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

6 months to
18 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 1,566 1,710 2,038
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.09% 19.15% 14.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.73% 21.76% 18.32%
Number of salaries quoted 1,145 862 1,200
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,000 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year - -11.46% -6.66%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £78,750 £79,492
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -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 12,300 7,858 11,125
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.40% 88.00% 80.80%
Number of salaries quoted 8,809 4,198 7,200
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £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 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £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 18 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 18 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 -5 572 £42,750 +0.59% 381
Hampshire -2 408 £41,500 -7.78% 219
Berkshire -3 255 £43,250 +1.76% 159
Surrey 0 253 £42,500 +6.25% 145
Buckinghamshire -7 178 £42,500 +13.33% 126
Kent -5 153 £37,500 +19.05% 103
Oxfordshire +1 139 £41,982 -5.13% 98
East Sussex -4 97 £50,000 - 56
West Sussex -8 70 £50,000 -0.99% 61
Middlesex 0 8 £50,000 +33.33% 37
Isle of Wight -9 2 £42,500 -9.57% 20
Sussex -13 1 - - 16
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 55 (3.51%) SharePoint
2 44 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.15%) CMS
3 18 (1.15%) Confluence
4 13 (0.83%) IIS
5 7 (0.45%) Apache
5 7 (0.45%) OpenEdge
5 7 (0.45%) WordPress
6 5 (0.32%) nginx
7 3 (0.19%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.19%) SAS
8 2 (0.13%) Gentran
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 103 (6.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 93 (5.94%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.57%) AutoCAD
6 7 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.45%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.32%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.32%) Revit
8 4 (0.26%) Photoshop
8 4 (0.26%) Simulink
9 3 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.19%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.064%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.064%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.064%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 16 (1.02%) NetSuite
2 13 (0.83%) Shopify
3 11 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.45%) Magento
5 6 (0.38%) Primavera
5 6 (0.38%) Raiser’s Edge
6 3 (0.19%) Infor SunSystems
6 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.19%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Academy Housing
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.13%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.064%) HFM
8 1 (0.064%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 370 (23.63%) Azure
2 182 (11.62%) Microsoft 365
3 168 (10.73%) AWS
4 86 (5.49%) Power Platform
5 67 (4.28%) SaaS
6 62 (3.96%) Entra ID
7 51 (3.26%) GCP
8 44 (2.81%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (2.36%) GitHub
10 31 (1.98%) Serverless
11 21 (1.34%) Google Workspace
12 20 (1.28%) IaaS
12 20 (1.28%) PaaS
13 19 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 17 (1.09%) Datadog
15 16 (1.02%) Anthropic Claude
15 16 (1.02%) Dynamics 365
15 16 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
15 16 (1.02%) Google Tag Manager
16 15 (0.96%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 132 (8.43%) Firewall
2 70 (4.47%) DNS
3 56 (3.58%) TCP/IP
4 55 (3.51%) VPN
5 48 (3.07%) DHCP
5 48 (3.07%) WAN
6 46 (2.94%) LAN
7 43 (2.75%) Wi-Fi
8 41 (2.62%) Wireless
9 35 (2.23%) VLAN
10 32 (2.04%) VoIP
11 29 (1.85%) Network Security
12 16 (1.02%) SSL
13 14 (0.89%) Internet
14 12 (0.77%) Broadband
15 11 (0.70%) HTTP
16 10 (0.64%) MQTT
17 9 (0.57%) LTE
18 6 (0.38%) WLAN
19 5 (0.32%) VSAT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (7.73%) SQL Server
2 72 (4.60%) Power BI
3 36 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 32 (2.04%) MySQL
5 29 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.53%) NoSQL
7 18 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 12 (0.77%) Tableau
10 11 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.64%) Data Lake
12 9 (0.57%) MongoDB
12 9 (0.57%) OLTP
13 7 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.45%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.45%) GIS
13 7 (0.45%) Looker
14 5 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
15 4 (0.26%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 75 (4.79%) Git
2 59 (3.77%) JIRA
3 27 (1.72%) GitLab
4 18 (1.15%) Rational DOORS
5 11 (0.70%) Claude Code
6 8 (0.51%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.51%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.38%) Selenium
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.32%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.32%) Postman
8 5 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
9 4 (0.26%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.19%) PetaLinux
10 3 (0.19%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.13%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.13%) Mocha
11 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 771 (49.23%) Social Skills
2 453 (28.93%) Analytical Skills
3 226 (14.43%) Finance
4 125 (7.98%) Manufacturing
5 115 (7.34%) Organisational Skills
6 93 (5.94%) Aerospace
7 90 (5.75%) Electronics
8 71 (4.53%) Retail
9 60 (3.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (3.26%) Telecoms
11 45 (2.87%) Marketing
12 41 (2.62%) Influencing Skills
13 40 (2.55%) Legal
14 38 (2.43%) Law
14 38 (2.43%) Public Sector
15 37 (2.36%) Military
16 29 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
17 22 (1.40%) Aviation
17 22 (1.40%) Local Government
18 16 (1.02%) Banking
Job Titles
1 213 (13.60%) Analyst
2 171 (10.92%) Senior
3 155 (9.90%) Developer
4 148 (9.45%) IT Support
5 117 (7.47%) Support Engineer
6 102 (6.51%) Support Analyst
7 86 (5.49%) IT Engineer
8 70 (4.47%) Lead
8 70 (4.47%) Software Engineer
8 70 (4.47%) Systems Engineer
9 67 (4.28%) Support Technician
9 67 (4.28%) Technical Support
10 54 (3.45%) IT Support Engineer
11 53 (3.38%) 2nd Line Support
12 51 (3.26%) Architect
13 48 (3.07%) IT Technician
14 47 (3.00%) Technical Engineer
14 47 (3.00%) Technical Support Engineer
15 44 (2.81%) Consultant
16 41 (2.62%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (7.15%) .NET
2 76 (4.85%) HTML
3 61 (3.90%) REST
4 56 (3.58%) CSS
5 52 (3.32%) React
6 49 (3.13%) ASP.NET
6 49 (3.13%) SOAP
7 36 (2.30%) OAuth
8 34 (2.17%) ASP.NET Core
9 30 (1.92%) AngularJS
9 30 (1.92%) JSON
10 29 (1.85%) RESTful
11 28 (1.79%) Vue
12 26 (1.66%) XML
13 22 (1.40%) ModSecurity
14 21 (1.34%) SAML
15 19 (1.21%) ASP.NET Web API
15 19 (1.21%) jQuery
16 18 (1.15%) LESS
17 17 (1.09%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 116 (7.41%) Driving Licence
2 97 (6.19%) Onboarding
3 79 (5.04%) Management Information System
4 76 (4.85%) Self-Motivation
5 65 (4.15%) Cloud Native
6 43 (2.75%) Product Ownership
7 34 (2.17%) Social Media
8 33 (2.11%) Data Centre
9 30 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
10 28 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
10 28 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 27 (1.72%) Robotics
12 26 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
13 20 (1.28%) Analogue Electronics
14 18 (1.15%) EPoS
15 17 (1.09%) CCTV
15 17 (1.09%) NHS
16 16 (1.02%) Mobile App
17 15 (0.96%) Renewable Energy
18 14 (0.89%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 250 (15.96%) Windows
2 113 (7.22%) Linux
3 89 (5.68%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.40%) Android
5 17 (1.09%) Windows Server 2019
6 16 (1.02%) Mac OS
7 14 (0.89%) CentOS
8 13 (0.83%) Apple iOS
8 13 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.77%) Windows 10
10 10 (0.64%) Windows Server 2016
11 9 (0.57%) Debian
12 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.19%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.19%) Rocky
13 3 (0.19%) Unix
13 3 (0.19%) VMS
13 3 (0.19%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 336 (21.46%) Continuous Improvement
2 272 (17.37%) Customer Service
3 214 (13.67%) Agile
4 198 (12.64%) Decision-Making
5 170 (10.86%) AI
6 169 (10.79%) CI/CD
7 164 (10.47%) Project Management
8 162 (10.34%) Software Engineering
9 155 (9.90%) Project Delivery
10 153 (9.77%) DevOps
11 149 (9.51%) Stakeholder Management
12 147 (9.39%) ITIL
13 136 (8.68%) Mentoring
14 132 (8.43%) Validation
15 131 (8.37%) Cybersecurity
16 122 (7.79%) Collaborative Working
16 122 (7.79%) Computer Science
17 120 (7.66%) Analytics
18 106 (6.77%) Logistics
19 102 (6.51%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 223 (14.24%) SQL
2 214 (13.67%) Python
3 128 (8.17%) C#
4 109 (6.96%) JavaScript
5 92 (5.87%) PowerShell
6 60 (3.83%) C++
6 60 (3.83%) TypeScript
7 58 (3.70%) Java
8 34 (2.17%) Bash
9 31 (1.98%) C
10 22 (1.40%) PHP
11 17 (1.09%) T-SQL
12 15 (0.96%) Ruby
13 13 (0.83%) VB.NET
14 12 (0.77%) Rust
15 11 (0.70%) Perl
15 11 (0.70%) PL/SQL
16 8 (0.51%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.45%) Bicep
18 6 (0.38%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 309 (19.73%) Degree
2 165 (10.54%) Security Cleared
3 119 (7.60%) SC Cleared
4 101 (6.45%) DBS Check
5 65 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 53 (3.38%) DV Cleared
8 51 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 45 (2.87%) HNC
10 44 (2.81%) Azure Certification
11 36 (2.30%) HND
12 32 (2.04%) PMI Certification
13 28 (1.79%) CISSP
14 26 (1.66%) PMP
15 25 (1.60%) Chartered Engineer
15 25 (1.60%) Master's Degree
16 23 (1.47%) CISM
17 20 (1.28%) ACCA
17 20 (1.28%) CompTIA Security+
17 20 (1.28%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (8.62%) QA
2 56 (3.58%) GDPR
3 55 (3.51%) Data Quality
4 44 (2.81%) SLA
5 33 (2.11%) Accessibility
6 29 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.15%) Good Clinical Practice
7 18 (1.15%) NIST
7 18 (1.15%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.89%) PMO
10 12 (0.77%) DO-254
11 10 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 9 (0.57%) GMP
12 9 (0.57%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.51%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.51%) GLP
13 8 (0.51%) GxP
13 8 (0.51%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 130 (8.30%) Active Directory
2 72 (4.60%) Docker
2 72 (4.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 57 (3.64%) Hyper-V
4 11 (0.70%) Firmware
5 9 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (0.57%) vSphere
6 7 (0.45%) KVM
7 5 (0.32%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.32%) Squid
7 5 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.26%) XenApp
9 3 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.064%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.064%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 85 (5.43%) Terraform
2 81 (5.17%) Kubernetes
3 50 (3.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (2.36%) Ansible
5 23 (1.47%) SCCM
6 15 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.89%) Grafana
8 11 (0.70%) Prometheus
9 10 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
10 9 (0.57%) Nagios
11 8 (0.51%) Podman
12 7 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.45%) Puppet
13 6 (0.38%) Graylog
14 5 (0.32%) ZABBIX
15 4 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
15 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
15 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
16 2 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
16 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 457 (29.18%) Microsoft
2 81 (5.17%) VMware
3 66 (4.21%) Google
4 53 (3.38%) Oracle
5 38 (2.43%) Cisco
6 35 (2.23%) SAP
7 34 (2.17%) Fortinet
8 33 (2.11%) SonicWALL
9 31 (1.98%) Veeam
10 30 (1.92%) ServiceNow
11 23 (1.47%) Salesforce
12 21 (1.34%) Sage
13 18 (1.15%) Databricks
14 16 (1.02%) Aruba
14 16 (1.02%) Palo Alto
15 13 (0.83%) Instagram
15 13 (0.83%) Splunk
16 12 (0.77%) ForgeRock
16 12 (0.77%) Mentor Graphics
16 12 (0.77%) Okta