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 28 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,242 1,314 2,262
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 10.64% 17.03% 17.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.75% 18.96% 20.79%
Number of salaries quoted 903 650 1,402
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,475 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £35,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £52,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £83,875 £73,750
England median annual salary £45,700 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -16.91% +10.00% -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 9,031 6,931 10,878
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 77.35% 89.83% 86.19%
Number of salaries quoted 5,597 3,256 8,068
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,749 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £57,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £73,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £85,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -11.29% +12.73% -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 28 February 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 28 February 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 -3 494 £45,000 -21.74% 373
Berkshire +5 279 £45,000 -32.08% 224
Hampshire 0 261 £35,000 -30.00% 179
Surrey -11 196 £40,000 -27.27% 121
Buckinghamshire -8 140 £51,000 -11.30% 88
Kent -10 119 £29,000 -14.71% 90
East Sussex 0 84 £57,500 +15.00% 61
Oxfordshire -4 75 £34,000 -15.00% 63
West Sussex -1 53 £60,000 +26.32% 66
Middlesex -9 17 £47,500 -19.15% 10
Isle of Wight +7 12 £43,500 +8.48% 44
Sussex -13 2 £35,000 +22.81% 3
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 37 (2.98%) SharePoint
2 32 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 21 (1.69%) IIS
4 14 (1.13%) CMS
5 10 (0.81%) WordPress
6 8 (0.64%) Confluence
7 4 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.24%) govService
8 3 (0.24%) SAS
9 2 (0.16%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.16%) Apache
9 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.081%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.081%) nginx
10 1 (0.081%) OpenStack
Applications
1 108 (8.70%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (5.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.81%) Photoshop
4 10 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 9 (0.72%) Adobe Illustrator
6 7 (0.56%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.24%) Adobe After Effects
7 3 (0.24%) Adobe Premiere
7 3 (0.24%) Adobe XD
7 3 (0.24%) InDesign
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.16%) Elementor
9 1 (0.081%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.081%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.081%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 45 (3.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.89%) NetSuite
3 9 (0.72%) SAP CO
4 7 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.40%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
7 3 (0.24%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 3 (0.24%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
8 2 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 2 (0.16%) Q-Pulse
8 2 (0.16%) Sage 200
9 1 (0.081%) PeopleSoft HRMS
9 1 (0.081%) Raiser’s Edge
9 1 (0.081%) Salesforce CRM
9 1 (0.081%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.081%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 228 (18.36%) Azure
2 160 (12.88%) Microsoft 365
3 94 (7.57%) Power Platform
4 83 (6.68%) AWS
5 64 (5.15%) Azure DevOps
6 60 (4.83%) SaaS
7 39 (3.14%) GCP
8 37 (2.98%) Entra ID
9 20 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 20 (1.61%) Mimecast
9 20 (1.61%) PaaS
10 19 (1.53%) Google Workspace
10 19 (1.53%) IaaS
11 18 (1.45%) Azure Logic Apps
12 17 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
12 17 (1.37%) GitHub
13 16 (1.29%) Collibra
13 16 (1.29%) Figma
14 12 (0.97%) Asana
14 12 (0.97%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 85 (6.84%) DNS
2 65 (5.23%) Firewall
3 54 (4.35%) DHCP
4 44 (3.54%) TCP/IP
5 42 (3.38%) VPN
6 26 (2.09%) Wireless
7 22 (1.77%) VLAN
8 17 (1.37%) WAN
9 15 (1.21%) Broadband
10 14 (1.13%) LAN
11 13 (1.05%) SAN
12 11 (0.89%) Intranet
13 10 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
14 9 (0.72%) HTTP
14 9 (0.72%) VoIP
15 7 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
16 6 (0.48%) PuTTY
16 6 (0.48%) SSH
17 3 (0.24%) MPLS
17 3 (0.24%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (5.80%) Power BI
2 38 (3.06%) Relational Database
2 38 (3.06%) SQL Server
3 19 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
4 17 (1.37%) NoSQL
4 17 (1.37%) Power Query
5 16 (1.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 14 (1.13%) OLTP
7 10 (0.81%) Tableau
8 9 (0.72%) Data Lake
8 9 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
9 7 (0.56%) MySQL
9 7 (0.56%) PowerPivot
10 6 (0.48%) Big Data
10 6 (0.48%) Hadoop
10 6 (0.48%) SAP BW
11 5 (0.40%) Data Mining
12 4 (0.32%) Azure SQL Database
12 4 (0.32%) Metadata
13 3 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 49 (3.95%) Git
2 38 (3.06%) JIRA
3 25 (2.01%) Selenium
4 17 (1.37%) GitLab
5 15 (1.21%) Robot Framework
6 13 (1.05%) Snyk
7 10 (0.81%) Rational DOORS
8 8 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 7 (0.56%) Jenkins
10 5 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.32%) Postman
11 4 (0.32%) WebDriver
12 3 (0.24%) Appium
12 3 (0.24%) REST Assured
13 2 (0.16%) JMeter
13 2 (0.16%) LabVIEW
13 2 (0.16%) TestRail
14 1 (0.081%) Browser DevTools
14 1 (0.081%) Katalon Studio
14 1 (0.081%) MLflow
General
1 679 (54.67%) Social Skills
2 343 (27.62%) Analytical Skills
3 246 (19.81%) Finance
4 92 (7.41%) Manufacturing
5 90 (7.25%) Marketing
6 77 (6.20%) Retail
7 72 (5.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 69 (5.56%) Organisational Skills
9 42 (3.38%) Telecoms
10 41 (3.30%) Electronics
11 35 (2.82%) Public Sector
12 34 (2.74%) Legal
13 31 (2.50%) Law
14 26 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
15 16 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
16 14 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (0.89%) Banking
17 11 (0.89%) Pharmaceutical
18 9 (0.72%) Automotive
19 7 (0.56%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 207 (16.67%) Analyst
2 191 (15.38%) IT Support
3 189 (15.22%) Senior
4 167 (13.45%) Support Engineer
5 112 (9.02%) Developer
6 95 (7.65%) Support Analyst
7 77 (6.20%) Technical Support
8 75 (6.04%) IT Engineer
9 70 (5.64%) Lead
10 64 (5.15%) IT Support Engineer
11 60 (4.83%) 2nd Line Support
12 56 (4.51%) IT Analyst
13 55 (4.43%) IT Support Analyst
14 45 (3.62%) Technical Engineer
14 45 (3.62%) Technical Support Engineer
15 42 (3.38%) Senior Manager
16 37 (2.98%) Project Engineer
17 36 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
18 34 (2.74%) Software Engineer
19 33 (2.66%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (4.75%) .NET
2 50 (4.03%) HTML
3 34 (2.74%) SOAP
4 31 (2.50%) REST
5 29 (2.33%) React
6 27 (2.17%) CSS
7 21 (1.69%) XML
8 19 (1.53%) .NET Framework
9 17 (1.37%) ASP.NET
10 15 (1.21%) Middleware
11 14 (1.13%) JSON
12 13 (1.05%) Entity Framework
12 13 (1.05%) Laravel
12 13 (1.05%) WinForms
13 12 (0.97%) ARM Templates
14 11 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
15 10 (0.81%) OLE
15 10 (0.81%) Visualforce
16 9 (0.72%) Node.js
16 9 (0.72%) SAP CO-PA
Miscellaneous
1 100 (8.05%) Onboarding
2 81 (6.52%) Driving Licence
3 66 (5.31%) Self-Motivation
4 45 (3.62%) Management Information System
5 40 (3.22%) Analytical Mindset
6 30 (2.42%) Data Centre
6 30 (2.42%) Product Ownership
7 21 (1.69%) Low-Code
7 21 (1.69%) Social Media
8 20 (1.61%) Cloud Native
9 17 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
10 12 (0.97%) Video Editing
11 11 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (0.81%) Legacy Systems
12 10 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
12 10 (0.81%) Video Conferencing
13 9 (0.72%) Life Science
14 8 (0.64%) Algorithms
14 8 (0.64%) FMCG
14 8 (0.64%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 236 (19.00%) Windows
2 78 (6.28%) Linux
3 73 (5.88%) Windows Server
4 26 (2.09%) Windows 10
5 25 (2.01%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.29%) Android
7 12 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.97%) Windows Server 2012
8 11 (0.89%) CentOS
9 10 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.56%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.48%) VMS
12 5 (0.40%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.32%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.32%) Unix
13 4 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.081%) FreeBSD
14 1 (0.081%) OpenBSD
14 1 (0.081%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (20.93%) Continuous Improvement
2 200 (16.10%) Customer Service
3 162 (13.04%) Agile
4 132 (10.63%) Analytics
5 123 (9.90%) DevOps
6 110 (8.86%) Project Management
7 103 (8.29%) Business Intelligence
8 95 (7.65%) Decision-Making
8 95 (7.65%) Stakeholder Management
9 93 (7.49%) CI/CD
10 91 (7.33%) Computer Science
11 90 (7.25%) ERP
12 84 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
13 82 (6.60%) Mentoring
14 77 (6.20%) AI
14 77 (6.20%) Technical Leadership
15 72 (5.80%) Data Modelling
16 67 (5.39%) Software Engineering
17 66 (5.31%) Process Improvement
18 64 (5.15%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 205 (16.51%) SQL
2 168 (13.53%) Python
3 79 (6.36%) C#
4 78 (6.28%) PowerShell
5 71 (5.72%) JavaScript
6 43 (3.46%) Java
7 27 (2.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 27 (2.17%) PHP
8 17 (1.37%) C++
8 17 (1.37%) PL/SQL
9 16 (1.29%) TypeScript
10 15 (1.21%) Bash
11 14 (1.13%) C
12 12 (0.97%) Bicep
12 12 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 11 (0.89%) Apex Code
14 9 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
14 9 (0.72%) Perl
15 8 (0.64%) R
16 7 (0.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 264 (21.26%) Degree
2 85 (6.84%) Security Cleared
3 51 (4.11%) Computer Science Degree
4 42 (3.38%) ACCA
5 39 (3.14%) SC Cleared
6 34 (2.74%) CIMA
7 30 (2.42%) Microsoft Certification
8 28 (2.25%) DBS Check
9 26 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (1.77%) DV Cleared
11 20 (1.61%) HNC
11 20 (1.61%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 18 (1.45%) A+ Certification
13 14 (1.13%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.89%) Chartered Engineer
15 10 (0.81%) HND
16 8 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
16 8 (0.64%) MCSE
17 7 (0.56%) City & Guilds
17 7 (0.56%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (5.64%) QA
2 53 (4.27%) Data Quality
3 52 (4.19%) GDPR
4 26 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 21 (1.69%) SLA
6 11 (0.89%) PCI DSS
7 9 (0.72%) NIST
8 6 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.48%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (0.32%) ITGC
11 3 (0.24%) ISO 13485
12 2 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.16%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.16%) WCAG
13 1 (0.081%) GAAP
13 1 (0.081%) IFRS
13 1 (0.081%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 1 (0.081%) PMO
System Software
1 159 (12.80%) Active Directory
2 39 (3.14%) Hyper-V
3 36 (2.90%) Docker
4 35 (2.82%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (0.64%) KVM
7 4 (0.32%) Firmware
8 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.16%) XenApp
10 1 (0.081%) RHEV
10 1 (0.081%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.081%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.081%) Xen
Systems Management
1 53 (4.27%) Terraform
2 42 (3.38%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (2.42%) Kubernetes
4 28 (2.25%) Ansible
5 17 (1.37%) SCCM
6 13 (1.05%) vCenter Server
7 10 (0.81%) Grafana
7 10 (0.81%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.81%) ZABBIX
8 9 (0.72%) Nagios
9 2 (0.16%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.16%) Nessus
9 2 (0.16%) Netcool
9 2 (0.16%) Netcool/OMNIbus
9 2 (0.16%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.081%) CASB
10 1 (0.081%) Dell DRAC
10 1 (0.081%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.081%) Kibana
10 1 (0.081%) Podman
Vendors
1 324 (26.09%) Microsoft
2 87 (7.00%) SAP
3 50 (4.03%) VMware
4 40 (3.22%) Veeam
5 39 (3.14%) Google
6 36 (2.90%) Adobe
7 34 (2.74%) Databricks
8 33 (2.66%) Oracle
9 32 (2.58%) Sage
10 27 (2.17%) Salesforce
11 24 (1.93%) HubSpot
11 24 (1.93%) NEC
12 17 (1.37%) ServiceNow
13 15 (1.21%) SolarWinds
14 14 (1.13%) Xamarin
15 13 (1.05%) Black Duck
15 13 (1.05%) Cisco
15 13 (1.05%) Coverity
16 11 (0.89%) Hootsuite
16 11 (0.89%) Instagram