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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,188 1,200 2,570
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.64% 16.92% 17.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.72% 18.79% 20.86%
Number of salaries quoted 909 665 1,601
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,100 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £35,000 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,967 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.71% +13.26% -14.29%
75th Percentile £60,000 £70,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £45,249 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -17.73% +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 9,337 6,388 12,318
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 75.76% 90.07% 85.41%
Number of salaries quoted 5,911 3,270 9,109
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £72,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £78,364
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +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 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 18 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 -3 436 £45,000 -20.37% 224
Hampshire 0 252 £38,500 -23.00% 136
Berkshire -1 219 £45,000 -30.77% 126
Surrey -11 198 £40,000 -25.73% 80
Buckinghamshire -6 147 £48,500 -15.65% 56
Kent -9 124 £30,000 -11.76% 53
East Sussex 0 88 £80,000 +60.00% 26
Oxfordshire -6 70 £34,000 -20.00% 45
West Sussex 0 57 £57,500 +21.05% 22
Middlesex -5 17 £47,500 -24.00% 18
Isle of Wight +5 12 £43,500 -20.91% 2
Sussex -17 1 £30,000 +5.26% 8
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 41 (3.45%) SharePoint
2 37 (3.11%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.60%) IIS
4 18 (1.52%) CMS
5 12 (1.01%) WordPress
6 8 (0.67%) Confluence
7 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.25%) govService
7 3 (0.25%) SAS
8 2 (0.17%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.17%) Apache
8 2 (0.17%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.084%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.084%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.084%) nginx
Applications
1 103 (8.67%) Microsoft Office
2 76 (6.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.01%) Photoshop
5 10 (0.84%) Adobe Illustrator
6 8 (0.67%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 8 (0.67%) MS Visio
7 7 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.25%) Adobe XD
8 3 (0.25%) InDesign
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.17%) Elementor
10 1 (0.084%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.084%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.084%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 9 (0.76%) SAP CO
2 8 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.67%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.42%) SAP Hybris
4 4 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.25%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.17%) Magento
6 2 (0.17%) Q-Pulse
6 2 (0.17%) Sage 200
7 1 (0.084%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.084%) PeopleSoft HRMS
7 1 (0.084%) Raiser’s Edge
7 1 (0.084%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.084%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.084%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 230 (19.36%) Azure
2 151 (12.71%) Microsoft 365
3 85 (7.15%) AWS
4 84 (7.07%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
6 60 (5.05%) SaaS
7 38 (3.20%) GCP
8 34 (2.86%) Entra ID
9 26 (2.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 24 (2.02%) PaaS
11 23 (1.94%) IaaS
12 20 (1.68%) Mimecast
13 19 (1.60%) GitHub
13 19 (1.60%) Google Workspace
14 17 (1.43%) Azure Logic Apps
15 16 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
15 16 (1.35%) Figma
16 13 (1.09%) OpenShift
17 12 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
17 12 (1.01%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 82 (6.90%) DNS
2 66 (5.56%) Firewall
3 49 (4.12%) DHCP
4 39 (3.28%) TCP/IP
5 36 (3.03%) VPN
6 23 (1.94%) Wireless
7 19 (1.60%) VLAN
8 16 (1.35%) Broadband
8 16 (1.35%) WAN
9 13 (1.09%) LAN
10 11 (0.93%) HTTP
10 11 (0.93%) Intranet
10 11 (0.93%) SAN
11 9 (0.76%) VoIP
12 8 (0.67%) Remote Desktop
13 7 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
14 6 (0.51%) PuTTY
14 6 (0.51%) SSH
15 3 (0.25%) Unified Communications
16 2 (0.17%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (5.39%) Power BI
2 42 (3.54%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.78%) Relational Database
4 22 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
5 19 (1.60%) Power Query
6 16 (1.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 15 (1.26%) OLTP
8 14 (1.18%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.84%) MySQL
9 10 (0.84%) Tableau
10 8 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
11 7 (0.59%) PowerPivot
12 6 (0.51%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.42%) Big Data
13 5 (0.42%) Data Lake
13 5 (0.42%) Data Mining
14 4 (0.34%) Azure SQL Database
15 3 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
15 3 (0.25%) Metadata
15 3 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 54 (4.55%) Git
2 38 (3.20%) JIRA
3 24 (2.02%) GitLab
3 24 (2.02%) Selenium
4 15 (1.26%) Robot Framework
5 13 (1.09%) Snyk
6 11 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
7 8 (0.67%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.59%) Jenkins
9 4 (0.34%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.34%) Postman
10 3 (0.25%) Appium
10 3 (0.25%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.25%) WebDriver
11 2 (0.17%) JMeter
11 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
11 2 (0.17%) TestRail
12 1 (0.084%) Browser DevTools
12 1 (0.084%) JUnit
12 1 (0.084%) Katalon Studio
General
1 611 (51.43%) Social Skills
2 333 (28.03%) Analytical Skills
3 185 (15.57%) Finance
4 75 (6.31%) Organisational Skills
5 73 (6.14%) Marketing
5 73 (6.14%) Retail
6 71 (5.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 59 (4.97%) Manufacturing
8 51 (4.29%) Telecoms
9 39 (3.28%) Electronics
10 35 (2.95%) Public Sector
11 34 (2.86%) Legal
12 30 (2.53%) Law
13 25 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
14 16 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
15 14 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
16 11 (0.93%) Banking
16 11 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
17 8 (0.67%) Local Government
18 6 (0.51%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 184 (15.49%) IT Support
2 176 (14.81%) Support Engineer
3 172 (14.48%) Analyst
4 123 (10.35%) Senior
5 110 (9.26%) Developer
6 87 (7.32%) Support Analyst
7 82 (6.90%) IT Engineer
8 70 (5.89%) Technical Support
9 68 (5.72%) IT Support Engineer
10 59 (4.97%) 2nd Line Support
11 50 (4.21%) Lead
12 49 (4.12%) Technical Engineer
12 49 (4.12%) Technical Support Engineer
13 48 (4.04%) IT Analyst
14 47 (3.96%) IT Support Analyst
15 39 (3.28%) Software Engineer
16 37 (3.11%) Architect
17 33 (2.78%) IT Technician
17 33 (2.78%) Project Engineer
18 32 (2.69%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (5.05%) .NET
2 50 (4.21%) HTML
3 31 (2.61%) SOAP
4 28 (2.36%) React
5 26 (2.19%) CSS
5 26 (2.19%) REST
6 22 (1.85%) XML
7 19 (1.60%) .NET Framework
8 17 (1.43%) ASP.NET
8 17 (1.43%) JSON
9 15 (1.26%) Middleware
10 14 (1.18%) Laravel
11 13 (1.09%) Entity Framework
11 13 (1.09%) Lightning Web Components
12 12 (1.01%) ARM Templates
12 12 (1.01%) Visualforce
12 12 (1.01%) WinForms
13 11 (0.93%) OLE
14 9 (0.76%) OAuth
14 9 (0.76%) SAP CO-PA
Miscellaneous
1 92 (7.74%) Onboarding
2 86 (7.24%) Driving Licence
3 65 (5.47%) Self-Motivation
4 41 (3.45%) Management Information System
5 32 (2.69%) Product Ownership
6 23 (1.94%) Social Media
7 22 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
7 22 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
8 21 (1.77%) Cloud Native
9 20 (1.68%) Low-Code
10 12 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
10 12 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
10 12 (1.01%) Video Editing
11 10 (0.84%) Client/Server
11 10 (0.84%) Security Operations Centre
11 10 (0.84%) Video Conferencing
12 9 (0.76%) IoT
12 9 (0.76%) Life Science
12 9 (0.76%) NHS
13 7 (0.59%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 226 (19.02%) Windows
2 88 (7.41%) Linux
3 68 (5.72%) Windows Server
4 25 (2.10%) Mac OS
5 23 (1.94%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.43%) Android
7 14 (1.18%) CentOS
7 14 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.59%) VMS
11 6 (0.51%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.34%) Unix
14 1 (0.084%) Debian
14 1 (0.084%) FreeBSD
14 1 (0.084%) OpenBSD
14 1 (0.084%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 241 (20.29%) Continuous Improvement
2 207 (17.42%) Customer Service
3 164 (13.80%) Agile
4 133 (11.20%) DevOps
5 111 (9.34%) Analytics
6 106 (8.92%) CI/CD
7 97 (8.16%) Business Intelligence
8 95 (8.00%) Decision-Making
9 93 (7.83%) Project Management
10 92 (7.74%) Computer Science
11 87 (7.32%) Mentoring
12 77 (6.48%) AI
13 75 (6.31%) Stakeholder Management
14 74 (6.23%) Cybersecurity
15 71 (5.98%) Software Engineering
16 70 (5.89%) CRM
17 68 (5.72%) Collaborative Culture
18 64 (5.39%) ITIL
18 64 (5.39%) Process Improvement
19 63 (5.30%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 189 (15.91%) SQL
2 181 (15.24%) Python
3 74 (6.23%) C#
3 74 (6.23%) PowerShell
4 72 (6.06%) JavaScript
5 45 (3.79%) Java
6 28 (2.36%) PHP
7 27 (2.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 21 (1.77%) Bash
8 21 (1.77%) C++
9 20 (1.68%) C
10 18 (1.52%) PL/SQL
11 17 (1.43%) TypeScript
12 13 (1.09%) Apex Code
13 12 (1.01%) Bicep
13 12 (1.01%) T-SQL
14 11 (0.93%) Perl
15 9 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.76%) Rust
16 8 (0.67%) R
Qualifications
1 244 (20.54%) Degree
2 75 (6.31%) Security Cleared
3 51 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 46 (3.87%) ACCA
5 38 (3.20%) CIMA
6 36 (3.03%) SC Cleared
7 33 (2.78%) DBS Check
8 30 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
9 27 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (1.85%) DV Cleared
10 22 (1.85%) HNC
11 21 (1.77%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 17 (1.43%) A+ Certification
13 12 (1.01%) Chartered Engineer
14 9 (0.76%) HND
14 9 (0.76%) Master's Degree
15 8 (0.67%) City & Guilds
15 8 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
15 8 (0.67%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 7 (0.59%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (5.81%) QA
2 52 (4.38%) Data Quality
3 49 (4.12%) GDPR
4 24 (2.02%) SLA
5 22 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 19 (1.60%) Accessibility
7 12 (1.01%) PCI DSS
8 10 (0.84%) NIST
9 5 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.34%) ISO 9001
10 4 (0.34%) ITGC
11 3 (0.25%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
13 1 (0.084%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.084%) GAAP
13 1 (0.084%) IFRS
13 1 (0.084%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 1 (0.084%) PMO
13 1 (0.084%) WCAG
System Software
1 150 (12.63%) Active Directory
2 39 (3.28%) Docker
3 37 (3.11%) Hyper-V
4 34 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.84%) KVM
6 7 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.42%) Firmware
7 5 (0.42%) XenApp
8 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.084%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.084%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.084%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 55 (4.63%) Terraform
2 38 (3.20%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.20%) Microsoft Intune
3 32 (2.69%) Ansible
4 17 (1.43%) SCCM
5 14 (1.18%) Grafana
5 14 (1.18%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.93%) vCenter Server
6 11 (0.93%) ZABBIX
7 10 (0.84%) Nagios
8 2 (0.17%) Nessus
8 2 (0.17%) Netcool
8 2 (0.17%) Netcool/OMNIbus
8 2 (0.17%) Puppet
9 1 (0.084%) Control-M
9 1 (0.084%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.084%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.084%) Kibana
9 1 (0.084%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.084%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 322 (27.10%) Microsoft
2 45 (3.79%) VMware
3 40 (3.37%) Google
4 39 (3.28%) Databricks
5 37 (3.11%) Veeam
6 36 (3.03%) SAP
7 35 (2.95%) Adobe
8 33 (2.78%) Sage
9 31 (2.61%) Salesforce
10 29 (2.44%) Oracle
11 24 (2.02%) HubSpot
12 20 (1.68%) NEC
13 17 (1.43%) ServiceNow
14 14 (1.18%) Red Hat
14 14 (1.18%) Xamarin
15 13 (1.09%) Black Duck
15 13 (1.09%) Coverity
15 13 (1.09%) Dynatrace
15 13 (1.09%) SolarWinds
16 12 (1.01%) Cisco