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

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,310 1,477 2,233
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 11.59% 17.75% 18.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.74% 19.83% 21.04%
Number of salaries quoted 910 655 1,332
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,600 £25,775
25th Percentile £31,000 £35,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £52,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £60,000 £71,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £84,500 £74,875
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.91%

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 8,890 7,447 10,612
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 78.68% 89.47% 86.02%
Number of salaries quoted 5,465 3,393 7,816
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,000 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £43,750 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £57,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £85,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -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 14 February 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 14 February 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 -2 551 £45,000 -21.74% 202
Berkshire +4 344 £45,000 -33.33% 100
Hampshire 0 277 £36,250 -27.50% 135
Surrey -11 190 £38,500 -33.04% 92
Buckinghamshire -8 130 £50,000 -13.04% 59
Kent -10 122 £30,000 -11.76% 54
East Sussex +1 79 £55,750 +11.50% 20
Oxfordshire -6 77 £34,000 -20.00% 46
West Sussex -3 54 £60,000 +26.32% 32
Middlesex -13 17 £47,500 +4.40% 9
Isle of Wight +8 14 £43,000 +7.23% 2
Sussex -5 3 £35,000 -54.84% 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 42 (3.21%) SharePoint
2 33 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 21 (1.60%) IIS
4 13 (0.99%) CMS
5 9 (0.69%) WordPress
6 8 (0.61%) Confluence
7 4 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.23%) govService
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) HCL Domino
9 2 (0.15%) HCL Notes
10 1 (0.076%) Apache
10 1 (0.076%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.076%) nginx
10 1 (0.076%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.076%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 118 (9.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 115 (8.78%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
5 12 (0.92%) Photoshop
6 10 (0.76%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 9 (0.69%) Adobe Illustrator
8 7 (0.53%) Adobe Premiere
8 7 (0.53%) MS Visio
9 4 (0.31%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.23%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.23%) InDesign
11 2 (0.15%) Adobe Captivate
11 2 (0.15%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.15%) Elementor
12 1 (0.076%) EPLAN
12 1 (0.076%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.076%) OrCAD
12 1 (0.076%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.076%) Revit
Business Applications
1 58 (4.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.84%) NetSuite
3 10 (0.76%) SAP CO
4 8 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.38%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 5 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
6 4 (0.31%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
7 3 (0.23%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
8 2 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 2 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
8 2 (0.15%) Sage 200
8 2 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 1 (0.076%) Raiser’s Edge
9 1 (0.076%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.076%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.076%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 263 (20.08%) Azure
2 169 (12.90%) Microsoft 365
3 127 (9.69%) Power Platform
4 80 (6.11%) AWS
5 65 (4.96%) SaaS
6 62 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (2.98%) GCP
8 38 (2.90%) Entra ID
9 18 (1.37%) Azure Logic Apps
9 18 (1.37%) PaaS
10 17 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 17 (1.30%) Google Workspace
10 17 (1.30%) IaaS
11 16 (1.22%) Collibra
11 16 (1.22%) Figma
11 16 (1.22%) Mimecast
12 14 (1.07%) Dynamics 365
12 14 (1.07%) GitHub
13 12 (0.92%) Power Automate
14 10 (0.76%) Stripe
Communications & Networking
1 85 (6.49%) DNS
2 68 (5.19%) Firewall
3 57 (4.35%) DHCP
4 48 (3.66%) TCP/IP
5 46 (3.51%) VPN
6 27 (2.06%) Wireless
7 25 (1.91%) VLAN
8 18 (1.37%) WAN
9 15 (1.15%) LAN
10 13 (0.99%) SAN
11 12 (0.92%) Broadband
12 10 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
13 9 (0.69%) Intranet
14 8 (0.61%) VoIP
15 7 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
16 6 (0.46%) HTTP
16 6 (0.46%) PuTTY
16 6 (0.46%) SSH
17 4 (0.31%) MPLS
18 3 (0.23%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (8.02%) Power BI
2 47 (3.59%) Data Lake
3 45 (3.44%) SAP BW
4 42 (3.21%) Relational Database
5 37 (2.82%) SQL Server
6 16 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (1.22%) NoSQL
6 16 (1.22%) Power Query
6 16 (1.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 13 (0.99%) OLTP
8 7 (0.53%) PostgreSQL
8 7 (0.53%) PowerPivot
8 7 (0.53%) Tableau
9 6 (0.46%) Big Data
9 6 (0.46%) Hadoop
9 6 (0.46%) MySQL
10 5 (0.38%) Data Mining
11 4 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.31%) Metadata
12 3 (0.23%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 43 (3.28%) Git
2 39 (2.98%) JIRA
3 24 (1.83%) Selenium
4 15 (1.15%) Robot Framework
5 13 (0.99%) Snyk
6 12 (0.92%) GitLab
7 8 (0.61%) Rational DOORS
7 8 (0.61%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.53%) Jenkins
9 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.31%) WebDriver
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
11 2 (0.15%) Appium
11 2 (0.15%) LabVIEW
11 2 (0.15%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.15%) TestRail
12 1 (0.076%) Android Studio
12 1 (0.076%) JMeter
12 1 (0.076%) JUnit
12 1 (0.076%) NUnit
General
1 743 (56.72%) Social Skills
2 347 (26.49%) Analytical Skills
3 284 (21.68%) Finance
4 113 (8.63%) Manufacturing
5 99 (7.56%) Marketing
6 81 (6.18%) Retail
7 75 (5.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 67 (5.11%) Organisational Skills
9 45 (3.44%) Electronics
10 41 (3.13%) Telecoms
11 34 (2.60%) Legal
12 32 (2.44%) Public Sector
13 29 (2.21%) Law
14 26 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
15 14 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (0.84%) Banking
17 11 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
18 10 (0.76%) Automotive
19 9 (0.69%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 250 (19.08%) Analyst
2 210 (16.03%) Senior
3 198 (15.11%) IT Support
4 160 (12.21%) Support Engineer
5 109 (8.32%) Developer
6 108 (8.24%) Lead
7 105 (8.02%) Support Analyst
8 84 (6.41%) Technical Support
9 70 (5.34%) IT Analyst
10 68 (5.19%) IT Engineer
11 67 (5.11%) IT Support Analyst
12 59 (4.50%) IT Support Engineer
13 56 (4.27%) 2nd Line Support
14 49 (3.74%) Senior Analyst
15 48 (3.66%) Project Engineer
16 45 (3.44%) Report Analyst
17 44 (3.36%) Senior Manager
18 41 (3.13%) Technical Engineer
18 41 (3.13%) Technical Support Engineer
19 39 (2.98%) SAP Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (4.27%) .NET
2 48 (3.66%) HTML
3 36 (2.75%) SOAP
4 34 (2.60%) REST
5 29 (2.21%) React
6 27 (2.06%) CSS
7 21 (1.60%) XML
8 19 (1.45%) .NET Framework
9 18 (1.37%) ASP.NET
10 14 (1.07%) JSON
10 14 (1.07%) Middleware
11 13 (0.99%) Entity Framework
11 13 (0.99%) WinForms
12 12 (0.92%) Laravel
13 10 (0.76%) ARM Templates
14 9 (0.69%) EDI
14 9 (0.69%) Lightning Web Components
14 9 (0.69%) Node.js
14 9 (0.69%) SAP CO-PA
15 8 (0.61%) OLE
Miscellaneous
1 115 (8.78%) Onboarding
2 71 (5.42%) Driving Licence
3 63 (4.81%) Self-Motivation
4 44 (3.36%) Analytical Mindset
5 42 (3.21%) Management Information System
6 37 (2.82%) Data Centre
7 27 (2.06%) Product Ownership
8 21 (1.60%) Low-Code
9 17 (1.30%) Cloud Native
10 16 (1.22%) Social Media
11 15 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
12 11 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
13 10 (0.76%) Security Operations Centre
13 10 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (0.69%) Life Science
14 9 (0.69%) Video Editing
15 8 (0.61%) FMCG
15 8 (0.61%) Mobile App
16 7 (0.53%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 237 (18.09%) Windows
2 72 (5.50%) Windows Server
3 69 (5.27%) Linux
4 29 (2.21%) Windows 10
5 22 (1.68%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.22%) Android
7 12 (0.92%) Windows Server 2012
8 10 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 7 (0.53%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.53%) CentOS
11 6 (0.46%) VMS
11 6 (0.46%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.23%) Unix
14 2 (0.15%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.076%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (19.01%) Continuous Improvement
2 203 (15.50%) Customer Service
3 167 (12.75%) Analytics
4 158 (12.06%) Agile
5 134 (10.23%) Business Intelligence
6 127 (9.69%) ERP
7 118 (9.01%) Data Modelling
8 113 (8.63%) DevOps
9 109 (8.32%) Project Management
10 103 (7.86%) Stakeholder Management
11 90 (6.87%) Computer Science
12 89 (6.79%) Decision-Making
13 87 (6.64%) Cybersecurity
14 85 (6.49%) Technical Leadership
15 83 (6.34%) CI/CD
16 82 (6.26%) Mentoring
17 80 (6.11%) Logistics
18 72 (5.50%) AI
19 70 (5.34%) Data Governance
20 69 (5.27%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 206 (15.73%) SQL
2 152 (11.60%) Python
3 81 (6.18%) C#
4 74 (5.65%) PowerShell
5 68 (5.19%) JavaScript
6 40 (3.05%) Java
7 27 (2.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 26 (1.98%) PHP
9 16 (1.22%) C++
9 16 (1.22%) PL/SQL
10 15 (1.15%) TypeScript
11 12 (0.92%) Bicep
11 12 (0.92%) C
11 12 (0.92%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.69%) Apex Code
12 9 (0.69%) Bash
12 9 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
13 7 (0.53%) Perl
13 7 (0.53%) R
13 7 (0.53%) VBA
Qualifications
1 327 (24.96%) Degree
2 95 (7.25%) Security Cleared
3 50 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
4 44 (3.36%) SC Cleared
5 37 (2.82%) ACCA
6 30 (2.29%) Microsoft Certification
7 29 (2.21%) CIMA
8 27 (2.06%) DBS Check
8 27 (2.06%) DV Cleared
9 22 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 19 (1.45%) A+ Certification
10 19 (1.45%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 16 (1.22%) Master's Degree
12 15 (1.15%) HNC
13 9 (0.69%) Chartered Engineer
14 8 (0.61%) HND
14 8 (0.61%) MCSE
15 7 (0.53%) CCNA
15 7 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
15 7 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (7.25%) Data Quality
2 72 (5.50%) QA
3 49 (3.74%) GDPR
4 30 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 22 (1.68%) Accessibility
6 20 (1.53%) SLA
7 11 (0.84%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.69%) NIST
9 8 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
9 8 (0.61%) ISO 9001
10 5 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.38%) ISO 13485
11 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.15%) ITGC
11 2 (0.15%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.15%) WCAG
12 1 (0.076%) GAAP
12 1 (0.076%) ISO 19650
12 1 (0.076%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 1 (0.076%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 159 (12.14%) Active Directory
2 40 (3.05%) Hyper-V
3 34 (2.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (2.21%) Docker
5 9 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.53%) KVM
7 4 (0.31%) Firmware
8 3 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.15%) RHEV
9 2 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.15%) Xen
10 1 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 48 (3.66%) Terraform
2 46 (3.51%) Microsoft Intune
3 25 (1.91%) Ansible
4 24 (1.83%) Kubernetes
5 15 (1.15%) SCCM
6 13 (0.99%) vCenter Server
7 9 (0.69%) ZABBIX
8 8 (0.61%) Grafana
8 8 (0.61%) Nagios
8 8 (0.61%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.23%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.15%) Nessus
10 2 (0.15%) Netcool
10 2 (0.15%) Netcool/OMNIbus
10 2 (0.15%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.076%) CASB
11 1 (0.076%) Control-M
11 1 (0.076%) Dell DRAC
11 1 (0.076%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.076%) Podman
Vendors
1 335 (25.57%) Microsoft
2 152 (11.60%) SAP
3 49 (3.74%) VMware
4 40 (3.05%) Google
5 36 (2.75%) NEC
5 36 (2.75%) Veeam
6 34 (2.60%) Adobe
6 34 (2.60%) Oracle
7 32 (2.44%) Databricks
8 30 (2.29%) Sage
9 29 (2.21%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.83%) HubSpot
11 17 (1.30%) Cisco
11 17 (1.30%) ServiceNow
12 15 (1.15%) SolarWinds
13 14 (1.07%) Xamarin
14 13 (0.99%) Black Duck
14 13 (0.99%) Coverity
15 11 (0.84%) Zoho
16 10 (0.76%) 3PAR