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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,244 1,267 2,361
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 10.41% 16.97% 17.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.50% 18.82% 20.87%
Number of salaries quoted 913 649 1,467
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,500 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £35,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £52,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £83,750 £73,750
England median annual salary £45,497 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -17.28% +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 9,212 6,731 11,315
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 77.07% 90.16% 85.80%
Number of salaries quoted 5,713 3,223 8,388
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £57,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £73,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £78,413
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -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 March 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 March 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 -3 489 £45,000 -21.74% 223
Berkshire +4 273 £45,000 -30.77% 122
Hampshire -1 264 £35,000 -30.00% 148
Surrey -10 197 £39,250 -28.64% 109
Buckinghamshire -7 140 £50,500 -12.17% 60
Kent -9 120 £29,000 -14.71% 72
East Sussex -1 87 £58,250 +16.50% 27
Oxfordshire -6 76 £34,000 -20.00% 43
West Sussex -2 52 £58,750 +23.68% 33
Middlesex -8 17 £47,500 -20.83% 32
Isle of Wight +7 12 £43,500 +8.48% 4
Sussex -12 2 £35,000 +22.81% 7
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 38 (3.05%) SharePoint
2 35 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
3 21 (1.69%) IIS
4 15 (1.21%) CMS
5 11 (0.88%) WordPress
6 8 (0.64%) Confluence
7 4 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.24%) govService
8 3 (0.24%) SAS
9 2 (0.16%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.16%) Apache
10 1 (0.080%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.080%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.080%) nginx
10 1 (0.080%) OpenStack
Applications
1 109 (8.76%) Microsoft Office
2 68 (5.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.88%) Photoshop
5 10 (0.80%) Adobe Illustrator
5 10 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 8 (0.64%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.24%) Adobe After Effects
8 3 (0.24%) Adobe Premiere
8 3 (0.24%) Adobe XD
8 3 (0.24%) InDesign
9 2 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.16%) Elementor
10 1 (0.080%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.080%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.080%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 42 (3.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.88%) NetSuite
3 9 (0.72%) SAP CO
4 7 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.40%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
7 3 (0.24%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 3 (0.24%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
8 2 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 2 (0.16%) Q-Pulse
8 2 (0.16%) Sage 200
9 1 (0.080%) PeopleSoft HRMS
9 1 (0.080%) Raiser’s Edge
9 1 (0.080%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.080%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.080%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 224 (18.01%) Azure
2 161 (12.94%) Microsoft 365
3 87 (6.99%) Power Platform
4 83 (6.67%) AWS
5 65 (5.23%) Azure DevOps
6 62 (4.98%) SaaS
7 39 (3.14%) GCP
8 37 (2.97%) Entra ID
9 21 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 21 (1.69%) PaaS
10 20 (1.61%) IaaS
10 20 (1.61%) Mimecast
11 19 (1.53%) Google Workspace
12 18 (1.45%) GitHub
13 17 (1.37%) Azure Logic Apps
13 17 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
14 16 (1.29%) Figma
15 13 (1.05%) Collibra
16 12 (0.96%) Asana
17 11 (0.88%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 84 (6.75%) DNS
2 64 (5.14%) Firewall
3 53 (4.26%) DHCP
4 44 (3.54%) TCP/IP
5 41 (3.30%) VPN
6 25 (2.01%) Wireless
7 22 (1.77%) VLAN
8 17 (1.37%) WAN
9 15 (1.21%) Broadband
10 14 (1.13%) LAN
11 12 (0.96%) SAN
12 11 (0.88%) Intranet
12 11 (0.88%) Remote Desktop
13 9 (0.72%) HTTP
13 9 (0.72%) VoIP
14 7 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
15 6 (0.48%) PuTTY
15 6 (0.48%) SSH
16 3 (0.24%) Unified Communications
17 2 (0.16%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (5.23%) Power BI
2 41 (3.30%) SQL Server
3 38 (3.05%) Relational Database
4 20 (1.61%) Data Warehouse
5 17 (1.37%) NoSQL
5 17 (1.37%) Power Query
6 16 (1.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 14 (1.13%) OLTP
8 10 (0.80%) Tableau
9 9 (0.72%) MySQL
9 9 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
10 7 (0.56%) PowerPivot
11 6 (0.48%) Big Data
11 6 (0.48%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.40%) Data Mining
13 4 (0.32%) Azure SQL Database
13 4 (0.32%) Metadata
14 3 (0.24%) Data Lake
14 3 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
14 3 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 51 (4.10%) Git
2 38 (3.05%) JIRA
3 25 (2.01%) Selenium
4 18 (1.45%) GitLab
5 15 (1.21%) Robot Framework
6 13 (1.05%) Snyk
7 10 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
8 8 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 7 (0.56%) Jenkins
10 5 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.32%) Postman
11 4 (0.32%) WebDriver
12 3 (0.24%) Appium
12 3 (0.24%) REST Assured
13 2 (0.16%) JMeter
13 2 (0.16%) LabVIEW
13 2 (0.16%) TestRail
14 1 (0.080%) Browser DevTools
14 1 (0.080%) Katalon Studio
14 1 (0.080%) MLflow
General
1 683 (54.90%) Social Skills
2 353 (28.38%) Analytical Skills
3 240 (19.29%) Finance
4 91 (7.32%) Manufacturing
4 91 (7.32%) Marketing
5 78 (6.27%) Retail
6 72 (5.79%) Organisational Skills
7 69 (5.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 44 (3.54%) Telecoms
9 42 (3.38%) Electronics
10 35 (2.81%) Public Sector
11 34 (2.73%) Legal
12 31 (2.49%) Law
13 26 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
14 16 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
15 14 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
16 11 (0.88%) Banking
16 11 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
17 9 (0.72%) Automotive
18 7 (0.56%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 202 (16.24%) Analyst
2 194 (15.59%) IT Support
3 186 (14.95%) Senior
4 173 (13.91%) Support Engineer
5 111 (8.92%) Developer
6 95 (7.64%) Support Analyst
7 78 (6.27%) Technical Support
8 77 (6.19%) IT Engineer
9 69 (5.55%) Lead
10 65 (5.23%) IT Support Engineer
11 62 (4.98%) 2nd Line Support
12 55 (4.42%) IT Analyst
13 54 (4.34%) IT Support Analyst
14 47 (3.78%) Technical Engineer
14 47 (3.78%) Technical Support Engineer
15 39 (3.14%) Senior Manager
16 36 (2.89%) Senior Analyst
17 34 (2.73%) Applications Support
17 34 (2.73%) Software Engineer
18 33 (2.65%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.82%) .NET
2 52 (4.18%) HTML
3 33 (2.65%) SOAP
4 29 (2.33%) CSS
4 29 (2.33%) React
5 28 (2.25%) REST
6 21 (1.69%) XML
7 19 (1.53%) .NET Framework
8 17 (1.37%) ASP.NET
9 15 (1.21%) Middleware
10 14 (1.13%) JSON
11 13 (1.05%) Entity Framework
11 13 (1.05%) Laravel
12 12 (0.96%) ARM Templates
12 12 (0.96%) WinForms
13 11 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
14 10 (0.80%) OLE
14 10 (0.80%) Visualforce
15 9 (0.72%) Node.js
15 9 (0.72%) SAP CO-PA
Miscellaneous
1 102 (8.20%) Onboarding
2 85 (6.83%) Driving Licence
3 67 (5.39%) Self-Motivation
4 44 (3.54%) Management Information System
5 41 (3.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 31 (2.49%) Product Ownership
7 29 (2.33%) Data Centre
8 22 (1.77%) Social Media
9 21 (1.69%) Low-Code
10 20 (1.61%) Cloud Native
11 17 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
12 12 (0.96%) Video Editing
13 11 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
14 10 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
14 10 (0.80%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.72%) Life Science
15 9 (0.72%) NHS
16 8 (0.64%) Algorithms
16 8 (0.64%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 238 (19.13%) Windows
2 79 (6.35%) Linux
3 74 (5.95%) Windows Server
4 26 (2.09%) Windows 10
5 25 (2.01%) Mac OS
6 17 (1.37%) Android
7 12 (0.96%) Windows Server 2012
8 11 (0.88%) CentOS
8 11 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 9 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.56%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.48%) VMS
12 5 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.32%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.24%) Unix
15 1 (0.080%) FreeBSD
15 1 (0.080%) OpenBSD
15 1 (0.080%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 262 (21.06%) Continuous Improvement
2 204 (16.40%) Customer Service
3 164 (13.18%) Agile
4 126 (10.13%) Analytics
5 123 (9.89%) DevOps
6 109 (8.76%) Project Management
7 96 (7.72%) Business Intelligence
8 95 (7.64%) Stakeholder Management
9 94 (7.56%) CI/CD
10 91 (7.32%) Computer Science
11 89 (7.15%) Decision-Making
12 87 (6.99%) ERP
13 83 (6.67%) Mentoring
14 82 (6.59%) Cybersecurity
15 77 (6.19%) Technical Leadership
16 76 (6.11%) AI
17 67 (5.39%) Software Engineering
18 66 (5.31%) Process Improvement
19 64 (5.14%) Data Modelling
19 64 (5.14%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 206 (16.56%) SQL
2 170 (13.67%) Python
3 79 (6.35%) C#
3 79 (6.35%) PowerShell
4 73 (5.87%) JavaScript
5 43 (3.46%) Java
6 27 (2.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 27 (2.17%) PHP
7 17 (1.37%) Bash
7 17 (1.37%) C++
7 17 (1.37%) PL/SQL
8 16 (1.29%) TypeScript
9 14 (1.13%) C
10 12 (0.96%) Bicep
10 12 (0.96%) T-SQL
11 11 (0.88%) Apex Code
12 9 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.72%) Perl
13 8 (0.64%) R
14 7 (0.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 253 (20.34%) Degree
2 84 (6.75%) Security Cleared
3 50 (4.02%) Computer Science Degree
4 42 (3.38%) ACCA
5 39 (3.14%) SC Cleared
6 34 (2.73%) CIMA
7 31 (2.49%) Microsoft Certification
8 28 (2.25%) DBS Check
9 26 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (1.77%) DV Cleared
10 22 (1.77%) HNC
11 21 (1.69%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 18 (1.45%) A+ Certification
13 13 (1.05%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.88%) Chartered Engineer
14 11 (0.88%) HND
15 9 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
16 8 (0.64%) City & Guilds
16 8 (0.64%) MCSE
17 7 (0.56%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (5.63%) QA
2 51 (4.10%) GDPR
3 48 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 26 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 23 (1.85%) SLA
6 21 (1.69%) Accessibility
7 11 (0.88%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.72%) NIST
9 6 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (0.48%) ISO 9001
10 5 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.32%) ITGC
12 3 (0.24%) ISO 13485
13 2 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.16%) WCAG
14 1 (0.080%) GAAP
14 1 (0.080%) GRC
14 1 (0.080%) IFRS
14 1 (0.080%) PMO
System Software
1 161 (12.94%) Active Directory
2 39 (3.14%) Hyper-V
3 37 (2.97%) Docker
4 35 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (0.64%) KVM
5 8 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.32%) Firmware
7 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.24%) XenApp
8 2 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.080%) RHEV
9 1 (0.080%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.080%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.080%) Xen
Systems Management
1 54 (4.34%) Terraform
2 41 (3.30%) Microsoft Intune
3 32 (2.57%) Kubernetes
4 29 (2.33%) Ansible
5 16 (1.29%) SCCM
6 12 (0.96%) vCenter Server
7 11 (0.88%) Grafana
7 11 (0.88%) Prometheus
7 11 (0.88%) ZABBIX
8 10 (0.80%) Nagios
9 2 (0.16%) Nessus
9 2 (0.16%) Netcool
9 2 (0.16%) Netcool/OMNIbus
9 2 (0.16%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.080%) CASB
10 1 (0.080%) Control-M
10 1 (0.080%) Dell DRAC
10 1 (0.080%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.080%) Kibana
10 1 (0.080%) Podman
Vendors
1 324 (26.05%) Microsoft
2 79 (6.35%) SAP
3 49 (3.94%) VMware
4 40 (3.22%) Veeam
5 39 (3.14%) Google
6 36 (2.89%) Adobe
7 35 (2.81%) Databricks
8 33 (2.65%) Sage
9 32 (2.57%) Oracle
10 27 (2.17%) Salesforce
11 24 (1.93%) HubSpot
12 20 (1.61%) NEC
13 17 (1.37%) ServiceNow
14 15 (1.21%) SolarWinds
15 14 (1.13%) Xamarin
16 13 (1.05%) Black Duck
16 13 (1.05%) Coverity
17 12 (0.96%) Cisco
18 11 (0.88%) Hootsuite
18 11 (0.88%) Instagram