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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,415 1,579 2,357
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.88% 18.31% 15.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.39% 20.69% 18.52%
Number of salaries quoted 1,072 788 1,487
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £26,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,625 £33,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -12.49%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £82,500 £75,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £48,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -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 11,418 7,630 12,727
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.65% 88.48% 81.36%
Number of salaries quoted 8,151 4,019 8,685
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £38,000
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% -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 21 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 21 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 -7 528 £43,000 -1.77% 199
Hampshire -2 345 £40,500 -10.00% 126
Berkshire -3 243 £45,000 -5.26% 90
Surrey 0 242 £42,500 +3.98% 83
Buckinghamshire -7 168 £42,500 +13.33% 68
Kent -7 131 £33,500 +6.35% 42
Oxfordshire -1 117 £41,982 -16.04% 44
East Sussex -4 86 £50,000 - 29
West Sussex -7 72 £50,000 +6.38% 23
Middlesex +8 6 £50,000 +2.56% 11
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 46 (3.25%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.27%) CMS
3 18 (1.27%) Confluence
4 7 (0.49%) OpenEdge
5 6 (0.42%) Apache
6 5 (0.35%) IIS
6 5 (0.35%) WordPress
7 4 (0.28%) nginx
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 (0.071%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 102 (7.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 85 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.49%) 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 (0.071%) Revit
Business Applications
1 14 (0.99%) 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
6 2 (0.14%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.071%) Academy Housing
7 1 (0.071%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.071%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.071%) HFM
7 1 (0.071%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.071%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.071%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 327 (23.11%) Azure
2 162 (11.45%) Microsoft 365
3 146 (10.32%) AWS
4 85 (6.01%) Power Platform
5 62 (4.38%) SaaS
6 48 (3.39%) GCP
7 45 (3.18%) Entra ID
8 44 (3.11%) Azure DevOps
9 29 (2.05%) Serverless
10 26 (1.84%) GitHub
11 24 (1.70%) IaaS
11 24 (1.70%) PaaS
12 19 (1.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 19 (1.34%) Datadog
13 18 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
14 15 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
14 15 (1.06%) OpenShift
15 14 (0.99%) Amazon ECS
15 14 (0.99%) Google Workspace
16 13 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 127 (8.98%) Firewall
2 64 (4.52%) DNS
3 54 (3.82%) TCP/IP
4 52 (3.67%) VPN
5 50 (3.53%) WAN
6 49 (3.46%) LAN
7 42 (2.97%) Wireless
8 40 (2.83%) DHCP
9 36 (2.54%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (1.98%) VoIP
11 27 (1.91%) VLAN
12 21 (1.48%) Network Security
13 15 (1.06%) Broadband
14 13 (0.92%) Internet
15 12 (0.85%) SSL
16 9 (0.64%) HTTP
16 9 (0.64%) MQTT
17 7 (0.49%) LTE
17 7 (0.49%) Remote Desktop
18 6 (0.42%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (7.28%) SQL Server
2 72 (5.09%) Power BI
3 25 (1.77%) Relational Database
4 24 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (1.41%) NoSQL
6 18 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
7 17 (1.20%) MySQL
8 16 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.92%) Tableau
10 12 (0.85%) OLTP
10 12 (0.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 10 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.71%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.49%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.49%) Looker
12 7 (0.49%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.49%) Power Query
13 6 (0.42%) GIS
14 5 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 66 (4.66%) Git
2 53 (3.75%) JIRA
3 30 (2.12%) GitLab
4 20 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
5 6 (0.42%) Selenium
6 4 (0.28%) Claude Code
6 4 (0.28%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.28%) Eclipse RCP
6 4 (0.28%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.21%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.21%) PetaLinux
7 3 (0.21%) PHPUnit
7 3 (0.21%) Postman
7 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.14%) JMeter
8 2 (0.14%) JUnit
8 2 (0.14%) Mocha
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.14%) Subversion
8 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 691 (48.83%) Social Skills
2 389 (27.49%) Analytical Skills
3 214 (15.12%) Finance
4 108 (7.63%) Organisational Skills
5 87 (6.15%) Manufacturing
6 65 (4.59%) Electronics
7 59 (4.17%) Retail
7 59 (4.17%) Telecoms
8 49 (3.46%) Marketing
9 47 (3.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 40 (2.83%) Aerospace
11 36 (2.54%) Legal
12 35 (2.47%) Law
13 33 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
14 30 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
15 25 (1.77%) Public Sector
16 23 (1.63%) Local Government
17 18 (1.27%) Military
18 16 (1.13%) Banking
19 14 (0.99%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 200 (14.13%) Analyst
2 147 (10.39%) Senior
3 146 (10.32%) IT Support
4 134 (9.47%) Developer
5 125 (8.83%) Support Engineer
6 90 (6.36%) IT Engineer
7 86 (6.08%) Support Analyst
8 69 (4.88%) Systems Engineer
9 65 (4.59%) Software Engineer
10 64 (4.52%) Technical Support
11 62 (4.38%) Lead
12 60 (4.24%) Support Technician
13 56 (3.96%) IT Support Engineer
14 55 (3.89%) 2nd Line Support
15 50 (3.53%) Technical Engineer
15 50 (3.53%) Technical Support Engineer
16 42 (2.97%) IT Technician
17 36 (2.54%) Senior Developer
18 35 (2.47%) 1st Line Support
18 35 (2.47%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (6.43%) .NET
2 60 (4.24%) HTML
3 48 (3.39%) REST
4 46 (3.25%) SOAP
5 39 (2.76%) CSS
6 35 (2.47%) React
7 34 (2.40%) JSON
8 32 (2.26%) ASP.NET
9 30 (2.12%) XML
10 24 (1.70%) ASP.NET Core
10 24 (1.70%) OAuth
10 24 (1.70%) RESTful
11 20 (1.41%) Vue
12 18 (1.27%) AngularJS
13 17 (1.20%) RabbitMQ
14 16 (1.13%) ARM Templates
14 16 (1.13%) Middleware
15 15 (1.06%) HTML5
15 15 (1.06%) jQuery
15 15 (1.06%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 95 (6.71%) Driving Licence
2 73 (5.16%) Onboarding
2 73 (5.16%) Self-Motivation
3 65 (4.59%) Management Information System
4 51 (3.60%) Cloud Native
5 40 (2.83%) Product Ownership
6 31 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
7 27 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
8 19 (1.34%) Robotics
9 17 (1.20%) Data Centre
9 17 (1.20%) NHS
9 17 (1.20%) Social Media
10 15 (1.06%) EPoS
10 15 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.06%) Security Posture
11 14 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (0.92%) Clustering
12 13 (0.92%) Virtual Team
13 12 (0.85%) CCTV
13 12 (0.85%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 232 (16.40%) Windows
2 113 (7.99%) Linux
3 84 (5.94%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.48%) Mac OS
5 17 (1.20%) Android
6 16 (1.13%) CentOS
6 16 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
7 14 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
10 9 (0.64%) Windows 10
11 8 (0.57%) Debian
12 7 (0.49%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.21%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.21%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.21%) Unix
13 3 (0.21%) VMS
13 3 (0.21%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.071%) OpenBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 274 (19.36%) Continuous Improvement
2 248 (17.53%) Customer Service
3 186 (13.14%) Agile
4 163 (11.52%) CI/CD
5 154 (10.88%) Decision-Making
6 152 (10.74%) AI
7 148 (10.46%) DevOps
8 141 (9.96%) Software Engineering
9 140 (9.89%) Project Management
10 134 (9.47%) Project Delivery
11 128 (9.05%) ITIL
12 126 (8.90%) Cybersecurity
13 119 (8.41%) Collaborative Working
13 119 (8.41%) Stakeholder Management
14 115 (8.13%) Mentoring
15 111 (7.84%) Computer Science
16 107 (7.56%) Analytics
17 102 (7.21%) Business Intelligence
18 99 (7.00%) Logistics
19 90 (6.36%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 215 (15.19%) Python
2 213 (15.05%) SQL
3 112 (7.92%) C#
4 96 (6.78%) PowerShell
5 88 (6.22%) JavaScript
6 58 (4.10%) C++
7 56 (3.96%) Java
8 45 (3.18%) TypeScript
9 35 (2.47%) Bash
10 32 (2.26%) C
11 21 (1.48%) PHP
12 14 (0.99%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.92%) Ruby
14 12 (0.85%) Rust
14 12 (0.85%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.71%) Perl
16 9 (0.64%) Bicep
17 7 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.49%) VB.NET
18 6 (0.42%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 267 (18.87%) Degree
2 103 (7.28%) Security Cleared
3 91 (6.43%) DBS Check
4 73 (5.16%) SC Cleared
5 59 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 46 (3.25%) Microsoft Certification
7 34 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 34 (2.40%) HNC
8 27 (1.91%) ACCA
9 26 (1.84%) CIMA
10 25 (1.77%) Azure Certification
10 25 (1.77%) Chartered Engineer
11 24 (1.70%) PMI Certification
12 23 (1.63%) PMP
13 18 (1.27%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 17 (1.20%) A+ Certification
14 17 (1.20%) Master's Degree
15 16 (1.13%) HND
16 15 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
17 14 (0.99%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (7.77%) QA
2 55 (3.89%) Data Quality
3 47 (3.32%) GDPR
4 39 (2.76%) SLA
5 31 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.84%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.55%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.20%) Good Clinical Practice
8 17 (1.20%) NIST
9 13 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
10 12 (0.85%) PMO
11 11 (0.78%) SOC 2
12 7 (0.49%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 7 (0.49%) GLP
12 7 (0.49%) GMP
12 7 (0.49%) GxP
13 6 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 5 (0.35%) ISO 9001
15 4 (0.28%) ISO 26262
15 4 (0.28%) ITGC
System Software
1 120 (8.48%) Active Directory
2 72 (5.09%) Docker
3 58 (4.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 50 (3.53%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.57%) vSphere
6 7 (0.49%) Firmware
6 7 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.42%) KVM
8 5 (0.35%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.35%) XenApp
9 4 (0.28%) Squid
9 4 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.071%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.071%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.071%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.071%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 80 (5.65%) Terraform
2 77 (5.44%) Kubernetes
3 47 (3.32%) Microsoft Intune
4 36 (2.54%) Ansible
5 22 (1.55%) SCCM
6 16 (1.13%) Grafana
7 13 (0.92%) Prometheus
8 11 (0.78%) Nagios
9 8 (0.57%) Podman
10 7 (0.49%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.49%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.35%) Graylog
11 5 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
11 5 (0.35%) Puppet
12 4 (0.28%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.28%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.14%) Nessus
13 2 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (0.14%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 405 (28.62%) Microsoft
2 65 (4.59%) VMware
3 49 (3.46%) Google
4 41 (2.90%) Oracle
5 33 (2.33%) Cisco
6 30 (2.12%) Salesforce
7 29 (2.05%) Fortinet
8 26 (1.84%) Veeam
9 25 (1.77%) SonicWALL
10 22 (1.55%) Databricks
11 18 (1.27%) Instagram
11 18 (1.27%) Sage
11 18 (1.27%) SAP
11 18 (1.27%) ServiceNow
12 16 (1.13%) Aruba
12 16 (1.13%) Splunk
13 15 (1.06%) Palo Alto
13 15 (1.06%) Red Hat
14 13 (0.92%) Dynatrace
15 11 (0.78%) Adobe