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 29 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,338 1,549 1,996
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 12.44% 17.62% 18.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.67% 19.79% 20.96%
Number of salaries quoted 900 690 1,160
10th Percentile £26,475 £28,975 £26,000
25th Percentile £30,250 £36,250 £31,688
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,250 £52,250 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -21.05% +10.00% -13.64%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £85,000 £75,250
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -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 8,541 7,829 9,523
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 79.44% 89.07% 86.60%
Number of salaries quoted 5,167 3,615 6,954
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,750 £28,290
25th Percentile £35,000 £44,750 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £58,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +10.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £61,110 £57,500
% change year-on-year -10.00% +6.28% -8.00%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 -2 576 £45,000 -25.00% 393
Berkshire +7 379 £45,000 -33.33% 232
Hampshire +3 282 £37,500 -25.00% 158
Surrey -10 185 £38,500 -33.04% 115
Buckinghamshire -9 127 £52,500 -12.50% 91
Kent -8 121 £30,000 -23.08% 86
East Sussex +2 74 £55,000 +10.00% 55
Oxfordshire -5 70 £34,500 -21.32% 72
West Sussex -1 57 £60,000 +26.32% 60
Middlesex -16 18 £47,500 +41.79% 17
Isle of Wight +9 16 £42,500 - 34
Sussex -8 3 £35,000 - 9
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 46 (3.44%) SharePoint
2 35 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 23 (1.72%) IIS
4 12 (0.90%) CMS
5 8 (0.60%) WordPress
6 7 (0.52%) Confluence
7 4 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.30%) SAS
8 3 (0.22%) govService
8 3 (0.22%) HCL Domino
8 3 (0.22%) HCL Notes
9 2 (0.15%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.075%) Apache
10 1 (0.075%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.075%) nginx
10 1 (0.075%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.075%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 145 (10.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 125 (9.34%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.90%) Photoshop
6 11 (0.82%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 9 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
7 9 (0.67%) Adobe Premiere
8 6 (0.45%) MS Visio
9 5 (0.37%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.22%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.22%) InDesign
10 3 (0.22%) Notion
11 2 (0.15%) Adobe Captivate
11 2 (0.15%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.15%) Elementor
12 1 (0.075%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.075%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.075%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.075%) Revit
Business Applications
1 70 (5.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.12%) SAP CO
3 12 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.75%) NetSuite
5 8 (0.60%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 7 (0.52%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.52%) SAP FI/CO
7 6 (0.45%) Oracle Assets
7 6 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.45%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.37%) SAP Hybris
9 4 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.22%) Sage X3
10 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
11 2 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
11 2 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 2 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
11 2 (0.15%) Sage 200
12 1 (0.075%) Raiser’s Edge
12 1 (0.075%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 278 (20.78%) Azure
2 166 (12.41%) Microsoft 365
3 138 (10.31%) Power Platform
4 74 (5.53%) AWS
5 73 (5.46%) SaaS
6 57 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (2.84%) Entra ID
8 36 (2.69%) GCP
9 18 (1.35%) PaaS
10 17 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 17 (1.27%) IaaS
11 16 (1.20%) Azure Logic Apps
11 16 (1.20%) Collibra
12 15 (1.12%) Figma
13 14 (1.05%) GitHub
14 13 (0.97%) Google Workspace
15 12 (0.90%) Mimecast
15 12 (0.90%) Power Automate
16 11 (0.82%) Stripe
17 10 (0.75%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 89 (6.65%) DNS
2 65 (4.86%) Firewall
3 63 (4.71%) DHCP
4 49 (3.66%) TCP/IP
5 44 (3.29%) VPN
6 29 (2.17%) VLAN
7 25 (1.87%) Wireless
8 15 (1.12%) SAN
8 15 (1.12%) WAN
9 13 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.90%) LAN
11 9 (0.67%) Intranet
12 8 (0.60%) Broadband
12 8 (0.60%) PuTTY
12 8 (0.60%) SSH
12 8 (0.60%) VoIP
13 6 (0.45%) HTTP
14 5 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
15 4 (0.30%) MPLS
16 3 (0.22%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (8.97%) Power BI
2 65 (4.86%) Data Lake
3 63 (4.71%) SAP BW
4 52 (3.89%) Relational Database
5 43 (3.21%) SQL Server
6 18 (1.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 16 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 13 (0.97%) Power Query
9 11 (0.82%) OLTP
10 9 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
11 8 (0.60%) Tableau
12 7 (0.52%) Big Data
12 7 (0.52%) MySQL
12 7 (0.52%) PowerPivot
13 6 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.45%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.37%) Data Mining
14 5 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 4 (0.30%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 43 (3.21%) Git
2 37 (2.77%) JIRA
3 24 (1.79%) Selenium
4 15 (1.12%) Robot Framework
5 13 (0.97%) Snyk
6 9 (0.67%) GitLab
7 8 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
7 8 (0.60%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.52%) Jenkins
9 5 (0.37%) WebDriver
10 4 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.15%) LabVIEW
11 2 (0.15%) TestRail
12 1 (0.075%) Browser DevTools
12 1 (0.075%) JUnit
12 1 (0.075%) Katalon Studio
12 1 (0.075%) MLflow
12 1 (0.075%) NUnit
12 1 (0.075%) Postman
12 1 (0.075%) REST Assured
General
1 787 (58.82%) Social Skills
2 340 (25.41%) Analytical Skills
3 297 (22.20%) Finance
4 130 (9.72%) Manufacturing
5 110 (8.22%) Marketing
6 82 (6.13%) Retail
7 76 (5.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 61 (4.56%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.91%) Electronics
10 36 (2.69%) Legal
11 35 (2.62%) Telecoms
12 32 (2.39%) Public Sector
13 26 (1.94%) Law
14 22 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
15 19 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
16 13 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
17 12 (0.90%) Advertising
17 12 (0.90%) Automotive
17 12 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
18 9 (0.67%) Banking
Job Titles
1 281 (21.00%) Analyst
2 233 (17.41%) Senior
3 196 (14.65%) IT Support
4 149 (11.14%) Support Engineer
5 134 (10.01%) Lead
6 113 (8.45%) Support Analyst
7 99 (7.40%) Developer
8 91 (6.80%) Technical Support
9 77 (5.75%) IT Analyst
10 73 (5.46%) IT Support Analyst
11 62 (4.63%) Senior Analyst
12 55 (4.11%) IT Engineer
13 51 (3.81%) Report Analyst
13 51 (3.81%) SAP Analyst
14 49 (3.66%) 2nd Line Support
15 48 (3.59%) Senior Manager
16 47 (3.51%) IT Support Engineer
17 46 (3.44%) Project Engineer
18 41 (3.06%) Technical Engineer
19 40 (2.99%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (3.96%) .NET
2 45 (3.36%) HTML
3 38 (2.84%) REST
3 38 (2.84%) SOAP
4 27 (2.02%) React
5 26 (1.94%) CSS
6 23 (1.72%) XML
7 19 (1.42%) .NET Framework
8 18 (1.35%) ASP.NET
9 17 (1.27%) JSON
10 14 (1.05%) Middleware
11 13 (0.97%) Entity Framework
11 13 (0.97%) WinForms
12 11 (0.82%) EDI
12 11 (0.82%) Laravel
13 9 (0.67%) Node.js
14 8 (0.60%) ARM Templates
14 8 (0.60%) DCOM
14 8 (0.60%) OLE
14 8 (0.60%) SAP CO-PA
Miscellaneous
1 126 (9.42%) Onboarding
2 67 (5.01%) Driving Licence
3 62 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
4 44 (3.29%) Analytical Mindset
5 41 (3.06%) Management Information System
6 38 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 26 (1.94%) Product Ownership
8 17 (1.27%) Low-Code
8 17 (1.27%) Social Media
9 14 (1.05%) Cloud Native
9 14 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
10 10 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (0.75%) Legacy Systems
10 10 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
10 10 (0.75%) Video Conferencing
11 9 (0.67%) FMCG
11 9 (0.67%) Life Science
11 9 (0.67%) Video Editing
12 8 (0.60%) Team-Oriented Environment
13 7 (0.52%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 240 (17.94%) Windows
2 71 (5.31%) Windows Server
3 61 (4.56%) Linux
4 33 (2.47%) Windows 10
5 15 (1.12%) Mac OS
6 14 (1.05%) Android
6 14 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
7 11 (0.82%) Windows Server 2019
8 8 (0.60%) VMS
8 8 (0.60%) Windows 7
9 7 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.45%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.45%) CentOS
11 4 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.22%) Unix
13 1 (0.075%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.075%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (18.61%) Continuous Improvement
2 200 (14.95%) Customer Service
3 184 (13.75%) Analytics
4 161 (12.03%) Agile
5 146 (10.91%) ERP
6 145 (10.84%) Business Intelligence
6 145 (10.84%) Data Modelling
7 102 (7.62%) DevOps
8 101 (7.55%) Project Management
9 100 (7.47%) Stakeholder Management
10 98 (7.32%) Technical Leadership
11 94 (7.03%) SAP Implementation
12 92 (6.88%) Computer Science
12 92 (6.88%) Data Analysis
13 90 (6.73%) Logistics
14 87 (6.50%) Cybersecurity
14 87 (6.50%) Decision-Making
15 85 (6.35%) Quality Management
16 83 (6.20%) Mentoring
17 76 (5.68%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 219 (16.37%) SQL
2 137 (10.24%) Python
3 77 (5.75%) C#
4 74 (5.53%) PowerShell
5 60 (4.48%) JavaScript
6 37 (2.77%) Java
7 25 (1.87%) PHP
8 24 (1.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 16 (1.20%) T-SQL
10 14 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 12 (0.90%) C++
11 12 (0.90%) TypeScript
12 11 (0.82%) Bicep
13 9 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.60%) Apex Code
14 8 (0.60%) C
14 8 (0.60%) DCL
14 8 (0.60%) Tcl
14 8 (0.60%) VBA
15 7 (0.52%) Perl
Qualifications
1 365 (27.28%) Degree
2 98 (7.32%) Security Cleared
3 49 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
4 44 (3.29%) SC Cleared
5 30 (2.24%) ACCA
6 28 (2.09%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (2.02%) DV Cleared
8 25 (1.87%) DBS Check
9 22 (1.64%) CIMA
10 21 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
11 19 (1.42%) A+ Certification
11 19 (1.42%) MCP
12 15 (1.12%) HNC
12 15 (1.12%) Master's Degree
13 10 (0.75%) Chartered Engineer
14 9 (0.67%) HND
15 8 (0.60%) MCSE
16 7 (0.52%) CCNA
16 7 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
16 7 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (9.79%) Data Quality
2 72 (5.38%) QA
3 48 (3.59%) GDPR
4 26 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 23 (1.72%) SLA
6 22 (1.64%) Accessibility
7 11 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
8 9 (0.67%) ISO 9001
9 7 (0.52%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.45%) NIST
11 5 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.37%) ISO 13485
12 3 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
13 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.15%) WCAG
14 1 (0.075%) ARP4754
14 1 (0.075%) ARP4761
14 1 (0.075%) DO-178B
14 1 (0.075%) DO-254
14 1 (0.075%) GAAP
System Software
1 155 (11.58%) Active Directory
2 41 (3.06%) Hyper-V
3 33 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.87%) Docker
5 11 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.45%) KVM
7 3 (0.22%) Firmware
7 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.15%) RHEV
8 2 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.15%) Xen
9 1 (0.075%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 54 (4.04%) Microsoft Intune
2 45 (3.36%) Terraform
3 25 (1.87%) Ansible
4 22 (1.64%) Kubernetes
5 17 (1.27%) SCCM
6 15 (1.12%) vCenter Server
7 8 (0.60%) ZABBIX
8 7 (0.52%) Grafana
8 7 (0.52%) Nagios
8 7 (0.52%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.22%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.15%) Nessus
10 2 (0.15%) Proxmox
10 2 (0.15%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.075%) CASB
11 1 (0.075%) Control-M
11 1 (0.075%) Dell DRAC
11 1 (0.075%) Kibana
11 1 (0.075%) Netcool
11 1 (0.075%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 343 (25.64%) Microsoft
2 196 (14.65%) SAP
3 50 (3.74%) VMware
4 37 (2.77%) Google
5 36 (2.69%) NEC
6 35 (2.62%) Adobe
6 35 (2.62%) Oracle
7 34 (2.54%) Veeam
8 31 (2.32%) Databricks
9 29 (2.17%) Sage
10 26 (1.94%) Salesforce
11 24 (1.79%) HubSpot
12 20 (1.49%) Cisco
13 17 (1.27%) ServiceNow
14 15 (1.12%) SolarWinds
15 13 (0.97%) Black Duck
15 13 (0.97%) Coverity
15 13 (0.97%) Xamarin
16 12 (0.90%) 3PAR
17 11 (0.82%) Zoho