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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,148 1,229 2,716
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.91% 17.29% 16.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.87% 19.25% 19.73%
Number of salaries quoted 863 679 1,753
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
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 £67,875 £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 10,561 6,386 13,769
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 72.76% 89.82% 84.46%
Number of salaries quoted 6,802 3,369 9,877
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £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 £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 1 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 1 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 -7 442 £47,500 -9.52% 199
Hampshire -7 243 £40,000 -20.00% 151
Berkshire -1 222 £46,000 -25.81% 86
Surrey -13 182 £40,000 -23.81% 63
Buckinghamshire -12 138 £51,000 +0.06% 63
Kent -16 115 £29,000 -6.45% 57
East Sussex -1 101 £59,000 +27.57% 13
Oxfordshire -9 82 £34,000 -28.42% 53
West Sussex -4 52 £57,500 +23.66% 22
Isle of Wight -7 6 £43,000 -21.82%
Middlesex +6 3 £47,500 -22.45% 17
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 30 (2.61%) SharePoint
2 28 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.39%) CMS
4 11 (0.96%) IIS
5 6 (0.52%) Confluence
5 6 (0.52%) WordPress
6 4 (0.35%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.26%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.26%) Apache
7 3 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.26%) govService
8 2 (0.17%) Gentran
8 2 (0.17%) SAS
9 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.087%) nginx
9 1 (0.087%) Tomcat
Applications
1 87 (7.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 78 (6.79%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.78%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.61%) Photoshop
5 7 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.52%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.087%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.087%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.087%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.087%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.087%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.087%) Elementor
Business Applications
1 12 (1.05%) NetSuite
2 10 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.78%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.35%) 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 (0.087%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.087%) HFM
7 1 (0.087%) PeopleSoft HRMS
7 1 (0.087%) Raiser’s Edge
7 1 (0.087%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 234 (20.38%) Azure
2 117 (10.19%) Microsoft 365
3 91 (7.93%) Power Platform
4 87 (7.58%) AWS
5 58 (5.05%) SaaS
6 49 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (2.79%) GCP
8 30 (2.61%) IaaS
8 30 (2.61%) PaaS
9 28 (2.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 21 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 21 (1.83%) Entra ID
11 20 (1.74%) Google Workspace
12 19 (1.66%) Mimecast
13 17 (1.48%) Azure Data Factory
13 17 (1.48%) Azure Logic Apps
14 15 (1.31%) Datadog
14 15 (1.31%) OpenShift
15 14 (1.22%) GitHub
16 11 (0.96%) Sprout Social
Communications & Networking
1 64 (5.57%) Firewall
2 57 (4.97%) DNS
3 30 (2.61%) DHCP
4 27 (2.35%) TCP/IP
5 23 (2.00%) VPN
6 22 (1.92%) Wireless
7 21 (1.83%) Broadband
8 18 (1.57%) WAN
9 16 (1.39%) LAN
10 14 (1.22%) VoIP
11 12 (1.05%) HTTP
12 11 (0.96%) Intranet
13 8 (0.70%) SAN
14 7 (0.61%) Remote Desktop
15 6 (0.52%) PuTTY
15 6 (0.52%) SSH
15 6 (0.52%) VLAN
15 6 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
16 4 (0.35%) SSL
17 3 (0.26%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (6.18%) Power BI
2 57 (4.97%) SQL Server
3 29 (2.53%) Relational Database
4 25 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (1.31%) OLTP
5 15 (1.31%) Power Query
6 14 (1.22%) NoSQL
6 14 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
7 13 (1.13%) Tableau
8 12 (1.05%) MySQL
9 8 (0.70%) Data Lake
10 7 (0.61%) Looker
10 7 (0.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (0.44%) Big Data
11 5 (0.44%) Data Mining
11 5 (0.44%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.44%) Metadata
11 5 (0.44%) PowerPivot
11 5 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 48 (4.18%) Git
2 36 (3.14%) JIRA
3 26 (2.26%) GitLab
4 19 (1.66%) Rational DOORS
5 8 (0.70%) Selenium
6 6 (0.52%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.26%) Android Studio
8 3 (0.26%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.17%) Appium
9 2 (0.17%) JMeter
9 2 (0.17%) LabVIEW
9 2 (0.17%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.17%) Snyk
10 1 (0.087%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.087%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.087%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.087%) Zephyr
General
1 535 (46.60%) Social Skills
2 339 (29.53%) Analytical Skills
3 189 (16.46%) Finance
4 70 (6.10%) Organisational Skills
5 63 (5.49%) Marketing
6 59 (5.14%) Manufacturing
7 53 (4.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 45 (3.92%) Retail
8 45 (3.92%) Telecoms
9 41 (3.57%) Electronics
10 30 (2.61%) Public Sector
11 26 (2.26%) Law
11 26 (2.26%) Legal
12 21 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
13 20 (1.74%) Aerospace
14 15 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
15 13 (1.13%) Automotive
15 13 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
16 8 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 170 (14.81%) Analyst
2 138 (12.02%) IT Support
3 133 (11.59%) Senior
4 132 (11.50%) Support Engineer
5 109 (9.49%) Developer
6 72 (6.27%) Support Analyst
7 67 (5.84%) IT Engineer
8 57 (4.97%) Technical Support
9 50 (4.36%) IT Support Engineer
10 48 (4.18%) 2nd Line Support
11 47 (4.09%) Lead
12 46 (4.01%) Systems Engineer
13 43 (3.75%) Architect
13 43 (3.75%) Technical Engineer
13 43 (3.75%) Technical Support Engineer
14 38 (3.31%) IT Technician
14 38 (3.31%) Support Technician
15 34 (2.96%) Software Engineer
16 32 (2.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 31 (2.70%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.70%) .NET
2 49 (4.27%) HTML
3 42 (3.66%) SOAP
4 38 (3.31%) REST
5 28 (2.44%) XML
6 26 (2.26%) CSS
6 26 (2.26%) JSON
7 24 (2.09%) Middleware
8 22 (1.92%) React
9 15 (1.31%) Laravel
9 15 (1.31%) OAuth
10 14 (1.22%) RabbitMQ
11 12 (1.05%) ARM Templates
12 10 (0.87%) ASP.NET
12 10 (0.87%) CSS3
12 10 (0.87%) HTML5
12 10 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
12 10 (0.87%) RESTful
12 10 (0.87%) Visualforce
13 9 (0.78%) OLE
Miscellaneous
1 75 (6.53%) Onboarding
2 62 (5.40%) Self-Motivation
3 61 (5.31%) Driving Licence
4 44 (3.83%) Management Information System
5 36 (3.14%) Product Ownership
6 29 (2.53%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (2.44%) Analytical Mindset
8 27 (2.35%) Cloud Native
9 19 (1.66%) Low-Code
10 18 (1.57%) Social Media
11 15 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
12 11 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (0.96%) Life Science
12 11 (0.96%) Video Editing
13 10 (0.87%) Algorithms
13 10 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
13 10 (0.87%) Security Operations Centre
14 9 (0.78%) Client/Server
14 9 (0.78%) NHS
14 9 (0.78%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 164 (14.29%) Windows
2 90 (7.84%) Linux
3 55 (4.79%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.83%) Mac OS
5 20 (1.74%) Android
6 18 (1.57%) CentOS
7 16 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.78%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.78%) VMS
9 7 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.52%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.52%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.26%) Debian
12 3 (0.26%) Unix
13 1 (0.087%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.087%) FreeBSD
13 1 (0.087%) OpenBSD
13 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (21.08%) Continuous Improvement
2 202 (17.60%) Customer Service
3 157 (13.68%) Agile
4 135 (11.76%) DevOps
5 121 (10.54%) CI/CD
6 120 (10.45%) Analytics
7 110 (9.58%) Decision-Making
8 105 (9.15%) Business Intelligence
9 100 (8.71%) Computer Science
10 95 (8.28%) Project Management
11 83 (7.23%) CRM
12 82 (7.14%) Software Engineering
13 81 (7.06%) AI
14 78 (6.79%) Data Modelling
15 71 (6.18%) Project Delivery
16 70 (6.10%) Cybersecurity
16 70 (6.10%) Mentoring
16 70 (6.10%) Stakeholder Management
17 69 (6.01%) ITIL
18 68 (5.92%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 195 (16.99%) Python
2 181 (15.77%) SQL
3 70 (6.10%) PowerShell
4 68 (5.92%) C#
4 68 (5.92%) JavaScript
5 51 (4.44%) Java
6 29 (2.53%) PHP
7 24 (2.09%) C++
8 23 (2.00%) Bash
8 23 (2.00%) C
9 22 (1.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 18 (1.57%) PL/SQL
11 13 (1.13%) TypeScript
12 12 (1.05%) Perl
13 11 (0.96%) Bicep
14 10 (0.87%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.78%) Rust
16 8 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
17 7 (0.61%) R
17 7 (0.61%) Scala
Qualifications
1 229 (19.95%) Degree
2 71 (6.18%) Security Cleared
3 50 (4.36%) DBS Check
4 48 (4.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 46 (4.01%) ACCA
6 40 (3.48%) CIMA
7 39 (3.40%) SC Cleared
8 36 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 33 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
10 24 (2.09%) A+ Certification
10 24 (2.09%) HNC
11 21 (1.83%) Chartered Engineer
12 18 (1.57%) DV Cleared
12 18 (1.57%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 13 (1.13%) Master's Degree
14 12 (1.05%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.87%) HND
15 10 (0.87%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 9 (0.78%) PMP
17 8 (0.70%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (5.92%) Data Quality
1 68 (5.92%) QA
2 44 (3.83%) GDPR
3 30 (2.61%) SLA
4 23 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (1.31%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.13%) Accessibility
7 12 (1.05%) NIST
8 7 (0.61%) SOC 2
9 6 (0.52%) ISO 9001
10 5 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.35%) ISO 26262
11 4 (0.35%) ITGC
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) IFRS
13 1 (0.087%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.087%) PMO
System Software
1 107 (9.32%) Active Directory
2 48 (4.18%) Docker
3 33 (2.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (2.26%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.87%) KVM
6 5 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.44%) XenApp
7 4 (0.35%) Firmware
7 4 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.17%) vSphere
10 1 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.087%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.087%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 54 (4.70%) Terraform
2 48 (4.18%) Kubernetes
3 28 (2.44%) Ansible
4 20 (1.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (1.31%) Grafana
5 15 (1.31%) SCCM
6 12 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 8 (0.70%) Nagios
8 7 (0.61%) ZABBIX
9 6 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.35%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.35%) Puppet
11 3 (0.26%) Graylog
11 3 (0.26%) Nessus
12 2 (0.17%) Kibana
13 1 (0.087%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.087%) Netcool
13 1 (0.087%) Netcool/OMNIbus
13 1 (0.087%) Oracle RMAN
13 1 (0.087%) Packer
Vendors
1 311 (27.09%) Microsoft
2 41 (3.57%) Databricks
3 37 (3.22%) VMware
4 36 (3.14%) Oracle
5 34 (2.96%) Google
6 29 (2.53%) Salesforce
7 28 (2.44%) Veeam
8 26 (2.26%) Adobe
8 26 (2.26%) SAP
9 16 (1.39%) Red Hat
9 16 (1.39%) Sage
10 13 (1.13%) Dynatrace
10 13 (1.13%) HubSpot
10 13 (1.13%) Splunk
11 12 (1.05%) ServiceNow
12 11 (0.96%) Hootsuite
12 11 (0.96%) Instagram
12 11 (0.96%) Wrike
13 10 (0.87%) SolarWinds
14 9 (0.78%) MuleSoft