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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,423 1,581 2,306
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.87% 18.39% 15.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.37% 20.82% 18.54%
Number of salaries quoted 1,070 796 1,441
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,125 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -12.37%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £81,875 £75,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £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 11,508 7,593 12,435
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.71% 88.34% 81.32%
Number of salaries quoted 8,200 4,038 8,441
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £80,000
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 24 July 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 24 July 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 -7 531 £43,500 - 248
Hampshire -3 349 £41,250 -8.33% 157
Surrey 0 243 £42,500 +1.80% 92
Berkshire -3 243 £45,000 - 115
Buckinghamshire -8 169 £42,500 +13.33% 74
Kent -6 132 £35,000 +11.11% 52
Oxfordshire -2 119 £41,982 -18.48% 62
East Sussex -4 86 £50,000 - 29
West Sussex -7 72 £50,000 +2.56% 29
Middlesex +8 6 £50,000 +33.33% 15
Isle of Wight -12 1 £42,500 -22.73% 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 45 (3.16%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.34%) Confluence
4 18 (1.26%) CMS
5 7 (0.49%) Apache
5 7 (0.49%) OpenEdge
6 6 (0.42%) IIS
7 5 (0.35%) nginx
7 5 (0.35%) WordPress
8 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.21%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.21%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) Gentran
9 2 (0.14%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.070%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 102 (7.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 83 (5.83%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.35%) Lightworks
6 5 (0.35%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.21%) Simulink
9 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.070%) Revit
Business Applications
1 14 (0.98%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.42%) Magento
2 6 (0.42%) Raiser’s Edge
3 4 (0.28%) Shopify
4 3 (0.21%) Infor SunSystems
4 3 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.14%) Sage X3
6 1 (0.070%) Academy Housing
6 1 (0.070%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.070%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.070%) HFM
6 1 (0.070%) SAP CO
6 1 (0.070%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.070%) Siebel CRM
6 1 (0.070%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 332 (23.33%) Azure
2 159 (11.17%) Microsoft 365
3 150 (10.54%) AWS
4 82 (5.76%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.50%) SaaS
6 49 (3.44%) GCP
7 46 (3.23%) Entra ID
8 44 (3.09%) Azure DevOps
9 29 (2.04%) GitHub
9 29 (2.04%) Serverless
10 24 (1.69%) IaaS
10 24 (1.69%) PaaS
11 19 (1.34%) Datadog
12 18 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 18 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
13 16 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
14 15 (1.05%) Google Workspace
14 15 (1.05%) OpenShift
15 14 (0.98%) Amazon ECS
16 13 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 122 (8.57%) Firewall
2 63 (4.43%) DNS
3 53 (3.72%) TCP/IP
4 51 (3.58%) VPN
5 48 (3.37%) LAN
5 48 (3.37%) WAN
6 39 (2.74%) DHCP
7 38 (2.67%) Wireless
8 37 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (1.97%) VoIP
10 27 (1.90%) VLAN
11 22 (1.55%) Network Security
12 15 (1.05%) Broadband
13 13 (0.91%) Internet
13 13 (0.91%) SSL
14 10 (0.70%) HTTP
15 9 (0.63%) MQTT
16 7 (0.49%) LTE
16 7 (0.49%) Remote Desktop
17 6 (0.42%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (7.38%) SQL Server
2 70 (4.92%) Power BI
3 27 (1.90%) Relational Database
4 26 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (1.41%) MySQL
5 20 (1.41%) NoSQL
6 17 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (0.91%) Tableau
9 12 (0.84%) OLTP
9 12 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
10 10 (0.70%) Data Lake
11 7 (0.49%) DynamoDB
11 7 (0.49%) Looker
11 7 (0.49%) MongoDB
12 6 (0.42%) GIS
12 6 (0.42%) Power Query
13 5 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 69 (4.85%) Git
2 54 (3.79%) JIRA
3 30 (2.11%) GitLab
4 20 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
5 6 (0.42%) Selenium
6 5 (0.35%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.35%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.28%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.28%) Eclipse RCP
7 4 (0.28%) Postman
8 3 (0.21%) Android Studio
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
8 3 (0.21%) PetaLinux
8 3 (0.21%) PHPUnit
8 3 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
8 3 (0.21%) Terragrunt
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Appium
9 2 (0.14%) Mocha
9 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
General
1 694 (48.77%) Social Skills
2 397 (27.90%) Analytical Skills
3 219 (15.39%) Finance
4 110 (7.73%) Organisational Skills
5 90 (6.32%) Manufacturing
6 68 (4.78%) Electronics
7 59 (4.15%) Retail
7 59 (4.15%) Telecoms
8 48 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 47 (3.30%) Marketing
10 46 (3.23%) Aerospace
11 37 (2.60%) Legal
12 36 (2.53%) Law
13 35 (2.46%) Influencing Skills
14 32 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
15 27 (1.90%) Public Sector
16 23 (1.62%) Local Government
17 18 (1.26%) Military
18 17 (1.19%) Banking
19 14 (0.98%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 200 (14.05%) Analyst
2 153 (10.75%) Senior
3 146 (10.26%) IT Support
4 134 (9.42%) Developer
5 122 (8.57%) Support Engineer
6 90 (6.32%) IT Engineer
7 86 (6.04%) Support Analyst
8 68 (4.78%) Systems Engineer
9 66 (4.64%) Software Engineer
10 64 (4.50%) Lead
11 63 (4.43%) Technical Support
12 59 (4.15%) Support Technician
13 56 (3.94%) IT Support Engineer
14 54 (3.79%) 2nd Line Support
15 48 (3.37%) Technical Engineer
15 48 (3.37%) Technical Support Engineer
16 42 (2.95%) IT Technician
17 39 (2.74%) Architect
18 37 (2.60%) Senior Developer
19 35 (2.46%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (6.54%) .NET
2 65 (4.57%) HTML
3 50 (3.51%) REST
4 47 (3.30%) SOAP
5 44 (3.09%) CSS
6 39 (2.74%) React
7 34 (2.39%) ASP.NET
7 34 (2.39%) JSON
8 30 (2.11%) XML
9 27 (1.90%) OAuth
10 25 (1.76%) ASP.NET Core
10 25 (1.76%) RESTful
11 22 (1.55%) Vue
12 20 (1.41%) AngularJS
13 17 (1.19%) RabbitMQ
14 16 (1.12%) ARM Templates
14 16 (1.12%) HTML5
14 16 (1.12%) Middleware
15 15 (1.05%) jQuery
15 15 (1.05%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 96 (6.75%) Driving Licence
2 74 (5.20%) Onboarding
2 74 (5.20%) Self-Motivation
3 66 (4.64%) Management Information System
4 55 (3.87%) Cloud Native
5 40 (2.81%) Product Ownership
6 31 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
7 27 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
8 20 (1.41%) Robotics
8 20 (1.41%) Social Media
9 18 (1.26%) Data Centre
10 17 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.19%) NHS
11 16 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.05%) EPoS
12 15 (1.05%) Security Posture
13 13 (0.91%) Analogue Electronics
13 13 (0.91%) CCTV
13 13 (0.91%) Clustering
13 13 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 232 (16.30%) Windows
2 115 (8.08%) Linux
3 83 (5.83%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.48%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.34%) Android
6 16 (1.12%) CentOS
6 16 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
7 14 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.84%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.70%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.63%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.56%) Debian
12 3 (0.21%) FreeRTOS
12 3 (0.21%) Gentoo
12 3 (0.21%) Unix
12 3 (0.21%) VMS
12 3 (0.21%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.070%) FreeBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 285 (20.03%) Continuous Improvement
2 245 (17.22%) Customer Service
3 191 (13.42%) Agile
4 164 (11.52%) CI/CD
5 159 (11.17%) Decision-Making
6 153 (10.75%) AI
7 151 (10.61%) DevOps
8 143 (10.05%) Software Engineering
9 140 (9.84%) Project Management
10 135 (9.49%) Project Delivery
11 129 (9.07%) ITIL
12 125 (8.78%) Cybersecurity
13 123 (8.64%) Stakeholder Management
14 121 (8.50%) Collaborative Working
15 119 (8.36%) Mentoring
16 110 (7.73%) Computer Science
17 105 (7.38%) Analytics
18 99 (6.96%) Logistics
19 98 (6.89%) Business Intelligence
20 94 (6.61%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 212 (14.90%) Python
2 211 (14.83%) SQL
3 112 (7.87%) C#
4 93 (6.54%) PowerShell
5 92 (6.47%) JavaScript
6 59 (4.15%) C++
7 56 (3.94%) Java
8 48 (3.37%) TypeScript
9 36 (2.53%) Bash
10 32 (2.25%) C
11 21 (1.48%) PHP
12 14 (0.98%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.91%) Ruby
14 12 (0.84%) Rust
14 12 (0.84%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.70%) Perl
16 8 (0.56%) Bicep
16 8 (0.56%) VB.NET
17 7 (0.49%) MATLAB
18 6 (0.42%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 269 (18.90%) Degree
2 111 (7.80%) Security Cleared
3 91 (6.39%) DBS Check
4 78 (5.48%) SC Cleared
5 59 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
6 48 (3.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 38 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (2.32%) HNC
9 28 (1.97%) ACCA
9 28 (1.97%) Azure Certification
10 27 (1.90%) CIMA
11 25 (1.76%) Chartered Engineer
12 24 (1.69%) PMI Certification
12 24 (1.69%) PMP
13 19 (1.34%) HND
14 18 (1.26%) DV Cleared
14 18 (1.26%) Master's Degree
14 18 (1.26%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 17 (1.19%) A+ Certification
16 16 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (8.01%) QA
2 54 (3.79%) Data Quality
3 45 (3.16%) GDPR
4 39 (2.74%) SLA
5 30 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (1.97%) Accessibility
7 21 (1.48%) PCI DSS
8 18 (1.26%) Good Clinical Practice
9 17 (1.19%) NIST
10 14 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
11 13 (0.91%) PMO
12 11 (0.77%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.56%) GLP
13 8 (0.56%) GMP
13 8 (0.56%) GxP
14 7 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.42%) DO-254
16 5 (0.35%) ISO 9001
17 4 (0.28%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 117 (8.22%) Active Directory
2 74 (5.20%) Docker
3 61 (4.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 50 (3.51%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.56%) Firmware
5 8 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (0.56%) vSphere
6 7 (0.49%) KVM
7 5 (0.35%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.35%) Squid
7 5 (0.35%) XenApp
8 4 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.070%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.070%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.070%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 81 (5.69%) Terraform
2 79 (5.55%) Kubernetes
3 48 (3.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (2.60%) Ansible
5 22 (1.55%) SCCM
6 16 (1.12%) Grafana
7 13 (0.91%) Prometheus
8 11 (0.77%) Nagios
9 8 (0.56%) Podman
10 7 (0.49%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.49%) ZABBIX
11 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
12 5 (0.35%) Graylog
12 5 (0.35%) Puppet
12 5 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.28%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.14%) Nessus
14 2 (0.14%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 401 (28.18%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.78%) VMware
3 50 (3.51%) Google
4 42 (2.95%) Oracle
5 33 (2.32%) Cisco
6 29 (2.04%) Fortinet
6 29 (2.04%) Salesforce
7 26 (1.83%) SonicWALL
8 25 (1.76%) Veeam
9 21 (1.48%) Databricks
10 19 (1.34%) Sage
10 19 (1.34%) ServiceNow
11 17 (1.19%) Instagram
12 16 (1.12%) Aruba
12 16 (1.12%) SAP
13 15 (1.05%) Red Hat
13 15 (1.05%) Splunk
14 13 (0.91%) Dynatrace
14 13 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.70%) Adobe