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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -22 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 874 1,186 1,764
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 6.64% 23.93% 14.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.18% 26.76% 18.18%
Number of salaries quoted 673 589 1,202
10th Percentile £26,272 £25,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £29,500 £31,250 £28,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +12.50% -15.79%
75th Percentile £56,875 £61,250 £57,500
90th Percentile £67,500 £70,250 £70,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.80% +1.93% -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 9,518 4,432 9,704
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 72.29% 89.43% 81.17%
Number of salaries quoted 5,807 2,394 7,187
10th Percentile £29,750 £27,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £39,959 £33,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £62,374
90th Percentile £82,500 £75,000 £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 22 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 22 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 -25 513 £42,500 -11.46% 261
East Midlands -11 357 £35,000 -9.09% 153
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 54 (6.18%) SharePoint
2 39 (4.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.26%) CMS
4 5 (0.57%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
5 4 (0.46%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.34%) IIS
6 3 (0.34%) WordPress
7 2 (0.23%) Confluence
8 1 (0.11%) Appian
8 1 (0.11%) Drupal
8 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 66 (7.55%) Microsoft Office
2 52 (5.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.95%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.57%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.46%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.11%) Abaqus
8 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.11%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 12 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.03%) iTrent
3 7 (0.80%) SAP Business One
4 6 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (0.57%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 5 (0.57%) Magento
5 5 (0.57%) Q-Pulse
5 5 (0.57%) Shopify
6 4 (0.46%) Line 50
7 3 (0.34%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.34%) Sage 50
7 3 (0.34%) Sage X3
7 3 (0.34%) SAP Business ByDesign
8 2 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 1 (0.11%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.11%) Exchequer
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 193 (22.08%) Microsoft 365
2 160 (18.31%) Azure
3 79 (9.04%) Power Platform
4 76 (8.70%) AWS
5 60 (6.86%) Entra ID
6 30 (3.43%) Serverless
7 28 (3.20%) SaaS
8 22 (2.52%) Amazon S3
8 22 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
9 19 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
10 17 (1.95%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.60%) PowerApps
12 13 (1.49%) Google Workspace
12 13 (1.49%) OneDrive
13 12 (1.37%) GCP
13 12 (1.37%) Microsoft Copilot
14 9 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
16 7 (0.80%) Amazon Cognito
16 7 (0.80%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 50 (5.72%) DNS
2 43 (4.92%) VPN
3 42 (4.81%) DHCP
4 41 (4.69%) Firewall
5 38 (4.35%) WAN
6 27 (3.09%) Wireless
7 24 (2.75%) LAN
8 21 (2.40%) Wi-Fi
9 19 (2.17%) Internet
9 19 (2.17%) TCP/IP
10 16 (1.83%) SD-WAN
11 13 (1.49%) VLAN
11 13 (1.49%) VoIP
12 10 (1.14%) Network Security
13 7 (0.80%) MQTT
14 5 (0.57%) Bluetooth
14 5 (0.57%) Skype
15 3 (0.34%) LoRaWAN
15 3 (0.34%) SAN
15 3 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (8.01%) Power BI
2 29 (3.32%) SQL Server
3 19 (2.17%) Tableau
4 18 (2.06%) Power Query
5 14 (1.60%) MySQL
6 13 (1.49%) Amazon Redshift
6 13 (1.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 10 (1.14%) Oracle Reports
8 7 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (0.80%) DynamoDB
8 7 (0.80%) Star Schema
9 6 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (0.57%) MongoDB
10 5 (0.57%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 4 (0.46%) Data Mining
11 4 (0.46%) FileMaker
12 3 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.34%) GIS
12 3 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 18 (2.06%) Git
2 16 (1.83%) JIRA
3 7 (0.80%) JUnit
3 7 (0.80%) Maven
3 7 (0.80%) Mockito
4 6 (0.69%) Subversion
5 5 (0.57%) VersionOne
6 4 (0.46%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.46%) Metasploit
7 3 (0.34%) GitLab
7 3 (0.34%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.23%) TeamCity
8 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.23%) XCUITest
9 1 (0.11%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.11%) Bugzilla
9 1 (0.11%) MLflow
9 1 (0.11%) Postman
9 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
General
1 379 (43.36%) Social Skills
2 267 (30.55%) Analytical Skills
3 149 (17.05%) Finance
4 94 (10.76%) Manufacturing
5 59 (6.75%) Organisational Skills
6 46 (5.26%) Retail
7 45 (5.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 36 (4.12%) Law
9 35 (4.00%) Legal
9 35 (4.00%) Marketing
10 29 (3.32%) Public Sector
11 23 (2.63%) Electronics
12 18 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
13 17 (1.95%) Automotive
14 16 (1.83%) Influencing Skills
15 14 (1.60%) Banking
16 12 (1.37%) Telecoms
17 11 (1.26%) Investment Banking
18 10 (1.14%) Games
19 9 (1.03%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 134 (15.33%) Analyst
2 129 (14.76%) Support Engineer
3 112 (12.81%) IT Support
4 85 (9.73%) IT Engineer
5 77 (8.81%) Senior
6 70 (8.01%) Developer
7 66 (7.55%) IT Support Engineer
8 58 (6.64%) Technical Support
9 52 (5.95%) Technical Engineer
9 52 (5.95%) Technical Support Engineer
10 51 (5.84%) Lead
11 45 (5.15%) Support Technician
12 37 (4.23%) Support Analyst
13 32 (3.66%) Consultant
14 30 (3.43%) IT Technician
15 28 (3.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 27 (3.09%) IT Manager
16 27 (3.09%) IT Support Technician
17 25 (2.86%) Administrator
17 25 (2.86%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (5.15%) React
2 29 (3.32%) Node.js
3 26 (2.97%) CSS
3 26 (2.97%) HTML
4 24 (2.75%) REST
5 14 (1.60%) .NET
6 13 (1.49%) Spring
7 10 (1.14%) AngularJS
7 10 (1.14%) RESTful
7 10 (1.14%) Spring Boot
8 5 (0.57%) EDI
8 5 (0.57%) JSON
8 5 (0.57%) Laravel
9 4 (0.46%) .NET Framework
9 4 (0.46%) ASP.NET
9 4 (0.46%) ASP.NET Core
9 4 (0.46%) Middleware
10 3 (0.34%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.34%) Playwright
10 3 (0.34%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 97 (11.10%) Driving Licence
2 44 (5.03%) Onboarding
3 39 (4.46%) Management Information System
4 36 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
5 18 (2.06%) Social Media
6 16 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
8 12 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
9 11 (1.26%) FMCG
10 10 (1.14%) IoT
11 9 (1.03%) Data Centre
11 9 (1.03%) Product Ownership
11 9 (1.03%) Security Posture
11 9 (1.03%) Virtual Team
12 8 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
13 7 (0.80%) Cyber Defence
13 7 (0.80%) EPoS
13 7 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.80%) iSeries
13 7 (0.80%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 145 (16.59%) Windows
2 53 (6.06%) Windows Server
3 45 (5.15%) Linux
4 39 (4.46%) Windows 10
5 10 (1.14%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.92%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.80%) Android
8 6 (0.69%) Debian
9 5 (0.57%) CentOS
9 5 (0.57%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.46%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.46%) Unix
10 4 (0.46%) VMS
11 3 (0.34%) SUSE
11 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 190 (21.74%) Continuous Improvement
2 146 (16.70%) Customer Service
3 117 (13.39%) Agile
4 103 (11.78%) Decision-Making
5 86 (9.84%) Mentoring
6 83 (9.50%) ITIL
7 82 (9.38%) Analytics
8 75 (8.58%) Collaborative Working
9 73 (8.35%) ERP
10 70 (8.01%) Business Intelligence
11 67 (7.67%) Service Delivery
12 63 (7.21%) AI
12 63 (7.21%) Cybersecurity
13 61 (6.98%) Process Improvement
14 57 (6.52%) Project Management
15 56 (6.41%) CRM
16 54 (6.18%) Computer Science
16 54 (6.18%) Roadmaps
17 48 (5.49%) Root Cause Analysis
17 48 (5.49%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 120 (13.73%) SQL
2 66 (7.55%) Python
3 33 (3.78%) PowerShell
4 31 (3.55%) JavaScript
5 29 (3.32%) Java
6 21 (2.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 19 (2.17%) TypeScript
8 18 (2.06%) C#
9 14 (1.60%) Bash
9 14 (1.60%) PHP
10 12 (1.37%) C
10 12 (1.37%) Ladder Logic
11 10 (1.14%) C++
12 7 (0.80%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.80%) R
12 7 (0.80%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.69%) VBA
14 5 (0.57%) RPG
15 4 (0.46%) Embedded C
16 3 (0.34%) RPG/400
Qualifications
1 131 (14.99%) Degree
2 61 (6.98%) Security Cleared
3 49 (5.61%) SC Cleared
4 32 (3.66%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (3.09%) DBS Check
6 24 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 16 (1.83%) CISSP
8 15 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
9 14 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (1.37%) PMI Certification
11 11 (1.26%) A+ Certification
11 11 (1.26%) CCNA
12 10 (1.14%) ACCA
12 10 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.14%) CIMA
12 10 (1.14%) PMP
13 7 (0.80%) CISA
13 7 (0.80%) MCSE
13 7 (0.80%) SSCP
14 6 (0.69%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (4.58%) QA
2 39 (4.46%) Data Quality
3 26 (2.97%) GDPR
3 26 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (2.17%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (2.06%) NIST
6 16 (1.83%) SLA
7 12 (1.37%) Accessibility
8 9 (1.03%) Actionable Recommendations
8 9 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 7 (0.80%) ISO 14001
9 7 (0.80%) ISO 9001
10 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 5 (0.57%) COSHH
11 5 (0.57%) GMP
11 5 (0.57%) HIPAA
11 5 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 101 (11.56%) Active Directory
2 22 (2.52%) Docker
2 22 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.72%) Hyper-V
4 9 (1.03%) vSphere
5 8 (0.92%) Firmware
6 4 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.11%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 35 (4.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 21 (2.40%) Kubernetes
3 16 (1.83%) Terraform
4 7 (0.80%) Ansible
5 6 (0.69%) Nagios
6 4 (0.46%) Grafana
6 4 (0.46%) Nmap
6 4 (0.46%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.46%) SCCM
7 3 (0.34%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.34%) Galera Cluster
7 3 (0.34%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.23%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.23%) Puppet
8 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 227 (25.97%) Microsoft
2 31 (3.55%) Cisco
3 30 (3.43%) VMware
4 28 (3.20%) SAP
5 26 (2.97%) Oracle
6 16 (1.83%) Google
7 14 (1.60%) Sage
8 12 (1.37%) Salesforce
9 11 (1.26%) Dell
9 11 (1.26%) SolarWinds
10 10 (1.14%) IBM
10 10 (1.14%) ServiceNow
11 9 (1.03%) Databricks
11 9 (1.03%) Meraki
12 8 (0.92%) Cognos
12 8 (0.92%) HP
12 8 (0.92%) Workday
13 7 (0.80%) Zscaler
14 6 (0.69%) McAfee
14 6 (0.69%) Sophos