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

6 months to
14 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 1,545 1,652 2,032
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.05% 18.76% 14.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.67% 21.30% 18.17%
Number of salaries quoted 1,127 843 1,224
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,150
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -11.46% -6.80%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £80,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -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 12,195 7,755 11,183
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.43% 88.04% 80.86%
Number of salaries quoted 8,693 4,161 7,287
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 £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 14 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 14 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 -5 563 £43,000 +1.18% 324
Hampshire -2 402 £42,500 -5.56% 197
Surrey 0 254 £42,500 +6.25% 101
Berkshire -3 250 £44,250 +4.12% 148
Buckinghamshire -6 177 £42,500 +13.33% 100
Kent -7 144 £37,500 +19.05% 77
Oxfordshire +1 136 £42,491 -5.58% 81
East Sussex -4 98 £50,000 - 35
West Sussex -7 72 £50,000 -0.99% 48
Middlesex +5 8 £50,000 +33.33% 15
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 (3.30%) SharePoint
2 45 (2.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.17%) CMS
3 18 (1.17%) Confluence
4 11 (0.71%) 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
1 104 (6.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 87 (5.63%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.58%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.52%) 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 (0.065%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.065%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.065%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 13 (0.84%) NetSuite
2 12 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.65%) Shopify
4 7 (0.45%) Magento
5 6 (0.39%) Primavera
5 6 (0.39%) 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 (0.065%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.065%) HFM
8 1 (0.065%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 366 (23.69%) Azure
2 174 (11.26%) Microsoft 365
3 166 (10.74%) AWS
4 85 (5.50%) Power Platform
5 63 (4.08%) SaaS
6 59 (3.82%) Entra ID
7 48 (3.11%) GCP
8 43 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (2.20%) GitHub
10 31 (2.01%) Serverless
11 21 (1.36%) IaaS
11 21 (1.36%) PaaS
12 20 (1.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 20 (1.29%) Google Workspace
13 18 (1.17%) Datadog
13 18 (1.17%) Dynamics 365
14 16 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
15 14 (0.91%) Amazon ECS
15 14 (0.91%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 128 (8.28%) Firewall
2 67 (4.34%) DNS
3 54 (3.50%) TCP/IP
3 54 (3.50%) VPN
4 47 (3.04%) WAN
5 46 (2.98%) DHCP
6 45 (2.91%) LAN
7 42 (2.72%) Wi-Fi
8 40 (2.59%) Wireless
9 34 (2.20%) VLAN
10 30 (1.94%) VoIP
11 27 (1.75%) Network Security
12 16 (1.04%) SSL
13 13 (0.84%) Internet
14 12 (0.78%) Broadband
15 11 (0.71%) HTTP
16 10 (0.65%) MQTT
17 9 (0.58%) LTE
18 6 (0.39%) WLAN
19 5 (0.32%) VSAT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (7.64%) SQL Server
2 73 (4.72%) Power BI
3 36 (2.33%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.88%) MySQL
4 29 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.62%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (0.84%) Tableau
9 12 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.65%) Data Lake
11 10 (0.65%) OLTP
12 8 (0.52%) DynamoDB
12 8 (0.52%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.45%) GIS
13 7 (0.45%) Looker
14 6 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
15 5 (0.32%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 75 (4.85%) Git
2 59 (3.82%) JIRA
3 29 (1.88%) GitLab
4 20 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
5 10 (0.65%) Claude Code
6 7 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.39%) Selenium
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.32%) Jenkins
9 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
9 4 (0.26%) Postman
9 4 (0.26%) Terragrunt
9 4 (0.26%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.19%) PetaLinux
10 3 (0.19%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.13%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.13%) JUnit
11 2 (0.13%) Mocha
General
1 754 (48.80%) Social Skills
2 450 (29.13%) Analytical Skills
3 222 (14.37%) Finance
4 124 (8.03%) Manufacturing
5 113 (7.31%) Organisational Skills
6 89 (5.76%) Aerospace
6 89 (5.76%) Electronics
7 67 (4.34%) Retail
8 58 (3.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 51 (3.30%) Telecoms
10 42 (2.72%) Marketing
11 41 (2.65%) Influencing Skills
12 39 (2.52%) Law
13 38 (2.46%) Legal
14 37 (2.39%) Public Sector
15 35 (2.27%) Military
16 29 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
17 22 (1.42%) Aviation
17 22 (1.42%) Local Government
18 16 (1.04%) Banking
Job Titles
1 211 (13.66%) Analyst
2 168 (10.87%) Senior
3 148 (9.58%) Developer
4 145 (9.39%) IT Support
5 117 (7.57%) Support Engineer
6 99 (6.41%) Support Analyst
7 87 (5.63%) IT Engineer
8 71 (4.60%) Lead
8 71 (4.60%) Systems Engineer
9 69 (4.47%) Software Engineer
10 67 (4.34%) Technical Support
11 63 (4.08%) Support Technician
12 54 (3.50%) IT Support Engineer
13 52 (3.37%) 2nd Line Support
14 50 (3.24%) Architect
15 48 (3.11%) Technical Engineer
15 48 (3.11%) Technical Support Engineer
16 45 (2.91%) IT Technician
17 41 (2.65%) Consultant
17 41 (2.65%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (6.86%) .NET
2 73 (4.72%) HTML
3 60 (3.88%) REST
4 54 (3.50%) CSS
5 51 (3.30%) React
5 51 (3.30%) SOAP
6 46 (2.98%) ASP.NET
7 36 (2.33%) OAuth
8 33 (2.14%) ASP.NET Core
9 30 (1.94%) JSON
10 29 (1.88%) AngularJS
11 28 (1.81%) RESTful
11 28 (1.81%) Vue
12 26 (1.68%) XML
13 21 (1.36%) SAML
14 20 (1.29%) ModSecurity
15 18 (1.17%) ASP.NET Web API
15 18 (1.17%) jQuery
16 17 (1.10%) Entity Framework
16 17 (1.10%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 114 (7.38%) Driving Licence
2 88 (5.70%) Onboarding
3 75 (4.85%) Management Information System
3 75 (4.85%) Self-Motivation
4 66 (4.27%) Cloud Native
5 43 (2.78%) Product Ownership
6 33 (2.14%) Data Centre
6 33 (2.14%) Social Media
7 29 (1.88%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
9 27 (1.75%) Robotics
10 26 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
11 18 (1.17%) Analogue Electronics
11 18 (1.17%) EPoS
11 18 (1.17%) NHS
12 15 (0.97%) CCTV
12 15 (0.97%) Mobile App
12 15 (0.97%) Renewable Energy
12 15 (0.97%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 241 (15.60%) Windows
2 113 (7.31%) Linux
3 87 (5.63%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.36%) Android
5 17 (1.10%) Mac OS
5 17 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (0.97%) CentOS
7 14 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.84%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.78%) Apple iOS
10 10 (0.65%) Windows 10
11 9 (0.58%) Debian
11 9 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.26%) Unix
13 3 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.19%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.19%) Rocky
13 3 (0.19%) VMS
13 3 (0.19%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (21.55%) Continuous Improvement
2 266 (17.22%) Customer Service
3 215 (13.92%) Agile
4 194 (12.56%) Decision-Making
5 169 (10.94%) CI/CD
6 167 (10.81%) AI
7 160 (10.36%) Project Management
8 159 (10.29%) Software Engineering
9 153 (9.90%) DevOps
10 150 (9.71%) Project Delivery
11 145 (9.39%) Stakeholder Management
12 142 (9.19%) ITIL
13 133 (8.61%) Mentoring
14 131 (8.48%) Validation
15 129 (8.35%) Cybersecurity
16 119 (7.70%) Collaborative Working
16 119 (7.70%) Computer Science
17 118 (7.64%) Analytics
18 104 (6.73%) Logistics
19 101 (6.54%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 222 (14.37%) SQL
2 216 (13.98%) Python
3 120 (7.77%) C#
4 101 (6.54%) JavaScript
5 92 (5.95%) PowerShell
6 60 (3.88%) C++
7 57 (3.69%) Java
8 56 (3.62%) TypeScript
9 37 (2.39%) Bash
10 31 (2.01%) C
11 22 (1.42%) PHP
12 16 (1.04%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.91%) Ruby
14 12 (0.78%) PL/SQL
14 12 (0.78%) Rust
14 12 (0.78%) VB.NET
15 11 (0.71%) Perl
16 8 (0.52%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.45%) Bicep
18 6 (0.39%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 306 (19.81%) Degree
2 161 (10.42%) Security Cleared
3 117 (7.57%) SC Cleared
4 98 (6.34%) DBS Check
5 64 (4.14%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 51 (3.30%) DV Cleared
7 51 (3.30%) Microsoft Certification
8 47 (3.04%) HNC
9 41 (2.65%) Azure Certification
10 34 (2.20%) HND
11 32 (2.07%) PMI Certification
12 27 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
13 26 (1.68%) CISSP
13 26 (1.68%) PMP
14 25 (1.62%) Master's Degree
15 21 (1.36%) ACCA
15 21 (1.36%) CISM
16 20 (1.29%) CIMA
16 20 (1.29%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (8.74%) QA
2 56 (3.62%) Data Quality
3 55 (3.56%) GDPR
4 44 (2.85%) SLA
5 33 (2.14%) Accessibility
6 28 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.17%) Good Clinical Practice
7 18 (1.17%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
8 17 (1.10%) NIST
9 14 (0.91%) PMO
10 10 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 10 (0.65%) DO-254
11 9 (0.58%) GMP
11 9 (0.58%) SOC 2
12 8 (0.52%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 8 (0.52%) GLP
12 8 (0.52%) GxP
12 8 (0.52%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 125 (8.09%) Active Directory
2 73 (4.72%) Docker
3 71 (4.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 57 (3.69%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.65%) Firmware
6 9 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.58%) vSphere
7 8 (0.52%) KVM
8 5 (0.32%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.32%) Squid
8 5 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.32%) XenApp
9 4 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.065%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.065%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 87 (5.63%) Terraform
2 83 (5.37%) Kubernetes
3 50 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 39 (2.52%) Ansible
5 23 (1.49%) SCCM
6 15 (0.97%) Grafana
7 14 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.78%) Prometheus
9 10 (0.65%) Nagios
10 9 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.52%) Podman
12 7 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.45%) Puppet
13 5 (0.32%) Graylog
13 5 (0.32%) ZABBIX
14 4 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
14 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
14 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
15 2 (0.13%) Nessus
15 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 440 (28.48%) Microsoft
2 80 (5.18%) VMware
3 61 (3.95%) Google
4 53 (3.43%) Oracle
5 37 (2.39%) Cisco
6 34 (2.20%) SAP
7 33 (2.14%) Fortinet
8 32 (2.07%) SonicWALL
9 31 (2.01%) Veeam
10 28 (1.81%) ServiceNow
11 26 (1.68%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.29%) Databricks
13 19 (1.23%) Sage
14 16 (1.04%) Aruba
14 16 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 14 (0.91%) Splunk
16 13 (0.84%) Instagram
16 13 (0.84%) Red Hat
17 12 (0.78%) Dynatrace
18 11 (0.71%) Okta