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 30 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -22 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 884 999 1,756
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 6.96% 19.99% 15.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.54% 22.44% 18.58%
Number of salaries quoted 684 619 1,218
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,150 £25,000
25th Percentile £28,821 £31,250 £29,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,500 £45,000 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year -14.44% +7.14% -16.00%
75th Percentile £55,783 £61,250 £57,500
90th Percentile £67,500 £72,750 £69,000
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 9,269 4,451 9,453
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 72.97% 89.07% 82.22%
Number of salaries quoted 5,506 2,601 7,121
10th Percentile £28,500 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £35,000 £34,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £66,500 £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 30 April 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 30 April 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 -24 523 £42,500 -15.00% 239
East Midlands -6 358 £35,000 -9.09% 154
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 58 (6.56%) SharePoint
2 40 (4.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.02%) CMS
4 5 (0.57%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 5 (0.57%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.34%) WordPress
7 2 (0.23%) Confluence
7 2 (0.23%) IIS
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.11%) Appian
8 1 (0.11%) Drupal
8 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 60 (6.79%) Microsoft Office
2 54 (6.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.81%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (1.02%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.68%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.57%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.11%) Abaqus
8 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.11%) Sketch
8 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (1.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (1.13%) iTrent
3 7 (0.79%) SAP Business One
4 6 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (0.57%) Q-Pulse
6 4 (0.45%) Line 50
6 4 (0.45%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.45%) Shopify
7 3 (0.34%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 3 (0.34%) Magento
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 CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 202 (22.85%) Microsoft 365
2 170 (19.23%) Azure
3 78 (8.82%) AWS
4 74 (8.37%) Power Platform
5 64 (7.24%) Entra ID
6 34 (3.85%) SaaS
6 34 (3.85%) Serverless
7 23 (2.60%) Amazon S3
7 23 (2.60%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (1.81%) Power Automate
9 15 (1.70%) GCP
10 14 (1.58%) OneDrive
11 13 (1.47%) Google Workspace
12 12 (1.36%) PowerApps
13 9 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
13 9 (1.02%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (0.79%) Azure DevOps
14 7 (0.79%) Microsoft Copilot
15 6 (0.68%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 56 (6.33%) DNS
2 50 (5.66%) DHCP
3 46 (5.20%) VPN
4 39 (4.41%) WAN
5 37 (4.19%) Firewall
6 24 (2.71%) LAN
7 22 (2.49%) Internet
7 22 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
8 19 (2.15%) TCP/IP
8 19 (2.15%) Wireless
9 17 (1.92%) SD-WAN
10 16 (1.81%) VoIP
11 11 (1.24%) VLAN
12 10 (1.13%) Network Security
13 6 (0.68%) Remote Desktop
14 5 (0.57%) Bluetooth
14 5 (0.57%) MQTT
14 5 (0.57%) Skype
14 5 (0.57%) WLAN
15 4 (0.45%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (7.35%) Power BI
2 39 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 17 (1.92%) Power Query
4 14 (1.58%) Amazon Redshift
4 14 (1.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 13 (1.47%) MySQL
6 12 (1.36%) Oracle Reports
6 12 (1.36%) Tableau
7 9 (1.02%) PostgreSQL
8 7 (0.79%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (0.79%) DynamoDB
8 7 (0.79%) NoSQL
8 7 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 7 (0.79%) Star Schema
9 5 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
10 4 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.45%) Data Mining
10 4 (0.45%) FileMaker
10 4 (0.45%) Metadata
10 4 (0.45%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 23 (2.60%) JIRA
2 21 (2.38%) Git
3 7 (0.79%) JUnit
4 6 (0.68%) GitLab
4 6 (0.68%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.68%) Subversion
5 5 (0.57%) Maven
5 5 (0.57%) Mockito
5 5 (0.57%) VersionOne
6 4 (0.45%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.45%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.23%) Appcelerator Titanium
7 2 (0.23%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.23%) Selenium
7 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.23%) XCUITest
8 1 (0.11%) Bugzilla
8 1 (0.11%) MLflow
8 1 (0.11%) Postman
General
1 399 (45.14%) Social Skills
2 267 (30.20%) Analytical Skills
3 149 (16.86%) Finance
4 91 (10.29%) Manufacturing
5 67 (7.58%) Organisational Skills
6 48 (5.43%) Retail
7 42 (4.75%) Marketing
8 41 (4.64%) Legal
9 39 (4.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (4.41%) Law
10 32 (3.62%) Public Sector
11 24 (2.71%) Automotive
12 22 (2.49%) Electronics
13 19 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
14 13 (1.47%) Banking
14 13 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
15 12 (1.36%) Advertising
16 11 (1.24%) Games
16 11 (1.24%) Telecoms
17 9 (1.02%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 139 (15.72%) IT Support
1 139 (15.72%) Support Engineer
2 137 (15.50%) Analyst
3 101 (11.43%) IT Engineer
4 81 (9.16%) IT Support Engineer
5 69 (7.81%) Senior
6 63 (7.13%) Developer
7 56 (6.33%) Lead
7 56 (6.33%) Technical Support
8 48 (5.43%) Support Analyst
8 48 (5.43%) Technical Engineer
8 48 (5.43%) Technical Support Engineer
9 44 (4.98%) Support Technician
10 35 (3.96%) 2nd Line Support
11 33 (3.73%) Administrator
12 32 (3.62%) IT Technician
13 30 (3.39%) Consultant
14 29 (3.28%) Architect
14 29 (3.28%) Full-Stack Developer
14 29 (3.28%) IT Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (4.30%) React
2 31 (3.51%) CSS
2 31 (3.51%) HTML
3 30 (3.39%) Node.js
4 19 (2.15%) REST
5 13 (1.47%) .NET
6 9 (1.02%) Spring
7 8 (0.90%) Spring Boot
8 7 (0.79%) AngularJS
8 7 (0.79%) RESTful
9 5 (0.57%) JSON
10 4 (0.45%) .NET Framework
10 4 (0.45%) Middleware
10 4 (0.45%) WinForms
11 3 (0.34%) ASP.NET
11 3 (0.34%) ASP.NET Core
11 3 (0.34%) Elastic Stack
11 3 (0.34%) Laravel
11 3 (0.34%) Oracle Fusion
11 3 (0.34%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 102 (11.54%) Driving Licence
2 58 (6.56%) Onboarding
3 38 (4.30%) Self-Motivation
4 30 (3.39%) Management Information System
5 18 (2.04%) Social Media
6 17 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
6 17 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (1.70%) FMCG
8 12 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (1.36%) Product Ownership
9 9 (1.02%) IoT
10 8 (0.90%) Data Centre
10 8 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.79%) Cyber Defence
11 7 (0.79%) EPoS
11 7 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
11 7 (0.79%) Virtual Team
11 7 (0.79%) Web Conferencing
12 6 (0.68%) Embedded Systems
12 6 (0.68%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 158 (17.87%) Windows
2 53 (6.00%) Windows Server
3 42 (4.75%) Windows 10
4 41 (4.64%) Linux
5 15 (1.70%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.90%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.68%) Android
7 6 (0.68%) Debian
8 5 (0.57%) CentOS
8 5 (0.57%) Windows 7
8 5 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.45%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.45%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.45%) Unix
10 3 (0.34%) SUSE
11 2 (0.23%) VMS
11 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (19.46%) Continuous Improvement
2 160 (18.10%) Customer Service
3 108 (12.22%) Agile
4 96 (10.86%) ITIL
5 92 (10.41%) Decision-Making
6 76 (8.60%) Mentoring
7 74 (8.37%) ERP
8 72 (8.14%) Analytics
9 69 (7.81%) Business Intelligence
9 69 (7.81%) CRM
10 64 (7.24%) Process Improvement
11 60 (6.79%) Collaborative Working
12 56 (6.33%) Project Management
13 55 (6.22%) Cybersecurity
13 55 (6.22%) Service Delivery
14 54 (6.11%) Computer Science
15 51 (5.77%) Roadmaps
16 48 (5.43%) ITSM
16 48 (5.43%) Time Management
17 45 (5.09%) AI
Programming Languages
1 126 (14.25%) SQL
2 66 (7.47%) Python
3 33 (3.73%) JavaScript
4 30 (3.39%) PowerShell
5 27 (3.05%) Java
6 21 (2.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 16 (1.81%) C
7 16 (1.81%) PHP
8 15 (1.70%) C#
9 14 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 13 (1.47%) Ladder Logic
11 12 (1.36%) Bash
12 9 (1.02%) T-SQL
13 7 (0.79%) R
14 6 (0.68%) C++
15 5 (0.57%) PL/SQL
16 4 (0.45%) Embedded C
16 4 (0.45%) VBA
17 3 (0.34%) Delphi
17 3 (0.34%) Rust
Qualifications
1 122 (13.80%) Degree
2 53 (6.00%) Security Cleared
3 44 (4.98%) SC Cleared
4 29 (3.28%) Microsoft Certification
5 24 (2.71%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (2.26%) DBS Check
7 17 (1.92%) CISSP
8 13 (1.47%) CompTIA Security+
9 12 (1.36%) A+ Certification
9 12 (1.36%) PMI Certification
10 11 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
11 10 (1.13%) PMP
12 9 (1.02%) ACCA
12 9 (1.02%) CIMA
13 8 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (0.90%) CCNA
13 8 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 7 (0.79%) CISA
14 7 (0.79%) SSCP
15 6 (0.68%) CISMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (4.98%) Data Quality
2 39 (4.41%) QA
3 27 (3.05%) GDPR
4 25 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 19 (2.15%) NIST
6 16 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials
6 16 (1.81%) SLA
7 10 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 9 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
9 7 (0.79%) Accessibility
9 7 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 6 (0.68%) HIPAA
11 5 (0.57%) COSHH
11 5 (0.57%) GMP
12 4 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.45%) ISO 14001
12 4 (0.45%) ISO 9001
12 4 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.45%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 108 (12.22%) Active Directory
2 22 (2.49%) Docker
2 22 (2.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.24%) Hyper-V
4 8 (0.90%) Firmware
5 7 (0.79%) vSphere
6 4 (0.45%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 38 (4.30%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (2.60%) Kubernetes
3 18 (2.04%) Terraform
4 8 (0.90%) Ansible
5 5 (0.57%) Grafana
5 5 (0.57%) Nagios
5 5 (0.57%) SCCM
6 4 (0.45%) Nmap
7 3 (0.34%) Galera Cluster
7 3 (0.34%) Prometheus
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
1 232 (26.24%) Microsoft
2 32 (3.62%) Cisco
3 30 (3.39%) Oracle
3 30 (3.39%) VMware
4 27 (3.05%) SAP
5 16 (1.81%) Google
6 14 (1.58%) ServiceNow
7 13 (1.47%) Sage
7 13 (1.47%) Salesforce
8 11 (1.24%) SolarWinds
9 10 (1.13%) Databricks
9 10 (1.13%) Dell
9 10 (1.13%) Meraki
10 9 (1.02%) HP
11 8 (0.90%) Freshdesk
12 7 (0.79%) Zscaler
13 6 (0.68%) Avaya
13 6 (0.68%) McAfee
13 6 (0.68%) Sophos
13 6 (0.68%) Workday