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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,186 1,237 2,705
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.49% 18.18% 16.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.60% 20.23% 20.00%
Number of salaries quoted 906 678 1,725
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,250 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,375 £33,563 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £62,500 £70,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -13.64% +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 10,226 6,116 13,523
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 73.23% 89.86% 84.74%
Number of salaries quoted 6,546 3,287 9,804
10th Percentile £29,750 £29,000 £27,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £39,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £78,268
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -6 446 £47,500 -13.64% 184
Hampshire -5 248 £40,000 -20.00% 115
Berkshire -1 224 £45,000 -30.77% 76
Surrey -13 193 £40,000 -24.12% 72
Buckinghamshire -10 146 £52,500 +3.01% 58
Kent -16 119 £30,000 -9.09% 47
East Sussex -1 98 £70,750 +52.97% 23
Oxfordshire -10 76 £33,600 -20.94% 52
West Sussex -3 60 £57,500 +23.66% 32
Isle of Wight +4 11 £43,500 -20.91%
Middlesex +1 7 £47,500 -22.45% 11
Sussex -16 1 £30,000 +5.26% 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 31 (2.61%) SharePoint
2 29 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.35%) CMS
4 11 (0.93%) IIS
5 7 (0.59%) Confluence
5 7 (0.59%) WordPress
6 4 (0.34%) Anypoint
6 4 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.25%) govService
7 3 (0.25%) SAS
8 2 (0.17%) Apache
8 2 (0.17%) Gentran
9 1 (0.084%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.084%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.084%) nginx
Applications
1 88 (7.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 85 (7.17%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.76%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.76%) Photoshop
5 8 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
6 6 (0.51%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.17%) Elementor
7 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.084%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.084%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.084%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.084%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 10 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
1 10 (0.84%) NetSuite
2 9 (0.76%) SAP CO
3 4 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (0.34%) Magento
4 3 (0.25%) Sage X3
4 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
5 2 (0.17%) Q-Pulse
5 2 (0.17%) Sage 200
6 1 (0.084%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.084%) HFM
6 1 (0.084%) PeopleSoft HRMS
6 1 (0.084%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.084%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.084%) SAP Hybris
6 1 (0.084%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 232 (19.56%) Azure
2 128 (10.79%) Microsoft 365
3 92 (7.76%) Power Platform
4 83 (7.00%) AWS
5 57 (4.81%) SaaS
6 55 (4.64%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (2.70%) GCP
8 31 (2.61%) PaaS
9 30 (2.53%) IaaS
10 29 (2.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 25 (2.11%) Entra ID
12 20 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
13 19 (1.60%) Mimecast
14 18 (1.52%) Google Workspace
15 17 (1.43%) Azure Data Factory
15 17 (1.43%) Azure Logic Apps
15 17 (1.43%) GitHub
16 15 (1.26%) OpenShift
17 13 (1.10%) Datadog
18 12 (1.01%) Asana
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.23%) Firewall
2 61 (5.14%) DNS
3 34 (2.87%) DHCP
4 31 (2.61%) TCP/IP
5 28 (2.36%) VPN
6 25 (2.11%) Wireless
7 20 (1.69%) Broadband
8 19 (1.60%) WAN
9 17 (1.43%) LAN
10 14 (1.18%) VoIP
11 11 (0.93%) HTTP
11 11 (0.93%) Intranet
12 10 (0.84%) VLAN
13 8 (0.67%) SAN
14 7 (0.59%) Remote Desktop
15 6 (0.51%) PuTTY
15 6 (0.51%) SSH
16 5 (0.42%) Wi-Fi
17 3 (0.25%) LTE
17 3 (0.25%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (6.07%) Power BI
2 52 (4.38%) SQL Server
3 34 (2.87%) Relational Database
4 25 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
5 17 (1.43%) Power Query
6 14 (1.18%) OLTP
7 13 (1.10%) NoSQL
7 13 (1.10%) Tableau
8 10 (0.84%) MySQL
8 10 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (0.67%) Data Lake
9 8 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 7 (0.59%) PowerPivot
11 6 (0.51%) Hadoop
11 6 (0.51%) Looker
12 5 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.42%) Big Data
12 5 (0.42%) Data Mining
12 5 (0.42%) Metadata
12 5 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 52 (4.38%) Git
2 41 (3.46%) JIRA
3 26 (2.19%) GitLab
4 16 (1.35%) Selenium
5 15 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 9 (0.76%) Robot Framework
7 7 (0.59%) Jenkins
7 7 (0.59%) Snyk
8 6 (0.51%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.34%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.25%) Postman
11 2 (0.17%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.17%) Appium
11 2 (0.17%) JMeter
11 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
11 2 (0.17%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.17%) TestRail
11 2 (0.17%) WebDriver
12 1 (0.084%) SonarQube
12 1 (0.084%) Zephyr
General
1 571 (48.15%) Social Skills
2 344 (29.01%) Analytical Skills
3 198 (16.69%) Finance
4 76 (6.41%) Organisational Skills
5 70 (5.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 68 (5.73%) Marketing
7 62 (5.23%) Manufacturing
7 62 (5.23%) Retail
8 47 (3.96%) Telecoms
9 45 (3.79%) Electronics
10 36 (3.04%) Public Sector
11 34 (2.87%) Law
12 30 (2.53%) Legal
13 24 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (1.26%) Aerospace
14 15 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
15 12 (1.01%) Automotive
16 11 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
17 10 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.59%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 167 (14.08%) Analyst
2 157 (13.24%) IT Support
3 152 (12.82%) Support Engineer
4 136 (11.47%) Senior
5 112 (9.44%) Developer
6 74 (6.24%) IT Engineer
6 74 (6.24%) Support Analyst
7 62 (5.23%) Technical Support
8 58 (4.89%) IT Support Engineer
9 52 (4.38%) 2nd Line Support
9 52 (4.38%) Lead
10 46 (3.88%) Technical Engineer
10 46 (3.88%) Technical Support Engineer
11 43 (3.63%) Architect
12 39 (3.29%) Systems Engineer
13 38 (3.20%) IT Technician
14 37 (3.12%) Support Technician
15 36 (3.04%) Software Engineer
16 33 (2.78%) IT Analyst
17 32 (2.70%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (4.72%) .NET
2 47 (3.96%) HTML
3 36 (3.04%) SOAP
4 33 (2.78%) REST
5 25 (2.11%) React
6 24 (2.02%) XML
7 23 (1.94%) CSS
8 21 (1.77%) JSON
9 19 (1.60%) Middleware
10 14 (1.18%) Laravel
11 13 (1.10%) ARM Templates
11 13 (1.10%) Lightning Web Components
12 12 (1.01%) OAuth
12 12 (1.01%) Visualforce
13 11 (0.93%) ASP.NET
13 11 (0.93%) RabbitMQ
14 10 (0.84%) .NET Framework
14 10 (0.84%) OLE
15 9 (0.76%) Node.js
15 9 (0.76%) SAP CO-PA
Miscellaneous
1 82 (6.91%) Onboarding
2 70 (5.90%) Driving Licence
3 67 (5.65%) Self-Motivation
4 39 (3.29%) Management Information System
5 34 (2.87%) Product Ownership
6 26 (2.19%) Analytical Mindset
6 26 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.11%) Cloud Native
8 20 (1.69%) Low-Code
9 19 (1.60%) Social Media
10 14 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (0.93%) Video Editing
13 10 (0.84%) Life Science
14 9 (0.76%) Client/Server
14 9 (0.76%) IoT
14 9 (0.76%) NHS
14 9 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
15 8 (0.67%) FMCG
15 8 (0.67%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 182 (15.35%) Windows
2 90 (7.59%) Linux
3 56 (4.72%) Windows Server
4 23 (1.94%) Mac OS
5 18 (1.52%) Android
5 18 (1.52%) CentOS
6 16 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.01%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.76%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.76%) VMS
9 7 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.34%) Unix
13 3 (0.25%) Debian
14 1 (0.084%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.084%) FreeBSD
14 1 (0.084%) OpenBSD
14 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (20.74%) Continuous Improvement
2 205 (17.28%) Customer Service
3 160 (13.49%) Agile
4 138 (11.64%) DevOps
5 118 (9.95%) Analytics
6 117 (9.87%) CI/CD
7 109 (9.19%) Decision-Making
8 106 (8.94%) Business Intelligence
9 97 (8.18%) Project Management
10 96 (8.09%) Computer Science
11 81 (6.83%) AI
12 79 (6.66%) Mentoring
13 78 (6.58%) CRM
14 77 (6.49%) Software Engineering
15 76 (6.41%) Data Modelling
16 72 (6.07%) Stakeholder Management
17 68 (5.73%) Cybersecurity
17 68 (5.73%) ITIL
18 67 (5.65%) Project Delivery
19 64 (5.40%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 199 (16.78%) Python
2 187 (15.77%) SQL
3 72 (6.07%) C#
3 72 (6.07%) PowerShell
4 70 (5.90%) JavaScript
5 51 (4.30%) Java
6 28 (2.36%) PHP
7 26 (2.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 25 (2.11%) C++
9 23 (1.94%) C
10 22 (1.85%) Bash
11 17 (1.43%) PL/SQL
12 16 (1.35%) TypeScript
13 13 (1.10%) Apex Code
13 13 (1.10%) Bicep
14 12 (1.01%) Perl
15 9 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.76%) Rust
16 7 (0.59%) R
16 7 (0.59%) Scala
Qualifications
1 245 (20.66%) Degree
2 74 (6.24%) Security Cleared
3 48 (4.05%) ACCA
3 48 (4.05%) Computer Science Degree
4 42 (3.54%) DBS Check
5 41 (3.46%) CIMA
6 37 (3.12%) SC Cleared
7 31 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
8 29 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (2.02%) HNC
10 21 (1.77%) DV Cleared
11 20 (1.69%) A+ Certification
12 18 (1.52%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 17 (1.43%) Chartered Engineer
14 14 (1.18%) Master's Degree
15 12 (1.01%) PMI Certification
16 10 (0.84%) HND
16 10 (0.84%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 9 (0.76%) PMP
18 8 (0.67%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (5.90%) QA
2 69 (5.82%) Data Quality
3 47 (3.96%) GDPR
4 28 (2.36%) SLA
5 24 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.35%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.26%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.10%) NIST
9 6 (0.51%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.51%) SOC 2
10 5 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.34%) ISO 26262
11 4 (0.34%) ITGC
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
13 1 (0.084%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.084%) IFRS
13 1 (0.084%) PMO
System Software
1 121 (10.20%) Active Directory
2 46 (3.88%) Docker
3 33 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (2.36%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.84%) KVM
6 5 (0.42%) Firmware
6 5 (0.42%) XenApp
7 4 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.25%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.17%) vSphere
10 1 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.084%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 56 (4.72%) Terraform
2 46 (3.88%) Kubernetes
3 33 (2.78%) Ansible
4 25 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (1.43%) Grafana
6 15 (1.26%) SCCM
7 13 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 9 (0.76%) Nagios
8 9 (0.76%) ZABBIX
9 8 (0.67%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.34%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.34%) Nessus
10 4 (0.34%) Puppet
11 1 (0.084%) Control-M
11 1 (0.084%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.084%) Kibana
11 1 (0.084%) Netcool
11 1 (0.084%) Netcool/OMNIbus
11 1 (0.084%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.084%) Packer
Vendors
1 310 (26.14%) Microsoft
2 42 (3.54%) Databricks
3 37 (3.12%) VMware
4 33 (2.78%) Google
4 33 (2.78%) Oracle
5 31 (2.61%) Salesforce
5 31 (2.61%) SAP
6 29 (2.45%) Adobe
7 28 (2.36%) Veeam
8 20 (1.69%) NEC
9 19 (1.60%) Sage
10 16 (1.35%) HubSpot
10 16 (1.35%) Red Hat
10 16 (1.35%) ServiceNow
11 13 (1.10%) Dynatrace
12 12 (1.01%) MuleSoft
12 12 (1.01%) Splunk
13 11 (0.93%) Hootsuite
13 11 (0.93%) Instagram
13 11 (0.93%) Wrike