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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,781 1,741 1,996
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.59% 19.44% 15.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.34% 22.08% 18.98%
Number of salaries quoted 1,260 874 945
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £28,000
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% -0.99%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £68,750 £77,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -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 13,347 7,884 10,519
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.85% 88.02% 81.07%
Number of salaries quoted 9,525 4,225 5,885
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £41,220
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £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 18 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 18 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 -6 673 £43,000 +1.18% 565
Hampshire -1 451 £40,000 -5.88% 316
Berkshire -6 303 £42,500 - 303
Surrey 0 264 £40,000 -4.19% 162
Buckinghamshire -5 194 £42,500 +13.33% 127
Kent -4 192 £35,000 +11.11% 75
Oxfordshire +3 176 £44,500 +2.30% 140
East Sussex -3 95 £50,000 - 64
West Sussex -5 82 £45,000 -10.89% 96
Middlesex +4 12 £35,000 -6.67% 15
Sussex -11 6 £65,000 +52.94% 15
Isle of Wight -11 2 £42,500 +3.66% 7
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 85 (4.77%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.01%) Confluence
4 16 (0.90%) IIS
5 11 (0.62%) CMS
6 7 (0.39%) OpenEdge
7 6 (0.34%) Apache
8 5 (0.28%) nginx
8 5 (0.28%) WordPress
9 3 (0.17%) SAS
10 2 (0.11%) Gentran
10 2 (0.11%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.056%) Anypoint
Applications
1 131 (7.36%) Microsoft Office
2 122 (6.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.07%) AutoCAD
4 17 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
6 13 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 10 (0.56%) MS Visio
8 9 (0.51%) Revit
9 6 (0.34%) Lightworks
9 6 (0.34%) Simulink
10 4 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
11 3 (0.17%) EPLAN
11 3 (0.17%) Mathematica
12 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.11%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.11%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.11%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
13 1 (0.056%) Mathcad
13 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 25 (1.40%) NetSuite
2 18 (1.01%) Shopify
3 17 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.39%) Primavera
5 6 (0.34%) Magento
5 6 (0.34%) Raiser’s Edge
6 3 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
6 3 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.17%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.11%) Academy Housing
7 2 (0.11%) Eloqua
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.056%) Adobe Campaign
8 1 (0.056%) C-CURE
8 1 (0.056%) HFM
8 1 (0.056%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.056%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 377 (21.17%) Azure
2 237 (13.31%) Microsoft 365
3 173 (9.71%) AWS
4 104 (5.84%) Power Platform
5 82 (4.60%) Entra ID
6 76 (4.27%) SaaS
7 49 (2.75%) GCP
8 41 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (1.85%) GitHub
10 31 (1.74%) Serverless
11 30 (1.68%) Google Workspace
12 19 (1.07%) Dynamics 365
13 18 (1.01%) Anthropic Claude
13 18 (1.01%) OneDrive
14 16 (0.90%) IaaS
14 16 (0.90%) PaaS
15 15 (0.84%) Google Tag Manager
16 14 (0.79%) Amazon ECS
16 14 (0.79%) Azure Data Factory
16 14 (0.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 152 (8.53%) Firewall
2 83 (4.66%) DNS
3 68 (3.82%) VPN
4 62 (3.48%) TCP/IP
5 61 (3.43%) DHCP
6 56 (3.14%) VLAN
7 53 (2.98%) WAN
8 51 (2.86%) LAN
8 51 (2.86%) Wi-Fi
8 51 (2.86%) Wireless
9 38 (2.13%) VoIP
10 36 (2.02%) Network Security
11 18 (1.01%) SSL
12 14 (0.79%) Internet
13 11 (0.62%) MQTT
14 9 (0.51%) 5G
14 9 (0.51%) LTE
15 8 (0.45%) Broadband
15 8 (0.45%) Ethernet
16 7 (0.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (6.96%) SQL Server
2 86 (4.83%) Power BI
3 35 (1.97%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.68%) MySQL
5 29 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.35%) NoSQL
7 17 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.56%) Tableau
12 9 (0.51%) GIS
12 9 (0.51%) MongoDB
13 8 (0.45%) Metadata
14 7 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.39%) DynamoDB
14 7 (0.39%) OLTP
15 6 (0.34%) Data Lake
16 5 (0.28%) Electronic Patient Records
16 5 (0.28%) Looker
Development Applications
1 65 (3.65%) Git
2 62 (3.48%) JIRA
3 18 (1.01%) Rational DOORS
4 16 (0.90%) GitLab
5 14 (0.79%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
6 11 (0.62%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.34%) Selenium
8 5 (0.28%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.28%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.28%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.28%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.22%) PetaLinux
9 4 (0.22%) Postman
9 4 (0.22%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.17%) Mocha
10 3 (0.17%) PHPUnit
10 3 (0.17%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.11%) JUnit
General
1 921 (51.71%) Social Skills
2 484 (27.18%) Analytical Skills
3 284 (15.95%) Finance
4 169 (9.49%) Manufacturing
5 164 (9.21%) Organisational Skills
6 133 (7.47%) Aerospace
7 109 (6.12%) Electronics
8 99 (5.56%) Retail
9 66 (3.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (3.20%) Marketing
11 52 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
12 50 (2.81%) Legal
13 48 (2.70%) Telecoms
14 42 (2.36%) Military
14 42 (2.36%) Public Sector
15 39 (2.19%) Law
16 27 (1.52%) Aviation
16 27 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
17 23 (1.29%) Advertising
18 21 (1.18%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 249 (13.98%) Analyst
2 185 (10.39%) Senior
3 164 (9.21%) IT Support
4 156 (8.76%) Developer
5 128 (7.19%) Support Analyst
6 122 (6.85%) Support Engineer
7 91 (5.11%) IT Engineer
8 80 (4.49%) Lead
8 80 (4.49%) Systems Engineer
9 78 (4.38%) Technical Support
10 76 (4.27%) Support Technician
11 71 (3.99%) Software Engineer
12 62 (3.48%) IT Support Engineer
13 56 (3.14%) Technical Engineer
14 55 (3.09%) 2nd Line Support
14 55 (3.09%) IT Technician
15 54 (3.03%) Technical Support Engineer
16 50 (2.81%) Architect
16 50 (2.81%) Consultant
16 50 (2.81%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (6.63%) .NET
2 78 (4.38%) Terraform
3 73 (4.10%) HTML
4 62 (3.48%) REST
5 54 (3.03%) CSS
6 53 (2.98%) ASP.NET
6 53 (2.98%) React
7 49 (2.75%) SOAP
8 35 (1.97%) ASP.NET Core
9 31 (1.74%) AngularJS
10 30 (1.68%) RESTful
11 28 (1.57%) JSON
11 28 (1.57%) OAuth
11 28 (1.57%) Vue
11 28 (1.57%) XML
12 27 (1.52%) ModSecurity
13 22 (1.24%) ASP.NET Web API
13 22 (1.24%) jQuery
14 21 (1.18%) LESS
15 20 (1.12%) ASP.NET Web Forms
Miscellaneous
1 139 (7.80%) Driving Licence
2 127 (7.13%) Onboarding
3 99 (5.56%) Management Information System
4 88 (4.94%) Self-Motivation
5 64 (3.59%) Cloud Native
6 51 (2.86%) Product Ownership
7 41 (2.30%) Data Centre
8 33 (1.85%) Robotics
9 31 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.68%) Social Media
11 28 (1.57%) CCTV
12 26 (1.46%) Analogue Electronics
12 26 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
13 25 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
14 23 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
15 19 (1.07%) EPoS
16 18 (1.01%) Mobile App
17 17 (0.95%) Renewable Energy
18 16 (0.90%) Cyber Threat
18 16 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 286 (16.06%) Windows
2 107 (6.01%) Linux
3 102 (5.73%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.46%) Android
5 21 (1.18%) Mac OS
6 19 (1.07%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.07%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (0.95%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.67%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.45%) CentOS
10 8 (0.45%) Debian
11 7 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.34%) Rocky
12 6 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
14 3 (0.17%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.17%) Unix
14 3 (0.17%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.11%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (22.01%) Continuous Improvement
2 344 (19.31%) Customer Service
3 234 (13.14%) Agile
4 214 (12.02%) Decision-Making
5 196 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 192 (10.78%) Project Management
7 187 (10.50%) AI
8 178 (9.99%) Project Delivery
9 169 (9.49%) Software Engineering
10 160 (8.98%) Collaborative Working
11 158 (8.87%) ITIL
12 156 (8.76%) CI/CD
13 146 (8.20%) Cybersecurity
14 145 (8.14%) Mentoring
15 140 (7.86%) DevOps
16 139 (7.80%) Validation
17 136 (7.64%) CRM
18 125 (7.02%) Computer Science
19 118 (6.63%) ERP
20 116 (6.51%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 226 (12.69%) SQL
2 196 (11.01%) Python
3 136 (7.64%) C#
4 112 (6.29%) JavaScript
5 94 (5.28%) PowerShell
6 66 (3.71%) C++
7 65 (3.65%) TypeScript
8 59 (3.31%) Java
9 26 (1.46%) Bash
10 25 (1.40%) C
11 22 (1.24%) T-SQL
12 21 (1.18%) Ruby
13 17 (0.95%) PHP
13 17 (0.95%) VB.NET
14 14 (0.79%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.56%) PL/SQL
16 10 (0.56%) Rust
17 7 (0.39%) Bicep
17 7 (0.39%) Perl
Qualifications
1 360 (20.21%) Degree
2 193 (10.84%) Security Cleared
3 133 (7.47%) SC Cleared
4 118 (6.63%) DBS Check
5 64 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
6 62 (3.48%) Microsoft Certification
7 60 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
7 60 (3.37%) HNC
8 59 (3.31%) DV Cleared
9 58 (3.26%) HND
10 55 (3.09%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.80%) CISSP
12 31 (1.74%) PMI Certification
13 30 (1.68%) Chartered Engineer
13 30 (1.68%) Master's Degree
14 28 (1.57%) A+ Certification
15 27 (1.52%) CISM
16 24 (1.35%) PMP
17 23 (1.29%) AWS Certification
18 22 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (8.25%) QA
2 71 (3.99%) GDPR
3 55 (3.09%) Data Quality
4 46 (2.58%) SLA
5 43 (2.41%) Accessibility
6 40 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 24 (1.35%) NIST
8 20 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (1.01%) DO-254
9 18 (1.01%) Good Clinical Practice
10 17 (0.95%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.90%) PMO
12 12 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.51%) GMP
14 8 (0.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.45%) GLP
14 8 (0.45%) GxP
14 8 (0.45%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.39%) ISO 9001
16 5 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 156 (8.76%) Active Directory
2 83 (4.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 61 (3.43%) Hyper-V
4 60 (3.37%) Docker
5 14 (0.79%) Firmware
6 9 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.51%) vSphere
7 8 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.28%) ClearTrust
9 5 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 5 (0.28%) Squid
10 3 (0.17%) KVM
10 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.056%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 68 (3.82%) Kubernetes
2 59 (3.31%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (1.74%) Ansible
4 22 (1.24%) SCCM
5 17 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.45%) Grafana
7 8 (0.45%) Podman
8 7 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.34%) Graylog
9 6 (0.34%) Nagios
9 6 (0.34%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.34%) Puppet
10 5 (0.28%) BMC PATROL
10 5 (0.28%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.22%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.22%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.11%) CASB
12 2 (0.11%) Nessus
12 2 (0.11%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 551 (30.94%) Microsoft
2 99 (5.56%) VMware
3 78 (4.38%) Google
4 54 (3.03%) Oracle
5 45 (2.53%) SAP
6 39 (2.19%) Fortinet
6 39 (2.19%) SonicWALL
7 37 (2.08%) Cisco
7 37 (2.08%) ServiceNow
7 37 (2.08%) Veeam
8 31 (1.74%) Salesforce
9 23 (1.29%) Sage
10 21 (1.18%) Apple
11 19 (1.07%) Palo Alto
12 18 (1.01%) Mentor Graphics
13 16 (0.90%) Aruba
14 15 (0.84%) CA Agile Central
15 14 (0.79%) EMC
16 13 (0.73%) Databricks
16 13 (0.73%) Thales