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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,689 1,774 1,991
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.35% 19.53% 15.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.09% 22.25% 19.00%
Number of salaries quoted 1,225 866 961
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - -15.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £66,000
90th Percentile £70,000 £77,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -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 12,900 7,973 10,477
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.42% 87.77% 80.59%
Number of salaries quoted 9,271 4,224 6,027
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,913 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £40,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -7.41% -1.82%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £81,775 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%

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 9 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 9 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 -5 633 £43,000 +1.18% 437
Hampshire -2 434 £40,000 -11.11% 249
Berkshire -4 285 £44,250 +4.12% 213
Surrey -2 259 £41,585 -0.40% 169
Buckinghamshire -6 188 £42,500 +13.33% 121
Kent -4 172 £37,500 +11.94% 82
Oxfordshire +3 160 £45,000 +3.45% 108
East Sussex -4 95 £50,000 - 58
West Sussex -7 74 £47,500 -5.94% 71
Middlesex +2 11 £35,000 -6.67% 32
Sussex -12 4 £52,500 +23.53% 17
Isle of Wight -13 2 £42,500 -3.41% 18
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 76 (4.50%) SharePoint
2 56 (3.32%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.12%) Confluence
4 16 (0.95%) IIS
5 15 (0.89%) CMS
6 7 (0.41%) OpenEdge
7 6 (0.36%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) WordPress
8 5 (0.30%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.18%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.18%) SAS
10 2 (0.12%) Gentran
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 112 (6.63%) Microsoft Office
2 109 (6.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
4 14 (0.83%) AutoCAD
4 14 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.53%) Revit
6 8 (0.47%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.30%) Lightworks
8 4 (0.24%) Simulink
9 3 (0.18%) EPLAN
9 3 (0.18%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.059%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.059%) Mathematica
11 1 (0.059%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.059%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 23 (1.36%) NetSuite
2 17 (1.01%) Shopify
3 15 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.36%) Magento
4 6 (0.36%) Primavera
4 6 (0.36%) Raiser’s Edge
5 3 (0.18%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.18%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.12%) Academy Housing
6 2 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
6 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.059%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.059%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.059%) HFM
Cloud Services
1 382 (22.62%) Azure
2 222 (13.14%) Microsoft 365
3 173 (10.24%) AWS
4 95 (5.62%) Power Platform
5 78 (4.62%) Entra ID
6 69 (4.09%) SaaS
7 49 (2.90%) GCP
8 44 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
9 36 (2.13%) GitHub
10 31 (1.84%) Serverless
11 29 (1.72%) Google Workspace
12 18 (1.07%) IaaS
12 18 (1.07%) PaaS
13 17 (1.01%) Anthropic Claude
13 17 (1.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 17 (1.01%) Dynamics 365
13 17 (1.01%) Google Tag Manager
14 15 (0.89%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (0.89%) OneDrive
15 14 (0.83%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 150 (8.88%) Firewall
2 82 (4.85%) DNS
3 67 (3.97%) VPN
4 63 (3.73%) TCP/IP
5 60 (3.55%) DHCP
6 54 (3.20%) VLAN
7 50 (2.96%) WAN
8 49 (2.90%) Wi-Fi
9 48 (2.84%) LAN
9 48 (2.84%) Wireless
10 35 (2.07%) Network Security
10 35 (2.07%) VoIP
11 18 (1.07%) SSL
12 14 (0.83%) Internet
13 10 (0.59%) MQTT
14 9 (0.53%) Broadband
14 9 (0.53%) LTE
15 8 (0.47%) HTTP
16 6 (0.36%) 5G
16 6 (0.36%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (7.40%) SQL Server
2 79 (4.68%) Power BI
3 37 (2.19%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.78%) MySQL
5 29 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
7 18 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.59%) Tableau
12 9 (0.53%) MongoDB
13 8 (0.47%) Data Lake
13 8 (0.47%) OLTP
14 7 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.41%) DynamoDB
14 7 (0.41%) GIS
14 7 (0.41%) Looker
15 6 (0.36%) Metadata
16 5 (0.30%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 69 (4.09%) Git
2 64 (3.79%) JIRA
3 21 (1.24%) GitLab
4 17 (1.01%) Rational DOORS
5 14 (0.83%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
6 11 (0.65%) Team Foundation Server
7 5 (0.30%) Eclipse
7 5 (0.30%) Eclipse RCP
7 5 (0.30%) Jenkins
7 5 (0.30%) Selenium
7 5 (0.30%) Visual Studio
8 4 (0.24%) Postman
8 4 (0.24%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.18%) PetaLinux
9 3 (0.18%) PHPUnit
9 3 (0.18%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.12%) Android Studio
10 2 (0.12%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.12%) Mocha
General
1 848 (50.21%) Social Skills
2 474 (28.06%) Analytical Skills
3 261 (15.45%) Finance
4 142 (8.41%) Organisational Skills
5 141 (8.35%) Manufacturing
6 108 (6.39%) Aerospace
7 99 (5.86%) Electronics
8 81 (4.80%) Retail
9 64 (3.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (3.20%) Marketing
11 48 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
11 48 (2.84%) Telecoms
12 46 (2.72%) Legal
13 41 (2.43%) Military
14 39 (2.31%) Law
15 38 (2.25%) Public Sector
16 26 (1.54%) Aviation
16 26 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
17 20 (1.18%) Advertising
18 19 (1.12%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 239 (14.15%) Analyst
2 175 (10.36%) Senior
3 162 (9.59%) IT Support
4 159 (9.41%) Developer
5 123 (7.28%) Support Analyst
6 120 (7.10%) Support Engineer
7 91 (5.39%) IT Engineer
8 75 (4.44%) Lead
9 74 (4.38%) Systems Engineer
10 73 (4.32%) Support Technician
10 73 (4.32%) Technical Support
11 71 (4.20%) Software Engineer
12 61 (3.61%) IT Support Engineer
13 53 (3.14%) Technical Engineer
14 52 (3.08%) 2nd Line Support
14 52 (3.08%) IT Technician
15 51 (3.02%) Architect
15 51 (3.02%) Technical Support Engineer
16 50 (2.96%) Consultant
17 47 (2.78%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (6.87%) .NET
2 82 (4.85%) Terraform
3 74 (4.38%) HTML
4 64 (3.79%) REST
5 54 (3.20%) CSS
6 53 (3.14%) ASP.NET
7 52 (3.08%) React
8 51 (3.02%) SOAP
9 35 (2.07%) ASP.NET Core
10 33 (1.95%) OAuth
11 30 (1.78%) AngularJS
12 29 (1.72%) RESTful
13 28 (1.66%) JSON
13 28 (1.66%) Vue
14 27 (1.60%) XML
15 26 (1.54%) ModSecurity
16 22 (1.30%) ASP.NET Web API
16 22 (1.30%) jQuery
17 21 (1.24%) LESS
18 18 (1.07%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 128 (7.58%) Driving Licence
2 117 (6.93%) Onboarding
3 86 (5.09%) Management Information System
4 84 (4.97%) Self-Motivation
5 63 (3.73%) Cloud Native
6 49 (2.90%) Product Ownership
7 41 (2.43%) Data Centre
8 31 (1.84%) Social Media
9 30 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
10 28 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
10 28 (1.66%) Robotics
11 27 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
12 26 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
13 23 (1.36%) Analogue Electronics
13 23 (1.36%) CCTV
14 19 (1.12%) EPoS
15 18 (1.07%) Mobile App
16 15 (0.89%) NHS
16 15 (0.89%) Private Cloud
16 15 (0.89%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 278 (16.46%) Windows
2 111 (6.57%) Linux
3 98 (5.80%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.42%) Android
5 19 (1.12%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
6 17 (1.01%) Windows 10
7 16 (0.95%) Apple iOS
8 13 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.59%) CentOS
9 10 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
10 9 (0.53%) Debian
10 9 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.36%) Rocky
12 5 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.18%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.18%) Unix
13 3 (0.18%) VMS
13 3 (0.18%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 363 (21.49%) Continuous Improvement
2 308 (18.24%) Customer Service
3 230 (13.62%) Agile
4 205 (12.14%) Decision-Making
5 178 (10.54%) Project Management
6 175 (10.36%) Stakeholder Management
7 174 (10.30%) AI
8 168 (9.95%) Project Delivery
8 168 (9.95%) Software Engineering
9 163 (9.65%) CI/CD
10 156 (9.24%) ITIL
11 149 (8.82%) DevOps
12 146 (8.64%) Collaborative Working
13 140 (8.29%) Mentoring
14 139 (8.23%) Cybersecurity
15 138 (8.17%) Validation
16 127 (7.52%) CRM
17 121 (7.16%) Computer Science
18 118 (6.99%) Analytics
19 111 (6.57%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 227 (13.44%) SQL
2 202 (11.96%) Python
3 133 (7.87%) C#
4 111 (6.57%) JavaScript
5 98 (5.80%) PowerShell
6 64 (3.79%) TypeScript
7 62 (3.67%) C++
8 59 (3.49%) Java
9 29 (1.72%) Bash
9 29 (1.72%) C
10 22 (1.30%) Ruby
11 20 (1.18%) T-SQL
12 18 (1.07%) PHP
13 16 (0.95%) VB.NET
14 10 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 10 (0.59%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.59%) Rust
15 9 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 8 (0.47%) Perl
17 7 (0.41%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 338 (20.01%) Degree
2 180 (10.66%) Security Cleared
3 127 (7.52%) SC Cleared
4 109 (6.45%) DBS Check
5 64 (3.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 60 (3.55%) DV Cleared
7 58 (3.43%) Microsoft Certification
8 56 (3.32%) BPSS Clearance
9 51 (3.02%) Azure Certification
10 50 (2.96%) HNC
11 44 (2.61%) HND
12 32 (1.89%) CISSP
12 32 (1.89%) PMI Certification
13 27 (1.60%) CISM
14 26 (1.54%) A+ Certification
14 26 (1.54%) Chartered Engineer
14 26 (1.54%) Master's Degree
14 26 (1.54%) PMP
15 22 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
16 20 (1.18%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (8.58%) QA
2 69 (4.09%) GDPR
3 58 (3.43%) Data Quality
4 44 (2.61%) SLA
5 37 (2.19%) Accessibility
5 37 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 23 (1.36%) NIST
7 19 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (1.07%) Good Clinical Practice
8 18 (1.07%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.95%) PMO
10 15 (0.89%) DO-254
11 12 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 9 (0.53%) GMP
12 9 (0.53%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.47%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.47%) GLP
13 8 (0.47%) GxP
14 5 (0.30%) ISO 9001
15 4 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 149 (8.82%) Active Directory
2 82 (4.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 65 (3.85%) Docker
4 63 (3.73%) Hyper-V
5 12 (0.71%) Firmware
6 9 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.53%) vSphere
7 6 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.30%) ClearTrust
8 5 (0.30%) KVM
8 5 (0.30%) Squid
9 4 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 3 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
12 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.059%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.059%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 74 (4.38%) Kubernetes
2 55 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 34 (2.01%) Ansible
4 23 (1.36%) SCCM
5 17 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.71%) Grafana
8 9 (0.53%) Prometheus
9 8 (0.47%) Podman
10 7 (0.41%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.41%) Nagios
10 7 (0.41%) Puppet
11 6 (0.36%) Graylog
12 4 (0.24%) Docker Swarm
12 4 (0.24%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.18%) BMC PATROL
13 3 (0.18%) ZABBIX
14 2 (0.12%) Nessus
14 2 (0.12%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 520 (30.79%) Microsoft
2 97 (5.74%) VMware
3 77 (4.56%) Google
4 54 (3.20%) Oracle
5 40 (2.37%) SAP
6 39 (2.31%) SonicWALL
7 38 (2.25%) Cisco
7 38 (2.25%) Fortinet
8 37 (2.19%) Veeam
9 33 (1.95%) ServiceNow
10 28 (1.66%) Salesforce
11 23 (1.36%) Sage
12 19 (1.12%) Palo Alto
13 17 (1.01%) Apple
14 16 (0.95%) Aruba
14 16 (0.95%) Databricks
15 15 (0.89%) Mentor Graphics
16 14 (0.83%) CA Agile Central
17 12 (0.71%) Datto
17 12 (0.71%) Okta