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 5 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,186 1,461 2,870
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.20% 18.76% 16.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.40% 20.73% 19.80%
Number of salaries quoted 885 690 1,778
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,375 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -14.29%
75th Percentile £61,250 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £75,000 £82,500 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -10.00%

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 10,400 7,047 14,498
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.90% 90.51% 82.46%
Number of salaries quoted 7,168 3,313 10,138
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £39,000 £35,363 £36,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £58,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% +5.45% -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 5 June 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 5 June 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 -10 431 £45,500 -9.00% 209
Hampshire -3 272 £40,000 -5.88% 156
Berkshire -6 206 £45,000 -10.00% 83
Surrey -4 203 £41,585 +3.96% 96
Buckinghamshire -11 137 £47,500 -5.00% 67
Kent -2 127 £29,500 -4.84% 59
East Sussex -5 90 £57,500 +15.00% 14
Oxfordshire -6 88 £37,500 -31.82% 60
West Sussex -7 53 £56,465 +21.43% 28
Isle of Wight -12 3 £41,500 -24.55%
Middlesex +1 2 £35,000 -42.86% 18
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 33 (2.78%) SharePoint
2 29 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.35%) CMS
4 14 (1.18%) Confluence
5 10 (0.84%) IIS
6 7 (0.59%) OpenEdge
7 5 (0.42%) WordPress
8 4 (0.34%) SAS
9 3 (0.25%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.25%) Apache
9 3 (0.25%) govService
9 3 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.17%) Gentran
11 1 (0.084%) nginx
11 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
Applications
1 91 (7.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (5.73%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.67%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.42%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.34%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.084%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.084%) Lightworks
Business Applications
1 10 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
1 10 (0.84%) NetSuite
2 9 (0.76%) SAP CO
3 4 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (0.34%) Magento
3 4 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 2 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
4 2 (0.17%) Q-Pulse
4 2 (0.17%) Sage 200
4 2 (0.17%) Shopify
5 1 (0.084%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.084%) HFM
5 1 (0.084%) Raiser’s Edge
5 1 (0.084%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.084%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 271 (22.85%) Azure
2 124 (10.46%) Microsoft 365
3 112 (9.44%) AWS
4 75 (6.32%) Power Platform
5 54 (4.55%) SaaS
6 49 (4.13%) Azure DevOps
7 37 (3.12%) GCP
8 30 (2.53%) IaaS
8 30 (2.53%) PaaS
9 27 (2.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 24 (2.02%) Entra ID
11 21 (1.77%) Serverless
12 18 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
12 18 (1.52%) Google Workspace
13 16 (1.35%) GitHub
14 15 (1.26%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (1.26%) Datadog
14 15 (1.26%) Mimecast
14 15 (1.26%) OpenShift
15 13 (1.10%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 78 (6.58%) Firewall
2 61 (5.14%) DNS
3 36 (3.04%) DHCP
4 35 (2.95%) TCP/IP
5 29 (2.45%) VPN
6 26 (2.19%) WAN
7 24 (2.02%) Wireless
8 23 (1.94%) LAN
9 20 (1.69%) Broadband
10 15 (1.26%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (1.18%) VLAN
11 14 (1.18%) VoIP
12 12 (1.01%) Network Security
13 11 (0.93%) HTTP
14 8 (0.67%) SSL
15 7 (0.59%) Remote Desktop
16 6 (0.51%) PuTTY
16 6 (0.51%) SAN
16 6 (0.51%) SSH
17 5 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (6.66%) SQL Server
2 59 (4.97%) Power BI
3 24 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
5 18 (1.52%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.52%) Relational Database
6 17 (1.43%) OLTP
7 14 (1.18%) MySQL
8 12 (1.01%) Tableau
9 11 (0.93%) Power Query
9 11 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 8 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.59%) Data Lake
11 7 (0.59%) Looker
12 6 (0.51%) GIS
13 5 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.42%) Big Data
13 5 (0.42%) Data Mining
13 5 (0.42%) Hadoop
14 3 (0.25%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 58 (4.89%) Git
2 44 (3.71%) JIRA
3 31 (2.61%) GitLab
4 24 (2.02%) Rational DOORS
5 8 (0.67%) Selenium
6 4 (0.34%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.25%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.25%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.25%) Postman
8 2 (0.17%) Appium
8 2 (0.17%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.17%) JMeter
8 2 (0.17%) JUnit
8 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
8 2 (0.17%) Mocha
8 2 (0.17%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
9 1 (0.084%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.084%) PHPUnit
9 1 (0.084%) WebDriver
General
1 580 (48.90%) Social Skills
2 343 (28.92%) Analytical Skills
3 183 (15.43%) Finance
4 80 (6.75%) Organisational Skills
5 60 (5.06%) Marketing
6 57 (4.81%) Manufacturing
7 50 (4.22%) Electronics
7 50 (4.22%) Telecoms
8 48 (4.05%) Retail
9 42 (3.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 32 (2.70%) Aerospace
11 31 (2.61%) Law
12 28 (2.36%) Public Sector
13 23 (1.94%) Local Government
14 22 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
15 18 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
15 18 (1.52%) Legal
16 15 (1.26%) Military
17 14 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
18 13 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 156 (13.15%) Analyst
2 132 (11.13%) IT Support
3 124 (10.46%) Senior
4 122 (10.29%) Developer
5 112 (9.44%) Support Engineer
6 72 (6.07%) IT Engineer
7 65 (5.48%) Support Analyst
8 62 (5.23%) Systems Engineer
9 50 (4.22%) Support Technician
10 49 (4.13%) IT Support Engineer
11 47 (3.96%) Technical Support
12 46 (3.88%) Software Engineer
13 45 (3.79%) 2nd Line Support
13 45 (3.79%) Lead
14 44 (3.71%) Architect
15 37 (3.12%) IT Technician
16 35 (2.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 35 (2.95%) Technical Engineer
16 35 (2.95%) Technical Support Engineer
17 33 (2.78%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (6.24%) .NET
2 56 (4.72%) HTML
3 49 (4.13%) SOAP
4 39 (3.29%) REST
5 35 (2.95%) CSS
6 33 (2.78%) JSON
6 33 (2.78%) XML
7 26 (2.19%) React
8 21 (1.77%) Middleware
9 18 (1.52%) OAuth
10 17 (1.43%) HTML5
11 16 (1.35%) ASP.NET
12 15 (1.26%) CSS3
12 15 (1.26%) Laravel
12 15 (1.26%) RabbitMQ
12 15 (1.26%) RESTful
13 13 (1.10%) Ajax
13 13 (1.10%) jQuery
13 13 (1.10%) Sass
14 12 (1.01%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 73 (6.16%) Driving Licence
2 61 (5.14%) Management Information System
3 59 (4.97%) Self-Motivation
4 57 (4.81%) Onboarding
5 38 (3.20%) Cloud Native
6 36 (3.04%) Product Ownership
7 32 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.60%) Low-Code
10 17 (1.43%) Social Media
11 16 (1.35%) NHS
12 15 (1.26%) Robotics
13 13 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
14 11 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (0.93%) Video Editing
15 10 (0.84%) Algorithms
15 10 (0.84%) Client/Server
16 9 (0.76%) EPoS
16 9 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
16 9 (0.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 177 (14.92%) Windows
2 99 (8.35%) Linux
3 64 (5.40%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.69%) Android
4 20 (1.69%) CentOS
5 18 (1.52%) Mac OS
5 18 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (1.26%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (1.10%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.76%) VMS
8 9 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.51%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.25%) Debian
12 2 (0.17%) Unix
12 2 (0.17%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.084%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.084%) FreeBSD
13 1 (0.084%) OpenBSD
13 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 227 (19.14%) Continuous Improvement
2 204 (17.20%) Customer Service
3 172 (14.50%) Agile
4 139 (11.72%) CI/CD
4 139 (11.72%) DevOps
5 128 (10.79%) Decision-Making
6 117 (9.87%) Software Engineering
7 108 (9.11%) AI
8 107 (9.02%) Computer Science
9 105 (8.85%) Analytics
9 105 (8.85%) Project Management
10 92 (7.76%) Mentoring
11 89 (7.50%) Business Intelligence
12 87 (7.34%) Project Delivery
13 83 (7.00%) CRM
14 82 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
15 80 (6.75%) Collaborative Working
15 80 (6.75%) Data Modelling
16 75 (6.32%) ITIL
16 75 (6.32%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 205 (17.28%) Python
2 190 (16.02%) SQL
3 94 (7.93%) C#
4 80 (6.75%) JavaScript
5 67 (5.65%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.64%) Java
7 36 (3.04%) C++
8 30 (2.53%) PHP
9 27 (2.28%) C
9 27 (2.28%) TypeScript
10 26 (2.19%) Bash
11 20 (1.69%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 11 (0.93%) Perl
13 11 (0.93%) Rust
14 9 (0.76%) Ruby
15 8 (0.67%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.59%) Bicep
16 7 (0.59%) R
16 7 (0.59%) Scala
Qualifications
1 240 (20.24%) Degree
2 85 (7.17%) Security Cleared
3 62 (5.23%) DBS Check
4 55 (4.64%) SC Cleared
5 48 (4.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 37 (3.12%) Microsoft Certification
7 34 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.70%) ACCA
9 31 (2.61%) CIMA
10 30 (2.53%) HNC
11 26 (2.19%) Chartered Engineer
12 22 (1.85%) A+ Certification
13 18 (1.52%) Master's Degree
14 17 (1.43%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 15 (1.26%) PMI Certification
16 13 (1.10%) Azure Certification
16 13 (1.10%) DV Cleared
17 12 (1.01%) PMP
18 10 (0.84%) HND
18 10 (0.84%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (7.93%) QA
2 58 (4.89%) Data Quality
3 45 (3.79%) GDPR
4 39 (3.29%) SLA
5 22 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (1.69%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.26%) PCI DSS
8 12 (1.01%) PMO
9 11 (0.93%) NIST
10 8 (0.67%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.51%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.42%) Good Clinical Practice
14 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.34%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.34%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.34%) ITGC
15 2 (0.17%) GRC
15 2 (0.17%) IFRS
System Software
1 100 (8.43%) Active Directory
2 53 (4.47%) Docker
3 45 (3.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (3.04%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.84%) KVM
6 7 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.42%) Firmware
7 5 (0.42%) XenApp
8 4 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.25%) ClearTrust
9 3 (0.25%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.17%) vSphere
11 1 (0.084%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.084%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.084%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 64 (5.40%) Kubernetes
1 64 (5.40%) Terraform
2 31 (2.61%) Ansible
3 27 (2.28%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (1.35%) SCCM
5 15 (1.26%) Grafana
6 12 (1.01%) Nagios
6 12 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 7 (0.59%) vCenter Server
7 7 (0.59%) ZABBIX
8 5 (0.42%) Docker Swarm
8 5 (0.42%) Podman
9 4 (0.34%) Functional Safety
9 4 (0.34%) Graylog
10 3 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
10 3 (0.25%) Puppet
11 2 (0.17%) Nessus
12 1 (0.084%) Netcool
12 1 (0.084%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 317 (26.73%) Microsoft
2 50 (4.22%) VMware
3 43 (3.63%) Oracle
4 38 (3.20%) Databricks
5 37 (3.12%) Google
6 27 (2.28%) Salesforce
7 25 (2.11%) Veeam
8 19 (1.60%) SAP
9 18 (1.52%) Cisco
9 18 (1.52%) Instagram
10 16 (1.35%) Adobe
11 15 (1.26%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.18%) Splunk
13 13 (1.10%) Fortinet
14 12 (1.01%) Sage
14 12 (1.01%) SolarWinds
14 12 (1.01%) SonicWALL
15 11 (0.93%) Dynatrace
15 11 (0.93%) Hootsuite
15 11 (0.93%) Wrike