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

6 months to
13 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 1,544 1,651 2,032
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.06% 18.74% 14.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.67% 21.28% 18.17%
Number of salaries quoted 1,125 844 1,221
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,438 £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 £61,563 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £46,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.15% -7.00% -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 12,183 7,760 11,184
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.46% 88.09% 80.87%
Number of salaries quoted 8,685 4,168 7,278
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £33,982 £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 £81,250 £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 13 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 13 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% 339
Hampshire -2 401 £45,000 - 203
Surrey 0 255 £42,500 +6.25% 112
Berkshire -3 250 £45,000 +5.88% 162
Buckinghamshire -6 178 £42,500 +13.33% 104
Kent -7 144 £37,500 +19.05% 79
Oxfordshire +1 137 £41,982 -6.71% 77
East Sussex -4 96 £50,000 - 35
West Sussex -8 71 £50,000 -0.99% 50
Middlesex +5 8 £50,000 +33.33% 16
Isle of Wight -12 2 £42,500 -16.67% 5
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 51 (3.30%) SharePoint
2 44 (2.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.23%) CMS
4 18 (1.17%) Confluence
5 11 (0.71%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 103 (6.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 87 (5.63%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.78%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.58%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.52%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.32%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.32%) Photoshop
7 5 (0.32%) Revit
8 4 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
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 13 (0.84%) NetSuite
2 11 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.65%) Shopify
4 7 (0.45%) Magento
5 6 (0.39%) Primavera
5 6 (0.39%) Raiser’s Edge
6 3 (0.19%) Infor SunSystems
6 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.19%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Academy Housing
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.13%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.065%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.065%) HFM
8 1 (0.065%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 369 (23.90%) Azure
2 174 (11.27%) Microsoft 365
3 167 (10.82%) AWS
4 85 (5.51%) Power Platform
5 64 (4.15%) SaaS
6 59 (3.82%) Entra ID
7 49 (3.17%) GCP
8 45 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (2.20%) GitHub
10 31 (2.01%) Serverless
11 21 (1.36%) IaaS
11 21 (1.36%) PaaS
12 20 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 18 (1.17%) Datadog
14 17 (1.10%) Dynamics 365
14 17 (1.10%) Google Workspace
15 16 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
15 16 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
16 14 (0.91%) Amazon ECS
16 14 (0.91%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 129 (8.35%) Firewall
2 66 (4.27%) DNS
3 54 (3.50%) TCP/IP
3 54 (3.50%) VPN
4 48 (3.11%) WAN
5 46 (2.98%) LAN
6 44 (2.85%) DHCP
7 42 (2.72%) Wi-Fi
8 40 (2.59%) Wireless
9 32 (2.07%) VLAN
10 29 (1.88%) VoIP
11 27 (1.75%) Network Security
12 15 (0.97%) SSL
13 13 (0.84%) Internet
14 12 (0.78%) Broadband
15 11 (0.71%) HTTP
16 10 (0.65%) MQTT
17 9 (0.58%) LTE
18 6 (0.39%) WLAN
19 5 (0.32%) VSAT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (7.64%) SQL Server
2 71 (4.60%) Power BI
3 36 (2.33%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.88%) MySQL
4 29 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.62%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.30%) 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 5 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
16 4 (0.26%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 75 (4.86%) Git
2 59 (3.82%) JIRA
3 29 (1.88%) GitLab
4 20 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
5 10 (0.65%) Claude Code
6 7 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
7 6 (0.39%) Selenium
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.32%) Eclipse RCP
8 5 (0.32%) Jenkins
9 4 (0.26%) PHPUnit
9 4 (0.26%) Postman
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%) JUnit
11 2 (0.13%) Mocha
General
1 753 (48.77%) Social Skills
2 448 (29.02%) Analytical Skills
3 223 (14.44%) Finance
4 123 (7.97%) Manufacturing
5 114 (7.38%) Organisational Skills
6 90 (5.83%) Electronics
7 89 (5.76%) Aerospace
8 67 (4.34%) Retail
9 59 (3.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (3.37%) Telecoms
11 43 (2.78%) Marketing
12 40 (2.59%) Influencing Skills
13 39 (2.53%) Law
14 38 (2.46%) Legal
15 37 (2.40%) Public Sector
16 35 (2.27%) Military
17 29 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
18 22 (1.42%) Aviation
18 22 (1.42%) Local Government
19 16 (1.04%) Banking
Job Titles
1 207 (13.41%) Analyst
2 167 (10.82%) Senior
3 150 (9.72%) Developer
4 145 (9.39%) IT Support
5 117 (7.58%) Support Engineer
6 97 (6.28%) Support Analyst
7 86 (5.57%) IT Engineer
8 71 (4.60%) Lead
8 71 (4.60%) Systems Engineer
9 70 (4.53%) Software Engineer
10 67 (4.34%) Technical Support
11 63 (4.08%) Support Technician
12 53 (3.43%) IT Support Engineer
13 52 (3.37%) 2nd Line Support
14 50 (3.24%) Architect
15 49 (3.17%) Technical Engineer
15 49 (3.17%) Technical Support Engineer
16 45 (2.91%) IT Technician
17 41 (2.66%) Consultant
17 41 (2.66%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (6.87%) .NET
2 73 (4.73%) HTML
3 59 (3.82%) REST
4 54 (3.50%) CSS
5 51 (3.30%) React
6 50 (3.24%) SOAP
7 46 (2.98%) ASP.NET
8 36 (2.33%) OAuth
9 33 (2.14%) ASP.NET Core
10 30 (1.94%) JSON
11 29 (1.88%) AngularJS
12 28 (1.81%) RESTful
12 28 (1.81%) Vue
13 26 (1.68%) XML
14 21 (1.36%) SAML
15 20 (1.30%) ModSecurity
16 18 (1.17%) ASP.NET Web API
16 18 (1.17%) jQuery
17 17 (1.10%) Entity Framework
17 17 (1.10%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 113 (7.32%) Driving Licence
2 87 (5.63%) Onboarding
3 75 (4.86%) Management Information System
3 75 (4.86%) Self-Motivation
4 66 (4.27%) Cloud Native
5 42 (2.72%) Product Ownership
6 34 (2.20%) Social Media
7 33 (2.14%) Data Centre
8 30 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 28 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
10 27 (1.75%) Robotics
11 26 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
11 26 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
12 19 (1.23%) NHS
13 18 (1.17%) Analogue Electronics
13 18 (1.17%) EPoS
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
1 242 (15.67%) Windows
2 115 (7.45%) Linux
3 87 (5.63%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.36%) Android
5 17 (1.10%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
7 15 (0.97%) CentOS
8 14 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.78%) 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 4 (0.26%) Unix
14 3 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
14 3 (0.19%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.19%) VMS
14 3 (0.19%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.13%) Rocky
15 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 332 (21.50%) Continuous Improvement
2 265 (17.16%) Customer Service
3 213 (13.80%) Agile
4 193 (12.50%) Decision-Making
5 171 (11.08%) CI/CD
6 167 (10.82%) AI
7 160 (10.36%) Project Management
7 160 (10.36%) Software Engineering
8 155 (10.04%) DevOps
9 147 (9.52%) Project Delivery
10 143 (9.26%) Stakeholder Management
11 142 (9.20%) ITIL
12 133 (8.61%) Mentoring
13 131 (8.48%) Validation
14 130 (8.42%) Cybersecurity
15 120 (7.77%) Computer Science
16 119 (7.71%) Collaborative Working
17 116 (7.51%) Analytics
18 104 (6.74%) Logistics
19 101 (6.54%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 220 (14.25%) SQL
2 218 (14.12%) Python
3 122 (7.90%) C#
4 103 (6.67%) JavaScript
5 91 (5.89%) PowerShell
6 62 (4.02%) C++
7 57 (3.69%) Java
8 56 (3.63%) TypeScript
9 37 (2.40%) Bash
10 33 (2.14%) C
11 22 (1.42%) PHP
12 16 (1.04%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.91%) Ruby
14 13 (0.84%) Rust
15 12 (0.78%) PL/SQL
15 12 (0.78%) VB.NET
16 11 (0.71%) Perl
17 8 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 7 (0.45%) Bicep
19 6 (0.39%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 308 (19.95%) Degree
2 163 (10.56%) Security Cleared
3 118 (7.64%) SC Cleared
4 97 (6.28%) DBS Check
5 66 (4.27%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 52 (3.37%) DV Cleared
8 50 (3.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 47 (3.04%) HNC
10 41 (2.66%) Azure Certification
11 34 (2.20%) HND
12 32 (2.07%) PMI Certification
13 27 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
13 27 (1.75%) CISSP
14 26 (1.68%) PMP
15 25 (1.62%) Master's Degree
16 21 (1.36%) ACCA
16 21 (1.36%) CISM
17 20 (1.30%) CIMA
17 20 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (8.74%) QA
2 55 (3.56%) Data Quality
3 54 (3.50%) GDPR
4 44 (2.85%) SLA
5 33 (2.14%) Accessibility
6 27 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.17%) Good Clinical Practice
7 18 (1.17%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.10%) NIST
9 16 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 14 (0.91%) PMO
11 10 (0.65%) DO-254
12 9 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 9 (0.58%) GMP
12 9 (0.58%) SOC 2
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
1 125 (8.10%) Active Directory
2 73 (4.73%) Docker
3 72 (4.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 58 (3.76%) 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 87 (5.63%) Terraform
2 83 (5.38%) Kubernetes
3 49 (3.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 39 (2.53%) Ansible
5 23 (1.49%) SCCM
6 15 (0.97%) Grafana
7 14 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.78%) Prometheus
9 10 (0.65%) Nagios
10 8 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.52%) Podman
11 7 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.45%) Puppet
12 5 (0.32%) Graylog
12 5 (0.32%) ZABBIX
13 4 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
13 4 (0.26%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.13%) Nessus
14 2 (0.13%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 440 (28.50%) Microsoft
2 80 (5.18%) VMware
3 58 (3.76%) Google
4 53 (3.43%) Oracle
5 36 (2.33%) Cisco
6 34 (2.20%) SAP
7 33 (2.14%) Fortinet
8 31 (2.01%) SonicWALL
9 29 (1.88%) Veeam
10 28 (1.81%) ServiceNow
11 26 (1.68%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.30%) Databricks
13 19 (1.23%) Sage
14 16 (1.04%) Aruba
14 16 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 14 (0.91%) Splunk
16 13 (0.84%) Instagram
16 13 (0.84%) Red Hat
17 12 (0.78%) Dynatrace
18 11 (0.71%) Okta