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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,261 1,494 2,918
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.53% 19.05% 15.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.94% 21.13% 19.39%
Number of salaries quoted 952 720 1,807
10th Percentile £26,500 £27,488 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,549 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.76% -5.45% -14.29%
75th Percentile £59,750 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,750 £83,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -10.00%

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 10,558 7,072 15,051
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.42% 90.17% 81.06%
Number of salaries quoted 7,490 3,437 10,465
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,875 £27,755
25th Percentile £39,304 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £51,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.80% +3.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £78,750
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 19 June 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 19 June 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 -10 460 £45,000 - 223
Hampshire -2 295 £40,000 -5.88% 124
Berkshire -7 226 £45,000 -10.00% 98
Surrey -1 213 £42,500 +6.25% 93
Buckinghamshire -11 136 £47,500 +26.67% 72
Kent -2 133 £29,500 -4.84% 57
Oxfordshire -3 98 £34,000 -38.18% 55
East Sussex -4 91 £50,000 - 20
West Sussex -7 59 £50,000 +7.53% 29
Isle of Wight -14 3 £41,500 -24.55%
Middlesex +5 2 £35,000 -41.67% 9
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 35 (2.78%) SharePoint
2 32 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.27%) CMS
3 16 (1.27%) Confluence
4 7 (0.56%) OpenEdge
5 5 (0.40%) IIS
5 5 (0.40%) WordPress
6 3 (0.24%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.24%) Apache
6 3 (0.24%) govService
6 3 (0.24%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.24%) SAS
7 2 (0.16%) Gentran
8 1 (0.079%) nginx
8 1 (0.079%) Tomcat
Applications
1 93 (7.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 78 (6.19%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.48%) Photoshop
6 4 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.16%) Lightworks
9 1 (0.079%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.079%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.079%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 12 (0.95%) NetSuite
2 9 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.48%) SAP CO
4 4 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.32%) Magento
5 3 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.16%) Infor SunSystems
6 2 (0.16%) Shopify
7 1 (0.079%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.079%) HFM
7 1 (0.079%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.079%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 295 (23.39%) Azure
2 142 (11.26%) Microsoft 365
3 118 (9.36%) AWS
4 74 (5.87%) Power Platform
5 53 (4.20%) SaaS
6 47 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (3.01%) GCP
8 33 (2.62%) Entra ID
9 27 (2.14%) IaaS
9 27 (2.14%) PaaS
10 23 (1.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 21 (1.67%) Serverless
12 18 (1.43%) GitHub
13 17 (1.35%) Datadog
13 17 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
14 15 (1.19%) Google Workspace
14 15 (1.19%) OpenShift
15 14 (1.11%) Mimecast
16 13 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
17 11 (0.87%) Asana
Communications & Networking
1 97 (7.69%) Firewall
2 59 (4.68%) DNS
3 41 (3.25%) WAN
4 40 (3.17%) LAN
5 36 (2.85%) VPN
6 35 (2.78%) DHCP
6 35 (2.78%) TCP/IP
7 31 (2.46%) Wireless
8 27 (2.14%) Wi-Fi
9 21 (1.67%) VoIP
10 20 (1.59%) Broadband
11 19 (1.51%) Network Security
12 17 (1.35%) VLAN
13 11 (0.87%) Internet
14 10 (0.79%) HTTP
14 10 (0.79%) SSL
15 7 (0.56%) Remote Desktop
16 6 (0.48%) WLAN
17 5 (0.40%) SAN
18 4 (0.32%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (6.74%) SQL Server
2 62 (4.92%) Power BI
3 22 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
3 22 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (1.35%) OLTP
4 17 (1.35%) Relational Database
5 15 (1.19%) NoSQL
6 13 (1.03%) MySQL
7 10 (0.79%) Power Query
7 10 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 10 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 10 (0.79%) Tableau
8 9 (0.71%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.56%) Looker
10 6 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.48%) GIS
11 5 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
12 4 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (0.32%) MongoDB
13 3 (0.24%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 57 (4.52%) Git
2 45 (3.57%) JIRA
3 30 (2.38%) GitLab
4 23 (1.82%) Rational DOORS
5 6 (0.48%) Selenium
6 3 (0.24%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.24%) Postman
6 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.16%) Appium
7 2 (0.16%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.16%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.16%) JMeter
7 2 (0.16%) JUnit
7 2 (0.16%) Mocha
7 2 (0.16%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.16%) Subversion
7 2 (0.16%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.079%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.079%) PHPUnit
8 1 (0.079%) SonarQube
General
1 607 (48.14%) Social Skills
2 350 (27.76%) Analytical Skills
3 185 (14.67%) Finance
4 84 (6.66%) Organisational Skills
5 65 (5.15%) Manufacturing
6 54 (4.28%) Telecoms
7 53 (4.20%) Marketing
7 53 (4.20%) Retail
8 52 (4.12%) Electronics
9 43 (3.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 36 (2.85%) Aerospace
11 34 (2.70%) Law
12 29 (2.30%) Legal
13 28 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
14 26 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
14 26 (2.06%) Public Sector
15 25 (1.98%) Local Government
16 17 (1.35%) Military
17 13 (1.03%) Banking
18 12 (0.95%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 173 (13.72%) Analyst
2 138 (10.94%) IT Support
3 128 (10.15%) Developer
3 128 (10.15%) Senior
4 116 (9.20%) Support Engineer
5 82 (6.50%) IT Engineer
6 69 (5.47%) Support Analyst
7 63 (5.00%) Systems Engineer
8 57 (4.52%) Software Engineer
9 54 (4.28%) IT Support Engineer
10 53 (4.20%) Support Technician
11 51 (4.04%) Lead
11 51 (4.04%) Technical Support
12 47 (3.73%) 2nd Line Support
13 41 (3.25%) Architect
14 39 (3.09%) IT Technician
15 38 (3.01%) Technical Engineer
15 38 (3.01%) Technical Support Engineer
16 37 (2.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 34 (2.70%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.26%) .NET
2 58 (4.60%) HTML
3 50 (3.97%) SOAP
4 40 (3.17%) REST
5 36 (2.85%) CSS
6 35 (2.78%) JSON
6 35 (2.78%) XML
7 31 (2.46%) React
8 23 (1.82%) ASP.NET
9 19 (1.51%) Middleware
10 18 (1.43%) OAuth
11 17 (1.35%) RESTful
12 16 (1.27%) HTML5
13 15 (1.19%) ASP.NET Core
13 15 (1.19%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (1.19%) Vue
14 14 (1.11%) CSS3
14 14 (1.11%) Laravel
15 13 (1.03%) Ajax
15 13 (1.03%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 80 (6.34%) Driving Licence
2 63 (5.00%) Management Information System
2 63 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
3 56 (4.44%) Onboarding
4 42 (3.33%) Cloud Native
5 34 (2.70%) Product Ownership
6 28 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
8 17 (1.35%) Low-Code
8 17 (1.35%) Social Media
9 16 (1.27%) NHS
9 16 (1.27%) Robotics
10 14 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.03%) EPoS
11 13 (1.03%) Security Posture
12 12 (0.95%) Client/Server
13 11 (0.87%) Video Editing
14 10 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (0.79%) Mobile App
14 10 (0.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 201 (15.94%) Windows
2 104 (8.25%) Linux
3 70 (5.55%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.59%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.51%) Android
5 19 (1.51%) CentOS
6 18 (1.43%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (1.03%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.48%) VMS
10 6 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.40%) Debian
12 2 (0.16%) Gentoo
12 2 (0.16%) Unix
12 2 (0.16%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.079%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.079%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.079%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (19.90%) Continuous Improvement
2 221 (17.53%) Customer Service
3 172 (13.64%) Agile
4 142 (11.26%) CI/CD
5 137 (10.86%) DevOps
6 129 (10.23%) Decision-Making
6 129 (10.23%) Software Engineering
7 112 (8.88%) AI
7 112 (8.88%) Project Management
8 111 (8.80%) Cybersecurity
9 108 (8.56%) Computer Science
10 104 (8.25%) Mentoring
11 98 (7.77%) Analytics
12 97 (7.69%) Project Delivery
13 94 (7.45%) Collaborative Working
14 91 (7.22%) Business Intelligence
15 88 (6.98%) ITIL
16 87 (6.90%) Stakeholder Management
17 81 (6.42%) CRM
18 77 (6.11%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 201 (15.94%) Python
2 194 (15.38%) SQL
3 103 (8.17%) C#
4 86 (6.82%) JavaScript
5 76 (6.03%) PowerShell
6 52 (4.12%) Java
7 48 (3.81%) C++
8 37 (2.93%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.30%) Bash
9 29 (2.30%) C
10 28 (2.22%) PHP
11 20 (1.59%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.95%) Ruby
12 12 (0.95%) Rust
13 11 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 10 (0.79%) Perl
15 8 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 7 (0.56%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.56%) Bicep
17 6 (0.48%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 246 (19.51%) Degree
2 82 (6.50%) Security Cleared
3 72 (5.71%) DBS Check
4 53 (4.20%) SC Cleared
5 52 (4.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 38 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
7 36 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.54%) ACCA
9 31 (2.46%) CIMA
10 29 (2.30%) HNC
11 26 (2.06%) Chartered Engineer
12 20 (1.59%) A+ Certification
12 20 (1.59%) PMI Certification
13 17 (1.35%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 17 (1.35%) PMP
14 15 (1.19%) Azure Certification
15 14 (1.11%) CompTIA Security+
15 14 (1.11%) Master's Degree
15 14 (1.11%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 13 (1.03%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (8.17%) QA
2 55 (4.36%) Data Quality
3 46 (3.65%) GDPR
4 37 (2.93%) SLA
5 27 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (1.98%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.43%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.03%) NIST
8 13 (1.03%) PMO
9 12 (0.95%) Good Clinical Practice
10 11 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (0.63%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.40%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.32%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.32%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.32%) GLP
13 4 (0.32%) GMP
13 4 (0.32%) GxP
13 4 (0.32%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 111 (8.80%) Active Directory
2 59 (4.68%) Docker
3 46 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (3.17%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.79%) KVM
6 7 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.40%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.40%) XenApp
8 4 (0.32%) Firmware
8 4 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.16%) vSphere
11 1 (0.079%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.079%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.079%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.079%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 67 (5.31%) Kubernetes
2 65 (5.15%) Terraform
3 37 (2.93%) Microsoft Intune
4 32 (2.54%) Ansible
5 18 (1.43%) SCCM
6 16 (1.27%) Grafana
7 13 (1.03%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.95%) Nagios
9 8 (0.63%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.56%) Podman
10 7 (0.56%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.40%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.40%) Failover Clustering
11 5 (0.40%) Graylog
12 4 (0.32%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.24%) Puppet
14 2 (0.16%) Nessus
15 1 (0.079%) Netcool
15 1 (0.079%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 352 (27.91%) Microsoft
2 53 (4.20%) VMware
3 44 (3.49%) Oracle
4 39 (3.09%) Google
5 27 (2.14%) Databricks
6 26 (2.06%) Salesforce
7 25 (1.98%) Cisco
8 24 (1.90%) Veeam
9 18 (1.43%) Instagram
10 17 (1.35%) Fortinet
11 16 (1.27%) SAP
11 16 (1.27%) Splunk
12 15 (1.19%) Adobe
12 15 (1.19%) Red Hat
12 15 (1.19%) SonicWALL
13 13 (1.03%) Sage
14 12 (0.95%) Aruba
14 12 (0.95%) SolarWinds
15 11 (0.87%) Dynatrace
15 11 (0.87%) Wrike