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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,316 1,509 2,862
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.76% 18.98% 15.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.20% 21.06% 19.44%
Number of salaries quoted 996 738 1,782
10th Percentile £26,500 £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% -13.46%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,750 £83,750 £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 10,786 7,166 14,719
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.78% 90.13% 81.53%
Number of salaries quoted 7,652 3,540 10,229
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £27,750
25th Percentile £39,280 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,250 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.45% +0.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £78,750
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 26 June 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 26 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
Thames Valley -8 482 £45,000 - 212
Hampshire -2 310 £40,000 -5.88% 132
Berkshire -4 231 £45,000 -10.00% 83
Surrey -1 223 £42,500 +6.25% 79
Buckinghamshire -9 143 £47,500 +26.67% 81
Kent -4 136 £29,500 -6.35% 51
Oxfordshire -2 108 £35,000 -36.36% 50
East Sussex -4 90 £50,000 - 21
West Sussex -5 64 £50,000 +7.53% 25
Middlesex +6 4 £35,000 -42.86% 7
Isle of Wight -11 2 £42,000 -23.64%
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 39 (2.96%) SharePoint
2 33 (2.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.37%) CMS
4 17 (1.29%) Confluence
5 7 (0.53%) OpenEdge
6 5 (0.38%) WordPress
7 3 (0.23%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.23%) IIS
7 3 (0.23%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.23%) SAS
8 2 (0.15%) Apache
8 2 (0.15%) Gentran
8 2 (0.15%) govService
8 2 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 93 (7.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 82 (6.23%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.38%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.23%) Lightworks
8 3 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.15%) Simulink
10 1 (0.076%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 12 (0.91%) NetSuite
2 8 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.38%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.30%) Magento
5 3 (0.23%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.23%) Raiser’s Edge
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.15%) Shopify
7 1 (0.076%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.076%) HFM
7 1 (0.076%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.076%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 313 (23.78%) Azure
2 149 (11.32%) Microsoft 365
3 126 (9.57%) AWS
4 76 (5.78%) Power Platform
5 56 (4.26%) SaaS
6 48 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
7 45 (3.42%) GCP
8 35 (2.66%) Entra ID
9 26 (1.98%) IaaS
10 25 (1.90%) PaaS
11 23 (1.75%) Serverless
12 22 (1.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 19 (1.44%) GitHub
14 17 (1.29%) Datadog
15 16 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
16 15 (1.14%) Google Workspace
16 15 (1.14%) OpenShift
17 14 (1.06%) Mimecast
18 13 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
19 11 (0.84%) Asana
Communications & Networking
1 106 (8.05%) Firewall
2 64 (4.86%) DNS
3 48 (3.65%) WAN
4 47 (3.57%) LAN
5 42 (3.19%) VPN
6 40 (3.04%) DHCP
7 38 (2.89%) TCP/IP
7 38 (2.89%) Wireless
8 33 (2.51%) Wi-Fi
9 22 (1.67%) VoIP
10 21 (1.60%) Network Security
10 21 (1.60%) VLAN
11 20 (1.52%) Broadband
12 13 (0.99%) Internet
13 11 (0.84%) HTTP
13 11 (0.84%) SSL
14 7 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
15 6 (0.46%) MQTT
15 6 (0.46%) WLAN
16 5 (0.38%) Hyperconnected
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (6.84%) SQL Server
2 63 (4.79%) Power BI
3 23 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.60%) Data Warehouse
5 19 (1.44%) Relational Database
6 16 (1.22%) OLTP
7 14 (1.06%) NoSQL
8 13 (0.99%) MySQL
9 12 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 11 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 10 (0.76%) Power Query
12 9 (0.68%) Data Lake
12 9 (0.68%) Tableau
13 7 (0.53%) Looker
14 6 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
14 6 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (0.46%) GIS
15 5 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
16 4 (0.30%) MongoDB
17 3 (0.23%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 62 (4.71%) Git
2 45 (3.42%) JIRA
3 31 (2.36%) GitLab
4 23 (1.75%) Rational DOORS
5 6 (0.46%) Selenium
6 4 (0.30%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.23%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.23%) Postman
7 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.15%) Appium
8 2 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.15%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.15%) Eclipse RCP
8 2 (0.15%) JMeter
8 2 (0.15%) JUnit
8 2 (0.15%) Mocha
8 2 (0.15%) PetaLinux
8 2 (0.15%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.15%) Subversion
8 2 (0.15%) Terragrunt
General
1 633 (48.10%) Social Skills
2 358 (27.20%) Analytical Skills
3 195 (14.82%) Finance
4 87 (6.61%) Organisational Skills
5 69 (5.24%) Manufacturing
6 55 (4.18%) Retail
7 54 (4.10%) Telecoms
8 53 (4.03%) Electronics
9 51 (3.88%) Marketing
10 46 (3.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 38 (2.89%) Aerospace
12 35 (2.66%) Law
13 30 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
14 29 (2.20%) Legal
15 28 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
16 26 (1.98%) Public Sector
17 25 (1.90%) Local Government
18 18 (1.37%) Military
19 16 (1.22%) Banking
20 14 (1.06%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 182 (13.83%) Analyst
2 144 (10.94%) IT Support
3 134 (10.18%) Senior
4 130 (9.88%) Developer
5 122 (9.27%) Support Engineer
6 87 (6.61%) IT Engineer
7 72 (5.47%) Support Analyst
8 68 (5.17%) Systems Engineer
9 64 (4.86%) Software Engineer
10 56 (4.26%) IT Support Engineer
10 56 (4.26%) Technical Support
11 54 (4.10%) Lead
11 54 (4.10%) Support Technician
12 48 (3.65%) 2nd Line Support
13 42 (3.19%) Technical Engineer
13 42 (3.19%) Technical Support Engineer
14 41 (3.12%) IT Technician
15 40 (3.04%) Architect
16 36 (2.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 35 (2.66%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (6.23%) .NET
2 58 (4.41%) HTML
3 51 (3.88%) SOAP
4 43 (3.27%) REST
5 36 (2.74%) CSS
5 36 (2.74%) JSON
5 36 (2.74%) XML
6 33 (2.51%) React
7 25 (1.90%) ASP.NET
8 20 (1.52%) Middleware
9 18 (1.37%) ASP.NET Core
9 18 (1.37%) OAuth
9 18 (1.37%) RESTful
10 17 (1.29%) Vue
11 16 (1.22%) HTML5
12 15 (1.14%) RabbitMQ
13 14 (1.06%) CSS3
14 13 (0.99%) AngularJS
14 13 (0.99%) ARM Templates
14 13 (0.99%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 83 (6.31%) Driving Licence
2 67 (5.09%) Self-Motivation
3 61 (4.64%) Management Information System
3 61 (4.64%) Onboarding
4 46 (3.50%) Cloud Native
5 36 (2.74%) Product Ownership
6 27 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
8 18 (1.37%) Robotics
9 17 (1.29%) NHS
9 17 (1.29%) Social Media
10 16 (1.22%) Low-Code
11 15 (1.14%) EPoS
12 14 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
12 14 (1.06%) Security Posture
13 12 (0.91%) Client/Server
14 11 (0.84%) Clustering
14 11 (0.84%) Video Editing
14 11 (0.84%) Virtual Team
15 10 (0.76%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 211 (16.03%) Windows
2 107 (8.13%) Linux
3 72 (5.47%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.60%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.44%) Android
5 19 (1.44%) CentOS
6 18 (1.37%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.99%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.46%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.46%) Debian
11 5 (0.38%) VMS
11 5 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.23%) Gentoo
12 3 (0.23%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
13 2 (0.15%) Unix
13 2 (0.15%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.076%) OpenBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 256 (19.45%) Continuous Improvement
2 234 (17.78%) Customer Service
3 179 (13.60%) Agile
4 150 (11.40%) CI/CD
5 140 (10.64%) DevOps
6 137 (10.41%) Decision-Making
6 137 (10.41%) Software Engineering
7 120 (9.12%) AI
7 120 (9.12%) Project Management
8 118 (8.97%) Cybersecurity
9 113 (8.59%) Mentoring
10 107 (8.13%) Computer Science
11 106 (8.05%) Project Delivery
12 100 (7.60%) Collaborative Working
13 99 (7.52%) Analytics
14 97 (7.37%) Stakeholder Management
15 95 (7.22%) ITIL
16 92 (6.99%) Business Intelligence
17 85 (6.46%) Logistics
18 80 (6.08%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 210 (15.96%) Python
2 204 (15.50%) SQL
3 110 (8.36%) C#
4 89 (6.76%) JavaScript
5 84 (6.38%) PowerShell
6 54 (4.10%) C++
6 54 (4.10%) Java
7 40 (3.04%) TypeScript
8 31 (2.36%) Bash
8 31 (2.36%) C
9 26 (1.98%) PHP
10 18 (1.37%) PL/SQL
11 14 (1.06%) Rust
12 13 (0.99%) Ruby
13 10 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 10 (0.76%) Perl
14 9 (0.68%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.53%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.53%) Bicep
16 6 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 248 (18.84%) Degree
2 88 (6.69%) Security Cleared
3 79 (6.00%) DBS Check
4 57 (4.33%) SC Cleared
5 53 (4.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 40 (3.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 38 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.43%) ACCA
9 31 (2.36%) CIMA
10 29 (2.20%) HNC
11 28 (2.13%) Chartered Engineer
12 21 (1.60%) PMI Certification
13 20 (1.52%) A+ Certification
14 19 (1.44%) PMP
15 18 (1.37%) Azure Certification
16 17 (1.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 16 (1.22%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 14 (1.06%) CCNA
18 14 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
18 14 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (8.13%) QA
2 56 (4.26%) Data Quality
3 49 (3.72%) GDPR
4 37 (2.81%) SLA
5 27 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (1.67%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.37%) PCI DSS
8 13 (0.99%) NIST
8 13 (0.99%) PMO
9 12 (0.91%) Good Clinical Practice
10 11 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (0.61%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.38%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.30%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.30%) GLP
13 4 (0.30%) GMP
13 4 (0.30%) GxP
13 4 (0.30%) ISO 26262
13 4 (0.30%) ITGC
System Software
1 121 (9.19%) Active Directory
2 63 (4.79%) Docker
3 48 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (3.50%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.76%) KVM
6 6 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.38%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.38%) vSphere
7 5 (0.38%) XenApp
8 4 (0.30%) Firmware
8 4 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.15%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.076%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.076%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.076%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 68 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 67 (5.09%) Terraform
3 38 (2.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.58%) Ansible
5 18 (1.37%) SCCM
6 16 (1.22%) Grafana
7 13 (0.99%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.91%) Nagios
9 8 (0.61%) Podman
10 7 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.53%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.38%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.38%) Graylog
12 4 (0.30%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.23%) Puppet
14 2 (0.15%) Nessus
15 1 (0.076%) Oracle RMAN
15 1 (0.076%) SCOM
Vendors
1 372 (28.27%) Microsoft
2 56 (4.26%) VMware
3 43 (3.27%) Google
4 42 (3.19%) Oracle
5 27 (2.05%) Cisco
5 27 (2.05%) Salesforce
6 25 (1.90%) Databricks
7 24 (1.82%) Veeam
8 20 (1.52%) Fortinet
9 18 (1.37%) Instagram
10 16 (1.22%) SAP
10 16 (1.22%) SonicWALL
10 16 (1.22%) Splunk
11 15 (1.14%) Aruba
11 15 (1.14%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.06%) Adobe
13 13 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 13 (0.99%) Sage
14 11 (0.84%) ServiceNow
14 11 (0.84%) SolarWinds