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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,645 6,369 10,619
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.89% 18.85% 14.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.18% 21.33% 18.10%
Number of salaries quoted 4,209 3,470 6,496
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £25,250
25th Percentile £30,500 £30,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £41,625 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.10% -7.50% -9.20%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £72,500
UK median annual salary £47,500 £49,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -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 50,483 29,861 58,680
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.57% 88.38% 80.05%
Number of salaries quoted 35,473 15,986 40,466
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,851 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.84%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 -9 1,488 £45,000 +5.88% 963
South East -3 1,396 £45,000 +5.88% 1,033
Midlands -8 1,040 £42,000 +0.60% 595
North West -7 793 £45,000 -2.17% 478
South West -6 685 £44,000 +17.33% 413
West Midlands -9 583 £42,500 -5.56% 300
East of England -4 569 £42,500 +21.43% 418
Yorkshire -10 507 £42,500 +21.43% 349
East Midlands -10 453 £35,000 -4.11% 294
Scotland -8 231 £33,000 -27.69% 330
North East -16 188 £51,500 +28.75% 147
Wales -22 140 £45,000 - 149
Northern Ireland -11 116 £38,500 -30.00% 117
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 6
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
1 361 (6.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 345 (6.11%) SharePoint
3 53 (0.94%) Confluence
4 52 (0.92%) CMS
5 35 (0.62%) IIS
6 29 (0.51%) WordPress
7 26 (0.46%) Apache
8 18 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.23%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.21%) SAS
10 12 (0.21%) WebSphere
11 10 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 8 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
12 8 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 7 (0.12%) OpenEdge
14 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 6 (0.11%) nginx
15 5 (0.089%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.071%) Moodle
Applications
1 366 (6.48%) Microsoft Office
2 350 (6.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 53 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 44 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.18%) Simulink
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.089%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.089%) Fusion 360
11 5 (0.089%) Lightworks
11 5 (0.089%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.089%) Sketch
11 5 (0.089%) Trello
12 3 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.053%) LaTeX
12 3 (0.053%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 54 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.57%) NetSuite
4 19 (0.34%) Shopify
5 18 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
6 17 (0.30%) Magento
7 16 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 14 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
11 10 (0.18%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 10 (0.18%) SAP Business One
12 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
13 7 (0.12%) iTrent
13 7 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 5 (0.089%) Dynamics GP
14 5 (0.089%) Q-Pulse
14 5 (0.089%) Sage X3
14 5 (0.089%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,197 (21.20%) Azure
2 1,064 (18.85%) Microsoft 365
3 581 (10.29%) AWS
4 443 (7.85%) Power Platform
5 293 (5.19%) Entra ID
6 195 (3.45%) SaaS
7 193 (3.42%) GCP
8 132 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
9 118 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
10 106 (1.88%) Serverless
11 98 (1.74%) GitHub
12 96 (1.70%) Power Automate
13 95 (1.68%) PowerApps
14 76 (1.35%) OneDrive
15 59 (1.05%) Microsoft Copilot
16 48 (0.85%) Amazon S3
16 48 (0.85%) Microsoft Purview
17 45 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
17 45 (0.80%) IaaS
17 45 (0.80%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 416 (7.37%) Firewall
2 379 (6.71%) DNS
3 325 (5.76%) DHCP
4 218 (3.86%) VPN
5 197 (3.49%) WAN
6 191 (3.38%) TCP/IP
7 173 (3.06%) LAN
8 157 (2.78%) Wi-Fi
9 133 (2.36%) Wireless
10 117 (2.07%) VLAN
11 108 (1.91%) Broadband
12 95 (1.68%) Network Security
13 91 (1.61%) VoIP
14 43 (0.76%) Internet
15 33 (0.58%) SD-WAN
16 26 (0.46%) SAN
17 25 (0.44%) HTTP
18 23 (0.41%) SSL
19 21 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
20 20 (0.35%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 353 (6.25%) Power BI
2 259 (4.59%) SQL Server
3 114 (2.02%) Amazon RDS
4 101 (1.79%) MySQL
5 86 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
6 81 (1.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 80 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
8 77 (1.36%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.19%) NoSQL
10 65 (1.15%) Tableau
11 60 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 47 (0.83%) Power Query
13 45 (0.80%) MongoDB
14 37 (0.66%) Big Data
15 35 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
16 32 (0.57%) Data Lake
17 27 (0.48%) DynamoDB
17 27 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
18 19 (0.34%) Star Schema
19 17 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 217 (3.84%) Git
2 168 (2.98%) JIRA
3 79 (1.40%) GitLab
4 47 (0.83%) Jenkins
5 28 (0.50%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (0.43%) Cucumber
7 22 (0.39%) Eclipse
7 22 (0.39%) Subversion
8 19 (0.34%) Selenium
9 17 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 17 (0.30%) JUnit
10 15 (0.27%) SonarQube
11 13 (0.23%) Postman
12 12 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
13 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
14 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) Maven
15 8 (0.14%) MLflow
15 8 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
16 7 (0.12%) JMeter
General
1 2,697 (47.78%) Social Skills
2 1,519 (26.91%) Analytical Skills
3 862 (15.27%) Finance
4 442 (7.83%) Manufacturing
5 375 (6.64%) Organisational Skills
6 253 (4.48%) Legal
7 249 (4.41%) Public Sector
8 244 (4.32%) Law
9 238 (4.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 228 (4.04%) Retail
11 183 (3.24%) Marketing
12 149 (2.64%) Electronics
13 143 (2.53%) Telecoms
14 112 (1.98%) Banking
15 108 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
16 101 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
17 84 (1.49%) Aerospace
18 75 (1.33%) Games
19 61 (1.08%) Advertising
20 55 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 770 (13.64%) Analyst
2 679 (12.03%) IT Support
3 621 (11.00%) Senior
4 582 (10.31%) Support Engineer
5 574 (10.17%) Developer
6 398 (7.05%) IT Engineer
7 300 (5.31%) IT Support Engineer
8 294 (5.21%) Lead
9 260 (4.61%) Support Technician
10 254 (4.50%) Support Analyst
11 237 (4.20%) Systems Engineer
12 210 (3.72%) IT Technician
12 210 (3.72%) Technical Support
13 193 (3.42%) Software Engineer
14 183 (3.24%) Consultant
14 183 (3.24%) Technical Engineer
15 177 (3.14%) Architect
16 168 (2.98%) Technical Support Engineer
17 165 (2.92%) IT Support Technician
18 164 (2.91%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (4.73%) .NET
2 192 (3.40%) React
3 168 (2.98%) HTML
4 154 (2.73%) REST
5 126 (2.23%) CSS
6 98 (1.74%) Node.js
6 98 (1.74%) RESTful
7 82 (1.45%) SOAP
8 76 (1.35%) Middleware
9 74 (1.31%) Vue
10 72 (1.28%) JSON
11 69 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 63 (1.12%) XML
13 54 (0.96%) Spring
14 50 (0.89%) Spring Boot
15 47 (0.83%) ASP.NET
16 46 (0.81%) Web Services
17 43 (0.76%) OAuth
18 38 (0.67%) EDI
19 36 (0.64%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 445 (7.88%) Driving Licence
2 330 (5.85%) Onboarding
3 262 (4.64%) Self-Motivation
4 208 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 153 (2.71%) Cloud Native
6 151 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
7 141 (2.50%) Product Ownership
8 104 (1.84%) Data Centre
9 94 (1.67%) Analytical Mindset
10 86 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
11 71 (1.26%) Security Posture
12 66 (1.17%) Social Media
13 65 (1.15%) Mobile App
14 61 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
15 56 (0.99%) IoT
16 54 (0.96%) Virtual Team
17 47 (0.83%) Algorithms
18 46 (0.81%) Robotics
19 45 (0.80%) Low-Code
20 44 (0.78%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,007 (17.84%) Windows
2 482 (8.54%) Windows Server
3 415 (7.35%) Linux
4 149 (2.64%) Windows 10
5 129 (2.29%) Windows Server 2016
6 109 (1.93%) Android
7 73 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.28%) Mac OS
9 46 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
10 29 (0.51%) Unix
11 27 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 27 (0.48%) Ubuntu
12 24 (0.43%) CentOS
13 15 (0.27%) VMS
13 15 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 14 (0.25%) Debian
15 10 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
16 9 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
17 7 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
17 7 (0.12%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,340 (23.74%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,038 (18.39%) Customer Service
3 791 (14.01%) Agile
4 570 (10.10%) Mentoring
5 566 (10.03%) Decision-Making
6 557 (9.87%) CI/CD
7 534 (9.46%) AI
8 494 (8.75%) ITIL
9 485 (8.59%) Analytics
10 474 (8.40%) DevOps
11 463 (8.20%) Cybersecurity
12 452 (8.01%) Software Engineering
13 444 (7.87%) Collaborative Working
14 414 (7.33%) Stakeholder Management
15 409 (7.25%) Business Intelligence
16 402 (7.12%) ERP
17 368 (6.52%) Project Delivery
18 339 (6.01%) Service Delivery
19 337 (5.97%) Computer Science
20 334 (5.92%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 875 (15.50%) SQL
2 640 (11.34%) Python
3 358 (6.34%) JavaScript
4 345 (6.11%) C#
5 254 (4.50%) Java
6 242 (4.29%) PowerShell
7 160 (2.83%) TypeScript
8 156 (2.76%) C++
9 107 (1.90%) Bash
10 74 (1.31%) PHP
11 59 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 58 (1.03%) C
13 47 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 35 (0.62%) PL/SQL
15 34 (0.60%) Perl
16 33 (0.58%) Go
17 32 (0.57%) Ruby
18 29 (0.51%) Kotlin
18 29 (0.51%) Shell Script
19 28 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 818 (14.49%) Degree
2 462 (8.18%) Security Cleared
3 336 (5.95%) SC Cleared
4 196 (3.47%) DBS Check
5 165 (2.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 161 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
7 83 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 81 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
9 77 (1.36%) DV Cleared
10 71 (1.26%) Azure Certification
11 61 (1.08%) CCNA
12 60 (1.06%) ACCA
13 59 (1.05%) A+ Certification
13 59 (1.05%) HNC
14 56 (0.99%) CIMA
15 52 (0.92%) PMI Certification
16 49 (0.87%) Master's Degree
17 47 (0.83%) CISSP
18 46 (0.81%) PMP
19 44 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 338 (5.99%) QA
2 241 (4.27%) Data Quality
3 183 (3.24%) Cyber Essentials
4 157 (2.78%) GDPR
5 143 (2.53%) SLA
6 136 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 130 (2.30%) PCI DSS
8 110 (1.95%) Accessibility
9 88 (1.56%) NIST
10 39 (0.69%) ISO 9001
11 29 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 25 (0.44%) PMO
13 20 (0.35%) GMP
14 16 (0.28%) Good Clinical Practice
15 15 (0.27%) GRC
16 14 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.21%) TickIT
19 11 (0.19%) ISO 14001
20 9 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 718 (12.72%) Active Directory
2 277 (4.91%) Hyper-V
3 210 (3.72%) Docker
4 185 (3.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 88 (1.56%) Terminal Server
6 40 (0.71%) Firmware
7 31 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.48%) vSphere
9 21 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
10 15 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
11 10 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.12%) KVM
12 7 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.11%) XenApp
14 5 (0.089%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.089%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 5 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.053%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 3 (0.053%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.053%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 223 (3.95%) Microsoft Intune
1 223 (3.95%) Terraform
2 202 (3.58%) Kubernetes
3 104 (1.84%) Ansible
4 62 (1.10%) Grafana
5 59 (1.05%) SCCM
6 41 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.34%) FortiGate
7 19 (0.34%) Nagios
8 13 (0.23%) Puppet
9 12 (0.21%) Kibana
10 11 (0.19%) Autotask
10 11 (0.19%) logstash
11 10 (0.18%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.18%) Podman
11 10 (0.18%) Proxmox
11 10 (0.18%) QRadar
12 9 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
12 9 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,745 (30.91%) Microsoft
2 307 (5.44%) VMware
3 143 (2.53%) Veeam
4 128 (2.27%) Google
4 128 (2.27%) Splunk
5 119 (2.11%) SAP
6 116 (2.05%) Cisco
7 113 (2.00%) Oracle
7 113 (2.00%) SolarWinds
8 95 (1.68%) Tanium
9 89 (1.58%) Nimble Storage
10 88 (1.56%) Brocade
11 87 (1.54%) ServiceNow
12 78 (1.38%) Salesforce
13 67 (1.19%) Databricks
14 58 (1.03%) Apple
15 53 (0.94%) Sage
16 52 (0.92%) Adobe
17 48 (0.85%) Fortinet
18 47 (0.83%) Dell