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 16 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -16 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 849 1,056 1,507
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.45% 20.52% 15.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.95% 22.29% 18.18%
Number of salaries quoted 665 573 1,169
10th Percentile £26,000 £26,800 £25,000
25th Percentile £28,500 £32,500 £29,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £49,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -23.47% +15.29% -15.00%
75th Percentile £55,250 £62,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £75,000 £69,000
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +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 7,753 4,738 8,291
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 77.14% 92.07% 84.16%
Number of salaries quoted 4,411 2,593 6,567
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,250 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £48,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +8.25% -7.62%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,625 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +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 16 March 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 16 March 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 -22 503 £42,500 -21.79% 247
East Midlands -2 343 £35,000 -10.83% 155
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 49 (5.77%) SharePoint
2 32 (3.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (0.94%) CMS
4 6 (0.71%) Exchange Server 2007
4 6 (0.71%) Exchange Server 2010
4 6 (0.71%) Exchange Server 2013
4 6 (0.71%) IIS
4 6 (0.71%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 5 (0.59%) Confluence
6 4 (0.47%) Apache
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.12%) Drupal
7 1 (0.12%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.12%) SAS
7 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 56 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.77%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (1.18%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (1.06%) AutoCAD
6 8 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 7 (0.82%) MS Visio
7 7 (0.82%) SOLIDWORKS
8 3 (0.35%) CATIA
9 2 (0.24%) Trello
10 1 (0.12%) Abaqus
10 1 (0.12%) EPLAN
10 1 (0.12%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 24 (2.83%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (1.18%) iTrent
2 10 (1.18%) NetSuite
3 6 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.59%) Q-Pulse
5 3 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.35%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 2 (0.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
6 2 (0.24%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.12%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.12%) HFM
7 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.12%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.12%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.12%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 183 (21.55%) Azure
2 179 (21.08%) Microsoft 365
3 77 (9.07%) AWS
4 71 (8.36%) SaaS
5 62 (7.30%) Power Platform
6 52 (6.12%) Entra ID
7 28 (3.30%) Serverless
8 26 (3.06%) Dynamics 365
9 18 (2.12%) Power Automate
10 17 (2.00%) Amazon S3
10 17 (2.00%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (1.88%) PowerApps
12 15 (1.77%) GCP
13 13 (1.53%) Google Workspace
14 11 (1.30%) OneDrive
15 10 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (0.94%) Azure DevOps
17 7 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
17 7 (0.82%) OCI
18 6 (0.71%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 63 (7.42%) DNS
2 61 (7.18%) DHCP
3 46 (5.42%) VPN
4 37 (4.36%) WAN
5 32 (3.77%) Firewall
6 30 (3.53%) Remote Desktop
7 26 (3.06%) Internet
8 24 (2.83%) LAN
9 20 (2.36%) Wi-Fi
10 18 (2.12%) TCP/IP
11 15 (1.77%) SD-WAN
12 13 (1.53%) Wireless
13 11 (1.30%) VLAN
14 10 (1.18%) VoIP
15 6 (0.71%) ADSL
15 6 (0.71%) Broadband
15 6 (0.71%) Ethernet
15 6 (0.71%) Network Security
15 6 (0.71%) VDSL
16 4 (0.47%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (6.01%) Power BI
2 36 (4.24%) SQL Server
3 15 (1.77%) MySQL
3 15 (1.77%) Oracle Reports
4 14 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (1.53%) Amazon Redshift
5 13 (1.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 11 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 11 (1.30%) Tableau
7 8 (0.94%) Power Query
7 8 (0.94%) Relational Database
8 7 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
9 6 (0.71%) Metadata
10 5 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.59%) Crystal Reports
10 5 (0.59%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.47%) Redis
11 4 (0.47%) TimescaleDB
12 3 (0.35%) GIS
Development Applications
1 28 (3.30%) JIRA
2 21 (2.47%) Git
3 8 (0.94%) JUnit
4 7 (0.82%) Burp Suite
4 7 (0.82%) Metasploit
5 6 (0.71%) GitLab
5 6 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.71%) Maven
5 6 (0.71%) Mockito
6 5 (0.59%) Subversion
7 3 (0.35%) Appcelerator Titanium
8 2 (0.24%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.24%) Selenium
8 2 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.24%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.12%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.12%) MLflow
9 1 (0.12%) Postman
9 1 (0.12%) Snyk
General
1 407 (47.94%) Social Skills
2 277 (32.63%) Analytical Skills
3 154 (18.14%) Finance
4 80 (9.42%) Retail
5 75 (8.83%) Manufacturing
6 65 (7.66%) Organisational Skills
7 45 (5.30%) Legal
8 44 (5.18%) Law
9 35 (4.12%) Public Sector
10 34 (4.00%) Marketing
11 25 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 20 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
13 19 (2.24%) Automotive
14 17 (2.00%) Electronics
15 13 (1.53%) Aerospace
16 12 (1.41%) Banking
16 12 (1.41%) Games
16 12 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (1.41%) Telecoms
17 11 (1.30%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 156 (18.37%) IT Support
2 143 (16.84%) Support Engineer
3 137 (16.14%) Analyst
4 102 (12.01%) IT Engineer
5 90 (10.60%) IT Support Engineer
6 70 (8.24%) Developer
7 66 (7.77%) Senior
8 65 (7.66%) Lead
9 57 (6.71%) Support Analyst
10 56 (6.60%) Technical Support
11 46 (5.42%) 2nd Line Support
11 46 (5.42%) Technical Engineer
12 45 (5.30%) Technical Support Engineer
13 40 (4.71%) Support Technician
14 34 (4.00%) Administrator
15 32 (3.77%) 1st/2nd Line Support
15 32 (3.77%) Architect
16 30 (3.53%) Full-Stack Developer
17 26 (3.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 25 (2.94%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (4.24%) React
2 26 (3.06%) HTML
2 26 (3.06%) Node.js
3 25 (2.94%) CSS
4 22 (2.59%) .NET
5 20 (2.36%) REST
6 9 (1.06%) JSON
7 7 (0.82%) Vue
8 6 (0.71%) AngularJS
9 5 (0.59%) Laravel
9 5 (0.59%) Middleware
9 5 (0.59%) Oracle Fusion
9 5 (0.59%) RESTful
10 4 (0.47%) LAMP
10 4 (0.47%) Next.js
10 4 (0.47%) Spring
11 3 (0.35%) Elastic Stack
11 3 (0.35%) GraphQL
11 3 (0.35%) Razor View Engine
11 3 (0.35%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 103 (12.13%) Driving Licence
2 80 (9.42%) Onboarding
3 41 (4.83%) Management Information System
4 34 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
5 20 (2.36%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.24%) Social Media
7 18 (2.12%) FMCG
8 17 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
9 14 (1.65%) Product Ownership
10 12 (1.41%) Security Posture
11 11 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
12 10 (1.18%) IoT
13 9 (1.06%) Data Structures
13 9 (1.06%) EPoS
14 8 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
15 7 (0.82%) Cyber Defence
15 7 (0.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 7 (0.82%) Insider Threat
15 7 (0.82%) Web Conferencing
16 6 (0.71%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 156 (18.37%) Windows
2 49 (5.77%) Windows Server
3 40 (4.71%) Linux
4 30 (3.53%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.41%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.71%) Windows 7
7 5 (0.59%) Debian
7 5 (0.59%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.47%) Android
8 4 (0.47%) CentOS
8 4 (0.47%) Unix
9 3 (0.35%) SUSE
10 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (21.91%) Continuous Improvement
2 165 (19.43%) Customer Service
3 107 (12.60%) Agile
4 99 (11.66%) Mentoring
5 96 (11.31%) CRM
6 95 (11.19%) ERP
7 88 (10.37%) ITIL
8 86 (10.13%) Decision-Making
9 80 (9.42%) Project Management
10 67 (7.89%) Analytics
11 63 (7.42%) Business Intelligence
12 61 (7.18%) Time Management
13 60 (7.07%) Process Improvement
14 54 (6.36%) Computer Science
15 53 (6.24%) Migration
16 51 (6.01%) Stakeholder Management
17 49 (5.77%) Roadmaps
18 48 (5.65%) Analytical Thinking
19 47 (5.54%) Service Delivery
20 46 (5.42%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 154 (18.14%) SQL
2 52 (6.12%) Python
3 49 (5.77%) C#
4 45 (5.30%) JavaScript
5 23 (2.71%) Java
6 20 (2.36%) PowerShell
7 16 (1.88%) PHP
8 15 (1.77%) T-SQL
9 12 (1.41%) C
10 11 (1.30%) Bash
10 11 (1.30%) TypeScript
11 9 (1.06%) Ladder Logic
12 8 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 7 (0.82%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.82%) R
14 5 (0.59%) C++
15 4 (0.47%) VBA
16 3 (0.35%) Delphi
16 3 (0.35%) VB
16 3 (0.35%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 151 (17.79%) Degree
2 67 (7.89%) Security Cleared
3 50 (5.89%) SC Cleared
4 33 (3.89%) Microsoft Certification
5 28 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 24 (2.83%) DBS Check
7 20 (2.36%) CISSP
8 19 (2.24%) CompTIA Security+
9 16 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
10 12 (1.41%) PMI Certification
11 11 (1.30%) A+ Certification
11 11 (1.30%) CCNA
11 11 (1.30%) PMP
12 10 (1.18%) ACCA
12 10 (1.18%) CIMA
13 9 (1.06%) AWS Certification
13 9 (1.06%) CISMP
13 9 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 8 (0.94%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (6.36%) QA
2 40 (4.71%) Data Quality
3 27 (3.18%) GDPR
4 26 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 19 (2.24%) NIST
6 13 (1.53%) Actionable Recommendations
7 11 (1.30%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 8 (0.94%) SLA
10 6 (0.71%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.59%) COSHH
11 5 (0.59%) GMP
11 5 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 19770
13 2 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 2 (0.24%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
14 1 (0.12%) PMO
14 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 98 (11.54%) Active Directory
2 24 (2.83%) Docker
3 16 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.30%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.06%) vSphere
6 2 (0.24%) Firmware
6 2 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 37 (4.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (2.83%) Kubernetes
3 17 (2.00%) Terraform
4 8 (0.94%) Ansible
5 7 (0.82%) Nmap
6 5 (0.59%) Grafana
6 5 (0.59%) Nagios
6 5 (0.59%) SCCM
7 3 (0.35%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.12%) Argo
9 1 (0.12%) Autotask
9 1 (0.12%) AWS Copilot
9 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.12%) Galera Cluster
9 1 (0.12%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.12%) Puppet
9 1 (0.12%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
9 1 (0.12%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 232 (27.33%) Microsoft
2 43 (5.06%) Oracle
3 40 (4.71%) SAP
4 35 (4.12%) Cisco
5 19 (2.24%) Google
5 19 (2.24%) Salesforce
5 19 (2.24%) VMware
6 15 (1.77%) ServiceNow
7 12 (1.41%) HP
8 9 (1.06%) Databricks
8 9 (1.06%) Meraki
8 9 (1.06%) Sage
9 7 (0.82%) Epicor
9 7 (0.82%) Infor
10 6 (0.71%) Cognos
10 6 (0.71%) Dell
10 6 (0.71%) Freshdesk
10 6 (0.71%) SolarWinds
11 5 (0.59%) Workday
11 5 (0.59%) Zscaler