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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,215 1,291 1,489
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.25% 22.19% 13.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.83% 26.19% 17.84%
Number of salaries quoted 856 756 692
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,000 £25,500
25th Percentile £30,500 £29,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,500 £44,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -13.48% -9.18%
75th Percentile £56,906 £52,500 £58,750
90th Percentile £70,125 £67,500 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -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 10,270 4,929 8,346
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.76% 84.72% 77.41%
Number of salaries quoted 7,339 2,953 4,917
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £28,119
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £35,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,640 £63,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £76,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -10.40%

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 26 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 26 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 -9 681 £42,500 -2.42% 347
East Midlands -9 532 £41,000 +17.14% 249
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 56 (4.61%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.23%) IIS
4 8 (0.66%) CMS
5 6 (0.49%) Confluence
6 5 (0.41%) Skype for Business
7 4 (0.33%) CICS
8 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.25%) SAS
8 3 (0.25%) WordPress
9 2 (0.16%) Documentum
10 1 (0.082%) Apache
10 1 (0.082%) Appian
10 1 (0.082%) Headless CMS
10 1 (0.082%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.082%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.082%) Tomcat
Applications
1 101 (8.31%) Microsoft Office
2 79 (6.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.49%) Simulink
6 5 (0.41%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.33%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.16%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.16%) OrCAD
8 2 (0.16%) Revit
9 1 (0.082%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.082%) LaTeX
9 1 (0.082%) MS Visio
9 1 (0.082%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.082%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (1.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (1.23%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 15 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (1.07%) SAP Business One
4 11 (0.91%) Shopify
5 9 (0.74%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 8 (0.66%) NetSuite
7 7 (0.58%) Sage X3
8 5 (0.41%) Magento
8 5 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.41%) Sage 50
8 5 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
9 4 (0.33%) Line 50
10 3 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
10 3 (0.25%) Infor LN
10 3 (0.25%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.25%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.16%) Dynamics GP
11 2 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 235 (19.34%) Microsoft 365
2 221 (18.19%) Azure
3 124 (10.21%) Power Platform
4 83 (6.83%) AWS
5 82 (6.75%) Entra ID
6 52 (4.28%) SaaS
7 33 (2.72%) Dynamics 365
8 31 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
9 23 (1.89%) Power Automate
10 17 (1.40%) GitHub
10 17 (1.40%) PowerApps
11 16 (1.32%) Microsoft Copilot
12 15 (1.23%) GCP
12 15 (1.23%) Microsoft Purview
13 14 (1.15%) Serverless
14 13 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
15 11 (0.91%) Google Workspace
16 10 (0.82%) Amazon S3
16 10 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
17 9 (0.74%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 65 (5.35%) DNS
2 62 (5.10%) Firewall
3 51 (4.20%) DHCP
4 48 (3.95%) VPN
5 44 (3.62%) TCP/IP
6 32 (2.63%) Wireless
7 30 (2.47%) VLAN
8 22 (1.81%) LAN
9 21 (1.73%) WAN
10 19 (1.56%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (1.48%) Network Security
12 15 (1.23%) VoIP
13 8 (0.66%) MQTT
14 7 (0.58%) Internet
14 7 (0.58%) Remote Desktop
15 6 (0.49%) Cisco IOS
15 6 (0.49%) SSL
16 5 (0.41%) Skype
17 4 (0.33%) Bluetooth
17 4 (0.33%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (9.47%) Power BI
2 50 (4.12%) SQL Server
3 25 (2.06%) Relational Database
4 24 (1.98%) Tableau
5 22 (1.81%) Power Query
6 21 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
7 19 (1.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 17 (1.40%) MySQL
9 16 (1.32%) Electronic Patient Records
10 14 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 12 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (0.91%) Crystal Reports
13 10 (0.82%) Data Mining
13 10 (0.82%) DynamoDB
14 7 (0.58%) MongoDB
14 7 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
15 6 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
15 6 (0.49%) NoSQL
15 6 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
16 5 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 45 (3.70%) Git
2 30 (2.47%) JIRA
3 21 (1.73%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.49%) Cucumber
4 6 (0.49%) Maven
4 6 (0.49%) Postman
5 5 (0.41%) GitLab
5 5 (0.41%) JMeter
5 5 (0.41%) JUnit
5 5 (0.41%) Selenium
5 5 (0.41%) SoapUI
5 5 (0.41%) VersionOne
6 4 (0.33%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.33%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.33%) Metasploit
6 4 (0.33%) Zephyr
7 3 (0.25%) LabVIEW
7 3 (0.25%) Mockito
7 3 (0.25%) Subversion
8 2 (0.16%) TeamCity
General
1 601 (49.47%) Social Skills
2 359 (29.55%) Analytical Skills
3 216 (17.78%) Finance
4 183 (15.06%) Manufacturing
5 87 (7.16%) Retail
6 80 (6.58%) Organisational Skills
7 67 (5.51%) Marketing
8 48 (3.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 48 (3.95%) Public Sector
9 44 (3.62%) Legal
10 43 (3.54%) Law
11 32 (2.63%) Electronics
12 30 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.89%) Automotive
14 18 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
15 15 (1.23%) Telecoms
16 12 (0.99%) Games
17 10 (0.82%) Banking
18 8 (0.66%) Investment Banking
18 8 (0.66%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 182 (14.98%) Analyst
2 134 (11.03%) IT Support
3 125 (10.29%) Support Engineer
4 117 (9.63%) Developer
5 104 (8.56%) Senior
6 78 (6.42%) Technical Support
7 74 (6.09%) Consultant
8 68 (5.60%) Lead
9 67 (5.51%) IT Engineer
9 67 (5.51%) Technical Engineer
10 65 (5.35%) Technical Support Engineer
11 60 (4.94%) Support Analyst
12 56 (4.61%) Support Technician
13 51 (4.20%) IT Technician
14 49 (4.03%) IT Support Engineer
15 46 (3.79%) IT Manager
16 42 (3.46%) IT Support Technician
17 40 (3.29%) Senior Analyst
18 38 (3.13%) Data Analyst
19 29 (2.39%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.36%) REST
2 44 (3.62%) .NET
3 39 (3.21%) React
4 26 (2.14%) Spring
5 23 (1.89%) Node.js
5 23 (1.89%) Spring Boot
6 22 (1.81%) SOAP
7 19 (1.56%) CSS
7 19 (1.56%) HTML
8 16 (1.32%) RESTful
8 16 (1.32%) Terraform
9 14 (1.15%) AngularJS
10 13 (1.07%) Playwright
11 12 (0.99%) JSON
12 11 (0.91%) EDI
12 11 (0.91%) Middleware
13 10 (0.82%) ISPF
13 10 (0.82%) SAP Fiori
14 9 (0.74%) OAuth
14 9 (0.74%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 124 (10.21%) Driving Licence
2 74 (6.09%) Management Information System
3 72 (5.93%) Onboarding
4 55 (4.53%) Self-Motivation
5 33 (2.72%) Enterprise Software
6 28 (2.30%) NHS
7 20 (1.65%) Robotics
8 19 (1.56%) IoT
9 17 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
9 17 (1.40%) SystemC
10 15 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
10 15 (1.23%) Data Centre
11 14 (1.15%) Legacy Applications
11 14 (1.15%) Virtual Team
12 13 (1.07%) CMDB
12 13 (1.07%) Data Structures
12 13 (1.07%) SCADA
13 12 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
14 11 (0.91%) Cloud Native
14 11 (0.91%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 210 (17.28%) Windows
2 80 (6.58%) Linux
2 80 (6.58%) Windows Server
3 42 (3.46%) Windows 10
4 17 (1.40%) Android
5 14 (1.15%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.82%) Unix
7 9 (0.74%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.41%) OpenVMS
11 4 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
11 4 (0.33%) VMS
12 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.16%) CentOS
13 2 (0.16%) Debian
13 2 (0.16%) Solaris
14 1 (0.082%) SUSE
14 1 (0.082%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.082%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (29.14%) Continuous Improvement
2 225 (18.52%) Customer Service
3 173 (14.24%) Decision-Making
4 165 (13.58%) Agile
5 157 (12.92%) Analytics
6 137 (11.28%) Mentoring
7 128 (10.53%) ERP
8 126 (10.37%) Collaborative Working
9 121 (9.96%) Business Intelligence
10 112 (9.22%) Cybersecurity
11 98 (8.07%) AI
11 98 (8.07%) ITIL
12 94 (7.74%) Service Delivery
13 91 (7.49%) Roadmaps
14 90 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
15 81 (6.67%) CRM
16 77 (6.34%) Collaborative Culture
16 77 (6.34%) Project Delivery
17 71 (5.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 69 (5.68%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 198 (16.30%) SQL
2 87 (7.16%) Python
3 60 (4.94%) Java
4 47 (3.87%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.79%) PowerShell
6 38 (3.13%) C#
7 29 (2.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 23 (1.89%) TypeScript
9 21 (1.73%) Ladder Logic
10 17 (1.40%) C
11 13 (1.07%) PHP
11 13 (1.07%) VBA
12 12 (0.99%) Bash
12 12 (0.99%) Embedded C
13 11 (0.91%) C++
14 10 (0.82%) COBOL
14 10 (0.82%) JCL
15 9 (0.74%) ABAP
16 7 (0.58%) R
16 7 (0.58%) RPG
Qualifications
1 180 (14.81%) Degree
2 94 (7.74%) Security Cleared
3 77 (6.34%) SC Cleared
4 27 (2.22%) Microsoft Certification
5 23 (1.89%) Azure Certification
6 22 (1.81%) DBS Check
7 18 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (1.40%) CISSP
8 17 (1.40%) HND
9 15 (1.23%) HNC
9 15 (1.23%) PMI Certification
10 13 (1.07%) CompTIA Security+
11 12 (0.99%) CCNA
12 10 (0.82%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.58%) ACCA
13 7 (0.58%) CIMA
13 7 (0.58%) CISA
13 7 (0.58%) PMP
13 7 (0.58%) SSCP
14 6 (0.49%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (4.61%) Data Quality
2 49 (4.03%) GDPR
3 45 (3.70%) QA
4 39 (3.21%) Cyber Essentials
5 37 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 37 (3.05%) SLA
6 21 (1.73%) Accessibility
6 21 (1.73%) ISO 9001
7 18 (1.48%) NIST
8 9 (0.74%) ISO 14001
9 8 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 7 (0.58%) GRC
10 7 (0.58%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.33%) GMP
11 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.25%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.25%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 147 (12.10%) Active Directory
2 47 (3.87%) Hyper-V
3 28 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (2.14%) Docker
5 16 (1.32%) Firmware
6 11 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.66%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.66%) vSphere
8 5 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.16%) Samba
9 2 (0.16%) XenApp
10 1 (0.082%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.082%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 41 (3.37%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (1.89%) Kubernetes
3 10 (0.82%) SCCM
4 8 (0.66%) Ansible
5 6 (0.49%) Functional Safety
6 5 (0.41%) Grafana
6 5 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.33%) Galera Cluster
7 4 (0.33%) Nmap
7 4 (0.33%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.33%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.25%) BMC PATROL
8 3 (0.25%) Control-M
8 3 (0.25%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.25%) Puppet
8 3 (0.25%) WhatsUp Gold
9 2 (0.16%) WSUS
10 1 (0.082%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.082%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.082%) Nagios
Vendors
1 362 (29.79%) Microsoft
2 60 (4.94%) SAP
3 38 (3.13%) VMware
4 32 (2.63%) Oracle
5 30 (2.47%) Cisco
6 27 (2.22%) ServiceNow
7 25 (2.06%) Workday
8 23 (1.89%) Salesforce
9 22 (1.81%) IBM
10 21 (1.73%) Google
10 21 (1.73%) Sage
11 18 (1.48%) Cognos
12 13 (1.07%) Databricks
13 12 (0.99%) HubSpot
14 11 (0.91%) Sophos
15 10 (0.82%) Dell
15 10 (0.82%) Epicor
15 10 (0.82%) iManage
16 9 (0.74%) Apple
16 9 (0.74%) JD Edwards