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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,799 1,733 1,991
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.61% 19.40% 15.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.37% 22.07% 18.97%
Number of salaries quoted 1,270 872 941
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £30,870 £31,250 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,250 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.59% -15.00% -0.99%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £68,750 £77,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -14.29% -4.55%

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 13,452 7,853 10,495
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.86% 87.93% 81.05%
Number of salaries quoted 9,582 4,211 5,842
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,500 £41,024
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £69,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%

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 20 September 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 20 September 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 -7 681 £42,500 - 579
Hampshire -1 454 £40,000 -5.88% 322
Berkshire -6 306 £42,500 - 311
Surrey -1 266 £40,000 -4.19% 173
Buckinghamshire -5 198 £42,500 +13.33% 126
Kent -3 196 £35,000 +11.11% 75
Oxfordshire +3 177 £44,000 +1.15% 147
East Sussex -3 96 £50,000 - 74
West Sussex -7 81 £46,250 -8.42% 105
Middlesex +5 12 £35,000 -6.67% 15
Sussex -10 7 £65,000 +52.94% 16
Isle of Wight -11 2 £42,500 +3.66% 12
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 88 (4.89%) SharePoint
2 60 (3.34%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.00%) Confluence
4 16 (0.89%) IIS
5 11 (0.61%) CMS
6 7 (0.39%) OpenEdge
7 6 (0.33%) Apache
8 5 (0.28%) nginx
8 5 (0.28%) WordPress
9 3 (0.17%) SAS
10 2 (0.11%) Gentran
10 2 (0.11%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.056%) Anypoint
Applications
1 135 (7.50%) Microsoft Office
2 123 (6.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.11%) AutoCAD
4 17 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 10 (0.56%) MS Visio
8 9 (0.50%) Revit
9 6 (0.33%) Lightworks
9 6 (0.33%) Simulink
10 5 (0.28%) SOLIDWORKS
11 3 (0.17%) EPLAN
11 3 (0.17%) Mathematica
12 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.11%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.11%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.11%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
13 1 (0.056%) Mathcad
13 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 25 (1.39%) NetSuite
2 18 (1.00%) Shopify
3 17 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.39%) Primavera
5 6 (0.33%) Magento
5 6 (0.33%) Raiser’s Edge
6 3 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
6 3 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.17%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.11%) Academy Housing
7 2 (0.11%) Eloqua
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.056%) Adobe Campaign
8 1 (0.056%) C-CURE
8 1 (0.056%) HFM
8 1 (0.056%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.056%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 379 (21.07%) Azure
2 244 (13.56%) Microsoft 365
3 174 (9.67%) AWS
4 105 (5.84%) Power Platform
5 83 (4.61%) Entra ID
6 76 (4.22%) SaaS
7 49 (2.72%) GCP
8 41 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (1.83%) GitHub
10 31 (1.72%) Google Workspace
10 31 (1.72%) Serverless
11 20 (1.11%) OneDrive
12 19 (1.06%) Dynamics 365
13 18 (1.00%) Anthropic Claude
14 16 (0.89%) IaaS
14 16 (0.89%) PaaS
15 15 (0.83%) Google Tag Manager
16 14 (0.78%) Amazon ECS
17 13 (0.72%) Azure Monitor
17 13 (0.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 155 (8.62%) Firewall
2 86 (4.78%) DNS
3 69 (3.84%) VPN
4 64 (3.56%) DHCP
5 62 (3.45%) TCP/IP
6 58 (3.22%) VLAN
7 53 (2.95%) WAN
7 53 (2.95%) Wireless
8 52 (2.89%) Wi-Fi
9 51 (2.83%) LAN
10 37 (2.06%) Network Security
10 37 (2.06%) VoIP
11 18 (1.00%) SSL
12 14 (0.78%) Internet
13 11 (0.61%) MQTT
14 9 (0.50%) 5G
14 9 (0.50%) LTE
15 8 (0.44%) Ethernet
16 7 (0.39%) HTTP
16 7 (0.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (6.95%) SQL Server
2 87 (4.84%) Power BI
3 35 (1.95%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.67%) MySQL
5 29 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 17 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.56%) GIS
11 10 (0.56%) Tableau
12 9 (0.50%) MongoDB
13 8 (0.44%) Metadata
14 7 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.39%) DynamoDB
15 6 (0.33%) OLTP
16 5 (0.28%) Electronic Patient Records
16 5 (0.28%) Looker
16 5 (0.28%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 65 (3.61%) Git
2 63 (3.50%) JIRA
3 17 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
4 16 (0.89%) GitLab
5 14 (0.78%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
6 11 (0.61%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.33%) Selenium
8 5 (0.28%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.28%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.28%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.28%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.22%) PetaLinux
9 4 (0.22%) Postman
9 4 (0.22%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.17%) Mocha
10 3 (0.17%) PHPUnit
10 3 (0.17%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.11%) JUnit
General
1 930 (51.70%) Social Skills
2 488 (27.13%) Analytical Skills
3 286 (15.90%) Finance
4 175 (9.73%) Manufacturing
5 168 (9.34%) Organisational Skills
6 133 (7.39%) Aerospace
7 111 (6.17%) Electronics
8 99 (5.50%) Retail
9 66 (3.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (3.17%) Marketing
11 52 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
12 51 (2.83%) Legal
13 47 (2.61%) Telecoms
14 45 (2.50%) Public Sector
15 43 (2.39%) Military
16 39 (2.17%) Law
17 27 (1.50%) Aviation
17 27 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
18 23 (1.28%) Advertising
19 21 (1.17%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 256 (14.23%) Analyst
2 185 (10.28%) Senior
3 167 (9.28%) IT Support
4 154 (8.56%) Developer
5 134 (7.45%) Support Analyst
6 124 (6.89%) Support Engineer
7 92 (5.11%) IT Engineer
8 80 (4.45%) Lead
9 79 (4.39%) Technical Support
10 78 (4.34%) Systems Engineer
11 76 (4.22%) Support Technician
12 73 (4.06%) Software Engineer
13 63 (3.50%) IT Support Engineer
14 57 (3.17%) Technical Engineer
15 56 (3.11%) 2nd Line Support
16 55 (3.06%) IT Technician
16 55 (3.06%) Technical Support Engineer
17 53 (2.95%) IT Analyst
18 51 (2.83%) Consultant
19 49 (2.72%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (6.61%) .NET
2 78 (4.34%) Terraform
3 72 (4.00%) HTML
4 62 (3.45%) REST
5 54 (3.00%) CSS
6 53 (2.95%) ASP.NET
6 53 (2.95%) React
7 48 (2.67%) SOAP
8 35 (1.95%) ASP.NET Core
9 31 (1.72%) AngularJS
10 30 (1.67%) RESTful
11 28 (1.56%) JSON
11 28 (1.56%) OAuth
11 28 (1.56%) Vue
12 27 (1.50%) ModSecurity
12 27 (1.50%) XML
13 22 (1.22%) ASP.NET Web API
13 22 (1.22%) jQuery
14 21 (1.17%) ASP.NET Web Forms
14 21 (1.17%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 141 (7.84%) Driving Licence
2 127 (7.06%) Onboarding
3 100 (5.56%) Management Information System
4 89 (4.95%) Self-Motivation
5 64 (3.56%) Cloud Native
6 51 (2.83%) Product Ownership
7 41 (2.28%) Data Centre
8 34 (1.89%) Robotics
9 31 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.67%) Social Media
11 28 (1.56%) CCTV
12 27 (1.50%) Analogue Electronics
13 25 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
13 25 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
14 23 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
15 19 (1.06%) EPoS
16 18 (1.00%) Mobile App
16 18 (1.00%) Renewable Energy
17 17 (0.94%) Embedded Systems
18 16 (0.89%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 291 (16.18%) Windows
2 107 (5.95%) Linux
3 104 (5.78%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.45%) Android
5 21 (1.17%) Mac OS
6 20 (1.11%) Windows 10
7 19 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
8 17 (0.94%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.67%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.44%) CentOS
11 8 (0.44%) Debian
12 7 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 6 (0.33%) Rocky
13 6 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
15 3 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
15 3 (0.17%) Gentoo
15 3 (0.17%) Unix
15 3 (0.17%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 397 (22.07%) Continuous Improvement
2 348 (19.34%) Customer Service
3 235 (13.06%) Agile
4 216 (12.01%) Decision-Making
5 199 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 193 (10.73%) Project Management
7 188 (10.45%) AI
8 179 (9.95%) Project Delivery
9 170 (9.45%) Software Engineering
10 165 (9.17%) Collaborative Working
11 159 (8.84%) ITIL
12 155 (8.62%) CI/CD
13 147 (8.17%) Cybersecurity
14 144 (8.00%) Mentoring
15 141 (7.84%) Validation
16 139 (7.73%) DevOps
17 137 (7.62%) CRM
18 127 (7.06%) Computer Science
19 119 (6.61%) ERP
20 115 (6.39%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 228 (12.67%) SQL
2 196 (10.89%) Python
3 137 (7.62%) C#
4 113 (6.28%) JavaScript
5 94 (5.23%) PowerShell
6 68 (3.78%) C++
7 66 (3.67%) TypeScript
8 61 (3.39%) Java
9 26 (1.45%) Bash
10 25 (1.39%) C
11 22 (1.22%) T-SQL
12 21 (1.17%) Ruby
13 17 (0.94%) PHP
13 17 (0.94%) VB.NET
14 15 (0.83%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.56%) Rust
17 9 (0.50%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.39%) Bicep
18 7 (0.39%) Perl
Qualifications
1 360 (20.01%) Degree
2 197 (10.95%) Security Cleared
3 133 (7.39%) SC Cleared
4 118 (6.56%) DBS Check
5 65 (3.61%) Computer Science Degree
6 63 (3.50%) HNC
6 63 (3.50%) Microsoft Certification
7 60 (3.34%) HND
8 59 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 59 (3.28%) DV Cleared
9 55 (3.06%) Azure Certification
10 32 (1.78%) CISSP
11 31 (1.72%) PMI Certification
12 30 (1.67%) Master's Degree
13 29 (1.61%) A+ Certification
13 29 (1.61%) Chartered Engineer
14 27 (1.50%) CISM
15 24 (1.33%) PMP
16 23 (1.28%) AWS Certification
17 22 (1.22%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (8.17%) QA
2 70 (3.89%) GDPR
3 56 (3.11%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.67%) SLA
5 43 (2.39%) Accessibility
6 41 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 24 (1.33%) NIST
8 20 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (1.00%) DO-254
9 18 (1.00%) Good Clinical Practice
10 17 (0.94%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.89%) PMO
12 12 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.50%) GMP
13 9 (0.50%) SOC 2
14 8 (0.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.44%) GLP
14 8 (0.44%) GxP
14 8 (0.44%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 161 (8.95%) Active Directory
2 84 (4.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 63 (3.50%) Hyper-V
4 60 (3.34%) Docker
5 15 (0.83%) Firmware
6 9 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.50%) vSphere
7 6 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
7 6 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.28%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.28%) Squid
9 4 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.17%) KVM
11 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.056%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 68 (3.78%) Kubernetes
2 60 (3.34%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (1.72%) Ansible
4 22 (1.22%) SCCM
5 17 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.44%) Grafana
7 8 (0.44%) Podman
8 7 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.33%) Graylog
9 6 (0.33%) Nagios
9 6 (0.33%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.33%) Puppet
10 5 (0.28%) BMC PATROL
10 5 (0.28%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.22%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.22%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.17%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 2 (0.11%) Nessus
13 2 (0.11%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 559 (31.07%) Microsoft
2 100 (5.56%) VMware
3 79 (4.39%) Google
4 53 (2.95%) Oracle
5 46 (2.56%) SAP
6 40 (2.22%) Fortinet
6 40 (2.22%) SonicWALL
7 38 (2.11%) Veeam
8 37 (2.06%) Cisco
8 37 (2.06%) ServiceNow
9 31 (1.72%) Salesforce
10 23 (1.28%) Sage
11 21 (1.17%) Apple
12 20 (1.11%) Palo Alto
13 18 (1.00%) Mentor Graphics
14 16 (0.89%) Aruba
15 15 (0.83%) CA Agile Central
16 14 (0.78%) EMC
16 14 (0.78%) WatchGuard
17 13 (0.72%) Thales