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

6 months to
21 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 5,266 6,031 11,466
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.76% 20.00% 14.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.09% 22.00% 18.07%
Number of salaries quoted 3,936 3,207 7,025
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 £48,734
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.60% -11.39%

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 47,467 27,409 63,439
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 69.93% 90.91% 79.64%
Number of salaries quoted 33,286 13,983 44,276
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 £81,250 £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 21 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 21 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 1,425 £42,500 -4.49% 560
South East -5 1,277 £45,000 +5.88% 728
Midlands -8 975 £42,000 -1.18% 402
North West -7 736 £45,000 -2.70% 319
South West -6 628 £44,000 +17.33% 261
West Midlands -9 556 £42,500 -5.56% 221
East of England -3 534 £45,000 +28.57% 226
Yorkshire -12 512 £40,500 +15.71% 166
East Midlands -8 416 £35,000 -6.67% 181
Scotland -3 262 £35,000 -28.28% 88
North East -12 177 £48,500 +21.25% 90
Wales -22 114 £45,000 - 40
Northern Ireland -10 71 £38,500 -30.00% 169
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45%
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
1 335 (6.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 317 (6.02%) SharePoint
3 50 (0.95%) CMS
3 50 (0.95%) Confluence
4 30 (0.57%) IIS
5 26 (0.49%) 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 7 (0.13%) OpenEdge
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 6 (0.11%) WebLogic
14 5 (0.095%) Skype for Business
15 4 (0.076%) Moodle
15 4 (0.076%) nginx
Applications
1 331 (6.29%) Microsoft Office
2 316 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 41 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 39 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 32 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 8 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 8 (0.15%) Simulink
8 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.095%) Fusion 360
9 5 (0.095%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.095%) Trello
10 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.057%) Autodesk Inventor
11 3 (0.057%) Lightworks
11 3 (0.057%) Windchill
12 2 (0.038%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.038%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.038%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 51 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 28 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 22 (0.42%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.36%) Shopify
6 16 (0.30%) 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 (0.095%) Q-Pulse
14 4 (0.076%) Dynamics GP
14 4 (0.076%) Sage X3
14 4 (0.076%) Salesforce CRM
14 4 (0.076%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 1,102 (20.93%) Azure
2 961 (18.25%) Microsoft 365
3 552 (10.48%) AWS
4 400 (7.60%) Power Platform
5 249 (4.73%) Entra ID
6 174 (3.30%) SaaS
7 163 (3.10%) GCP
8 117 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
9 113 (2.15%) Serverless
10 112 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
11 86 (1.63%) GitHub
12 85 (1.61%) Power Automate
13 77 (1.46%) PowerApps
14 69 (1.31%) OneDrive
15 56 (1.06%) Amazon S3
16 49 (0.93%) Google Workspace
17 48 (0.91%) AWS Lambda
18 45 (0.85%) IaaS
18 45 (0.85%) Microsoft Copilot
19 43 (0.82%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 375 (7.12%) Firewall
2 343 (6.51%) DNS
3 295 (5.60%) DHCP
4 199 (3.78%) VPN
5 183 (3.48%) WAN
6 152 (2.89%) LAN
7 149 (2.83%) TCP/IP
8 140 (2.66%) Wi-Fi
9 110 (2.09%) Broadband
9 110 (2.09%) Wireless
10 109 (2.07%) VLAN
11 88 (1.67%) Network Security
12 83 (1.58%) VoIP
13 42 (0.80%) Internet
14 40 (0.76%) SD-WAN
15 30 (0.57%) SAN
16 23 (0.44%) HTTP
17 21 (0.40%) SSL
18 20 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
19 19 (0.36%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 323 (6.13%) Power BI
2 225 (4.27%) SQL Server
3 106 (2.01%) Amazon RDS
4 82 (1.56%) MySQL
5 79 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
6 72 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (1.33%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 67 (1.27%) NoSQL
9 60 (1.14%) Relational Database
9 60 (1.14%) Tableau
10 54 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 45 (0.85%) Power Query
12 40 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 36 (0.68%) Big Data
14 32 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
15 31 (0.59%) Data Lake
16 30 (0.57%) DynamoDB
17 26 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
17 26 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
18 21 (0.40%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 204 (3.87%) Git
2 148 (2.81%) JIRA
3 68 (1.29%) GitLab
4 40 (0.76%) Jenkins
5 29 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.36%) Cucumber
7 18 (0.34%) Subversion
8 16 (0.30%) JUnit
9 15 (0.28%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.28%) Selenium
10 13 (0.25%) Cypress.io
10 13 (0.25%) Maven
10 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
11 11 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
12 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.17%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.17%) Postman
14 8 (0.15%) Claude Code
14 8 (0.15%) Metasploit
14 8 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,522 (47.89%) Social Skills
2 1,453 (27.59%) Analytical Skills
3 838 (15.91%) Finance
4 390 (7.41%) Manufacturing
5 336 (6.38%) Organisational Skills
6 238 (4.52%) Public Sector
7 225 (4.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 203 (3.85%) Legal
8 203 (3.85%) Retail
9 201 (3.82%) Law
10 177 (3.36%) Marketing
11 138 (2.62%) Banking
12 135 (2.56%) Electronics
13 133 (2.53%) Telecoms
14 104 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
15 99 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
16 78 (1.48%) Aerospace
17 72 (1.37%) Games
18 59 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
19 53 (1.01%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 752 (14.28%) Analyst
2 637 (12.10%) IT Support
3 550 (10.44%) Support Engineer
4 546 (10.37%) Senior
5 478 (9.08%) Developer
6 374 (7.10%) IT Engineer
7 287 (5.45%) IT Support Engineer
8 277 (5.26%) Lead
9 243 (4.61%) Support Technician
10 219 (4.16%) Systems Engineer
11 212 (4.03%) Support Analyst
12 195 (3.70%) IT Technician
13 180 (3.42%) Technical Support
14 176 (3.34%) Consultant
15 173 (3.29%) Architect
16 170 (3.23%) Software Engineer
17 154 (2.92%) IT Support Technician
18 149 (2.83%) Technical Engineer
19 141 (2.68%) Technical Support Engineer
20 136 (2.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (3.76%) .NET
2 185 (3.51%) React
3 156 (2.96%) HTML
4 139 (2.64%) REST
5 119 (2.26%) CSS
6 96 (1.82%) Node.js
7 78 (1.48%) RESTful
7 78 (1.48%) SOAP
8 70 (1.33%) JSON
9 69 (1.31%) Middleware
10 64 (1.22%) Vue
11 60 (1.14%) AngularJS
11 60 (1.14%) XML
12 42 (0.80%) Spring
13 41 (0.78%) ASP.NET
13 41 (0.78%) Web Services
14 39 (0.74%) Spring Boot
15 38 (0.72%) OAuth
16 36 (0.68%) EDI
17 29 (0.55%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 403 (7.65%) Driving Licence
2 286 (5.43%) Onboarding
3 239 (4.54%) Self-Motivation
4 200 (3.80%) Management Information System
5 139 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
6 138 (2.62%) Cloud Native
7 127 (2.41%) Product Ownership
8 98 (1.86%) Data Centre
9 97 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
10 74 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
11 71 (1.35%) Social Media
12 65 (1.23%) Mobile App
13 61 (1.16%) Security Posture
14 51 (0.97%) Low-Code
15 48 (0.91%) Virtual Team
16 47 (0.89%) Data Structures
16 47 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
17 41 (0.78%) Algorithms
17 41 (0.78%) IoT
18 40 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 914 (17.36%) Windows
2 448 (8.51%) Windows Server
3 371 (7.05%) Linux
4 142 (2.70%) Windows 10
5 126 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
6 105 (1.99%) Android
7 68 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 61 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 52 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.59%) Unix
11 27 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.49%) CentOS
12 26 (0.49%) Ubuntu
13 18 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 16 (0.30%) VMS
15 13 (0.25%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.23%) Debian
17 7 (0.13%) Windows 8
18 6 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
18 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,200 (22.79%) Continuous Improvement
2 942 (17.89%) Customer Service
3 691 (13.12%) Agile
4 533 (10.12%) Decision-Making
5 528 (10.03%) Mentoring
6 456 (8.66%) AI
7 446 (8.47%) CI/CD
8 442 (8.39%) Analytics
9 426 (8.09%) ITIL
10 408 (7.75%) DevOps
11 397 (7.54%) Cybersecurity
12 395 (7.50%) Collaborative Working
13 375 (7.12%) Business Intelligence
14 373 (7.08%) ERP
15 362 (6.87%) Software Engineering
16 342 (6.49%) Stakeholder Management
17 331 (6.29%) Computer Science
18 319 (6.06%) Coaching
19 314 (5.96%) Project Management
20 303 (5.75%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 796 (15.12%) SQL
2 604 (11.47%) Python
3 333 (6.32%) JavaScript
4 268 (5.09%) C#
5 229 (4.35%) Java
6 212 (4.03%) PowerShell
7 143 (2.72%) TypeScript
8 123 (2.34%) C++
9 100 (1.90%) Bash
10 73 (1.39%) PHP
11 54 (1.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 51 (0.97%) C
13 43 (0.82%) T-SQL
14 42 (0.80%) PL/SQL
15 31 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 30 (0.57%) Perl
17 28 (0.53%) R
18 26 (0.49%) Go
18 26 (0.49%) Shell Script
19 25 (0.47%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 776 (14.74%) Degree
2 427 (8.11%) Security Cleared
3 306 (5.81%) SC Cleared
4 208 (3.95%) DBS Check
5 158 (3.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 157 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 79 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
9 71 (1.35%) DV Cleared
10 66 (1.25%) A+ Certification
11 65 (1.23%) ACCA
12 62 (1.18%) CCNA
13 61 (1.16%) CIMA
14 54 (1.03%) Azure Certification
14 54 (1.03%) HNC
15 53 (1.01%) PMI Certification
16 47 (0.89%) CISSP
16 47 (0.89%) Master's Degree
17 46 (0.87%) Network+ Certification
18 45 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 306 (5.81%) QA
2 242 (4.60%) Data Quality
3 170 (3.23%) Cyber Essentials
4 151 (2.87%) GDPR
5 134 (2.54%) SLA
6 127 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 115 (2.18%) PCI DSS
8 90 (1.71%) Accessibility
9 82 (1.56%) NIST
10 40 (0.76%) ISO 9001
11 24 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 23 (0.44%) PMO
13 18 (0.34%) GMP
14 17 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
15 15 (0.28%) GRC
16 13 (0.25%) ISO 14001
17 12 (0.23%) Good Clinical Practice
17 12 (0.23%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.23%) TickIT
18 8 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 660 (12.53%) Active Directory
2 248 (4.71%) Hyper-V
3 179 (3.40%) Docker
4 170 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.52%) Terminal Server
6 32 (0.61%) Firmware
7 31 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (0.38%) vSphere
9 19 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
11 10 (0.19%) KVM
12 7 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.11%) XenApp
14 5 (0.095%) 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
1 197 (3.74%) Microsoft Intune
2 187 (3.55%) Terraform
3 172 (3.27%) Kubernetes
4 96 (1.82%) Ansible
5 57 (1.08%) SCCM
6 53 (1.01%) Grafana
7 35 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.40%) Nagios
9 17 (0.32%) 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 1,554 (29.51%) Microsoft
2 285 (5.41%) VMware
3 137 (2.60%) Veeam
4 130 (2.47%) Oracle
5 118 (2.24%) SAP
6 116 (2.20%) Splunk
7 115 (2.18%) Google
8 110 (2.09%) SolarWinds
9 105 (1.99%) Cisco
10 83 (1.58%) Tanium
11 81 (1.54%) Nimble Storage
12 80 (1.52%) Brocade
13 76 (1.44%) Salesforce
14 66 (1.25%) Databricks
15 64 (1.22%) ServiceNow
16 62 (1.18%) Apple
17 51 (0.97%) Adobe
17 51 (0.97%) Sage
18 45 (0.85%) Dell
19 37 (0.70%) Meraki