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 14 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,504 1,173 1,430
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 9.57% 21.18% 15.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.50% 24.38% 19.02%
Number of salaries quoted 1,001 665 462
10th Percentile £27,282 £25,375 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £32,825
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £37,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -25.00% +2.73%
75th Percentile £55,250 £48,750 £61,438
90th Percentile £71,250 £65,750 £73,625
England median annual salary £46,000 £45,000 £53,450
% change year-on-year +2.22% -15.81% -2.82%

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 11,142 4,812 7,520
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 70.86% 86.87% 80.65%
Number of salaries quoted 7,863 2,810 3,415
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £39,125 £32,219 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £45,390 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.16% -9.22% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £78,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.32%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 -5 841 £42,500 - 345
East Midlands -7 661 £42,250 +30.00% 224
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 72 (4.79%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (0.93%) IIS
4 10 (0.66%) CMS
5 8 (0.53%) Confluence
6 7 (0.47%) CICS
7 5 (0.33%) WordPress
8 4 (0.27%) SAS
9 3 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.13%) Documentum
11 1 (0.066%) Apache
11 1 (0.066%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.066%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.066%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.066%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.066%) Umbraco
Applications
1 134 (8.91%) Microsoft Office
2 113 (7.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.80%) Simulink
3 12 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.60%) OrCAD
6 7 (0.47%) AutoCAD
7 6 (0.40%) EPLAN
8 5 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.33%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.33%) Revit
9 4 (0.27%) Notion
10 3 (0.20%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.13%) Fusion 360
11 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
12 1 (0.066%) Autodesk Inventor
12 1 (0.066%) Elementor
12 1 (0.066%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 18 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.80%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 12 (0.80%) NetSuite
3 12 (0.80%) Shopify
4 9 (0.60%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 7 (0.47%) SAP Business One
6 6 (0.40%) Dynamics AX
6 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
7 5 (0.33%) Magento
7 5 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
7 5 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.33%) Sage 50
7 5 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.27%) Maximo
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.20%) Infor M3
9 3 (0.20%) SAP CO
9 3 (0.20%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 264 (17.55%) Microsoft 365
2 250 (16.62%) Azure
3 127 (8.44%) Power Platform
4 98 (6.52%) Entra ID
5 79 (5.25%) AWS
6 58 (3.86%) SaaS
7 44 (2.93%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
9 28 (1.86%) GitHub
10 24 (1.60%) OneDrive
10 24 (1.60%) Power Automate
11 23 (1.53%) Google Workspace
12 21 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
13 20 (1.33%) PowerApps
14 18 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
15 17 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
16 15 (1.00%) GCP
17 14 (0.93%) Google Analytics
18 12 (0.80%) PaaS
19 9 (0.60%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 80 (5.32%) DNS
2 66 (4.39%) Firewall
3 64 (4.26%) DHCP
3 64 (4.26%) VPN
4 55 (3.66%) TCP/IP
5 35 (2.33%) WAN
6 34 (2.26%) LAN
6 34 (2.26%) VLAN
7 33 (2.19%) Wireless
8 30 (1.99%) Wi-Fi
9 19 (1.26%) Network Security
10 16 (1.06%) Internet
11 11 (0.73%) Modbus
12 10 (0.66%) VoIP
13 9 (0.60%) Wireshark
14 7 (0.47%) Cisco IOS
14 7 (0.47%) Remote Desktop
14 7 (0.47%) SSL
15 5 (0.33%) Ethernet
15 5 (0.33%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (7.58%) Power BI
2 57 (3.79%) SQL Server
3 37 (2.46%) Relational Database
4 25 (1.66%) Data Warehouse
4 25 (1.66%) Tableau
5 22 (1.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 21 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
7 17 (1.13%) Power Query
8 16 (1.06%) Electronic Patient Records
9 12 (0.80%) MySQL
9 12 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 11 (0.73%) Crystal Reports
10 11 (0.73%) Data Mining
10 11 (0.73%) Db2
11 10 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
12 9 (0.60%) Data Lake
13 7 (0.47%) MongoDB
14 6 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
14 6 (0.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 55 (3.66%) Git
2 34 (2.26%) JIRA
3 30 (1.99%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.66%) LabVIEW
5 9 (0.60%) Eclipse
5 9 (0.60%) GitLab
6 7 (0.47%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.47%) Postman
6 7 (0.47%) Selenium
7 6 (0.40%) JMeter
7 6 (0.40%) Maven
8 5 (0.33%) JUnit
8 5 (0.33%) SoapUI
8 5 (0.33%) Zephyr
9 4 (0.27%) Burp Suite
9 4 (0.27%) Metasploit
10 3 (0.20%) Mockito
11 2 (0.13%) Ant
11 2 (0.13%) Apache Ivy
11 2 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 768 (51.06%) Social Skills
2 445 (29.59%) Analytical Skills
3 263 (17.49%) Manufacturing
4 235 (15.63%) Finance
5 143 (9.51%) Organisational Skills
6 110 (7.31%) Retail
7 82 (5.45%) Marketing
8 65 (4.32%) Public Sector
9 60 (3.99%) Electronics
10 57 (3.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (2.73%) Automotive
11 41 (2.73%) Legal
12 40 (2.66%) Law
13 29 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
14 27 (1.80%) Telecoms
15 26 (1.73%) Aerospace
16 25 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
17 24 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
18 13 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
19 12 (0.80%) Billing
Job Titles
1 177 (11.77%) Analyst
2 163 (10.84%) IT Support
3 153 (10.17%) Support Engineer
4 125 (8.31%) Senior
5 114 (7.58%) Developer
6 90 (5.98%) IT Engineer
7 86 (5.72%) Lead
8 83 (5.52%) Consultant
9 76 (5.05%) Technical Support
10 71 (4.72%) IT Support Engineer
11 65 (4.32%) Technical Engineer
12 63 (4.19%) Technical Support Engineer
13 61 (4.06%) Support Analyst
14 59 (3.92%) Support Technician
15 52 (3.46%) IT Technician
16 44 (2.93%) Administrator
17 40 (2.66%) Data Analyst
18 38 (2.53%) IT Manager
18 38 (2.53%) IT Support Technician
19 37 (2.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (3.86%) .NET
2 57 (3.79%) REST
3 33 (2.19%) React
4 31 (2.06%) Spring
5 28 (1.86%) Spring Boot
6 26 (1.73%) SOAP
7 18 (1.20%) ISPF
7 18 (1.20%) Node.js
7 18 (1.20%) Terraform
8 16 (1.06%) CSS
8 16 (1.06%) HTML
9 15 (1.00%) RESTful
10 14 (0.93%) Playwright
11 13 (0.86%) XML
12 12 (0.80%) AngularJS
12 12 (0.80%) EDI
12 12 (0.80%) Middleware
12 12 (0.80%) Web Services
13 11 (0.73%) ASP.NET
13 11 (0.73%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 184 (12.23%) Driving Licence
2 116 (7.71%) Onboarding
3 89 (5.92%) Management Information System
4 83 (5.52%) Self-Motivation
5 54 (3.59%) Enterprise Software
6 49 (3.26%) Robotics
7 32 (2.13%) SCADA
8 29 (1.93%) NHS
9 22 (1.46%) Data Centre
10 21 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
10 21 (1.40%) Social Media
11 20 (1.33%) FMCG
11 20 (1.33%) Legacy Applications
12 19 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
12 19 (1.26%) Mainframe
13 18 (1.20%) IoT
14 17 (1.13%) SystemC
15 16 (1.06%) CMDB
16 15 (1.00%) Data Structures
16 15 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 263 (17.49%) Windows
2 93 (6.18%) Windows Server
3 74 (4.92%) Linux
4 37 (2.46%) Windows 10
5 15 (1.00%) Android
6 13 (0.86%) Apple iOS
6 13 (0.86%) macOS
7 9 (0.60%) Unix
8 7 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.33%) OpenVMS
9 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.27%) VMS
11 3 (0.20%) Solaris
11 3 (0.20%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.13%) Debian
12 2 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.066%) AIX
13 1 (0.066%) CentOS
13 1 (0.066%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.066%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 433 (28.79%) Continuous Improvement
2 305 (20.28%) Customer Service
3 196 (13.03%) Decision-Making
4 173 (11.50%) Analytics
5 167 (11.10%) Agile
6 147 (9.77%) Mentoring
7 131 (8.71%) Stakeholder Management
8 128 (8.51%) Collaborative Working
8 128 (8.51%) ERP
9 123 (8.18%) Business Intelligence
9 123 (8.18%) Project Delivery
10 118 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
11 108 (7.18%) AI
12 105 (6.98%) Project Management
13 102 (6.78%) Roadmaps
14 100 (6.65%) Validation
15 97 (6.45%) CRM
16 94 (6.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 91 (6.05%) Service Delivery
18 90 (5.98%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 228 (15.16%) SQL
2 96 (6.38%) Python
3 74 (4.92%) Java
4 57 (3.79%) PowerShell
5 52 (3.46%) JavaScript
6 44 (2.93%) C#
7 22 (1.46%) C
8 21 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 19 (1.26%) Ladder Logic
9 19 (1.26%) TypeScript
10 18 (1.20%) COBOL
10 18 (1.20%) JCL
11 15 (1.00%) Embedded C
12 14 (0.93%) C++
13 13 (0.86%) VBA
14 12 (0.80%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.66%) Bash
15 10 (0.66%) R
16 9 (0.60%) ABAP
17 7 (0.47%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 230 (15.29%) Degree
2 102 (6.78%) Security Cleared
3 86 (5.72%) SC Cleared
4 54 (3.59%) HNC
5 52 (3.46%) HND
6 28 (1.86%) Azure Certification
7 27 (1.80%) DBS Check
8 22 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 20 (1.33%) NVQ Level 3
10 19 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
11 16 (1.06%) City & Guilds
11 16 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
12 14 (0.93%) CCNA
13 13 (0.86%) Chartered Engineer
13 13 (0.86%) PMI Certification
14 12 (0.80%) NVQ Level 4
15 10 (0.66%) ACCA
16 9 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
17 8 (0.53%) A+ Certification
17 8 (0.53%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (5.05%) Data Quality
2 56 (3.72%) GDPR
3 54 (3.59%) QA
4 41 (2.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 36 (2.39%) SLA
6 30 (1.99%) Accessibility
6 30 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (1.33%) ISO 9001
8 10 (0.66%) PCI DSS
9 8 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 7 (0.47%) ISO 14001
11 6 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.40%) GMP
11 6 (0.40%) GRC
11 6 (0.40%) PMO
12 5 (0.33%) NIST
13 3 (0.20%) AQAP
13 3 (0.20%) COSHH
13 3 (0.20%) ISO 26262
13 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 164 (10.90%) Active Directory
2 55 (3.66%) Hyper-V
3 31 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.93%) Docker
5 19 (1.26%) Firmware
6 15 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.73%) Embedded Firmware
8 8 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.33%) vSphere
10 2 (0.13%) Samba
10 2 (0.13%) XenApp
11 1 (0.066%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 55 (3.66%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (1.66%) Kubernetes
3 12 (0.80%) SCCM
4 9 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
5 8 (0.53%) Ansible
5 8 (0.53%) Functional Safety
6 6 (0.40%) Backup Exec
7 4 (0.27%) BMC PATROL
7 4 (0.27%) Grafana
7 4 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (0.27%) Nmap
7 4 (0.27%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.20%) Control-M
8 3 (0.20%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.20%) Puppet
8 3 (0.20%) WhatsUp Gold
9 2 (0.13%) WSUS
10 1 (0.066%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.066%) Nagios
10 1 (0.066%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 472 (31.38%) Microsoft
2 63 (4.19%) SAP
3 48 (3.19%) Workday
4 45 (2.99%) Google
5 42 (2.79%) Oracle
6 39 (2.59%) VMware
7 37 (2.46%) Cisco
8 31 (2.06%) ServiceNow
9 29 (1.93%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.66%) Sage
11 20 (1.33%) IBM
12 18 (1.20%) Cognos
13 15 (1.00%) Allen-Bradley
13 15 (1.00%) EMC
13 15 (1.00%) Siemens
14 13 (0.86%) JD Edwards
15 12 (0.80%) Apple
16 11 (0.73%) Broadcom
16 11 (0.73%) Fortinet
16 11 (0.73%) Veeam