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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,136 1,422 2,793
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.87% 18.24% 17.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.95% 20.14% 20.27%
Number of salaries quoted 850 686 1,755
10th Percentile £26,970 £28,125 £25,800
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,313 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,125 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.75% +11.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £62,500 £66,250 £61,949
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.80% +1.93% -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 10,378 7,062 13,780
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.93% 90.56% 84.12%
Number of salaries quoted 7,020 3,367 9,785
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £39,775 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £54,625 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.69% +9.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +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 16 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 16 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 -10 425 £47,500 -6.80% 238
Hampshire -6 253 £45,000 - 142
Berkshire -6 210 £47,500 -17.39% 109
Surrey -2 184 £40,000 -13.51% 84
Buckinghamshire -12 132 £49,250 -3.37% 71
Kent -4 122 £29,000 -6.45% 62
East Sussex -5 93 £61,500 +23.00% 16
Oxfordshire -5 83 £34,000 -38.18% 61
West Sussex -5 50 £57,500 +23.66% 18
Isle of Wight -7 3 £41,500 -24.55%
Middlesex +2 2 £35,000 -44.00% 18
Sussex -17 1 £30,000 -29.41% 7
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 32 (2.82%) SharePoint
2 28 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.41%) CMS
4 10 (0.88%) IIS
5 9 (0.79%) Confluence
6 5 (0.44%) WordPress
7 4 (0.35%) OpenEdge
7 4 (0.35%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.26%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.26%) Apache
8 3 (0.26%) govService
9 2 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.18%) Gentran
9 2 (0.18%) SAS
10 1 (0.088%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.088%) nginx
10 1 (0.088%) Tomcat
Applications
1 87 (7.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 70 (6.16%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.79%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.53%) Photoshop
7 5 (0.44%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.088%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 11 (0.97%) NetSuite
2 10 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.79%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.35%) Magento
4 4 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 2 (0.18%) Infor SunSystems
5 2 (0.18%) Q-Pulse
5 2 (0.18%) Sage 200
5 2 (0.18%) Shopify
6 1 (0.088%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.088%) HFM
6 1 (0.088%) PeopleSoft HRMS
6 1 (0.088%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.088%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.088%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 252 (22.18%) Azure
2 116 (10.21%) Microsoft 365
3 99 (8.71%) AWS
4 83 (7.31%) Power Platform
5 53 (4.67%) SaaS
6 51 (4.49%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (2.99%) GCP
8 30 (2.64%) IaaS
8 30 (2.64%) PaaS
9 26 (2.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 21 (1.85%) Entra ID
11 20 (1.76%) Google Workspace
12 18 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
13 17 (1.50%) Mimecast
14 16 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
15 15 (1.32%) Azure Data Factory
15 15 (1.32%) Datadog
15 15 (1.32%) OpenShift
15 15 (1.32%) Serverless
16 14 (1.23%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 63 (5.55%) Firewall
2 57 (5.02%) DNS
3 31 (2.73%) DHCP
4 28 (2.46%) TCP/IP
5 23 (2.02%) VPN
6 21 (1.85%) Wireless
7 20 (1.76%) Broadband
8 17 (1.50%) WAN
9 15 (1.32%) LAN
10 13 (1.14%) VoIP
11 10 (0.88%) HTTP
12 8 (0.70%) SAN
13 7 (0.62%) Intranet
13 7 (0.62%) Remote Desktop
13 7 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
14 6 (0.53%) PuTTY
14 6 (0.53%) SSH
14 6 (0.53%) SSL
14 6 (0.53%) VLAN
15 4 (0.35%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (5.99%) SQL Server
2 64 (5.63%) Power BI
3 23 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (1.94%) Relational Database
5 21 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (1.58%) OLTP
7 13 (1.14%) MySQL
8 12 (1.06%) NoSQL
8 12 (1.06%) Power Query
8 12 (1.06%) Tableau
9 10 (0.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 7 (0.62%) Data Lake
10 7 (0.62%) Looker
10 7 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 5 (0.44%) Big Data
11 5 (0.44%) Data Mining
11 5 (0.44%) Hadoop
12 3 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
12 3 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 55 (4.84%) Git
2 38 (3.35%) JIRA
3 29 (2.55%) GitLab
4 22 (1.94%) Rational DOORS
5 7 (0.62%) Selenium
6 4 (0.35%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.26%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.26%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 2 (0.18%) Appium
8 2 (0.18%) JMeter
8 2 (0.18%) LabVIEW
8 2 (0.18%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.18%) Snyk
9 1 (0.088%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.088%) JUnit
9 1 (0.088%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.088%) Zephyr
General
1 532 (46.83%) Social Skills
2 331 (29.14%) Analytical Skills
3 189 (16.64%) Finance
4 68 (5.99%) Organisational Skills
5 62 (5.46%) Marketing
6 58 (5.11%) Manufacturing
7 49 (4.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 46 (4.05%) Telecoms
9 44 (3.87%) Retail
10 42 (3.70%) Electronics
11 29 (2.55%) Public Sector
12 25 (2.20%) Aerospace
12 25 (2.20%) Law
13 24 (2.11%) Legal
14 21 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
15 15 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
16 14 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
17 12 (1.06%) Automotive
18 10 (0.88%) Local Government
18 10 (0.88%) Military
Job Titles
1 161 (14.17%) Analyst
2 132 (11.62%) IT Support
3 125 (11.00%) Senior
4 120 (10.56%) Developer
5 116 (10.21%) Support Engineer
6 69 (6.07%) IT Engineer
7 68 (5.99%) Support Analyst
8 55 (4.84%) Systems Engineer
9 50 (4.40%) Technical Support
10 47 (4.14%) IT Support Engineer
10 47 (4.14%) Lead
11 43 (3.79%) Architect
12 42 (3.70%) 2nd Line Support
13 41 (3.61%) Software Engineer
14 39 (3.43%) Support Technician
15 38 (3.35%) Technical Engineer
15 38 (3.35%) Technical Support Engineer
16 37 (3.26%) IT Technician
17 34 (2.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 29 (2.55%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (5.55%) .NET
2 56 (4.93%) HTML
3 47 (4.14%) SOAP
4 37 (3.26%) REST
5 33 (2.90%) XML
6 32 (2.82%) CSS
7 29 (2.55%) JSON
8 24 (2.11%) Middleware
9 23 (2.02%) React
10 16 (1.41%) OAuth
11 15 (1.32%) CSS3
11 15 (1.32%) HTML5
11 15 (1.32%) Laravel
11 15 (1.32%) RabbitMQ
12 14 (1.23%) jQuery
13 13 (1.14%) Ajax
13 13 (1.14%) Sass
14 12 (1.06%) ARM Templates
14 12 (1.06%) LESS
14 12 (1.06%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 63 (5.55%) Driving Licence
2 60 (5.28%) Onboarding
3 59 (5.19%) Self-Motivation
4 45 (3.96%) Management Information System
5 38 (3.35%) Product Ownership
6 34 (2.99%) Cloud Native
7 33 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
9 20 (1.76%) Low-Code
10 17 (1.50%) Social Media
11 14 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
12 13 (1.14%) NHS
13 11 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.97%) Video Editing
14 10 (0.88%) Algorithms
14 10 (0.88%) Client/Server
15 9 (0.79%) Cyber Defence
15 9 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
15 9 (0.79%) Virtual Team
16 8 (0.70%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 162 (14.26%) Windows
2 96 (8.45%) Linux
3 55 (4.84%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.76%) Android
5 18 (1.58%) CentOS
5 18 (1.58%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.97%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.79%) VMS
10 8 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.53%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.26%) Debian
13 3 (0.26%) Unix
14 2 (0.18%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.088%) Embedded Linux
15 1 (0.088%) FreeBSD
15 1 (0.088%) OpenBSD
15 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 232 (20.42%) Continuous Improvement
2 192 (16.90%) Customer Service
3 163 (14.35%) Agile
4 139 (12.24%) DevOps
5 132 (11.62%) CI/CD
6 112 (9.86%) Analytics
6 112 (9.86%) Decision-Making
7 105 (9.24%) Computer Science
8 102 (8.98%) Software Engineering
9 98 (8.63%) Business Intelligence
10 92 (8.10%) AI
11 89 (7.83%) Project Management
12 81 (7.13%) Data Modelling
13 79 (6.95%) CRM
14 76 (6.69%) Mentoring
14 76 (6.69%) Project Delivery
15 72 (6.34%) Cybersecurity
16 70 (6.16%) ERP
16 70 (6.16%) ITIL
17 67 (5.90%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 198 (17.43%) Python
2 179 (15.76%) SQL
3 81 (7.13%) JavaScript
4 80 (7.04%) C#
5 63 (5.55%) PowerShell
6 51 (4.49%) Java
7 31 (2.73%) PHP
8 29 (2.55%) C++
9 25 (2.20%) Bash
10 24 (2.11%) C
11 21 (1.85%) PL/SQL
11 21 (1.85%) TypeScript
12 16 (1.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (1.06%) Perl
14 10 (0.88%) Rust
15 9 (0.79%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.79%) Bicep
16 8 (0.70%) Ruby
17 7 (0.62%) R
17 7 (0.62%) Scala
Qualifications
1 232 (20.42%) Degree
2 77 (6.78%) Security Cleared
3 52 (4.58%) Computer Science Degree
4 51 (4.49%) DBS Check
5 46 (4.05%) SC Cleared
6 40 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
7 39 (3.43%) ACCA
8 36 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
9 35 (3.08%) CIMA
10 27 (2.38%) A+ Certification
11 26 (2.29%) HNC
12 24 (2.11%) Chartered Engineer
13 18 (1.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 17 (1.50%) DV Cleared
15 14 (1.23%) Master's Degree
16 13 (1.14%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.88%) Azure Certification
17 10 (0.88%) HND
17 10 (0.88%) PMP
18 8 (0.70%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (6.69%) QA
2 63 (5.55%) Data Quality
3 45 (3.96%) GDPR
4 35 (3.08%) SLA
5 20 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.41%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.32%) PCI DSS
8 10 (0.88%) NIST
9 8 (0.70%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.53%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.35%) ISO 26262
12 4 (0.35%) ITGC
13 2 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.18%) Def Stans
13 2 (0.18%) Good Clinical Practice
13 2 (0.18%) GRC
13 2 (0.18%) IFRS
14 1 (0.088%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 1 (0.088%) PMO
System Software
1 98 (8.63%) Active Directory
2 51 (4.49%) Docker
3 35 (3.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (2.20%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.88%) KVM
6 5 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.44%) XenApp
7 4 (0.35%) Firmware
7 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.18%) vSphere
10 1 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.088%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 58 (5.11%) Kubernetes
1 58 (5.11%) Terraform
2 32 (2.82%) Ansible
3 23 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (1.32%) Grafana
4 15 (1.32%) SCCM
5 12 (1.06%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.88%) Nagios
7 7 (0.62%) ZABBIX
8 6 (0.53%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.35%) Functional Safety
9 4 (0.35%) Graylog
9 4 (0.35%) Puppet
10 3 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
10 3 (0.26%) Podman
11 2 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.18%) Nessus
12 1 (0.088%) Netcool
12 1 (0.088%) Netcool/OMNIbus
12 1 (0.088%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 305 (26.85%) Microsoft
2 43 (3.79%) Oracle
3 39 (3.43%) VMware
4 37 (3.26%) Databricks
5 36 (3.17%) Google
6 28 (2.46%) Salesforce
7 25 (2.20%) Veeam
8 22 (1.94%) Adobe
9 21 (1.85%) SAP
10 16 (1.41%) Red Hat
11 15 (1.32%) Instagram
12 13 (1.14%) Splunk
13 12 (1.06%) Dynatrace
13 12 (1.06%) Sage
14 11 (0.97%) Hootsuite
14 11 (0.97%) Wrike
15 10 (0.88%) HubSpot
15 10 (0.88%) SolarWinds
16 9 (0.79%) Cisco
16 9 (0.79%) ServiceNow