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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 1,213 1,280 1,488
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 8.24% 22.03% 13.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.82% 26.00% 17.83%
Number of salaries quoted 855 749 691
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,250 £25,500
25th Percentile £30,500 £29,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,500 £43,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -11.49% -11.22%
75th Percentile £56,838 £52,500 £58,750
90th Percentile £70,150 £67,500 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -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 10,264 4,924 8,344
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 69.72% 84.77% 77.42%
Number of salaries quoted 7,335 2,949 4,916
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,960 £28,119
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £35,225
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 £63,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £76,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -10.40%

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 25 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 25 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 -9 681 £42,500 -4.00% 480
East Midlands -9 530 £41,000 +17.14% 291
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 56 (4.62%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.15%) IIS
4 8 (0.66%) CMS
5 6 (0.49%) Confluence
6 5 (0.41%) Skype for Business
7 4 (0.33%) CICS
8 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.25%) SAS
8 3 (0.25%) WordPress
9 2 (0.16%) Documentum
10 1 (0.082%) Apache
10 1 (0.082%) Appian
10 1 (0.082%) Headless CMS
10 1 (0.082%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.082%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 101 (8.33%) Microsoft Office
2 80 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.41%) Fusion 360
5 5 (0.41%) Simulink
6 4 (0.33%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.16%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.16%) OrCAD
7 2 (0.16%) Revit
8 1 (0.082%) EPLAN
8 1 (0.082%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.082%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.082%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.082%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (1.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (1.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 15 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (1.07%) SAP Business One
4 11 (0.91%) Shopify
5 9 (0.74%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 7 (0.58%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.58%) Sage X3
7 5 (0.41%) Magento
7 5 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
7 5 (0.41%) Sage 50
7 5 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
8 4 (0.33%) Line 50
9 3 (0.25%) Infor CloudSuite
9 3 (0.25%) Infor LN
9 3 (0.25%) Infor M3
9 3 (0.25%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.16%) Dynamics GP
10 2 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 235 (19.37%) Microsoft 365
2 220 (18.14%) Azure
3 125 (10.31%) Power Platform
4 84 (6.92%) AWS
5 82 (6.76%) Entra ID
6 51 (4.20%) SaaS
7 33 (2.72%) Dynamics 365
8 30 (2.47%) Azure DevOps
9 24 (1.98%) Power Automate
10 18 (1.48%) PowerApps
11 16 (1.32%) GitHub
11 16 (1.32%) Microsoft Copilot
12 15 (1.24%) GCP
12 15 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
12 15 (1.24%) Serverless
13 12 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
14 11 (0.91%) Google Workspace
15 10 (0.82%) Amazon S3
15 10 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
16 9 (0.74%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 64 (5.28%) DNS
2 62 (5.11%) Firewall
3 50 (4.12%) DHCP
4 48 (3.96%) VPN
5 44 (3.63%) TCP/IP
6 32 (2.64%) Wireless
7 30 (2.47%) VLAN
8 22 (1.81%) LAN
9 21 (1.73%) WAN
10 19 (1.57%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (1.48%) Network Security
12 15 (1.24%) VoIP
13 8 (0.66%) MQTT
14 7 (0.58%) Remote Desktop
15 6 (0.49%) Cisco IOS
15 6 (0.49%) Internet
15 6 (0.49%) SSL
16 5 (0.41%) Skype
17 4 (0.33%) LoRaWAN
17 4 (0.33%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (9.56%) Power BI
2 50 (4.12%) SQL Server
3 24 (1.98%) Relational Database
3 24 (1.98%) Tableau
4 23 (1.90%) Power Query
5 21 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (1.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 17 (1.40%) MySQL
8 16 (1.32%) Electronic Patient Records
9 14 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 12 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (0.91%) Crystal Reports
12 10 (0.82%) Data Mining
12 10 (0.82%) DynamoDB
13 8 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
14 7 (0.58%) MongoDB
15 6 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
15 6 (0.49%) NoSQL
15 6 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
16 5 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 45 (3.71%) Git
2 30 (2.47%) JIRA
3 20 (1.65%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.49%) Cucumber
4 6 (0.49%) Maven
4 6 (0.49%) Postman
5 5 (0.41%) GitLab
5 5 (0.41%) JMeter
5 5 (0.41%) JUnit
5 5 (0.41%) Selenium
5 5 (0.41%) SoapUI
5 5 (0.41%) VersionOne
6 4 (0.33%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.33%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.33%) Metasploit
6 4 (0.33%) Zephyr
7 3 (0.25%) LabVIEW
7 3 (0.25%) Mockito
7 3 (0.25%) Subversion
8 2 (0.16%) Ant
General
1 601 (49.55%) Social Skills
2 359 (29.60%) Analytical Skills
3 215 (17.72%) Finance
4 183 (15.09%) Manufacturing
5 87 (7.17%) Retail
6 80 (6.60%) Organisational Skills
7 67 (5.52%) Marketing
8 48 (3.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 48 (3.96%) Public Sector
9 44 (3.63%) Legal
10 43 (3.54%) Law
11 32 (2.64%) Electronics
12 30 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
13 22 (1.81%) Automotive
14 18 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
15 15 (1.24%) Telecoms
16 12 (0.99%) Games
17 10 (0.82%) Banking
18 8 (0.66%) Investment Banking
18 8 (0.66%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 183 (15.09%) Analyst
2 134 (11.05%) IT Support
3 126 (10.39%) Support Engineer
4 118 (9.73%) Developer
5 103 (8.49%) Senior
6 79 (6.51%) Technical Support
7 72 (5.94%) Consultant
8 68 (5.61%) Lead
8 68 (5.61%) Technical Engineer
9 67 (5.52%) IT Engineer
10 66 (5.44%) Technical Support Engineer
11 60 (4.95%) Support Analyst
12 56 (4.62%) Support Technician
13 51 (4.20%) IT Technician
14 49 (4.04%) IT Support Engineer
15 46 (3.79%) IT Manager
16 42 (3.46%) IT Support Technician
17 40 (3.30%) Senior Analyst
18 38 (3.13%) Data Analyst
19 29 (2.39%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.45%) REST
2 42 (3.46%) .NET
3 40 (3.30%) React
4 25 (2.06%) Spring
5 24 (1.98%) Node.js
6 22 (1.81%) SOAP
6 22 (1.81%) Spring Boot
7 19 (1.57%) CSS
7 19 (1.57%) HTML
8 16 (1.32%) RESTful
8 16 (1.32%) Terraform
9 14 (1.15%) AngularJS
10 13 (1.07%) Playwright
11 12 (0.99%) JSON
12 11 (0.91%) EDI
12 11 (0.91%) Middleware
13 10 (0.82%) SAP Fiori
14 9 (0.74%) ISPF
14 9 (0.74%) OAuth
14 9 (0.74%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 124 (10.22%) Driving Licence
2 74 (6.10%) Management Information System
3 72 (5.94%) Onboarding
4 55 (4.53%) Self-Motivation
5 32 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
6 28 (2.31%) NHS
7 19 (1.57%) IoT
7 19 (1.57%) Robotics
8 17 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
8 17 (1.40%) SystemC
9 15 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
9 15 (1.24%) Data Centre
10 14 (1.15%) Virtual Team
11 13 (1.07%) CMDB
11 13 (1.07%) Data Structures
11 13 (1.07%) Legacy Applications
11 13 (1.07%) SCADA
12 12 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
13 11 (0.91%) Cloud Native
13 11 (0.91%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 209 (17.23%) Windows
2 79 (6.51%) Linux
2 79 (6.51%) Windows Server
3 42 (3.46%) Windows 10
4 17 (1.40%) Android
5 14 (1.15%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.82%) Unix
7 9 (0.74%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.41%) OpenVMS
11 4 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
11 4 (0.33%) VMS
12 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.16%) CentOS
13 2 (0.16%) Debian
13 2 (0.16%) Solaris
14 1 (0.082%) SUSE
14 1 (0.082%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.082%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (29.18%) Continuous Improvement
2 226 (18.63%) Customer Service
3 174 (14.34%) Decision-Making
4 165 (13.60%) Agile
5 158 (13.03%) Analytics
6 136 (11.21%) Mentoring
7 126 (10.39%) Collaborative Working
7 126 (10.39%) ERP
8 122 (10.06%) Business Intelligence
9 111 (9.15%) Cybersecurity
10 98 (8.08%) AI
10 98 (8.08%) ITIL
11 94 (7.75%) Service Delivery
12 91 (7.50%) Roadmaps
13 90 (7.42%) Stakeholder Management
14 81 (6.68%) CRM
15 76 (6.27%) Collaborative Culture
15 76 (6.27%) Project Delivery
16 69 (5.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 68 (5.61%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 198 (16.32%) SQL
2 87 (7.17%) Python
3 60 (4.95%) Java
4 46 (3.79%) JavaScript
5 45 (3.71%) PowerShell
6 37 (3.05%) C#
7 30 (2.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 24 (1.98%) TypeScript
9 21 (1.73%) Ladder Logic
10 17 (1.40%) C
11 13 (1.07%) PHP
11 13 (1.07%) VBA
12 12 (0.99%) Bash
13 11 (0.91%) C++
13 11 (0.91%) Embedded C
14 9 (0.74%) ABAP
14 9 (0.74%) COBOL
14 9 (0.74%) JCL
15 7 (0.58%) R
15 7 (0.58%) RPG
Qualifications
1 179 (14.76%) Degree
2 93 (7.67%) Security Cleared
3 76 (6.27%) SC Cleared
4 27 (2.23%) Microsoft Certification
5 23 (1.90%) Azure Certification
6 22 (1.81%) DBS Check
7 18 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (1.40%) CISSP
8 17 (1.40%) HND
9 15 (1.24%) HNC
9 15 (1.24%) PMI Certification
10 13 (1.07%) CompTIA Security+
11 12 (0.99%) CCNA
12 10 (0.82%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.58%) ACCA
13 7 (0.58%) CIMA
13 7 (0.58%) CISA
13 7 (0.58%) PMP
13 7 (0.58%) SSCP
14 6 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (4.70%) Data Quality
2 49 (4.04%) GDPR
3 45 (3.71%) QA
4 39 (3.22%) Cyber Essentials
5 37 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 37 (3.05%) SLA
6 21 (1.73%) Accessibility
6 21 (1.73%) ISO 9001
7 18 (1.48%) NIST
8 9 (0.74%) ISO 14001
9 8 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 7 (0.58%) GRC
10 7 (0.58%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.33%) GMP
11 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.25%) AQAP
12 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.25%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 146 (12.04%) Active Directory
2 47 (3.87%) Hyper-V
3 28 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (2.14%) Docker
5 16 (1.32%) Firmware
6 11 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.66%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.66%) vSphere
8 5 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.16%) Samba
9 2 (0.16%) XenApp
10 1 (0.082%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.082%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 41 (3.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (1.90%) Kubernetes
3 10 (0.82%) SCCM
4 8 (0.66%) Ansible
5 5 (0.41%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.41%) Grafana
5 5 (0.41%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.33%) Galera Cluster
6 4 (0.33%) Nmap
6 4 (0.33%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.25%) BMC PATROL
7 3 (0.25%) Control-M
7 3 (0.25%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.25%) Puppet
7 3 (0.25%) WhatsUp Gold
8 2 (0.16%) Nagios
8 2 (0.16%) WSUS
9 1 (0.082%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.082%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 363 (29.93%) Microsoft
2 59 (4.86%) SAP
3 38 (3.13%) VMware
4 32 (2.64%) Oracle
5 30 (2.47%) Cisco
6 27 (2.23%) ServiceNow
7 25 (2.06%) Workday
8 23 (1.90%) Salesforce
9 22 (1.81%) IBM
10 21 (1.73%) Google
11 20 (1.65%) Sage
12 18 (1.48%) Cognos
13 13 (1.07%) Databricks
14 12 (0.99%) HubSpot
15 11 (0.91%) Sophos
16 10 (0.82%) Dell
16 10 (0.82%) Epicor
16 10 (0.82%) iManage
17 9 (0.74%) Apple
17 9 (0.74%) JD Edwards