Problem-Solving Job Trends in the South East

Problem Solving
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,381 1,545 2,731
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.90% 18.47% 15.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.36% 20.76% 19.10%
Number of salaries quoted 1,048 771 1,750
10th Percentile £26,750 £27,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -12.37%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £82,500 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

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 South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,172 7,441 14,295
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.97% 88.94% 81.55%
Number of salaries quoted 7,948 3,866 9,991
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,813 £28,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,625 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -12.00%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the South East

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the South East over the 6 months to 7 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in the South East

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the South East region over the 6 months to 7 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
Thames Valley -7 508 £43,000 -4.44% 253
Hampshire -2 330 £40,000 -5.88% 136
Berkshire -3 241 £45,000 -10.00% 106
Surrey 0 229 £42,500 +6.25% 96
Buckinghamshire -8 151 £45,500 +21.33% 88
Kent -5 142 £30,000 -4.76% 61
Oxfordshire -2 116 £37,500 -31.82% 63
East Sussex -4 89 £50,000 - 28
West Sussex -6 71 £50,000 +7.53% 33
Middlesex +4 6 £50,000 -18.37% 11
Isle of Wight -13 1 £42,500 -22.73%
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 42 (3.04%) SharePoint
2 34 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.38%) CMS
4 18 (1.30%) Confluence
5 7 (0.51%) OpenEdge
6 5 (0.36%) WordPress
7 4 (0.29%) Apache
8 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.22%) IIS
8 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.22%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) Gentran
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 99 (7.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 88 (6.37%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.58%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.36%) Lightworks
6 5 (0.36%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.22%) Simulink
9 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.072%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 13 (0.94%) NetSuite
2 8 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.36%) Raiser’s Edge
4 4 (0.29%) Magento
5 3 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.22%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.14%) Shopify
7 1 (0.072%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.072%) HFM
7 1 (0.072%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.072%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 327 (23.68%) Azure
2 162 (11.73%) Microsoft 365
3 137 (9.92%) AWS
4 83 (6.01%) Power Platform
5 63 (4.56%) SaaS
6 49 (3.55%) GCP
7 47 (3.40%) Azure DevOps
8 39 (2.82%) Entra ID
9 28 (2.03%) IaaS
10 27 (1.96%) PaaS
11 23 (1.67%) Serverless
12 21 (1.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 20 (1.45%) GitHub
14 19 (1.38%) Datadog
15 16 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
16 15 (1.09%) OpenShift
17 14 (1.01%) Google Workspace
17 14 (1.01%) Mimecast
18 13 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
19 12 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 117 (8.47%) Firewall
2 67 (4.85%) DNS
3 50 (3.62%) VPN
3 50 (3.62%) WAN
4 49 (3.55%) LAN
5 44 (3.19%) TCP/IP
6 40 (2.90%) DHCP
6 40 (2.90%) Wireless
7 35 (2.53%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (1.74%) VLAN
9 23 (1.67%) VoIP
10 21 (1.52%) Network Security
11 18 (1.30%) Broadband
12 13 (0.94%) Internet
13 12 (0.87%) HTTP
14 11 (0.80%) SSL
15 8 (0.58%) MQTT
16 7 (0.51%) Remote Desktop
17 6 (0.43%) WLAN
18 5 (0.36%) Hyperconnected
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (6.73%) SQL Server
2 70 (5.07%) Power BI
3 24 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.52%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (1.01%) MySQL
6 14 (1.01%) NoSQL
6 14 (1.01%) OLTP
7 13 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 12 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 12 (0.87%) Tableau
9 10 (0.72%) Power Query
10 9 (0.65%) Data Lake
11 7 (0.51%) Looker
12 6 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
12 6 (0.43%) GIS
12 6 (0.43%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
14 3 (0.22%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 64 (4.63%) Git
2 51 (3.69%) JIRA
3 31 (2.24%) GitLab
4 21 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
5 5 (0.36%) Selenium
6 4 (0.29%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.22%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.22%) PetaLinux
7 3 (0.22%) PHPUnit
7 3 (0.22%) Postman
7 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.14%) Appium
8 2 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.14%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.14%) JMeter
8 2 (0.14%) JUnit
8 2 (0.14%) Mocha
8 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.14%) Subversion
8 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
General
1 668 (48.37%) Social Skills
2 375 (27.15%) Analytical Skills
3 207 (14.99%) Finance
4 100 (7.24%) Organisational Skills
5 81 (5.87%) Manufacturing
6 59 (4.27%) Electronics
6 59 (4.27%) Retail
7 57 (4.13%) Telecoms
8 51 (3.69%) Marketing
9 47 (3.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 38 (2.75%) Aerospace
11 36 (2.61%) Law
12 33 (2.39%) Legal
13 31 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
14 29 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
15 26 (1.88%) Public Sector
16 23 (1.67%) Local Government
17 18 (1.30%) Military
18 16 (1.16%) Banking
19 15 (1.09%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 195 (14.12%) Analyst
2 151 (10.93%) IT Support
3 137 (9.92%) Senior
4 129 (9.34%) Developer
4 129 (9.34%) Support Engineer
5 93 (6.73%) IT Engineer
6 83 (6.01%) Support Analyst
7 70 (5.07%) Systems Engineer
8 68 (4.92%) Software Engineer
9 61 (4.42%) Technical Support
10 59 (4.27%) IT Support Engineer
11 57 (4.13%) Support Technician
12 56 (4.06%) Lead
13 51 (3.69%) 2nd Line Support
14 46 (3.33%) Technical Engineer
14 46 (3.33%) Technical Support Engineer
15 44 (3.19%) IT Technician
16 38 (2.75%) 1st Line Support
16 38 (2.75%) Architect
17 34 (2.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (5.87%) .NET
2 58 (4.20%) HTML
3 47 (3.40%) SOAP
4 43 (3.11%) REST
5 37 (2.68%) CSS
6 35 (2.53%) JSON
7 33 (2.39%) XML
8 32 (2.32%) React
9 24 (1.74%) ASP.NET
10 20 (1.45%) RESTful
11 19 (1.38%) OAuth
12 18 (1.30%) ASP.NET Core
13 17 (1.23%) Middleware
13 17 (1.23%) Vue
14 16 (1.16%) ARM Templates
14 16 (1.16%) HTML5
14 16 (1.16%) RabbitMQ
15 14 (1.01%) AngularJS
15 14 (1.01%) CSS3
15 14 (1.01%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 89 (6.44%) Driving Licence
2 70 (5.07%) Self-Motivation
3 67 (4.85%) Onboarding
4 62 (4.49%) Management Information System
5 51 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 37 (2.68%) Product Ownership
7 31 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.30%) Robotics
10 17 (1.23%) NHS
10 17 (1.23%) Social Media
11 15 (1.09%) EPoS
11 15 (1.09%) Security Posture
12 13 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
12 13 (0.94%) Low-Code
13 12 (0.87%) Client/Server
13 12 (0.87%) Clustering
14 11 (0.80%) CCTV
14 11 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (0.80%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 224 (16.22%) Windows
2 118 (8.54%) Linux
3 76 (5.50%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.52%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.38%) CentOS
6 18 (1.30%) Android
7 17 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (1.16%) Windows Server 2019
9 13 (0.94%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.58%) Debian
12 6 (0.43%) Apple iOS
12 6 (0.43%) Windows 10
13 4 (0.29%) VMS
14 3 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
14 3 (0.22%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.22%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.14%) Unix
15 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.072%) OpenBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 265 (19.19%) Continuous Improvement
2 249 (18.03%) Customer Service
3 178 (12.89%) Agile
4 156 (11.30%) CI/CD
5 148 (10.72%) DevOps
6 144 (10.43%) Decision-Making
7 141 (10.21%) Software Engineering
8 133 (9.63%) AI
9 129 (9.34%) Project Management
10 125 (9.05%) Cybersecurity
11 120 (8.69%) Project Delivery
12 114 (8.25%) Collaborative Working
13 112 (8.11%) ITIL
13 112 (8.11%) Mentoring
13 112 (8.11%) Stakeholder Management
14 109 (7.89%) Computer Science
15 106 (7.68%) Analytics
16 99 (7.17%) Business Intelligence
17 93 (6.73%) Logistics
18 83 (6.01%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 223 (16.15%) Python
2 215 (15.57%) SQL
3 109 (7.89%) C#
4 97 (7.02%) PowerShell
5 90 (6.52%) JavaScript
6 56 (4.06%) C++
7 53 (3.84%) Java
8 42 (3.04%) TypeScript
9 34 (2.46%) C
10 33 (2.39%) Bash
11 26 (1.88%) PHP
12 15 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.09%) Rust
13 13 (0.94%) Ruby
14 12 (0.87%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.72%) Bicep
15 10 (0.72%) Perl
16 8 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 7 (0.51%) MATLAB
18 6 (0.43%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 252 (18.25%) Degree
2 97 (7.02%) Security Cleared
3 84 (6.08%) DBS Check
4 64 (4.63%) SC Cleared
5 55 (3.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 42 (3.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 37 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
8 31 (2.24%) HNC
9 30 (2.17%) ACCA
10 29 (2.10%) CIMA
11 26 (1.88%) Chartered Engineer
12 23 (1.67%) Azure Certification
13 21 (1.52%) PMI Certification
14 20 (1.45%) PMP
15 19 (1.38%) A+ Certification
16 17 (1.23%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 15 (1.09%) Master's Degree
17 15 (1.09%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 14 (1.01%) CCNA
18 14 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (7.89%) QA
2 56 (4.06%) Data Quality
3 49 (3.55%) GDPR
4 40 (2.90%) SLA
5 30 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 23 (1.67%) PCI DSS
7 22 (1.59%) Accessibility
8 17 (1.23%) NIST
9 14 (1.01%) Good Clinical Practice
10 13 (0.94%) PMO
11 12 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.65%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.36%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.36%) GLP
13 5 (0.36%) GMP
13 5 (0.36%) GxP
13 5 (0.36%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.29%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.29%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 125 (9.05%) Active Directory
2 71 (5.14%) Docker
3 54 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 50 (3.62%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.72%) KVM
6 7 (0.51%) vSphere
7 6 (0.43%) Firmware
7 6 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.36%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.36%) XenApp
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.14%) Squid
11 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.072%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.072%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.072%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 77 (5.58%) Kubernetes
2 75 (5.43%) Terraform
3 40 (2.90%) Microsoft Intune
4 36 (2.61%) Ansible
5 19 (1.38%) SCCM
6 16 (1.16%) Grafana
7 13 (0.94%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.87%) Nagios
9 8 (0.58%) Podman
10 7 (0.51%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.51%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.36%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.36%) Graylog
11 5 (0.36%) Puppet
11 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.29%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 2 (0.14%) Nessus
13 2 (0.14%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
14 1 (0.072%) Kibana
Vendors
1 396 (28.67%) Microsoft
2 62 (4.49%) VMware
3 47 (3.40%) Google
4 39 (2.82%) Oracle
5 28 (2.03%) Cisco
6 26 (1.88%) Salesforce
7 25 (1.81%) Veeam
8 24 (1.74%) Databricks
8 24 (1.74%) Fortinet
9 19 (1.38%) SonicWALL
10 18 (1.30%) Instagram
11 17 (1.23%) ServiceNow
11 17 (1.23%) Splunk
12 16 (1.16%) Aruba
13 15 (1.09%) Red Hat
13 15 (1.09%) Sage
13 15 (1.09%) SAP
14 13 (0.94%) Dynatrace
14 13 (0.94%) Palo Alto
15 12 (0.87%) Adobe