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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,392 1,583 2,578
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.85% 18.42% 15.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.34% 20.81% 18.69%
Number of salaries quoted 1,050 783 1,676
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -12.37%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £82,500 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £48,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -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 11,280 7,606 13,790
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.74% 88.51% 81.45%
Number of salaries quoted 8,030 3,982 9,606
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,875 £28,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -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 July 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 July 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 -7 519 £43,000 -3.12% 219
Hampshire -2 335 £40,000 -8.57% 119
Berkshire -4 242 £45,000 -10.00% 87
Surrey 0 235 £42,500 +6.25% 78
Buckinghamshire -8 161 £42,500 +13.33% 76
Kent -7 132 £33,500 +3.08% 47
Oxfordshire -1 116 £41,982 -18.48% 58
East Sussex -4 88 £50,000 - 25
West Sussex -5 71 £50,000 +7.53% 30
Middlesex +6 6 £50,000 +2.56% 14
Isle of Wight -11 1 £42,500 -22.73% 3
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 44 (3.16%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.36%) CMS
4 18 (1.29%) Confluence
5 7 (0.50%) OpenEdge
6 5 (0.36%) WordPress
7 4 (0.29%) Apache
7 4 (0.29%) IIS
8 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.22%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) Gentran
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.072%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 99 (7.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 86 (6.18%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.36%) Lightworks
6 5 (0.36%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.22%) Simulink
9 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.072%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 14 (1.01%) NetSuite
2 7 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.43%) Raiser’s Edge
4 5 (0.36%) Magento
5 3 (0.22%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.22%) Shopify
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.14%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.072%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.072%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.072%) HFM
7 1 (0.072%) Sage X3
7 1 (0.072%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.072%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.072%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 326 (23.42%) Azure
2 162 (11.64%) Microsoft 365
3 143 (10.27%) AWS
4 85 (6.11%) Power Platform
5 62 (4.45%) SaaS
6 49 (3.52%) GCP
7 46 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
8 44 (3.16%) Entra ID
9 28 (2.01%) Serverless
10 25 (1.80%) GitHub
10 25 (1.80%) IaaS
10 25 (1.80%) PaaS
11 19 (1.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 19 (1.36%) Datadog
12 18 (1.29%) Dynamics 365
13 15 (1.08%) OpenShift
14 14 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
15 13 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
15 13 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 119 (8.55%) Firewall
2 63 (4.53%) DNS
3 52 (3.74%) TCP/IP
3 52 (3.74%) VPN
4 51 (3.66%) WAN
5 50 (3.59%) LAN
6 41 (2.95%) Wireless
7 39 (2.80%) DHCP
8 36 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
9 26 (1.87%) VLAN
9 26 (1.87%) VoIP
10 21 (1.51%) Network Security
11 16 (1.15%) Broadband
12 13 (0.93%) Internet
13 11 (0.79%) SSL
14 10 (0.72%) HTTP
15 9 (0.65%) MQTT
16 7 (0.50%) Remote Desktop
17 6 (0.43%) WLAN
18 5 (0.36%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (7.26%) SQL Server
2 71 (5.10%) Power BI
3 25 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.72%) Relational Database
5 18 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
5 18 (1.29%) NoSQL
6 16 (1.15%) MySQL
7 14 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (0.93%) OLTP
9 12 (0.86%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 12 (0.86%) Tableau
10 10 (0.72%) Data Lake
11 9 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
12 8 (0.57%) Power Query
13 7 (0.50%) Looker
13 7 (0.50%) MongoDB
14 6 (0.43%) DynamoDB
14 6 (0.43%) GIS
15 5 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
16 4 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 66 (4.74%) Git
2 53 (3.81%) JIRA
3 31 (2.23%) GitLab
4 20 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
5 6 (0.43%) Selenium
6 4 (0.29%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.29%) Eclipse RCP
6 4 (0.29%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.22%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.22%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.22%) PetaLinux
7 3 (0.22%) PHPUnit
7 3 (0.22%) Postman
7 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.14%) Appium
8 2 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.14%) Mocha
8 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.14%) SpecFlow
8 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
General
1 674 (48.42%) Social Skills
2 381 (27.37%) Analytical Skills
3 207 (14.87%) Finance
4 107 (7.69%) Organisational Skills
5 84 (6.03%) Manufacturing
6 62 (4.45%) Electronics
7 57 (4.09%) Retail
7 57 (4.09%) Telecoms
8 49 (3.52%) Marketing
9 47 (3.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 38 (2.73%) Aerospace
11 36 (2.59%) Law
12 35 (2.51%) Legal
13 33 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
14 29 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
15 26 (1.87%) Public Sector
16 23 (1.65%) Local Government
17 18 (1.29%) Military
18 16 (1.15%) Banking
19 14 (1.01%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 196 (14.08%) Analyst
2 149 (10.70%) IT Support
3 144 (10.34%) Senior
4 135 (9.70%) Developer
5 122 (8.76%) Support Engineer
6 90 (6.47%) IT Engineer
7 85 (6.11%) Support Analyst
8 68 (4.89%) Systems Engineer
9 66 (4.74%) Software Engineer
10 62 (4.45%) Lead
11 61 (4.38%) Technical Support
12 59 (4.24%) Support Technician
13 56 (4.02%) IT Support Engineer
14 51 (3.66%) 2nd Line Support
15 46 (3.30%) Technical Engineer
15 46 (3.30%) Technical Support Engineer
16 43 (3.09%) IT Technician
17 38 (2.73%) 1st Line Support
18 36 (2.59%) Architect
18 36 (2.59%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (6.47%) .NET
2 60 (4.31%) HTML
3 49 (3.52%) REST
4 48 (3.45%) SOAP
5 39 (2.80%) CSS
6 35 (2.51%) JSON
7 34 (2.44%) React
8 32 (2.30%) XML
9 29 (2.08%) ASP.NET
10 23 (1.65%) OAuth
10 23 (1.65%) RESTful
11 22 (1.58%) ASP.NET Core
12 19 (1.36%) Vue
13 18 (1.29%) Middleware
14 17 (1.22%) AngularJS
14 17 (1.22%) RabbitMQ
15 16 (1.15%) ARM Templates
15 16 (1.15%) HTML5
16 15 (1.08%) Kafka
17 14 (1.01%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 89 (6.39%) Driving Licence
2 73 (5.24%) Self-Motivation
3 70 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 64 (4.60%) Management Information System
5 50 (3.59%) Cloud Native
6 40 (2.87%) Product Ownership
7 32 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.36%) Robotics
10 17 (1.22%) NHS
10 17 (1.22%) Social Media
11 16 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
12 15 (1.08%) Data Centre
12 15 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.08%) EPoS
12 15 (1.08%) Security Posture
13 13 (0.93%) Clustering
13 13 (0.93%) Renewable Energy
14 12 (0.86%) CCTV
14 12 (0.86%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 228 (16.38%) Windows
2 113 (8.12%) Linux
3 79 (5.68%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.58%) Mac OS
5 18 (1.29%) Android
6 17 (1.22%) CentOS
7 15 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.08%) Windows Server 2019
8 12 (0.86%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.57%) Debian
11 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.50%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
12 3 (0.22%) Gentoo
12 3 (0.22%) Unix
12 3 (0.22%) VMS
12 3 (0.22%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.072%) FreeBSD
Processes & Methodologies
1 269 (19.32%) Continuous Improvement
2 248 (17.82%) Customer Service
3 184 (13.22%) Agile
4 161 (11.57%) CI/CD
5 151 (10.85%) Decision-Making
6 149 (10.70%) DevOps
7 146 (10.49%) AI
8 143 (10.27%) Software Engineering
9 135 (9.70%) Project Management
10 129 (9.27%) Project Delivery
11 125 (8.98%) Cybersecurity
12 123 (8.84%) ITIL
13 117 (8.41%) Collaborative Working
14 114 (8.19%) Mentoring
15 113 (8.12%) Stakeholder Management
16 110 (7.90%) Computer Science
17 109 (7.83%) Analytics
18 100 (7.18%) Business Intelligence
19 97 (6.97%) Logistics
20 86 (6.18%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 217 (15.59%) Python
2 213 (15.30%) SQL
3 115 (8.26%) C#
4 96 (6.90%) PowerShell
5 91 (6.54%) JavaScript
6 58 (4.17%) Java
7 57 (4.09%) C++
8 44 (3.16%) TypeScript
9 34 (2.44%) Bash
10 32 (2.30%) C
11 23 (1.65%) PHP
12 15 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.93%) Ruby
13 13 (0.93%) Rust
14 12 (0.86%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.72%) Perl
16 9 (0.65%) Bicep
17 7 (0.50%) Apex Code
17 7 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 7 (0.50%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 262 (18.82%) Degree
2 96 (6.90%) Security Cleared
3 88 (6.32%) DBS Check
4 68 (4.89%) SC Cleared
5 58 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 44 (3.16%) Microsoft Certification
7 33 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
8 31 (2.23%) HNC
9 28 (2.01%) ACCA
10 27 (1.94%) CIMA
11 25 (1.80%) Chartered Engineer
12 23 (1.65%) Azure Certification
12 23 (1.65%) PMI Certification
13 22 (1.58%) PMP
14 18 (1.29%) A+ Certification
15 17 (1.22%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 16 (1.15%) Master's Degree
17 14 (1.01%) CCNA
17 14 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
17 14 (1.01%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (7.83%) QA
2 54 (3.88%) Data Quality
3 46 (3.30%) GDPR
4 39 (2.80%) SLA
5 30 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.87%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.58%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.22%) Good Clinical Practice
8 17 (1.22%) NIST
9 13 (0.93%) PMO
10 12 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
11 10 (0.72%) SOC 2
12 7 (0.50%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 7 (0.50%) GLP
12 7 (0.50%) GMP
12 7 (0.50%) GxP
13 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.36%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.29%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.29%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 120 (8.62%) Active Directory
2 72 (5.17%) Docker
3 54 (3.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 49 (3.52%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.57%) vSphere
6 7 (0.50%) Firmware
6 7 (0.50%) KVM
7 5 (0.36%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.36%) XenApp
8 4 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.14%) Squid
10 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.072%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.072%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.072%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 78 (5.60%) Terraform
2 77 (5.53%) Kubernetes
3 44 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
4 36 (2.59%) Ansible
5 20 (1.44%) SCCM
6 16 (1.15%) Grafana
7 13 (0.93%) Prometheus
8 11 (0.79%) Nagios
9 8 (0.57%) Podman
10 7 (0.50%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.50%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.36%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.36%) Graylog
11 5 (0.36%) Puppet
12 4 (0.29%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.14%) Nessus
13 2 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (0.14%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 404 (29.02%) Microsoft
2 61 (4.38%) VMware
3 49 (3.52%) Google
4 41 (2.95%) Oracle
5 31 (2.23%) Cisco
6 30 (2.16%) Salesforce
7 27 (1.94%) Fortinet
8 23 (1.65%) Veeam
9 22 (1.58%) Databricks
9 22 (1.58%) SonicWALL
10 20 (1.44%) ServiceNow
11 18 (1.29%) Instagram
12 17 (1.22%) Sage
13 16 (1.15%) Aruba
13 16 (1.15%) SAP
13 16 (1.15%) Splunk
14 15 (1.08%) Palo Alto
14 15 (1.08%) Red Hat
15 13 (0.93%) Dynatrace
16 12 (0.86%) Adobe