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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,239 1,475 2,914
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 8.43% 18.86% 15.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.81% 20.89% 19.47%
Number of salaries quoted 930 705 1,793
10th Percentile £26,500 £27,425 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -13.46%
75th Percentile £60,000 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £73,875 £82,500 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -10.00%

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 10,490 7,060 14,970
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 71.40% 90.28% 81.23%
Number of salaries quoted 7,421 3,414 10,381
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £39,969 £35,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% +4.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -10 452 £45,000 -2.70% 242
Hampshire -3 290 £40,000 -2.44% 161
Berkshire -5 219 £45,000 -10.00% 113
Surrey -1 209 £42,500 +6.25% 96
Buckinghamshire -11 135 £47,500 +23.38% 73
Kent -1 131 £29,500 -4.84% 54
Oxfordshire 0 98 £34,000 -33.98% 58
East Sussex -4 92 £51,250 +2.50% 26
West Sussex -8 55 £50,000 +7.53% 30
Isle of Wight -8 3 £41,500 -24.55% 1
Middlesex +4 2 £35,000 -41.67% 9
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 35 (2.82%) SharePoint
2 32 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.29%) CMS
3 16 (1.29%) Confluence
4 7 (0.56%) OpenEdge
5 6 (0.48%) IIS
6 5 (0.40%) WordPress
7 3 (0.24%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.24%) Apache
7 3 (0.24%) govService
7 3 (0.24%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.24%) SAS
8 2 (0.16%) Gentran
9 1 (0.081%) nginx
9 1 (0.081%) Tomcat
Applications
1 91 (7.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (5.97%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.40%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.16%) Lightworks
10 1 (0.081%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.081%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.081%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
1 9 (0.73%) NetSuite
2 7 (0.56%) SAP CO
3 4 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (0.32%) Magento
4 3 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.16%) Infor SunSystems
5 2 (0.16%) Shopify
6 1 (0.081%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.081%) HFM
6 1 (0.081%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.081%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.081%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 288 (23.24%) Azure
2 136 (10.98%) Microsoft 365
3 117 (9.44%) AWS
4 69 (5.57%) Power Platform
5 53 (4.28%) SaaS
6 47 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (3.07%) GCP
8 31 (2.50%) Entra ID
9 27 (2.18%) IaaS
9 27 (2.18%) PaaS
10 24 (1.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 21 (1.69%) Serverless
12 17 (1.37%) Datadog
12 17 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
12 17 (1.37%) GitHub
13 16 (1.29%) Google Workspace
14 15 (1.21%) OpenShift
15 14 (1.13%) Mimecast
16 13 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
17 11 (0.89%) Asana
Communications & Networking
1 92 (7.43%) Firewall
2 60 (4.84%) DNS
3 37 (2.99%) WAN
4 36 (2.91%) DHCP
4 36 (2.91%) LAN
5 35 (2.82%) TCP/IP
6 34 (2.74%) VPN
7 30 (2.42%) Wireless
8 24 (1.94%) Wi-Fi
9 20 (1.61%) Broadband
9 20 (1.61%) VoIP
10 19 (1.53%) Network Security
11 17 (1.37%) VLAN
12 10 (0.81%) HTTP
12 10 (0.81%) Internet
12 10 (0.81%) SSL
13 7 (0.56%) Remote Desktop
14 6 (0.48%) WLAN
15 5 (0.40%) SAN
16 4 (0.32%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (6.78%) SQL Server
2 57 (4.60%) Power BI
3 23 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (1.37%) OLTP
5 17 (1.37%) Relational Database
6 16 (1.29%) NoSQL
7 13 (1.05%) MySQL
8 11 (0.89%) Power Query
9 10 (0.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 10 (0.81%) Tableau
10 9 (0.73%) Data Lake
10 9 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.56%) Looker
12 6 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.48%) GIS
13 5 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
14 4 (0.32%) MongoDB
15 3 (0.24%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 58 (4.68%) Git
2 44 (3.55%) JIRA
3 30 (2.42%) GitLab
4 24 (1.94%) Rational DOORS
5 7 (0.56%) Selenium
6 3 (0.24%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.24%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.24%) Postman
6 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.16%) Appium
7 2 (0.16%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.16%) JMeter
7 2 (0.16%) JUnit
7 2 (0.16%) Mocha
7 2 (0.16%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.16%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.081%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.081%) PHPUnit
8 1 (0.081%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.081%) WebDriver
General
1 604 (48.75%) Social Skills
2 353 (28.49%) Analytical Skills
3 183 (14.77%) Finance
4 83 (6.70%) Organisational Skills
5 60 (4.84%) Manufacturing
6 54 (4.36%) Marketing
7 53 (4.28%) Telecoms
8 52 (4.20%) Retail
9 51 (4.12%) Electronics
10 43 (3.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 34 (2.74%) Aerospace
12 33 (2.66%) Law
13 27 (2.18%) Public Sector
14 26 (2.10%) Legal
15 25 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
16 24 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
16 24 (1.94%) Local Government
17 17 (1.37%) Military
18 12 (0.97%) Banking
18 12 (0.97%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 172 (13.88%) Analyst
2 137 (11.06%) IT Support
3 126 (10.17%) Developer
3 126 (10.17%) Senior
4 116 (9.36%) Support Engineer
5 79 (6.38%) IT Engineer
6 66 (5.33%) Support Analyst
7 63 (5.08%) Systems Engineer
8 53 (4.28%) IT Support Engineer
8 53 (4.28%) Software Engineer
9 52 (4.20%) Support Technician
10 51 (4.12%) Technical Support
11 49 (3.95%) Lead
12 46 (3.71%) 2nd Line Support
13 42 (3.39%) Architect
14 38 (3.07%) IT Technician
14 38 (3.07%) Technical Engineer
14 38 (3.07%) Technical Support Engineer
15 36 (2.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 34 (2.74%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.38%) .NET
2 56 (4.52%) HTML
3 50 (4.04%) SOAP
4 40 (3.23%) REST
5 34 (2.74%) CSS
5 34 (2.74%) JSON
5 34 (2.74%) XML
6 31 (2.50%) React
7 23 (1.86%) ASP.NET
8 19 (1.53%) Middleware
9 18 (1.45%) OAuth
10 17 (1.37%) RESTful
11 16 (1.29%) HTML5
12 15 (1.21%) ASP.NET Core
12 15 (1.21%) RabbitMQ
12 15 (1.21%) Vue
13 14 (1.13%) CSS3
13 14 (1.13%) Laravel
14 13 (1.05%) Ajax
14 13 (1.05%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 74 (5.97%) Driving Licence
2 64 (5.17%) Management Information System
3 62 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
4 55 (4.44%) Onboarding
5 39 (3.15%) Cloud Native
6 35 (2.82%) Product Ownership
7 29 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
9 17 (1.37%) Low-Code
9 17 (1.37%) Social Media
10 15 (1.21%) NHS
10 15 (1.21%) Robotics
11 13 (1.05%) EPoS
11 13 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
12 11 (0.89%) Client/Server
12 11 (0.89%) Security Posture
12 11 (0.89%) Video Editing
13 10 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (0.81%) Mobile App
13 10 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 192 (15.50%) Windows
2 99 (7.99%) Linux
3 67 (5.41%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.61%) Mac OS
5 19 (1.53%) Android
5 19 (1.53%) CentOS
6 17 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (1.37%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (1.05%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.56%) VMS
10 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.32%) Debian
12 2 (0.16%) Unix
12 2 (0.16%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.081%) FreeBSD
13 1 (0.081%) OpenBSD
13 1 (0.081%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.081%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (19.53%) Continuous Improvement
2 219 (17.68%) Customer Service
3 175 (14.12%) Agile
4 140 (11.30%) CI/CD
5 135 (10.90%) DevOps
6 128 (10.33%) Decision-Making
7 125 (10.09%) Software Engineering
8 110 (8.88%) Project Management
9 108 (8.72%) AI
10 107 (8.64%) Computer Science
11 103 (8.31%) Cybersecurity
12 100 (8.07%) Mentoring
13 98 (7.91%) Analytics
14 94 (7.59%) Project Delivery
15 91 (7.34%) Collaborative Working
16 87 (7.02%) Business Intelligence
17 83 (6.70%) Stakeholder Management
18 82 (6.62%) ITIL
19 79 (6.38%) CRM
20 77 (6.21%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 198 (15.98%) Python
2 195 (15.74%) SQL
3 101 (8.15%) C#
4 83 (6.70%) JavaScript
5 70 (5.65%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.28%) Java
7 43 (3.47%) C++
8 36 (2.91%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.34%) C
10 28 (2.26%) Bash
10 28 (2.26%) PHP
11 20 (1.61%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.97%) Rust
13 11 (0.89%) Ruby
14 10 (0.81%) Perl
15 7 (0.56%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.56%) T-SQL
16 6 (0.48%) Bicep
16 6 (0.48%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 246 (19.85%) Degree
2 82 (6.62%) Security Cleared
3 68 (5.49%) DBS Check
4 53 (4.28%) SC Cleared
5 51 (4.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 38 (3.07%) Microsoft Certification
7 36 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.58%) ACCA
9 31 (2.50%) CIMA
10 29 (2.34%) HNC
11 26 (2.10%) Chartered Engineer
12 20 (1.61%) A+ Certification
13 18 (1.45%) PMI Certification
14 17 (1.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 15 (1.21%) Azure Certification
15 15 (1.21%) Master's Degree
15 15 (1.21%) PMP
16 13 (1.05%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (1.05%) DV Cleared
17 12 (0.97%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (8.39%) QA
2 55 (4.44%) Data Quality
3 45 (3.63%) GDPR
4 37 (2.99%) SLA
5 26 (2.10%) Accessibility
6 25 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.37%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.05%) PMO
9 12 (0.97%) Good Clinical Practice
10 11 (0.89%) NIST
11 9 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 8 (0.65%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.40%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.32%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.32%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.32%) GLP
14 4 (0.32%) GMP
14 4 (0.32%) GxP
14 4 (0.32%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 109 (8.80%) Active Directory
2 57 (4.60%) Docker
3 46 (3.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (3.15%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.81%) KVM
6 7 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.40%) ClearTrust
7 5 (0.40%) XenApp
8 4 (0.32%) Firmware
8 4 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.16%) vSphere
11 1 (0.081%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.081%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.081%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 65 (5.25%) Kubernetes
2 64 (5.17%) Terraform
3 34 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (2.50%) Ansible
5 17 (1.37%) SCCM
6 16 (1.29%) Grafana
7 13 (1.05%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.97%) Nagios
9 8 (0.65%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.56%) ZABBIX
11 6 (0.48%) Podman
12 5 (0.40%) Docker Swarm
12 5 (0.40%) Graylog
13 4 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.32%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.24%) Puppet
15 2 (0.16%) Nessus
16 1 (0.081%) Netcool
16 1 (0.081%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 339 (27.36%) Microsoft
2 53 (4.28%) VMware
3 44 (3.55%) Oracle
4 38 (3.07%) Google
5 29 (2.34%) Databricks
6 26 (2.10%) Salesforce
7 24 (1.94%) Cisco
7 24 (1.94%) Veeam
8 18 (1.45%) Instagram
9 16 (1.29%) Fortinet
9 16 (1.29%) SAP
10 15 (1.21%) Adobe
10 15 (1.21%) Red Hat
10 15 (1.21%) Splunk
11 14 (1.13%) SonicWALL
12 11 (0.89%) Aruba
12 11 (0.89%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.89%) Hootsuite
12 11 (0.89%) SolarWinds
12 11 (0.89%) Wrike