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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,229 6,027 11,463
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.72% 20.04% 14.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.05% 22.02% 18.08%
Number of salaries quoted 3,902 3,188 7,022
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,250 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - -5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £77,500 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £48,504
% change year-on-year -5.00% +3.09% -11.81%

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 47,304 27,370 63,406
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 69.82% 91.01% 79.70%
Number of salaries quoted 33,151 13,928 44,255
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £38,984 £32,851 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 1,413 £42,500 -4.49% 608
South East -5 1,268 £45,000 +5.88% 762
Midlands -8 972 £42,000 -1.18% 423
North West -7 726 £45,000 -3.23% 346
South West -6 620 £43,500 +16.00% 290
West Midlands -9 553 £42,500 -5.56% 238
East of England -3 529 £45,000 +28.57% 228
Yorkshire -12 510 £40,500 +15.71% 185
East Midlands -7 416 £35,000 -6.67% 185
Scotland -2 262 £35,000 -28.28% 113
North East -13 177 £48,500 +21.25% 92
Wales -19 114 £45,000 -5.26% 47
Northern Ireland -9 71 £38,500 -30.00% 79
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 1
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
1 333 (6.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 313 (5.99%) SharePoint
3 50 (0.96%) CMS
3 50 (0.96%) Confluence
4 30 (0.57%) IIS
5 26 (0.50%) WordPress
6 24 (0.46%) Apache
7 20 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 13 (0.25%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.23%) SAS
10 11 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
11 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2007
11 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
11 9 (0.17%) WebSphere
12 8 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.13%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.11%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.096%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.076%) Moodle
16 4 (0.076%) nginx
Applications
1 328 (6.27%) Microsoft Office
2 313 (5.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 41 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 39 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
5 32 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 8 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
8 7 (0.13%) Simulink
9 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.096%) Fusion 360
10 5 (0.096%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.096%) Trello
11 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.057%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.057%) Windchill
13 2 (0.038%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.038%) Lightworks
13 2 (0.038%) Siemens NX
13 2 (0.038%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 50 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
3 27 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 22 (0.42%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.36%) Shopify
6 16 (0.31%) Magento
7 14 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 11 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
9 11 (0.21%) iTrent
10 9 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 8 (0.15%) Sage 50
11 8 (0.15%) SAP Business One
12 7 (0.13%) SAP CO
12 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.096%) Q-Pulse
14 4 (0.076%) Dynamics GP
14 4 (0.076%) JDE EnterpriseOne
14 4 (0.076%) Line 50
14 4 (0.076%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 1,092 (20.88%) Azure
2 950 (18.17%) Microsoft 365
3 545 (10.42%) AWS
4 395 (7.55%) Power Platform
5 247 (4.72%) Entra ID
6 172 (3.29%) SaaS
7 160 (3.06%) GCP
8 117 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
9 113 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
9 113 (2.16%) Serverless
10 86 (1.64%) GitHub
11 84 (1.61%) Power Automate
12 76 (1.45%) PowerApps
13 68 (1.30%) OneDrive
14 55 (1.05%) Amazon S3
15 49 (0.94%) Google Workspace
16 48 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
17 44 (0.84%) IaaS
17 44 (0.84%) Microsoft Copilot
18 43 (0.82%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 371 (7.10%) Firewall
2 340 (6.50%) DNS
3 292 (5.58%) DHCP
4 198 (3.79%) VPN
5 182 (3.48%) WAN
6 151 (2.89%) LAN
7 147 (2.81%) TCP/IP
8 138 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
9 110 (2.10%) Broadband
10 109 (2.08%) Wireless
11 105 (2.01%) VLAN
12 86 (1.64%) Network Security
13 82 (1.57%) VoIP
14 41 (0.78%) Internet
15 40 (0.76%) SD-WAN
16 30 (0.57%) SAN
17 23 (0.44%) HTTP
18 21 (0.40%) SSL
19 19 (0.36%) Remote Desktop
19 19 (0.36%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 319 (6.10%) Power BI
2 222 (4.25%) SQL Server
3 105 (2.01%) Amazon RDS
4 81 (1.55%) MySQL
5 76 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
6 69 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
7 68 (1.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 67 (1.28%) NoSQL
9 60 (1.15%) Tableau
10 59 (1.13%) Relational Database
11 53 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.86%) Power Query
13 39 (0.75%) MongoDB
14 36 (0.69%) Big Data
15 32 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
16 31 (0.59%) Data Lake
17 30 (0.57%) DynamoDB
18 25 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
19 24 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
20 21 (0.40%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 200 (3.82%) Git
2 148 (2.83%) JIRA
3 68 (1.30%) GitLab
4 40 (0.76%) Jenkins
5 29 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.34%) Cucumber
7 17 (0.33%) JUnit
7 17 (0.33%) Subversion
8 15 (0.29%) Selenium
9 14 (0.27%) Eclipse
9 14 (0.27%) Maven
10 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.23%) Cypress.io
12 11 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
13 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.17%) Burp Suite
14 9 (0.17%) Postman
15 8 (0.15%) LabVIEW
15 8 (0.15%) Metasploit
15 8 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,499 (47.79%) Social Skills
2 1,447 (27.67%) Analytical Skills
3 833 (15.93%) Finance
4 388 (7.42%) Manufacturing
5 333 (6.37%) Organisational Skills
6 236 (4.51%) Public Sector
7 224 (4.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 202 (3.86%) Legal
9 201 (3.84%) Law
10 200 (3.82%) Retail
11 177 (3.38%) Marketing
12 138 (2.64%) Banking
13 133 (2.54%) Telecoms
14 132 (2.52%) Electronics
15 104 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
16 98 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
17 78 (1.49%) Aerospace
18 72 (1.38%) Games
19 58 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
20 53 (1.01%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 750 (14.34%) Analyst
2 633 (12.11%) IT Support
3 550 (10.52%) Support Engineer
4 540 (10.33%) Senior
5 474 (9.06%) Developer
6 374 (7.15%) IT Engineer
7 287 (5.49%) IT Support Engineer
8 274 (5.24%) Lead
9 240 (4.59%) Support Technician
10 217 (4.15%) Systems Engineer
11 212 (4.05%) Support Analyst
12 191 (3.65%) IT Technician
13 179 (3.42%) Technical Support
14 177 (3.38%) Consultant
15 173 (3.31%) Architect
16 165 (3.16%) Software Engineer
17 151 (2.89%) IT Support Technician
18 148 (2.83%) Technical Engineer
19 141 (2.70%) Technical Support Engineer
20 137 (2.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (3.75%) .NET
2 183 (3.50%) React
3 156 (2.98%) HTML
4 138 (2.64%) REST
5 120 (2.29%) CSS
6 95 (1.82%) Node.js
7 77 (1.47%) SOAP
8 75 (1.43%) RESTful
9 69 (1.32%) JSON
9 69 (1.32%) Middleware
10 62 (1.19%) Vue
11 60 (1.15%) XML
12 59 (1.13%) AngularJS
13 41 (0.78%) ASP.NET
13 41 (0.78%) Spring
14 40 (0.76%) Web Services
15 38 (0.73%) OAuth
15 38 (0.73%) Spring Boot
16 36 (0.69%) EDI
17 29 (0.55%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 399 (7.63%) Driving Licence
2 283 (5.41%) Onboarding
3 236 (4.51%) Self-Motivation
4 200 (3.82%) Management Information System
5 139 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
6 135 (2.58%) Cloud Native
7 127 (2.43%) Product Ownership
8 98 (1.87%) Data Centre
9 97 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
10 74 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
11 71 (1.36%) Social Media
12 65 (1.24%) Mobile App
13 60 (1.15%) Security Posture
14 52 (0.99%) Low-Code
15 48 (0.92%) Virtual Team
16 47 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
17 45 (0.86%) Data Structures
18 41 (0.78%) Algorithms
19 40 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
20 39 (0.75%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 906 (17.33%) Windows
2 443 (8.47%) Windows Server
3 368 (7.04%) Linux
4 141 (2.70%) Windows 10
5 126 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (2.01%) Android
7 68 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 61 (1.17%) Mac OS
9 52 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.57%) Unix
11 27 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.50%) CentOS
12 26 (0.50%) Ubuntu
13 18 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 16 (0.31%) VMS
15 13 (0.25%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.23%) Debian
17 7 (0.13%) Windows 8
18 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
19 5 (0.096%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,188 (22.72%) Continuous Improvement
2 940 (17.98%) Customer Service
3 688 (13.16%) Agile
4 527 (10.08%) Decision-Making
5 520 (9.94%) Mentoring
6 453 (8.66%) AI
7 441 (8.43%) Analytics
7 441 (8.43%) CI/CD
8 421 (8.05%) ITIL
9 404 (7.73%) DevOps
10 390 (7.46%) Cybersecurity
11 389 (7.44%) Collaborative Working
12 371 (7.10%) ERP
13 370 (7.08%) Business Intelligence
14 356 (6.81%) Software Engineering
15 342 (6.54%) Stakeholder Management
16 331 (6.33%) Computer Science
17 318 (6.08%) Coaching
18 312 (5.97%) Project Management
19 303 (5.79%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 787 (15.05%) SQL
2 600 (11.47%) Python
3 329 (6.29%) JavaScript
4 265 (5.07%) C#
5 226 (4.32%) Java
6 210 (4.02%) PowerShell
7 140 (2.68%) TypeScript
8 120 (2.29%) C++
9 100 (1.91%) Bash
10 73 (1.40%) PHP
11 53 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 51 (0.98%) C
13 43 (0.82%) PL/SQL
13 43 (0.82%) T-SQL
14 31 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 29 (0.55%) Perl
15 29 (0.55%) R
16 26 (0.50%) Go
16 26 (0.50%) Shell Script
17 25 (0.48%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 772 (14.76%) Degree
2 422 (8.07%) Security Cleared
3 305 (5.83%) SC Cleared
4 206 (3.94%) DBS Check
5 155 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 155 (2.96%) Microsoft Certification
6 86 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
7 78 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
8 69 (1.32%) DV Cleared
9 66 (1.26%) A+ Certification
10 64 (1.22%) ACCA
11 61 (1.17%) CCNA
12 60 (1.15%) CIMA
13 54 (1.03%) HNC
14 53 (1.01%) PMI Certification
15 52 (0.99%) Azure Certification
16 47 (0.90%) Master's Degree
17 46 (0.88%) CISSP
17 46 (0.88%) Network+ Certification
18 45 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 304 (5.81%) QA
2 240 (4.59%) Data Quality
3 168 (3.21%) Cyber Essentials
4 151 (2.89%) GDPR
5 133 (2.54%) SLA
6 125 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 115 (2.20%) PCI DSS
8 89 (1.70%) Accessibility
9 81 (1.55%) NIST
10 40 (0.76%) ISO 9001
11 23 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 23 (0.44%) PMO
12 18 (0.34%) GMP
13 17 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.29%) GRC
15 13 (0.25%) ISO 14001
16 12 (0.23%) Good Clinical Practice
16 12 (0.23%) SOC 2
16 12 (0.23%) TickIT
17 8 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 653 (12.49%) Active Directory
2 242 (4.63%) Hyper-V
3 177 (3.38%) Docker
4 169 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.53%) Terminal Server
6 31 (0.59%) Firmware
6 31 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) vSphere
8 17 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.19%) KVM
11 9 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
12 7 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.11%) XenApp
14 5 (0.096%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.076%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.057%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.057%) Terminal Services
17 2 (0.038%) Samba
Systems Management
1 194 (3.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 187 (3.58%) Terraform
3 169 (3.23%) Kubernetes
4 96 (1.84%) Ansible
5 55 (1.05%) SCCM
6 53 (1.01%) Grafana
7 35 (0.67%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.40%) Nagios
9 16 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.23%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.21%) Kibana
12 10 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.19%) logstash
13 9 (0.17%) Autotask
13 9 (0.17%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.17%) Podman
13 9 (0.17%) Puppet
13 9 (0.17%) QRadar
13 9 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
13 9 (0.17%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,539 (29.43%) Microsoft
2 283 (5.41%) VMware
3 137 (2.62%) Veeam
4 131 (2.51%) Oracle
5 117 (2.24%) SAP
6 116 (2.22%) Splunk
7 114 (2.18%) Google
8 110 (2.10%) SolarWinds
9 104 (1.99%) Cisco
10 83 (1.59%) Tanium
11 81 (1.55%) Nimble Storage
12 80 (1.53%) Brocade
13 76 (1.45%) Salesforce
14 65 (1.24%) Databricks
15 63 (1.20%) ServiceNow
16 62 (1.19%) Apple
17 51 (0.98%) Adobe
18 50 (0.96%) Sage
19 45 (0.86%) Dell
20 37 (0.71%) Meraki