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

6 months to
6 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,375 1,544 2,729
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.88% 18.45% 15.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.34% 20.73% 19.02%
Number of salaries quoted 1,043 770 1,751
10th Percentile £26,750 £27,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £32,500
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 £82,625 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £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 11,144 7,448 14,349
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.96% 89.02% 81.52%
Number of salaries quoted 7,929 3,859 10,026
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £28,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £37,500
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 £81,400 £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 6 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 6 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 -7 506 £43,000 -4.44% 255
Hampshire -2 327 £40,000 -5.88% 153
Berkshire -4 240 £45,000 -10.00% 111
Surrey 0 229 £42,500 +6.25% 101
Buckinghamshire -8 151 £45,500 +21.33% 86
Kent -4 141 £30,000 -4.76% 55
Oxfordshire -2 115 £36,250 -34.09% 63
East Sussex -4 89 £50,000 - 25
West Sussex -5 71 £50,000 +3.63% 30
Middlesex +4 6 £50,000 -18.37% 11
Isle of Wight -11 1 £42,500 -22.73%
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 43 (3.13%) SharePoint
2 35 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.38%) CMS
4 18 (1.31%) Confluence
5 7 (0.51%) OpenEdge
6 5 (0.36%) WordPress
7 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.22%) Apache
7 3 (0.22%) IIS
7 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.22%) SAS
8 2 (0.15%) Gentran
8 2 (0.15%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.073%) govService
9 1 (0.073%) nginx
Applications
1 99 (7.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 88 (6.40%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.58%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.36%) Lightworks
6 5 (0.36%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.22%) Simulink
9 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.073%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 13 (0.95%) NetSuite
2 8 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.36%) Raiser’s Edge
4 4 (0.29%) Magento
4 4 (0.29%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.22%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.15%) Shopify
7 1 (0.073%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.073%) HFM
7 1 (0.073%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.073%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 325 (23.64%) Azure
2 161 (11.71%) Microsoft 365
3 137 (9.96%) AWS
4 84 (6.11%) Power Platform
5 63 (4.58%) SaaS
6 49 (3.56%) GCP
7 47 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
8 39 (2.84%) Entra ID
9 28 (2.04%) IaaS
10 27 (1.96%) PaaS
11 23 (1.67%) Serverless
12 21 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 20 (1.45%) GitHub
14 19 (1.38%) Datadog
15 16 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
16 15 (1.09%) OpenShift
17 14 (1.02%) Google Workspace
17 14 (1.02%) Mimecast
18 13 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
19 12 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 114 (8.29%) Firewall
2 66 (4.80%) DNS
3 50 (3.64%) WAN
4 49 (3.56%) LAN
4 49 (3.56%) VPN
5 42 (3.05%) TCP/IP
6 40 (2.91%) DHCP
6 40 (2.91%) Wireless
7 35 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (1.75%) VLAN
9 23 (1.67%) VoIP
10 21 (1.53%) Network Security
11 18 (1.31%) Broadband
12 13 (0.95%) Internet
13 12 (0.87%) HTTP
14 11 (0.80%) SSL
15 8 (0.58%) MQTT
16 7 (0.51%) Remote Desktop
17 6 (0.44%) WLAN
18 5 (0.36%) Hyperconnected
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (6.76%) SQL Server
2 71 (5.16%) Power BI
3 24 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.53%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (1.02%) MySQL
6 14 (1.02%) NoSQL
6 14 (1.02%) OLTP
7 13 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 12 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 12 (0.87%) Tableau
9 10 (0.73%) Power Query
10 9 (0.65%) Data Lake
11 7 (0.51%) Looker
12 6 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.44%) Azure SQL Database
12 6 (0.44%) GIS
12 6 (0.44%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
14 3 (0.22%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 64 (4.65%) Git
2 50 (3.64%) JIRA
3 31 (2.25%) GitLab
4 21 (1.53%) Rational DOORS
5 5 (0.36%) Selenium
6 4 (0.29%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.22%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.22%) PetaLinux
7 3 (0.22%) PHPUnit
7 3 (0.22%) Postman
7 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.15%) Appium
8 2 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.15%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.15%) JMeter
8 2 (0.15%) JUnit
8 2 (0.15%) Mocha
8 2 (0.15%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.15%) Subversion
8 2 (0.15%) Terragrunt
General
1 666 (48.44%) Social Skills
2 376 (27.35%) Analytical Skills
3 205 (14.91%) Finance
4 99 (7.20%) Organisational Skills
5 81 (5.89%) Manufacturing
6 59 (4.29%) Electronics
7 57 (4.15%) Retail
8 56 (4.07%) Telecoms
9 51 (3.71%) Marketing
10 47 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 38 (2.76%) Aerospace
12 36 (2.62%) Law
13 33 (2.40%) Legal
14 31 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
15 29 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
16 26 (1.89%) Public Sector
17 24 (1.75%) Local Government
18 18 (1.31%) Military
19 16 (1.16%) Banking
20 15 (1.09%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 195 (14.18%) Analyst
2 151 (10.98%) IT Support
3 137 (9.96%) Senior
4 130 (9.45%) Developer
5 129 (9.38%) Support Engineer
6 93 (6.76%) IT Engineer
7 83 (6.04%) Support Analyst
8 70 (5.09%) Systems Engineer
9 67 (4.87%) Software Engineer
10 61 (4.44%) Technical Support
11 59 (4.29%) IT Support Engineer
12 56 (4.07%) Support Technician
13 55 (4.00%) Lead
14 50 (3.64%) 2nd Line Support
15 46 (3.35%) Technical Engineer
15 46 (3.35%) Technical Support Engineer
16 44 (3.20%) IT Technician
17 38 (2.76%) 1st Line Support
17 38 (2.76%) Architect
18 34 (2.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (5.89%) .NET
2 59 (4.29%) HTML
3 47 (3.42%) SOAP
4 43 (3.13%) REST
5 38 (2.76%) CSS
6 35 (2.55%) JSON
7 33 (2.40%) XML
8 32 (2.33%) React
9 24 (1.75%) ASP.NET
10 20 (1.45%) RESTful
11 19 (1.38%) OAuth
12 18 (1.31%) ASP.NET Core
13 17 (1.24%) Middleware
13 17 (1.24%) Vue
14 16 (1.16%) ARM Templates
14 16 (1.16%) HTML5
14 16 (1.16%) RabbitMQ
15 14 (1.02%) AngularJS
15 14 (1.02%) CSS3
15 14 (1.02%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 88 (6.40%) Driving Licence
2 70 (5.09%) Self-Motivation
3 67 (4.87%) Onboarding
4 63 (4.58%) Management Information System
5 51 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 37 (2.69%) Product Ownership
7 31 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.31%) Robotics
10 17 (1.24%) NHS
10 17 (1.24%) Social Media
11 15 (1.09%) EPoS
11 15 (1.09%) Security Posture
12 14 (1.02%) Low-Code
13 13 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
14 12 (0.87%) Client/Server
14 12 (0.87%) Clustering
15 11 (0.80%) CCTV
15 11 (0.80%) Data Centre
15 11 (0.80%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 221 (16.07%) Windows
2 117 (8.51%) Linux
3 75 (5.45%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.45%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.38%) CentOS
6 18 (1.31%) Android
7 17 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (1.16%) Windows Server 2019
9 13 (0.95%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.58%) Debian
12 6 (0.44%) Apple iOS
13 5 (0.36%) Windows 10
14 4 (0.29%) VMS
15 3 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
15 3 (0.22%) Gentoo
15 3 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 2 (0.15%) Unix
16 2 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
17 1 (0.073%) FreeBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 264 (19.20%) Continuous Improvement
2 247 (17.96%) Customer Service
3 179 (13.02%) Agile
4 156 (11.35%) CI/CD
5 147 (10.69%) DevOps
6 144 (10.47%) Decision-Making
7 140 (10.18%) Software Engineering
8 132 (9.60%) AI
9 128 (9.31%) Project Management
10 125 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
11 117 (8.51%) Project Delivery
12 113 (8.22%) Collaborative Working
13 112 (8.15%) Mentoring
14 110 (8.00%) Computer Science
15 109 (7.93%) ITIL
15 109 (7.93%) Stakeholder Management
16 107 (7.78%) Analytics
17 99 (7.20%) Business Intelligence
18 91 (6.62%) Logistics
19 83 (6.04%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 221 (16.07%) Python
2 215 (15.64%) SQL
3 109 (7.93%) C#
4 96 (6.98%) PowerShell
5 89 (6.47%) JavaScript
6 55 (4.00%) C++
7 52 (3.78%) Java
8 41 (2.98%) TypeScript
9 34 (2.47%) C
10 32 (2.33%) Bash
11 26 (1.89%) PHP
12 15 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.09%) Rust
13 13 (0.95%) Ruby
14 12 (0.87%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.73%) Bicep
15 10 (0.73%) Perl
16 9 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 7 (0.51%) MATLAB
18 6 (0.44%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 253 (18.40%) Degree
2 96 (6.98%) Security Cleared
3 82 (5.96%) DBS Check
4 63 (4.58%) SC Cleared
5 55 (4.00%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (2.98%) Microsoft Certification
7 37 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
8 31 (2.25%) HNC
9 30 (2.18%) ACCA
10 29 (2.11%) CIMA
11 26 (1.89%) Chartered Engineer
12 22 (1.60%) Azure Certification
13 21 (1.53%) PMI Certification
14 20 (1.45%) PMP
15 19 (1.38%) A+ Certification
16 17 (1.24%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 15 (1.09%) Master's Degree
17 15 (1.09%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 14 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
18 14 (1.02%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (7.85%) QA
2 56 (4.07%) Data Quality
3 49 (3.56%) GDPR
4 40 (2.91%) SLA
5 30 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 23 (1.67%) Accessibility
6 23 (1.67%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.24%) NIST
8 14 (1.02%) Good Clinical Practice
9 13 (0.95%) PMO
10 12 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.65%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.36%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.36%) GLP
12 5 (0.36%) GMP
12 5 (0.36%) GxP
12 5 (0.36%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.29%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.29%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 124 (9.02%) Active Directory
2 71 (5.16%) Docker
3 53 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 50 (3.64%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.73%) KVM
6 7 (0.51%) vSphere
7 6 (0.44%) Firmware
8 5 (0.36%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.36%) XenApp
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.15%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.073%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.073%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.073%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.073%) Squid
12 1 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 77 (5.60%) Kubernetes
2 75 (5.45%) Terraform
3 39 (2.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 36 (2.62%) Ansible
5 18 (1.31%) SCCM
6 16 (1.16%) Grafana
7 13 (0.95%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.87%) Nagios
9 8 (0.58%) Podman
10 7 (0.51%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.51%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.36%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.36%) Graylog
11 5 (0.36%) Puppet
11 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.29%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 2 (0.15%) Nessus
13 2 (0.15%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
14 1 (0.073%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 394 (28.65%) Microsoft
2 61 (4.44%) VMware
3 47 (3.42%) Google
4 39 (2.84%) Oracle
5 28 (2.04%) Cisco
6 26 (1.89%) Salesforce
7 24 (1.75%) Databricks
7 24 (1.75%) Veeam
8 23 (1.67%) Fortinet
9 18 (1.31%) Instagram
9 18 (1.31%) SonicWALL
10 17 (1.24%) Splunk
11 16 (1.16%) Aruba
11 16 (1.16%) ServiceNow
12 15 (1.09%) Red Hat
12 15 (1.09%) Sage
12 15 (1.09%) SAP
13 13 (0.95%) Dynatrace
13 13 (0.95%) Palo Alto
14 12 (0.87%) Adobe