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

6 months to
14 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 7,228 6,460 8,200
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.68% 18.74% 14.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.40% 21.63% 18.90%
Number of salaries quoted 5,089 3,529 3,496
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,625 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £32,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £40,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -0.12%
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -14.29% -4.55%

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 58,301 29,869 43,377
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.01% 86.65% 78.29%
Number of salaries quoted 41,307 16,135 23,985
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 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £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 14 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 14 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 1,811 £45,000 +7.14% 1,527
South East -4 1,718 £42,500 - 1,619
Midlands -7 1,306 £42,500 +11.84% 1,112
North West -5 938 £45,000 -5.26% 840
South West -4 905 £45,000 +26.76% 839
East of England -4 726 £42,500 +23.01% 764
West Midlands -8 722 £42,500 -2.42% 686
East Midlands -8 582 £41,000 +17.14% 424
Yorkshire -8 573 £42,500 +28.79% 499
Scotland +3 317 £33,500 -30.57% 633
North East 0 300 £48,000 +28.00% 213
Northern Ireland +3 252 £70,000 +18.64% 352
Wales -17 208 £42,500 -11.68% 185
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
1 435 (6.02%) SharePoint
2 352 (4.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 64 (0.89%) Confluence
4 57 (0.79%) CMS
5 54 (0.75%) IIS
6 31 (0.43%) Apache
7 30 (0.42%) WordPress
8 27 (0.37%) Sitecore CMS
9 26 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
10 16 (0.22%) Apache Spark
11 13 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 11 (0.15%) SAS
13 10 (0.14%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.12%) nginx
14 9 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 8 (0.11%) Jupyter
16 7 (0.097%) OpenEdge
17 5 (0.069%) CICS
17 5 (0.069%) Skype for Business
18 4 (0.055%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 511 (7.07%) Microsoft Office
2 465 (6.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 71 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 59 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
5 41 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 36 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
7 35 (0.48%) AutoCAD
8 31 (0.43%) Simulink
9 23 (0.32%) Revit
10 13 (0.18%) EPLAN
11 11 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
12 9 (0.12%) Navisworks
13 8 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 8 (0.11%) Chatbot
13 8 (0.11%) Fusion 360
14 6 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
14 6 (0.083%) Adobe XD
14 6 (0.083%) Siemens NX
14 6 (0.083%) Sketch
15 5 (0.069%) Lightworks
Business Applications
1 74 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 62 (0.86%) NetSuite
3 48 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 31 (0.43%) Shopify
5 22 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 20 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 18 (0.25%) Workday HCM
8 17 (0.24%) SAP Business One
9 15 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
10 14 (0.19%) Magento
11 13 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 13 (0.18%) SAP ERP
12 12 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
13 11 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
13 11 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 10 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
14 10 (0.14%) Sage X3
15 9 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
15 9 (0.12%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,358 (18.79%) Azure
2 1,207 (16.70%) Microsoft 365
3 692 (9.57%) AWS
4 586 (8.11%) Power Platform
5 370 (5.12%) Entra ID
6 259 (3.58%) SaaS
7 231 (3.20%) GCP
8 172 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
9 151 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 150 (2.08%) PowerApps
11 137 (1.90%) GitHub
12 135 (1.87%) Power Automate
13 125 (1.73%) Serverless
14 98 (1.36%) OneDrive
15 86 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
16 64 (0.89%) Amazon S3
16 64 (0.89%) Google Workspace
17 59 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
17 59 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (0.80%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 435 (6.02%) Firewall
2 417 (5.77%) DNS
3 355 (4.91%) DHCP
4 275 (3.80%) VPN
5 232 (3.21%) TCP/IP
6 197 (2.73%) WAN
7 193 (2.67%) Wi-Fi
8 189 (2.61%) LAN
9 168 (2.32%) Wireless
10 144 (1.99%) VLAN
11 120 (1.66%) Network Security
12 115 (1.59%) VoIP
13 66 (0.91%) Broadband
14 48 (0.66%) Internet
15 30 (0.42%) SSL
16 27 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
16 27 (0.37%) SAN
16 27 (0.37%) SD-WAN
17 26 (0.36%) HTTP
18 24 (0.33%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 472 (6.53%) Power BI
2 328 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 137 (1.90%) MySQL
4 118 (1.63%) Amazon RDS
5 116 (1.60%) Relational Database
6 105 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
7 92 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
8 81 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 79 (1.09%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 71 (0.98%) Tableau
11 59 (0.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 50 (0.69%) MongoDB
13 47 (0.65%) Data Lake
13 47 (0.65%) Electronic Patient Records
13 47 (0.65%) Power Query
14 46 (0.64%) Big Data
15 42 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
16 31 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
17 30 (0.42%) Metadata
18 29 (0.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 297 (4.11%) Git
2 234 (3.24%) JIRA
3 76 (1.05%) Jenkins
4 74 (1.02%) GitLab
5 39 (0.54%) Eclipse
6 34 (0.47%) Subversion
7 30 (0.42%) Cucumber
7 30 (0.42%) Selenium
8 26 (0.36%) JUnit
9 25 (0.35%) Claude Code
10 23 (0.32%) Bitbucket
11 22 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
11 22 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
12 20 (0.28%) Postman
13 19 (0.26%) Cypress.io
14 15 (0.21%) LabVIEW
14 15 (0.21%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.18%) Burp Suite
16 11 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
16 11 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 3,530 (48.84%) Social Skills
2 1,992 (27.56%) Analytical Skills
3 1,142 (15.80%) Finance
4 737 (10.20%) Manufacturing
5 518 (7.17%) Organisational Skills
6 407 (5.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 349 (4.83%) Retail
8 336 (4.65%) Law
9 326 (4.51%) Public Sector
10 302 (4.18%) Legal
11 278 (3.85%) Electronics
12 269 (3.72%) Aerospace
13 265 (3.67%) Marketing
14 174 (2.41%) Telecoms
15 146 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
16 133 (1.84%) Banking
17 113 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
18 109 (1.51%) Automotive
19 95 (1.31%) Military
20 85 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 938 (12.98%) Analyst
2 771 (10.67%) Senior
3 713 (9.86%) IT Support
4 696 (9.63%) Developer
5 572 (7.91%) Support Engineer
6 389 (5.38%) Lead
7 382 (5.29%) IT Engineer
8 369 (5.11%) Support Analyst
9 330 (4.57%) Consultant
10 286 (3.96%) IT Support Engineer
11 276 (3.82%) Technical Support
12 271 (3.75%) Support Technician
13 239 (3.31%) Technical Engineer
14 238 (3.29%) Architect
15 235 (3.25%) Systems Engineer
16 230 (3.18%) IT Technician
17 224 (3.10%) Software Engineer
18 216 (2.99%) Technical Support Engineer
19 198 (2.74%) Senior Developer
20 183 (2.53%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 352 (4.87%) .NET
2 268 (3.71%) Terraform
3 218 (3.02%) React
4 196 (2.71%) REST
5 193 (2.67%) HTML
6 141 (1.95%) CSS
7 131 (1.81%) RESTful
8 98 (1.36%) SOAP
9 91 (1.26%) Node.js
10 89 (1.23%) Web Services
11 85 (1.18%) XML
12 82 (1.13%) ASP.NET
13 81 (1.12%) Vue
14 79 (1.09%) Middleware
15 78 (1.08%) AngularJS
15 78 (1.08%) JSON
16 73 (1.01%) Spring
17 66 (0.91%) Spring Boot
18 54 (0.75%) Kafka
19 51 (0.71%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 619 (8.56%) Driving Licence
2 498 (6.89%) Onboarding
3 379 (5.24%) Self-Motivation
4 323 (4.47%) Management Information System
5 201 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 177 (2.45%) Product Ownership
7 147 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
8 130 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 124 (1.72%) Data Centre
10 112 (1.55%) Robotics
11 93 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
12 88 (1.22%) NHS
13 86 (1.19%) Distributed Systems
14 80 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 75 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
16 73 (1.01%) Virtual Team
17 70 (0.97%) CCTV
17 70 (0.97%) IoT
18 67 (0.93%) Mobile App
19 63 (0.87%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,153 (15.95%) Windows
2 514 (7.11%) Windows Server
3 456 (6.31%) Linux
4 129 (1.78%) Windows 10
5 101 (1.40%) Windows Server 2016
6 89 (1.23%) Apple iOS
7 85 (1.18%) Android
8 82 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 43 (0.59%) Unix
10 41 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 18 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 18 (0.25%) VMS
13 15 (0.21%) Debian
14 13 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
15 11 (0.15%) CentOS
16 9 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
17 7 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
18 6 (0.083%) Rocky
19 5 (0.069%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,957 (27.08%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,354 (18.73%) Customer Service
3 1,049 (14.51%) Agile
4 782 (10.82%) Decision-Making
5 738 (10.21%) Mentoring
6 712 (9.85%) AI
7 708 (9.80%) Stakeholder Management
8 695 (9.62%) CI/CD
9 611 (8.45%) Project Delivery
10 582 (8.05%) Collaborative Working
11 581 (8.04%) Analytics
11 581 (8.04%) DevOps
12 575 (7.96%) Software Engineering
13 572 (7.91%) ITIL
14 557 (7.71%) ERP
15 547 (7.57%) Cybersecurity
16 506 (7.00%) Business Intelligence
17 497 (6.88%) Project Management
18 451 (6.24%) CRM
19 442 (6.12%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,072 (14.83%) SQL
2 739 (10.22%) Python
3 437 (6.05%) C#
4 435 (6.02%) JavaScript
5 315 (4.36%) Java
6 290 (4.01%) PowerShell
7 200 (2.77%) C++
8 194 (2.68%) TypeScript
9 121 (1.67%) Bash
10 78 (1.08%) C
11 69 (0.95%) PHP
12 64 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 58 (0.80%) T-SQL
14 48 (0.66%) Ruby
15 46 (0.64%) PL/SQL
16 45 (0.62%) Shell Script
17 43 (0.59%) MATLAB
18 42 (0.58%) Perl
19 37 (0.51%) Go
20 36 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,171 (16.20%) Degree
2 682 (9.44%) Security Cleared
3 479 (6.63%) SC Cleared
4 212 (2.93%) DBS Check
5 196 (2.71%) Computer Science Degree
6 186 (2.57%) HNC
6 186 (2.57%) Microsoft Certification
7 177 (2.45%) DV Cleared
8 172 (2.38%) HND
9 153 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
10 130 (1.80%) Azure Certification
11 95 (1.31%) Chartered Engineer
12 93 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
13 76 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 72 (1.00%) A+ Certification
15 71 (0.98%) Master's Degree
16 68 (0.94%) CISSP
17 60 (0.83%) CCNA
18 56 (0.77%) PMP
19 55 (0.76%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 462 (6.39%) QA
2 289 (4.00%) Data Quality
3 214 (2.96%) GDPR
4 204 (2.82%) Accessibility
5 173 (2.39%) SLA
6 166 (2.30%) Cyber Essentials
7 134 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 103 (1.43%) PCI DSS
9 88 (1.22%) NIST
10 37 (0.51%) ISO 9001
11 33 (0.46%) PMO
12 32 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 18 (0.25%) GMP
13 18 (0.25%) Good Clinical Practice
14 17 (0.24%) DO-254
14 17 (0.24%) NCSC
15 14 (0.19%) GRC
16 13 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.18%) GxP
17 12 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 800 (11.07%) Active Directory
2 286 (3.96%) Hyper-V
3 256 (3.54%) Docker
4 212 (2.93%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (1.00%) Firmware
5 72 (1.00%) Terminal Server
6 40 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 32 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
8 29 (0.40%) vSphere
9 27 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
10 15 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
11 7 (0.097%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.069%) ClearTrust
12 5 (0.069%) KVM
12 5 (0.069%) Squid
13 4 (0.055%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 3 (0.042%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.042%) VMware Server
14 3 (0.042%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 250 (3.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 220 (3.04%) Kubernetes
3 108 (1.49%) Ansible
4 60 (0.83%) Grafana
5 52 (0.72%) SCCM
6 43 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
7 41 (0.57%) Prometheus
8 23 (0.32%) BMC PATROL
9 21 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
10 19 (0.26%) FortiGate
11 17 (0.24%) Puppet
12 15 (0.21%) Functional Safety
13 13 (0.18%) Kibana
14 11 (0.15%) logstash
14 11 (0.15%) Nmap
15 10 (0.14%) Nagios
15 10 (0.14%) Podman
15 10 (0.14%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.12%) Failover Clustering
16 9 (0.12%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2,179 (30.15%) Microsoft
2 339 (4.69%) VMware
3 206 (2.85%) SAP
4 196 (2.71%) Google
5 169 (2.34%) Oracle
6 153 (2.12%) Workday
7 136 (1.88%) Cisco
8 133 (1.84%) Veeam
9 119 (1.65%) ServiceNow
10 118 (1.63%) Splunk
11 101 (1.40%) Salesforce
12 97 (1.34%) Sage
13 92 (1.27%) SolarWinds
14 80 (1.11%) Tanium
15 77 (1.07%) Databricks
16 73 (1.01%) Fortinet
16 73 (1.01%) Nimble Storage
17 72 (1.00%) Brocade
18 65 (0.90%) Apple
19 57 (0.79%) SonicWALL