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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,736 1,741 1,978
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.45% 19.40% 15.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.19% 22.02% 18.95%
Number of salaries quoted 1,235 871 940
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £37,313
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - -15.00% -0.99%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £66,045
90th Percentile £68,750 £77,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -14.29% -4.55%

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 13,160 7,905 10,436
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.65% 88.09% 80.89%
Number of salaries quoted 9,412 4,223 5,876
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -7.26%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 -7 655 £43,000 +1.18% 673
Hampshire -2 441 £40,000 -5.88% 362
Berkshire -6 296 £42,500 - 348
Surrey -1 260 £40,000 -2.14% 201
Buckinghamshire -5 190 £42,500 +10.39% 166
Kent -4 186 £35,000 +11.11% 99
Oxfordshire +3 169 £44,500 +2.30% 164
East Sussex -2 92 £50,000 - 93
West Sussex -8 78 £47,500 -5.94% 112
Middlesex +4 12 £35,000 -6.67% 34
Sussex -12 5 £65,000 +52.94% 17
Isle of Wight -13 2 £42,500 +3.66% 18
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 81 (4.67%) SharePoint
2 57 (3.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.04%) Confluence
4 16 (0.92%) IIS
5 11 (0.63%) CMS
6 7 (0.40%) OpenEdge
7 6 (0.35%) Apache
8 5 (0.29%) nginx
8 5 (0.29%) WordPress
9 3 (0.17%) SAS
10 2 (0.12%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.12%) Gentran
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 126 (7.26%) Microsoft Office
2 115 (6.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.04%) AutoCAD
4 16 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 9 (0.52%) Revit
8 8 (0.46%) MS Visio
9 5 (0.29%) Lightworks
9 5 (0.29%) Simulink
10 3 (0.17%) EPLAN
10 3 (0.17%) Mathematica
10 3 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.12%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.058%) Mathcad
12 1 (0.058%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.058%) PTC Creo
12 1 (0.058%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.058%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 25 (1.44%) NetSuite
2 18 (1.04%) Shopify
3 16 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.35%) Magento
4 6 (0.35%) Primavera
4 6 (0.35%) Raiser’s Edge
5 3 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.17%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.12%) Academy Housing
6 2 (0.12%) Eloqua
6 2 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
6 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.058%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.058%) HFM
7 1 (0.058%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 375 (21.60%) Azure
2 233 (13.42%) Microsoft 365
3 173 (9.97%) AWS
4 102 (5.88%) Power Platform
5 82 (4.72%) Entra ID
6 71 (4.09%) SaaS
7 49 (2.82%) GCP
8 41 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (1.90%) GitHub
10 31 (1.79%) Serverless
11 30 (1.73%) Google Workspace
12 19 (1.09%) Dynamics 365
13 18 (1.04%) Anthropic Claude
14 16 (0.92%) IaaS
14 16 (0.92%) OneDrive
14 16 (0.92%) PaaS
15 15 (0.86%) Google Tag Manager
16 14 (0.81%) Amazon ECS
17 13 (0.75%) Azure Monitor
17 13 (0.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 152 (8.76%) Firewall
2 83 (4.78%) DNS
3 68 (3.92%) VPN
4 62 (3.57%) TCP/IP
5 61 (3.51%) DHCP
6 56 (3.23%) VLAN
7 52 (3.00%) WAN
8 51 (2.94%) Wi-Fi
9 50 (2.88%) LAN
9 50 (2.88%) Wireless
10 37 (2.13%) VoIP
11 36 (2.07%) Network Security
12 18 (1.04%) SSL
13 14 (0.81%) Internet
14 10 (0.58%) MQTT
15 9 (0.52%) 5G
15 9 (0.52%) LTE
16 8 (0.46%) Broadband
17 7 (0.40%) Ethernet
17 7 (0.40%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (7.14%) SQL Server
2 85 (4.90%) Power BI
3 35 (2.02%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.73%) MySQL
5 29 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.38%) NoSQL
7 16 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.58%) Tableau
12 9 (0.52%) GIS
12 9 (0.52%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.40%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.40%) OLTP
14 6 (0.35%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.35%) Metadata
15 5 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
15 5 (0.29%) Looker
Development Applications
1 64 (3.69%) Git
2 62 (3.57%) JIRA
3 17 (0.98%) Rational DOORS
4 16 (0.92%) GitLab
5 14 (0.81%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
6 11 (0.63%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.35%) Selenium
8 5 (0.29%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.29%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.29%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.29%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.23%) Postman
9 4 (0.23%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.17%) Mocha
10 3 (0.17%) PetaLinux
10 3 (0.17%) PHPUnit
10 3 (0.17%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.12%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.12%) Cucumber
General
1 893 (51.44%) Social Skills
2 471 (27.13%) Analytical Skills
3 271 (15.61%) Finance
4 162 (9.33%) Manufacturing
5 154 (8.87%) Organisational Skills
6 122 (7.03%) Aerospace
7 105 (6.05%) Electronics
8 96 (5.53%) Retail
9 66 (3.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (3.11%) Marketing
11 50 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
12 48 (2.76%) Legal
12 48 (2.76%) Telecoms
13 42 (2.42%) Military
14 39 (2.25%) Public Sector
15 38 (2.19%) Law
16 26 (1.50%) Aviation
17 25 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
18 23 (1.32%) Advertising
19 20 (1.15%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 245 (14.11%) Analyst
2 178 (10.25%) Senior
3 163 (9.39%) IT Support
4 155 (8.93%) Developer
5 126 (7.26%) Support Analyst
6 122 (7.03%) Support Engineer
7 91 (5.24%) IT Engineer
8 79 (4.55%) Lead
8 79 (4.55%) Systems Engineer
9 75 (4.32%) Technical Support
10 74 (4.26%) Support Technician
11 70 (4.03%) Software Engineer
12 62 (3.57%) IT Support Engineer
13 55 (3.17%) 2nd Line Support
13 55 (3.17%) Technical Engineer
14 53 (3.05%) IT Technician
14 53 (3.05%) Technical Support Engineer
15 50 (2.88%) IT Analyst
16 49 (2.82%) Architect
16 49 (2.82%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (6.74%) .NET
2 78 (4.49%) Terraform
3 73 (4.21%) HTML
4 63 (3.63%) REST
5 54 (3.11%) CSS
6 53 (3.05%) ASP.NET
6 53 (3.05%) React
7 50 (2.88%) SOAP
8 35 (2.02%) ASP.NET Core
9 30 (1.73%) AngularJS
9 30 (1.73%) RESTful
10 29 (1.67%) OAuth
11 28 (1.61%) Vue
12 27 (1.56%) JSON
12 27 (1.56%) ModSecurity
12 27 (1.56%) XML
13 22 (1.27%) ASP.NET Web API
13 22 (1.27%) jQuery
14 21 (1.21%) LESS
15 20 (1.15%) ASP.NET Web Forms
Miscellaneous
1 132 (7.60%) Driving Licence
2 123 (7.09%) Onboarding
3 95 (5.47%) Management Information System
4 88 (5.07%) Self-Motivation
5 64 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 50 (2.88%) Product Ownership
7 40 (2.30%) Data Centre
8 32 (1.84%) Robotics
9 31 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.73%) Social Media
11 26 (1.50%) CCTV
11 26 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
12 23 (1.32%) Analogue Electronics
12 23 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 23 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
13 19 (1.09%) EPoS
14 18 (1.04%) Mobile App
15 16 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
15 16 (0.92%) Renewable Energy
15 16 (0.92%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 285 (16.42%) Windows
2 106 (6.11%) Linux
3 101 (5.82%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.50%) Android
5 21 (1.21%) Mac OS
6 19 (1.09%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.09%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.46%) CentOS
10 8 (0.46%) Debian
11 7 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.35%) Rocky
12 6 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.17%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.17%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.17%) Unix
13 3 (0.17%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 379 (21.83%) Continuous Improvement
2 328 (18.89%) Customer Service
3 232 (13.36%) Agile
4 208 (11.98%) Decision-Making
5 187 (10.77%) Stakeholder Management
6 184 (10.60%) Project Management
7 181 (10.43%) AI
8 173 (9.97%) Project Delivery
9 168 (9.68%) Software Engineering
10 157 (9.04%) ITIL
11 156 (8.99%) CI/CD
12 155 (8.93%) Collaborative Working
13 143 (8.24%) Mentoring
14 141 (8.12%) Cybersecurity
15 140 (8.06%) DevOps
16 138 (7.95%) Validation
17 129 (7.43%) CRM
18 122 (7.03%) Computer Science
19 116 (6.68%) ERP
20 115 (6.62%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 224 (12.90%) SQL
2 195 (11.23%) Python
3 135 (7.78%) C#
4 112 (6.45%) JavaScript
5 94 (5.41%) PowerShell
6 65 (3.74%) C++
7 64 (3.69%) TypeScript
8 59 (3.40%) Java
9 26 (1.50%) Bash
10 25 (1.44%) C
11 21 (1.21%) Ruby
11 21 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 17 (0.98%) PHP
13 16 (0.92%) VB.NET
14 13 (0.75%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 9 (0.52%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.52%) Rust
17 7 (0.40%) Bicep
17 7 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 352 (20.28%) Degree
2 193 (11.12%) Security Cleared
3 133 (7.66%) SC Cleared
4 114 (6.57%) DBS Check
5 63 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
6 60 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
7 59 (3.40%) DV Cleared
8 57 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 57 (3.28%) HNC
9 55 (3.17%) Azure Certification
10 53 (3.05%) HND
11 32 (1.84%) CISSP
12 31 (1.79%) Master's Degree
13 30 (1.73%) Chartered Engineer
13 30 (1.73%) PMI Certification
14 29 (1.67%) A+ Certification
15 27 (1.56%) CISM
16 24 (1.38%) PMP
17 23 (1.32%) AWS Certification
18 22 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (8.41%) QA
2 69 (3.97%) GDPR
3 53 (3.05%) Data Quality
4 45 (2.59%) SLA
5 43 (2.48%) Accessibility
6 39 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.32%) NIST
8 19 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (1.04%) Good Clinical Practice
10 17 (0.98%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.92%) PMO
12 15 (0.86%) DO-254
13 12 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 9 (0.52%) GMP
15 8 (0.46%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 8 (0.46%) GLP
15 8 (0.46%) GxP
15 8 (0.46%) SOC 2
16 7 (0.40%) ISO 9001
17 5 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 156 (8.99%) Active Directory
2 83 (4.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 61 (3.51%) Hyper-V
4 60 (3.46%) Docker
5 14 (0.81%) Firmware
6 9 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.52%) vSphere
7 7 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.29%) ClearTrust
9 5 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
9 5 (0.29%) Squid
10 3 (0.17%) KVM
10 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.058%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.058%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 68 (3.92%) Kubernetes
2 59 (3.40%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (1.79%) Ansible
4 22 (1.27%) SCCM
5 17 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.46%) Grafana
7 8 (0.46%) Podman
8 7 (0.40%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.35%) Graylog
9 6 (0.35%) Nagios
9 6 (0.35%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.35%) Puppet
10 5 (0.29%) BMC PATROL
11 4 (0.23%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.23%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.23%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.12%) CASB
12 2 (0.12%) Nessus
12 2 (0.12%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 538 (30.99%) Microsoft
2 99 (5.70%) VMware
3 78 (4.49%) Google
4 52 (3.00%) Oracle
5 43 (2.48%) SAP
6 39 (2.25%) Fortinet
6 39 (2.25%) SonicWALL
7 37 (2.13%) Cisco
7 37 (2.13%) ServiceNow
7 37 (2.13%) Veeam
8 30 (1.73%) Salesforce
9 23 (1.32%) Sage
10 21 (1.21%) Apple
11 19 (1.09%) Palo Alto
12 16 (0.92%) Aruba
13 15 (0.86%) CA Agile Central
13 15 (0.86%) Mentor Graphics
14 13 (0.75%) Thales
15 12 (0.69%) Databricks
15 12 (0.69%) Okta