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 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 951 1,124 2,016
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 7.63% 22.31% 14.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.99% 25.12% 18.08%
Number of salaries quoted 707 634 1,184
10th Percentile £26,286 £25,267 £25,000
25th Percentile £29,688 £29,813 £28,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,000 £42,750 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% +6.88% -15.79%
75th Percentile £56,838 £58,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £65,640 £67,500 £69,700
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £49,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -10.00%

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 8,657 4,474 11,152
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.44% 88.79% 78.70%
Number of salaries quoted 6,058 2,550 7,724
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,500 £48,750 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.64% +2.63% -9.52%
75th Percentile £67,500 £65,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £76,250 £75,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -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 18 June 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 18 June 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 -9 544 £42,500 -5.56% 230
East Midlands -11 404 £35,000 -6.67% 180
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 60 (6.31%) SharePoint
2 42 (4.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.16%) CMS
4 8 (0.84%) IIS
5 5 (0.53%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 5 (0.53%) Skype for Business
6 4 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2007
6 4 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2010
6 4 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2013
7 3 (0.32%) WordPress
8 2 (0.21%) Confluence
9 1 (0.11%) Appian
9 1 (0.11%) Drupal
9 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 79 (8.31%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (6.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.16%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.53%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.42%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.11%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.95%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 7 (0.74%) iTrent
4 7 (0.74%) SAP Business One
5 5 (0.53%) Magento
5 5 (0.53%) Q-Pulse
5 5 (0.53%) Shopify
6 4 (0.42%) Line 50
6 4 (0.42%) Sage 50
6 4 (0.42%) Sage X3
7 3 (0.32%) SAP Business ByDesign
8 2 (0.21%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.11%) Dynamics AX
9 1 (0.11%) Exchequer
9 1 (0.11%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 202 (21.24%) Microsoft 365
2 175 (18.40%) Azure
3 91 (9.57%) Power Platform
4 80 (8.41%) AWS
5 69 (7.26%) Entra ID
6 29 (3.05%) SaaS
7 28 (2.94%) Serverless
8 23 (2.42%) Amazon S3
9 22 (2.31%) AWS Lambda
10 20 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
11 16 (1.68%) Power Automate
12 14 (1.47%) OneDrive
13 13 (1.37%) Google Workspace
13 13 (1.37%) PowerApps
14 11 (1.16%) GCP
15 10 (1.05%) Microsoft Copilot
16 9 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
16 9 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
17 8 (0.84%) Amazon Cognito
17 8 (0.84%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 54 (5.68%) Firewall
2 53 (5.57%) DNS
3 51 (5.36%) VPN
4 47 (4.94%) DHCP
5 33 (3.47%) WAN
6 31 (3.26%) TCP/IP
7 27 (2.84%) Wireless
8 22 (2.31%) LAN
8 22 (2.31%) VLAN
9 20 (2.10%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (1.58%) SD-WAN
11 14 (1.47%) Internet
12 13 (1.37%) VoIP
13 12 (1.26%) Network Security
14 8 (0.84%) MQTT
15 5 (0.53%) Skype
16 4 (0.42%) Bluetooth
16 4 (0.42%) LoRaWAN
17 3 (0.32%) SAN
17 3 (0.32%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (8.62%) Power BI
2 35 (3.68%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.10%) Tableau
4 19 (2.00%) Power Query
5 18 (1.89%) MySQL
6 14 (1.47%) Amazon Redshift
7 13 (1.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 11 (1.16%) Relational Database
9 10 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
9 10 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 7 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 7 (0.74%) Star Schema
12 6 (0.63%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.53%) NoSQL
13 5 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.53%) PostgreSQL
14 4 (0.42%) Data Mining
14 4 (0.42%) FileMaker
Development Applications
1 19 (2.00%) Git
2 12 (1.26%) JIRA
3 8 (0.84%) JUnit
4 7 (0.74%) Maven
4 7 (0.74%) Mockito
5 6 (0.63%) Burp Suite
5 6 (0.63%) Metasploit
6 5 (0.53%) VersionOne
7 3 (0.32%) Subversion
8 2 (0.21%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.21%) TeamCity
8 2 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.11%) Appium
9 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.11%) Carbide.c++
9 1 (0.11%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.11%) TestRail
9 1 (0.11%) Yeoman
General
1 435 (45.74%) Social Skills
2 294 (30.91%) Analytical Skills
3 164 (17.25%) Finance
4 117 (12.30%) Manufacturing
5 63 (6.62%) Organisational Skills
6 57 (5.99%) Retail
7 48 (5.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 40 (4.21%) Marketing
9 37 (3.89%) Legal
10 33 (3.47%) Law
11 31 (3.26%) Public Sector
12 27 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
13 22 (2.31%) Electronics
14 17 (1.79%) Automotive
14 17 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
15 12 (1.26%) Banking
16 11 (1.16%) Telecoms
17 10 (1.05%) Investment Banking
18 9 (0.95%) Games
19 8 (0.84%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 152 (15.98%) Analyst
2 140 (14.72%) Support Engineer
3 115 (12.09%) IT Support
4 91 (9.57%) Senior
5 85 (8.94%) Developer
6 82 (8.62%) IT Engineer
7 70 (7.36%) Technical Support
8 65 (6.83%) IT Support Engineer
9 64 (6.73%) Technical Engineer
9 64 (6.73%) Technical Support Engineer
10 54 (5.68%) Support Technician
11 49 (5.15%) Lead
12 37 (3.89%) Data Analyst
13 36 (3.79%) IT Technician
14 35 (3.68%) IT Manager
14 35 (3.68%) Support Analyst
15 33 (3.47%) IT Support Technician
16 32 (3.36%) Consultant
16 32 (3.36%) Senior Analyst
17 26 (2.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.63%) React
2 31 (3.26%) REST
3 30 (3.15%) Node.js
4 23 (2.42%) CSS
4 23 (2.42%) HTML
5 20 (2.10%) .NET
6 13 (1.37%) Spring
7 11 (1.16%) AngularJS
8 10 (1.05%) Spring Boot
9 9 (0.95%) RESTful
10 8 (0.84%) Middleware
11 5 (0.53%) ASP.NET
11 5 (0.53%) ASP.NET Core
11 5 (0.53%) EDI
11 5 (0.53%) SOAP
12 4 (0.42%) .NET Framework
12 4 (0.42%) JDBC
12 4 (0.42%) OAuth
12 4 (0.42%) SAP Fiori
12 4 (0.42%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 89 (9.36%) Driving Licence
2 50 (5.26%) Onboarding
3 49 (5.15%) Management Information System
4 43 (4.52%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
6 13 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (1.37%) Security Posture
7 12 (1.26%) IoT
7 12 (1.26%) Social Media
8 11 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
8 11 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
9 10 (1.05%) Virtual Team
10 9 (0.95%) FMCG
10 9 (0.95%) Replication
10 9 (0.95%) SCADA
11 8 (0.84%) Data Centre
11 8 (0.84%) Data Structures
11 8 (0.84%) iSeries
11 8 (0.84%) Mobile App
12 7 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 155 (16.30%) Windows
2 59 (6.20%) Windows Server
3 56 (5.89%) Linux
4 49 (5.15%) Windows 10
5 11 (1.16%) Android
5 11 (1.16%) Apple iOS
6 10 (1.05%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.74%) Debian
8 5 (0.53%) CentOS
8 5 (0.53%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.53%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.42%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.42%) Unix
9 4 (0.42%) VMS
10 3 (0.32%) SUSE
11 2 (0.21%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (24.82%) Continuous Improvement
2 159 (16.72%) Customer Service
3 132 (13.88%) Decision-Making
4 121 (12.72%) Agile
5 112 (11.78%) Analytics
6 105 (11.04%) Mentoring
7 103 (10.83%) Collaborative Working
8 93 (9.78%) ITIL
9 84 (8.83%) Business Intelligence
9 84 (8.83%) ERP
9 84 (8.83%) Service Delivery
10 80 (8.41%) Cybersecurity
11 71 (7.47%) AI
11 71 (7.47%) Roadmaps
12 67 (7.05%) Process Improvement
13 59 (6.20%) Computer Science
14 58 (6.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 56 (5.89%) CRM
16 54 (5.68%) Coaching
17 53 (5.57%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 159 (16.72%) SQL
2 84 (8.83%) Python
3 42 (4.42%) PowerShell
4 33 (3.47%) Java
5 30 (3.15%) JavaScript
6 24 (2.52%) C#
7 22 (2.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 17 (1.79%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.68%) Bash
9 16 (1.68%) Ladder Logic
10 13 (1.37%) PHP
11 12 (1.26%) VBA
12 11 (1.16%) C
13 8 (0.84%) C++
13 8 (0.84%) PL/SQL
13 8 (0.84%) R
14 7 (0.74%) RPG
14 7 (0.74%) T-SQL
15 6 (0.63%) Go
16 4 (0.42%) RPG/400
Qualifications
1 135 (14.20%) Degree
2 73 (7.68%) Security Cleared
3 56 (5.89%) SC Cleared
4 33 (3.47%) Microsoft Certification
5 26 (2.73%) DBS Check
6 21 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (2.00%) CISSP
8 16 (1.68%) CompTIA Security+
9 13 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (1.16%) A+ Certification
10 11 (1.16%) Azure Certification
11 10 (1.05%) ACCA
11 10 (1.05%) CIMA
11 10 (1.05%) PMI Certification
12 9 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (0.84%) CCNA
13 8 (0.84%) PMP
14 7 (0.74%) CISA
14 7 (0.74%) SSCP
15 6 (0.63%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (4.52%) Data Quality
2 38 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 38 (4.00%) QA
3 33 (3.47%) Cyber Essentials
4 31 (3.26%) GDPR
5 22 (2.31%) SLA
6 21 (2.21%) NIST
7 15 (1.58%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 12 (1.26%) ISO 9001
10 9 (0.95%) Actionable Recommendations
10 9 (0.95%) ISO 14001
11 7 (0.74%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.63%) GRC
12 6 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.53%) COSHH
13 5 (0.53%) GMP
14 4 (0.42%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 120 (12.62%) Active Directory
2 30 (3.15%) Hyper-V
2 30 (3.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.42%) Docker
4 10 (1.05%) vSphere
5 8 (0.84%) Firmware
6 5 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.11%) Samba
9 1 (0.11%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 42 (4.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 22 (2.31%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.37%) Terraform
4 9 (0.95%) Ansible
5 6 (0.63%) Grafana
5 6 (0.63%) Nmap
6 5 (0.53%) Nagios
6 5 (0.53%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.42%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.42%) Galera Cluster
7 4 (0.42%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.32%) SCCM
8 3 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.21%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.21%) Puppet
10 1 (0.11%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 260 (27.34%) Microsoft
2 38 (4.00%) VMware
3 34 (3.58%) SAP
4 29 (3.05%) Cisco
5 23 (2.42%) Oracle
6 17 (1.79%) Sage
7 16 (1.68%) Google
7 16 (1.68%) IBM
8 15 (1.58%) Salesforce
9 12 (1.26%) Cognos
9 12 (1.26%) Dell
9 12 (1.26%) Workday
10 11 (1.16%) ServiceNow
10 11 (1.16%) SolarWinds
11 9 (0.95%) Databricks
12 8 (0.84%) HP
13 7 (0.74%) Apple
13 7 (0.74%) Red Hat
14 6 (0.63%) Avaya
14 6 (0.63%) McAfee