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 5 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,152 1,261 1,483
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.11% 21.98% 13.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.60% 25.81% 17.61%
Number of salaries quoted 828 729 734
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,267 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £29,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,000 £40,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -5.88% -12.03%
75th Percentile £56,250 £57,500 £58,000
90th Percentile £67,650 £67,500 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -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 9,930 4,886 8,421
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.92% 85.17% 77.86%
Number of salaries quoted 7,063 2,978 5,162
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,968 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £66,250 £63,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £76,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £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 5 August 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 5 August 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 -10 635 £42,500 -5.56% 398
East Midlands -9 514 £40,000 +12.68% 286
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 51 (4.43%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (0.95%) IIS
4 9 (0.78%) CMS
5 5 (0.43%) Confluence
5 5 (0.43%) Skype for Business
6 3 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2007
6 3 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.26%) WordPress
7 2 (0.17%) CICS
7 2 (0.17%) SAS
8 1 (0.087%) Apache
8 1 (0.087%) Appian
8 1 (0.087%) Documentum
8 1 (0.087%) Drupal
8 1 (0.087%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.087%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 101 (8.77%) Microsoft Office
2 81 (7.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.43%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.087%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.087%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.087%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.087%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.087%) Revit
8 1 (0.087%) Simulink
8 1 (0.087%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 15 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (1.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 13 (1.13%) SAP Business One
4 9 (0.78%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 6 (0.52%) Sage X3
5 6 (0.52%) Shopify
6 5 (0.43%) Magento
6 5 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.43%) Sage 50
6 5 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
7 4 (0.35%) Line 50
7 4 (0.35%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.26%) Q-Pulse
9 2 (0.17%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.17%) Infor CloudSuite
9 2 (0.17%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.17%) Infor M3
9 2 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 238 (20.66%) Microsoft 365
2 205 (17.80%) Azure
3 120 (10.42%) Power Platform
4 85 (7.38%) AWS
5 81 (7.03%) Entra ID
6 44 (3.82%) SaaS
7 31 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.74%) Power Automate
10 16 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
10 16 (1.39%) Serverless
11 15 (1.30%) PowerApps
12 14 (1.22%) GCP
12 14 (1.22%) Microsoft Purview
13 13 (1.13%) Google Workspace
14 12 (1.04%) Amazon S3
14 12 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (1.04%) GitHub
15 10 (0.87%) OneDrive
16 8 (0.69%) Amazon Cognito
Communications & Networking
1 65 (5.64%) Firewall
2 63 (5.47%) DNS
3 49 (4.25%) DHCP
3 49 (4.25%) VPN
4 43 (3.73%) TCP/IP
5 34 (2.95%) Wireless
6 29 (2.52%) VLAN
7 26 (2.26%) WAN
8 21 (1.82%) LAN
9 19 (1.65%) Network Security
9 19 (1.65%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (1.22%) VoIP
11 9 (0.78%) Internet
12 8 (0.69%) MQTT
12 8 (0.69%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.61%) SSL
14 6 (0.52%) Cisco IOS
15 5 (0.43%) Remote Desktop
15 5 (0.43%) Skype
16 4 (0.35%) LoRaWAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (9.55%) Power BI
2 47 (4.08%) SQL Server
3 28 (2.43%) Power Query
4 23 (2.00%) Tableau
5 20 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (1.48%) MySQL
6 17 (1.48%) Relational Database
7 16 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 14 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
10 10 (0.87%) DynamoDB
10 10 (0.87%) Electronic Patient Records
11 8 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
11 8 (0.69%) Crystal Reports
12 7 (0.61%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
13 6 (0.52%) Data Mining
14 5 (0.43%) DTS
14 5 (0.43%) NoSQL
14 5 (0.43%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (3.13%) Git
2 25 (2.17%) JIRA
3 15 (1.30%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.52%) Maven
5 5 (0.43%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.43%) JUnit
5 5 (0.43%) Postman
5 5 (0.43%) VersionOne
6 4 (0.35%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.35%) GitLab
6 4 (0.35%) JMeter
6 4 (0.35%) Metasploit
6 4 (0.35%) Selenium
6 4 (0.35%) SoapUI
7 3 (0.26%) Mockito
7 3 (0.26%) Subversion
7 3 (0.26%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.17%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.17%) IBM UrbanCode
8 2 (0.17%) TeamCity
General
1 565 (49.05%) Social Skills
2 341 (29.60%) Analytical Skills
3 199 (17.27%) Finance
4 171 (14.84%) Manufacturing
5 76 (6.60%) Retail
6 74 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
7 51 (4.43%) Marketing
8 48 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 42 (3.65%) Public Sector
10 37 (3.21%) Law
10 37 (3.21%) Legal
11 28 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (2.08%) Electronics
13 20 (1.74%) Automotive
13 20 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (1.30%) Telecoms
15 13 (1.13%) Games
16 10 (0.87%) Banking
17 8 (0.69%) Investment Banking
17 8 (0.69%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 187 (16.23%) Analyst
2 143 (12.41%) IT Support
3 136 (11.81%) Support Engineer
4 103 (8.94%) Developer
5 101 (8.77%) Senior
6 79 (6.86%) Technical Support
7 73 (6.34%) IT Engineer
8 71 (6.16%) Technical Engineer
9 69 (5.99%) Technical Support Engineer
10 65 (5.64%) Lead
11 64 (5.56%) Support Technician
12 57 (4.95%) Consultant
13 56 (4.86%) Support Analyst
14 55 (4.77%) IT Support Engineer
15 53 (4.60%) IT Technician
16 49 (4.25%) IT Manager
17 45 (3.91%) IT Support Technician
18 39 (3.39%) Senior Analyst
19 38 (3.30%) Data Analyst
20 28 (2.43%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.60%) REST
2 40 (3.47%) React
3 33 (2.86%) .NET
4 25 (2.17%) Node.js
5 21 (1.82%) SOAP
5 21 (1.82%) Spring
6 18 (1.56%) Spring Boot
7 15 (1.30%) CSS
7 15 (1.30%) HTML
8 13 (1.13%) RESTful
9 12 (1.04%) AngularJS
9 12 (1.04%) Playwright
10 10 (0.87%) JSON
10 10 (0.87%) SAP Fiori
11 9 (0.78%) JDBC
11 9 (0.78%) Middleware
11 9 (0.78%) OAuth
11 9 (0.78%) SAPUI5
12 7 (0.61%) ASP.NET
12 7 (0.61%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 120 (10.42%) Driving Licence
2 63 (5.47%) Management Information System
3 61 (5.30%) Onboarding
4 47 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
5 26 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
6 21 (1.82%) NHS
7 17 (1.48%) IoT
8 15 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
8 15 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
8 15 (1.30%) Robotics
9 14 (1.22%) Data Structures
10 12 (1.04%) Data Centre
10 12 (1.04%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.04%) Social Media
11 11 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
11 11 (0.95%) Mobile App
11 11 (0.95%) SystemC
11 11 (0.95%) Virtual Team
12 10 (0.87%) CMDB
13 9 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 206 (17.88%) Windows
2 78 (6.77%) Linux
3 73 (6.34%) Windows Server
4 46 (3.99%) Windows 10
5 15 (1.30%) Android
6 11 (0.95%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.87%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.69%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.69%) Unix
9 6 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.43%) CentOS
10 5 (0.43%) OpenVMS
11 4 (0.35%) Debian
11 4 (0.35%) FreeRTOS
11 4 (0.35%) VMS
11 4 (0.35%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.26%) SUSE
13 2 (0.17%) Solaris
13 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 343 (29.77%) Continuous Improvement
2 205 (17.80%) Customer Service
3 163 (14.15%) Decision-Making
4 151 (13.11%) Agile
5 147 (12.76%) Analytics
6 138 (11.98%) Mentoring
7 130 (11.28%) Collaborative Working
8 124 (10.76%) ERP
9 115 (9.98%) Business Intelligence
10 107 (9.29%) ITIL
11 103 (8.94%) Cybersecurity
12 97 (8.42%) AI
13 96 (8.33%) Service Delivery
14 79 (6.86%) Roadmaps
15 74 (6.42%) Stakeholder Management
16 73 (6.34%) CRM
17 70 (6.08%) Collaborative Culture
18 69 (5.99%) Root Cause Analysis
19 67 (5.82%) Data Management
19 67 (5.82%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 192 (16.67%) SQL
2 85 (7.38%) Python
3 49 (4.25%) Java
4 44 (3.82%) PowerShell
5 38 (3.30%) JavaScript
6 32 (2.78%) C#
6 32 (2.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 23 (2.00%) TypeScript
8 21 (1.82%) Ladder Logic
9 16 (1.39%) VBA
10 13 (1.13%) Bash
10 13 (1.13%) PHP
11 12 (1.04%) C
12 10 (0.87%) C++
13 9 (0.78%) ABAP
14 7 (0.61%) RPG
14 7 (0.61%) T-SQL
15 6 (0.52%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.52%) Go
16 5 (0.43%) JCL
Qualifications
1 160 (13.89%) Degree
2 78 (6.77%) Security Cleared
3 64 (5.56%) SC Cleared
4 30 (2.60%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (2.34%) DBS Check
6 21 (1.82%) Azure Certification
7 18 (1.56%) CISSP
8 16 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
10 13 (1.13%) HND
11 11 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (0.95%) HNC
12 9 (0.78%) CCNA
12 9 (0.78%) PMI Certification
13 7 (0.61%) ACCA
13 7 (0.61%) BPSS Clearance
13 7 (0.61%) CIMA
13 7 (0.61%) CISA
13 7 (0.61%) SSCP
14 6 (0.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (4.77%) Data Quality
2 41 (3.56%) Cyber Essentials
2 41 (3.56%) GDPR
3 40 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 40 (3.47%) QA
4 35 (3.04%) SLA
5 22 (1.91%) Accessibility
6 19 (1.65%) NIST
7 18 (1.56%) ISO 9001
8 10 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 9 (0.78%) ISO 14001
10 7 (0.61%) GRC
10 7 (0.61%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.43%) GMP
13 4 (0.35%) COSHH
13 4 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 3 (0.26%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 143 (12.41%) Active Directory
2 46 (3.99%) Hyper-V
3 31 (2.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (2.17%) Docker
5 11 (0.95%) Firmware
6 8 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.69%) vSphere
7 5 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.17%) Samba
9 1 (0.087%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.087%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.087%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 43 (3.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (2.00%) Kubernetes
3 18 (1.56%) Terraform
4 10 (0.87%) Ansible
5 8 (0.69%) SCCM
6 6 (0.52%) Grafana
7 5 (0.43%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.35%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.35%) Galera Cluster
8 4 (0.35%) Nmap
8 4 (0.35%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.35%) Puppet
8 4 (0.35%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.26%) BMC PATROL
9 3 (0.26%) Control-M
9 3 (0.26%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.17%) Nagios
11 1 (0.087%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.087%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.087%) WSUS
Vendors
1 344 (29.86%) Microsoft
2 50 (4.34%) SAP
3 41 (3.56%) VMware
4 30 (2.60%) Cisco
5 25 (2.17%) ServiceNow
6 21 (1.82%) IBM
7 20 (1.74%) Oracle
8 19 (1.65%) Salesforce
8 19 (1.65%) Workday
9 18 (1.56%) Google
9 18 (1.56%) Sage
10 17 (1.48%) Cognos
11 12 (1.04%) Dell
12 11 (0.95%) HubSpot
12 11 (0.95%) Red Hat
13 10 (0.87%) iManage
14 9 (0.78%) Databricks
14 9 (0.78%) Epicor
14 9 (0.78%) JD Edwards
14 9 (0.78%) Sophos