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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,228 1,460 2,929
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.41% 18.70% 16.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.77% 20.72% 19.65%
Number of salaries quoted 917 697 1,796
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -14.29%
75th Percentile £60,000 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £74,250 £82,500 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,838
% change year-on-year -5.00% +0.33% -9.39%

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 10,435 7,045 14,907
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.47% 90.23% 81.63%
Number of salaries quoted 7,370 3,393 10,340
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £39,969 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £58,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% +5.45% -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 13 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 13 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 -10 449 £45,000 -7.69% 200
Hampshire -4 284 £40,000 -2.44% 139
Berkshire -6 217 £45,000 -10.00% 92
Surrey -1 211 £42,500 +6.25% 91
Buckinghamshire -10 136 £47,500 +23.38% 63
Kent +1 132 £29,000 -6.45% 52
Oxfordshire -2 96 £34,500 -32.02% 47
East Sussex -4 90 £52,500 +5.00% 18
West Sussex -9 52 £50,000 +7.53% 28
Isle of Wight -11 3 £41,500 -24.55%
Middlesex +4 2 £35,000 -41.67% 10
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 34 (2.77%) SharePoint
2 30 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.30%) CMS
4 15 (1.22%) Confluence
5 8 (0.65%) IIS
6 7 (0.57%) OpenEdge
7 5 (0.41%) WordPress
8 4 (0.33%) SAS
9 3 (0.24%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.24%) Apache
9 3 (0.24%) govService
9 3 (0.24%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.16%) Gentran
11 1 (0.081%) nginx
11 1 (0.081%) Tomcat
Applications
1 92 (7.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 70 (5.70%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.41%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.16%) Lightworks
10 1 (0.081%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.081%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.081%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.73%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.57%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.33%) Magento
5 3 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.16%) Infor SunSystems
6 2 (0.16%) Shopify
7 1 (0.081%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.081%) HFM
7 1 (0.081%) Raiser’s Edge
7 1 (0.081%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.081%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 285 (23.21%) Azure
2 131 (10.67%) Microsoft 365
3 118 (9.61%) AWS
4 69 (5.62%) Power Platform
5 51 (4.15%) SaaS
6 47 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (3.18%) GCP
8 29 (2.36%) Entra ID
9 27 (2.20%) IaaS
9 27 (2.20%) PaaS
10 24 (1.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 21 (1.71%) Serverless
12 18 (1.47%) Dynamics 365
13 17 (1.38%) Datadog
13 17 (1.38%) GitHub
14 16 (1.30%) Google Workspace
15 15 (1.22%) OpenShift
16 14 (1.14%) Mimecast
17 13 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
18 12 (0.98%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 91 (7.41%) Firewall
2 61 (4.97%) DNS
3 36 (2.93%) DHCP
4 35 (2.85%) TCP/IP
4 35 (2.85%) WAN
5 34 (2.77%) LAN
5 34 (2.77%) VPN
6 30 (2.44%) Wireless
7 23 (1.87%) Wi-Fi
8 20 (1.63%) Broadband
9 19 (1.55%) Network Security
9 19 (1.55%) VoIP
10 17 (1.38%) VLAN
11 10 (0.81%) HTTP
11 10 (0.81%) Internet
11 10 (0.81%) SSL
12 7 (0.57%) Remote Desktop
13 6 (0.49%) WLAN
14 5 (0.41%) SAN
15 4 (0.33%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (6.76%) SQL Server
2 56 (4.56%) Power BI
3 23 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
5 18 (1.47%) NoSQL
6 17 (1.38%) OLTP
6 17 (1.38%) Relational Database
7 13 (1.06%) MySQL
8 12 (0.98%) Tableau
9 11 (0.90%) Power Query
9 11 (0.90%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 9 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 8 (0.65%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.57%) Looker
13 6 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.49%) GIS
14 5 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.33%) Big Data
15 4 (0.33%) Hadoop
15 4 (0.33%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 59 (4.80%) Git
2 44 (3.58%) JIRA
3 31 (2.52%) GitLab
4 24 (1.95%) Rational DOORS
5 7 (0.57%) Selenium
6 3 (0.24%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.24%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.24%) Postman
6 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.16%) Appium
7 2 (0.16%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.16%) JMeter
7 2 (0.16%) JUnit
7 2 (0.16%) Mocha
7 2 (0.16%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.16%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.081%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.081%) PHPUnit
8 1 (0.081%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.081%) WebDriver
General
1 594 (48.37%) Social Skills
2 353 (28.75%) Analytical Skills
3 184 (14.98%) Finance
4 81 (6.60%) Organisational Skills
5 59 (4.80%) Manufacturing
6 57 (4.64%) Marketing
7 52 (4.23%) Telecoms
8 51 (4.15%) Electronics
8 51 (4.15%) Retail
9 42 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 34 (2.77%) Aerospace
11 32 (2.61%) Law
12 27 (2.20%) Public Sector
13 25 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
14 24 (1.95%) Local Government
15 23 (1.87%) Legal
16 22 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
17 16 (1.30%) Military
18 12 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
18 12 (0.98%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 167 (13.60%) Analyst
2 134 (10.91%) IT Support
3 128 (10.42%) Senior
4 127 (10.34%) Developer
5 112 (9.12%) Support Engineer
6 78 (6.35%) IT Engineer
7 63 (5.13%) Support Analyst
7 63 (5.13%) Systems Engineer
8 52 (4.23%) IT Support Engineer
8 52 (4.23%) Software Engineer
9 51 (4.15%) Support Technician
10 47 (3.83%) Technical Support
11 46 (3.75%) 2nd Line Support
11 46 (3.75%) Lead
12 42 (3.42%) Architect
13 38 (3.09%) IT Technician
14 36 (2.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 35 (2.85%) Technical Engineer
15 35 (2.85%) Technical Support Engineer
16 33 (2.69%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.43%) .NET
2 56 (4.56%) HTML
3 49 (3.99%) SOAP
4 40 (3.26%) REST
5 35 (2.85%) CSS
6 34 (2.77%) JSON
6 34 (2.77%) XML
7 29 (2.36%) React
8 22 (1.79%) ASP.NET
9 19 (1.55%) Middleware
10 18 (1.47%) OAuth
11 16 (1.30%) HTML5
11 16 (1.30%) RESTful
12 15 (1.22%) RabbitMQ
13 14 (1.14%) ASP.NET Core
13 14 (1.14%) CSS3
13 14 (1.14%) Laravel
14 13 (1.06%) Ajax
14 13 (1.06%) jQuery
14 13 (1.06%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 74 (6.03%) Driving Licence
2 64 (5.21%) Management Information System
2 64 (5.21%) Self-Motivation
3 56 (4.56%) Onboarding
4 39 (3.18%) Cloud Native
5 35 (2.85%) Product Ownership
6 31 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
8 18 (1.47%) Low-Code
9 17 (1.38%) Social Media
10 15 (1.22%) NHS
10 15 (1.22%) Robotics
11 13 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
12 12 (0.98%) EPoS
13 11 (0.90%) Client/Server
13 11 (0.90%) Security Posture
13 11 (0.90%) Video Editing
14 10 (0.81%) Cyber Defence
15 9 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 188 (15.31%) Windows
2 100 (8.14%) Linux
3 66 (5.37%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.63%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.55%) Android
5 19 (1.55%) CentOS
6 17 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (1.38%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (1.06%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.57%) VMS
10 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.33%) Debian
12 2 (0.16%) Unix
12 2 (0.16%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.081%) FreeBSD
13 1 (0.081%) OpenBSD
13 1 (0.081%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.081%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (19.22%) Continuous Improvement
2 214 (17.43%) Customer Service
3 177 (14.41%) Agile
4 141 (11.48%) CI/CD
5 136 (11.07%) DevOps
6 133 (10.83%) Decision-Making
7 124 (10.10%) Software Engineering
8 112 (9.12%) AI
8 112 (9.12%) Project Management
9 109 (8.88%) Computer Science
10 105 (8.55%) Analytics
11 99 (8.06%) Mentoring
12 98 (7.98%) Cybersecurity
13 93 (7.57%) Project Delivery
14 88 (7.17%) Business Intelligence
14 88 (7.17%) Collaborative Working
15 81 (6.60%) ITIL
16 79 (6.43%) CRM
16 79 (6.43%) Stakeholder Management
17 76 (6.19%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 201 (16.37%) Python
2 196 (15.96%) SQL
3 101 (8.22%) C#
4 83 (6.76%) JavaScript
5 69 (5.62%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.48%) Java
7 42 (3.42%) C++
8 34 (2.77%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.36%) C
10 28 (2.28%) Bash
10 28 (2.28%) PHP
11 20 (1.63%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.98%) Rust
13 11 (0.90%) Ruby
14 10 (0.81%) Perl
15 7 (0.57%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.57%) T-SQL
16 6 (0.49%) R
16 6 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 249 (20.28%) Degree
2 83 (6.76%) Security Cleared
3 67 (5.46%) DBS Check
4 53 (4.32%) SC Cleared
5 50 (4.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 38 (3.09%) Microsoft Certification
7 36 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.61%) ACCA
9 31 (2.52%) CIMA
10 29 (2.36%) HNC
11 26 (2.12%) Chartered Engineer
12 20 (1.63%) A+ Certification
13 18 (1.47%) PMI Certification
14 17 (1.38%) Master's Degree
14 17 (1.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 15 (1.22%) Azure Certification
15 15 (1.22%) PMP
16 13 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (1.06%) DV Cleared
17 12 (0.98%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (8.06%) QA
2 55 (4.48%) Data Quality
3 45 (3.66%) GDPR
4 37 (3.01%) SLA
5 25 (2.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.95%) Accessibility
7 17 (1.38%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.06%) PMO
9 11 (0.90%) NIST
10 9 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (0.73%) Good Clinical Practice
11 8 (0.65%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.41%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
13 4 (0.33%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.33%) ISO 26262
13 4 (0.33%) ITGC
14 2 (0.16%) GRC
14 2 (0.16%) IFRS
System Software
1 106 (8.63%) Active Directory
2 56 (4.56%) Docker
3 45 (3.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (3.18%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.81%) KVM
6 7 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.41%) XenApp
8 4 (0.33%) ClearTrust
8 4 (0.33%) Firmware
8 4 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.16%) vSphere
11 1 (0.081%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.081%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.081%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 65 (5.29%) Kubernetes
2 63 (5.13%) Terraform
3 33 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (2.52%) Ansible
5 17 (1.38%) SCCM
6 16 (1.30%) Grafana
7 13 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.98%) Nagios
9 7 (0.57%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.57%) ZABBIX
10 6 (0.49%) Podman
11 5 (0.41%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.41%) Graylog
12 4 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (0.33%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.24%) Puppet
14 2 (0.16%) Nessus
15 1 (0.081%) Netcool
15 1 (0.081%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 331 (26.95%) Microsoft
2 52 (4.23%) VMware
3 43 (3.50%) Oracle
4 38 (3.09%) Google
5 31 (2.52%) Databricks
6 25 (2.04%) Salesforce
7 24 (1.95%) Cisco
7 24 (1.95%) Veeam
8 18 (1.47%) Instagram
9 16 (1.30%) Fortinet
9 16 (1.30%) SAP
10 15 (1.22%) Adobe
10 15 (1.22%) Red Hat
10 15 (1.22%) Splunk
11 14 (1.14%) SonicWALL
12 11 (0.90%) Aruba
12 11 (0.90%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.90%) Hootsuite
12 11 (0.90%) SolarWinds
12 11 (0.90%) Wrike