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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,838 1,706 1,996
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.73% 19.11% 15.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.52% 21.75% 19.13%
Number of salaries quoted 1,292 883 906
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £30,777 £31,250 £36,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,585 £41,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.20% -17.00% -0.99%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £76,200 £82,500
England median annual salary £46,500 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.33% -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 13,591 7,845 10,433
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.94% 87.90% 81.46%
Number of salaries quoted 9,685 4,244 5,639
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,150 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £58,800
% change year-on-year +9.09% -6.46% -5.66%

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 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 26 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 -6 690 £42,500 - 700
Hampshire -1 464 £40,000 -5.88% 380
Berkshire -5 314 £42,500 - 335
Surrey -1 279 £40,000 -5.88% 203
Kent -2 201 £35,000 +11.11% 88
Buckinghamshire -5 200 £42,500 +13.33% 169
Oxfordshire +3 176 £44,000 +1.15% 202
East Sussex -2 95 £50,000 +11.11% 90
West Sussex -8 83 £45,000 -10.89% 108
Middlesex +2 13 £35,000 -6.67% 25
Sussex -13 7 £65,000 +52.94% 17
Isle of Wight -10 2 £42,500 +3.66% 13
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 88 (4.79%) SharePoint
2 63 (3.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (0.98%) Confluence
4 17 (0.92%) IIS
5 11 (0.60%) CMS
6 7 (0.38%) OpenEdge
7 6 (0.33%) Apache
8 5 (0.27%) nginx
8 5 (0.27%) WordPress
9 3 (0.16%) SAS
10 2 (0.11%) Gentran
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.054%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.054%) OpenStack
Applications
1 141 (7.67%) Microsoft Office
2 121 (6.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.09%) AutoCAD
4 18 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
6 14 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 10 (0.54%) MS Visio
8 9 (0.49%) Revit
9 6 (0.33%) Lightworks
9 6 (0.33%) Simulink
10 5 (0.27%) SOLIDWORKS
11 4 (0.22%) Mathematica
12 3 (0.16%) EPLAN
13 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
13 2 (0.11%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.11%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.11%) Siemens NX
13 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
14 1 (0.054%) Mathcad
14 1 (0.054%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 26 (1.41%) NetSuite
2 19 (1.03%) Shopify
3 17 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.38%) Primavera
5 6 (0.33%) Raiser’s Edge
6 5 (0.27%) Magento
7 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.16%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.11%) Academy Housing
8 2 (0.11%) Eloqua
8 2 (0.11%) Infor SunSystems
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.054%) Adobe Campaign
9 1 (0.054%) C-CURE
9 1 (0.054%) FastStats
9 1 (0.054%) HFM
9 1 (0.054%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.054%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 373 (20.29%) Azure
2 251 (13.66%) Microsoft 365
3 174 (9.47%) AWS
4 104 (5.66%) Power Platform
5 89 (4.84%) Entra ID
6 74 (4.03%) SaaS
7 49 (2.67%) GCP
8 40 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (1.85%) GitHub
10 32 (1.74%) Google Workspace
11 31 (1.69%) Serverless
12 20 (1.09%) OneDrive
13 18 (0.98%) Anthropic Claude
14 16 (0.87%) Dynamics 365
15 15 (0.82%) Google Tag Manager
15 15 (0.82%) PaaS
16 14 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
16 14 (0.76%) Google Analytics
16 14 (0.76%) IaaS
17 13 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 157 (8.54%) Firewall
2 87 (4.73%) DNS
3 71 (3.86%) VPN
4 64 (3.48%) DHCP
5 62 (3.37%) TCP/IP
6 58 (3.16%) VLAN
7 54 (2.94%) WAN
7 54 (2.94%) Wi-Fi
8 53 (2.88%) LAN
8 53 (2.88%) Wireless
9 40 (2.18%) VoIP
10 37 (2.01%) Network Security
11 18 (0.98%) SSL
12 14 (0.76%) Internet
13 11 (0.60%) MQTT
14 10 (0.54%) Broadband
15 9 (0.49%) 5G
15 9 (0.49%) LTE
16 8 (0.44%) Ethernet
17 7 (0.38%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (6.75%) SQL Server
2 86 (4.68%) Power BI
3 34 (1.85%) Relational Database
4 31 (1.69%) MySQL
5 29 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.31%) NoSQL
7 15 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.54%) GIS
12 9 (0.49%) MongoDB
12 9 (0.49%) Tableau
13 7 (0.38%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.38%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.38%) Metadata
14 6 (0.33%) OLTP
15 5 (0.27%) Electronic Patient Records
15 5 (0.27%) Looker
15 5 (0.27%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 64 (3.48%) Git
2 62 (3.37%) JIRA
3 17 (0.92%) Rational DOORS
4 16 (0.87%) GitLab
5 15 (0.82%) Claude Code
6 12 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
6 12 (0.65%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.33%) Selenium
8 5 (0.27%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.27%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.27%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.22%) PetaLinux
9 4 (0.22%) Postman
9 4 (0.22%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.16%) Mocha
10 3 (0.16%) PHPUnit
10 3 (0.16%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.11%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
General
1 956 (52.01%) Social Skills
2 489 (26.61%) Analytical Skills
3 292 (15.89%) Finance
4 188 (10.23%) Manufacturing
5 181 (9.85%) Organisational Skills
6 140 (7.62%) Aerospace
7 119 (6.47%) Electronics
8 107 (5.82%) Retail
9 67 (3.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 64 (3.48%) Marketing
11 54 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
12 53 (2.88%) Legal
13 47 (2.56%) Public Sector
14 46 (2.50%) Telecoms
15 45 (2.45%) Military
16 38 (2.07%) Law
17 28 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
18 27 (1.47%) Aviation
19 25 (1.36%) Automotive
20 24 (1.31%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 254 (13.82%) Analyst
2 182 (9.90%) Senior
3 169 (9.19%) IT Support
4 154 (8.38%) Developer
5 133 (7.24%) Support Analyst
6 127 (6.91%) Support Engineer
7 93 (5.06%) IT Engineer
8 86 (4.68%) Lead
9 80 (4.35%) Technical Support
10 76 (4.13%) Systems Engineer
11 75 (4.08%) Support Technician
12 72 (3.92%) Software Engineer
13 65 (3.54%) IT Support Engineer
14 58 (3.16%) Technical Engineer
15 56 (3.05%) 2nd Line Support
15 56 (3.05%) Technical Support Engineer
16 55 (2.99%) IT Analyst
17 54 (2.94%) IT Technician
18 51 (2.77%) Consultant
19 48 (2.61%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (6.53%) .NET
2 77 (4.19%) Terraform
3 73 (3.97%) HTML
4 61 (3.32%) REST
5 55 (2.99%) CSS
6 54 (2.94%) ASP.NET
7 53 (2.88%) React
8 47 (2.56%) SOAP
9 35 (1.90%) ASP.NET Core
10 31 (1.69%) AngularJS
11 30 (1.63%) RESTful
12 28 (1.52%) JSON
12 28 (1.52%) Vue
13 27 (1.47%) ModSecurity
13 27 (1.47%) OAuth
13 27 (1.47%) XML
14 23 (1.25%) ASP.NET Web API
14 23 (1.25%) jQuery
15 22 (1.20%) ASP.NET Web Forms
15 22 (1.20%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 150 (8.16%) Driving Licence
2 129 (7.02%) Onboarding
3 108 (5.88%) Management Information System
4 94 (5.11%) Self-Motivation
5 65 (3.54%) Cloud Native
6 49 (2.67%) Product Ownership
7 40 (2.18%) Data Centre
8 35 (1.90%) Robotics
9 31 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.63%) Social Media
11 29 (1.58%) CCTV
12 27 (1.47%) Analogue Electronics
13 25 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
13 25 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
14 23 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
15 19 (1.03%) EPoS
16 18 (0.98%) Mobile App
17 17 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
17 17 (0.92%) Renewable Energy
18 16 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 293 (15.94%) Windows
2 109 (5.93%) Windows Server
3 106 (5.77%) Linux
4 27 (1.47%) Android
5 23 (1.25%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.20%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.03%) Windows Server 2019
8 18 (0.98%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.65%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.38%) CentOS
11 7 (0.38%) Debian
12 6 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.33%) Rocky
12 6 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
14 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
14 3 (0.16%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.16%) Unix
14 3 (0.16%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 411 (22.36%) Continuous Improvement
2 366 (19.91%) Customer Service
3 230 (12.51%) Agile
4 220 (11.97%) Decision-Making
5 211 (11.48%) Stakeholder Management
6 198 (10.77%) Project Management
7 192 (10.45%) AI
8 182 (9.90%) Project Delivery
9 169 (9.19%) Collaborative Working
10 166 (9.03%) Software Engineering
11 155 (8.43%) ITIL
12 152 (8.27%) CI/CD
13 149 (8.11%) Mentoring
14 145 (7.89%) CRM
14 145 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
15 141 (7.67%) Validation
16 133 (7.24%) DevOps
17 126 (6.86%) Computer Science
18 119 (6.47%) ERP
19 117 (6.37%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 227 (12.35%) SQL
2 196 (10.66%) Python
3 138 (7.51%) C#
4 113 (6.15%) JavaScript
5 92 (5.01%) PowerShell
6 69 (3.75%) C++
7 66 (3.59%) TypeScript
8 61 (3.32%) Java
9 26 (1.41%) C
10 25 (1.36%) Bash
11 23 (1.25%) Ruby
12 22 (1.20%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.98%) VB.NET
14 17 (0.92%) PHP
15 16 (0.87%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.60%) Rust
17 9 (0.49%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.38%) Bicep
18 7 (0.38%) Perl
Qualifications
1 368 (20.02%) Degree
2 201 (10.94%) Security Cleared
3 136 (7.40%) SC Cleared
4 118 (6.42%) DBS Check
5 65 (3.54%) HNC
6 63 (3.43%) Computer Science Degree
6 63 (3.43%) Microsoft Certification
7 61 (3.32%) HND
8 59 (3.21%) DV Cleared
9 57 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
10 55 (2.99%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.74%) CISSP
12 30 (1.63%) Master's Degree
12 30 (1.63%) PMI Certification
13 28 (1.52%) A+ Certification
13 28 (1.52%) Chartered Engineer
14 26 (1.41%) CISM
15 24 (1.31%) PMP
16 23 (1.25%) AWS Certification
17 22 (1.20%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (7.83%) QA
2 72 (3.92%) GDPR
3 53 (2.88%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.61%) SLA
5 42 (2.29%) Accessibility
6 41 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.25%) NIST
8 20 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (1.03%) DO-254
10 18 (0.98%) Good Clinical Practice
11 17 (0.92%) PMO
12 16 (0.87%) PCI DSS
13 12 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 11 (0.60%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.49%) GMP
16 8 (0.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 8 (0.44%) GLP
16 8 (0.44%) GxP
17 7 (0.38%) SOC 2
18 5 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 162 (8.81%) Active Directory
2 82 (4.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 64 (3.48%) Hyper-V
4 59 (3.21%) Docker
5 16 (0.87%) Firmware
6 9 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.49%) vSphere
7 6 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
7 6 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.27%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.27%) Squid
9 3 (0.16%) KVM
10 1 (0.054%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.054%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 67 (3.65%) Kubernetes
2 64 (3.48%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (1.69%) Ansible
4 21 (1.14%) SCCM
5 17 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.44%) Grafana
7 8 (0.44%) Podman
8 7 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.38%) Functional Safety
8 7 (0.38%) Nagios
8 7 (0.38%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.33%) Graylog
10 5 (0.27%) BMC PATROL
10 5 (0.27%) Puppet
11 4 (0.22%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 4 (0.22%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.11%) CASB
12 2 (0.11%) Nessus
Vendors
1 568 (30.90%) Microsoft
2 98 (5.33%) VMware
3 81 (4.41%) Google
4 54 (2.94%) Oracle
5 48 (2.61%) SAP
6 39 (2.12%) Fortinet
6 39 (2.12%) SonicWALL
6 39 (2.12%) Veeam
7 38 (2.07%) Cisco
8 37 (2.01%) ServiceNow
9 33 (1.80%) Salesforce
10 22 (1.20%) Apple
10 22 (1.20%) Sage
11 20 (1.09%) Palo Alto
12 18 (0.98%) Mentor Graphics
13 17 (0.92%) Thales
14 16 (0.87%) Aruba
15 15 (0.82%) CA Agile Central
15 15 (0.82%) EMC
16 14 (0.76%) WatchGuard