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 18 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -13 +3 +1
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 923 1,263 725
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 12.00% 18.24% 15.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.57% 20.50% 17.30%
Number of salaries quoted 707 516 593
10th Percentile £25,750 £28,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £28,839 £34,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -24.00% - -
75th Percentile £53,750 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £67,600 £76,500 £70,000
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% - -

All Process and 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 6,334 6,161 4,190
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 82.38% 88.99% 92.29%
Number of salaries quoted 3,486 2,752 3,452
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £34,500 £38,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £49,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 18 December 2025.

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 18 December 2025. 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 -15 549 £42,500 -22.73% 338
East Midlands +2 373 £32,500 -10.96% 285
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 46 (4.98%) SharePoint
2 36 (3.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.52%) IIS
4 6 (0.65%) Apache
4 6 (0.65%) Confluence
5 3 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2007
6 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.11%) Appian
7 1 (0.11%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.11%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.11%) SAS
7 1 (0.11%) WebLogic
Applications
1 90 (9.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (5.74%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.98%) AutoCAD
4 9 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.87%) SOLIDWORKS
6 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.43%) CATIA
8 3 (0.33%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.33%) Trello
9 1 (0.11%) Abaqus
9 1 (0.11%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.11%) Revit
9 1 (0.11%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 38 (4.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.98%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.54%) iTrent
4 4 (0.43%) SAP Business One
4 4 (0.43%) SAP FI
4 4 (0.43%) Shopify
5 3 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.22%) Exchequer
6 2 (0.22%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.22%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.22%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.11%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.11%) Sage X3
7 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 189 (20.48%) Azure
2 183 (19.83%) Microsoft 365
3 82 (8.88%) SaaS
4 70 (7.58%) Power Platform
5 58 (6.28%) AWS
6 54 (5.85%) Entra ID
7 27 (2.93%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (1.73%) GCP
9 15 (1.63%) Power Automate
10 13 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (1.19%) OneDrive
11 11 (1.19%) PowerApps
11 11 (1.19%) Serverless
12 9 (0.98%) GitHub
13 8 (0.87%) Cloud Computing
14 7 (0.76%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (0.76%) OCI
15 5 (0.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.54%) Amazon S3
15 5 (0.54%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 70 (7.58%) DNS
2 66 (7.15%) DHCP
3 45 (4.88%) Remote Desktop
4 42 (4.55%) VPN
5 39 (4.23%) Firewall
6 36 (3.90%) WAN
7 31 (3.36%) LAN
8 17 (1.84%) Internet
8 17 (1.84%) Wi-Fi
9 15 (1.63%) TCP/IP
10 12 (1.30%) VoIP
10 12 (1.30%) Wireless
11 9 (0.98%) ADSL
11 9 (0.98%) Ethernet
11 9 (0.98%) VDSL
11 9 (0.98%) VLAN
12 7 (0.76%) Broadband
13 6 (0.65%) Network Security
14 5 (0.54%) Bluetooth
14 5 (0.54%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (6.61%) Power BI
2 56 (6.07%) SQL Server
3 18 (1.95%) MySQL
3 18 (1.95%) Relational Database
4 17 (1.84%) GIS
5 15 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
5 15 (1.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 11 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
6 11 (1.19%) Tableau
7 8 (0.87%) Crystal Reports
7 8 (0.87%) Metadata
8 7 (0.76%) BusinessObjects
8 7 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.54%) Data Lake
10 5 (0.54%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.33%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 2 (0.22%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 31 (3.36%) JIRA
2 22 (2.38%) Git
3 8 (0.87%) GitLab
4 7 (0.76%) Subversion
5 6 (0.65%) Jenkins
6 5 (0.54%) JUnit
7 4 (0.43%) Burp Suite
7 4 (0.43%) Metasploit
7 4 (0.43%) Selenium
8 3 (0.33%) Appcelerator Titanium
8 3 (0.33%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.33%) Mockito
9 2 (0.22%) Maven
9 2 (0.22%) Vagrant
9 2 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.11%) Babel
10 1 (0.11%) ERwin
10 1 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.11%) webpack
General
1 481 (52.11%) Social Skills
2 269 (29.14%) Analytical Skills
3 219 (23.73%) Finance
4 153 (16.58%) Retail
5 77 (8.34%) Manufacturing
6 49 (5.31%) Law
7 45 (4.88%) Marketing
8 43 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
9 42 (4.55%) Legal
10 39 (4.23%) Public Sector
11 33 (3.58%) Digital Health
12 26 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 22 (2.38%) Electronics
14 19 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
14 19 (2.06%) Telecoms
15 15 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
16 14 (1.52%) Banking
16 14 (1.52%) Fire and Rescue
17 12 (1.30%) Automotive
18 9 (0.98%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 168 (18.20%) Support Engineer
2 163 (17.66%) IT Support
3 140 (15.17%) Analyst
4 88 (9.53%) IT Engineer
5 87 (9.43%) Technical Support
6 84 (9.10%) 2nd Line Support
7 78 (8.45%) Support Analyst
8 77 (8.34%) IT Support Engineer
9 74 (8.02%) Technical Engineer
10 71 (7.69%) Technical Support Engineer
11 70 (7.58%) Developer
12 66 (7.15%) Lead
13 65 (7.04%) Senior
14 47 (5.09%) Support Technician
15 41 (4.44%) Applications Support
16 35 (3.79%) Architect
17 33 (3.58%) 1st/2nd Line Support
18 28 (3.03%) 1st Line Support
18 28 (3.03%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
19 26 (2.82%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (3.79%) .NET
2 28 (3.03%) React
3 26 (2.82%) REST
4 23 (2.49%) HTML
5 21 (2.28%) CSS
6 17 (1.84%) AngularJS
7 16 (1.73%) JSON
8 11 (1.19%) Node.js
8 11 (1.19%) Razor View Engine
9 10 (1.08%) EDI
10 8 (0.87%) Middleware
10 8 (0.87%) Oracle Fusion
10 8 (0.87%) RESTful
11 7 (0.76%) Vue
12 6 (0.65%) LAMP
12 6 (0.65%) Laravel
12 6 (0.65%) Spring
12 6 (0.65%) XML
13 5 (0.54%) Web Services
14 4 (0.43%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 117 (12.68%) Onboarding
2 114 (12.35%) Driving Licence
3 61 (6.61%) FMCG
4 47 (5.09%) Self-Motivation
5 43 (4.66%) Analytical Mindset
6 38 (4.12%) Management Information System
7 18 (1.95%) SCADA
8 16 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (1.52%) Operational Technology
10 13 (1.41%) Product Ownership
11 12 (1.30%) e-Learning
11 12 (1.30%) Security Posture
12 11 (1.19%) Data Centre
13 10 (1.08%) Embedded Systems
13 10 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 9 (0.98%) Data Structures
14 9 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
15 8 (0.87%) IoT
15 8 (0.87%) Virtual Team
16 7 (0.76%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 172 (18.63%) Windows
2 59 (6.39%) Windows Server
3 39 (4.23%) Windows 10
4 37 (4.01%) Linux
5 11 (1.19%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.87%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.54%) Mac OS X
9 4 (0.43%) Unix
10 3 (0.33%) Android
11 2 (0.22%) VMS
11 2 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Mobile
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (23.29%) Continuous Improvement
2 205 (22.21%) Customer Service
3 127 (13.76%) CRM
4 123 (13.33%) ERP
5 105 (11.38%) Logistics
6 99 (10.73%) Mentoring
6 99 (10.73%) Project Management
7 96 (10.40%) Agile
8 89 (9.64%) ITIL
9 86 (9.32%) Business Intelligence
9 86 (9.32%) Decision-Making
10 76 (8.23%) Analytics
11 72 (7.80%) Incident Management
12 66 (7.15%) Root Cause Analysis
13 60 (6.50%) Analytical Thinking
14 59 (6.39%) E-Commerce
15 51 (5.53%) Process Improvement
16 47 (5.09%) Change Management
16 47 (5.09%) Project Delivery
16 47 (5.09%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 188 (20.37%) SQL
2 87 (9.43%) C#
3 61 (6.61%) Python
4 48 (5.20%) JavaScript
5 32 (3.47%) Java
6 31 (3.36%) PowerShell
7 23 (2.49%) PHP
8 17 (1.84%) T-SQL
9 10 (1.08%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.87%) C
10 8 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 7 (0.76%) C++
12 6 (0.65%) Bash
13 5 (0.54%) Ladder Logic
14 4 (0.43%) Delphi
14 4 (0.43%) Go
14 4 (0.43%) Perl
14 4 (0.43%) R
15 3 (0.33%) PL/SQL
15 3 (0.33%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 173 (18.74%) Degree
2 76 (8.23%) Security Cleared
3 50 (5.42%) SC Cleared
4 33 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
5 30 (3.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.28%) DBS Check
7 17 (1.84%) ACCA
7 17 (1.84%) CIMA
7 17 (1.84%) Master's Degree
8 16 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (1.63%) CISSP
10 14 (1.52%) MCP
11 10 (1.08%) AWS Certification
11 10 (1.08%) CISM
11 10 (1.08%) DV Cleared
12 9 (0.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 9 (0.98%) MCSE
13 8 (0.87%) CCNA
14 7 (0.76%) AAT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (5.20%) QA
2 29 (3.14%) Data Quality
3 25 (2.71%) GDPR
4 21 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.73%) SLA
6 10 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
7 9 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 9 (0.98%) NIST
8 7 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.43%) Accessibility
9 4 (0.43%) PMO
10 2 (0.22%) COBIT
10 2 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.22%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.22%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.22%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.22%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.11%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 126 (13.65%) Active Directory
2 19 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (1.84%) Docker
4 7 (0.76%) Firmware
4 7 (0.76%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.65%) vSphere
6 2 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 39 (4.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 17 (1.84%) Kubernetes
3 15 (1.63%) Terraform
4 5 (0.54%) Ansible
4 5 (0.54%) SCCM
5 4 (0.43%) Nmap
6 3 (0.33%) Grafana
6 3 (0.33%) Nagios
7 2 (0.22%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.11%) Argo
8 1 (0.11%) Autotask
8 1 (0.11%) AWS Copilot
8 1 (0.11%) CA Service Virtualization
8 1 (0.11%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.11%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.11%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 269 (29.14%) Microsoft
2 71 (7.69%) SAP
3 45 (4.88%) Oracle
4 40 (4.33%) Salesforce
5 34 (3.68%) Cisco
6 19 (2.06%) VMware
7 15 (1.63%) ServiceNow
8 14 (1.52%) Databricks
9 12 (1.30%) Zoho
10 10 (1.08%) Google
10 10 (1.08%) HubSpot
11 8 (0.87%) Dell
11 8 (0.87%) Juniper
11 8 (0.87%) Meraki
11 8 (0.87%) Sage
12 7 (0.76%) Apple
12 7 (0.76%) Infor
13 6 (0.65%) Freshdesk
13 6 (0.65%) McAfee
14 5 (0.54%) Samsung