 (0.86%) Grafana
4 57 (0.86%) SCCM
5 41 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 35 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 18 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 18 (0.27%) Puppet
9 14 (0.21%) Nagios
10 13 (0.20%) Functional Safety
11 11 (0.17%) Kibana
11 11 (0.17%) Nmap
12 10 (0.15%) logstash
12 10 (0.15%) Podman
12 10 (0.15%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
13 9 (0.14%) QRadar
13 9 (0.14%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 1,986 (30.05%) Microsoft
2 325 (4.92%) VMware
3 175 (2.65%) SAP
4 167 (2.53%) Google
5 156 (2.36%) Oracle
6 138 (2.09%) Veeam
7 133 (2.01%) Cisco
8 124 (1.88%) Splunk
9 115 (1.74%) ServiceNow
10 102 (1.54%) SolarWinds
11 93 (1.41%) Workday
12 90 (1.36%) Salesforce
13 88 (1.33%) Tanium
14 81 (1.23%) Nimble Storage
15 80 (1.21%) Brocade
16 79 (1.20%) Databricks
17 69 (1.04%) Sage
18 61 (0.92%) Fortinet
19 57 (0.86%) Apple
20 51 (0.77%) SonicWALL