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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,182 1,443 2,833
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.18% 18.56% 16.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.34% 20.47% 19.88%
Number of salaries quoted 882 681 1,765
10th Percentile £26,520 £28,250 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -14.29%
75th Percentile £62,188 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £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 10,425 7,051 14,249
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 72.12% 90.70% 83.15%
Number of salaries quoted 7,167 3,288 10,009
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,375 £27,725
25th Percentile £39,000 £36,000 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £78,268
England median annual salary £60,000 £59,400 £55,000
% change year-on-year +1.01% +8.00% -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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -10 435 £47,500 -6.80% 180
Hampshire -4 273 £40,000 -5.88% 121
Berkshire -6 204 £46,575 -6.85% 79
Surrey -4 195 £42,500 +4.30% 72
Buckinghamshire -11 139 £47,750 -4.50% 61
Kent -4 122 £29,500 -4.84% 48
East Sussex -5 94 £57,500 +15.00% 11
Oxfordshire -4 92 £36,250 -34.09% 42
West Sussex -5 53 £56,465 +21.43% 19
Isle of Wight -13 3 £41,500 -24.55%
Middlesex +2 2 £35,000 -44.00% 21
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 34 (2.88%) SharePoint
2 29 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.35%) CMS
4 11 (0.93%) Confluence
5 10 (0.85%) IIS
6 7 (0.59%) OpenEdge
7 5 (0.42%) SAS
7 5 (0.42%) WordPress
8 3 (0.25%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.25%) Apache
8 3 (0.25%) govService
8 3 (0.25%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.17%) Gentran
10 1 (0.085%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.085%) nginx
10 1 (0.085%) Tomcat
Applications
1 89 (7.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 66 (5.58%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.68%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.51%) Photoshop
6 5 (0.42%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.085%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.085%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.085%) Lightworks
Business Applications
1 10 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
1 10 (0.85%) NetSuite
2 9 (0.76%) SAP CO
3 4 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (0.34%) Magento
3 4 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 2 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
4 2 (0.17%) Q-Pulse
4 2 (0.17%) Sage 200
4 2 (0.17%) Shopify
5 1 (0.085%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.085%) HFM
5 1 (0.085%) PeopleSoft HRMS
5 1 (0.085%) Raiser’s Edge
5 1 (0.085%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.085%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 271 (22.93%) Azure
2 124 (10.49%) Microsoft 365
3 110 (9.31%) AWS
4 81 (6.85%) Power Platform
5 54 (4.57%) Azure DevOps
6 53 (4.48%) SaaS
7 36 (3.05%) GCP
8 30 (2.54%) IaaS
8 30 (2.54%) PaaS
9 27 (2.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 22 (1.86%) Entra ID
11 19 (1.61%) Google Workspace
11 19 (1.61%) Serverless
12 18 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
13 16 (1.35%) Azure Logic Apps
13 16 (1.35%) GitHub
14 15 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (1.27%) Datadog
14 15 (1.27%) Mimecast
14 15 (1.27%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 77 (6.51%) Firewall
2 62 (5.25%) DNS
3 36 (3.05%) DHCP
3 36 (3.05%) TCP/IP
4 28 (2.37%) VPN
5 25 (2.12%) WAN
6 24 (2.03%) Wireless
7 22 (1.86%) LAN
8 20 (1.69%) Broadband
9 14 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (1.10%) VLAN
10 13 (1.10%) VoIP
11 12 (1.02%) Network Security
12 11 (0.93%) HTTP
13 7 (0.59%) Remote Desktop
13 7 (0.59%) SSL
14 6 (0.51%) PuTTY
14 6 (0.51%) SAN
14 6 (0.51%) SSH
15 5 (0.42%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (6.51%) SQL Server
2 62 (5.25%) Power BI
3 24 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (1.69%) Relational Database
6 18 (1.52%) OLTP
7 16 (1.35%) NoSQL
8 12 (1.02%) MySQL
8 12 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 12 (1.02%) Tableau
9 11 (0.93%) Power Query
10 7 (0.59%) Data Lake
10 7 (0.59%) Looker
10 7 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 6 (0.51%) GIS
12 5 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
12 5 (0.42%) Big Data
12 5 (0.42%) Data Mining
12 5 (0.42%) Hadoop
13 3 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 58 (4.91%) Git
2 40 (3.38%) JIRA
3 28 (2.37%) GitLab
4 23 (1.95%) Rational DOORS
5 7 (0.59%) Selenium
6 5 (0.42%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.25%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.25%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.25%) Postman
8 2 (0.17%) Appium
8 2 (0.17%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.17%) JMeter
8 2 (0.17%) JUnit
8 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
8 2 (0.17%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.17%) Snyk
8 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
9 1 (0.085%) PHPUnit
9 1 (0.085%) WebDriver
General
1 575 (48.65%) Social Skills
2 345 (29.19%) Analytical Skills
3 184 (15.57%) Finance
4 79 (6.68%) Organisational Skills
5 61 (5.16%) Marketing
6 60 (5.08%) Manufacturing
7 49 (4.15%) Telecoms
8 48 (4.06%) Electronics
9 46 (3.89%) Retail
10 42 (3.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 31 (2.62%) Aerospace
12 30 (2.54%) Public Sector
13 29 (2.45%) Law
14 22 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
15 20 (1.69%) Legal
16 15 (1.27%) Local Government
17 14 (1.18%) Military
18 13 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
18 13 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
19 11 (0.93%) Aeronautics
Job Titles
1 157 (13.28%) Analyst
2 134 (11.34%) IT Support
3 128 (10.83%) Developer
4 123 (10.41%) Senior
5 114 (9.64%) Support Engineer
6 70 (5.92%) IT Engineer
7 67 (5.67%) Support Analyst
8 62 (5.25%) Systems Engineer
9 51 (4.31%) Technical Support
10 48 (4.06%) Software Engineer
10 48 (4.06%) Support Technician
11 47 (3.98%) IT Support Engineer
12 46 (3.89%) Lead
13 44 (3.72%) 2nd Line Support
13 44 (3.72%) Architect
14 38 (3.21%) IT Technician
15 37 (3.13%) Technical Engineer
15 37 (3.13%) Technical Support Engineer
16 36 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 32 (2.71%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (6.18%) .NET
2 56 (4.74%) HTML
3 49 (4.15%) SOAP
4 40 (3.38%) REST
5 34 (2.88%) XML
6 33 (2.79%) CSS
6 33 (2.79%) JSON
7 26 (2.20%) React
8 21 (1.78%) Middleware
9 18 (1.52%) OAuth
10 16 (1.35%) Laravel
11 15 (1.27%) ASP.NET
11 15 (1.27%) CSS3
11 15 (1.27%) HTML5
11 15 (1.27%) RabbitMQ
12 14 (1.18%) jQuery
12 14 (1.18%) RESTful
13 13 (1.10%) Ajax
13 13 (1.10%) Sass
14 12 (1.02%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 70 (5.92%) Driving Licence
2 58 (4.91%) Onboarding
2 58 (4.91%) Self-Motivation
3 52 (4.40%) Management Information System
4 38 (3.21%) Product Ownership
5 37 (3.13%) Cloud Native
6 33 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
8 22 (1.86%) Low-Code
9 17 (1.44%) Social Media
10 16 (1.35%) NHS
11 14 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
11 14 (1.18%) Robotics
12 11 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (0.93%) Video Editing
13 10 (0.85%) Algorithms
13 10 (0.85%) Client/Server
14 9 (0.76%) Cyber Defence
14 9 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
14 9 (0.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 176 (14.89%) Windows
2 101 (8.54%) Linux
3 63 (5.33%) Windows Server
4 23 (1.95%) Android
5 19 (1.61%) CentOS
6 18 (1.52%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
9 12 (1.02%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.76%) VMS
10 9 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.68%) Apple iOS
12 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.25%) Debian
14 2 (0.17%) Unix
14 2 (0.17%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.085%) Embedded Linux
15 1 (0.085%) FreeBSD
15 1 (0.085%) OpenBSD
15 1 (0.085%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 233 (19.71%) Continuous Improvement
2 201 (17.01%) Customer Service
3 170 (14.38%) Agile
4 141 (11.93%) DevOps
5 140 (11.84%) CI/CD
6 117 (9.90%) Decision-Making
6 117 (9.90%) Software Engineering
7 110 (9.31%) Computer Science
8 108 (9.14%) Analytics
9 107 (9.05%) AI
10 93 (7.87%) Business Intelligence
11 92 (7.78%) Project Management
12 90 (7.61%) Mentoring
13 83 (7.02%) Cybersecurity
14 82 (6.94%) Project Delivery
15 81 (6.85%) CRM
16 80 (6.77%) Data Modelling
17 74 (6.26%) ITIL
18 73 (6.18%) ERP
19 72 (6.09%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 206 (17.43%) Python
2 193 (16.33%) SQL
3 97 (8.21%) C#
4 85 (7.19%) JavaScript
5 65 (5.50%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.48%) Java
7 37 (3.13%) C++
8 30 (2.54%) PHP
9 27 (2.28%) C
10 26 (2.20%) TypeScript
11 25 (2.12%) Bash
12 21 (1.78%) PL/SQL
13 15 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.93%) Perl
14 11 (0.93%) Rust
15 9 (0.76%) Ruby
16 8 (0.68%) Apex Code
17 7 (0.59%) Bicep
17 7 (0.59%) R
17 7 (0.59%) Scala
Qualifications
1 238 (20.14%) Degree
2 85 (7.19%) Security Cleared
3 57 (4.82%) DBS Check
4 55 (4.65%) SC Cleared
5 50 (4.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 38 (3.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 34 (2.88%) ACCA
8 33 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
9 32 (2.71%) CIMA
10 29 (2.45%) HNC
11 25 (2.12%) Chartered Engineer
12 23 (1.95%) A+ Certification
13 18 (1.52%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 16 (1.35%) Master's Degree
15 14 (1.18%) DV Cleared
16 13 (1.10%) Azure Certification
16 13 (1.10%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.85%) HND
17 10 (0.85%) PMP
18 9 (0.76%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (7.36%) QA
2 59 (4.99%) Data Quality
3 46 (3.89%) GDPR
4 39 (3.30%) SLA
5 23 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.52%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.27%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.93%) NIST
9 8 (0.68%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (0.51%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.42%) Good Clinical Practice
12 4 (0.34%) Def Stans
12 4 (0.34%) ISO 26262
12 4 (0.34%) ITGC
12 4 (0.34%) PMO
13 3 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 2 (0.17%) GRC
14 2 (0.17%) IFRS
System Software
1 100 (8.46%) Active Directory
2 51 (4.31%) Docker
3 45 (3.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (2.88%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.85%) KVM
6 7 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.42%) Firmware
7 5 (0.42%) XenApp
8 4 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.25%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.17%) ClearTrust
10 2 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.17%) vSphere
11 1 (0.085%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.085%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.085%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.085%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 63 (5.33%) Terraform
2 62 (5.25%) Kubernetes
3 31 (2.62%) Ansible
4 26 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (1.35%) SCCM
6 15 (1.27%) Grafana
7 12 (1.02%) Prometheus
8 11 (0.93%) Nagios
9 7 (0.59%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.59%) ZABBIX
10 4 (0.34%) Docker Swarm
10 4 (0.34%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.34%) Graylog
10 4 (0.34%) Podman
11 3 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
11 3 (0.25%) Puppet
12 2 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.17%) Nessus
13 1 (0.085%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.085%) Packer
Vendors
1 317 (26.82%) Microsoft
2 50 (4.23%) VMware
3 44 (3.72%) Oracle
4 38 (3.21%) Databricks
4 38 (3.21%) Google
5 27 (2.28%) Salesforce
6 24 (2.03%) Veeam
7 20 (1.69%) SAP
8 18 (1.52%) Adobe
8 18 (1.52%) Instagram
9 17 (1.44%) Cisco
10 15 (1.27%) Red Hat
11 13 (1.10%) Splunk
12 12 (1.02%) Fortinet
12 12 (1.02%) Sage
12 12 (1.02%) SolarWinds
13 11 (0.93%) Dynatrace
13 11 (0.93%) Hootsuite
13 11 (0.93%) Wrike
14 10 (0.85%) SonicWALL