Problem-Solving Job Trends in the West Midlands

Problem Solving
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 755 653 951
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 8.44% 20.06% 15.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.18% 23.28% 19.67%
Number of salaries quoted 511 421 338
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £25,750
25th Percentile £33,250 £29,250 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £44,543 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.59% -10.91% -
75th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £62,375
90th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £80,000
England median annual salary £47,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.44% -14.29% -4.55%

All Process & Methodology Skills
West 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 West Midlands.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 6,199 2,805 4,834
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 69.29% 86.18% 79.72%
Number of salaries quoted 4,578 1,783 2,515
10th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £29,300
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in the West Midlands

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in the West Midlands

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 18 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in the West Midlands

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in the West 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 West Midlands region over the 6 months to 18 September 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
Birmingham -7 277 £55,000 +22.22% 265
Staffordshire -5 101 £47,500 +5.56% 62
Warwickshire -5 76 £38,750 -29.55% 87
Worcestershire -3 67 £38,000 +24.59% 37
Shropshire +1 61 £45,000 -5.26% 54
Coventry -8 37 £42,000 +30.23% 50
Wolverhampton +4 17 £49,250 -24.23% 27
Solihull +5 16 £31,000 -8.82% 30
Herefordshire -22 10 £29,750 -8.46% 15
Tipton - 7 £33,500 - 4
Walsall -1 5 £37,500 -16.67% 7
Halesowen -4 5 £47,500 +46.15% 1
Willenhall -3 4 £37,500 -16.67%
Dudley - 4 £36,000 - 10
Sutton Coldfield - 3 £42,500 -
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West 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 43 (5.70%) SharePoint
2 30 (3.97%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.32%) IIS
4 7 (0.93%) Confluence
5 5 (0.66%) Skype for Business
6 4 (0.53%) CICS
7 3 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.40%) WordPress
8 2 (0.26%) Documentum
8 2 (0.26%) SAS
9 1 (0.13%) Apache
9 1 (0.13%) Appian
9 1 (0.13%) CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 65 (8.61%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (6.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.32%) Simulink
4 6 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.66%) Fusion 360
5 5 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.40%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.40%) OrCAD
7 2 (0.26%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.26%) EPLAN
7 2 (0.26%) Revit
8 1 (0.13%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.13%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.13%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.13%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.13%) SketchUp
8 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.13%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 10 (1.32%) NetSuite
1 10 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.66%) Magento
3 5 (0.66%) Shopify
4 4 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.53%) Line 50
4 4 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.53%) Sage 50
4 4 (0.53%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.40%) Oracle Cash Management
5 3 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.40%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.40%) SAP Business One
5 3 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.26%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 1 (0.13%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.13%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 146 (19.34%) Azure
2 129 (17.09%) Microsoft 365
3 97 (12.85%) Power Platform
4 54 (7.15%) AWS
4 54 (7.15%) Entra ID
5 44 (5.83%) SaaS
6 26 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (3.18%) Dynamics 365
8 17 (2.25%) Power Automate
9 16 (2.12%) Microsoft Purview
10 15 (1.99%) GitHub
11 14 (1.85%) PowerApps
12 13 (1.72%) GCP
12 13 (1.72%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (1.32%) PaaS
15 8 (1.06%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.79%) IaaS
17 5 (0.66%) Google Analytics
17 5 (0.66%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 30 (3.97%) Firewall
2 25 (3.31%) VPN
3 24 (3.18%) DNS
3 24 (3.18%) WAN
4 23 (3.05%) TCP/IP
5 21 (2.78%) Wireless
6 19 (2.52%) LAN
7 17 (2.25%) Wi-Fi
8 16 (2.12%) DHCP
9 13 (1.72%) Network Security
10 12 (1.59%) VLAN
11 10 (1.32%) VoIP
12 8 (1.06%) Wireshark
13 6 (0.79%) Cisco IOS
13 6 (0.79%) SD-WAN
14 5 (0.66%) Internet
14 5 (0.66%) Skype
15 4 (0.53%) Bluetooth
16 3 (0.40%) HTTP
16 3 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (12.19%) Power BI
2 30 (3.97%) SQL Server
3 25 (3.31%) Tableau
4 20 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (2.65%) Power Query
5 19 (2.52%) Relational Database
6 13 (1.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 11 (1.46%) MySQL
8 10 (1.32%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (1.32%) Data Mining
8 10 (1.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (1.06%) Data Lake
9 8 (1.06%) Electronic Patient Records
10 6 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
10 6 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
10 6 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
11 5 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (0.66%) Big Data
11 5 (0.66%) Oracle BI EE
11 5 (0.66%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 28 (3.71%) Git
2 25 (3.31%) JIRA
3 24 (3.18%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.06%) Eclipse
5 7 (0.93%) Cucumber
6 6 (0.79%) GitLab
6 6 (0.79%) JMeter
6 6 (0.79%) Maven
6 6 (0.79%) Postman
6 6 (0.79%) Selenium
7 5 (0.66%) JUnit
7 5 (0.66%) SoapUI
7 5 (0.66%) Zephyr
8 3 (0.40%) Mockito
9 2 (0.26%) Ant
9 2 (0.26%) Apache Ivy
9 2 (0.26%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.13%) Bugzilla
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
10 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 365 (48.34%) Social Skills
2 195 (25.83%) Analytical Skills
3 122 (16.16%) Finance
4 113 (14.97%) Manufacturing
5 60 (7.95%) Organisational Skills
6 54 (7.15%) Public Sector
7 49 (6.49%) Retail
8 35 (4.64%) Marketing
9 27 (3.58%) Electronics
10 22 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 21 (2.78%) Law
12 20 (2.65%) Legal
13 18 (2.38%) Automotive
14 15 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
15 12 (1.59%) Telecoms
16 10 (1.32%) Banking
17 9 (1.19%) Fire and Rescue
17 9 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (1.06%) Billing
18 8 (1.06%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 88 (11.66%) Support Engineer
2 85 (11.26%) Analyst
3 72 (9.54%) Developer
4 67 (8.87%) Technical Support
5 59 (7.81%) Technical Engineer
6 57 (7.55%) Lead
6 57 (7.55%) Technical Support Engineer
7 56 (7.42%) IT Support
8 51 (6.75%) Senior
9 50 (6.62%) Consultant
10 40 (5.30%) IT Engineer
11 34 (4.50%) IT Manager
12 31 (4.11%) Support Analyst
13 28 (3.71%) IT Support Engineer
14 25 (3.31%) Administrator
15 19 (2.52%) Architect
16 16 (2.12%) 1st Line Support
16 16 (2.12%) 2nd Line Support
17 15 (1.99%) Project Manager
18 14 (1.85%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.03%) REST
2 33 (4.37%) .NET
3 28 (3.71%) Spring
4 26 (3.44%) React
5 25 (3.31%) Spring Boot
6 15 (1.99%) RESTful
7 14 (1.85%) AngularJS
7 14 (1.85%) Playwright
8 13 (1.72%) CSS
8 13 (1.72%) HTML
9 12 (1.59%) ISPF
9 12 (1.59%) SOAP
10 11 (1.46%) Terraform
11 10 (1.32%) XML
12 8 (1.06%) LDAP
12 8 (1.06%) SAP Fiori
13 7 (0.93%) Node.js
14 6 (0.79%) OAuth
14 6 (0.79%) SAPUI5
14 6 (0.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 70 (9.27%) Driving Licence
2 44 (5.83%) Onboarding
3 42 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
4 40 (5.30%) Management Information System
5 35 (4.64%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (2.52%) Data Centre
6 19 (2.52%) NHS
7 17 (2.25%) Virtual Team
8 16 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
9 13 (1.72%) Social Media
10 12 (1.59%) Legacy Applications
10 12 (1.59%) Mainframe
11 11 (1.46%) Data Structures
11 11 (1.46%) Public Cloud
12 10 (1.32%) Cloud Native
12 10 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
12 10 (1.32%) Mobile App
13 9 (1.19%) IoT
13 9 (1.19%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 119 (15.76%) Windows
2 40 (5.30%) Windows Server
3 39 (5.17%) Linux
4 22 (2.91%) Windows 10
5 14 (1.85%) Android
6 10 (1.32%) Apple iOS
7 9 (1.19%) Unix
8 7 (0.93%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.53%) FreeRTOS
10 2 (0.26%) Solaris
10 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) Debian
11 1 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 229 (30.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 142 (18.81%) Customer Service
3 113 (14.97%) Agile
4 97 (12.85%) Business Intelligence
4 97 (12.85%) Decision-Making
5 91 (12.05%) Analytics
6 79 (10.46%) Mentoring
7 76 (10.07%) AI
8 75 (9.93%) ERP
9 72 (9.54%) Collaborative Working
10 63 (8.34%) Stakeholder Management
11 62 (8.21%) Cybersecurity
12 58 (7.68%) CRM
13 57 (7.55%) Collaborative Culture
14 55 (7.28%) CI/CD
14 55 (7.28%) ITIL
14 55 (7.28%) Project Management
15 53 (7.02%) Root Cause Analysis
15 53 (7.02%) Workflow
16 52 (6.89%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 122 (16.16%) SQL
2 65 (8.61%) Java
3 48 (6.36%) Python
4 28 (3.71%) PowerShell
5 26 (3.44%) JavaScript
6 25 (3.31%) C#
7 20 (2.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 18 (2.38%) Ladder Logic
9 16 (2.12%) C
9 16 (2.12%) Embedded C
10 13 (1.72%) TypeScript
11 12 (1.59%) COBOL
11 12 (1.59%) JCL
12 10 (1.32%) MATLAB
13 7 (0.93%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.93%) RPG
14 6 (0.79%) ABAP
14 6 (0.79%) PHP
14 6 (0.79%) R
15 5 (0.66%) Bash
Qualifications
1 114 (15.10%) Degree
2 81 (10.73%) Security Cleared
3 66 (8.74%) SC Cleared
4 22 (2.91%) Azure Certification
5 15 (1.99%) DBS Check
6 12 (1.59%) PMI Certification
7 11 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (1.46%) HNC
7 11 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.32%) HND
9 9 (1.19%) CCNA
9 9 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (0.93%) ACCA
11 6 (0.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (0.79%) CCNP
11 6 (0.79%) CIMA
11 6 (0.79%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.79%) PMP
12 5 (0.66%) ISEB
13 4 (0.53%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (6.49%) Data Quality
2 36 (4.77%) QA
3 33 (4.37%) GDPR
4 24 (3.18%) Cyber Essentials
4 24 (3.18%) SLA
5 22 (2.91%) Accessibility
6 20 (2.65%) ISO 9001
7 19 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (1.19%) ISO 14001
9 4 (0.53%) NIST
9 4 (0.53%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.40%) AQAP
10 3 (0.40%) GMP
10 3 (0.40%) ISO 26262
10 3 (0.40%) PMO
10 3 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.26%) GRC
11 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 82 (10.86%) Active Directory
2 24 (3.18%) Hyper-V
3 17 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.85%) Docker
4 14 (1.85%) Firmware
5 12 (1.59%) Embedded Firmware
6 7 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.53%) vSphere
9 2 (0.26%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 30 (3.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (1.59%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.79%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.66%) SCCM
6 4 (0.53%) Ansible
7 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.40%) Puppet
8 2 (0.26%) Grafana
8 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.26%) WSUS
9 1 (0.13%) Backup Exec
9 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.13%) Nagios
Vendors
1 211 (27.95%) Microsoft
2 39 (5.17%) SAP
3 24 (3.18%) VMware
4 22 (2.91%) Workday
5 21 (2.78%) Cisco
6 18 (2.38%) Sage
7 15 (1.99%) Google
7 15 (1.99%) Oracle
8 14 (1.85%) ServiceNow
9 12 (1.59%) HubSpot
10 11 (1.46%) Salesforce
11 10 (1.32%) Dell
12 9 (1.19%) Apple
12 9 (1.19%) Databricks
13 8 (1.06%) Broadcom
13 8 (1.06%) Sophos
14 7 (0.93%) IBM
15 6 (0.79%) iManage
15 6 (0.79%) McAfee
15 6 (0.79%) Pega