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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,141 1,227 2,727
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.86% 17.26% 16.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.80% 19.25% 19.79%
Number of salaries quoted 858 679 1,758
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
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 £67,875 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +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 10,564 6,373 13,778
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 72.75% 89.65% 84.48%
Number of salaries quoted 6,801 3,382 9,882
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £37,500 £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 £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £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 2 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 2 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 -7 437 £47,500 -11.63% 202
Hampshire -6 244 £40,000 -20.00% 157
Berkshire -3 221 £46,000 -28.13% 90
Surrey -14 180 £40,000 -23.81% 67
Buckinghamshire -13 134 £50,500 -0.92% 61
Kent -16 117 £29,000 -6.45% 59
East Sussex -1 101 £59,000 +27.57% 11
Oxfordshire -9 82 £34,000 -32.00% 54
West Sussex -4 51 £57,500 +23.66% 23
Isle of Wight -7 5 £42,500 -22.73%
Middlesex +2 2 £47,500 -22.45% 16
Sussex -15 1 £30,000 +5.26% 4
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 30 (2.63%) SharePoint
2 28 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.40%) CMS
4 10 (0.88%) IIS
5 6 (0.53%) Confluence
5 6 (0.53%) WordPress
6 4 (0.35%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.26%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.26%) Apache
7 3 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.26%) govService
8 2 (0.18%) Gentran
8 2 (0.18%) SAS
9 1 (0.088%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.088%) nginx
9 1 (0.088%) Tomcat
Applications
1 85 (7.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 77 (6.75%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.79%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.61%) Photoshop
5 7 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.53%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.088%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.088%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.088%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.088%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.088%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.088%) Elementor
Business Applications
1 12 (1.05%) NetSuite
2 10 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.79%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.35%) Magento
5 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.18%) Infor SunSystems
6 2 (0.18%) Q-Pulse
6 2 (0.18%) Sage 200
6 2 (0.18%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.088%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.088%) HFM
7 1 (0.088%) PeopleSoft HRMS
7 1 (0.088%) Raiser’s Edge
7 1 (0.088%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 233 (20.42%) Azure
2 116 (10.17%) Microsoft 365
3 89 (7.80%) Power Platform
4 86 (7.54%) AWS
5 57 (5.00%) SaaS
6 49 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (2.80%) GCP
8 30 (2.63%) IaaS
8 30 (2.63%) PaaS
9 28 (2.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 21 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
10 21 (1.84%) Entra ID
11 20 (1.75%) Google Workspace
12 19 (1.67%) Mimecast
13 17 (1.49%) Azure Data Factory
13 17 (1.49%) Azure Logic Apps
14 15 (1.31%) Datadog
14 15 (1.31%) OpenShift
15 14 (1.23%) GitHub
16 11 (0.96%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.43%) Firewall
2 56 (4.91%) DNS
3 30 (2.63%) DHCP
4 26 (2.28%) TCP/IP
5 22 (1.93%) VPN
6 21 (1.84%) Broadband
7 20 (1.75%) Wireless
8 17 (1.49%) WAN
9 15 (1.31%) LAN
10 14 (1.23%) VoIP
11 11 (0.96%) HTTP
12 10 (0.88%) Intranet
13 8 (0.70%) SAN
14 7 (0.61%) Remote Desktop
15 6 (0.53%) PuTTY
15 6 (0.53%) SSH
15 6 (0.53%) VLAN
15 6 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
16 4 (0.35%) SSL
17 3 (0.26%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (6.05%) Power BI
2 60 (5.26%) SQL Server
3 27 (2.37%) Relational Database
4 25 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
5 16 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (1.31%) OLTP
7 14 (1.23%) Power Query
8 13 (1.14%) NoSQL
8 13 (1.14%) Tableau
9 12 (1.05%) MySQL
10 8 (0.70%) Data Lake
11 7 (0.61%) Looker
12 6 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.44%) Big Data
13 5 (0.44%) Data Mining
13 5 (0.44%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.44%) Metadata
13 5 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.35%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 49 (4.29%) Git
2 37 (3.24%) JIRA
3 26 (2.28%) GitLab
4 19 (1.67%) Rational DOORS
5 8 (0.70%) Selenium
6 6 (0.53%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.26%) Android Studio
8 3 (0.26%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.18%) Appium
9 2 (0.18%) JMeter
9 2 (0.18%) LabVIEW
9 2 (0.18%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.18%) Snyk
10 1 (0.088%) CMake
10 1 (0.088%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.088%) PHPUnit
10 1 (0.088%) WebDriver
General
1 532 (46.63%) Social Skills
2 336 (29.45%) Analytical Skills
3 187 (16.39%) Finance
4 69 (6.05%) Organisational Skills
5 63 (5.52%) Marketing
6 58 (5.08%) Manufacturing
7 53 (4.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 46 (4.03%) Telecoms
9 45 (3.94%) Retail
10 41 (3.59%) Electronics
11 30 (2.63%) Public Sector
12 26 (2.28%) Legal
13 24 (2.10%) Law
14 21 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
15 20 (1.75%) Aerospace
16 15 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
17 13 (1.14%) Automotive
17 13 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
18 8 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 168 (14.72%) Analyst
2 136 (11.92%) IT Support
3 131 (11.48%) Senior
4 128 (11.22%) Support Engineer
5 110 (9.64%) Developer
6 72 (6.31%) Support Analyst
7 65 (5.70%) IT Engineer
8 56 (4.91%) Technical Support
9 48 (4.21%) IT Support Engineer
10 47 (4.12%) 2nd Line Support
10 47 (4.12%) Lead
11 46 (4.03%) Systems Engineer
12 43 (3.77%) Architect
13 42 (3.68%) Technical Engineer
13 42 (3.68%) Technical Support Engineer
14 38 (3.33%) IT Technician
15 37 (3.24%) Support Technician
16 35 (3.07%) Software Engineer
17 32 (2.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 31 (2.72%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.82%) .NET
2 50 (4.38%) HTML
3 42 (3.68%) SOAP
4 37 (3.24%) REST
5 28 (2.45%) XML
6 27 (2.37%) CSS
7 26 (2.28%) JSON
8 24 (2.10%) Middleware
9 22 (1.93%) React
10 15 (1.31%) Laravel
10 15 (1.31%) OAuth
11 14 (1.23%) RabbitMQ
12 12 (1.05%) ARM Templates
13 11 (0.96%) CSS3
13 11 (0.96%) HTML5
14 10 (0.88%) jQuery
14 10 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
14 10 (0.88%) RESTful
14 10 (0.88%) Visualforce
15 9 (0.79%) SAP CO-PA
Miscellaneous
1 74 (6.49%) Onboarding
2 60 (5.26%) Driving Licence
2 60 (5.26%) Self-Motivation
3 44 (3.86%) Management Information System
4 36 (3.16%) Product Ownership
5 29 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
6 28 (2.45%) Analytical Mindset
6 28 (2.45%) Cloud Native
7 19 (1.67%) Low-Code
8 18 (1.58%) Social Media
9 15 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
10 11 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (0.96%) Life Science
10 11 (0.96%) Video Editing
11 10 (0.88%) Algorithms
11 10 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
11 10 (0.88%) Security Operations Centre
12 9 (0.79%) Cyber Defence
12 9 (0.79%) NHS
12 9 (0.79%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 161 (14.11%) Windows
2 89 (7.80%) Linux
3 53 (4.65%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.84%) Mac OS
5 20 (1.75%) Android
6 17 (1.49%) CentOS
7 15 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.79%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.79%) VMS
9 7 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.53%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.53%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.26%) Debian
12 3 (0.26%) Unix
13 1 (0.088%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.088%) FreeBSD
13 1 (0.088%) OpenBSD
13 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 240 (21.03%) Continuous Improvement
2 202 (17.70%) Customer Service
3 157 (13.76%) Agile
4 135 (11.83%) DevOps
5 123 (10.78%) CI/CD
6 118 (10.34%) Analytics
7 109 (9.55%) Decision-Making
8 103 (9.03%) Business Intelligence
9 101 (8.85%) Computer Science
10 95 (8.33%) Project Management
11 84 (7.36%) Software Engineering
12 83 (7.27%) CRM
13 81 (7.10%) AI
14 79 (6.92%) Data Modelling
15 70 (6.13%) Cybersecurity
15 70 (6.13%) Project Delivery
16 69 (6.05%) Mentoring
16 69 (6.05%) Stakeholder Management
17 68 (5.96%) ERP
17 68 (5.96%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 196 (17.18%) Python
2 178 (15.60%) SQL
3 70 (6.13%) JavaScript
4 69 (6.05%) C#
5 68 (5.96%) PowerShell
6 52 (4.56%) Java
7 28 (2.45%) PHP
8 24 (2.10%) C++
9 23 (2.02%) Bash
9 23 (2.02%) C
10 21 (1.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 18 (1.58%) PL/SQL
12 13 (1.14%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.96%) Bicep
13 11 (0.96%) Perl
14 10 (0.88%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.79%) Rust
16 8 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
17 7 (0.61%) R
17 7 (0.61%) Scala
Qualifications
1 229 (20.07%) Degree
2 71 (6.22%) Security Cleared
3 50 (4.38%) DBS Check
4 48 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (3.94%) ACCA
6 39 (3.42%) CIMA
6 39 (3.42%) SC Cleared
7 38 (3.33%) Microsoft Certification
8 33 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (2.10%) A+ Certification
10 23 (2.02%) HNC
11 21 (1.84%) Chartered Engineer
12 18 (1.58%) DV Cleared
12 18 (1.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 13 (1.14%) Master's Degree
14 12 (1.05%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.88%) HND
15 10 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 9 (0.79%) PMP
17 8 (0.70%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.05%) QA
2 67 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 46 (4.03%) GDPR
4 31 (2.72%) SLA
5 23 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.31%) PCI DSS
7 13 (1.14%) Accessibility
8 12 (1.05%) NIST
9 7 (0.61%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.53%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.35%) ISO 26262
12 4 (0.35%) ITGC
13 2 (0.18%) GRC
13 2 (0.18%) IFRS
14 1 (0.088%) Cyber Essentials
14 1 (0.088%) PMO
System Software
1 104 (9.11%) Active Directory
2 48 (4.21%) Docker
3 31 (2.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (2.10%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.88%) KVM
6 5 (0.44%) XenApp
7 4 (0.35%) Firmware
7 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.18%) vSphere
10 1 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.088%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.088%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 53 (4.65%) Terraform
2 48 (4.21%) Kubernetes
3 27 (2.37%) Ansible
4 20 (1.75%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (1.31%) Grafana
5 15 (1.31%) SCCM
6 12 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 8 (0.70%) Nagios
8 7 (0.61%) ZABBIX
9 6 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.35%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.35%) Puppet
11 3 (0.26%) Graylog
11 3 (0.26%) Nessus
12 2 (0.18%) Kibana
13 1 (0.088%) CASB
13 1 (0.088%) Dell DRAC
13 1 (0.088%) Docker Swarm
13 1 (0.088%) Packer
13 1 (0.088%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 308 (26.99%) Microsoft
2 40 (3.51%) Databricks
3 38 (3.33%) Oracle
4 35 (3.07%) VMware
5 34 (2.98%) Google
6 29 (2.54%) Salesforce
7 27 (2.37%) Veeam
8 26 (2.28%) Adobe
9 25 (2.19%) SAP
10 16 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 14 (1.23%) Sage
12 13 (1.14%) Dynatrace
12 13 (1.14%) HubSpot
12 13 (1.14%) Splunk
13 12 (1.05%) ServiceNow
14 11 (0.96%) Hootsuite
14 11 (0.96%) Instagram
14 11 (0.96%) Wrike
15 10 (0.88%) SolarWinds
16 9 (0.79%) MuleSoft