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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 3
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,950 6,412 8,125
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.49% 18.72% 14.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.10% 21.68% 18.84%
Number of salaries quoted 4,939 3,483 3,561
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,750 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.88% -15.79% -1.09%
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,500 £63,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £71,250 £78,750
UK median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £51,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -9.80% -7.27%

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 57,416 29,579 43,122
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.18% 86.37% 77.66%
Number of salaries quoted 40,741 16,015 24,543
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £52,200
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -9.00% -4.22%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £66,701
90th Percentile £88,148 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 1,741 £45,000 +7.14% 1,389
South East -4 1,651 £42,500 - 1,462
Midlands -7 1,253 £42,500 +11.84% 1,039
North West -7 902 £45,000 -5.26% 770
South West -4 872 £45,000 +28.57% 810
East of England -4 708 £42,500 +21.43% 715
West Midlands -8 695 £42,500 -4.59% 649
Yorkshire -8 564 £42,500 +21.43% 446
East Midlands -9 556 £41,000 +17.14% 392
Scotland +2 310 £33,500 -31.14% 548
North East -2 275 £48,250 +22.93% 195
Northern Ireland +1 233 £70,000 +18.64% 327
Wales -19 196 £42,500 -11.68% 157
Isle of Man +1 3 £35,000 - 7
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
1 425 (6.12%) SharePoint
2 354 (5.09%) Microsoft Exchange
3 62 (0.89%) Confluence
4 61 (0.88%) CMS
5 54 (0.78%) IIS
6 31 (0.45%) WordPress
7 30 (0.43%) Apache
8 27 (0.39%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.23%) Apache Spark
11 13 (0.19%) SAS
12 10 (0.14%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.13%) nginx
13 9 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 8 (0.12%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.10%) OpenEdge
15 7 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
16 5 (0.072%) CICS
16 5 (0.072%) Skype for Business
17 4 (0.058%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 463 (6.66%) Microsoft Office
2 436 (6.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 60 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 52 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 38 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 34 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
7 29 (0.42%) Simulink
8 25 (0.36%) AutoCAD
9 17 (0.24%) Revit
10 8 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.12%) EPLAN
11 7 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 7 (0.10%) Fusion 360
12 6 (0.086%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.086%) Navisworks
12 6 (0.086%) Sketch
12 6 (0.086%) SOLIDWORKS
13 5 (0.072%) Lightworks
14 4 (0.058%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 72 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 61 (0.88%) NetSuite
3 48 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
4 31 (0.45%) Shopify
5 18 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
6 17 (0.24%) SAP Business One
7 16 (0.23%) Magento
7 16 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 16 (0.23%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.20%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 14 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 12 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 10 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
10 10 (0.14%) Sage X3
11 9 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 9 (0.13%) Sage 50
12 8 (0.12%) Primavera
13 7 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
13 7 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 1,364 (19.63%) Azure
2 1,189 (17.11%) Microsoft 365
3 684 (9.84%) AWS
4 574 (8.26%) Power Platform
5 362 (5.21%) Entra ID
6 250 (3.60%) SaaS
7 230 (3.31%) GCP
8 173 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
9 149 (2.14%) PowerApps
10 147 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
11 137 (1.97%) GitHub
12 132 (1.90%) Power Automate
13 121 (1.74%) Serverless
14 95 (1.37%) OneDrive
15 84 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
16 60 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
17 59 (0.85%) Amazon S3
17 59 (0.85%) Google Workspace
18 56 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
19 54 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 434 (6.24%) Firewall
2 423 (6.09%) DNS
3 363 (5.22%) DHCP
4 269 (3.87%) VPN
5 232 (3.34%) TCP/IP
6 192 (2.76%) WAN
7 183 (2.63%) LAN
7 183 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
8 167 (2.40%) Wireless
9 143 (2.06%) VLAN
10 117 (1.68%) Network Security
11 113 (1.63%) VoIP
12 76 (1.09%) Broadband
13 48 (0.69%) Internet
14 31 (0.45%) SSL
15 27 (0.39%) SAN
16 26 (0.37%) HTTP
17 25 (0.36%) SD-WAN
18 23 (0.33%) MQTT
18 23 (0.33%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 460 (6.62%) Power BI
2 328 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 133 (1.91%) MySQL
4 127 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
5 115 (1.65%) Relational Database
6 104 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
7 89 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
8 80 (1.15%) NoSQL
8 80 (1.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 70 (1.01%) Tableau
10 61 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 49 (0.71%) MongoDB
12 47 (0.68%) Electronic Patient Records
12 47 (0.68%) Power Query
13 45 (0.65%) Big Data
14 44 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
15 43 (0.62%) Data Lake
16 29 (0.42%) DynamoDB
16 29 (0.42%) Metadata
17 26 (0.37%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 292 (4.20%) Git
2 230 (3.31%) JIRA
3 77 (1.11%) GitLab
4 74 (1.06%) Jenkins
5 37 (0.53%) Eclipse
6 33 (0.47%) Subversion
7 29 (0.42%) Selenium
8 28 (0.40%) Cucumber
9 26 (0.37%) JUnit
10 25 (0.36%) Claude Code
11 23 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
12 22 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
13 21 (0.30%) Bitbucket
13 21 (0.30%) Postman
14 18 (0.26%) Cypress.io
15 14 (0.20%) SonarQube
16 13 (0.19%) Burp Suite
17 12 (0.17%) Visual Studio
18 11 (0.16%) LabVIEW
18 11 (0.16%) Metasploit
General
1 3,373 (48.53%) Social Skills
2 1,937 (27.87%) Analytical Skills
3 1,096 (15.77%) Finance
4 663 (9.54%) Manufacturing
5 456 (6.56%) Organisational Skills
6 384 (5.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 327 (4.71%) Law
8 312 (4.49%) Public Sector
9 300 (4.32%) Retail
10 293 (4.22%) Legal
11 258 (3.71%) Marketing
12 250 (3.60%) Electronics
13 236 (3.40%) Aerospace
14 160 (2.30%) Telecoms
15 143 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
16 131 (1.88%) Banking
17 110 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
18 93 (1.34%) Automotive
19 84 (1.21%) Military
20 76 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 922 (13.27%) Analyst
2 737 (10.60%) Senior
3 700 (10.07%) IT Support
4 699 (10.06%) Developer
5 557 (8.01%) Support Engineer
6 384 (5.53%) Lead
7 374 (5.38%) IT Engineer
8 356 (5.12%) Support Analyst
9 326 (4.69%) Consultant
10 280 (4.03%) IT Support Engineer
11 266 (3.83%) Technical Support
12 264 (3.80%) Support Technician
13 240 (3.45%) Systems Engineer
14 231 (3.32%) Architect
15 228 (3.28%) Technical Engineer
16 225 (3.24%) IT Technician
17 224 (3.22%) Software Engineer
18 206 (2.96%) Technical Support Engineer
19 196 (2.82%) Senior Developer
20 178 (2.56%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 353 (5.08%) .NET
2 267 (3.84%) Terraform
3 214 (3.08%) React
4 196 (2.82%) REST
5 193 (2.78%) HTML
6 141 (2.03%) CSS
7 128 (1.84%) RESTful
8 98 (1.41%) SOAP
9 94 (1.35%) Node.js
10 82 (1.18%) ASP.NET
11 81 (1.17%) Vue
11 81 (1.17%) Web Services
12 79 (1.14%) Middleware
12 79 (1.14%) XML
13 77 (1.11%) AngularJS
14 74 (1.06%) JSON
15 71 (1.02%) Spring
16 64 (0.92%) Spring Boot
17 54 (0.78%) OAuth
18 52 (0.75%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 582 (8.37%) Driving Licence
2 460 (6.62%) Onboarding
3 355 (5.11%) Self-Motivation
4 308 (4.43%) Management Information System
5 190 (2.73%) Cloud Native
6 174 (2.50%) Product Ownership
7 157 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
8 123 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
9 119 (1.71%) Data Centre
10 97 (1.40%) Robotics
11 95 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
12 86 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
12 86 (1.24%) NHS
13 82 (1.18%) Security Posture
14 76 (1.09%) Cyber Threat
15 70 (1.01%) Mobile App
15 70 (1.01%) Social Media
15 70 (1.01%) Virtual Team
16 63 (0.91%) CCTV
16 63 (0.91%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,141 (16.42%) Windows
2 519 (7.47%) Windows Server
3 461 (6.63%) Linux
4 126 (1.81%) Windows 10
5 111 (1.60%) Windows Server 2016
6 86 (1.24%) Android
6 86 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 77 (1.11%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.62%) Unix
9 42 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
10 29 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 18 (0.26%) VMS
12 17 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 15 (0.22%) Debian
14 11 (0.16%) CentOS
14 11 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
15 9 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
16 7 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
17 6 (0.086%) Rocky
18 5 (0.072%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,876 (26.99%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,284 (18.47%) Customer Service
3 1,031 (14.83%) Agile
4 774 (11.14%) Decision-Making
5 704 (10.13%) Mentoring
6 698 (10.04%) CI/CD
7 682 (9.81%) AI
8 666 (9.58%) Stakeholder Management
9 580 (8.35%) DevOps
10 576 (8.29%) Project Delivery
11 575 (8.27%) Analytics
12 566 (8.14%) ITIL
13 563 (8.10%) Software Engineering
14 550 (7.91%) Collaborative Working
15 539 (7.76%) Cybersecurity
16 531 (7.64%) ERP
17 494 (7.11%) Business Intelligence
18 476 (6.85%) Project Management
19 438 (6.30%) CRM
20 419 (6.03%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,059 (15.24%) SQL
2 730 (10.50%) Python
3 439 (6.32%) JavaScript
4 437 (6.29%) C#
5 307 (4.42%) Java
6 292 (4.20%) PowerShell
7 193 (2.78%) TypeScript
8 190 (2.73%) C++
9 123 (1.77%) Bash
10 75 (1.08%) C
11 70 (1.01%) PHP
12 64 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 58 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 48 (0.69%) Ruby
15 46 (0.66%) Shell Script
16 42 (0.60%) Perl
17 40 (0.58%) PL/SQL
18 37 (0.53%) Go
19 36 (0.52%) MATLAB
19 36 (0.52%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,097 (15.78%) Degree
2 648 (9.32%) Security Cleared
3 456 (6.56%) SC Cleared
4 204 (2.94%) DBS Check
5 198 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 182 (2.62%) Microsoft Certification
7 177 (2.55%) DV Cleared
8 152 (2.19%) HNC
9 150 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
10 139 (2.00%) HND
11 125 (1.80%) Azure Certification
12 92 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
13 79 (1.14%) PMI Certification
14 75 (1.08%) Chartered Engineer
15 70 (1.01%) CISSP
16 66 (0.95%) A+ Certification
17 62 (0.89%) Master's Degree
18 61 (0.88%) CCNA
19 58 (0.83%) PMP
20 51 (0.73%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 456 (6.56%) QA
2 280 (4.03%) Data Quality
3 215 (3.09%) GDPR
4 174 (2.50%) Cyber Essentials
5 172 (2.47%) Accessibility
6 169 (2.43%) SLA
7 131 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 114 (1.64%) PCI DSS
9 89 (1.28%) NIST
10 35 (0.50%) ISO 9001
11 33 (0.47%) PMO
12 32 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 18 (0.26%) GMP
13 18 (0.26%) Good Clinical Practice
14 17 (0.24%) DO-254
15 15 (0.22%) GRC
15 15 (0.22%) NCSC
16 13 (0.19%) GxP
17 12 (0.17%) TickIT
17 12 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 794 (11.42%) Active Directory
2 296 (4.26%) Hyper-V
3 256 (3.68%) Docker
4 210 (3.02%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.15%) Terminal Server
6 71 (1.02%) Firmware
7 39 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 32 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 28 (0.40%) vSphere
10 25 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
11 15 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.086%) KVM
14 5 (0.072%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.072%) Squid
15 4 (0.058%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.058%) XenApp
16 3 (0.043%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.043%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.043%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 244 (3.51%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.17%) Kubernetes
3 107 (1.54%) Ansible
4 58 (0.83%) Grafana
5 53 (0.76%) SCCM
6 42 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
7 41 (0.59%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 21 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
9 18 (0.26%) BMC PATROL
10 17 (0.24%) Puppet
11 14 (0.20%) Functional Safety
12 11 (0.16%) Kibana
12 11 (0.16%) Nagios
12 11 (0.16%) Nmap
13 10 (0.14%) logstash
13 10 (0.14%) Podman
13 10 (0.14%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
14 9 (0.13%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,119 (30.49%) Microsoft
2 342 (4.92%) VMware
3 198 (2.85%) SAP
4 185 (2.66%) Google
5 165 (2.37%) Oracle
6 141 (2.03%) Veeam
7 135 (1.94%) Cisco
8 130 (1.87%) Workday
9 124 (1.78%) Splunk
10 119 (1.71%) ServiceNow
11 101 (1.45%) SolarWinds
12 99 (1.42%) Salesforce
13 88 (1.27%) Sage
13 88 (1.27%) Tanium
14 81 (1.17%) Nimble Storage
15 80 (1.15%) Brocade
15 80 (1.15%) Databricks
16 70 (1.01%) Fortinet
17 59 (0.85%) Apple
18 56 (0.81%) SonicWALL