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

6 months to
18 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 5,164 6,009 11,475
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 7.66% 20.08% 14.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.99% 22.05% 18.14%
Number of salaries quoted 3,849 3,176 7,015
10th Percentile £26,480 £25,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £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 £48,866
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.32% -11.15%

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 46,973 27,249 63,266
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 69.67% 91.04% 79.87%
Number of salaries quoted 32,876 13,820 44,168
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £38,772 £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 18 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 18 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 -9 1,399 £42,500 -2.30% 616
South East -5 1,255 £45,000 +5.88% 806
Midlands -9 951 £42,000 -1.75% 424
North West -8 722 £45,000 -3.23% 356
South West -6 609 £43,500 +16.00% 331
West Midlands -9 544 £42,500 -5.56% 246
East of England -3 520 £45,000 +28.57% 271
Yorkshire -12 507 £41,500 +18.57% 177
East Midlands -11 404 £35,000 -6.67% 179
Scotland -3 265 £32,750 -32.89% 112
North East -14 170 £48,500 +21.25% 97
Wales -18 114 £45,000 - 46
Northern Ireland -10 71 £38,500 -30.00% 188
Isle of Man +2 3 £35,000 +1.45% 4
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
1 328 (6.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 312 (6.04%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.95%) CMS
4 48 (0.93%) Confluence
5 30 (0.58%) IIS
6 25 (0.48%) WordPress
7 24 (0.46%) Apache
8 20 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.27%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.23%) SAS
11 11 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
12 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2007
12 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
13 8 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.14%) OpenEdge
14 7 (0.14%) WebSphere
15 5 (0.097%) nginx
15 5 (0.097%) Skype for Business
16 4 (0.077%) Moodle
16 4 (0.077%) OpenStack
Applications
1 324 (6.27%) Microsoft Office
2 311 (6.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 42 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 33 (0.64%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.14%) Simulink
10 6 (0.12%) AutoCAD
10 6 (0.12%) Fusion 360
10 6 (0.12%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.077%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.077%) Trello
12 3 (0.058%) Autodesk Inventor
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.039%) Lightworks
13 2 (0.039%) Siemens NX
13 2 (0.039%) Sketch
13 2 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 48 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 26 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
5 19 (0.37%) 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 (0.14%) SAP CO
12 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.097%) Q-Pulse
14 4 (0.077%) Dynamics GP
14 4 (0.077%) Line 50
14 4 (0.077%) Salesforce CRM
14 4 (0.077%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 1,073 (20.78%) Azure
2 934 (18.09%) Microsoft 365
3 534 (10.34%) AWS
4 389 (7.53%) Power Platform
5 241 (4.67%) Entra ID
6 170 (3.29%) SaaS
7 153 (2.96%) GCP
8 118 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
9 112 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
10 109 (2.11%) Serverless
11 86 (1.67%) GitHub
12 83 (1.61%) Power Automate
13 75 (1.45%) PowerApps
14 68 (1.32%) OneDrive
15 55 (1.07%) Amazon S3
16 50 (0.97%) Google Workspace
17 47 (0.91%) AWS Lambda
18 44 (0.85%) IaaS
19 43 (0.83%) Microsoft Copilot
19 43 (0.83%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 364 (7.05%) Firewall
2 338 (6.55%) DNS
3 291 (5.64%) DHCP
4 192 (3.72%) VPN
5 177 (3.43%) WAN
6 145 (2.81%) LAN
7 141 (2.73%) TCP/IP
8 134 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
9 109 (2.11%) Broadband
10 108 (2.09%) Wireless
11 101 (1.96%) VLAN
12 83 (1.61%) VoIP
13 82 (1.59%) Network Security
14 41 (0.79%) Internet
14 41 (0.79%) SD-WAN
15 31 (0.60%) SAN
16 22 (0.43%) HTTP
17 19 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
17 19 (0.37%) SSL
18 17 (0.33%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 313 (6.06%) Power BI
2 220 (4.26%) SQL Server
3 105 (2.03%) Amazon RDS
4 77 (1.49%) MySQL
5 76 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
6 69 (1.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 68 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
8 66 (1.28%) NoSQL
9 59 (1.14%) Tableau
10 58 (1.12%) Relational Database
11 54 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (0.87%) Power Query
13 37 (0.72%) MongoDB
14 36 (0.70%) Big Data
15 30 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
15 30 (0.58%) Data Lake
16 29 (0.56%) DynamoDB
17 25 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
18 22 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
19 21 (0.41%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 192 (3.72%) Git
2 143 (2.77%) JIRA
3 66 (1.28%) GitLab
4 40 (0.77%) Jenkins
5 29 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.33%) Cucumber
6 17 (0.33%) JUnit
7 16 (0.31%) Subversion
8 15 (0.29%) Selenium
9 14 (0.27%) Maven
10 12 (0.23%) Cypress.io
10 12 (0.23%) Eclipse
10 12 (0.23%) SonarQube
11 11 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
12 9 (0.17%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.17%) LabVIEW
12 9 (0.17%) Postman
13 8 (0.15%) Burp Suite
13 8 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 7 (0.14%) Metasploit
General
1 2,471 (47.85%) Social Skills
2 1,431 (27.71%) Analytical Skills
3 832 (16.11%) Finance
4 372 (7.20%) Manufacturing
5 332 (6.43%) Organisational Skills
6 234 (4.53%) Public Sector
7 224 (4.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 197 (3.81%) Legal
9 193 (3.74%) Law
10 191 (3.70%) Retail
11 179 (3.47%) Marketing
12 136 (2.63%) Telecoms
13 135 (2.61%) Banking
14 134 (2.59%) Electronics
15 104 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
16 96 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
17 75 (1.45%) Aerospace
18 70 (1.36%) Games
19 56 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
20 53 (1.03%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 748 (14.48%) Analyst
2 631 (12.22%) IT Support
3 547 (10.59%) Support Engineer
4 540 (10.46%) Senior
5 458 (8.87%) Developer
6 368 (7.13%) IT Engineer
7 283 (5.48%) IT Support Engineer
8 269 (5.21%) Lead
9 238 (4.61%) Support Technician
10 212 (4.11%) Support Analyst
10 212 (4.11%) Systems Engineer
11 186 (3.60%) IT Technician
12 175 (3.39%) Technical Support
13 174 (3.37%) Architect
14 172 (3.33%) Consultant
15 160 (3.10%) Software Engineer
16 150 (2.90%) IT Support Technician
17 144 (2.79%) Technical Engineer
18 138 (2.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 138 (2.67%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 191 (3.70%) .NET
2 182 (3.52%) React
3 155 (3.00%) HTML
4 135 (2.61%) REST
5 118 (2.29%) CSS
6 91 (1.76%) Node.js
7 77 (1.49%) SOAP
8 71 (1.37%) RESTful
9 67 (1.30%) JSON
10 66 (1.28%) Middleware
11 63 (1.22%) Vue
12 59 (1.14%) XML
13 58 (1.12%) AngularJS
14 41 (0.79%) Spring
15 40 (0.77%) ASP.NET
15 40 (0.77%) Web Services
16 38 (0.74%) Spring Boot
17 37 (0.72%) OAuth
18 35 (0.68%) EDI
19 29 (0.56%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 390 (7.55%) Driving Licence
2 278 (5.38%) Onboarding
3 229 (4.43%) Self-Motivation
4 200 (3.87%) Management Information System
5 135 (2.61%) Cloud Native
6 134 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
7 127 (2.46%) Product Ownership
8 100 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
9 95 (1.84%) Data Centre
10 75 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
11 71 (1.37%) Social Media
12 64 (1.24%) Mobile App
13 56 (1.08%) Security Posture
14 51 (0.99%) Low-Code
15 47 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
15 47 (0.91%) Virtual Team
16 45 (0.87%) Data Structures
17 39 (0.76%) Algorithms
17 39 (0.76%) NHS
18 37 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 891 (17.25%) Windows
2 438 (8.48%) Windows Server
3 358 (6.93%) Linux
4 138 (2.67%) Windows 10
5 126 (2.44%) Windows Server 2016
6 101 (1.96%) Android
7 66 (1.28%) Apple iOS
8 58 (1.12%) Mac OS
9 53 (1.03%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.58%) Unix
11 26 (0.50%) CentOS
11 26 (0.50%) Ubuntu
12 25 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 19 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.29%) VMS
15 13 (0.25%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.23%) Debian
17 7 (0.14%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
18 5 (0.097%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,164 (22.54%) Continuous Improvement
2 931 (18.03%) Customer Service
3 682 (13.21%) Agile
4 516 (9.99%) Mentoring
5 515 (9.97%) Decision-Making
6 443 (8.58%) AI
7 440 (8.52%) CI/CD
8 431 (8.35%) Analytics
9 420 (8.13%) ITIL
10 405 (7.84%) DevOps
11 383 (7.42%) Collaborative Working
12 374 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
13 363 (7.03%) Business Intelligence
14 359 (6.95%) ERP
15 347 (6.72%) Software Engineering
16 336 (6.51%) Stakeholder Management
17 321 (6.22%) Computer Science
18 320 (6.20%) Coaching
19 313 (6.06%) Project Management
20 296 (5.73%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 766 (14.83%) SQL
2 590 (11.43%) Python
3 326 (6.31%) JavaScript
4 256 (4.96%) C#
5 221 (4.28%) Java
6 207 (4.01%) PowerShell
7 138 (2.67%) TypeScript
8 115 (2.23%) C++
9 98 (1.90%) Bash
10 73 (1.41%) PHP
11 52 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 51 (0.99%) C
13 44 (0.85%) PL/SQL
14 40 (0.77%) T-SQL
15 30 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 28 (0.54%) Perl
16 28 (0.54%) R
17 25 (0.48%) Go
17 25 (0.48%) Ruby
18 24 (0.46%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 765 (14.81%) Degree
2 413 (8.00%) Security Cleared
3 299 (5.79%) SC Cleared
4 207 (4.01%) DBS Check
5 153 (2.96%) Microsoft Certification
6 151 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
7 85 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 77 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
9 68 (1.32%) DV Cleared
10 67 (1.30%) A+ Certification
11 63 (1.22%) ACCA
12 61 (1.18%) CCNA
13 59 (1.14%) CIMA
14 54 (1.05%) HNC
15 53 (1.03%) PMI Certification
16 50 (0.97%) Azure Certification
17 46 (0.89%) Master's Degree
17 46 (0.89%) Network+ Certification
18 44 (0.85%) CISSP
18 44 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 299 (5.79%) QA
2 239 (4.63%) Data Quality
3 164 (3.18%) Cyber Essentials
4 148 (2.87%) GDPR
5 130 (2.52%) SLA
6 122 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 114 (2.21%) PCI DSS
8 88 (1.70%) Accessibility
9 80 (1.55%) NIST
10 39 (0.76%) ISO 9001
11 23 (0.45%) PMO
12 22 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 18 (0.35%) GMP
14 17 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.27%) 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
1 644 (12.47%) Active Directory
2 243 (4.71%) Hyper-V
3 177 (3.43%) Docker
4 169 (3.27%) VMware Infrastructure
5 80 (1.55%) Terminal Server
6 30 (0.58%) Firmware
6 30 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.37%) vSphere
8 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.19%) KVM
11 8 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
12 7 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.12%) XenApp
14 5 (0.097%) ClearTrust
15 4 (0.077%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.077%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.058%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 3 (0.058%) Terminal Services
17 2 (0.039%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 194 (3.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 188 (3.64%) Terraform
3 168 (3.25%) Kubernetes
4 92 (1.78%) Ansible
5 56 (1.08%) SCCM
6 53 (1.03%) Grafana
7 36 (0.70%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.41%) Nagios
9 16 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 13 (0.25%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.19%) Kibana
11 10 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.17%) Autotask
12 9 (0.17%) Functional Safety
12 9 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.17%) logstash
12 9 (0.17%) Podman
12 9 (0.17%) Puppet
12 9 (0.17%) QRadar
12 9 (0.17%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,509 (29.22%) Microsoft
2 281 (5.44%) VMware
3 136 (2.63%) Veeam
4 133 (2.58%) Oracle
5 115 (2.23%) Splunk
6 113 (2.19%) SAP
7 111 (2.15%) Google
8 110 (2.13%) SolarWinds
9 105 (2.03%) Cisco
10 83 (1.61%) Tanium
11 81 (1.57%) Nimble Storage
12 80 (1.55%) Brocade
13 75 (1.45%) Salesforce
14 65 (1.26%) Databricks
15 61 (1.18%) Apple
16 60 (1.16%) ServiceNow
17 51 (0.99%) Adobe
18 48 (0.93%) Sage
19 43 (0.83%) Dell
20 37 (0.72%) Meraki