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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,755 1,741 1,978
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.50% 19.40% 15.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.24% 22.02% 18.95%
Number of salaries quoted 1,244 871 940
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £37,313
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 £66,045
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 13,255 7,905 10,436
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.74% 88.09% 80.89%
Number of salaries quoted 9,464 4,223 5,876
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £41,000
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% -7.26%

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 17 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 17 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 -7 660 £43,000 +1.18% 611
Hampshire -2 444 £40,000 -5.88% 334
Berkshire -6 297 £42,500 - 319
Surrey -1 264 £40,000 -2.14% 179
Buckinghamshire -4 191 £42,500 +10.39% 143
Kent -4 189 £35,000 +11.11% 79
Oxfordshire +3 172 £45,000 +3.45% 154
East Sussex -2 93 £50,000 - 77
West Sussex -7 80 £47,500 -5.94% 109
Middlesex +4 12 £35,000 -6.67% 16
Sussex -10 6 £65,000 +52.94% 16
Isle of Wight -13 2 £42,500 +3.66% 12
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 82 (4.67%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.03%) Confluence
4 16 (0.91%) IIS
5 11 (0.63%) CMS
6 7 (0.40%) 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%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.11%) Gentran
10 2 (0.11%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 126 (7.18%) Microsoft Office
2 118 (6.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.08%) AutoCAD
4 16 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 9 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 9 (0.51%) Revit
7 6 (0.34%) Lightworks
7 6 (0.34%) Simulink
8 4 (0.23%) SOLIDWORKS
9 3 (0.17%) EPLAN
9 3 (0.17%) Mathematica
10 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.11%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.11%) PTC Creo
10 2 (0.11%) Siemens NX
10 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
11 1 (0.057%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.057%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 25 (1.42%) NetSuite
2 18 (1.03%) Shopify
3 16 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.34%) Magento
4 6 (0.34%) Primavera
4 6 (0.34%) Raiser’s Edge
5 3 (0.17%) Infor SunSystems
5 3 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.17%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.11%) Academy Housing
6 2 (0.11%) Eloqua
6 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
6 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.057%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.057%) HFM
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.057%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 377 (21.48%) Azure
2 235 (13.39%) Microsoft 365
3 173 (9.86%) AWS
4 103 (5.87%) Power Platform
5 82 (4.67%) Entra ID
6 73 (4.16%) SaaS
7 49 (2.79%) GCP
8 41 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (1.88%) GitHub
10 31 (1.77%) Serverless
11 30 (1.71%) Google Workspace
12 19 (1.08%) Dynamics 365
13 18 (1.03%) Anthropic Claude
14 17 (0.97%) OneDrive
15 16 (0.91%) IaaS
15 16 (0.91%) PaaS
16 15 (0.85%) Google Tag Manager
17 14 (0.80%) Amazon ECS
17 14 (0.80%) Azure Data Factory
17 14 (0.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 152 (8.66%) Firewall
2 83 (4.73%) DNS
3 68 (3.87%) VPN
4 62 (3.53%) TCP/IP
5 61 (3.48%) DHCP
6 56 (3.19%) VLAN
7 52 (2.96%) WAN
8 51 (2.91%) Wi-Fi
8 51 (2.91%) Wireless
9 50 (2.85%) LAN
10 37 (2.11%) VoIP
11 36 (2.05%) Network Security
12 18 (1.03%) SSL
13 14 (0.80%) Internet
14 11 (0.63%) MQTT
15 9 (0.51%) 5G
15 9 (0.51%) LTE
16 8 (0.46%) Broadband
16 8 (0.46%) Ethernet
17 7 (0.40%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (7.07%) SQL Server
2 86 (4.90%) Power BI
3 35 (1.99%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.71%) MySQL
5 29 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 17 (0.97%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.57%) Tableau
12 9 (0.51%) GIS
12 9 (0.51%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.40%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.40%) Metadata
13 7 (0.40%) OLTP
14 6 (0.34%) Data Lake
15 5 (0.28%) Electronic Patient Records
15 5 (0.28%) Looker
Development Applications
1 65 (3.70%) Git
2 62 (3.53%) JIRA
3 17 (0.97%) Rational DOORS
4 16 (0.91%) GitLab
5 14 (0.80%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
6 11 (0.63%) 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 (0.23%) PetaLinux
9 4 (0.23%) Postman
9 4 (0.23%) 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
1 904 (51.51%) Social Skills
2 480 (27.35%) Analytical Skills
3 277 (15.78%) Finance
4 164 (9.34%) Manufacturing
5 157 (8.95%) Organisational Skills
6 126 (7.18%) Aerospace
7 107 (6.10%) Electronics
8 97 (5.53%) Retail
9 67 (3.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 55 (3.13%) Marketing
11 50 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
12 49 (2.79%) Legal
13 48 (2.74%) Telecoms
14 42 (2.39%) Military
15 41 (2.34%) Public Sector
16 39 (2.22%) Law
17 26 (1.48%) Aviation
17 26 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
18 23 (1.31%) Advertising
19 22 (1.25%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 248 (14.13%) Analyst
2 182 (10.37%) Senior
3 164 (9.34%) IT Support
4 157 (8.95%) Developer
5 128 (7.29%) Support Analyst
6 122 (6.95%) Support Engineer
7 91 (5.19%) IT Engineer
8 80 (4.56%) Systems Engineer
9 79 (4.50%) Lead
10 76 (4.33%) Technical Support
11 75 (4.27%) Support Technician
12 71 (4.05%) Software Engineer
13 62 (3.53%) IT Support Engineer
14 55 (3.13%) 2nd Line Support
14 55 (3.13%) Technical Engineer
15 54 (3.08%) IT Technician
16 53 (3.02%) Technical Support Engineer
17 50 (2.85%) Consultant
17 50 (2.85%) IT Analyst
18 49 (2.79%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (6.72%) .NET
2 78 (4.44%) Terraform
3 73 (4.16%) HTML
4 63 (3.59%) REST
5 54 (3.08%) CSS
6 53 (3.02%) ASP.NET
6 53 (3.02%) React
7 50 (2.85%) SOAP
8 35 (1.99%) ASP.NET Core
9 31 (1.77%) AngularJS
10 30 (1.71%) RESTful
11 29 (1.65%) OAuth
12 28 (1.60%) JSON
12 28 (1.60%) Vue
12 28 (1.60%) XML
13 27 (1.54%) ModSecurity
14 22 (1.25%) ASP.NET Web API
14 22 (1.25%) jQuery
15 21 (1.20%) LESS
16 20 (1.14%) ASP.NET Web Forms
Miscellaneous
1 132 (7.52%) Driving Licence
2 123 (7.01%) Onboarding
3 97 (5.53%) Management Information System
4 88 (5.01%) Self-Motivation
5 64 (3.65%) Cloud Native
6 51 (2.91%) Product Ownership
7 41 (2.34%) Data Centre
8 32 (1.82%) Robotics
9 31 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.71%) Social Media
11 26 (1.48%) CCTV
11 26 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
12 25 (1.42%) Analogue Electronics
13 24 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
14 23 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
15 19 (1.08%) EPoS
16 18 (1.03%) Mobile App
17 16 (0.91%) Cyber Threat
17 16 (0.91%) Renewable Energy
17 16 (0.91%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 285 (16.24%) Windows
2 107 (6.10%) Linux
3 101 (5.75%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.48%) Android
5 21 (1.20%) Mac OS
6 19 (1.08%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.08%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (0.97%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.68%) Ubuntu
9 10 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.46%) CentOS
10 8 (0.46%) Debian
11 7 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.34%) Rocky
12 6 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
14 3 (0.17%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.17%) Unix
14 3 (0.17%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.11%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 383 (21.82%) Continuous Improvement
2 329 (18.75%) Customer Service
3 234 (13.33%) Agile
4 210 (11.97%) Decision-Making
5 190 (10.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 189 (10.77%) Project Management
7 184 (10.48%) AI
8 175 (9.97%) Project Delivery
9 169 (9.63%) Software Engineering
10 158 (9.00%) ITIL
11 157 (8.95%) CI/CD
11 157 (8.95%) Collaborative Working
12 143 (8.15%) Cybersecurity
12 143 (8.15%) Mentoring
13 140 (7.98%) DevOps
14 139 (7.92%) Validation
15 130 (7.41%) CRM
16 124 (7.07%) Computer Science
17 118 (6.72%) ERP
18 116 (6.61%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 226 (12.88%) SQL
2 197 (11.23%) Python
3 136 (7.75%) C#
4 112 (6.38%) JavaScript
5 94 (5.36%) PowerShell
6 66 (3.76%) C++
7 65 (3.70%) TypeScript
8 59 (3.36%) Java
9 26 (1.48%) Bash
9 26 (1.48%) C
10 22 (1.25%) T-SQL
11 21 (1.20%) Ruby
12 17 (0.97%) PHP
12 17 (0.97%) VB.NET
13 14 (0.80%) MATLAB
14 11 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 10 (0.57%) PL/SQL
15 10 (0.57%) Rust
16 7 (0.40%) Bicep
16 7 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 357 (20.34%) Degree
2 193 (11.00%) Security Cleared
3 133 (7.58%) SC Cleared
4 114 (6.50%) DBS Check
5 64 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 61 (3.48%) Microsoft Certification
7 59 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
7 59 (3.36%) DV Cleared
8 58 (3.30%) HNC
9 56 (3.19%) HND
10 55 (3.13%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.82%) CISSP
12 31 (1.77%) Master's Degree
13 30 (1.71%) Chartered Engineer
13 30 (1.71%) PMI Certification
14 29 (1.65%) A+ Certification
15 27 (1.54%) CISM
16 24 (1.37%) PMP
17 23 (1.31%) AWS Certification
18 22 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (8.32%) QA
2 69 (3.93%) GDPR
3 54 (3.08%) Data Quality
4 46 (2.62%) SLA
5 43 (2.45%) Accessibility
6 39 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.31%) NIST
8 19 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (1.03%) Good Clinical Practice
10 17 (0.97%) DO-254
10 17 (0.97%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.91%) PMO
12 12 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.51%) GMP
14 8 (0.46%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.46%) GLP
14 8 (0.46%) GxP
14 8 (0.46%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.40%) ISO 9001
16 5 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 156 (8.89%) Active Directory
2 83 (4.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 61 (3.48%) Hyper-V
4 60 (3.42%) Docker
5 14 (0.80%) Firmware
6 9 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.51%) vSphere
7 8 (0.46%) 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 (0.057%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.057%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 68 (3.87%) Kubernetes
2 59 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (1.77%) Ansible
4 22 (1.25%) SCCM
5 17 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.46%) Grafana
7 8 (0.46%) Podman
8 7 (0.40%) 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 (0.23%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.23%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.11%) CASB
12 2 (0.11%) Nessus
12 2 (0.11%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 543 (30.94%) Microsoft
2 99 (5.64%) VMware
3 78 (4.44%) Google
4 54 (3.08%) Oracle
5 44 (2.51%) SAP
6 39 (2.22%) Fortinet
6 39 (2.22%) SonicWALL
7 37 (2.11%) Cisco
7 37 (2.11%) ServiceNow
7 37 (2.11%) Veeam
8 30 (1.71%) Salesforce
9 23 (1.31%) Sage
10 21 (1.20%) Apple
11 19 (1.08%) Palo Alto
12 17 (0.97%) Mentor Graphics
13 16 (0.91%) Aruba
14 15 (0.85%) CA Agile Central
15 13 (0.74%) Databricks
15 13 (0.74%) EMC
15 13 (0.74%) Thales