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 27 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 0
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,363 1,636 1,346
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 12.98% 17.60% 17.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.06% 20.10% 19.06%
Number of salaries quoted 900 750 730
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,063 £38,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,000 £51,484 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.36% +2.97% -6.54%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £64,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £85,000 £77,625
England median annual salary £45,497 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -17.28% - -

All Process and 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 8,486 8,138 7,062
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 80.83% 87.54% 89.86%
Number of salaries quoted 5,065 4,045 4,961
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,250 £44,106 £39,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £57,500 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +7.48% -2.73%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £82,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025. 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 -1 565 £42,500 -26.09% 849
Berkshire +3 378 £42,500 -37.04% 516
Hampshire +2 321 £38,500 -23.00% 332
Surrey -13 174 £40,000 -30.43% 232
Kent -12 132 £31,500 -17.11% 202
Buckinghamshire -11 117 £49,500 -13.91% 198
West Sussex -1 72 £60,000 +26.32% 93
Oxfordshire -5 70 £39,177 -15.38% 136
East Sussex 0 55 £55,000 +10.00% 100
Middlesex -13 22 £41,250 +23.13% 13
Isle of Wight +4 16 £42,000 - 80
Sussex -2 3 £35,000 - 5
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 48 (3.52%) SharePoint
2 42 (3.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 25 (1.83%) IIS
4 12 (0.88%) CMS
4 12 (0.88%) Confluence
5 9 (0.66%) WordPress
6 4 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.29%) SAS
7 3 (0.22%) HCL Domino
7 3 (0.22%) HCL Notes
8 2 (0.15%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.15%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.15%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.073%) Apache
9 1 (0.073%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.073%) govService
9 1 (0.073%) nginx
Applications
1 159 (11.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 140 (10.27%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.88%) Photoshop
6 11 (0.81%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 9 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
7 9 (0.66%) Adobe Premiere
8 6 (0.44%) MS Visio
9 5 (0.37%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.22%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.22%) InDesign
10 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
10 3 (0.22%) Notion
11 2 (0.15%) Adobe Captivate
11 2 (0.15%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.15%) Elementor
12 1 (0.073%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.073%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.073%) Revit
Business Applications
1 75 (5.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.54%) NetSuite
3 12 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.81%) SAP CO
5 8 (0.59%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 7 (0.51%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.51%) SAP FI/CO
7 6 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
7 6 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.44%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.37%) SAP Hybris
9 3 (0.22%) Sage X3
9 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.22%) Shopify
10 2 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 2 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
10 2 (0.15%) Sage 200
11 1 (0.073%) SAP EWM
11 1 (0.073%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 288 (21.13%) Azure
2 173 (12.69%) Microsoft 365
3 134 (9.83%) Power Platform
4 91 (6.68%) AWS
5 84 (6.16%) SaaS
6 53 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
7 47 (3.45%) Entra ID
8 42 (3.08%) GCP
9 15 (1.10%) Collibra
10 13 (0.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 13 (0.95%) GitHub
10 13 (0.95%) Google Workspace
10 13 (0.95%) PaaS
11 12 (0.88%) IaaS
11 12 (0.88%) Power Automate
12 11 (0.81%) Azure Data Factory
12 11 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
12 11 (0.81%) Figma
13 10 (0.73%) Azure Logic Apps
14 9 (0.66%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 89 (6.53%) DNS
2 73 (5.36%) Firewall
3 69 (5.06%) DHCP
4 59 (4.33%) TCP/IP
5 51 (3.74%) VPN
6 42 (3.08%) VLAN
7 23 (1.69%) Wi-Fi
8 22 (1.61%) Wireless
9 17 (1.25%) SAN
10 16 (1.17%) WAN
11 12 (0.88%) LAN
11 12 (0.88%) VoIP
12 9 (0.66%) Intranet
13 8 (0.59%) PuTTY
13 8 (0.59%) SSH
13 8 (0.59%) Wireshark
14 6 (0.44%) MPLS
14 6 (0.44%) Network Security
14 6 (0.44%) Remote Desktop
15 5 (0.37%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (8.88%) Power BI
2 66 (4.84%) Data Lake
3 63 (4.62%) SAP BW
4 59 (4.33%) Relational Database
5 41 (3.01%) SQL Server
6 18 (1.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 16 (1.17%) NoSQL
8 14 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (1.03%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.81%) Tableau
10 10 (0.73%) MySQL
11 9 (0.66%) Power Query
12 8 (0.59%) OLTP
12 8 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
12 8 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 7 (0.51%) Big Data
13 7 (0.51%) Data Mining
13 7 (0.51%) PowerPivot
14 6 (0.44%) Hadoop
15 5 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 62 (4.55%) Git
2 43 (3.15%) JIRA
3 23 (1.69%) Selenium
4 15 (1.10%) Robot Framework
5 13 (0.95%) Snyk
6 8 (0.59%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.59%) Visual Studio
7 6 (0.44%) GitLab
8 5 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
8 5 (0.37%) WebDriver
9 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.15%) LabVIEW
10 2 (0.15%) TestRail
11 1 (0.073%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.073%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.073%) MSBuild
11 1 (0.073%) NUnit
11 1 (0.073%) SpecFlow
11 1 (0.073%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.073%) TestNG
General
1 823 (60.38%) Social Skills
2 344 (25.24%) Analytical Skills
3 299 (21.94%) Finance
4 137 (10.05%) Manufacturing
5 126 (9.24%) Marketing
6 87 (6.38%) Retail
7 70 (5.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 56 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
9 43 (3.15%) Electronics
10 40 (2.93%) Law
11 39 (2.86%) Telecoms
12 32 (2.35%) Legal
13 27 (1.98%) Public Sector
14 22 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
14 22 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
15 16 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
16 13 (0.95%) Automotive
17 12 (0.88%) Advertising
18 11 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
19 9 (0.66%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 299 (21.94%) Analyst
2 254 (18.64%) Senior
3 194 (14.23%) IT Support
4 141 (10.34%) Lead
4 141 (10.34%) Support Engineer
5 116 (8.51%) Support Analyst
6 95 (6.97%) Technical Support
7 94 (6.90%) Developer
8 75 (5.50%) IT Analyst
9 71 (5.21%) IT Support Analyst
10 67 (4.92%) Senior Analyst
11 57 (4.18%) SAP Analyst
12 51 (3.74%) Senior Manager
13 50 (3.67%) 2nd Line Support
14 47 (3.45%) IT Engineer
15 46 (3.37%) Applications Support
15 46 (3.37%) Report Analyst
16 42 (3.08%) Project Engineer
17 41 (3.01%) IT Support Engineer
17 41 (3.01%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (3.89%) HTML
2 48 (3.52%) .NET
3 41 (3.01%) REST
4 40 (2.93%) React
5 39 (2.86%) CSS
6 36 (2.64%) SOAP
7 25 (1.83%) Node.js
8 24 (1.76%) XML
9 23 (1.69%) RESTful
10 19 (1.39%) .NET Framework
10 19 (1.39%) JSON
11 17 (1.25%) ASP.NET
12 13 (0.95%) Entity Framework
12 13 (0.95%) WinForms
13 11 (0.81%) EDI
14 10 (0.73%) DCOM
15 9 (0.66%) Laravel
15 9 (0.66%) Middleware
15 9 (0.66%) Web Services
16 8 (0.59%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 130 (9.54%) Onboarding
2 72 (5.28%) Driving Licence
3 63 (4.62%) Self-Motivation
4 46 (3.37%) Analytical Mindset
5 42 (3.08%) Data Centre
5 42 (3.08%) Management Information System
6 27 (1.98%) Product Ownership
7 14 (1.03%) Social Media
8 12 (0.88%) Cloud Native
9 11 (0.81%) Algorithms
10 10 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
10 10 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
10 10 (0.73%) Video Conferencing
11 9 (0.66%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (0.66%) Low-Code
12 8 (0.59%) Robotics
12 8 (0.59%) Team-Oriented Environment
13 7 (0.51%) FMCG
13 7 (0.51%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (0.51%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 264 (19.37%) Windows
2 80 (5.87%) Windows Server
3 58 (4.26%) Linux
4 47 (3.45%) Windows 10
5 14 (1.03%) Android
5 14 (1.03%) Windows Server 2012
6 13 (0.95%) Mac OS
7 12 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.73%) Windows 7
9 9 (0.66%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.59%) VMS
11 4 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (0.22%) CentOS
12 3 (0.22%) Unix
12 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (17.83%) Continuous Improvement
2 192 (14.09%) Analytics
3 190 (13.94%) Customer Service
4 176 (12.91%) Agile
5 151 (11.08%) ERP
6 144 (10.56%) Business Intelligence
7 135 (9.90%) Data Modelling
8 111 (8.14%) DevOps
9 109 (8.00%) Data Analysis
10 105 (7.70%) Project Management
11 100 (7.34%) SAP Implementation
12 99 (7.26%) Technical Leadership
13 98 (7.19%) Stakeholder Management
14 95 (6.97%) Decision-Making
15 93 (6.82%) Logistics
16 92 (6.75%) Cybersecurity
17 91 (6.68%) Quality Management
18 90 (6.60%) Mentoring
19 81 (5.94%) CI/CD
20 76 (5.58%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 235 (17.24%) SQL
2 112 (8.22%) Python
3 72 (5.28%) PowerShell
4 69 (5.06%) C#
5 62 (4.55%) JavaScript
6 29 (2.13%) Java
7 20 (1.47%) PHP
8 19 (1.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 18 (1.32%) T-SQL
10 17 (1.25%) VBA
11 12 (0.88%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.81%) R
13 10 (0.73%) TypeScript
14 9 (0.66%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.59%) Bicep
15 8 (0.59%) DCL
15 8 (0.59%) Tcl
16 7 (0.51%) Bash
16 7 (0.51%) C++
17 6 (0.44%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 351 (25.75%) Degree
2 99 (7.26%) Security Cleared
3 46 (3.37%) SC Cleared
4 43 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (2.42%) ACCA
6 28 (2.05%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (1.98%) DV Cleared
8 25 (1.83%) CIMA
9 21 (1.54%) DBS Check
10 20 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
11 15 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
11 15 (1.10%) Master's Degree
12 14 (1.03%) A+ Certification
13 13 (0.95%) HNC
14 12 (0.88%) ISTQB
14 12 (0.88%) MCP
15 10 (0.73%) CCNA
15 10 (0.73%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 9 (0.66%) CEH
16 9 (0.66%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (9.61%) Data Quality
2 82 (6.02%) QA
3 46 (3.37%) GDPR
4 30 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 26 (1.91%) Accessibility
6 23 (1.69%) SLA
7 17 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (0.73%) ISO 9001
9 8 (0.59%) NIST
10 7 (0.51%) Software Quality Assurance
11 5 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.37%) ISO 13485
12 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 2 (0.15%) ISO 31000
14 2 (0.15%) WCAG
15 1 (0.073%) GAAP
15 1 (0.073%) ISO 14001
15 1 (0.073%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 1 (0.073%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 152 (11.15%) Active Directory
2 43 (3.15%) Hyper-V
3 37 (2.71%) Docker
4 33 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.66%) Firmware
7 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.15%) KVM
8 2 (0.15%) RHEV
8 2 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.15%) Xen
9 1 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.073%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 68 (4.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 45 (3.30%) Terraform
3 33 (2.42%) Kubernetes
4 26 (1.91%) Ansible
5 18 (1.32%) SCCM
6 16 (1.17%) vCenter Server
7 10 (0.73%) ZABBIX
8 7 (0.51%) Grafana
8 7 (0.51%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.44%) Nagios
10 4 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.22%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.15%) Nessus
12 2 (0.15%) Proxmox
13 1 (0.073%) CASB
13 1 (0.073%) Dell DRAC
13 1 (0.073%) Kibana
13 1 (0.073%) Netcool
13 1 (0.073%) Puppet
13 1 (0.073%) QRadar
Vendors
1 359 (26.34%) Microsoft
2 210 (15.41%) SAP
3 51 (3.74%) VMware
4 41 (3.01%) Oracle
5 40 (2.93%) Google
6 36 (2.64%) NEC
7 34 (2.49%) Cisco
8 30 (2.20%) Sage
9 28 (2.05%) Adobe
9 28 (2.05%) Databricks
9 28 (2.05%) Veeam
10 22 (1.61%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.47%) HubSpot
11 20 (1.47%) Meraki
12 17 (1.25%) ServiceNow
13 16 (1.17%) Workday
14 15 (1.10%) SolarWinds
15 13 (0.95%) Black Duck
15 13 (0.95%) Coverity
15 13 (0.95%) Xamarin