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

6 months to
20 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 1,381 1,223 1,463
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.83% 21.81% 14.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.64% 25.44% 18.47%
Number of salaries quoted 953 703 549
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,050 £25,750
25th Percentile £30,750 £29,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,500 £46,189
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -16.65% -5.74%
75th Percentile £57,500 £51,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £71,250 £65,000 £71,398
England median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -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 10,923 4,807 7,922
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.87% 85.72% 78.74%
Number of salaries quoted 7,743 2,883 3,986
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £29,000
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% -8.00%

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 20 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 20 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 -7 767 £42,500 -4.59% 695
East Midlands -8 612 £41,500 +18.57% 453
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 69 (5.00%) SharePoint
2 43 (3.11%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.01%) IIS
4 8 (0.58%) Confluence
5 6 (0.43%) CMS
6 4 (0.29%) CICS
6 4 (0.29%) SAS
6 4 (0.29%) Skype for Business
7 3 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.22%) WordPress
8 2 (0.14%) Documentum
8 2 (0.14%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.072%) Apache
9 1 (0.072%) Appian
9 1 (0.072%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.072%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.072%) Tomcat
Applications
1 121 (8.76%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (0.72%) Simulink
5 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.43%) Fusion 360
7 5 (0.36%) AutoCAD
8 4 (0.29%) EPLAN
8 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 4 (0.29%) OrCAD
8 4 (0.29%) Revit
9 3 (0.22%) Navisworks
9 3 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
10 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
11 1 (0.072%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.072%) Autodesk Inventor
11 1 (0.072%) CorelDRAW
11 1 (0.072%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.072%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (1.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (1.09%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.94%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 12 (0.87%) SAP Business One
5 11 (0.80%) Shopify
6 10 (0.72%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.65%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 7 (0.51%) Sage X3
9 6 (0.43%) Dynamics AX
10 5 (0.36%) Magento
10 5 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.36%) Sage 50
10 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.29%) Line 50
11 4 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
12 3 (0.22%) Infor M3
12 3 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
12 3 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 265 (19.19%) Microsoft 365
2 239 (17.31%) Azure
3 134 (9.70%) Power Platform
4 91 (6.59%) Entra ID
5 84 (6.08%) AWS
6 54 (3.91%) SaaS
7 37 (2.68%) Dynamics 365
8 36 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
9 25 (1.81%) Power Automate
10 19 (1.38%) GitHub
11 18 (1.30%) Google Workspace
11 18 (1.30%) PowerApps
12 17 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
12 17 (1.23%) Microsoft Purview
12 17 (1.23%) OneDrive
13 16 (1.16%) GCP
14 15 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
15 12 (0.87%) PaaS
15 12 (0.87%) Serverless
16 9 (0.65%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 76 (5.50%) DNS
2 66 (4.78%) Firewall
3 61 (4.42%) DHCP
3 61 (4.42%) VPN
4 52 (3.77%) TCP/IP
5 34 (2.46%) Wireless
6 32 (2.32%) VLAN
7 31 (2.24%) WAN
8 29 (2.10%) LAN
8 29 (2.10%) Wi-Fi
9 20 (1.45%) Network Security
10 17 (1.23%) VoIP
11 10 (0.72%) Internet
12 8 (0.58%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
13 7 (0.51%) Modbus
13 7 (0.51%) MQTT
13 7 (0.51%) Remote Desktop
14 6 (0.43%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (9.05%) Power BI
2 56 (4.06%) SQL Server
3 28 (2.03%) Tableau
4 27 (1.96%) Relational Database
5 24 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (1.67%) Power Query
7 21 (1.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 17 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (1.16%) Electronic Patient Records
10 15 (1.09%) MySQL
10 15 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 12 (0.87%) Data Mining
12 11 (0.80%) Crystal Reports
13 10 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 9 (0.65%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
15 8 (0.58%) Data Lake
16 6 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
16 6 (0.43%) MongoDB
17 5 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 45 (3.26%) Git
2 32 (2.32%) JIRA
3 24 (1.74%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.58%) Eclipse
5 7 (0.51%) Cucumber
5 7 (0.51%) GitLab
5 7 (0.51%) Postman
5 7 (0.51%) Selenium
6 6 (0.43%) JMeter
6 6 (0.43%) LabVIEW
6 6 (0.43%) Maven
7 5 (0.36%) JUnit
7 5 (0.36%) SoapUI
7 5 (0.36%) VersionOne
7 5 (0.36%) Zephyr
8 4 (0.29%) Burp Suite
8 4 (0.29%) Metasploit
9 3 (0.22%) Mockito
9 3 (0.22%) Subversion
10 2 (0.14%) Ant
General
1 703 (50.91%) Social Skills
2 402 (29.11%) Analytical Skills
3 234 (16.94%) Manufacturing
4 224 (16.22%) Finance
5 110 (7.97%) Organisational Skills
6 100 (7.24%) Retail
7 75 (5.43%) Marketing
8 62 (4.49%) Public Sector
9 55 (3.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 45 (3.26%) Electronics
11 43 (3.11%) Law
12 39 (2.82%) Legal
13 33 (2.39%) Automotive
14 31 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
15 20 (1.45%) Telecoms
16 19 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
17 15 (1.09%) Aerospace
18 14 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
19 11 (0.80%) Banking
19 11 (0.80%) Billing
Job Titles
1 188 (13.61%) Analyst
2 149 (10.79%) IT Support
3 140 (10.14%) Support Engineer
4 112 (8.11%) Developer
4 112 (8.11%) Senior
5 86 (6.23%) IT Engineer
6 81 (5.87%) Consultant
7 78 (5.65%) Lead
8 75 (5.43%) Technical Support
9 64 (4.63%) Support Analyst
9 64 (4.63%) Technical Engineer
10 62 (4.49%) IT Support Engineer
10 62 (4.49%) Technical Support Engineer
11 58 (4.20%) Support Technician
12 50 (3.62%) IT Technician
13 42 (3.04%) IT Manager
14 41 (2.97%) Data Analyst
15 40 (2.90%) IT Support Technician
16 36 (2.61%) Administrator
17 32 (2.32%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (4.13%) REST
2 45 (3.26%) .NET
3 37 (2.68%) React
4 28 (2.03%) Spring
5 25 (1.81%) SOAP
5 25 (1.81%) Spring Boot
6 20 (1.45%) Node.js
7 17 (1.23%) CSS
7 17 (1.23%) HTML
7 17 (1.23%) RESTful
8 16 (1.16%) Terraform
9 14 (1.01%) AngularJS
9 14 (1.01%) Playwright
10 12 (0.87%) EDI
10 12 (0.87%) ISPF
10 12 (0.87%) JSON
10 12 (0.87%) XML
11 11 (0.80%) Middleware
11 11 (0.80%) SAP Fiori
12 9 (0.65%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 163 (11.80%) Driving Licence
2 102 (7.39%) Onboarding
3 79 (5.72%) Management Information System
4 70 (5.07%) Self-Motivation
5 40 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
6 35 (2.53%) Robotics
7 28 (2.03%) NHS
8 22 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.38%) IoT
10 18 (1.30%) Data Centre
10 18 (1.30%) SCADA
11 17 (1.23%) SystemC
11 17 (1.23%) Virtual Team
12 15 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (1.09%) Social Media
13 14 (1.01%) CMDB
13 14 (1.01%) Data Structures
13 14 (1.01%) Legacy Applications
14 13 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (0.94%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 242 (17.52%) Windows
2 88 (6.37%) Windows Server
3 79 (5.72%) Linux
4 46 (3.33%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.30%) Android
6 14 (1.01%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.72%) Mac OS
7 10 (0.72%) Unix
8 6 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.36%) OpenVMS
9 5 (0.36%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.29%) VMS
11 2 (0.14%) Debian
11 2 (0.14%) Solaris
11 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.072%) CentOS
12 1 (0.072%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 397 (28.75%) Continuous Improvement
2 280 (20.28%) Customer Service
3 187 (13.54%) Decision-Making
4 169 (12.24%) Analytics
5 166 (12.02%) Agile
6 142 (10.28%) Mentoring
7 136 (9.85%) ERP
8 134 (9.70%) Business Intelligence
9 126 (9.12%) Collaborative Working
10 121 (8.76%) Cybersecurity
11 104 (7.53%) Stakeholder Management
12 101 (7.31%) Project Delivery
13 100 (7.24%) AI
14 99 (7.17%) Service Delivery
15 96 (6.95%) ITIL
16 95 (6.88%) Roadmaps
17 93 (6.73%) Project Management
18 89 (6.44%) CRM
19 84 (6.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 80 (5.79%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 219 (15.86%) SQL
2 96 (6.95%) Python
3 68 (4.92%) Java
4 56 (4.06%) PowerShell
5 46 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 38 (2.75%) C#
7 30 (2.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 21 (1.52%) C
8 21 (1.52%) Ladder Logic
8 21 (1.52%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.16%) Embedded C
10 13 (0.94%) VBA
11 12 (0.87%) C++
11 12 (0.87%) COBOL
11 12 (0.87%) JCL
12 11 (0.80%) Bash
13 10 (0.72%) MATLAB
14 9 (0.65%) ABAP
15 8 (0.58%) R
16 7 (0.51%) PHP
Qualifications
1 208 (15.06%) Degree
2 99 (7.17%) Security Cleared
3 83 (6.01%) SC Cleared
4 38 (2.75%) HND
5 37 (2.68%) HNC
6 25 (1.81%) Azure Certification
7 23 (1.67%) DBS Check
7 23 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
8 19 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
9 14 (1.01%) PMI Certification
10 13 (0.94%) CCNA
10 13 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
10 13 (0.94%) NVQ Level 3
11 12 (0.87%) City & Guilds
11 12 (0.87%) NVQ Level 4
12 10 (0.72%) CISSP
13 9 (0.65%) ACCA
14 7 (0.51%) A+ Certification
14 7 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
14 7 (0.51%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (4.78%) Data Quality
2 55 (3.98%) GDPR
3 52 (3.77%) QA
4 42 (3.04%) SLA
5 40 (2.90%) Cyber Essentials
6 33 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 22 (1.59%) ISO 9001
9 9 (0.65%) ISO 14001
9 9 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.51%) GRC
10 7 (0.51%) NIST
11 6 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.29%) GMP
12 4 (0.29%) PMO
13 3 (0.22%) AQAP
13 3 (0.22%) ISO 26262
13 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 17025
13 3 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 163 (11.80%) Active Directory
2 54 (3.91%) Hyper-V
3 32 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.81%) Docker
5 20 (1.45%) Firmware
6 13 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
7 12 (0.87%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.51%) vSphere
9 2 (0.14%) Samba
9 2 (0.14%) XenApp
10 1 (0.072%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 52 (3.77%) Microsoft Intune
2 21 (1.52%) Kubernetes
3 10 (0.72%) SCCM
4 8 (0.58%) Ansible
5 7 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (0.43%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.29%) BMC PATROL
7 4 (0.29%) Grafana
7 4 (0.29%) Nmap
7 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.22%) Control-M
8 3 (0.22%) Galera Cluster
8 3 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.22%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.22%) Puppet
8 3 (0.22%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.22%) WhatsUp Gold
9 2 (0.14%) Backup Exec
9 2 (0.14%) WSUS
10 1 (0.072%) Nagios
Vendors
1 423 (30.63%) Microsoft
2 69 (5.00%) SAP
3 42 (3.04%) VMware
4 37 (2.68%) Oracle
4 37 (2.68%) Workday
5 35 (2.53%) Cisco
6 32 (2.32%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.24%) Google
8 26 (1.88%) Sage
9 22 (1.59%) Salesforce
10 20 (1.45%) IBM
11 17 (1.23%) Cognos
12 16 (1.16%) Databricks
13 14 (1.01%) Allen-Bradley
14 13 (0.94%) JD Edwards
15 12 (0.87%) Apple
15 12 (0.87%) HubSpot
16 10 (0.72%) Epicor
16 10 (0.72%) Sophos
17 9 (0.65%) Dell