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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,540 1,613 2,016
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.12% 18.46% 14.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.72% 20.96% 18.09%
Number of salaries quoted 1,133 830 1,215
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -10.53% -7.77%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.06% -6.00% -9.09%

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 12,109 7,696 11,145
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.74% 88.06% 80.95%
Number of salaries quoted 8,624 4,161 7,315
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,733 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £81,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -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 9 August 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 August 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 -5 563 £43,000 +1.18% 333
Hampshire -2 401 £42,500 -2.86% 212
Surrey +1 257 £42,500 +6.25% 111
Berkshire -2 248 £45,000 +5.88% 153
Buckinghamshire -5 179 £42,500 +13.33% 106
Kent -8 143 £36,250 +15.08% 79
Oxfordshire +2 136 £41,982 -6.71% 80
East Sussex -4 92 £50,000 - 46
West Sussex -7 72 £50,000 +2.56% 52
Middlesex +6 7 £65,000 +73.33% 13
Isle of Wight -12 2 £42,500 -22.73% 3
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 50 (3.25%) SharePoint
2 44 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.30%) CMS
4 19 (1.23%) Confluence
5 10 (0.65%) IIS
6 8 (0.52%) WordPress
7 7 (0.45%) Apache
7 7 (0.45%) OpenEdge
8 5 (0.32%) nginx
9 3 (0.19%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.19%) SAS
10 2 (0.13%) Gentran
10 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.065%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 104 (6.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 87 (5.65%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.58%) MS Visio
6 8 (0.52%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 5 (0.32%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.32%) Photoshop
8 4 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
8 4 (0.26%) Revit
8 4 (0.26%) Simulink
9 3 (0.19%) EPLAN
10 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 1 (0.065%) Mathcad
11 1 (0.065%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.065%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 14 (0.91%) NetSuite
2 10 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.52%) Shopify
4 7 (0.45%) Magento
5 6 (0.39%) Raiser’s Edge
6 4 (0.26%) Primavera
7 3 (0.19%) Infor SunSystems
7 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.19%) Sage X3
7 3 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.13%) Academy Housing
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.065%) Elite 3E
9 1 (0.065%) HFM
9 1 (0.065%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.065%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 363 (23.57%) Azure
2 175 (11.36%) Microsoft 365
3 168 (10.91%) AWS
4 85 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.16%) SaaS
6 57 (3.70%) Entra ID
7 51 (3.31%) GCP
8 45 (2.92%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (2.21%) GitHub
10 32 (2.08%) Serverless
11 21 (1.36%) IaaS
11 21 (1.36%) PaaS
12 19 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 19 (1.23%) Datadog
13 18 (1.17%) Dynamics 365
13 18 (1.17%) Google Workspace
14 17 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
15 15 (0.97%) Amazon ECS
15 15 (0.97%) OpenShift
16 14 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 130 (8.44%) Firewall
2 66 (4.29%) DNS
3 55 (3.57%) TCP/IP
3 55 (3.57%) VPN
4 49 (3.18%) WAN
5 47 (3.05%) LAN
6 43 (2.79%) DHCP
7 42 (2.73%) Wi-Fi
8 40 (2.60%) Wireless
9 31 (2.01%) VLAN
10 30 (1.95%) VoIP
11 27 (1.75%) Network Security
12 15 (0.97%) SSL
13 13 (0.84%) Broadband
13 13 (0.84%) Internet
14 11 (0.71%) HTTP
15 10 (0.65%) MQTT
16 9 (0.58%) LTE
17 6 (0.39%) Remote Desktop
17 6 (0.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (7.47%) SQL Server
2 72 (4.68%) Power BI
3 35 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.88%) MySQL
4 29 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
5 24 (1.56%) NoSQL
6 18 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (0.84%) Tableau
9 12 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.65%) Data Lake
11 10 (0.65%) OLTP
12 8 (0.52%) DynamoDB
12 8 (0.52%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.45%) GIS
13 7 (0.45%) Looker
14 6 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.26%) Metadata
15 4 (0.26%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 78 (5.06%) Git
2 60 (3.90%) JIRA
3 32 (2.08%) GitLab
4 20 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
5 10 (0.65%) Claude Code
6 7 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.45%) Selenium
6 7 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
7 5 (0.32%) Eclipse
7 5 (0.32%) Eclipse RCP
7 5 (0.32%) Jenkins
7 5 (0.32%) Postman
8 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
8 4 (0.26%) Terragrunt
8 4 (0.26%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.19%) Android Studio
9 3 (0.19%) PetaLinux
9 3 (0.19%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.13%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 747 (48.51%) Social Skills
2 444 (28.83%) Analytical Skills
3 225 (14.61%) Finance
4 123 (7.99%) Manufacturing
5 113 (7.34%) Organisational Skills
6 89 (5.78%) Electronics
7 81 (5.26%) Aerospace
8 66 (4.29%) Retail
9 60 (3.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (3.51%) Telecoms
11 43 (2.79%) Marketing
12 41 (2.66%) Law
13 40 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
14 37 (2.40%) Legal
15 36 (2.34%) Public Sector
16 32 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
17 31 (2.01%) Military
18 23 (1.49%) Local Government
19 19 (1.23%) Aviation
20 18 (1.17%) Banking
Job Titles
1 209 (13.57%) Analyst
2 163 (10.58%) Senior
3 150 (9.74%) IT Support
4 148 (9.61%) Developer
5 119 (7.73%) Support Engineer
6 97 (6.30%) Support Analyst
7 87 (5.65%) IT Engineer
8 73 (4.74%) Lead
9 70 (4.55%) Software Engineer
9 70 (4.55%) Systems Engineer
10 67 (4.35%) Technical Support
11 64 (4.16%) Support Technician
12 54 (3.51%) IT Support Engineer
13 53 (3.44%) 2nd Line Support
14 49 (3.18%) Technical Engineer
14 49 (3.18%) Technical Support Engineer
15 48 (3.12%) Architect
16 46 (2.99%) IT Technician
17 39 (2.53%) Consultant
17 39 (2.53%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (6.75%) .NET
2 72 (4.68%) HTML
3 58 (3.77%) REST
4 54 (3.51%) CSS
5 49 (3.18%) React
5 49 (3.18%) SOAP
6 45 (2.92%) ASP.NET
7 35 (2.27%) OAuth
8 32 (2.08%) ASP.NET Core
9 31 (2.01%) JSON
10 28 (1.82%) RESTful
11 27 (1.75%) AngularJS
11 27 (1.75%) Vue
12 26 (1.69%) XML
13 20 (1.30%) SAML
14 18 (1.17%) ASP.NET Web API
14 18 (1.17%) jQuery
15 17 (1.10%) LESS
15 17 (1.10%) ModSecurity
15 17 (1.10%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 111 (7.21%) Driving Licence
2 87 (5.65%) Onboarding
3 78 (5.06%) Self-Motivation
4 76 (4.94%) Management Information System
5 63 (4.09%) Cloud Native
6 43 (2.79%) Product Ownership
7 32 (2.08%) Social Media
8 30 (1.95%) Data Centre
8 30 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
9 29 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
10 26 (1.69%) Robotics
11 25 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
12 23 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
13 18 (1.17%) EPoS
13 18 (1.17%) NHS
14 17 (1.10%) Analogue Electronics
15 15 (0.97%) CCTV
15 15 (0.97%) Renewable Energy
15 15 (0.97%) Security Posture
16 14 (0.91%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 245 (15.91%) Windows
2 120 (7.79%) Linux
3 88 (5.71%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.36%) Android
5 19 (1.23%) Mac OS
6 17 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
7 16 (1.04%) CentOS
8 15 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.84%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.71%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.65%) Windows 10
12 9 (0.58%) Debian
12 9 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.19%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.19%) Unix
13 3 (0.19%) VMS
13 3 (0.19%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.13%) Rocky
14 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (21.49%) Continuous Improvement
2 263 (17.08%) Customer Service
3 212 (13.77%) Agile
4 189 (12.27%) Decision-Making
5 173 (11.23%) CI/CD
6 169 (10.97%) AI
7 161 (10.45%) Project Management
8 158 (10.26%) DevOps
8 158 (10.26%) Software Engineering
9 148 (9.61%) Project Delivery
10 141 (9.16%) Stakeholder Management
11 140 (9.09%) ITIL
12 132 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
13 131 (8.51%) Mentoring
14 128 (8.31%) Validation
15 119 (7.73%) Computer Science
16 118 (7.66%) Collaborative Working
17 114 (7.40%) Analytics
18 104 (6.75%) Logistics
19 99 (6.43%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 218 (14.16%) SQL
2 216 (14.03%) Python
3 118 (7.66%) C#
4 102 (6.62%) JavaScript
5 93 (6.04%) PowerShell
6 62 (4.03%) C++
7 57 (3.70%) Java
7 57 (3.70%) TypeScript
8 39 (2.53%) Bash
9 33 (2.14%) C
10 24 (1.56%) PHP
11 15 (0.97%) T-SQL
12 14 (0.91%) Ruby
13 13 (0.84%) Rust
14 12 (0.78%) VB.NET
15 11 (0.71%) Perl
15 11 (0.71%) PL/SQL
16 8 (0.52%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.45%) Bicep
18 6 (0.39%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 303 (19.68%) Degree
2 155 (10.06%) Security Cleared
3 111 (7.21%) SC Cleared
4 98 (6.36%) DBS Check
5 65 (4.22%) Computer Science Degree
6 53 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 49 (3.18%) Microsoft Certification
8 46 (2.99%) DV Cleared
9 45 (2.92%) HNC
10 37 (2.40%) Azure Certification
11 32 (2.08%) HND
12 31 (2.01%) PMI Certification
13 27 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
14 26 (1.69%) PMP
15 24 (1.56%) CISSP
15 24 (1.56%) Master's Degree
16 23 (1.49%) ACCA
17 22 (1.43%) CIMA
18 20 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 18 (1.17%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (8.64%) QA
2 54 (3.51%) Data Quality
3 53 (3.44%) GDPR
4 42 (2.73%) SLA
5 31 (2.01%) Accessibility
6 29 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (1.30%) PCI DSS
8 18 (1.17%) Good Clinical Practice
8 18 (1.17%) NIST
9 16 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 14 (0.91%) PMO
11 11 (0.71%) SOC 2
12 9 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 9 (0.58%) DO-254
12 9 (0.58%) GMP
13 8 (0.52%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.52%) GLP
13 8 (0.52%) GxP
13 8 (0.52%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 124 (8.05%) Active Directory
2 76 (4.94%) Docker
3 70 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 56 (3.64%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.65%) Firmware
6 9 (0.58%) KVM
6 9 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.58%) vSphere
7 5 (0.32%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.32%) Squid
7 5 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.32%) XenApp
8 4 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.065%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.065%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 88 (5.71%) Terraform
2 85 (5.52%) Kubernetes
3 49 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 40 (2.60%) Ansible
5 23 (1.49%) SCCM
6 16 (1.04%) Grafana
7 13 (0.84%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.71%) Nagios
10 9 (0.58%) Podman
11 8 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
12 7 (0.45%) Puppet
13 6 (0.39%) ZABBIX
14 5 (0.32%) Docker Swarm
14 5 (0.32%) Graylog
15 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
15 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
16 2 (0.13%) Nessus
16 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 440 (28.57%) Microsoft
2 78 (5.06%) VMware
3 57 (3.70%) Google
4 51 (3.31%) Oracle
5 37 (2.40%) Cisco
6 32 (2.08%) Fortinet
7 30 (1.95%) SAP
7 30 (1.95%) SonicWALL
8 28 (1.82%) Veeam
9 27 (1.75%) ServiceNow
10 26 (1.69%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.30%) Databricks
11 20 (1.30%) Sage
12 16 (1.04%) Aruba
13 15 (0.97%) Palo Alto
13 15 (0.97%) Red Hat
13 15 (0.97%) Splunk
14 14 (0.91%) Instagram
15 13 (0.84%) Dynatrace
16 11 (0.71%) EMC