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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +3 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,168 1,228 2,702
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.12% 17.64% 16.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.12% 19.67% 19.66%
Number of salaries quoted 882 678 1,755
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,750 £32,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £62,500 £70,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +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 10,500 6,243 13,743
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 72.98% 89.66% 84.55%
Number of salaries quoted 6,733 3,359 9,881
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £37,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £78,410
England median annual salary £59,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -1.67% +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 26 April 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 26 April 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 -6 448 £47,500 -13.64% 185
Hampshire -5 246 £40,000 -20.00% 134
Berkshire -2 226 £45,000 -30.77% 80
Surrey -13 186 £40,000 -23.81% 62
Buckinghamshire -12 141 £52,500 +3.01% 59
Kent -12 118 £29,500 -9.23% 52
East Sussex -1 102 £60,250 +20.50% 11
Oxfordshire -9 81 £34,000 -22.37% 49
West Sussex -1 54 £57,500 +23.66% 23
Isle of Wight -4 7 £43,500 -20.91%
Middlesex +3 3 £47,500 -22.45% 16
Sussex -15 1 £30,000 +5.26% 6
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 31 (2.65%) SharePoint
2 29 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.28%) CMS
4 10 (0.86%) IIS
5 6 (0.51%) Confluence
6 5 (0.43%) WordPress
7 4 (0.34%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.26%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.26%) govService
9 2 (0.17%) Apache
9 2 (0.17%) Gentran
9 2 (0.17%) SAS
10 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.086%) nginx
Applications
1 86 (7.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 82 (7.02%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.77%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.60%) Photoshop
5 7 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.51%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.34%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.086%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.086%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.086%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.086%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.086%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.086%) Elementor
Business Applications
1 12 (1.03%) NetSuite
2 10 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.77%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.34%) Magento
5 3 (0.26%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
6 2 (0.17%) Q-Pulse
6 2 (0.17%) Sage 200
6 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.086%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.086%) HFM
7 1 (0.086%) PeopleSoft HRMS
7 1 (0.086%) Raiser’s Edge
7 1 (0.086%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 236 (20.21%) Azure
2 120 (10.27%) Microsoft 365
3 90 (7.71%) Power Platform
4 85 (7.28%) AWS
5 59 (5.05%) SaaS
6 49 (4.20%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (2.74%) GCP
8 30 (2.57%) IaaS
8 30 (2.57%) PaaS
9 29 (2.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 25 (2.14%) Entra ID
11 20 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
11 20 (1.71%) Google Workspace
12 19 (1.63%) Mimecast
13 17 (1.46%) Azure Data Factory
13 17 (1.46%) Azure Logic Apps
14 15 (1.28%) GitHub
14 15 (1.28%) OpenShift
15 14 (1.20%) Datadog
16 12 (1.03%) Asana
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.31%) Firewall
2 60 (5.14%) DNS
3 32 (2.74%) DHCP
4 29 (2.48%) TCP/IP
5 25 (2.14%) VPN
6 22 (1.88%) Wireless
7 21 (1.80%) Broadband
8 18 (1.54%) WAN
9 16 (1.37%) LAN
10 14 (1.20%) VoIP
11 12 (1.03%) HTTP
12 11 (0.94%) Intranet
13 8 (0.68%) SAN
14 7 (0.60%) Remote Desktop
14 7 (0.60%) VLAN
15 6 (0.51%) PuTTY
15 6 (0.51%) SSH
15 6 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
16 4 (0.34%) SSL
17 3 (0.26%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (5.99%) Power BI
2 55 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 29 (2.48%) Relational Database
4 26 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (1.28%) OLTP
5 15 (1.28%) Power Query
6 13 (1.11%) NoSQL
6 13 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (1.11%) Tableau
7 10 (0.86%) MySQL
8 8 (0.68%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.60%) Looker
9 7 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 5 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (0.43%) Big Data
10 5 (0.43%) Data Mining
10 5 (0.43%) Hadoop
10 5 (0.43%) Metadata
10 5 (0.43%) PowerPivot
10 5 (0.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 49 (4.20%) Git
2 37 (3.17%) JIRA
3 26 (2.23%) GitLab
4 19 (1.63%) Rational DOORS
5 9 (0.77%) Selenium
6 6 (0.51%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.34%) Robot Framework
7 4 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.26%) Android Studio
8 3 (0.26%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 3 (0.26%) Snyk
9 2 (0.17%) Appium
9 2 (0.17%) JMeter
9 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
9 2 (0.17%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.086%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.086%) PHPUnit
10 1 (0.086%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.086%) Zephyr
General
1 547 (46.83%) Social Skills
2 340 (29.11%) Analytical Skills
3 190 (16.27%) Finance
4 71 (6.08%) Organisational Skills
5 66 (5.65%) Marketing
6 60 (5.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 58 (4.97%) Manufacturing
8 51 (4.37%) Retail
9 46 (3.94%) Telecoms
10 41 (3.51%) Electronics
11 34 (2.91%) Public Sector
12 28 (2.40%) Law
13 26 (2.23%) Legal
14 23 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
15 20 (1.71%) Aerospace
16 15 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
17 13 (1.11%) Automotive
17 13 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 8 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
19 7 (0.60%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 167 (14.30%) Analyst
2 145 (12.41%) IT Support
3 139 (11.90%) Support Engineer
4 133 (11.39%) Senior
5 111 (9.50%) Developer
6 72 (6.16%) Support Analyst
7 70 (5.99%) IT Engineer
8 57 (4.88%) Technical Support
9 53 (4.54%) IT Support Engineer
10 49 (4.20%) Lead
11 46 (3.94%) 2nd Line Support
12 45 (3.85%) Architect
12 45 (3.85%) Systems Engineer
13 43 (3.68%) Technical Engineer
13 43 (3.68%) Technical Support Engineer
14 39 (3.34%) IT Technician
15 37 (3.17%) Support Technician
16 35 (3.00%) Software Engineer
17 31 (2.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 31 (2.65%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (4.79%) .NET
2 48 (4.11%) HTML
3 42 (3.60%) SOAP
4 37 (3.17%) REST
5 28 (2.40%) XML
6 24 (2.05%) CSS
6 24 (2.05%) JSON
6 24 (2.05%) Middleware
6 24 (2.05%) React
7 15 (1.28%) OAuth
8 14 (1.20%) Laravel
8 14 (1.20%) RabbitMQ
9 12 (1.03%) ARM Templates
9 12 (1.03%) Lightning Web Components
10 11 (0.94%) ASP.NET
10 11 (0.94%) Visualforce
11 9 (0.77%) OLE
11 9 (0.77%) RESTful
11 9 (0.77%) SAP CO-PA
12 8 (0.68%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 81 (6.93%) Onboarding
2 62 (5.31%) Driving Licence
3 61 (5.22%) Self-Motivation
4 43 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 37 (3.17%) Product Ownership
6 30 (2.57%) Analytical Mindset
7 29 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
8 27 (2.31%) Cloud Native
9 19 (1.63%) Low-Code
10 18 (1.54%) Social Media
11 15 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.94%) Video Editing
14 10 (0.86%) Algorithms
14 10 (0.86%) Life Science
14 10 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
15 9 (0.77%) Client/Server
15 9 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
15 9 (0.77%) NHS
15 9 (0.77%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 168 (14.38%) Windows
2 91 (7.79%) Linux
3 55 (4.71%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.80%) Android
4 21 (1.80%) Mac OS
5 18 (1.54%) CentOS
6 16 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.77%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.77%) VMS
7 9 (0.77%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.26%) Debian
11 3 (0.26%) Unix
12 1 (0.086%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.086%) FreeBSD
12 1 (0.086%) OpenBSD
12 1 (0.086%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (21.06%) Continuous Improvement
2 207 (17.72%) Customer Service
3 157 (13.44%) Agile
4 136 (11.64%) DevOps
5 121 (10.36%) CI/CD
6 119 (10.19%) Analytics
7 107 (9.16%) Decision-Making
8 104 (8.90%) Business Intelligence
9 96 (8.22%) Project Management
10 95 (8.13%) Computer Science
11 85 (7.28%) CRM
12 82 (7.02%) Software Engineering
13 79 (6.76%) Data Modelling
14 78 (6.68%) AI
15 72 (6.16%) Mentoring
16 69 (5.91%) Cybersecurity
16 69 (5.91%) Project Delivery
17 68 (5.82%) Stakeholder Management
18 67 (5.74%) ITIL
19 66 (5.65%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 198 (16.95%) Python
2 183 (15.67%) SQL
3 73 (6.25%) PowerShell
4 70 (5.99%) C#
5 68 (5.82%) JavaScript
6 52 (4.45%) Java
7 28 (2.40%) PHP
8 24 (2.05%) C
8 24 (2.05%) C++
9 23 (1.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 22 (1.88%) Bash
11 18 (1.54%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.20%) TypeScript
13 12 (1.03%) Apex Code
13 12 (1.03%) Perl
14 11 (0.94%) Bicep
15 9 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.77%) Rust
16 7 (0.60%) R
16 7 (0.60%) Scala
Qualifications
1 227 (19.43%) Degree
2 71 (6.08%) Security Cleared
3 47 (4.02%) DBS Check
4 46 (3.94%) ACCA
4 46 (3.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 40 (3.42%) CIMA
6 38 (3.25%) SC Cleared
7 36 (3.08%) Microsoft Certification
8 33 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
9 23 (1.97%) A+ Certification
10 22 (1.88%) HNC
11 21 (1.80%) Chartered Engineer
12 19 (1.63%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 18 (1.54%) DV Cleared
14 13 (1.11%) Master's Degree
15 12 (1.03%) PMI Certification
16 10 (0.86%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 9 (0.77%) HND
17 9 (0.77%) PMP
18 8 (0.68%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (5.99%) Data Quality
2 68 (5.82%) QA
3 45 (3.85%) GDPR
4 32 (2.74%) SLA
5 24 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.28%) PCI DSS
7 13 (1.11%) Accessibility
8 12 (1.03%) NIST
9 6 (0.51%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.51%) SOC 2
10 5 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.34%) ISO 26262
11 4 (0.34%) ITGC
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) IFRS
13 1 (0.086%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.086%) PMO
System Software
1 113 (9.67%) Active Directory
2 47 (4.02%) Docker
3 32 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (2.23%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.86%) KVM
6 5 (0.43%) XenApp
7 4 (0.34%) Firmware
7 4 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.17%) vSphere
10 1 (0.086%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.086%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.086%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 53 (4.54%) Terraform
2 47 (4.02%) Kubernetes
3 28 (2.40%) Ansible
4 23 (1.97%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (1.28%) Grafana
6 14 (1.20%) SCCM
7 11 (0.94%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.68%) Nagios
9 7 (0.60%) ZABBIX
10 6 (0.51%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.34%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.34%) Puppet
12 3 (0.26%) Graylog
12 3 (0.26%) Nessus
13 2 (0.17%) Kibana
14 1 (0.086%) FortiGate
14 1 (0.086%) Netcool
14 1 (0.086%) Netcool/OMNIbus
14 1 (0.086%) Oracle RMAN
14 1 (0.086%) Packer
Vendors
1 314 (26.88%) Microsoft
2 42 (3.60%) Databricks
3 36 (3.08%) Oracle
3 36 (3.08%) VMware
4 34 (2.91%) Google
5 31 (2.65%) Salesforce
6 28 (2.40%) Veeam
7 27 (2.31%) SAP
8 26 (2.23%) Adobe
9 16 (1.37%) HubSpot
9 16 (1.37%) Red Hat
9 16 (1.37%) Sage
10 13 (1.11%) Dynatrace
10 13 (1.11%) ServiceNow
10 13 (1.11%) Splunk
11 12 (1.03%) NEC
12 11 (0.94%) Hootsuite
12 11 (0.94%) Instagram
12 11 (0.94%) Wrike
13 10 (0.86%) SolarWinds