biggest improvement to my soldering wasn't so much the solder i was using or even the iron it was the size of the tip.....
A very high temp iron is great but if the tip is small and is unable to maintain that high temp as soon as you touch it to a wire then its a bit pointless.
I use a 50w iron from Maplins and have replaced the tip for a larger one. Its perfect, fast to heat up and most importantly the larger tip maintains its heat so you can solder wires fast without heating up the component too much.
Link to
Iron
Link to
Tip