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 21 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 2 4 8
Rank change year-on-year +2 +4 -1
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 986 1,346 802
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 16.61% 15.29% 15.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.17% 18.51% 17.11%
Number of salaries quoted 737 466 628
10th Percentile £25,750 £28,500 £28,200
25th Percentile £29,000 £34,000 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -24.00% - +6.38%
75th Percentile £52,000 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £67,500 £75,000 £71,250
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% - -

All Process and 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 4,888 7,271 4,688
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 82.35% 82.58% 93.11%
Number of salaries quoted 3,262 3,211 3,612
10th Percentile £27,000 £30,000 £26,791
25th Percentile £32,500 £38,750 £36,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025. 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 +1 583 £42,500 -20.26% 425
East Midlands +4 403 £32,500 -7.14% 222
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 41 (4.16%) SharePoint
2 34 (3.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.62%) IIS
4 7 (0.71%) Confluence
5 6 (0.61%) Apache
6 3 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.20%) CMS
7 2 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
7 2 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.10%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.10%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.10%) Appian
8 1 (0.10%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.10%) nginx
8 1 (0.10%) NServiceBus
8 1 (0.10%) SAS
8 1 (0.10%) WebLogic
Applications
1 104 (10.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 63 (6.39%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.91%) AutoCAD
5 8 (0.81%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.41%) CATIA
8 3 (0.30%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.30%) Trello
9 1 (0.10%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.10%) Revit
Business Applications
1 38 (3.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.81%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.51%) Exchequer
3 5 (0.51%) SAP Business One
3 5 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.51%) Shopify
4 4 (0.41%) iTrent
4 4 (0.41%) SAP EWM
4 4 (0.41%) SAP FI
4 4 (0.41%) SAP WM
5 3 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.20%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
6 2 (0.20%) Magento
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.20%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.10%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 193 (19.57%) Azure
2 186 (18.86%) Microsoft 365
3 85 (8.62%) Power Platform
4 82 (8.32%) SaaS
5 56 (5.68%) Entra ID
6 49 (4.97%) AWS
7 32 (3.25%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (1.62%) GCP
8 16 (1.62%) Power Automate
9 14 (1.42%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (1.42%) Cloud Computing
10 11 (1.12%) GitHub
10 11 (1.12%) OneDrive
10 11 (1.12%) PowerApps
11 9 (0.91%) Serverless
12 8 (0.81%) OCI
13 7 (0.71%) Azure Data Factory
14 5 (0.51%) Azure Key Vault
14 5 (0.51%) Azure Logic Apps
14 5 (0.51%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 67 (6.80%) DNS
2 64 (6.49%) DHCP
3 51 (5.17%) Firewall
4 46 (4.67%) Remote Desktop
5 45 (4.56%) VPN
6 37 (3.75%) WAN
7 35 (3.55%) LAN
8 23 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
9 19 (1.93%) TCP/IP
10 11 (1.12%) Broadband
10 11 (1.12%) Internet
10 11 (1.12%) Network Security
10 11 (1.12%) VoIP
10 11 (1.12%) Wireless
11 9 (0.91%) ADSL
11 9 (0.91%) Ethernet
11 9 (0.91%) VDSL
12 7 (0.71%) VLAN
13 5 (0.51%) PBX
14 4 (0.41%) Bluetooth
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (7.61%) Power BI
2 60 (6.09%) SQL Server
3 22 (2.23%) MySQL
4 20 (2.03%) GIS
4 20 (2.03%) Relational Database
5 17 (1.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 14 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
7 13 (1.32%) Tableau
8 12 (1.22%) BusinessObjects
9 11 (1.12%) Crystal Reports
9 11 (1.12%) Metadata
10 6 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
10 6 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 5 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.51%) Data Mining
11 5 (0.51%) EDRMS
11 5 (0.51%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.41%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.30%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 27 (2.74%) JIRA
2 20 (2.03%) Git
3 5 (0.51%) GitLab
3 5 (0.51%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.51%) JUnit
4 4 (0.41%) Selenium
5 3 (0.30%) Appcelerator Titanium
5 3 (0.30%) Burp Suite
5 3 (0.30%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.30%) Metasploit
5 3 (0.30%) Mockito
6 2 (0.20%) Maven
6 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.20%) Subversion
6 2 (0.20%) Vagrant
6 2 (0.20%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.10%) Babel
7 1 (0.10%) ERwin
7 1 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 527 (53.45%) Social Skills
2 270 (27.38%) Analytical Skills
3 244 (24.75%) Finance
4 159 (16.13%) Retail
5 82 (8.32%) Manufacturing
6 50 (5.07%) Law
7 47 (4.77%) Legal
8 45 (4.56%) Marketing
9 44 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
10 41 (4.16%) Public Sector
11 37 (3.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 33 (3.35%) Digital Health
13 21 (2.13%) Banking
14 20 (2.03%) Electronics
15 18 (1.83%) Telecoms
16 16 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
17 15 (1.52%) Automotive
18 14 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
18 14 (1.42%) Fire and Rescue
18 14 (1.42%) Games
Job Titles
1 176 (17.85%) Support Engineer
2 171 (17.34%) IT Support
3 166 (16.84%) Analyst
4 101 (10.24%) Technical Support
5 97 (9.84%) 2nd Line Support
6 88 (8.92%) Technical Engineer
7 87 (8.82%) Support Analyst
8 85 (8.62%) Technical Support Engineer
9 84 (8.52%) Developer
10 80 (8.11%) IT Engineer
11 69 (7.00%) IT Support Engineer
12 62 (6.29%) Lead
12 62 (6.29%) Senior
13 45 (4.56%) Support Technician
14 44 (4.46%) Applications Support
15 36 (3.65%) 1st/2nd Line Support
16 32 (3.25%) Architect
17 31 (3.14%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
18 28 (2.84%) 1st Line Support
19 27 (2.74%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (4.36%) .NET
2 31 (3.14%) React
3 28 (2.84%) HTML
4 27 (2.74%) REST
5 26 (2.64%) CSS
6 18 (1.83%) AngularJS
7 16 (1.62%) JSON
8 15 (1.52%) EDI
9 13 (1.32%) Razor View Engine
10 10 (1.01%) Middleware
11 8 (0.81%) .NET Framework
11 8 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
12 7 (0.71%) ASP.NET
12 7 (0.71%) Node.js
13 6 (0.61%) LAMP
13 6 (0.61%) RESTful
13 6 (0.61%) Spring
13 6 (0.61%) Vue
13 6 (0.61%) Web Services
13 6 (0.61%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 124 (12.58%) Onboarding
2 109 (11.05%) Driving Licence
3 59 (5.98%) FMCG
4 48 (4.87%) Analytical Mindset
5 47 (4.77%) Self-Motivation
6 42 (4.26%) Management Information System
7 19 (1.93%) SCADA
8 17 (1.72%) Operational Technology
9 14 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (1.42%) Security Posture
10 13 (1.32%) Product Ownership
11 12 (1.22%) Data Centre
11 12 (1.22%) Data Structures
11 12 (1.22%) e-Learning
12 11 (1.12%) EPoS
13 9 (0.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 8 (0.81%) IoT
14 8 (0.81%) Linux Command Line
14 8 (0.81%) Virtual Team
15 7 (0.71%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 189 (19.17%) Windows
2 59 (5.98%) Windows Server
3 51 (5.17%) Windows 10
4 40 (4.06%) Linux
5 11 (1.12%) Mac OS
6 10 (1.01%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.51%) Mac OS X
8 5 (0.51%) Unix
9 4 (0.41%) Android
10 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.20%) VMS
11 2 (0.20%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.10%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.10%) Windows Mobile
12 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (23.83%) Continuous Improvement
2 231 (23.43%) Customer Service
3 136 (13.79%) ERP
4 130 (13.18%) CRM
5 118 (11.97%) Logistics
6 112 (11.36%) Mentoring
7 98 (9.94%) Business Intelligence
8 97 (9.84%) ITIL
9 96 (9.74%) Project Management
10 94 (9.53%) Decision-Making
11 91 (9.23%) Agile
12 75 (7.61%) Analytics
13 70 (7.10%) Incident Management
14 68 (6.90%) Root Cause Analysis
15 62 (6.29%) E-Commerce
16 57 (5.78%) Cybersecurity
17 56 (5.68%) Analytical Thinking
18 51 (5.17%) Computer Science
18 51 (5.17%) Data Analysis
19 49 (4.97%) Data Privacy
Programming Languages
1 200 (20.28%) SQL
2 95 (9.63%) C#
3 59 (5.98%) Python
4 53 (5.38%) JavaScript
5 31 (3.14%) Java
6 28 (2.84%) PowerShell
7 24 (2.43%) PHP
8 17 (1.72%) T-SQL
9 8 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 8 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.71%) C
11 6 (0.61%) C++
12 5 (0.51%) Bash
12 5 (0.51%) Ladder Logic
12 5 (0.51%) R
13 4 (0.41%) Delphi
13 4 (0.41%) Go
13 4 (0.41%) Perl
13 4 (0.41%) VB.NET
14 3 (0.30%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 176 (17.85%) Degree
2 75 (7.61%) Security Cleared
3 49 (4.97%) SC Cleared
4 35 (3.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (3.25%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (1.72%) ACCA
6 17 (1.72%) CIMA
6 17 (1.72%) CISSP
7 16 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (1.62%) DBS Check
8 15 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
8 15 (1.52%) Master's Degree
9 13 (1.32%) MCP
10 11 (1.12%) HND
11 10 (1.01%) DV Cleared
12 9 (0.91%) CISM
12 9 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 8 (0.81%) A+ Certification
13 8 (0.81%) AWS Certification
13 8 (0.81%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (4.67%) QA
2 29 (2.94%) GDPR
3 28 (2.84%) Data Quality
4 19 (1.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (1.93%) SLA
5 9 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 8 (0.81%) NIST
7 7 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
8 6 (0.61%) PMO
9 4 (0.41%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.20%) COBIT
10 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.20%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.20%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 1 (0.10%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.10%) IEC 61508
11 1 (0.10%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 135 (13.69%) Active Directory
2 25 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (1.32%) Docker
4 8 (0.81%) Firmware
5 7 (0.71%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.61%) vSphere
7 2 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 41 (4.16%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (1.52%) Kubernetes
3 10 (1.01%) Terraform
4 4 (0.41%) Ansible
4 4 (0.41%) SCCM
5 3 (0.30%) FortiGate
5 3 (0.30%) Grafana
5 3 (0.30%) Nmap
6 2 (0.20%) Nagios
7 1 (0.10%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.10%) Argo
7 1 (0.10%) Autotask
7 1 (0.10%) AWS Copilot
7 1 (0.10%) CA Service Virtualization
7 1 (0.10%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.10%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.10%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 283 (28.70%) Microsoft
2 82 (8.32%) SAP
3 49 (4.97%) Salesforce
4 42 (4.26%) Oracle
5 39 (3.96%) Cisco
6 26 (2.64%) VMware
7 17 (1.72%) Databricks
8 16 (1.62%) ServiceNow
9 12 (1.22%) Juniper
9 12 (1.22%) Zoho
10 11 (1.12%) Dell
10 11 (1.12%) Google
10 11 (1.12%) HubSpot
11 9 (0.91%) McAfee
12 8 (0.81%) Apple
12 8 (0.81%) Sage
13 7 (0.71%) Infor
14 6 (0.61%) Civica
14 6 (0.61%) HP
14 6 (0.61%) NEC