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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,069 1,224 1,670
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 7.87% 21.65% 13.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.30% 25.35% 17.63%
Number of salaries quoted 788 696 906
10th Percentile £26,079 £25,259 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £29,250 £29,563
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,000 £40,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -5.88% -11.55%
75th Percentile £55,500 £57,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -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 9,463 4,829 9,474
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.69% 85.42% 78.66%
Number of salaries quoted 6,728 2,902 6,127
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £48,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -4.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,063 £63,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,544 £77,500 £75,309
England median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -9 596 £42,500 -5.56% 249
East Midlands -10 469 £35,440 -0.17% 182
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 54 (5.05%) SharePoint
2 36 (3.37%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (0.94%) CMS
3 10 (0.94%) IIS
4 5 (0.47%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.37%) Confluence
5 4 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.28%) WordPress
7 1 (0.094%) Apache
7 1 (0.094%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.094%) Appian
7 1 (0.094%) Documentum
7 1 (0.094%) Drupal
7 1 (0.094%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.094%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.094%) SAS
Applications
1 99 (9.26%) Microsoft Office
2 79 (7.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.47%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.094%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.094%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.094%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.094%) Simulink
8 1 (0.094%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 16 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 11 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.84%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 9 (0.84%) SAP Business One
5 5 (0.47%) Magento
5 5 (0.47%) Q-Pulse
5 5 (0.47%) Sage X3
5 5 (0.47%) Shopify
6 4 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.37%) Line 50
6 4 (0.37%) Sage 50
7 3 (0.28%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.28%) SAP CO
7 3 (0.28%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.28%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.19%) iTrent
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.094%) Dynamics GP
9 1 (0.094%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 228 (21.33%) Microsoft 365
2 184 (17.21%) Azure
3 111 (10.38%) Power Platform
4 77 (7.20%) Entra ID
5 73 (6.83%) AWS
6 38 (3.55%) SaaS
7 25 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
8 19 (1.78%) Power Automate
9 17 (1.59%) Serverless
10 16 (1.50%) PowerApps
11 15 (1.40%) Microsoft Purview
12 14 (1.31%) Amazon S3
12 14 (1.31%) GCP
12 14 (1.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 13 (1.22%) Google Workspace
14 12 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (1.12%) Azure DevOps
14 12 (1.12%) OneDrive
15 9 (0.84%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (0.75%) Amazon Cognito
Communications & Networking
1 64 (5.99%) Firewall
2 59 (5.52%) DNS
3 47 (4.40%) DHCP
3 47 (4.40%) VPN
4 40 (3.74%) TCP/IP
5 32 (2.99%) Wireless
6 30 (2.81%) WAN
7 26 (2.43%) VLAN
8 23 (2.15%) LAN
9 20 (1.87%) Wi-Fi
10 16 (1.50%) Network Security
11 11 (1.03%) VoIP
12 9 (0.84%) Internet
12 9 (0.84%) SD-WAN
13 8 (0.75%) MQTT
14 6 (0.56%) Cisco IOS
14 6 (0.56%) SSL
15 5 (0.47%) Skype
16 4 (0.37%) LoRaWAN
16 4 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (9.54%) Power BI
2 45 (4.21%) SQL Server
3 24 (2.25%) Power Query
3 24 (2.25%) Tableau
4 19 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
5 18 (1.68%) MySQL
6 15 (1.40%) Relational Database
6 15 (1.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 14 (1.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 12 (1.12%) Azure SQL Database
9 8 (0.75%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 7 (0.65%) Crystal Reports
10 7 (0.65%) MongoDB
10 7 (0.65%) Star Schema
11 6 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.56%) Data Mining
11 6 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (0.47%) NoSQL
13 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 29 (2.71%) Git
2 18 (1.68%) JIRA
3 8 (0.75%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.47%) VersionOne
5 4 (0.37%) Burp Suite
5 4 (0.37%) Cucumber
5 4 (0.37%) GitLab
5 4 (0.37%) JUnit
5 4 (0.37%) Maven
5 4 (0.37%) Metasploit
5 4 (0.37%) Postman
5 4 (0.37%) SoapUI
6 3 (0.28%) JMeter
6 3 (0.28%) Mockito
6 3 (0.28%) Selenium
6 3 (0.28%) Subversion
6 3 (0.28%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.19%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.19%) Visual Studio
General
1 532 (49.77%) Social Skills
2 315 (29.47%) Analytical Skills
3 182 (17.03%) Finance
4 154 (14.41%) Manufacturing
5 72 (6.74%) Retail
6 69 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
7 46 (4.30%) Marketing
8 43 (4.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (3.65%) Legal
10 38 (3.55%) Law
11 35 (3.27%) Public Sector
12 26 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (2.15%) Electronics
14 20 (1.87%) Automotive
15 19 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
16 15 (1.40%) Telecoms
17 13 (1.22%) Games
18 10 (0.94%) Banking
19 9 (0.84%) Advertising
19 9 (0.84%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 176 (16.46%) Analyst
2 140 (13.10%) IT Support
2 140 (13.10%) Support Engineer
3 95 (8.89%) Developer
4 92 (8.61%) Senior
5 79 (7.39%) Technical Support
6 77 (7.20%) IT Engineer
7 73 (6.83%) Technical Engineer
8 71 (6.64%) Technical Support Engineer
9 66 (6.17%) Support Technician
10 58 (5.43%) IT Support Engineer
11 53 (4.96%) IT Technician
11 53 (4.96%) Lead
12 48 (4.49%) Support Analyst
13 46 (4.30%) IT Manager
13 46 (4.30%) IT Support Technician
14 44 (4.12%) Consultant
15 38 (3.55%) Data Analyst
16 35 (3.27%) Senior Analyst
17 26 (2.43%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (4.40%) REST
2 37 (3.46%) React
3 29 (2.71%) .NET
4 26 (2.43%) Node.js
5 19 (1.78%) SOAP
6 17 (1.59%) Spring
7 15 (1.40%) CSS
7 15 (1.40%) HTML
8 14 (1.31%) Spring Boot
9 12 (1.12%) AngularJS
10 11 (1.03%) RESTful
11 10 (0.94%) SAP Fiori
12 9 (0.84%) JDBC
12 9 (0.84%) Middleware
12 9 (0.84%) OAuth
12 9 (0.84%) SAPUI5
13 7 (0.65%) ASP.NET
13 7 (0.65%) JSON
13 7 (0.65%) Playwright
14 6 (0.56%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 104 (9.73%) Driving Licence
2 57 (5.33%) Management Information System
3 52 (4.86%) Onboarding
4 43 (4.02%) Self-Motivation
5 23 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
6 17 (1.59%) IoT
7 16 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
8 14 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
9 13 (1.22%) NHS
10 12 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
10 12 (1.12%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.12%) Social Media
11 11 (1.03%) Data Centre
11 11 (1.03%) Virtual Team
12 10 (0.94%) Data Structures
13 9 (0.84%) Mobile App
13 9 (0.84%) Replication
13 9 (0.84%) Robotics
13 9 (0.84%) SCADA
14 8 (0.75%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 191 (17.87%) Windows
2 71 (6.64%) Linux
3 65 (6.08%) Windows Server
4 46 (4.30%) Windows 10
5 15 (1.40%) Android
6 10 (0.94%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.94%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.65%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.56%) Unix
9 5 (0.47%) CentOS
9 5 (0.47%) Debian
9 5 (0.47%) OpenVMS
9 5 (0.47%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.37%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) SUSE
12 1 (0.094%) Solaris
12 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 299 (27.97%) Continuous Improvement
2 183 (17.12%) Customer Service
3 151 (14.13%) Decision-Making
4 140 (13.10%) Analytics
5 131 (12.25%) Agile
6 129 (12.07%) Mentoring
7 127 (11.88%) Collaborative Working
8 110 (10.29%) ERP
9 107 (10.01%) Business Intelligence
10 100 (9.35%) ITIL
11 93 (8.70%) Cybersecurity
12 92 (8.61%) Service Delivery
13 85 (7.95%) AI
14 72 (6.74%) Roadmaps
15 67 (6.27%) Process Improvement
16 66 (6.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 64 (5.99%) CRM
17 64 (5.99%) Root Cause Analysis
17 64 (5.99%) Stakeholder Management
18 60 (5.61%) Collaborative Culture
Programming Languages
1 183 (17.12%) SQL
2 82 (7.67%) Python
3 45 (4.21%) PowerShell
4 44 (4.12%) Java
5 31 (2.90%) C#
6 30 (2.81%) JavaScript
7 28 (2.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 20 (1.87%) Ladder Logic
9 17 (1.59%) TypeScript
10 16 (1.50%) VBA
11 13 (1.22%) Bash
11 13 (1.22%) PHP
12 10 (0.94%) C
12 10 (0.94%) C++
13 9 (0.84%) ABAP
14 7 (0.65%) RPG
14 7 (0.65%) T-SQL
15 6 (0.56%) Go
16 5 (0.47%) Embedded C
16 5 (0.47%) R
Qualifications
1 143 (13.38%) Degree
2 71 (6.64%) Security Cleared
3 57 (5.33%) SC Cleared
4 29 (2.71%) Microsoft Certification
5 26 (2.43%) DBS Check
6 18 (1.68%) Azure Certification
6 18 (1.68%) CISSP
7 15 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
8 14 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
9 12 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (0.65%) A+ Certification
10 7 (0.65%) ACCA
10 7 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.65%) CCNA
10 7 (0.65%) CIMA
10 7 (0.65%) CISA
10 7 (0.65%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.65%) SSCP
11 6 (0.56%) CCSP
11 6 (0.56%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (4.68%) Data Quality
2 41 (3.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 40 (3.74%) Cyber Essentials
4 34 (3.18%) GDPR
4 34 (3.18%) QA
5 30 (2.81%) SLA
6 19 (1.78%) NIST
7 18 (1.68%) Accessibility
8 17 (1.59%) ISO 9001
9 11 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 9 (0.84%) ISO 14001
11 7 (0.65%) GRC
11 7 (0.65%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.47%) COSHH
13 5 (0.47%) GMP
14 4 (0.37%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 3 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 138 (12.91%) Active Directory
2 44 (4.12%) Hyper-V
3 31 (2.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (2.06%) Docker
5 9 (0.84%) Firmware
6 8 (0.75%) vSphere
7 5 (0.47%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.19%) Samba
9 1 (0.094%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.094%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 45 (4.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (1.87%) Kubernetes
3 15 (1.40%) Terraform
4 9 (0.84%) Ansible
5 7 (0.65%) Grafana
6 5 (0.47%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.47%) SCCM
7 4 (0.37%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.37%) Galera Cluster
7 4 (0.37%) Nmap
7 4 (0.37%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.28%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.28%) Puppet
9 2 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.19%) Control-M
9 2 (0.19%) Nagios
9 2 (0.19%) WhatsUp Gold
10 1 (0.094%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.094%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.094%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 313 (29.28%) Microsoft
2 43 (4.02%) SAP
3 40 (3.74%) VMware
4 27 (2.53%) Cisco
5 20 (1.87%) IBM
5 20 (1.87%) ServiceNow
6 18 (1.68%) Google
7 17 (1.59%) Workday
8 16 (1.50%) Cognos
8 16 (1.50%) Sage
9 14 (1.31%) Salesforce
10 12 (1.12%) Dell
11 11 (1.03%) Oracle
11 11 (1.03%) Red Hat
12 10 (0.94%) HubSpot
12 10 (0.94%) iManage
13 9 (0.84%) JD Edwards
14 8 (0.75%) Epicor
14 8 (0.75%) HP
15 7 (0.65%) Apple