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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,427 1,579 2,260
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.88% 18.36% 15.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.37% 20.79% 18.51%
Number of salaries quoted 1,071 801 1,399
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,750 £33,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -12.37%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £81,250 £75,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -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 11,540 7,594 12,210
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.78% 88.31% 81.30%
Number of salaries quoted 8,219 4,049 8,232
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,747 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £34,000 £38,087
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -11.29%

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 25 July 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 25 July 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 -7 532 £44,250 +1.72% 219
Hampshire -2 350 £41,250 -5.71% 133
Surrey 0 243 £42,500 +1.80% 83
Berkshire -3 243 £45,000 - 102
Buckinghamshire -7 169 £42,500 +13.33% 65
Kent -6 133 £35,000 +11.11% 51
Oxfordshire -2 120 £41,982 -17.28% 56
East Sussex -4 87 £50,000 - 30
West Sussex -7 72 £50,000 +5.26% 28
Middlesex +8 6 £50,000 +33.33% 14
Isle of Wight -12 1 £42,500 -22.73% 2
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 45 (3.15%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.33%) Confluence
4 18 (1.26%) CMS
5 7 (0.49%) Apache
5 7 (0.49%) OpenEdge
6 6 (0.42%) IIS
7 5 (0.35%) nginx
7 5 (0.35%) WordPress
8 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.21%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.21%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) Gentran
9 2 (0.14%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.070%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 103 (7.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 83 (5.82%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.35%) Lightworks
6 5 (0.35%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.21%) Simulink
9 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.070%) Revit
Business Applications
1 14 (0.98%) NetSuite
2 7 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.42%) Magento
3 6 (0.42%) Raiser’s Edge
4 4 (0.28%) Shopify
5 3 (0.21%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.14%) Sage X3
7 1 (0.070%) Academy Housing
7 1 (0.070%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.070%) HFM
7 1 (0.070%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.070%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.070%) Siebel CRM
7 1 (0.070%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 336 (23.55%) Azure
2 158 (11.07%) Microsoft 365
3 153 (10.72%) AWS
4 82 (5.75%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.48%) SaaS
6 49 (3.43%) GCP
7 46 (3.22%) Entra ID
8 44 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
9 29 (2.03%) GitHub
9 29 (2.03%) Serverless
10 24 (1.68%) IaaS
10 24 (1.68%) PaaS
11 19 (1.33%) Datadog
12 18 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 18 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
13 16 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
14 15 (1.05%) Google Workspace
14 15 (1.05%) OpenShift
15 14 (0.98%) Amazon ECS
16 13 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 123 (8.62%) Firewall
2 63 (4.41%) DNS
3 53 (3.71%) TCP/IP
4 52 (3.64%) VPN
5 49 (3.43%) WAN
6 48 (3.36%) LAN
7 39 (2.73%) DHCP
7 39 (2.73%) Wireless
8 37 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (1.96%) VoIP
10 27 (1.89%) VLAN
11 23 (1.61%) Network Security
12 15 (1.05%) Broadband
13 13 (0.91%) Internet
13 13 (0.91%) SSL
14 10 (0.70%) HTTP
15 9 (0.63%) MQTT
16 7 (0.49%) LTE
16 7 (0.49%) Remote Desktop
17 6 (0.42%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (7.43%) SQL Server
2 70 (4.91%) Power BI
3 28 (1.96%) Relational Database
4 27 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
5 21 (1.47%) MySQL
6 20 (1.40%) NoSQL
7 17 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
8 16 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.91%) Tableau
10 12 (0.84%) OLTP
10 12 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 10 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.70%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.49%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.49%) GIS
12 7 (0.49%) Looker
12 7 (0.49%) MongoDB
13 6 (0.42%) Power Query
14 5 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 70 (4.91%) Git
2 55 (3.85%) JIRA
3 30 (2.10%) GitLab
4 20 (1.40%) Rational DOORS
5 6 (0.42%) Selenium
6 5 (0.35%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.35%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.28%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.28%) Eclipse RCP
7 4 (0.28%) Postman
8 3 (0.21%) Android Studio
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
8 3 (0.21%) PetaLinux
8 3 (0.21%) PHPUnit
8 3 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
8 3 (0.21%) Terragrunt
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Appium
9 2 (0.14%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
General
1 695 (48.70%) Social Skills
2 402 (28.17%) Analytical Skills
3 219 (15.35%) Finance
4 109 (7.64%) Organisational Skills
5 91 (6.38%) Manufacturing
6 68 (4.77%) Electronics
7 59 (4.13%) Retail
7 59 (4.13%) Telecoms
8 50 (3.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 47 (3.29%) Aerospace
10 46 (3.22%) Marketing
11 38 (2.66%) Legal
12 37 (2.59%) Law
13 35 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
14 33 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
15 28 (1.96%) Public Sector
16 23 (1.61%) Local Government
17 18 (1.26%) Military
18 17 (1.19%) Banking
19 14 (0.98%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 201 (14.09%) Analyst
2 153 (10.72%) Senior
3 144 (10.09%) IT Support
4 135 (9.46%) Developer
5 122 (8.55%) Support Engineer
6 90 (6.31%) IT Engineer
7 87 (6.10%) Support Analyst
8 68 (4.77%) Systems Engineer
9 67 (4.70%) Software Engineer
10 64 (4.48%) Lead
11 63 (4.41%) Technical Support
12 59 (4.13%) Support Technician
13 56 (3.92%) IT Support Engineer
14 54 (3.78%) 2nd Line Support
15 48 (3.36%) Technical Engineer
15 48 (3.36%) Technical Support Engineer
16 42 (2.94%) IT Technician
17 40 (2.80%) Architect
18 38 (2.66%) Senior Developer
19 35 (2.45%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (6.66%) .NET
2 66 (4.63%) HTML
3 50 (3.50%) REST
4 47 (3.29%) SOAP
5 45 (3.15%) CSS
6 41 (2.87%) React
7 35 (2.45%) ASP.NET
8 34 (2.38%) JSON
9 30 (2.10%) XML
10 27 (1.89%) OAuth
11 26 (1.82%) ASP.NET Core
12 25 (1.75%) RESTful
13 22 (1.54%) Vue
14 21 (1.47%) AngularJS
15 17 (1.19%) RabbitMQ
16 16 (1.12%) ARM Templates
16 16 (1.12%) HTML5
16 16 (1.12%) Middleware
17 15 (1.05%) jQuery
17 15 (1.05%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 96 (6.73%) Driving Licence
2 74 (5.19%) Self-Motivation
3 73 (5.12%) Onboarding
4 65 (4.56%) Management Information System
5 55 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 40 (2.80%) Product Ownership
7 31 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
9 20 (1.40%) Robotics
9 20 (1.40%) Social Media
10 18 (1.26%) Data Centre
11 17 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
11 17 (1.19%) NHS
12 16 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (1.05%) EPoS
13 15 (1.05%) Security Posture
14 13 (0.91%) Analogue Electronics
14 13 (0.91%) CCTV
14 13 (0.91%) Clustering
14 13 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 231 (16.19%) Windows
2 115 (8.06%) Linux
3 83 (5.82%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.47%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.33%) Android
6 16 (1.12%) CentOS
6 16 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
7 14 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.84%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.70%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.63%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.56%) Debian
12 3 (0.21%) FreeRTOS
12 3 (0.21%) Gentoo
12 3 (0.21%) Unix
12 3 (0.21%) VMS
12 3 (0.21%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.070%) FreeBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 288 (20.18%) Continuous Improvement
2 245 (17.17%) Customer Service
3 194 (13.59%) Agile
4 166 (11.63%) CI/CD
5 160 (11.21%) Decision-Making
6 152 (10.65%) AI
6 152 (10.65%) DevOps
7 145 (10.16%) Software Engineering
8 140 (9.81%) Project Management
9 135 (9.46%) Project Delivery
10 130 (9.11%) ITIL
11 124 (8.69%) Stakeholder Management
12 123 (8.62%) Collaborative Working
12 123 (8.62%) Cybersecurity
13 119 (8.34%) Mentoring
14 109 (7.64%) Computer Science
15 105 (7.36%) Analytics
16 99 (6.94%) Logistics
17 98 (6.87%) Business Intelligence
18 97 (6.80%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 213 (14.93%) Python
2 212 (14.86%) SQL
3 114 (7.99%) C#
4 93 (6.52%) JavaScript
4 93 (6.52%) PowerShell
5 60 (4.20%) C++
6 56 (3.92%) Java
7 49 (3.43%) TypeScript
8 36 (2.52%) Bash
9 32 (2.24%) C
10 21 (1.47%) PHP
11 14 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.91%) Ruby
13 12 (0.84%) Rust
13 12 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 10 (0.70%) Perl
15 8 (0.56%) Bicep
15 8 (0.56%) VB.NET
16 7 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 6 (0.42%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 268 (18.78%) Degree
2 114 (7.99%) Security Cleared
3 91 (6.38%) DBS Check
4 81 (5.68%) SC Cleared
5 59 (4.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 48 (3.36%) Microsoft Certification
7 38 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (2.31%) HNC
9 29 (2.03%) ACCA
9 29 (2.03%) Azure Certification
10 28 (1.96%) CIMA
11 25 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
12 24 (1.68%) PMI Certification
12 24 (1.68%) PMP
13 19 (1.33%) DV Cleared
13 19 (1.33%) HND
13 19 (1.33%) Master's Degree
14 18 (1.26%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 16 (1.12%) A+ Certification
15 16 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (8.13%) QA
2 54 (3.78%) Data Quality
3 44 (3.08%) GDPR
4 40 (2.80%) SLA
5 30 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (1.96%) Accessibility
7 21 (1.47%) PCI DSS
8 18 (1.26%) Good Clinical Practice
9 17 (1.19%) NIST
10 14 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
11 13 (0.91%) PMO
12 11 (0.77%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.56%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.56%) GLP
13 8 (0.56%) GMP
13 8 (0.56%) GxP
14 7 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.42%) DO-254
16 5 (0.35%) ISO 9001
17 4 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 117 (8.20%) Active Directory
2 75 (5.26%) Docker
3 61 (4.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 50 (3.50%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.56%) Firmware
5 8 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (0.56%) vSphere
6 7 (0.49%) KVM
7 5 (0.35%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.35%) Squid
7 5 (0.35%) XenApp
8 4 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.070%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.070%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.070%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 81 (5.68%) Terraform
2 80 (5.61%) Kubernetes
3 48 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (2.59%) Ansible
5 22 (1.54%) SCCM
6 16 (1.12%) Grafana
7 13 (0.91%) Prometheus
8 11 (0.77%) Nagios
9 8 (0.56%) Podman
10 7 (0.49%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.49%) ZABBIX
11 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
12 5 (0.35%) Graylog
12 5 (0.35%) Puppet
12 5 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.28%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.14%) Nessus
14 2 (0.14%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 401 (28.10%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.77%) VMware
3 50 (3.50%) Google
4 43 (3.01%) Oracle
5 33 (2.31%) Cisco
6 30 (2.10%) Salesforce
7 29 (2.03%) Fortinet
8 26 (1.82%) SonicWALL
9 25 (1.75%) Veeam
10 21 (1.47%) Databricks
11 19 (1.33%) Sage
11 19 (1.33%) ServiceNow
12 16 (1.12%) Aruba
12 16 (1.12%) Instagram
12 16 (1.12%) SAP
13 15 (1.05%) Red Hat
13 15 (1.05%) Splunk
14 13 (0.91%) Dynatrace
14 13 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 9 (0.63%) Hootsuite