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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,845 1,697 1,982
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.76% 19.05% 15.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.57% 21.62% 19.11%
Number of salaries quoted 1,296 880 887
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £30,500 £31,250 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,585 £41,250 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.81% -17.50% -0.99%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £75,910 £83,750
England median annual salary £46,152 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -14.29% -4.55%

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 13,595 7,849 10,369
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.93% 88.10% 81.41%
Number of salaries quoted 9,674 4,222 5,567
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,438
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £49,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.24% -10.91% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,688 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £83,372
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £59,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -7.56% -4.03%

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 September 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 September 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 -6 697 £42,500 +3.66% 595
Hampshire -1 469 £40,000 -5.88% 338
Berkshire -5 316 £42,500 - 298
Surrey -1 278 £40,000 -5.88% 170
Buckinghamshire -5 202 £42,500 +13.33% 144
Kent -1 200 £35,000 +11.11% 84
Oxfordshire +3 179 £44,000 +2.33% 158
East Sussex -1 92 £50,000 +11.11% 77
West Sussex -6 83 £45,000 -10.89% 100
Middlesex +4 13 £35,000 -6.67% 9
Sussex -12 7 £65,000 +52.94% 16
Isle of Wight -8 2 £42,500 +3.66% 2
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 91 (4.93%) SharePoint
2 64 (3.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (0.92%) Confluence
3 17 (0.92%) IIS
4 10 (0.54%) CMS
5 7 (0.38%) OpenEdge
6 6 (0.33%) Apache
7 5 (0.27%) nginx
7 5 (0.27%) WordPress
8 3 (0.16%) SAS
9 2 (0.11%) Gentran
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.054%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.054%) OpenStack
Applications
1 144 (7.80%) Microsoft Office
2 120 (6.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.03%) AutoCAD
4 18 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
6 14 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 9 (0.49%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.49%) Revit
8 6 (0.33%) Lightworks
8 6 (0.33%) Simulink
9 5 (0.27%) SOLIDWORKS
10 4 (0.22%) Mathematica
11 3 (0.16%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.11%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.11%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.11%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
13 1 (0.054%) Mathcad
13 1 (0.054%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 26 (1.41%) NetSuite
2 19 (1.03%) Shopify
3 16 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.38%) Primavera
5 6 (0.33%) Raiser’s Edge
6 5 (0.27%) Magento
7 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.16%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.11%) Academy Housing
8 2 (0.11%) Eloqua
8 2 (0.11%) Infor SunSystems
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.054%) Adobe Campaign
9 1 (0.054%) FastStats
9 1 (0.054%) HFM
9 1 (0.054%) SAP MDG
9 1 (0.054%) SAP MDG-M
9 1 (0.054%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 372 (20.16%) Azure
2 254 (13.77%) Microsoft 365
3 173 (9.38%) AWS
4 103 (5.58%) Power Platform
5 90 (4.88%) Entra ID
6 75 (4.07%) SaaS
7 48 (2.60%) GCP
8 39 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (1.84%) GitHub
10 33 (1.79%) Google Workspace
11 31 (1.68%) Serverless
12 22 (1.19%) OneDrive
13 18 (0.98%) Anthropic Claude
14 15 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
14 15 (0.81%) PaaS
15 14 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
15 14 (0.76%) Google Analytics
15 14 (0.76%) Google Tag Manager
15 14 (0.76%) IaaS
16 13 (0.70%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 160 (8.67%) Firewall
2 89 (4.82%) DNS
3 71 (3.85%) VPN
4 66 (3.58%) DHCP
5 60 (3.25%) TCP/IP
6 59 (3.20%) VLAN
7 55 (2.98%) Wi-Fi
8 54 (2.93%) WAN
9 53 (2.87%) LAN
9 53 (2.87%) Wireless
10 39 (2.11%) VoIP
11 37 (2.01%) Network Security
12 18 (0.98%) SSL
13 13 (0.70%) Internet
14 11 (0.60%) MQTT
15 9 (0.49%) 5G
15 9 (0.49%) LTE
16 8 (0.43%) Broadband
16 8 (0.43%) Ethernet
17 7 (0.38%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (6.61%) SQL Server
2 84 (4.55%) Power BI
3 34 (1.84%) Relational Database
4 31 (1.68%) MySQL
5 29 (1.57%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.30%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
10 11 (0.60%) GIS
11 9 (0.49%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.49%) Tableau
12 7 (0.38%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.38%) Metadata
13 6 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.33%) OLTP
14 5 (0.27%) Electronic Patient Records
14 5 (0.27%) Power Query
15 4 (0.22%) Looker
Development Applications
1 62 (3.36%) Git
1 62 (3.36%) JIRA
2 17 (0.92%) Rational DOORS
3 16 (0.87%) GitLab
4 15 (0.81%) Claude Code
5 12 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
5 12 (0.65%) Team Foundation Server
6 6 (0.33%) Selenium
7 5 (0.27%) Eclipse
7 5 (0.27%) Eclipse RCP
7 5 (0.27%) Jenkins
7 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
8 4 (0.22%) PetaLinux
8 4 (0.22%) Postman
8 4 (0.22%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.16%) Mocha
9 3 (0.16%) PHPUnit
9 3 (0.16%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.11%) JUnit
General
1 959 (51.98%) Social Skills
2 486 (26.34%) Analytical Skills
3 293 (15.88%) Finance
4 192 (10.41%) Manufacturing
5 184 (9.97%) Organisational Skills
6 143 (7.75%) Aerospace
7 117 (6.34%) Electronics
8 107 (5.80%) Retail
9 67 (3.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (3.41%) Marketing
11 54 (2.93%) Influencing Skills
12 53 (2.87%) Legal
13 47 (2.55%) Public Sector
14 45 (2.44%) Military
15 44 (2.38%) Telecoms
16 38 (2.06%) Law
17 28 (1.52%) Aviation
17 28 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
18 25 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
19 24 (1.30%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 258 (13.98%) Analyst
2 182 (9.86%) Senior
3 173 (9.38%) IT Support
4 152 (8.24%) Developer
5 138 (7.48%) Support Analyst
6 131 (7.10%) Support Engineer
7 95 (5.15%) IT Engineer
8 85 (4.61%) Lead
9 83 (4.50%) Technical Support
10 77 (4.17%) Support Technician
11 74 (4.01%) Systems Engineer
12 69 (3.74%) Software Engineer
13 67 (3.63%) IT Support Engineer
14 60 (3.25%) Technical Engineer
15 58 (3.14%) Technical Support Engineer
16 57 (3.09%) 2nd Line Support
16 57 (3.09%) IT Analyst
17 54 (2.93%) IT Technician
18 51 (2.76%) Consultant
19 48 (2.60%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (6.50%) .NET
2 76 (4.12%) Terraform
3 72 (3.90%) HTML
4 61 (3.31%) REST
5 54 (2.93%) ASP.NET
5 54 (2.93%) CSS
6 53 (2.87%) React
7 47 (2.55%) SOAP
8 35 (1.90%) ASP.NET Core
9 31 (1.68%) AngularJS
10 30 (1.63%) RESTful
11 28 (1.52%) JSON
11 28 (1.52%) Vue
12 27 (1.46%) ModSecurity
12 27 (1.46%) OAuth
12 27 (1.46%) XML
13 23 (1.25%) ASP.NET Web API
13 23 (1.25%) ASP.NET Web Forms
14 22 (1.19%) jQuery
15 21 (1.14%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 152 (8.24%) Driving Licence
2 130 (7.05%) Onboarding
3 107 (5.80%) Management Information System
4 94 (5.09%) Self-Motivation
5 65 (3.52%) Cloud Native
6 49 (2.66%) Product Ownership
7 40 (2.17%) Data Centre
8 35 (1.90%) Robotics
9 31 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.63%) Social Media
11 27 (1.46%) CCTV
12 26 (1.41%) Analogue Electronics
13 25 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
13 25 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
14 22 (1.19%) Distributed Systems
15 18 (0.98%) EPoS
15 18 (0.98%) Mobile App
15 18 (0.98%) Renewable Energy
16 16 (0.87%) Embedded Systems
16 16 (0.87%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 297 (16.10%) Windows
2 110 (5.96%) Windows Server
3 103 (5.58%) Linux
4 27 (1.46%) Android
5 24 (1.30%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.19%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.03%) Windows Server 2019
8 18 (0.98%) Apple iOS
9 10 (0.54%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.38%) Debian
12 6 (0.33%) CentOS
12 6 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.33%) Rocky
12 6 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
14 3 (0.16%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.16%) Unix
14 3 (0.16%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 416 (22.55%) Continuous Improvement
2 369 (20.00%) Customer Service
3 230 (12.47%) Agile
4 219 (11.87%) Decision-Making
5 211 (11.44%) Stakeholder Management
6 198 (10.73%) Project Management
7 189 (10.24%) AI
8 185 (10.03%) Project Delivery
9 171 (9.27%) Collaborative Working
10 163 (8.83%) Software Engineering
11 157 (8.51%) ITIL
12 151 (8.18%) CI/CD
13 147 (7.97%) Mentoring
14 146 (7.91%) CRM
14 146 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
15 142 (7.70%) Validation
16 132 (7.15%) DevOps
17 125 (6.78%) Computer Science
18 119 (6.45%) ERP
19 117 (6.34%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 228 (12.36%) SQL
2 192 (10.41%) Python
3 138 (7.48%) C#
4 112 (6.07%) JavaScript
5 91 (4.93%) PowerShell
6 68 (3.69%) C++
7 66 (3.58%) TypeScript
8 62 (3.36%) Java
9 25 (1.36%) Bash
9 25 (1.36%) C
10 23 (1.25%) Ruby
11 21 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 18 (0.98%) VB.NET
13 17 (0.92%) PHP
14 16 (0.87%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.60%) Rust
16 10 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.49%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.38%) Bicep
18 7 (0.38%) Perl
Qualifications
1 365 (19.78%) Degree
2 202 (10.95%) Security Cleared
3 136 (7.37%) SC Cleared
4 118 (6.40%) DBS Check
5 65 (3.52%) HNC
6 64 (3.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 62 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
8 61 (3.31%) HND
9 59 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
10 58 (3.14%) DV Cleared
11 55 (2.98%) Azure Certification
12 32 (1.73%) CISSP
13 30 (1.63%) PMI Certification
14 29 (1.57%) Master's Degree
15 28 (1.52%) A+ Certification
15 28 (1.52%) Chartered Engineer
16 26 (1.41%) CISM
17 24 (1.30%) PMP
18 23 (1.25%) AWS Certification
19 22 (1.19%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (7.80%) QA
2 71 (3.85%) GDPR
3 53 (2.87%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.66%) SLA
5 42 (2.28%) Accessibility
6 41 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.25%) NIST
8 20 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (1.03%) DO-254
10 18 (0.98%) Good Clinical Practice
11 17 (0.92%) PMO
12 16 (0.87%) PCI DSS
13 12 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.65%) ISO 9001
14 9 (0.49%) GMP
15 8 (0.43%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 8 (0.43%) GLP
15 8 (0.43%) GxP
16 7 (0.38%) SOC 2
17 5 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 166 (9.00%) Active Directory
2 82 (4.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 64 (3.47%) Hyper-V
4 58 (3.14%) Docker
5 17 (0.92%) Firmware
6 10 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.43%) vSphere
9 6 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.27%) ClearTrust
10 5 (0.27%) Squid
11 3 (0.16%) KVM
12 1 (0.054%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.054%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 66 (3.58%) Kubernetes
2 65 (3.52%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (1.63%) Ansible
4 22 (1.19%) SCCM
5 17 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.43%) Grafana
7 8 (0.43%) Podman
8 7 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.38%) Nagios
8 7 (0.38%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.33%) Functional Safety
9 6 (0.33%) Graylog
10 5 (0.27%) BMC PATROL
10 5 (0.27%) Puppet
10 5 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 4 (0.22%) Docker Swarm
12 3 (0.16%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.11%) CASB
13 2 (0.11%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 574 (31.11%) Microsoft
2 98 (5.31%) VMware
3 81 (4.39%) Google
4 54 (2.93%) Oracle
5 48 (2.60%) SAP
6 40 (2.17%) Fortinet
6 40 (2.17%) SonicWALL
7 39 (2.11%) Veeam
8 38 (2.06%) Cisco
9 37 (2.01%) ServiceNow
10 33 (1.79%) Salesforce
11 22 (1.19%) Apple
11 22 (1.19%) Sage
12 20 (1.08%) Palo Alto
13 18 (0.98%) Mentor Graphics
14 17 (0.92%) Thales
15 16 (0.87%) Aruba
16 15 (0.81%) CA Agile Central
16 15 (0.81%) EMC
16 15 (0.81%) WatchGuard