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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,566 1,670 2,009
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.15% 18.92% 14.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.80% 21.49% 18.04%
Number of salaries quoted 1,144 847 1,211
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £44,250 £42,500 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.12% -11.46% -6.80%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £78,750 £80,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -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 12,238 7,772 11,135
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.53% 88.04% 80.82%
Number of salaries quoted 8,734 4,155 7,263
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £81,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £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 15 August 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 15 August 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 -5 570 £43,000 +1.18% 375
Hampshire -2 407 £42,500 -2.86% 221
Surrey 0 257 £42,500 +6.25% 135
Berkshire -3 255 £43,250 +1.76% 168
Buckinghamshire -6 179 £42,500 +13.33% 111
Kent -6 148 £37,500 +19.05% 81
Oxfordshire +1 136 £42,491 -5.58% 100
East Sussex -4 100 £50,000 - 49
West Sussex -6 72 £50,000 -0.99% 66
Middlesex +5 8 £50,000 +33.33% 15
Isle of Wight -9 2 £42,500 -16.67% 16
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 54 (3.45%) SharePoint
2 43 (2.75%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.15%) CMS
3 18 (1.15%) Confluence
4 12 (0.77%) IIS
5 7 (0.45%) Apache
5 7 (0.45%) OpenEdge
5 7 (0.45%) WordPress
6 5 (0.32%) nginx
7 3 (0.19%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.19%) SAS
8 2 (0.13%) Gentran
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 107 (6.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 92 (5.87%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.57%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.51%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.32%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.32%) Revit
8 4 (0.26%) Photoshop
8 4 (0.26%) Simulink
9 3 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.19%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.064%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.064%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.064%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 14 (0.89%) NetSuite
2 12 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.64%) Shopify
4 7 (0.45%) Magento
5 6 (0.38%) Primavera
5 6 (0.38%) Raiser’s Edge
6 3 (0.19%) Infor SunSystems
6 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.19%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Academy Housing
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.13%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.064%) HFM
8 1 (0.064%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 372 (23.75%) Azure
2 179 (11.43%) Microsoft 365
3 169 (10.79%) AWS
4 88 (5.62%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.09%) SaaS
6 61 (3.90%) Entra ID
7 50 (3.19%) GCP
8 45 (2.87%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (2.36%) GitHub
10 31 (1.98%) Serverless
11 22 (1.40%) Google Workspace
12 21 (1.34%) IaaS
12 21 (1.34%) PaaS
13 20 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 18 (1.15%) Datadog
14 18 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
15 17 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
16 16 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
17 15 (0.96%) Anthropic Claude
18 14 (0.89%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 129 (8.24%) Firewall
2 69 (4.41%) DNS
3 55 (3.51%) TCP/IP
3 55 (3.51%) VPN
4 47 (3.00%) DHCP
4 47 (3.00%) WAN
5 45 (2.87%) LAN
6 42 (2.68%) Wi-Fi
7 40 (2.55%) Wireless
8 34 (2.17%) VLAN
9 31 (1.98%) VoIP
10 28 (1.79%) Network Security
11 16 (1.02%) SSL
12 13 (0.83%) Internet
13 12 (0.77%) Broadband
14 11 (0.70%) HTTP
15 10 (0.64%) MQTT
16 9 (0.57%) LTE
17 6 (0.38%) WLAN
18 5 (0.32%) VSAT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (7.66%) SQL Server
2 74 (4.73%) Power BI
3 36 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.92%) MySQL
4 30 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.60%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (0.83%) Tableau
9 12 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.64%) Data Lake
11 10 (0.64%) OLTP
12 8 (0.51%) DynamoDB
12 8 (0.51%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.45%) GIS
13 7 (0.45%) Looker
14 5 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
14 5 (0.32%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 77 (4.92%) Git
2 60 (3.83%) JIRA
3 29 (1.85%) GitLab
4 20 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
5 10 (0.64%) Claude Code
6 7 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.38%) Jenkins
7 6 (0.38%) Selenium
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
9 4 (0.26%) Postman
9 4 (0.26%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.19%) PetaLinux
10 3 (0.19%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.13%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.13%) Subversion
11 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 767 (48.98%) Social Skills
2 454 (28.99%) Analytical Skills
3 224 (14.30%) Finance
4 125 (7.98%) Manufacturing
5 114 (7.28%) Organisational Skills
6 91 (5.81%) Aerospace
7 88 (5.62%) Electronics
8 68 (4.34%) Retail
9 59 (3.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 50 (3.19%) Telecoms
11 43 (2.75%) Marketing
12 41 (2.62%) Influencing Skills
13 39 (2.49%) Law
13 39 (2.49%) Legal
14 37 (2.36%) Military
14 37 (2.36%) Public Sector
15 29 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
16 22 (1.40%) Aviation
16 22 (1.40%) Local Government
17 16 (1.02%) Banking
Job Titles
1 212 (13.54%) Analyst
2 170 (10.86%) Senior
3 155 (9.90%) Developer
4 147 (9.39%) IT Support
5 116 (7.41%) Support Engineer
6 100 (6.39%) Support Analyst
7 87 (5.56%) IT Engineer
8 72 (4.60%) Systems Engineer
9 71 (4.53%) Lead
10 70 (4.47%) Software Engineer
11 66 (4.21%) Technical Support
12 65 (4.15%) Support Technician
13 54 (3.45%) IT Support Engineer
14 52 (3.32%) 2nd Line Support
14 52 (3.32%) Architect
15 47 (3.00%) IT Technician
15 47 (3.00%) Technical Engineer
15 47 (3.00%) Technical Support Engineer
16 42 (2.68%) Consultant
16 42 (2.68%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (7.02%) .NET
2 76 (4.85%) HTML
3 60 (3.83%) REST
4 55 (3.51%) CSS
5 53 (3.38%) React
6 51 (3.26%) SOAP
7 48 (3.07%) ASP.NET
8 37 (2.36%) OAuth
9 34 (2.17%) ASP.NET Core
10 30 (1.92%) JSON
11 29 (1.85%) AngularJS
12 28 (1.79%) RESTful
12 28 (1.79%) Vue
13 26 (1.66%) XML
14 22 (1.40%) ModSecurity
14 22 (1.40%) SAML
15 18 (1.15%) ASP.NET Web API
15 18 (1.15%) jQuery
16 17 (1.09%) Entity Framework
16 17 (1.09%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 116 (7.41%) Driving Licence
2 91 (5.81%) Onboarding
3 79 (5.04%) Management Information System
4 75 (4.79%) Self-Motivation
5 67 (4.28%) Cloud Native
6 44 (2.81%) Product Ownership
7 34 (2.17%) Data Centre
8 33 (2.11%) Social Media
9 29 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
10 28 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
10 28 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 27 (1.72%) Robotics
12 26 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (1.15%) Analogue Electronics
13 18 (1.15%) EPoS
14 17 (1.09%) NHS
15 16 (1.02%) CCTV
16 15 (0.96%) Mobile App
16 15 (0.96%) Renewable Energy
16 15 (0.96%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 244 (15.58%) Windows
2 116 (7.41%) Linux
3 88 (5.62%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.40%) Android
5 17 (1.09%) Mac OS
5 17 (1.09%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (0.96%) CentOS
7 14 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.83%) Apple iOS
8 13 (0.83%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.70%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.57%) Debian
10 9 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.26%) Unix
12 3 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
12 3 (0.19%) Gentoo
12 3 (0.19%) Rocky
12 3 (0.19%) VMS
12 3 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 339 (21.65%) Continuous Improvement
2 269 (17.18%) Customer Service
3 216 (13.79%) Agile
4 197 (12.58%) Decision-Making
5 173 (11.05%) CI/CD
6 170 (10.86%) AI
7 162 (10.34%) Software Engineering
8 161 (10.28%) Project Management
9 157 (10.03%) DevOps
10 154 (9.83%) Project Delivery
11 147 (9.39%) Stakeholder Management
12 145 (9.26%) ITIL
13 138 (8.81%) Mentoring
14 134 (8.56%) Validation
15 130 (8.30%) Cybersecurity
16 122 (7.79%) Computer Science
17 121 (7.73%) Collaborative Working
18 119 (7.60%) Analytics
19 105 (6.70%) Logistics
19 105 (6.70%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 226 (14.43%) SQL
2 220 (14.05%) Python
3 125 (7.98%) C#
4 105 (6.70%) JavaScript
5 95 (6.07%) PowerShell
6 60 (3.83%) C++
7 58 (3.70%) Java
8 57 (3.64%) TypeScript
9 37 (2.36%) Bash
10 31 (1.98%) C
11 22 (1.40%) PHP
12 17 (1.09%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.96%) Ruby
14 12 (0.77%) PL/SQL
14 12 (0.77%) Rust
14 12 (0.77%) VB.NET
15 11 (0.70%) Perl
16 8 (0.51%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.45%) Bicep
18 6 (0.38%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 311 (19.86%) Degree
2 164 (10.47%) Security Cleared
3 118 (7.54%) SC Cleared
4 100 (6.39%) DBS Check
5 65 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 53 (3.38%) DV Cleared
8 51 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 46 (2.94%) HNC
10 44 (2.81%) Azure Certification
11 34 (2.17%) HND
12 32 (2.04%) PMI Certification
13 28 (1.79%) CISSP
14 27 (1.72%) Chartered Engineer
15 26 (1.66%) PMP
16 25 (1.60%) Master's Degree
17 23 (1.47%) CISM
18 21 (1.34%) ACCA
19 20 (1.28%) CIMA
19 20 (1.28%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (8.68%) QA
2 57 (3.64%) Data Quality
3 56 (3.58%) GDPR
4 45 (2.87%) SLA
5 33 (2.11%) Accessibility
6 29 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.15%) Good Clinical Practice
7 18 (1.15%) NIST
7 18 (1.15%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.89%) PMO
10 10 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 10 (0.64%) DO-254
11 9 (0.57%) GMP
11 9 (0.57%) SOC 2
12 8 (0.51%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.51%) GLP
12 8 (0.51%) GxP
12 8 (0.51%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 127 (8.11%) Active Directory
2 74 (4.73%) Docker
3 71 (4.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 57 (3.64%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.64%) Firmware
6 9 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.57%) vSphere
7 8 (0.51%) KVM
8 5 (0.32%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.32%) Squid
8 5 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.26%) XenApp
10 3 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.064%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 87 (5.56%) Terraform
2 83 (5.30%) Kubernetes
3 50 (3.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 39 (2.49%) Ansible
5 22 (1.40%) SCCM
6 15 (0.96%) Grafana
6 15 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.77%) Prometheus
8 10 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.64%) Nagios
9 8 (0.51%) Podman
10 7 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.45%) Puppet
11 5 (0.32%) Graylog
11 5 (0.32%) ZABBIX
12 4 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
12 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.13%) Nessus
13 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 450 (28.74%) Microsoft
2 80 (5.11%) VMware
3 63 (4.02%) Google
4 53 (3.38%) Oracle
5 37 (2.36%) Cisco
6 34 (2.17%) SAP
7 33 (2.11%) Fortinet
8 32 (2.04%) SonicWALL
9 31 (1.98%) Veeam
10 30 (1.92%) ServiceNow
11 26 (1.66%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.28%) Databricks
12 20 (1.28%) Sage
13 16 (1.02%) Aruba
13 16 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 14 (0.89%) Splunk
15 13 (0.83%) Instagram
15 13 (0.83%) Red Hat
16 12 (0.77%) Dynatrace
16 12 (0.77%) Okta