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 11 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,308 1,241 1,434
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.56% 21.84% 14.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.29% 25.66% 18.26%
Number of salaries quoted 920 714 559
10th Percentile £26,975 £25,250 £25,750
25th Percentile £30,500 £29,000 £32,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.84% -15.56% -8.63%
75th Percentile £56,906 £51,250 £59,500
90th Percentile £71,250 £67,500 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,022 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.49% -14.29% -4.55%

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 10,642 4,837 7,853
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.66% 85.14% 77.91%
Number of salaries quoted 7,600 2,900 4,142
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £28,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 -8 719 £42,500 -3.41% 537
East Midlands -8 587 £41,000 +17.14% 362
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 67 (5.12%) SharePoint
2 42 (3.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.15%) IIS
4 9 (0.69%) Confluence
5 5 (0.38%) CMS
5 5 (0.38%) Skype for Business
6 4 (0.31%) CICS
6 4 (0.31%) SAS
7 3 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.23%) WordPress
8 2 (0.15%) Documentum
9 1 (0.076%) Apache
9 1 (0.076%) Appian
9 1 (0.076%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.076%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.076%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.076%) Tomcat
Applications
1 114 (8.72%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (6.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 10 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.69%) Simulink
6 6 (0.46%) AutoCAD
6 6 (0.46%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.31%) Revit
8 3 (0.23%) EPLAN
8 3 (0.23%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.15%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.15%) OrCAD
9 2 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.076%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.076%) CorelDRAW
10 1 (0.076%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.076%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.076%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (1.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (1.07%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 12 (0.92%) SAP Business One
5 11 (0.84%) Shopify
6 10 (0.76%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.69%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 7 (0.54%) Sage X3
9 6 (0.46%) Dynamics AX
10 5 (0.38%) Magento
10 5 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.38%) Sage 50
10 5 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.31%) Line 50
11 4 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
12 3 (0.23%) Infor M3
12 3 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
12 3 (0.23%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 3 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 254 (19.42%) Microsoft 365
2 231 (17.66%) Azure
3 127 (9.71%) Power Platform
4 87 (6.65%) Entra ID
5 86 (6.57%) AWS
6 55 (4.20%) SaaS
7 35 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (2.68%) Dynamics 365
8 25 (1.91%) Power Automate
9 19 (1.45%) GitHub
10 18 (1.38%) PowerApps
11 17 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
11 17 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
12 16 (1.22%) GCP
13 15 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
13 15 (1.15%) OneDrive
14 13 (0.99%) Google Workspace
14 13 (0.99%) Serverless
15 12 (0.92%) PaaS
16 10 (0.76%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 72 (5.50%) DNS
2 66 (5.05%) Firewall
3 58 (4.43%) DHCP
4 57 (4.36%) VPN
5 51 (3.90%) TCP/IP
6 35 (2.68%) Wireless
7 32 (2.45%) VLAN
8 28 (2.14%) LAN
8 28 (2.14%) WAN
9 25 (1.91%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (1.53%) Network Security
11 17 (1.30%) VoIP
12 8 (0.61%) Internet
12 8 (0.61%) MQTT
13 7 (0.54%) Cisco IOS
13 7 (0.54%) Remote Desktop
13 7 (0.54%) Wireshark
14 6 (0.46%) Modbus
14 6 (0.46%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.46%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (9.02%) Power BI
2 51 (3.90%) SQL Server
3 28 (2.14%) Relational Database
4 27 (2.06%) Tableau
5 23 (1.76%) Power Query
6 22 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
7 20 (1.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 17 (1.30%) MySQL
9 16 (1.22%) Electronic Patient Records
10 14 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 13 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.99%) Data Mining
12 11 (0.84%) Crystal Reports
13 10 (0.76%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.69%) Oracle Reports
15 7 (0.54%) Data Lake
15 7 (0.54%) MongoDB
15 7 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
16 6 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
17 5 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 47 (3.59%) Git
2 33 (2.52%) JIRA
3 24 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.54%) Cucumber
4 7 (0.54%) Eclipse
5 6 (0.46%) GitLab
5 6 (0.46%) JMeter
5 6 (0.46%) Maven
5 6 (0.46%) Postman
5 6 (0.46%) Selenium
6 5 (0.38%) JUnit
6 5 (0.38%) LabVIEW
6 5 (0.38%) SoapUI
6 5 (0.38%) VersionOne
6 5 (0.38%) Zephyr
7 4 (0.31%) Burp Suite
7 4 (0.31%) Metasploit
8 3 (0.23%) Mockito
8 3 (0.23%) Subversion
9 2 (0.15%) Ant
General
1 660 (50.46%) Social Skills
2 376 (28.75%) Analytical Skills
3 215 (16.44%) Finance
4 211 (16.13%) Manufacturing
5 95 (7.26%) Organisational Skills
5 95 (7.26%) Retail
6 73 (5.58%) Marketing
7 56 (4.28%) Public Sector
8 54 (4.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (3.36%) Law
10 41 (3.13%) Legal
11 40 (3.06%) Electronics
12 30 (2.29%) Automotive
12 30 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
13 20 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
14 17 (1.30%) Telecoms
15 11 (0.84%) Banking
16 10 (0.76%) Aerospace
16 10 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
17 9 (0.69%) Billing
Job Titles
1 180 (13.76%) Analyst
2 141 (10.78%) IT Support
3 129 (9.86%) Support Engineer
4 116 (8.87%) Developer
5 102 (7.80%) Senior
6 78 (5.96%) Consultant
7 77 (5.89%) Lead
8 76 (5.81%) IT Engineer
8 76 (5.81%) Technical Support
9 65 (4.97%) Support Analyst
9 65 (4.97%) Technical Engineer
10 63 (4.82%) Technical Support Engineer
11 57 (4.36%) Support Technician
12 54 (4.13%) IT Support Engineer
13 49 (3.75%) IT Technician
14 43 (3.29%) IT Manager
15 41 (3.13%) IT Support Technician
16 38 (2.91%) Data Analyst
17 34 (2.60%) Administrator
18 32 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.13%) REST
2 45 (3.44%) .NET
3 39 (2.98%) React
4 28 (2.14%) Spring
5 25 (1.91%) Spring Boot
6 23 (1.76%) Node.js
6 23 (1.76%) SOAP
7 19 (1.45%) CSS
7 19 (1.45%) HTML
8 17 (1.30%) Terraform
9 16 (1.22%) RESTful
10 14 (1.07%) AngularJS
10 14 (1.07%) Playwright
11 12 (0.92%) EDI
11 12 (0.92%) ISPF
11 12 (0.92%) JSON
11 12 (0.92%) XML
12 11 (0.84%) Middleware
13 10 (0.76%) SAP Fiori
14 9 (0.69%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 149 (11.39%) Driving Licence
2 95 (7.26%) Onboarding
3 76 (5.81%) Management Information System
4 66 (5.05%) Self-Motivation
5 37 (2.83%) Enterprise Software
6 33 (2.52%) Robotics
7 28 (2.14%) NHS
8 20 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.45%) Data Centre
9 19 (1.45%) IoT
10 17 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
10 17 (1.30%) SystemC
10 17 (1.30%) Virtual Team
11 16 (1.22%) Legacy Applications
11 16 (1.22%) SCADA
12 13 (0.99%) CMDB
12 13 (0.99%) Data Structures
12 13 (0.99%) Mainframe
13 12 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
13 12 (0.92%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 230 (17.58%) Windows
2 83 (6.35%) Windows Server
3 80 (6.12%) Linux
4 44 (3.36%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.38%) Android
6 14 (1.07%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.76%) Unix
8 9 (0.69%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.46%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.38%) OpenVMS
11 4 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
11 4 (0.31%) VMS
12 3 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.15%) Debian
13 2 (0.15%) Solaris
14 1 (0.076%) CentOS
14 1 (0.076%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.076%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 383 (29.28%) Continuous Improvement
2 256 (19.57%) Customer Service
3 179 (13.69%) Decision-Making
4 161 (12.31%) Agile
4 161 (12.31%) Analytics
5 136 (10.40%) Mentoring
6 131 (10.02%) ERP
7 125 (9.56%) Business Intelligence
8 123 (9.40%) Collaborative Working
9 114 (8.72%) Cybersecurity
10 99 (7.57%) Stakeholder Management
11 98 (7.49%) AI
11 98 (7.49%) ITIL
12 96 (7.34%) Service Delivery
13 94 (7.19%) Roadmaps
14 92 (7.03%) Project Delivery
15 86 (6.57%) CRM
15 86 (6.57%) Project Management
16 79 (6.04%) Collaborative Culture
16 79 (6.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 207 (15.83%) SQL
2 90 (6.88%) Python
3 69 (5.28%) Java
4 53 (4.05%) PowerShell
5 50 (3.82%) JavaScript
6 38 (2.91%) C#
7 30 (2.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 23 (1.76%) TypeScript
9 22 (1.68%) Ladder Logic
10 21 (1.61%) C
11 15 (1.15%) Embedded C
12 13 (0.99%) C++
12 13 (0.99%) VBA
13 12 (0.92%) Bash
13 12 (0.92%) COBOL
13 12 (0.92%) JCL
13 12 (0.92%) PHP
14 9 (0.69%) ABAP
14 9 (0.69%) MATLAB
15 8 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 199 (15.21%) Degree
2 98 (7.49%) Security Cleared
3 82 (6.27%) SC Cleared
4 35 (2.68%) HND
5 31 (2.37%) HNC
6 26 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
7 24 (1.83%) Azure Certification
8 21 (1.61%) DBS Check
9 20 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (1.15%) PMI Certification
11 14 (1.07%) CCNA
12 12 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
12 12 (0.92%) NVQ Level 4
13 11 (0.84%) NVQ Level 3
14 10 (0.76%) CISSP
14 10 (0.76%) City & Guilds
15 8 (0.61%) ACCA
16 7 (0.54%) CCNP
16 7 (0.54%) CIMA
16 7 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (4.66%) Data Quality
2 53 (4.05%) GDPR
3 47 (3.59%) QA
4 41 (3.13%) SLA
5 39 (2.98%) Cyber Essentials
6 34 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 26 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 22 (1.68%) ISO 9001
9 9 (0.69%) ISO 14001
10 8 (0.61%) NIST
11 7 (0.54%) GRC
11 7 (0.54%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.31%) GMP
13 4 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.23%) AQAP
14 3 (0.23%) COSHH
14 3 (0.23%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.23%) ISO 26262
14 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 158 (12.08%) Active Directory
2 52 (3.98%) Hyper-V
3 30 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.99%) Docker
5 20 (1.53%) Firmware
6 13 (0.99%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.84%) Embedded Firmware
8 8 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (0.61%) vSphere
9 2 (0.15%) Samba
9 2 (0.15%) XenApp
10 1 (0.076%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.076%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 49 (3.75%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (1.76%) Kubernetes
3 10 (0.76%) SCCM
4 8 (0.61%) Ansible
5 6 (0.46%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.38%) Grafana
7 4 (0.31%) BMC PATROL
7 4 (0.31%) Galera Cluster
7 4 (0.31%) Nmap
7 4 (0.31%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.31%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.23%) Control-M
8 3 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.23%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.23%) Puppet
8 3 (0.23%) WhatsUp Gold
9 2 (0.15%) WSUS
10 1 (0.076%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.076%) Nagios
Vendors
1 397 (30.35%) Microsoft
2 68 (5.20%) SAP
3 40 (3.06%) VMware
4 35 (2.68%) Cisco
4 35 (2.68%) Oracle
5 31 (2.37%) Workday
6 30 (2.29%) ServiceNow
7 24 (1.83%) Sage
8 22 (1.68%) Salesforce
9 21 (1.61%) Google
9 21 (1.61%) IBM
10 17 (1.30%) Cognos
11 15 (1.15%) Databricks
12 14 (1.07%) Allen-Bradley
13 12 (0.92%) Apple
13 12 (0.92%) HubSpot
13 12 (0.92%) JD Edwards
14 11 (0.84%) Sophos
15 10 (0.76%) Dell
15 10 (0.76%) Epicor