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 7 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -21 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 867 1,066 1,770
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 6.69% 20.62% 15.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.21% 23.07% 18.65%
Number of salaries quoted 672 628 1,218
10th Percentile £26,252 £25,675 £25,000
25th Percentile £28,965 £31,250 £28,813
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £45,000 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +7.14% -14.55%
75th Percentile £55,250 £61,250 £57,500
90th Percentile £66,250 £72,500 £69,300
England median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -9.09%

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 9,418 4,621 9,492
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 72.65% 89.38% 82.16%
Number of salaries quoted 5,636 2,612 7,138
10th Percentile £29,060 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £37,577 £35,000 £34,834
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £66,250 £65,000 £61,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 -23 516 £42,500 -12.37% 266
East Midlands -10 348 £35,000 -10.83% 186
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 59 (6.81%) SharePoint
2 41 (4.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.15%) CMS
4 5 (0.58%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 5 (0.58%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.35%) WordPress
7 2 (0.23%) Confluence
7 2 (0.23%) IIS
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.12%) Appian
8 1 (0.12%) Drupal
8 1 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 62 (7.15%) Microsoft Office
2 52 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.96%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.69%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.58%) Fusion 360
7 1 (0.12%) Abaqus
7 1 (0.12%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.12%) Sketch
7 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (1.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (1.15%) iTrent
3 7 (0.81%) SAP Business One
4 6 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.69%) Shopify
5 5 (0.58%) Magento
5 5 (0.58%) Q-Pulse
6 4 (0.46%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 4 (0.46%) Line 50
6 4 (0.46%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.35%) SAP Business ByDesign
8 2 (0.23%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 1 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.12%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.12%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 200 (23.07%) Microsoft 365
2 165 (19.03%) Azure
3 78 (9.00%) AWS
4 76 (8.77%) Power Platform
5 62 (7.15%) Entra ID
6 32 (3.69%) Serverless
7 27 (3.11%) SaaS
8 22 (2.54%) Amazon S3
8 22 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
9 19 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
10 17 (1.96%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.61%) GCP
11 14 (1.61%) OneDrive
12 13 (1.50%) Google Workspace
12 13 (1.50%) PowerApps
13 9 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
14 8 (0.92%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
15 7 (0.81%) Microsoft Copilot
16 6 (0.69%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 55 (6.34%) DNS
2 48 (5.54%) DHCP
3 45 (5.19%) VPN
4 40 (4.61%) WAN
5 37 (4.27%) Firewall
6 25 (2.88%) LAN
7 22 (2.54%) Wi-Fi
8 21 (2.42%) Internet
8 21 (2.42%) Wireless
9 18 (2.08%) TCP/IP
10 17 (1.96%) SD-WAN
11 14 (1.61%) VoIP
12 11 (1.27%) VLAN
13 10 (1.15%) Network Security
14 6 (0.69%) MQTT
15 5 (0.58%) Bluetooth
15 5 (0.58%) Skype
15 5 (0.58%) WLAN
16 3 (0.35%) Broadband
16 3 (0.35%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (7.73%) Power BI
2 36 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 17 (1.96%) Power Query
4 14 (1.61%) Amazon Redshift
4 14 (1.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 14 (1.61%) Tableau
5 13 (1.50%) MySQL
6 12 (1.38%) Oracle Reports
7 7 (0.81%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (0.81%) Star Schema
8 6 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
8 6 (0.69%) DynamoDB
8 6 (0.69%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 5 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
10 4 (0.46%) Data Mining
10 4 (0.46%) FileMaker
10 4 (0.46%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.35%) Redis
Development Applications
1 21 (2.42%) JIRA
2 20 (2.31%) Git
3 6 (0.69%) JUnit
3 6 (0.69%) Maven
3 6 (0.69%) Mockito
3 6 (0.69%) Subversion
4 5 (0.58%) VersionOne
5 4 (0.46%) Burp Suite
5 4 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.46%) Metasploit
6 3 (0.35%) GitLab
7 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.23%) XCUITest
8 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.12%) Bugzilla
8 1 (0.12%) MLflow
8 1 (0.12%) Postman
8 1 (0.12%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.12%) Yeoman
General
1 386 (44.52%) Social Skills
2 264 (30.45%) Analytical Skills
3 146 (16.84%) Finance
4 91 (10.50%) Manufacturing
5 63 (7.27%) Organisational Skills
6 44 (5.07%) Retail
7 43 (4.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 40 (4.61%) Marketing
9 37 (4.27%) Law
9 37 (4.27%) Legal
10 31 (3.58%) Public Sector
11 22 (2.54%) Electronics
12 20 (2.31%) Automotive
13 19 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
14 13 (1.50%) Banking
14 13 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
15 12 (1.38%) Telecoms
16 11 (1.27%) Advertising
17 10 (1.15%) Games
17 10 (1.15%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 135 (15.57%) Support Engineer
2 132 (15.22%) Analyst
3 130 (14.99%) IT Support
4 101 (11.65%) IT Engineer
5 78 (9.00%) IT Support Engineer
6 66 (7.61%) Senior
7 63 (7.27%) Developer
8 55 (6.34%) Lead
9 54 (6.23%) Technical Support
10 47 (5.42%) Technical Engineer
10 47 (5.42%) Technical Support Engineer
11 43 (4.96%) Support Analyst
12 41 (4.73%) Support Technician
13 31 (3.58%) 2nd Line Support
13 31 (3.58%) Administrator
14 30 (3.46%) Consultant
15 29 (3.34%) IT Technician
16 28 (3.23%) Full-Stack Developer
17 27 (3.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 27 (3.11%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (4.61%) React
2 30 (3.46%) Node.js
3 29 (3.34%) CSS
3 29 (3.34%) HTML
4 21 (2.42%) REST
5 13 (1.50%) .NET
6 9 (1.04%) Spring
7 7 (0.81%) AngularJS
7 7 (0.81%) RESTful
7 7 (0.81%) Spring Boot
8 5 (0.58%) JSON
9 4 (0.46%) .NET Framework
9 4 (0.46%) ASP.NET
9 4 (0.46%) ASP.NET Core
9 4 (0.46%) Middleware
9 4 (0.46%) WinForms
10 3 (0.35%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.35%) Laravel
10 3 (0.35%) Oracle Fusion
11 2 (0.23%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 102 (11.76%) Driving Licence
2 52 (6.00%) Onboarding
3 40 (4.61%) Self-Motivation
4 34 (3.92%) Management Information System
5 18 (2.08%) Social Media
6 17 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
7 15 (1.73%) FMCG
8 12 (1.38%) Product Ownership
9 10 (1.15%) IoT
10 9 (1.04%) Data Centre
10 9 (1.04%) Legacy Systems
10 9 (1.04%) Virtual Team
11 7 (0.81%) Cyber Defence
11 7 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.81%) EPoS
11 7 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
11 7 (0.81%) Security Posture
12 6 (0.69%) Data Structures
12 6 (0.69%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 151 (17.42%) Windows
2 54 (6.23%) Windows Server
3 42 (4.84%) Linux
4 37 (4.27%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.38%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.92%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.69%) Debian
8 5 (0.58%) Android
8 5 (0.58%) CentOS
8 5 (0.58%) Windows 7
8 5 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.46%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.46%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.46%) Unix
10 3 (0.35%) SUSE
10 3 (0.35%) VMS
11 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 174 (20.07%) Continuous Improvement
2 157 (18.11%) Customer Service
3 110 (12.69%) Agile
4 92 (10.61%) Decision-Making
5 90 (10.38%) ITIL
6 77 (8.88%) Analytics
7 72 (8.30%) ERP
8 71 (8.19%) Mentoring
9 68 (7.84%) Business Intelligence
10 62 (7.15%) Collaborative Working
10 62 (7.15%) CRM
11 61 (7.04%) Project Management
12 59 (6.81%) Process Improvement
13 58 (6.69%) Cybersecurity
13 58 (6.69%) Service Delivery
14 53 (6.11%) Computer Science
15 51 (5.88%) AI
16 49 (5.65%) Roadmaps
17 48 (5.54%) Time Management
18 45 (5.19%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 116 (13.38%) SQL
2 63 (7.27%) Python
3 32 (3.69%) JavaScript
4 31 (3.58%) PowerShell
5 25 (2.88%) Java
6 20 (2.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (1.73%) PHP
7 15 (1.73%) TypeScript
8 14 (1.61%) C
9 13 (1.50%) Bash
9 13 (1.50%) C#
10 12 (1.38%) Ladder Logic
11 8 (0.92%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.81%) C++
12 7 (0.81%) R
13 6 (0.69%) PL/SQL
14 4 (0.46%) Embedded C
14 4 (0.46%) VBA
15 3 (0.35%) Go
15 3 (0.35%) Rust
Qualifications
1 119 (13.73%) Degree
2 53 (6.11%) Security Cleared
3 44 (5.07%) SC Cleared
4 31 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
5 24 (2.77%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (2.54%) DBS Check
7 16 (1.85%) CISSP
8 15 (1.73%) CompTIA Security+
9 14 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (1.38%) A+ Certification
10 12 (1.38%) PMI Certification
11 11 (1.27%) CCNA
12 10 (1.15%) PMP
13 9 (1.04%) ACCA
13 9 (1.04%) CIMA
14 8 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (0.81%) CISA
15 7 (0.81%) SSCP
16 6 (0.69%) MCITP
16 6 (0.69%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (5.07%) Data Quality
2 37 (4.27%) QA
3 27 (3.11%) GDPR
4 26 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 19 (2.19%) NIST
6 18 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials
7 15 (1.73%) SLA
8 10 (1.15%) Accessibility
8 10 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 8 (0.92%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.69%) HIPAA
10 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 5 (0.58%) COSHH
11 5 (0.58%) GMP
11 5 (0.58%) ISO 14001
11 5 (0.58%) ISO 9001
12 4 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.46%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.35%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 106 (12.23%) Active Directory
2 22 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (2.42%) Docker
4 12 (1.38%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.92%) Firmware
5 8 (0.92%) vSphere
6 4 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.12%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (4.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 22 (2.54%) Kubernetes
3 17 (1.96%) Terraform
4 7 (0.81%) Ansible
5 5 (0.58%) Nagios
5 5 (0.58%) SCCM
6 4 (0.46%) Nmap
7 3 (0.35%) Galera Cluster
7 3 (0.35%) Grafana
7 3 (0.35%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.35%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.23%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.23%) Puppet
8 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.12%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 229 (26.41%) Microsoft
2 31 (3.58%) Cisco
3 30 (3.46%) VMware
4 28 (3.23%) Oracle
4 28 (3.23%) SAP
5 16 (1.85%) Google
6 13 (1.50%) Salesforce
7 11 (1.27%) Dell
7 11 (1.27%) Sage
7 11 (1.27%) ServiceNow
7 11 (1.27%) SolarWinds
8 10 (1.15%) Meraki
9 9 (1.04%) Databricks
10 8 (0.92%) HP
11 7 (0.81%) Workday
11 7 (0.81%) Zscaler
12 6 (0.69%) Avaya
12 6 (0.69%) Freshdesk
12 6 (0.69%) McAfee
12 6 (0.69%) Sophos