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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,885 1,692 1,971
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 9.95% 18.86% 15.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.80% 21.35% 19.15%
Number of salaries quoted 1,322 878 884
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,585 £41,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% -18.00% -
75th Percentile £57,375 £60,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £75,270 £83,750
England median annual salary £46,500 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.33% -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 13,663 7,925 10,292
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 72.14% 88.32% 81.42%
Number of salaries quoted 9,752 4,226 5,491
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £32,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £49,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.24% -10.91% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £83,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -2.44%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 -2 717 £42,500 +3.66% 751
Hampshire -1 476 £40,000 -2.44% 397
Berkshire -2 326 £42,500 - 357
Surrey 0 283 £40,000 -4.19% 223
Buckinghamshire -5 205 £42,500 +13.33% 177
Kent -1 202 £35,000 +4.48% 113
Oxfordshire +4 186 £44,000 +3.53% 225
East Sussex 0 93 £50,000 +13.64% 96
West Sussex -7 88 £47,500 -5.94% 111
Middlesex +5 13 £35,000 -6.67% 25
Sussex -12 7 £65,000 +52.94% 18
Isle of Wight -10 2 £42,500 +3.66% 26
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 94 (4.99%) SharePoint
2 67 (3.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (0.90%) Confluence
3 17 (0.90%) IIS
4 10 (0.53%) CMS
5 7 (0.37%) OpenEdge
6 6 (0.32%) Apache
7 5 (0.27%) nginx
7 5 (0.27%) WordPress
8 3 (0.16%) SAS
9 2 (0.11%) Gentran
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.053%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.053%) ArchestrA
10 1 (0.053%) OpenStack
Applications
1 146 (7.75%) Microsoft Office
2 118 (6.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.01%) AutoCAD
4 17 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
6 14 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 9 (0.48%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.48%) Revit
8 7 (0.37%) Simulink
9 6 (0.32%) Lightworks
9 6 (0.32%) SOLIDWORKS
10 4 (0.21%) Mathematica
11 3 (0.16%) EPLAN
12 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.11%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.11%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.11%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
13 1 (0.053%) Mathcad
13 1 (0.053%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 26 (1.38%) NetSuite
2 19 (1.01%) Shopify
3 15 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.37%) Primavera
5 6 (0.32%) Raiser’s Edge
6 4 (0.21%) Magento
7 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.16%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.11%) Academy Housing
8 2 (0.11%) Eloqua
8 2 (0.11%) FastStats
8 2 (0.11%) FastStats PeopleStage
8 2 (0.11%) Infor SunSystems
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.11%) SAP MDG
8 2 (0.11%) SAP MDG-M
8 2 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.053%) HFM
9 1 (0.053%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 376 (19.95%) Azure
2 261 (13.85%) Microsoft 365
3 176 (9.34%) AWS
4 104 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 91 (4.83%) Entra ID
6 75 (3.98%) SaaS
7 49 (2.60%) GCP
8 40 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
9 35 (1.86%) GitHub
9 35 (1.86%) Google Workspace
10 31 (1.64%) Serverless
11 25 (1.33%) OneDrive
12 18 (0.95%) Anthropic Claude
13 15 (0.80%) Amazon ECS
13 15 (0.80%) AWS CloudFormation
13 15 (0.80%) Dynamics 365
13 15 (0.80%) PaaS
14 14 (0.74%) Google Analytics
14 14 (0.74%) Google Tag Manager
14 14 (0.74%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 165 (8.75%) Firewall
2 93 (4.93%) DNS
3 78 (4.14%) VPN
4 69 (3.66%) DHCP
5 63 (3.34%) VLAN
6 60 (3.18%) TCP/IP
7 57 (3.02%) Wi-Fi
8 55 (2.92%) LAN
8 55 (2.92%) WAN
9 53 (2.81%) Wireless
10 39 (2.07%) VoIP
11 38 (2.02%) Network Security
12 18 (0.95%) SSL
13 13 (0.69%) Internet
14 11 (0.58%) MQTT
15 9 (0.48%) 5G
15 9 (0.48%) Broadband
15 9 (0.48%) Ethernet
15 9 (0.48%) LTE
16 8 (0.42%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (6.47%) SQL Server
2 85 (4.51%) Power BI
3 34 (1.80%) Relational Database
4 31 (1.64%) MySQL
5 30 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.74%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (0.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
10 11 (0.58%) GIS
11 10 (0.53%) Tableau
12 9 (0.48%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.37%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.37%) Metadata
14 6 (0.32%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (0.32%) OLTP
15 5 (0.27%) Electronic Patient Records
15 5 (0.27%) Power Query
16 4 (0.21%) Looker
Development Applications
1 63 (3.34%) Git
2 60 (3.18%) JIRA
3 17 (0.90%) Rational DOORS
4 15 (0.80%) Claude Code
4 15 (0.80%) GitLab
5 12 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
5 12 (0.64%) Team Foundation Server
6 6 (0.32%) Selenium
7 5 (0.27%) Eclipse
7 5 (0.27%) Eclipse RCP
7 5 (0.27%) Jenkins
7 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
8 4 (0.21%) PetaLinux
8 4 (0.21%) Postman
8 4 (0.21%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.16%) LabVIEW
9 3 (0.16%) Mocha
9 3 (0.16%) PHPUnit
9 3 (0.16%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 981 (52.04%) Social Skills
2 495 (26.26%) Analytical Skills
3 300 (15.92%) Finance
4 206 (10.93%) Manufacturing
5 195 (10.34%) Organisational Skills
6 147 (7.80%) Aerospace
7 123 (6.53%) Electronics
8 108 (5.73%) Retail
9 67 (3.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (3.34%) Marketing
11 55 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
12 54 (2.86%) Legal
13 48 (2.55%) Public Sector
14 45 (2.39%) Military
14 45 (2.39%) Telecoms
15 37 (1.96%) Law
16 28 (1.49%) Aviation
16 28 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
17 26 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
18 24 (1.27%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 259 (13.74%) Analyst
2 188 (9.97%) Senior
3 176 (9.34%) IT Support
4 154 (8.17%) Developer
5 141 (7.48%) Support Analyst
6 135 (7.16%) Support Engineer
7 95 (5.04%) IT Engineer
8 93 (4.93%) Lead
9 85 (4.51%) Technical Support
10 77 (4.08%) Support Technician
11 71 (3.77%) Systems Engineer
12 69 (3.66%) Software Engineer
13 68 (3.61%) IT Support Engineer
14 62 (3.29%) Technical Engineer
15 60 (3.18%) Technical Support Engineer
16 58 (3.08%) 2nd Line Support
16 58 (3.08%) IT Analyst
17 54 (2.86%) IT Technician
18 52 (2.76%) Consultant
19 49 (2.60%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (6.42%) .NET
2 78 (4.14%) Terraform
3 72 (3.82%) HTML
4 60 (3.18%) REST
5 55 (2.92%) ASP.NET
6 54 (2.86%) CSS
7 53 (2.81%) React
8 47 (2.49%) SOAP
9 36 (1.91%) ASP.NET Core
10 31 (1.64%) AngularJS
10 31 (1.64%) RESTful
11 28 (1.49%) JSON
11 28 (1.49%) Vue
11 28 (1.49%) XML
12 27 (1.43%) ModSecurity
12 27 (1.43%) OAuth
13 23 (1.22%) ASP.NET Web API
13 23 (1.22%) ASP.NET Web Forms
14 22 (1.17%) jQuery
15 21 (1.11%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 156 (8.28%) Driving Licence
2 132 (7.00%) Onboarding
3 110 (5.84%) Management Information System
4 96 (5.09%) Self-Motivation
5 67 (3.55%) Cloud Native
6 50 (2.65%) Product Ownership
7 40 (2.12%) Data Centre
8 35 (1.86%) Robotics
9 33 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.59%) Social Media
11 27 (1.43%) Analogue Electronics
12 26 (1.38%) CCTV
13 25 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
13 25 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
14 21 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
15 19 (1.01%) Mobile App
16 18 (0.95%) Renewable Energy
17 17 (0.90%) EPoS
18 16 (0.85%) Embedded Systems
18 16 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 301 (15.97%) Windows
2 114 (6.05%) Windows Server
3 104 (5.52%) Linux
4 28 (1.49%) Android
5 24 (1.27%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.01%) Apple iOS
7 19 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.37%) Debian
10 7 (0.37%) Rocky
11 6 (0.32%) CentOS
11 6 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.21%) FreeRTOS
13 3 (0.16%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.16%) Unix
13 3 (0.16%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 432 (22.92%) Continuous Improvement
2 380 (20.16%) Customer Service
3 229 (12.15%) Agile
4 219 (11.62%) Decision-Making
4 219 (11.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 199 (10.56%) Project Management
6 192 (10.19%) AI
7 189 (10.03%) Project Delivery
8 175 (9.28%) Collaborative Working
9 164 (8.70%) Software Engineering
10 157 (8.33%) ITIL
11 155 (8.22%) CI/CD
12 150 (7.96%) Mentoring
13 148 (7.85%) CRM
13 148 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
14 143 (7.59%) Validation
15 135 (7.16%) DevOps
16 126 (6.68%) Computer Science
17 121 (6.42%) Analytics
18 120 (6.37%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 227 (12.04%) SQL
2 198 (10.50%) Python
3 140 (7.43%) C#
4 112 (5.94%) JavaScript
5 94 (4.99%) PowerShell
6 70 (3.71%) C++
7 66 (3.50%) TypeScript
8 62 (3.29%) Java
9 27 (1.43%) C
10 25 (1.33%) Bash
11 23 (1.22%) Ruby
12 21 (1.11%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.95%) MATLAB
13 18 (0.95%) VB.NET
14 17 (0.90%) PHP
15 12 (0.64%) Rust
16 10 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.48%) Bicep
17 9 (0.48%) PL/SQL
18 8 (0.42%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 376 (19.95%) Degree
2 205 (10.88%) Security Cleared
3 139 (7.37%) SC Cleared
4 117 (6.21%) DBS Check
5 68 (3.61%) HNC
6 65 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
7 64 (3.40%) Computer Science Degree
7 64 (3.40%) HND
8 60 (3.18%) BPSS Clearance
9 59 (3.13%) DV Cleared
10 55 (2.92%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.70%) CISSP
12 30 (1.59%) Master's Degree
13 29 (1.54%) A+ Certification
14 28 (1.49%) Chartered Engineer
14 28 (1.49%) PMI Certification
15 26 (1.38%) CISM
16 24 (1.27%) AWS Certification
17 23 (1.22%) PMP
18 22 (1.17%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (7.64%) QA
2 74 (3.93%) GDPR
3 53 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 51 (2.71%) SLA
5 42 (2.23%) Accessibility
5 42 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (1.33%) NIST
7 21 (1.11%) DO-254
8 20 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (0.95%) Good Clinical Practice
9 18 (0.95%) PCI DSS
9 18 (0.95%) PMO
10 13 (0.69%) ISO 9001
11 12 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 9 (0.48%) GMP
13 8 (0.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 8 (0.42%) GLP
13 8 (0.42%) GxP
13 8 (0.42%) SOC 2
14 5 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 171 (9.07%) Active Directory
2 84 (4.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 67 (3.55%) Hyper-V
4 60 (3.18%) Docker
5 18 (0.95%) Firmware
6 10 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
8 8 (0.42%) vSphere
9 6 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 5 (0.27%) ClearTrust
10 5 (0.27%) Squid
11 3 (0.16%) KVM
12 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.053%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.053%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 68 (3.61%) Kubernetes
2 67 (3.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (1.64%) Ansible
4 21 (1.11%) SCCM
5 17 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (0.58%) Grafana
8 9 (0.48%) Prometheus
9 8 (0.42%) Nagios
9 8 (0.42%) Podman
10 7 (0.37%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 6 (0.32%) Graylog
12 5 (0.27%) BMC PATROL
12 5 (0.27%) Puppet
12 5 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 4 (0.21%) Docker Swarm
14 3 (0.16%) vCenter Server
15 2 (0.11%) CASB
15 2 (0.11%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 582 (30.88%) Microsoft
2 101 (5.36%) VMware
3 84 (4.46%) Google
4 53 (2.81%) Oracle
5 51 (2.71%) SAP
6 42 (2.23%) Veeam
7 41 (2.18%) Fortinet
7 41 (2.18%) SonicWALL
8 39 (2.07%) Cisco
9 38 (2.02%) ServiceNow
10 33 (1.75%) Salesforce
11 22 (1.17%) Apple
11 22 (1.17%) Palo Alto
12 21 (1.11%) Sage
13 20 (1.06%) Thales
14 19 (1.01%) Mentor Graphics
15 17 (0.90%) WatchGuard
16 16 (0.85%) Aruba
17 15 (0.80%) CA Agile Central
17 15 (0.80%) EMC