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

6 months to
8 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 1,541 1,611 2,033
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.14% 18.49% 14.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.74% 20.98% 18.19%
Number of salaries quoted 1,136 827 1,214
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% -7.50%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,010 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.04% -5.98% -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 12,100 7,679 11,179
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.77% 88.15% 80.96%
Number of salaries quoted 8,623 4,135 7,330
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 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
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 8 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 8 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 -5 565 £43,000 +1.18% 330
Hampshire -1 399 £42,500 -2.86% 205
Surrey +1 258 £42,500 +6.25% 107
Berkshire -2 251 £45,000 +5.88% 150
Buckinghamshire -5 179 £42,500 +13.33% 106
Kent -8 143 £37,500 +19.05% 79
Oxfordshire +2 135 £42,241 -12.45% 80
East Sussex -4 92 £50,000 - 48
West Sussex -7 72 £50,000 +2.56% 53
Middlesex +7 7 £65,000 +73.33% 13
Isle of Wight -11 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 (3.24%) SharePoint
2 44 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.30%) CMS
4 19 (1.23%) Confluence
5 9 (0.58%) 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
1 106 (6.88%) 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
1 362 (23.49%) Azure
2 174 (11.29%) Microsoft 365
3 169 (10.97%) AWS
4 85 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.15%) SaaS
6 56 (3.63%) 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
12 19 (1.23%) 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 (4.28%) 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
1 113 (7.33%) SQL Server
2 72 (4.67%) Power BI
3 33 (2.14%) Relational Database
4 28 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (1.75%) MySQL
6 24 (1.56%) NoSQL
7 18 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.84%) Tableau
10 12 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 11 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.65%) Data Lake
12 10 (0.65%) OLTP
13 8 (0.52%) DynamoDB
13 8 (0.52%) MongoDB
14 7 (0.45%) GIS
14 7 (0.45%) Looker
15 6 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (0.32%) Power Query
17 4 (0.26%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 77 (5.00%) Git
2 60 (3.89%) JIRA
3 32 (2.08%) GitLab
4 20 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
5 9 (0.58%) Claude Code
6 7 (0.45%) Selenium
7 6 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
7 6 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.32%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.32%) Postman
9 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
9 4 (0.26%) Terragrunt
9 4 (0.26%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.19%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.19%) PetaLinux
10 3 (0.19%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 749 (48.60%) Social Skills
2 446 (28.94%) Analytical Skills
3 224 (14.54%) Finance
4 123 (7.98%) Manufacturing
5 112 (7.27%) Organisational Skills
6 88 (5.71%) Electronics
7 79 (5.13%) Aerospace
8 64 (4.15%) Retail
9 58 (3.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (3.50%) Telecoms
11 43 (2.79%) Marketing
12 40 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
12 40 (2.60%) Law
13 36 (2.34%) Legal
14 35 (2.27%) Public Sector
15 33 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
16 31 (2.01%) Military
17 23 (1.49%) Local Government
18 19 (1.23%) Aviation
19 18 (1.17%) Banking
Job Titles
1 213 (13.82%) Analyst
2 161 (10.45%) Senior
3 151 (9.80%) IT Support
4 146 (9.47%) Developer
5 120 (7.79%) Support Engineer
6 97 (6.29%) Support Analyst
7 88 (5.71%) IT Engineer
8 73 (4.74%) Lead
9 71 (4.61%) Software Engineer
10 70 (4.54%) Systems Engineer
11 67 (4.35%) Technical Support
12 64 (4.15%) Support Technician
13 55 (3.57%) IT Support Engineer
14 54 (3.50%) 2nd Line Support
15 49 (3.18%) Technical Engineer
15 49 (3.18%) Technical Support Engineer
16 47 (3.05%) Architect
17 46 (2.99%) IT Technician
18 39 (2.53%) Consultant
18 39 (2.53%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (6.68%) .NET
2 70 (4.54%) HTML
3 58 (3.76%) REST
4 52 (3.37%) CSS
5 49 (3.18%) SOAP
6 48 (3.11%) React
7 44 (2.86%) ASP.NET
8 34 (2.21%) OAuth
9 32 (2.08%) ASP.NET Core
10 31 (2.01%) JSON
11 28 (1.82%) RESTful
12 27 (1.75%) Vue
13 26 (1.69%) AngularJS
13 26 (1.69%) XML
14 19 (1.23%) SAML
15 17 (1.10%) ASP.NET Web API
15 17 (1.10%) jQuery
15 17 (1.10%) RabbitMQ
16 16 (1.04%) HTML5
16 16 (1.04%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 112 (7.27%) Driving Licence
2 86 (5.58%) Onboarding
3 78 (5.06%) Self-Motivation
4 77 (5.00%) Management Information System
5 62 (4.02%) Cloud Native
6 44 (2.86%) Product Ownership
7 30 (1.95%) Data Centre
7 30 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (1.95%) Social Media
8 29 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 26 (1.69%) Robotics
10 25 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
11 22 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
12 18 (1.17%) EPoS
12 18 (1.17%) NHS
13 16 (1.04%) Analogue Electronics
14 15 (0.97%) CCTV
14 15 (0.97%) Renewable Energy
14 15 (0.97%) Security Posture
15 14 (0.91%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 244 (15.83%) 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
1 332 (21.54%) Continuous Improvement
2 263 (17.07%) Customer Service
3 213 (13.82%) Agile
4 187 (12.13%) Decision-Making
5 174 (11.29%) CI/CD
6 169 (10.97%) AI
7 160 (10.38%) Project Management
8 159 (10.32%) DevOps
9 158 (10.25%) Software Engineering
10 147 (9.54%) Project Delivery
11 140 (9.09%) ITIL
12 139 (9.02%) Stakeholder Management
13 132 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
14 130 (8.44%) Mentoring
15 127 (8.24%) Validation
16 119 (7.72%) Computer Science
17 117 (7.59%) Collaborative Working
18 114 (7.40%) Analytics
19 103 (6.68%) Logistics
20 101 (6.55%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 219 (14.21%) SQL
2 218 (14.15%) Python
3 117 (7.59%) C#
4 100 (6.49%) JavaScript
5 94 (6.10%) PowerShell
6 62 (4.02%) C++
7 58 (3.76%) Java
8 56 (3.63%) TypeScript
9 39 (2.53%) Bash
10 33 (2.14%) C
11 24 (1.56%) PHP
12 15 (0.97%) Ruby
12 15 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 13 (0.84%) Rust
14 11 (0.71%) Perl
14 11 (0.71%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.71%) VB.NET
15 8 (0.52%) MATLAB
16 7 (0.45%) Bicep
17 6 (0.39%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 304 (19.73%) Degree
2 152 (9.86%) Security Cleared
3 110 (7.14%) SC Cleared
4 98 (6.36%) DBS Check
5 65 (4.22%) Computer Science Degree
6 52 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
7 49 (3.18%) Microsoft Certification
8 45 (2.92%) DV Cleared
8 45 (2.92%) HNC
9 36 (2.34%) Azure Certification
10 31 (2.01%) HND
10 31 (2.01%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
12 26 (1.69%) PMP
13 25 (1.62%) ACCA
14 24 (1.56%) CIMA
15 23 (1.49%) CISSP
15 23 (1.49%) Master's Degree
16 20 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 18 (1.17%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (8.70%) QA
2 54 (3.50%) Data Quality
3 52 (3.37%) 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%) GMP
13 8 (0.52%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.52%) DO-254
13 8 (0.52%) GLP
13 8 (0.52%) GxP
13 8 (0.52%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 123 (7.98%) Active Directory
2 76 (4.93%) Docker
3 70 (4.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 56 (3.63%) 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 11 (0.71%) Nagios
8 11 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (0.58%) Podman
10 8 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.45%) Puppet
12 6 (0.39%) ZABBIX
13 5 (0.32%) Docker Swarm
13 5 (0.32%) Graylog
14 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
14 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
15 2 (0.13%) Nessus
15 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 439 (28.49%) Microsoft
2 78 (5.06%) VMware
3 57 (3.70%) Google
4 50 (3.24%) Oracle
5 37 (2.40%) Cisco
6 32 (2.08%) Fortinet
7 30 (1.95%) SAP
7 30 (1.95%) SonicWALL
8 29 (1.88%) Veeam
9 28 (1.82%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.75%) ServiceNow
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