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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,153 1,432 2,795
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.94% 18.74% 16.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.03% 20.66% 20.18%
Number of salaries quoted 862 667 1,753
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,250 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,288 £46,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.46% +3.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £62,500 £62,875 £61,500
90th Percentile £78,400 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.80% +1.93% -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 10,456 6,931 13,851
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.98% 90.72% 83.83%
Number of salaries quoted 7,116 3,191 9,801
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £39,280 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,713 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.34% +5.43% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -11 422 £47,500 -6.80% 209
Hampshire -4 265 £45,500 +10.98% 123
Berkshire -8 202 £47,038 -14.48% 98
Surrey -3 189 £40,000 -5.88% 85
Buckinghamshire -12 134 £48,000 -5.82% 65
Kent -5 121 £29,000 -6.45% 50
East Sussex -5 93 £59,000 +18.00% 13
Oxfordshire -6 86 £35,750 -35.00% 48
West Sussex -5 53 £56,983 +22.54% 23
Isle of Wight -10 3 £41,500 -24.55%
Middlesex +2 2 £35,000 -44.00% 18
Sussex -19 1 £30,000 -29.41% 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 34 (2.95%) SharePoint
2 28 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.39%) CMS
4 10 (0.87%) Confluence
4 10 (0.87%) IIS
5 6 (0.52%) OpenEdge
6 5 (0.43%) WordPress
7 4 (0.35%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.26%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.26%) Apache
8 3 (0.26%) govService
8 3 (0.26%) SAS
9 2 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.17%) Gentran
10 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.087%) nginx
10 1 (0.087%) Tomcat
Applications
1 88 (7.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 66 (5.72%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.69%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.52%) Photoshop
6 5 (0.43%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.087%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.087%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 10 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
1 10 (0.87%) NetSuite
2 9 (0.78%) SAP CO
3 4 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (0.35%) Magento
3 4 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 2 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
4 2 (0.17%) Q-Pulse
4 2 (0.17%) Sage 200
4 2 (0.17%) Shopify
5 1 (0.087%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.087%) HFM
5 1 (0.087%) PeopleSoft HRMS
5 1 (0.087%) Raiser’s Edge
5 1 (0.087%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.087%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 262 (22.72%) Azure
2 118 (10.23%) Microsoft 365
3 107 (9.28%) AWS
4 82 (7.11%) Power Platform
5 53 (4.60%) Azure DevOps
6 50 (4.34%) SaaS
7 35 (3.04%) GCP
8 30 (2.60%) IaaS
8 30 (2.60%) PaaS
9 26 (2.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 22 (1.91%) Entra ID
11 20 (1.73%) Google Workspace
12 18 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
12 18 (1.56%) Serverless
13 16 (1.39%) Azure Logic Apps
13 16 (1.39%) Datadog
13 16 (1.39%) Mimecast
14 15 (1.30%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (1.30%) GitHub
14 15 (1.30%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 66 (5.72%) Firewall
2 59 (5.12%) DNS
3 33 (2.86%) DHCP
4 30 (2.60%) TCP/IP
5 25 (2.17%) VPN
6 21 (1.82%) Wireless
7 20 (1.73%) Broadband
8 17 (1.47%) WAN
9 14 (1.21%) LAN
10 13 (1.13%) VoIP
11 10 (0.87%) HTTP
12 8 (0.69%) SAN
12 8 (0.69%) VLAN
12 8 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 7 (0.61%) Intranet
13 7 (0.61%) Remote Desktop
13 7 (0.61%) SSL
14 6 (0.52%) Network Security
14 6 (0.52%) PuTTY
14 6 (0.52%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (6.24%) SQL Server
2 63 (5.46%) Power BI
3 23 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.82%) Relational Database
5 18 (1.56%) OLTP
6 14 (1.21%) NoSQL
7 12 (1.04%) MySQL
7 12 (1.04%) Tableau
8 11 (0.95%) Power Query
8 11 (0.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 7 (0.61%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.61%) Looker
9 7 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.43%) Big Data
10 5 (0.43%) Data Mining
10 5 (0.43%) Hadoop
11 4 (0.35%) GIS
12 3 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 59 (5.12%) Git
2 40 (3.47%) JIRA
3 30 (2.60%) GitLab
4 23 (1.99%) Rational DOORS
5 7 (0.61%) Selenium
6 4 (0.35%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.26%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.26%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 2 (0.17%) Appium
8 2 (0.17%) JMeter
8 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
8 2 (0.17%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.17%) Snyk
8 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
9 1 (0.087%) CMake
9 1 (0.087%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.087%) Zephyr
General
1 549 (47.61%) Social Skills
2 337 (29.23%) Analytical Skills
3 187 (16.22%) Finance
4 70 (6.07%) Organisational Skills
5 60 (5.20%) Marketing
6 59 (5.12%) Manufacturing
7 46 (3.99%) Telecoms
8 45 (3.90%) Electronics
8 45 (3.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (3.82%) Retail
10 29 (2.52%) Public Sector
11 28 (2.43%) Law
12 27 (2.34%) Aerospace
12 27 (2.34%) Legal
13 22 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
15 14 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (1.13%) Military
17 11 (0.95%) Automotive
17 11 (0.95%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 156 (13.53%) Analyst
2 133 (11.54%) IT Support
3 125 (10.84%) Senior
4 121 (10.49%) Developer
5 116 (10.06%) Support Engineer
6 71 (6.16%) IT Engineer
7 66 (5.72%) Support Analyst
8 57 (4.94%) Systems Engineer
9 51 (4.42%) Technical Support
10 48 (4.16%) IT Support Engineer
11 46 (3.99%) Lead
12 44 (3.82%) 2nd Line Support
12 44 (3.82%) Software Engineer
12 44 (3.82%) Support Technician
13 43 (3.73%) Architect
14 38 (3.30%) IT Technician
14 38 (3.30%) Technical Engineer
14 38 (3.30%) Technical Support Engineer
15 36 (3.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 31 (2.69%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (5.72%) .NET
2 57 (4.94%) HTML
3 48 (4.16%) SOAP
4 38 (3.30%) REST
5 34 (2.95%) XML
6 33 (2.86%) CSS
7 31 (2.69%) JSON
8 23 (1.99%) React
9 21 (1.82%) Middleware
10 17 (1.47%) OAuth
11 15 (1.30%) CSS3
11 15 (1.30%) HTML5
11 15 (1.30%) Laravel
11 15 (1.30%) RabbitMQ
12 14 (1.21%) jQuery
13 13 (1.13%) Ajax
13 13 (1.13%) Sass
14 12 (1.04%) ARM Templates
14 12 (1.04%) ASP.NET
14 12 (1.04%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 66 (5.72%) Driving Licence
2 59 (5.12%) Self-Motivation
3 58 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 48 (4.16%) Management Information System
5 38 (3.30%) Product Ownership
6 37 (3.21%) Cloud Native
7 33 (2.86%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
9 21 (1.82%) Low-Code
10 17 (1.47%) Social Media
11 14 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
11 14 (1.21%) NHS
12 13 (1.13%) Robotics
13 11 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.95%) Video Editing
14 10 (0.87%) Algorithms
14 10 (0.87%) Client/Server
15 9 (0.78%) Cyber Defence
15 9 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
15 9 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 170 (14.74%) Windows
2 100 (8.67%) Linux
3 60 (5.20%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.82%) Android
5 19 (1.65%) CentOS
6 18 (1.56%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (1.04%) Ubuntu
8 12 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.78%) VMS
10 8 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.61%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.26%) Debian
12 3 (0.26%) Unix
13 2 (0.17%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.087%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.087%) FreeBSD
14 1 (0.087%) OpenBSD
14 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (20.47%) Continuous Improvement
2 195 (16.91%) Customer Service
3 166 (14.40%) Agile
4 142 (12.32%) DevOps
5 138 (11.97%) CI/CD
6 112 (9.71%) Decision-Making
7 110 (9.54%) Analytics
8 109 (9.45%) Software Engineering
9 106 (9.19%) Computer Science
10 99 (8.59%) AI
11 95 (8.24%) Business Intelligence
12 88 (7.63%) Project Management
13 82 (7.11%) Mentoring
14 80 (6.94%) CRM
14 80 (6.94%) Project Delivery
15 79 (6.85%) Data Modelling
16 78 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
17 74 (6.42%) ERP
18 71 (6.16%) ITIL
19 68 (5.90%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 205 (17.78%) Python
2 186 (16.13%) SQL
3 88 (7.63%) C#
4 83 (7.20%) JavaScript
5 65 (5.64%) PowerShell
6 51 (4.42%) Java
7 33 (2.86%) C++
8 30 (2.60%) PHP
9 27 (2.34%) Bash
10 25 (2.17%) C
11 23 (1.99%) TypeScript
12 21 (1.82%) PL/SQL
13 15 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 12 (1.04%) Perl
15 11 (0.95%) Rust
16 9 (0.78%) Ruby
17 8 (0.69%) Apex Code
17 8 (0.69%) Bicep
18 7 (0.61%) R
18 7 (0.61%) Scala
Qualifications
1 238 (20.64%) Degree
2 79 (6.85%) Security Cleared
3 53 (4.60%) Computer Science Degree
3 53 (4.60%) DBS Check
4 49 (4.25%) SC Cleared
5 41 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 37 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
7 36 (3.12%) ACCA
8 33 (2.86%) CIMA
9 28 (2.43%) HNC
10 27 (2.34%) A+ Certification
11 25 (2.17%) Chartered Engineer
12 17 (1.47%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 15 (1.30%) DV Cleared
13 15 (1.30%) Master's Degree
14 13 (1.13%) PMI Certification
15 12 (1.04%) Azure Certification
16 10 (0.87%) HND
16 10 (0.87%) Network+ Certification
16 10 (0.87%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (7.03%) QA
2 61 (5.29%) Data Quality
3 46 (3.99%) GDPR
4 37 (3.21%) SLA
5 21 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (1.47%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.30%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.95%) NIST
9 8 (0.69%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.52%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.35%) Good Clinical Practice
12 4 (0.35%) ISO 26262
12 4 (0.35%) ITGC
13 3 (0.26%) Def Stans
14 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 2 (0.17%) GRC
14 2 (0.17%) IFRS
15 1 (0.087%) PMO
System Software
1 97 (8.41%) Active Directory
2 53 (4.60%) Docker
3 40 (3.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (2.34%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.87%) KVM
6 6 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.43%) XenApp
8 4 (0.35%) Firmware
8 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.17%) vSphere
11 1 (0.087%) ClearTrust
11 1 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.087%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 63 (5.46%) Kubernetes
2 62 (5.38%) Terraform
3 33 (2.86%) Ansible
4 24 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (1.39%) Grafana
5 16 (1.39%) SCCM
6 13 (1.13%) Prometheus
7 11 (0.95%) Nagios
8 7 (0.61%) ZABBIX
9 6 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
10 4 (0.35%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.35%) Graylog
10 4 (0.35%) Podman
10 4 (0.35%) Puppet
11 2 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.17%) Nessus
12 1 (0.087%) Oracle RMAN
12 1 (0.087%) Packer
Vendors
1 310 (26.89%) Microsoft
2 44 (3.82%) Oracle
2 44 (3.82%) VMware
3 38 (3.30%) Google
4 37 (3.21%) Databricks
5 27 (2.34%) Salesforce
6 25 (2.17%) Veeam
7 21 (1.82%) SAP
8 20 (1.73%) Adobe
9 17 (1.47%) Instagram
10 16 (1.39%) Red Hat
11 14 (1.21%) Splunk
12 12 (1.04%) Cisco
12 12 (1.04%) Dynatrace
12 12 (1.04%) Sage
13 11 (0.95%) Hootsuite
13 11 (0.95%) SolarWinds
13 11 (0.95%) Wrike
14 9 (0.78%) Braze
14 9 (0.78%) HubSpot