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

6 months to
11 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 1,538 1,628 2,038
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.04% 18.58% 14.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.63% 21.09% 18.15%
Number of salaries quoted 1,129 839 1,219
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -10.53% -7.77%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £80,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £46,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.15% -7.00% -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 12,177 7,720 11,227
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.58% 88.13% 80.94%
Number of salaries quoted 8,681 4,171 7,309
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,733 £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 £67,250
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 11 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 11 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 -5 566 £43,000 +1.18% 334
Hampshire -2 400 £42,500 -2.86% 205
Surrey +1 253 £42,500 +6.25% 103
Berkshire -2 252 £45,000 +5.88% 150
Buckinghamshire -5 178 £42,500 +13.33% 110
Kent -8 143 £37,500 +19.05% 76
Oxfordshire +2 136 £41,982 -5.13% 79
East Sussex -4 93 £50,000 - 38
West Sussex -7 71 £50,000 -0.50% 48
Middlesex +6 7 £65,000 +73.33% 17
Isle of Wight -10 2 £42,500 -16.67% 3
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 51 (3.32%) SharePoint
2 45 (2.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.30%) CMS
4 18 (1.17%) Confluence
5 10 (0.65%) IIS
6 8 (0.52%) WordPress
7 7 (0.46%) Apache
7 7 (0.46%) OpenEdge
8 5 (0.33%) nginx
9 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.20%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.20%) SAS
10 2 (0.13%) Gentran
10 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.065%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 103 (6.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 87 (5.66%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.59%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.52%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.33%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.33%) Photoshop
7 5 (0.33%) Revit
8 4 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
8 4 (0.26%) Simulink
9 3 (0.20%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.065%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.065%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.065%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 13 (0.85%) NetSuite
2 10 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.65%) Shopify
3 7 (0.46%) Magento
4 6 (0.39%) Raiser’s Edge
5 4 (0.26%) Primavera
6 3 (0.20%) Infor SunSystems
6 3 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.20%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Academy Housing
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.065%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.065%) HFM
8 1 (0.065%) SAP GRC
8 1 (0.065%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 364 (23.67%) Azure
2 174 (11.31%) Microsoft 365
3 168 (10.92%) AWS
4 84 (5.46%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.16%) SaaS
6 56 (3.64%) Entra ID
7 50 (3.25%) GCP
8 45 (2.93%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (2.21%) GitHub
10 32 (2.08%) Serverless
11 21 (1.37%) IaaS
11 21 (1.37%) PaaS
12 20 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 18 (1.17%) Datadog
14 17 (1.11%) Dynamics 365
14 17 (1.11%) Google Workspace
15 16 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
16 15 (0.98%) Amazon ECS
16 15 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
17 14 (0.91%) Google Tag Manager
Communications & Networking
1 130 (8.45%) Firewall
2 66 (4.29%) DNS
3 55 (3.58%) VPN
4 54 (3.51%) TCP/IP
5 48 (3.12%) WAN
6 46 (2.99%) LAN
7 44 (2.86%) DHCP
8 42 (2.73%) Wi-Fi
9 40 (2.60%) Wireless
10 32 (2.08%) VLAN
11 30 (1.95%) VoIP
12 27 (1.76%) Network Security
13 15 (0.98%) SSL
14 13 (0.85%) Broadband
14 13 (0.85%) Internet
15 11 (0.72%) HTTP
16 10 (0.65%) MQTT
17 9 (0.59%) LTE
18 6 (0.39%) Remote Desktop
18 6 (0.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (7.48%) SQL Server
2 70 (4.55%) Power BI
3 35 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.89%) MySQL
5 28 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.56%) NoSQL
7 19 (1.24%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.85%) Tableau
10 12 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 11 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.65%) Data Lake
12 10 (0.65%) OLTP
13 8 (0.52%) DynamoDB
13 8 (0.52%) MongoDB
14 7 (0.46%) GIS
14 7 (0.46%) Looker
15 6 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (0.33%) Electronic Patient Records
17 4 (0.26%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 76 (4.94%) Git
2 60 (3.90%) JIRA
3 30 (1.95%) GitLab
4 20 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
5 10 (0.65%) Claude Code
6 7 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.46%) Selenium
6 7 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
7 5 (0.33%) Eclipse
7 5 (0.33%) Eclipse RCP
7 5 (0.33%) Jenkins
7 5 (0.33%) Postman
8 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
8 4 (0.26%) Terragrunt
8 4 (0.26%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.20%) Android Studio
9 3 (0.20%) PetaLinux
9 3 (0.20%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 750 (48.76%) Social Skills
2 442 (28.74%) Analytical Skills
3 223 (14.50%) Finance
4 123 (8.00%) Manufacturing
5 113 (7.35%) Organisational Skills
6 89 (5.79%) Electronics
7 82 (5.33%) Aerospace
8 68 (4.42%) Retail
9 58 (3.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (3.51%) Telecoms
11 44 (2.86%) Marketing
12 40 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
13 39 (2.54%) Law
14 37 (2.41%) Legal
15 36 (2.34%) Public Sector
16 33 (2.15%) Military
17 31 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
18 22 (1.43%) Local Government
19 21 (1.37%) Aviation
20 17 (1.11%) Banking
Job Titles
1 207 (13.46%) Analyst
2 163 (10.60%) Senior
3 147 (9.56%) Developer
4 146 (9.49%) IT Support
5 116 (7.54%) Support Engineer
6 96 (6.24%) Support Analyst
7 85 (5.53%) IT Engineer
8 71 (4.62%) Lead
9 70 (4.55%) Software Engineer
9 70 (4.55%) Systems Engineer
10 67 (4.36%) Technical Support
11 64 (4.16%) Support Technician
12 53 (3.45%) 2nd Line Support
13 52 (3.38%) IT Support Engineer
14 49 (3.19%) Technical Engineer
14 49 (3.19%) Technical Support Engineer
15 48 (3.12%) Architect
16 46 (2.99%) IT Technician
17 41 (2.67%) Consultant
18 40 (2.60%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (6.83%) .NET
2 72 (4.68%) HTML
3 58 (3.77%) REST
4 54 (3.51%) CSS
5 50 (3.25%) React
6 49 (3.19%) SOAP
7 45 (2.93%) ASP.NET
8 34 (2.21%) OAuth
9 32 (2.08%) ASP.NET Core
10 31 (2.02%) JSON
11 28 (1.82%) RESTful
12 27 (1.76%) AngularJS
12 27 (1.76%) Vue
13 26 (1.69%) XML
14 19 (1.24%) SAML
15 18 (1.17%) ASP.NET Web API
15 18 (1.17%) jQuery
16 17 (1.11%) LESS
16 17 (1.11%) ModSecurity
17 16 (1.04%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 114 (7.41%) Driving Licence
2 88 (5.72%) Onboarding
3 77 (5.01%) Self-Motivation
4 75 (4.88%) Management Information System
5 63 (4.10%) Cloud Native
6 43 (2.80%) Product Ownership
7 33 (2.15%) Data Centre
8 31 (2.02%) Social Media
9 30 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
10 28 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
11 27 (1.76%) Robotics
12 26 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
13 23 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
14 19 (1.24%) NHS
15 18 (1.17%) EPoS
16 17 (1.11%) Analogue Electronics
17 15 (0.98%) CCTV
17 15 (0.98%) Renewable Energy
17 15 (0.98%) Security Posture
18 14 (0.91%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 243 (15.80%) Windows
2 116 (7.54%) Linux
3 87 (5.66%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.37%) Android
5 17 (1.11%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
7 15 (0.98%) CentOS
8 14 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.78%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.72%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.65%) Windows 10
12 9 (0.59%) Debian
12 9 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.20%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.20%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.20%) Unix
13 3 (0.20%) VMS
13 3 (0.20%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.13%) Rocky
14 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (21.39%) Continuous Improvement
2 264 (17.17%) Customer Service
3 210 (13.65%) Agile
4 188 (12.22%) Decision-Making
5 172 (11.18%) CI/CD
6 169 (10.99%) AI
7 160 (10.40%) Project Management
8 159 (10.34%) Software Engineering
9 156 (10.14%) DevOps
10 148 (9.62%) Project Delivery
11 144 (9.36%) Stakeholder Management
12 141 (9.17%) ITIL
13 132 (8.58%) Cybersecurity
14 131 (8.52%) Mentoring
15 128 (8.32%) Validation
16 119 (7.74%) Computer Science
17 118 (7.67%) Collaborative Working
18 115 (7.48%) Analytics
19 104 (6.76%) Logistics
20 99 (6.44%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 217 (14.11%) Python
1 217 (14.11%) SQL
2 119 (7.74%) C#
3 102 (6.63%) JavaScript
4 91 (5.92%) PowerShell
5 62 (4.03%) C++
6 57 (3.71%) Java
6 57 (3.71%) TypeScript
7 37 (2.41%) Bash
8 33 (2.15%) C
9 23 (1.50%) PHP
10 15 (0.98%) T-SQL
11 14 (0.91%) Ruby
12 13 (0.85%) Rust
13 12 (0.78%) VB.NET
14 11 (0.72%) Perl
14 11 (0.72%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.52%) MATLAB
16 7 (0.46%) Bicep
17 6 (0.39%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 304 (19.77%) Degree
2 156 (10.14%) Security Cleared
3 113 (7.35%) SC Cleared
4 97 (6.31%) DBS Check
5 65 (4.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 54 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 49 (3.19%) Microsoft Certification
8 47 (3.06%) DV Cleared
8 47 (3.06%) HNC
9 38 (2.47%) Azure Certification
10 33 (2.15%) HND
11 32 (2.08%) PMI Certification
12 27 (1.76%) Chartered Engineer
13 26 (1.69%) PMP
14 24 (1.56%) CISSP
14 24 (1.56%) Master's Degree
15 23 (1.50%) ACCA
16 22 (1.43%) CIMA
17 20 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 18 (1.17%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (8.71%) QA
2 54 (3.51%) Data Quality
3 53 (3.45%) GDPR
4 43 (2.80%) SLA
5 31 (2.02%) Accessibility
6 28 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 19 (1.24%) PCI DSS
8 18 (1.17%) Good Clinical Practice
9 17 (1.11%) NIST
10 16 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
11 14 (0.91%) PMO
12 10 (0.65%) SOC 2
13 9 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.59%) DO-254
13 9 (0.59%) GMP
14 8 (0.52%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.52%) GLP
14 8 (0.52%) GxP
14 8 (0.52%) ISO 9001
15 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 122 (7.93%) Active Directory
2 74 (4.81%) Docker
3 71 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 57 (3.71%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.65%) Firmware
6 9 (0.59%) KVM
6 9 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.59%) vSphere
7 5 (0.33%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.33%) Squid
7 5 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.33%) XenApp
8 4 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.20%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.065%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.065%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 86 (5.59%) Terraform
2 83 (5.40%) Kubernetes
3 49 (3.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 39 (2.54%) Ansible
5 23 (1.50%) SCCM
6 15 (0.98%) Grafana
7 12 (0.78%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.65%) Nagios
9 8 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (0.52%) Podman
10 7 (0.46%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.46%) Puppet
11 6 (0.39%) ZABBIX
12 5 (0.33%) Graylog
13 4 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
13 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.13%) Nessus
14 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 442 (28.74%) Microsoft
2 79 (5.14%) VMware
3 58 (3.77%) Google
4 52 (3.38%) Oracle
5 37 (2.41%) Cisco
6 33 (2.15%) Fortinet
7 31 (2.02%) SAP
7 31 (2.02%) SonicWALL
8 29 (1.89%) Veeam
9 28 (1.82%) ServiceNow
10 26 (1.69%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.30%) Databricks
11 20 (1.30%) Sage
12 16 (1.04%) Aruba
12 16 (1.04%) Palo Alto
13 14 (0.91%) Red Hat
13 14 (0.91%) Splunk
14 13 (0.85%) Instagram
15 12 (0.78%) Dynatrace
16 11 (0.72%) EMC