Problem-Solving Job Trends in the Midlands

Problem Solving
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Midlands requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -13 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 877 1,219 880
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 11.31% 19.12% 15.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.91% 21.13% 17.76%
Number of salaries quoted 691 486 685
10th Percentile £25,875 £28,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £28,839 £35,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,500 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -23.00% +11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £53,951 £63,625 £60,000
90th Percentile £68,750 £80,000 £68,750
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +1.85% -1.82%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Midlands

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 Midlands.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 6,306 5,768 4,955
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 81.32% 90.45% 86.58%
Number of salaries quoted 3,486 2,526 4,080
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £35,153
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in the Midlands

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in the Midlands

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the Midlands over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 12 January 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
West Midlands -17 516 £42,500 -22.73% 259
East Midlands +1 360 £35,000 - 315
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands 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 44 (5.02%) SharePoint
2 32 (3.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.48%) IIS
4 7 (0.80%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 6 (0.68%) Apache
5 6 (0.68%) Confluence
6 2 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2007
6 2 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.11%) Appian
7 1 (0.11%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.11%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.11%) SAS
7 1 (0.11%) WebLogic
Applications
1 84 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (5.25%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.25%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (1.03%) AutoCAD
5 9 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.91%) SOLIDWORKS
7 7 (0.80%) MS Visio
8 4 (0.46%) CATIA
9 3 (0.34%) Trello
10 1 (0.11%) Abaqus
10 1 (0.11%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.11%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 39 (4.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.03%) NetSuite
3 8 (0.91%) iTrent
4 4 (0.46%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.23%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.23%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.23%) Shopify
7 1 (0.11%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.11%) Sage X3
7 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.11%) SAP Business ByDesign
Cloud Services
1 192 (21.89%) Azure
2 169 (19.27%) Microsoft 365
3 81 (9.24%) SaaS
4 69 (7.87%) AWS
5 63 (7.18%) Power Platform
6 53 (6.04%) Entra ID
7 29 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
8 18 (2.05%) Serverless
9 14 (1.60%) GCP
9 14 (1.60%) Power Automate
10 12 (1.37%) Amazon S3
10 12 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (1.14%) PowerApps
12 9 (1.03%) GitHub
12 9 (1.03%) OneDrive
13 8 (0.91%) Cloud Computing
14 7 (0.80%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (0.80%) OCI
15 6 (0.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 66 (7.53%) DNS
2 62 (7.07%) DHCP
3 40 (4.56%) Remote Desktop
3 40 (4.56%) VPN
4 32 (3.65%) Firewall
5 29 (3.31%) WAN
6 22 (2.51%) LAN
7 19 (2.17%) Internet
8 17 (1.94%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (1.37%) TCP/IP
9 12 (1.37%) VLAN
9 12 (1.37%) VoIP
9 12 (1.37%) Wireless
10 9 (1.03%) ADSL
10 9 (1.03%) Ethernet
10 9 (1.03%) VDSL
11 8 (0.91%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.80%) Broadband
13 5 (0.57%) Network Security
13 5 (0.57%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (5.82%) Power BI
1 51 (5.82%) SQL Server
2 17 (1.94%) Relational Database
3 16 (1.82%) MySQL
4 15 (1.71%) Oracle Reports
4 15 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (1.48%) GIS
6 12 (1.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 10 (1.14%) Tableau
8 7 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
8 7 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (0.68%) Crystal Reports
9 6 (0.68%) Metadata
10 5 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.46%) BusinessObjects
11 4 (0.46%) Data Lake
11 4 (0.46%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.23%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 31 (3.53%) JIRA
2 23 (2.62%) Git
3 9 (1.03%) JUnit
4 8 (0.91%) GitLab
5 7 (0.80%) Burp Suite
5 7 (0.80%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.80%) Metasploit
5 7 (0.80%) Mockito
5 7 (0.80%) Subversion
6 6 (0.68%) Maven
7 4 (0.46%) Selenium
8 3 (0.34%) Appcelerator Titanium
8 3 (0.34%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.23%) Vagrant
9 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.11%) Babel
10 1 (0.11%) Katalon Studio
10 1 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.11%) webpack
General
1 444 (50.63%) Social Skills
2 271 (30.90%) Analytical Skills
3 192 (21.89%) Finance
4 123 (14.03%) Retail
5 81 (9.24%) Manufacturing
6 48 (5.47%) Law
7 46 (5.25%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (4.68%) Marketing
9 40 (4.56%) Legal
10 35 (3.99%) Public Sector
11 24 (2.74%) Electronics
11 24 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
12 17 (1.94%) Telecoms
13 16 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (1.60%) Banking
15 12 (1.37%) Aerospace
15 12 (1.37%) Automotive
15 12 (1.37%) Fire and Rescue
16 8 (0.91%) Digital Health
Job Titles
1 157 (17.90%) Support Engineer
2 155 (17.67%) IT Support
3 130 (14.82%) Analyst
4 91 (10.38%) IT Engineer
5 80 (9.12%) IT Support Engineer
6 77 (8.78%) Developer
7 75 (8.55%) Technical Support
8 73 (8.32%) Lead
9 71 (8.10%) Support Analyst
10 70 (7.98%) 2nd Line Support
11 65 (7.41%) Technical Engineer
12 63 (7.18%) Senior
13 62 (7.07%) Technical Support Engineer
14 40 (4.56%) Support Technician
15 38 (4.33%) Applications Support
16 32 (3.65%) Administrator
16 32 (3.65%) Architect
17 30 (3.42%) 1st/2nd Line Support
18 26 (2.96%) 1st Line Support
19 24 (2.74%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (3.88%) React
2 33 (3.76%) .NET
3 30 (3.42%) REST
4 27 (3.08%) HTML
5 25 (2.85%) CSS
6 17 (1.94%) AngularJS
6 17 (1.94%) Node.js
7 16 (1.82%) JSON
8 11 (1.25%) Razor View Engine
9 8 (0.91%) EDI
9 8 (0.91%) Middleware
9 8 (0.91%) Oracle Fusion
9 8 (0.91%) RESTful
10 7 (0.80%) Vue
11 6 (0.68%) LAMP
11 6 (0.68%) Laravel
11 6 (0.68%) Spring
12 5 (0.57%) Web Services
13 4 (0.46%) SOAP
13 4 (0.46%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 114 (13.00%) Onboarding
2 105 (11.97%) Driving Licence
3 45 (5.13%) Self-Motivation
4 43 (4.90%) Management Information System
5 41 (4.68%) Analytical Mindset
6 40 (4.56%) FMCG
7 15 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
8 14 (1.60%) SCADA
9 13 (1.48%) Operational Technology
9 13 (1.48%) Product Ownership
9 13 (1.48%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.37%) e-Learning
10 12 (1.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 10 (1.14%) Embedded Systems
11 10 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.14%) Social Media
12 8 (0.91%) Data Structures
12 8 (0.91%) IoT
13 7 (0.80%) Data Centre
13 7 (0.80%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 153 (17.45%) Windows
2 55 (6.27%) Windows Server
3 41 (4.68%) Linux
4 30 (3.42%) Windows 10
5 11 (1.25%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.57%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (0.46%) Unix
8 3 (0.34%) Android
8 3 (0.34%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.23%) VMS
9 2 (0.23%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Mobile
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (22.01%) Continuous Improvement
2 187 (21.32%) Customer Service
3 120 (13.68%) CRM
4 116 (13.23%) ERP
5 101 (11.52%) Project Management
6 99 (11.29%) Agile
7 94 (10.72%) Mentoring
8 89 (10.15%) Decision-Making
9 87 (9.92%) ITIL
10 79 (9.01%) Business Intelligence
11 70 (7.98%) Analytics
12 67 (7.64%) Logistics
13 65 (7.41%) Incident Management
14 61 (6.96%) Root Cause Analysis
15 59 (6.73%) Process Improvement
16 57 (6.50%) Analytical Thinking
17 55 (6.27%) E-Commerce
18 51 (5.82%) Change Management
18 51 (5.82%) Computer Science
19 50 (5.70%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 183 (20.87%) SQL
2 81 (9.24%) C#
3 64 (7.30%) Python
4 51 (5.82%) JavaScript
5 33 (3.76%) Java
6 30 (3.42%) PowerShell
7 22 (2.51%) PHP
8 16 (1.82%) T-SQL
9 12 (1.37%) C
10 10 (1.14%) TypeScript
11 9 (1.03%) Bash
12 7 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 7 (0.80%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.68%) R
14 5 (0.57%) C++
14 5 (0.57%) Ladder Logic
15 4 (0.46%) Delphi
15 4 (0.46%) Perl
16 3 (0.34%) Go
16 3 (0.34%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 176 (20.07%) Degree
2 80 (9.12%) Security Cleared
3 56 (6.39%) SC Cleared
4 34 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
5 31 (3.53%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.39%) DBS Check
7 19 (2.17%) ACCA
7 19 (2.17%) CIMA
8 18 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (2.05%) Master's Degree
9 17 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
10 16 (1.82%) CISSP
11 14 (1.60%) MCP
12 11 (1.25%) CCNA
13 10 (1.14%) AWS Certification
13 10 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
13 10 (1.14%) MCSE
14 9 (1.03%) CISMP
14 9 (1.03%) DV Cleared
14 9 (1.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (6.50%) QA
2 28 (3.19%) GDPR
3 26 (2.96%) Data Quality
4 23 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.25%) SLA
6 10 (1.14%) NIST
7 9 (1.03%) Actionable Recommendations
7 9 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
8 8 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 4 (0.46%) Accessibility
9 4 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 3 (0.34%) PMO
11 2 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.23%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
11 2 (0.23%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 119 (13.57%) Active Directory
2 22 (2.51%) Docker
3 14 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.80%) Firmware
4 7 (0.80%) Hyper-V
4 7 (0.80%) vSphere
5 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 37 (4.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 22 (2.51%) Kubernetes
3 15 (1.71%) Terraform
4 7 (0.80%) Nmap
5 6 (0.68%) Ansible
6 5 (0.57%) SCCM
7 3 (0.34%) Grafana
7 3 (0.34%) Nagios
8 2 (0.23%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.11%) Argo
9 1 (0.11%) Autotask
9 1 (0.11%) AWS Copilot
9 1 (0.11%) CA Service Virtualization
9 1 (0.11%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.11%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.11%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 260 (29.65%) Microsoft
2 71 (8.10%) SAP
3 59 (6.73%) Oracle
4 39 (4.45%) Salesforce
5 33 (3.76%) Cisco
6 14 (1.60%) ServiceNow
6 14 (1.60%) VMware
7 12 (1.37%) Databricks
8 11 (1.25%) Sage
8 11 (1.25%) Zoho
9 9 (1.03%) HubSpot
10 8 (0.91%) Google
10 8 (0.91%) Meraki
11 7 (0.80%) Infor
11 7 (0.80%) QAD
12 6 (0.68%) Freshdesk
13 5 (0.57%) HP
13 5 (0.57%) Panasonic
13 5 (0.57%) Progress
13 5 (0.57%) Samsung