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 6 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,161 1,265 1,476
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.15% 22.07% 13.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.67% 25.93% 17.58%
Number of salaries quoted 834 733 729
10th Percentile £26,255 £25,267 £25,500
25th Percentile £30,000 £29,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,000 £40,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -5.88% -12.03%
75th Percentile £56,250 £56,250 £58,750
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 9,952 4,878 8,395
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.86% 85.12% 77.81%
Number of salaries quoted 7,098 2,971 5,137
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,968 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £66,250 £63,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £76,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +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 6 August 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 6 August 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 -10 644 £42,500 -5.56% 377
East Midlands -8 514 £40,000 +12.68% 268
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 51 (4.39%) SharePoint
2 39 (3.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (0.95%) IIS
4 9 (0.78%) CMS
5 5 (0.43%) Confluence
5 5 (0.43%) Skype for Business
6 3 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2007
6 3 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.26%) WordPress
7 2 (0.17%) CICS
7 2 (0.17%) SAS
8 1 (0.086%) Apache
8 1 (0.086%) Appian
8 1 (0.086%) Documentum
8 1 (0.086%) Drupal
8 1 (0.086%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.086%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 102 (8.79%) Microsoft Office
2 82 (7.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.43%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.086%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.086%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.086%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.086%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.086%) Revit
8 1 (0.086%) Simulink
8 1 (0.086%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 15 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (1.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 13 (1.12%) SAP Business One
4 9 (0.78%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 6 (0.52%) Sage X3
5 6 (0.52%) Shopify
6 5 (0.43%) Magento
6 5 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.43%) Sage 50
6 5 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
7 4 (0.34%) Line 50
7 4 (0.34%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.26%) Q-Pulse
9 2 (0.17%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.17%) Dynamics NAV
9 2 (0.17%) Infor CloudSuite
9 2 (0.17%) SAP CO
9 2 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 239 (20.59%) Microsoft 365
2 207 (17.83%) Azure
3 120 (10.34%) Power Platform
4 86 (7.41%) AWS
5 83 (7.15%) Entra ID
6 46 (3.96%) SaaS
7 31 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.72%) Power Automate
10 16 (1.38%) Microsoft Copilot
10 16 (1.38%) Serverless
11 15 (1.29%) GCP
11 15 (1.29%) PowerApps
12 14 (1.21%) Microsoft Purview
13 13 (1.12%) Google Workspace
14 12 (1.03%) Amazon S3
14 12 (1.03%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (1.03%) GitHub
15 10 (0.86%) OneDrive
16 8 (0.69%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 66 (5.68%) Firewall
2 64 (5.51%) DNS
3 50 (4.31%) DHCP
3 50 (4.31%) VPN
4 44 (3.79%) TCP/IP
5 34 (2.93%) Wireless
6 29 (2.50%) VLAN
7 26 (2.24%) WAN
8 21 (1.81%) LAN
9 19 (1.64%) Network Security
9 19 (1.64%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (1.21%) VoIP
11 9 (0.78%) Internet
12 8 (0.69%) MQTT
12 8 (0.69%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.60%) SSL
14 6 (0.52%) Cisco IOS
15 5 (0.43%) Remote Desktop
15 5 (0.43%) Skype
16 4 (0.34%) Bluetooth
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (9.47%) Power BI
2 47 (4.05%) SQL Server
3 28 (2.41%) Power Query
4 23 (1.98%) Tableau
5 20 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (1.46%) MySQL
6 17 (1.46%) Relational Database
7 16 (1.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 14 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
10 11 (0.95%) Electronic Patient Records
11 10 (0.86%) DynamoDB
12 8 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
12 8 (0.69%) Crystal Reports
13 7 (0.60%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
14 6 (0.52%) Data Mining
15 5 (0.43%) DTS
15 5 (0.43%) GIS
15 5 (0.43%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (3.10%) Git
2 25 (2.15%) JIRA
3 15 (1.29%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.52%) Maven
5 5 (0.43%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.43%) JUnit
5 5 (0.43%) Postman
5 5 (0.43%) VersionOne
6 4 (0.34%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.34%) GitLab
6 4 (0.34%) JMeter
6 4 (0.34%) Metasploit
6 4 (0.34%) Selenium
6 4 (0.34%) SoapUI
7 3 (0.26%) Mockito
7 3 (0.26%) Subversion
7 3 (0.26%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.17%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.17%) TeamCity
General
1 571 (49.18%) Social Skills
2 343 (29.54%) Analytical Skills
3 204 (17.57%) Finance
4 173 (14.90%) Manufacturing
5 78 (6.72%) Retail
6 75 (6.46%) Organisational Skills
7 52 (4.48%) Marketing
8 50 (4.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (3.79%) Public Sector
10 41 (3.53%) Legal
11 39 (3.36%) Law
12 29 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
13 24 (2.07%) Electronics
14 20 (1.72%) Automotive
14 20 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
15 15 (1.29%) Telecoms
16 13 (1.12%) Games
17 10 (0.86%) Banking
18 9 (0.78%) Advertising
19 8 (0.69%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 186 (16.02%) Analyst
2 144 (12.40%) IT Support
3 136 (11.71%) Support Engineer
4 104 (8.96%) Developer
5 102 (8.79%) Senior
6 78 (6.72%) Technical Support
7 74 (6.37%) IT Engineer
8 70 (6.03%) Technical Engineer
9 68 (5.86%) Technical Support Engineer
10 65 (5.60%) Lead
11 64 (5.51%) Support Technician
12 58 (5.00%) Consultant
13 56 (4.82%) IT Support Engineer
13 56 (4.82%) Support Analyst
14 53 (4.57%) IT Technician
15 50 (4.31%) IT Manager
16 45 (3.88%) IT Support Technician
17 39 (3.36%) Senior Analyst
18 38 (3.27%) Data Analyst
19 28 (2.41%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.57%) REST
2 40 (3.45%) React
3 33 (2.84%) .NET
4 25 (2.15%) Node.js
5 21 (1.81%) SOAP
5 21 (1.81%) Spring
6 18 (1.55%) Spring Boot
7 15 (1.29%) CSS
7 15 (1.29%) HTML
8 13 (1.12%) RESTful
9 12 (1.03%) AngularJS
9 12 (1.03%) Playwright
10 10 (0.86%) JSON
10 10 (0.86%) SAP Fiori
11 9 (0.78%) JDBC
11 9 (0.78%) Middleware
11 9 (0.78%) OAuth
11 9 (0.78%) SAPUI5
12 7 (0.60%) ASP.NET
12 7 (0.60%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 121 (10.42%) Driving Licence
2 65 (5.60%) Management Information System
3 63 (5.43%) Onboarding
4 48 (4.13%) Self-Motivation
5 26 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
6 23 (1.98%) NHS
7 17 (1.46%) IoT
8 16 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
9 15 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
9 15 (1.29%) Robotics
10 14 (1.21%) Data Structures
11 12 (1.03%) Data Centre
11 12 (1.03%) Security Posture
11 12 (1.03%) Social Media
11 12 (1.03%) SystemC
12 11 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
12 11 (0.95%) Mobile App
12 11 (0.95%) Virtual Team
13 10 (0.86%) CMDB
14 9 (0.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 208 (17.92%) Windows
2 78 (6.72%) Linux
3 74 (6.37%) Windows Server
4 47 (4.05%) Windows 10
5 15 (1.29%) Android
6 12 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.86%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.78%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.69%) Unix
10 6 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 5 (0.43%) CentOS
11 5 (0.43%) OpenVMS
12 4 (0.34%) Debian
12 4 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
12 4 (0.34%) VMS
12 4 (0.34%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.26%) SUSE
14 2 (0.17%) Solaris
14 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.086%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 347 (29.89%) Continuous Improvement
2 206 (17.74%) Customer Service
3 167 (14.38%) Decision-Making
4 153 (13.18%) Agile
5 147 (12.66%) Analytics
6 138 (11.89%) Mentoring
7 130 (11.20%) Collaborative Working
8 125 (10.77%) ERP
9 115 (9.91%) Business Intelligence
10 108 (9.30%) ITIL
11 103 (8.87%) Cybersecurity
12 98 (8.44%) Service Delivery
13 97 (8.35%) AI
14 79 (6.80%) Roadmaps
15 77 (6.63%) Stakeholder Management
16 74 (6.37%) CRM
17 71 (6.12%) Collaborative Culture
18 69 (5.94%) Root Cause Analysis
19 67 (5.77%) Process Improvement
20 66 (5.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 193 (16.62%) SQL
2 85 (7.32%) Python
3 49 (4.22%) Java
4 44 (3.79%) PowerShell
5 38 (3.27%) JavaScript
6 32 (2.76%) C#
6 32 (2.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 23 (1.98%) TypeScript
8 20 (1.72%) Ladder Logic
9 16 (1.38%) VBA
10 13 (1.12%) Bash
10 13 (1.12%) PHP
11 12 (1.03%) C
12 10 (0.86%) C++
13 9 (0.78%) ABAP
14 7 (0.60%) RPG
14 7 (0.60%) T-SQL
15 6 (0.52%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.52%) Go
16 5 (0.43%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 160 (13.78%) Degree
2 80 (6.89%) Security Cleared
3 66 (5.68%) SC Cleared
4 30 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (2.33%) DBS Check
6 21 (1.81%) Azure Certification
7 18 (1.55%) CISSP
8 16 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
10 13 (1.12%) HND
11 11 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (0.95%) HNC
11 11 (0.95%) PMI Certification
12 9 (0.78%) CCNA
13 7 (0.60%) ACCA
13 7 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 7 (0.60%) CIMA
13 7 (0.60%) CISA
13 7 (0.60%) SSCP
14 6 (0.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (4.74%) Data Quality
2 43 (3.70%) GDPR
3 41 (3.53%) Cyber Essentials
4 40 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 40 (3.45%) QA
5 35 (3.01%) SLA
6 22 (1.89%) Accessibility
7 19 (1.64%) NIST
8 18 (1.55%) ISO 9001
9 10 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 9 (0.78%) ISO 14001
11 7 (0.60%) GRC
11 7 (0.60%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.43%) GMP
14 4 (0.34%) COSHH
14 4 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 3 (0.26%) HIPAA
15 3 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 145 (12.49%) Active Directory
2 46 (3.96%) Hyper-V
3 31 (2.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (2.15%) Docker
5 11 (0.95%) Firmware
6 8 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.69%) vSphere
7 5 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
7 5 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.17%) Samba
9 1 (0.086%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.086%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.086%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 43 (3.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (1.98%) Kubernetes
3 18 (1.55%) Terraform
4 10 (0.86%) Ansible
5 9 (0.78%) SCCM
6 6 (0.52%) Grafana
7 5 (0.43%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.34%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.34%) Galera Cluster
8 4 (0.34%) Nmap
8 4 (0.34%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.34%) Puppet
8 4 (0.34%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.26%) BMC PATROL
9 3 (0.26%) Control-M
9 3 (0.26%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.17%) Nagios
10 2 (0.17%) WSUS
11 1 (0.086%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.086%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 348 (29.97%) Microsoft
2 51 (4.39%) SAP
3 41 (3.53%) VMware
4 30 (2.58%) Cisco
5 25 (2.15%) ServiceNow
6 21 (1.81%) IBM
7 20 (1.72%) Oracle
7 20 (1.72%) Workday
8 19 (1.64%) Salesforce
9 18 (1.55%) Google
9 18 (1.55%) Sage
10 17 (1.46%) Cognos
11 12 (1.03%) Dell
12 11 (0.95%) HubSpot
12 11 (0.95%) Red Hat
13 10 (0.86%) iManage
14 9 (0.78%) Apple
14 9 (0.78%) Epicor
14 9 (0.78%) JD Edwards
14 9 (0.78%) Sophos