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 10 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -15 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 861 1,178 1,281
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 10.11% 19.60% 15.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.72% 21.39% 17.93%
Number of salaries quoted 679 470 1,012
10th Percentile £26,000 £27,750 £25,000
25th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £29,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £51,819 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% +21.93% -17.64%
75th Percentile £53,951 £63,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £67,950 £82,625 £68,750
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.91%

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 6,771 5,507 7,146
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 79.52% 91.63% 85.83%
Number of salaries quoted 3,773 2,429 5,836
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £39,000 £34,553
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £49,990
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.02% -4.78%
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,967 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -11.29% +12.73% -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 10 February 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 10 February 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 -18 502 £42,500 -22.73% 292
East Midlands 0 357 £33,000 -5.71% 167
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 (6.50%) SharePoint
2 31 (3.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.63%) IIS
4 7 (0.81%) Confluence
5 6 (0.70%) Apache
5 6 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2007
6 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
6 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
7 3 (0.35%) CMS
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.12%) Appian
8 1 (0.12%) NServiceBus
8 1 (0.12%) SAS
8 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 68 (7.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (5.69%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.63%) Spreadsheet
4 12 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (1.16%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (1.05%) AutoCAD
7 8 (0.93%) SOLIDWORKS
8 7 (0.81%) MS Visio
9 4 (0.46%) CATIA
10 2 (0.23%) Trello
11 1 (0.12%) Abaqus
11 1 (0.12%) EPLAN
11 1 (0.12%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 29 (3.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.39%) iTrent
3 9 (1.05%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.35%) Q-Pulse
5 3 (0.35%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.23%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.23%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.12%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.12%) Sage X3
7 1 (0.12%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.12%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.12%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 185 (21.49%) Azure
2 177 (20.56%) Microsoft 365
3 76 (8.83%) SaaS
4 72 (8.36%) AWS
5 62 (7.20%) Power Platform
6 53 (6.16%) Entra ID
7 26 (3.02%) Dynamics 365
8 25 (2.90%) Serverless
9 17 (1.97%) Power Automate
10 15 (1.74%) Amazon S3
10 15 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (1.74%) GCP
11 14 (1.63%) PowerApps
12 12 (1.39%) Azure DevOps
12 12 (1.39%) OneDrive
13 11 (1.28%) Google Workspace
14 9 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
15 7 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
15 7 (0.81%) OCI
16 6 (0.70%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 67 (7.78%) DNS
2 65 (7.55%) DHCP
3 42 (4.88%) VPN
4 36 (4.18%) Remote Desktop
5 33 (3.83%) WAN
6 29 (3.37%) Firewall
7 23 (2.67%) Internet
8 22 (2.56%) LAN
9 21 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
10 17 (1.97%) TCP/IP
11 15 (1.74%) Wireless
12 13 (1.51%) SD-WAN
12 13 (1.51%) VoIP
13 12 (1.39%) VLAN
14 9 (1.05%) ADSL
14 9 (1.05%) Ethernet
14 9 (1.05%) VDSL
15 5 (0.58%) Broadband
15 5 (0.58%) PBX
16 4 (0.46%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (5.92%) SQL Server
2 49 (5.69%) Power BI
3 18 (2.09%) MySQL
4 16 (1.86%) Relational Database
5 15 (1.74%) Oracle Reports
6 14 (1.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 13 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
8 12 (1.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 11 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
9 11 (1.28%) Tableau
10 6 (0.70%) Crystal Reports
10 6 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
10 6 (0.70%) GIS
10 6 (0.70%) Metadata
11 5 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
12 4 (0.46%) BusinessObjects
12 4 (0.46%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.35%) NoSQL
13 3 (0.35%) Redis
Development Applications
1 30 (3.48%) JIRA
2 22 (2.56%) Git
3 9 (1.05%) JUnit
4 7 (0.81%) Burp Suite
4 7 (0.81%) GitLab
4 7 (0.81%) Metasploit
4 7 (0.81%) Mockito
5 6 (0.70%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.70%) Maven
6 5 (0.58%) Subversion
7 3 (0.35%) Appcelerator Titanium
7 3 (0.35%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.35%) Selenium
7 3 (0.35%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.12%) Babel
9 1 (0.12%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.12%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.12%) webpack
General
1 418 (48.55%) Social Skills
2 278 (32.29%) Analytical Skills
3 171 (19.86%) Finance
4 109 (12.66%) Retail
5 85 (9.87%) Manufacturing
6 51 (5.92%) Organisational Skills
7 49 (5.69%) Law
8 40 (4.65%) Marketing
9 39 (4.53%) Legal
10 38 (4.41%) Public Sector
11 23 (2.67%) Electronics
11 23 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 18 (2.09%) Telecoms
13 16 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
14 14 (1.63%) Automotive
14 14 (1.63%) Banking
15 13 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (1.39%) Aerospace
17 8 (0.93%) Games
18 6 (0.70%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 162 (18.82%) Support Engineer
2 161 (18.70%) IT Support
3 121 (14.05%) Analyst
4 106 (12.31%) IT Engineer
5 94 (10.92%) IT Support Engineer
6 80 (9.29%) Lead
7 77 (8.94%) Developer
8 75 (8.71%) Technical Support
9 63 (7.32%) Senior
10 62 (7.20%) Technical Engineer
11 60 (6.97%) Technical Support Engineer
12 58 (6.74%) Support Analyst
13 54 (6.27%) 2nd Line Support
14 43 (4.99%) Support Technician
15 36 (4.18%) Administrator
16 34 (3.95%) Applications Support
17 32 (3.72%) 1st/2nd Line Support
18 31 (3.60%) Architect
19 27 (3.14%) Full-Stack Developer
20 22 (2.56%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (4.53%) React
2 32 (3.72%) .NET
3 30 (3.48%) REST
4 27 (3.14%) CSS
4 27 (3.14%) HTML
5 23 (2.67%) Node.js
6 16 (1.86%) AngularJS
6 16 (1.86%) JSON
7 11 (1.28%) Razor View Engine
8 7 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
8 7 (0.81%) RESTful
8 7 (0.81%) Vue
9 6 (0.70%) LAMP
9 6 (0.70%) Laravel
9 6 (0.70%) Middleware
10 5 (0.58%) Spring
10 5 (0.58%) Web Services
11 4 (0.46%) Next.js
11 4 (0.46%) SOAP
11 4 (0.46%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 105 (12.20%) Driving Licence
2 103 (11.96%) Onboarding
3 48 (5.57%) Management Information System
4 45 (5.23%) Self-Motivation
5 38 (4.41%) Analytical Mindset
6 32 (3.72%) FMCG
7 14 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
8 13 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (1.51%) Operational Technology
8 13 (1.51%) Product Ownership
8 13 (1.51%) Social Media
9 11 (1.28%) Security Posture
10 10 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 9 (1.05%) e-Learning
11 9 (1.05%) IoT
12 8 (0.93%) Data Structures
12 8 (0.93%) Embedded Systems
12 8 (0.93%) EPoS
13 7 (0.81%) Data Centre
13 7 (0.81%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 153 (17.77%) Windows
2 58 (6.74%) Windows Server
3 38 (4.41%) Linux
4 24 (2.79%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.39%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (0.46%) Android
7 4 (0.46%) Debian
7 4 (0.46%) Unix
7 4 (0.46%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (21.60%) Customer Service
2 181 (21.02%) Continuous Improvement
3 115 (13.36%) CRM
4 111 (12.89%) ERP
5 100 (11.61%) Project Management
6 94 (10.92%) Agile
7 92 (10.69%) Mentoring
8 91 (10.57%) Decision-Making
9 85 (9.87%) ITIL
10 78 (9.06%) Business Intelligence
11 72 (8.36%) Analytics
12 56 (6.50%) Root Cause Analysis
13 53 (6.16%) Analytical Thinking
14 52 (6.04%) Process Improvement
15 51 (5.92%) Change Management
15 51 (5.92%) Computer Science
15 51 (5.92%) Migration
16 50 (5.81%) E-Commerce
16 50 (5.81%) Incident Management
16 50 (5.81%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 176 (20.44%) SQL
2 74 (8.59%) C#
3 59 (6.85%) Python
4 54 (6.27%) JavaScript
5 32 (3.72%) PowerShell
6 31 (3.60%) Java
7 21 (2.44%) PHP
8 15 (1.74%) T-SQL
9 13 (1.51%) C
10 10 (1.16%) Bash
10 10 (1.16%) TypeScript
11 8 (0.93%) Ladder Logic
12 7 (0.81%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.81%) R
13 5 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 4 (0.46%) C++
14 4 (0.46%) Delphi
15 3 (0.35%) VB.NET
16 2 (0.23%) Perl
16 2 (0.23%) VBA
Qualifications
1 170 (19.74%) Degree
2 73 (8.48%) Security Cleared
3 53 (6.16%) SC Cleared
4 32 (3.72%) Microsoft Certification
5 31 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.44%) DBS Check
7 19 (2.21%) Master's Degree
8 16 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
9 14 (1.63%) CISSP
10 11 (1.28%) A+ Certification
11 10 (1.16%) ACCA
11 10 (1.16%) CCNA
11 10 (1.16%) CIMA
11 10 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
11 10 (1.16%) PMI Certification
12 9 (1.05%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.05%) CISMP
12 9 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 9 (1.05%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (6.85%) QA
2 33 (3.83%) Data Quality
3 29 (3.37%) GDPR
4 25 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.28%) Actionable Recommendations
6 9 (1.05%) NIST
6 9 (1.05%) SLA
7 7 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 5 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 4 (0.46%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.35%) COSHH
11 3 (0.35%) GMP
11 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
12 2 (0.23%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 19770
12 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 110 (12.78%) Active Directory
2 23 (2.67%) Docker
3 13 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.93%) vSphere
6 6 (0.70%) Firmware
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 40 (4.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (2.79%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.63%) Terraform
4 7 (0.81%) Ansible
4 7 (0.81%) Nmap
5 5 (0.58%) SCCM
6 4 (0.46%) Grafana
6 4 (0.46%) Nagios
7 3 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.23%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.23%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.12%) Argo
9 1 (0.12%) Autotask
9 1 (0.12%) AWS Copilot
9 1 (0.12%) CA Service Virtualization
9 1 (0.12%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 246 (28.57%) Microsoft
2 68 (7.90%) SAP
3 55 (6.39%) Oracle
4 36 (4.18%) Salesforce
5 34 (3.95%) Cisco
6 15 (1.74%) ServiceNow
7 14 (1.63%) Google
7 14 (1.63%) VMware
8 9 (1.05%) Databricks
8 9 (1.05%) Meraki
8 9 (1.05%) Sage
9 8 (0.93%) HP
10 7 (0.81%) Epicor
10 7 (0.81%) Infor
11 6 (0.70%) Freshdesk
11 6 (0.70%) SolarWinds
11 6 (0.70%) Zoho
12 5 (0.58%) HubSpot
12 5 (0.58%) Panasonic
12 5 (0.58%) Samsung