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 15 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,309 1,215 1,426
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.53% 21.74% 14.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.28% 25.47% 18.29%
Number of salaries quoted 916 695 545
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,100 £25,750
25th Percentile £30,938 £29,000 £32,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -14.44% -8.16%
75th Percentile £57,500 £51,250 £59,500
90th Percentile £71,250 £67,000 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,043 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.54% -14.29% -4.55%

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 10,658 4,770 7,797
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.48% 85.35% 78.16%
Number of salaries quoted 7,593 2,851 4,046
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £28,822
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -7.26%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 -8 724 £42,500 -5.07% 800
East Midlands -8 583 £41,500 +18.57% 483
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 67 (5.12%) SharePoint
2 42 (3.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.15%) IIS
4 8 (0.61%) Confluence
5 5 (0.38%) CMS
5 5 (0.38%) Skype for Business
6 4 (0.31%) CICS
6 4 (0.31%) SAS
7 3 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.23%) WordPress
8 2 (0.15%) Documentum
9 1 (0.076%) Apache
9 1 (0.076%) Appian
9 1 (0.076%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.076%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.076%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.076%) Tomcat
Applications
1 116 (8.86%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (6.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.76%) Simulink
5 6 (0.46%) Fusion 360
6 5 (0.38%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.31%) Revit
8 3 (0.23%) EPLAN
8 3 (0.23%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.15%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.15%) OrCAD
9 2 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.076%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.076%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.076%) CorelDRAW
10 1 (0.076%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.076%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (1.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.99%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 12 (0.92%) SAP Business One
5 11 (0.84%) Shopify
6 10 (0.76%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.69%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 7 (0.53%) Sage X3
9 6 (0.46%) Dynamics AX
10 5 (0.38%) Magento
10 5 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.38%) Sage 50
10 5 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.31%) Line 50
11 4 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
12 3 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
12 3 (0.23%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
12 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 257 (19.63%) Microsoft 365
2 230 (17.57%) Azure
3 128 (9.78%) Power Platform
4 88 (6.72%) Entra ID
5 86 (6.57%) AWS
6 51 (3.90%) SaaS
7 36 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
7 36 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
8 25 (1.91%) Power Automate
9 19 (1.45%) GitHub
10 18 (1.38%) PowerApps
11 17 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
11 17 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
12 16 (1.22%) GCP
13 15 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
13 15 (1.15%) Google Workspace
13 15 (1.15%) OneDrive
14 13 (0.99%) Serverless
15 12 (0.92%) PaaS
16 10 (0.76%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 71 (5.42%) DNS
2 66 (5.04%) Firewall
3 57 (4.35%) DHCP
3 57 (4.35%) VPN
4 51 (3.90%) TCP/IP
5 35 (2.67%) Wireless
6 32 (2.44%) VLAN
7 29 (2.22%) WAN
8 28 (2.14%) LAN
9 25 (1.91%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (1.53%) Network Security
11 17 (1.30%) VoIP
12 8 (0.61%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.53%) Cisco IOS
13 7 (0.53%) Internet
13 7 (0.53%) Modbus
13 7 (0.53%) MQTT
13 7 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
14 6 (0.46%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.46%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (9.09%) Power BI
2 52 (3.97%) SQL Server
3 29 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 27 (2.06%) Tableau
5 22 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
5 22 (1.68%) Power Query
6 20 (1.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 17 (1.30%) MySQL
8 16 (1.22%) Electronic Patient Records
9 14 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 13 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
11 12 (0.92%) Data Mining
12 11 (0.84%) Crystal Reports
13 10 (0.76%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.69%) Oracle Reports
15 8 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
16 7 (0.53%) Data Lake
17 6 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
17 6 (0.46%) MongoDB
18 5 (0.38%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 45 (3.44%) Git
2 32 (2.44%) JIRA
3 24 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.61%) Eclipse
5 7 (0.53%) Cucumber
6 6 (0.46%) GitLab
6 6 (0.46%) JMeter
6 6 (0.46%) LabVIEW
6 6 (0.46%) Maven
6 6 (0.46%) Postman
6 6 (0.46%) Selenium
7 5 (0.38%) JUnit
7 5 (0.38%) SoapUI
7 5 (0.38%) VersionOne
7 5 (0.38%) Zephyr
8 4 (0.31%) Burp Suite
8 4 (0.31%) Metasploit
9 3 (0.23%) Mockito
9 3 (0.23%) Subversion
10 2 (0.15%) TeamCity
General
1 662 (50.57%) Social Skills
2 384 (29.34%) Analytical Skills
3 215 (16.42%) Manufacturing
4 214 (16.35%) Finance
5 95 (7.26%) Organisational Skills
6 93 (7.10%) Retail
7 71 (5.42%) Marketing
8 55 (4.20%) Public Sector
9 53 (4.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 42 (3.21%) Electronics
10 42 (3.21%) Law
11 40 (3.06%) Legal
12 30 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
13 28 (2.14%) Automotive
14 19 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
15 18 (1.38%) Telecoms
16 11 (0.84%) Banking
16 11 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
17 10 (0.76%) Aerospace
18 9 (0.69%) Billing
Job Titles
1 183 (13.98%) Analyst
2 143 (10.92%) IT Support
3 131 (10.01%) Support Engineer
4 112 (8.56%) Developer
5 105 (8.02%) Senior
6 78 (5.96%) Consultant
6 78 (5.96%) IT Engineer
7 77 (5.88%) Lead
8 76 (5.81%) Technical Support
9 65 (4.97%) Support Analyst
9 65 (4.97%) Technical Engineer
10 63 (4.81%) Technical Support Engineer
11 60 (4.58%) Support Technician
12 55 (4.20%) IT Support Engineer
13 50 (3.82%) IT Technician
14 42 (3.21%) IT Manager
14 42 (3.21%) IT Support Technician
15 38 (2.90%) Data Analyst
16 34 (2.60%) Administrator
17 32 (2.44%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.05%) REST
2 43 (3.28%) .NET
3 38 (2.90%) React
4 28 (2.14%) Spring
5 25 (1.91%) Spring Boot
6 23 (1.76%) SOAP
7 22 (1.68%) Node.js
8 19 (1.45%) CSS
8 19 (1.45%) HTML
9 17 (1.30%) Terraform
10 16 (1.22%) RESTful
11 14 (1.07%) AngularJS
11 14 (1.07%) Playwright
12 12 (0.92%) EDI
12 12 (0.92%) ISPF
13 11 (0.84%) JSON
13 11 (0.84%) Middleware
13 11 (0.84%) XML
14 10 (0.76%) SAP Fiori
15 9 (0.69%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 153 (11.69%) Driving Licence
2 96 (7.33%) Onboarding
3 76 (5.81%) Management Information System
4 65 (4.97%) Self-Motivation
5 39 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
6 33 (2.52%) Robotics
7 28 (2.14%) NHS
8 21 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.45%) Data Centre
10 18 (1.38%) IoT
11 17 (1.30%) SCADA
11 17 (1.30%) SystemC
11 17 (1.30%) Virtual Team
12 16 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
12 16 (1.22%) Legacy Applications
13 14 (1.07%) CMDB
14 13 (0.99%) Mainframe
15 12 (0.92%) Data Structures
15 12 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
15 12 (0.92%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 232 (17.72%) Windows
2 84 (6.42%) Windows Server
3 80 (6.11%) Linux
4 44 (3.36%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.38%) Android
6 14 (1.07%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.76%) Mac OS
7 10 (0.76%) Unix
8 6 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.38%) OpenVMS
9 5 (0.38%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.31%) VMS
11 3 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.15%) Debian
12 2 (0.15%) Solaris
13 1 (0.076%) CentOS
13 1 (0.076%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.076%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 385 (29.41%) Continuous Improvement
2 259 (19.79%) Customer Service
3 179 (13.67%) Decision-Making
4 160 (12.22%) Agile
4 160 (12.22%) Analytics
5 136 (10.39%) Mentoring
6 130 (9.93%) ERP
7 126 (9.63%) Business Intelligence
8 122 (9.32%) Collaborative Working
9 117 (8.94%) Cybersecurity
10 98 (7.49%) ITIL
11 97 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
12 96 (7.33%) AI
13 95 (7.26%) Service Delivery
14 94 (7.18%) Project Delivery
15 92 (7.03%) Roadmaps
16 88 (6.72%) Project Management
17 81 (6.19%) CRM
17 81 (6.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 76 (5.81%) Collaborative Culture
Programming Languages
1 206 (15.74%) SQL
2 91 (6.95%) Python
3 69 (5.27%) Java
4 54 (4.13%) PowerShell
5 48 (3.67%) JavaScript
6 36 (2.75%) C#
7 29 (2.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 22 (1.68%) Ladder Logic
8 22 (1.68%) TypeScript
9 21 (1.60%) C
10 16 (1.22%) Embedded C
11 13 (0.99%) VBA
12 12 (0.92%) Bash
12 12 (0.92%) C++
12 12 (0.92%) COBOL
12 12 (0.92%) JCL
13 10 (0.76%) MATLAB
13 10 (0.76%) PHP
14 9 (0.69%) ABAP
15 8 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 199 (15.20%) Degree
2 99 (7.56%) Security Cleared
3 83 (6.34%) SC Cleared
4 34 (2.60%) HND
5 32 (2.44%) HNC
6 25 (1.91%) Azure Certification
6 25 (1.91%) Microsoft Certification
7 21 (1.60%) DBS Check
8 20 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (1.15%) PMI Certification
10 14 (1.07%) CCNA
11 12 (0.92%) NVQ Level 3
11 12 (0.92%) NVQ Level 4
12 11 (0.84%) City & Guilds
12 11 (0.84%) Computer Science Degree
13 10 (0.76%) CISSP
14 8 (0.61%) ACCA
15 7 (0.53%) A+ Certification
15 7 (0.53%) Chartered Engineer
15 7 (0.53%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (4.74%) Data Quality
2 53 (4.05%) GDPR
3 48 (3.67%) QA
4 41 (3.13%) SLA
5 39 (2.98%) Cyber Essentials
6 34 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 26 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 22 (1.68%) ISO 9001
9 9 (0.69%) ISO 14001
10 8 (0.61%) NIST
11 7 (0.53%) GRC
11 7 (0.53%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
13 4 (0.31%) GMP
13 4 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.23%) AQAP
14 3 (0.23%) COSHH
14 3 (0.23%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.23%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 159 (12.15%) Active Directory
2 51 (3.90%) Hyper-V
3 29 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.91%) Docker
5 21 (1.60%) Firmware
6 13 (0.99%) Virtual Desktop
7 12 (0.92%) Embedded Firmware
8 8 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.53%) vSphere
10 2 (0.15%) Samba
10 2 (0.15%) XenApp
11 1 (0.076%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.076%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 50 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 22 (1.68%) Kubernetes
3 10 (0.76%) SCCM
4 8 (0.61%) Ansible
5 7 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (0.46%) Functional Safety
7 5 (0.38%) Grafana
8 4 (0.31%) BMC PATROL
8 4 (0.31%) Nmap
8 4 (0.31%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.23%) Control-M
9 3 (0.23%) Galera Cluster
9 3 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.23%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.23%) Puppet
9 3 (0.23%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.23%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.15%) WSUS
11 1 (0.076%) Backup Exec
11 1 (0.076%) Nagios
Vendors
1 398 (30.40%) Microsoft
2 68 (5.19%) SAP
3 39 (2.98%) VMware
4 35 (2.67%) Cisco
4 35 (2.67%) Oracle
5 34 (2.60%) Workday
6 31 (2.37%) ServiceNow
7 24 (1.83%) Sage
8 23 (1.76%) Google
9 21 (1.60%) Salesforce
10 20 (1.53%) IBM
11 16 (1.22%) Cognos
12 15 (1.15%) Databricks
13 14 (1.07%) Allen-Bradley
14 12 (0.92%) Apple
14 12 (0.92%) HubSpot
14 12 (0.92%) JD Edwards
15 11 (0.84%) Sophos
16 10 (0.76%) Dell
16 10 (0.76%) Epicor