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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,459 1,196 1,399
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 9.34% 21.20% 14.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.22% 24.38% 18.45%
Number of salaries quoted 979 672 480
10th Percentile £27,000 £25,375 £27,000
25th Percentile £30,875 £29,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.84% -24.00% +4.06%
75th Percentile £56,125 £50,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £71,250 £66,125 £73,750
England median annual salary £46,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.22% -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 11,036 4,906 7,582
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 70.61% 86.95% 80.42%
Number of salaries quoted 7,779 2,835 3,515
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £39,500 £32,063 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,500 £46,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.78% -8.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.64%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -5 821 £42,500 - 700
East Midlands -7 636 £42,000 +29.23% 441
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 71 (4.87%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (0.96%) IIS
4 10 (0.69%) CMS
5 8 (0.55%) Confluence
6 7 (0.48%) CICS
7 4 (0.27%) SAS
7 4 (0.27%) WordPress
8 3 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.21%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.14%) Documentum
9 2 (0.14%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.069%) Apache
10 1 (0.069%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.069%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.069%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.069%) Umbraco
Applications
1 132 (9.05%) Microsoft Office
2 110 (7.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.82%) Simulink
3 12 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.62%) OrCAD
5 6 (0.41%) EPLAN
6 5 (0.34%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.27%) Revit
8 3 (0.21%) Navisworks
8 3 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.14%) Fusion 360
9 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.14%) Notion
10 1 (0.069%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.069%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.069%) SketchUp
Business Applications
1 19 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.89%) Shopify
3 12 (0.82%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 10 (0.69%) NetSuite
5 9 (0.62%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 9 (0.62%) SAP Business One
6 7 (0.48%) Sage X3
7 6 (0.41%) Dynamics AX
7 6 (0.41%) Magento
8 5 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.34%) Sage 50
8 5 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.21%) Infor CloudSuite
10 3 (0.21%) Infor LN
10 3 (0.21%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.21%) SAP FI
10 3 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 263 (18.03%) Microsoft 365
2 242 (16.59%) Azure
3 125 (8.57%) Power Platform
4 96 (6.58%) Entra ID
5 80 (5.48%) AWS
6 57 (3.91%) SaaS
7 43 (2.95%) Azure DevOps
8 35 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
9 26 (1.78%) GitHub
10 23 (1.58%) OneDrive
11 22 (1.51%) Google Workspace
11 22 (1.51%) Power Automate
12 21 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
13 18 (1.23%) Microsoft Purview
13 18 (1.23%) PowerApps
14 16 (1.10%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.03%) GCP
16 13 (0.89%) Google Analytics
16 13 (0.89%) PaaS
17 10 (0.69%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 78 (5.35%) DNS
2 65 (4.46%) Firewall
3 63 (4.32%) DHCP
3 63 (4.32%) VPN
4 53 (3.63%) TCP/IP
5 33 (2.26%) VLAN
5 33 (2.26%) WAN
5 33 (2.26%) Wireless
6 32 (2.19%) LAN
7 29 (1.99%) Wi-Fi
8 20 (1.37%) Network Security
9 15 (1.03%) Internet
10 13 (0.89%) VoIP
11 10 (0.69%) Modbus
12 9 (0.62%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.48%) Cisco IOS
13 7 (0.48%) Remote Desktop
14 6 (0.41%) SSL
15 5 (0.34%) Ethernet
15 5 (0.34%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (7.81%) Power BI
2 59 (4.04%) SQL Server
3 30 (2.06%) Relational Database
4 25 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
5 24 (1.64%) Tableau
6 22 (1.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 20 (1.37%) Azure SQL Database
8 17 (1.17%) Power Query
9 16 (1.10%) Electronic Patient Records
10 12 (0.82%) MySQL
10 12 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.75%) Crystal Reports
11 11 (0.75%) Data Mining
11 11 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 10 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
13 9 (0.62%) Data Lake
13 9 (0.62%) Db2
14 7 (0.48%) DynamoDB
15 6 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
15 6 (0.41%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 45 (3.08%) Git
2 33 (2.26%) JIRA
3 30 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.62%) Eclipse
4 9 (0.62%) LabVIEW
5 8 (0.55%) GitLab
6 7 (0.48%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.48%) Postman
6 7 (0.48%) Selenium
7 6 (0.41%) JMeter
7 6 (0.41%) Maven
8 5 (0.34%) JUnit
8 5 (0.34%) SoapUI
8 5 (0.34%) Zephyr
9 4 (0.27%) Burp Suite
9 4 (0.27%) Metasploit
10 3 (0.21%) Mockito
10 3 (0.21%) VersionOne
11 2 (0.14%) IBM UrbanCode
11 2 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 756 (51.82%) Social Skills
2 428 (29.34%) Analytical Skills
3 255 (17.48%) Manufacturing
4 230 (15.76%) Finance
5 138 (9.46%) Organisational Skills
6 108 (7.40%) Retail
7 82 (5.62%) Marketing
8 66 (4.52%) Public Sector
9 57 (3.91%) Electronics
10 56 (3.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (2.81%) Legal
12 40 (2.74%) Automotive
12 40 (2.74%) Law
13 28 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
14 25 (1.71%) Telecoms
15 24 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
16 23 (1.58%) Aerospace
17 22 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
18 13 (0.89%) Pharmaceutical
19 12 (0.82%) Billing
Job Titles
1 180 (12.34%) Analyst
2 160 (10.97%) IT Support
3 150 (10.28%) Support Engineer
4 118 (8.09%) Senior
5 110 (7.54%) Developer
6 88 (6.03%) IT Engineer
7 85 (5.83%) Consultant
8 84 (5.76%) Lead
9 77 (5.28%) Technical Support
10 68 (4.66%) IT Support Engineer
11 66 (4.52%) Technical Engineer
12 64 (4.39%) Technical Support Engineer
13 62 (4.25%) Support Analyst
14 57 (3.91%) Support Technician
15 50 (3.43%) IT Technician
16 41 (2.81%) Administrator
17 40 (2.74%) Data Analyst
18 39 (2.67%) IT Manager
19 38 (2.60%) IT Support Technician
20 36 (2.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (3.91%) REST
2 56 (3.84%) .NET
3 33 (2.26%) React
4 31 (2.12%) Spring
5 28 (1.92%) Spring Boot
6 26 (1.78%) SOAP
7 18 (1.23%) ISPF
7 18 (1.23%) Node.js
8 17 (1.17%) CSS
8 17 (1.17%) HTML
8 17 (1.17%) Terraform
9 16 (1.10%) RESTful
10 14 (0.96%) Playwright
11 12 (0.82%) AngularJS
11 12 (0.82%) EDI
11 12 (0.82%) XML
12 11 (0.75%) SAP Fiori
13 10 (0.69%) JSON
13 10 (0.69%) Middleware
13 10 (0.69%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 178 (12.20%) Driving Licence
2 116 (7.95%) Onboarding
3 85 (5.83%) Management Information System
4 77 (5.28%) Self-Motivation
5 53 (3.63%) Enterprise Software
6 49 (3.36%) Robotics
7 30 (2.06%) SCADA
8 29 (1.99%) NHS
9 21 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
9 21 (1.44%) Social Media
10 20 (1.37%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.37%) Legacy Applications
11 19 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
11 19 (1.30%) Mainframe
12 18 (1.23%) IoT
13 17 (1.17%) FMCG
13 17 (1.17%) SystemC
14 16 (1.10%) CMDB
15 15 (1.03%) Cloud Native
15 15 (1.03%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 257 (17.61%) Windows
2 94 (6.44%) Windows Server
3 75 (5.14%) Linux
4 40 (2.74%) Windows 10
5 16 (1.10%) Android
6 13 (0.89%) Apple iOS
7 12 (0.82%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.62%) Unix
9 7 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.34%) OpenVMS
11 4 (0.27%) VMS
11 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.21%) Solaris
12 3 (0.21%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.14%) Debian
13 2 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
14 1 (0.069%) AIX
14 1 (0.069%) CentOS
14 1 (0.069%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.069%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 420 (28.79%) Continuous Improvement
2 300 (20.56%) Customer Service
3 184 (12.61%) Decision-Making
4 169 (11.58%) Agile
5 164 (11.24%) Analytics
6 143 (9.80%) Mentoring
7 134 (9.18%) ERP
8 127 (8.70%) Collaborative Working
9 124 (8.50%) Stakeholder Management
10 123 (8.43%) Business Intelligence
11 121 (8.29%) Cybersecurity
12 117 (8.02%) Project Delivery
13 105 (7.20%) AI
14 103 (7.06%) Project Management
15 99 (6.79%) CRM
15 99 (6.79%) Roadmaps
16 94 (6.44%) Service Delivery
17 93 (6.37%) Validation
18 92 (6.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 91 (6.24%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 219 (15.01%) SQL
2 97 (6.65%) Python
3 73 (5.00%) Java
4 58 (3.98%) PowerShell
5 49 (3.36%) JavaScript
6 42 (2.88%) C#
7 22 (1.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 21 (1.44%) C
9 20 (1.37%) TypeScript
10 19 (1.30%) Ladder Logic
11 18 (1.23%) COBOL
11 18 (1.23%) JCL
12 15 (1.03%) Embedded C
13 13 (0.89%) C++
14 12 (0.82%) MATLAB
14 12 (0.82%) VBA
15 10 (0.69%) Bash
15 10 (0.69%) R
16 9 (0.62%) ABAP
17 7 (0.48%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 229 (15.70%) Degree
2 100 (6.85%) Security Cleared
3 84 (5.76%) SC Cleared
4 54 (3.70%) HNC
5 52 (3.56%) HND
6 26 (1.78%) Azure Certification
7 25 (1.71%) DBS Check
8 22 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
9 19 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (1.23%) NVQ Level 3
11 16 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
12 15 (1.03%) City & Guilds
13 14 (0.96%) CCNA
14 13 (0.89%) Chartered Engineer
14 13 (0.89%) PMI Certification
15 12 (0.82%) NVQ Level 4
16 10 (0.69%) ACCA
17 9 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
18 8 (0.55%) CISSP
18 8 (0.55%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (4.46%) Data Quality
2 57 (3.91%) GDPR
3 52 (3.56%) QA
4 42 (2.88%) Cyber Essentials
5 36 (2.47%) SLA
6 31 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.71%) Accessibility
8 21 (1.44%) ISO 9001
9 10 (0.69%) PCI DSS
10 8 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 8 (0.55%) ISO 14001
11 7 (0.48%) GRC
12 6 (0.41%) GMP
12 6 (0.41%) NIST
12 6 (0.41%) PMO
13 4 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (0.21%) AQAP
14 3 (0.21%) COSHH
14 3 (0.21%) ISO 26262
14 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 164 (11.24%) Active Directory
2 56 (3.84%) Hyper-V
3 32 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.99%) Docker
5 19 (1.30%) Firmware
6 14 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.75%) Embedded Firmware
8 8 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.34%) vSphere
10 2 (0.14%) Samba
10 2 (0.14%) XenApp
11 1 (0.069%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 52 (3.56%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (1.64%) Kubernetes
3 11 (0.75%) SCCM
4 9 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
5 8 (0.55%) Ansible
5 8 (0.55%) Functional Safety
6 6 (0.41%) Backup Exec
7 4 (0.27%) BMC PATROL
7 4 (0.27%) Grafana
7 4 (0.27%) Nmap
7 4 (0.27%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.21%) Control-M
8 3 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.21%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.21%) Puppet
8 3 (0.21%) WhatsUp Gold
9 2 (0.14%) WSUS
10 1 (0.069%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.069%) Nagios
10 1 (0.069%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 458 (31.39%) Microsoft
2 64 (4.39%) SAP
3 46 (3.15%) Workday
4 43 (2.95%) Google
5 41 (2.81%) Oracle
5 41 (2.81%) VMware
6 34 (2.33%) Cisco
7 31 (2.12%) ServiceNow
8 28 (1.92%) Salesforce
9 27 (1.85%) Sage
10 19 (1.30%) IBM
11 18 (1.23%) Cognos
12 15 (1.03%) Allen-Bradley
12 15 (1.03%) Siemens
13 13 (0.89%) Apple
13 13 (0.89%) EMC
13 13 (0.89%) JD Edwards
14 12 (0.82%) Databricks
15 11 (0.75%) Broadcom
15 11 (0.75%) HubSpot