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 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 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 +3
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 596 688 1,100
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 7.32% 20.37% 15.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.65% 23.89% 18.85%
Number of salaries quoted 439 444 570
10th Percentile £27,739 £25,000 £25,000
25th Percentile £31,750 £30,000 £29,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £45,000 £43,500
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +3.45% -13.00%
75th Percentile £57,125 £61,250 £58,750
90th Percentile £63,750 £68,750 £72,550
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%

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 5,594 2,880 5,835
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 68.71% 85.28% 79.62%
Number of salaries quoted 4,201 1,835 3,801
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,822 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,189 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
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 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 23 July 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 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
Birmingham -15 195 £51,399 +7.08% 86
Staffordshire -3 94 £47,500 -7.67% 23
Warwickshire -3 72 £33,000 -30.53% 48
Worcestershire -6 56 £37,500 +22.95% 18
Shropshire +6 40 £45,000 +5.88% 24
Coventry -12 32 £42,000 -0.34% 12
Solihull -2 11 £30,500 -44.55% 5
Wolverhampton -14 11 £38,500 +18.46% 6
Walsall +3 9 £37,500 -14.77% 3
Herefordshire -25 9 £52,500 +68.00% 6
Tipton - 8 £33,500 - 1
Halesowen +1 5 £47,500 +26.67%
Dudley - 5 £26,100 - 2
Willenhall -2 4 £37,500 -16.67%
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 42 (7.05%) SharePoint
2 27 (4.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.34%) IIS
4 5 (0.84%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.67%) Confluence
5 4 (0.67%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.67%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (0.67%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.50%) WordPress
7 1 (0.17%) Apache
7 1 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.17%) Appian
7 1 (0.17%) Documentum
7 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.17%) SAS
Applications
1 58 (9.73%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (6.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.84%) Fusion 360
5 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.34%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.17%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.17%) LaTeX
7 1 (0.17%) Simulink
7 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.84%) Magento
3 5 (0.84%) Shopify
4 4 (0.67%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.67%) Line 50
4 4 (0.67%) Sage 50
4 4 (0.67%) Sage X3
5 2 (0.34%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 2 (0.34%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.34%) SAP Business One
6 1 (0.17%) Exchequer
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.17%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.17%) SAP CO
6 1 (0.17%) SAP FI
6 1 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 118 (19.80%) Microsoft 365
2 106 (17.79%) Azure
3 74 (12.42%) Power Platform
4 52 (8.72%) Entra ID
5 38 (6.38%) AWS
6 34 (5.70%) SaaS
7 17 (2.85%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (2.35%) Microsoft Purview
8 14 (2.35%) Power Automate
8 14 (2.35%) PowerApps
9 8 (1.34%) Google Workspace
9 8 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
9 8 (1.34%) OneDrive
10 7 (1.17%) GCP
11 6 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.84%) IaaS
12 5 (0.84%) PaaS
13 3 (0.50%) Amazon S3
13 3 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (0.50%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.37%) Firewall
2 22 (3.69%) WAN
3 21 (3.52%) VPN
4 19 (3.19%) DNS
5 18 (3.02%) LAN
5 18 (3.02%) Wireless
6 17 (2.85%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (2.35%) TCP/IP
8 13 (2.18%) Network Security
9 12 (2.01%) DHCP
10 10 (1.68%) VLAN
11 5 (0.84%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (0.84%) Internet
11 5 (0.84%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.84%) Skype
11 5 (0.84%) VoIP
12 4 (0.67%) Bluetooth
12 4 (0.67%) SSL
13 3 (0.50%) HTTP
13 3 (0.50%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (11.58%) Power BI
2 23 (3.86%) SQL Server
3 17 (2.85%) Power Query
3 17 (2.85%) Tableau
4 14 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
5 11 (1.85%) MySQL
6 10 (1.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 9 (1.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 8 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 7 (1.17%) Star Schema
10 6 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (1.01%) Data Mining
11 5 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
12 4 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
12 4 (0.67%) FileMaker
12 4 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
13 3 (0.50%) GIS
13 3 (0.50%) NoSQL
13 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 2 (0.34%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 20 (3.36%) Git
2 13 (2.18%) JIRA
3 8 (1.34%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.67%) Cucumber
4 4 (0.67%) GitLab
4 4 (0.67%) JUnit
4 4 (0.67%) Maven
4 4 (0.67%) Postman
4 4 (0.67%) SoapUI
5 3 (0.50%) JMeter
5 3 (0.50%) Mockito
5 3 (0.50%) Selenium
5 3 (0.50%) Zephyr
6 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.17%) Apache Ivy
7 1 (0.17%) Appium
7 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.17%) Bugzilla
7 1 (0.17%) IBM UrbanCode
7 1 (0.17%) TestRail
General
1 278 (46.64%) Social Skills
2 155 (26.01%) Analytical Skills
3 98 (16.44%) Finance
4 87 (14.60%) Manufacturing
5 35 (5.87%) Organisational Skills
5 35 (5.87%) Public Sector
6 31 (5.20%) Retail
7 26 (4.36%) Marketing
8 24 (4.03%) Legal
9 22 (3.69%) Law
10 16 (2.68%) Electronics
11 14 (2.35%) Automotive
12 13 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 12 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
14 11 (1.85%) Telecoms
15 9 (1.51%) Banking
15 9 (1.51%) Investment Banking
16 8 (1.34%) Games
17 6 (1.01%) Esports
17 6 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 99 (16.61%) Support Engineer
2 83 (13.93%) Analyst
3 67 (11.24%) Technical Support
4 64 (10.74%) Technical Engineer
5 62 (10.40%) Technical Support Engineer
6 60 (10.07%) IT Support
7 58 (9.73%) Developer
8 43 (7.21%) IT Engineer
8 43 (7.21%) Senior
9 35 (5.87%) IT Support Engineer
10 33 (5.54%) IT Manager
11 31 (5.20%) Lead
12 26 (4.36%) Consultant
12 26 (4.36%) Support Analyst
13 17 (2.85%) 1st Line Support
14 16 (2.68%) Programmer
15 14 (2.35%) IT Analyst
15 14 (2.35%) IT Technician
15 14 (2.35%) Support Technician
16 13 (2.18%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.54%) REST
2 21 (3.52%) React
3 19 (3.19%) .NET
4 17 (2.85%) Spring
5 14 (2.35%) Spring Boot
6 12 (2.01%) AngularJS
7 11 (1.85%) CSS
7 11 (1.85%) HTML
8 10 (1.68%) RESTful
9 9 (1.51%) SOAP
10 7 (1.17%) Node.js
10 7 (1.17%) Playwright
10 7 (1.17%) SAP Fiori
11 6 (1.01%) JDBC
11 6 (1.01%) Middleware
11 6 (1.01%) OAuth
11 6 (1.01%) SAPUI5
12 4 (0.67%) COM
12 4 (0.67%) DCOM
12 4 (0.67%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (7.55%) Driving Licence
2 29 (4.87%) Management Information System
3 27 (4.53%) Self-Motivation
4 22 (3.69%) Onboarding
5 20 (3.36%) Enterprise Software
6 12 (2.01%) Social Media
7 11 (1.85%) Data Centre
7 11 (1.85%) NHS
7 11 (1.85%) Virtual Team
8 10 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
8 10 (1.68%) Data Structures
9 9 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
10 8 (1.34%) IoT
10 8 (1.34%) Security Posture
11 7 (1.17%) AS400
11 7 (1.17%) Cyber Defence
11 7 (1.17%) iSeries
11 7 (1.17%) Mobile App
12 5 (0.84%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 97 (16.28%) Windows
2 35 (5.87%) Linux
3 29 (4.87%) Windows Server
4 26 (4.36%) Windows 10
5 14 (2.35%) Android
6 9 (1.51%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.01%) Unix
8 5 (0.84%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.67%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.67%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.34%) CentOS
10 2 (0.34%) Debian
10 2 (0.34%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.17%) Solaris
11 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (28.52%) Continuous Improvement
2 98 (16.44%) Customer Service
3 77 (12.92%) Agile
4 73 (12.25%) Analytics
4 73 (12.25%) Decision-Making
5 72 (12.08%) Business Intelligence
6 68 (11.41%) Collaborative Working
6 68 (11.41%) Mentoring
7 64 (10.74%) ITIL
8 63 (10.57%) AI
9 61 (10.23%) ERP
10 51 (8.56%) Cybersecurity
11 50 (8.39%) Customer Experience
12 44 (7.38%) Root Cause Analysis
13 43 (7.21%) CRM
13 43 (7.21%) Service Delivery
14 40 (6.71%) Stakeholder Management
15 39 (6.54%) Collaborative Culture
16 36 (6.04%) Process Improvement
16 36 (6.04%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 94 (15.77%) SQL
2 40 (6.71%) Java
3 34 (5.70%) Python
4 23 (3.86%) PowerShell
5 19 (3.19%) C#
5 19 (3.19%) Ladder Logic
6 17 (2.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 13 (2.18%) JavaScript
8 11 (1.85%) PHP
9 9 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 7 (1.17%) Bash
10 7 (1.17%) C
10 7 (1.17%) RPG
11 6 (1.01%) ABAP
12 5 (0.84%) Embedded C
13 4 (0.67%) C++
13 4 (0.67%) PL/SQL
13 4 (0.67%) RPG IV
13 4 (0.67%) RPG/400
14 3 (0.50%) RPG III
Qualifications
1 83 (13.93%) Degree
2 58 (9.73%) Security Cleared
3 46 (7.72%) SC Cleared
4 18 (3.02%) Azure Certification
4 18 (3.02%) DBS Check
4 18 (3.02%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (1.85%) CISSP
6 10 (1.68%) CompTIA Security+
7 8 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (1.17%) A+ Certification
8 7 (1.17%) ACCA
8 7 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (1.17%) CIMA
8 7 (1.17%) CISA
8 7 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.17%) SSCP
9 5 (0.84%) CCNA
9 5 (0.84%) HND
9 5 (0.84%) MCITP
10 4 (0.67%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.54%) Data Quality
2 29 (4.87%) GDPR
3 28 (4.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 26 (4.36%) Cyber Essentials
4 26 (4.36%) QA
5 17 (2.85%) ISO 9001
5 17 (2.85%) SLA
6 16 (2.68%) NIST
7 15 (2.52%) Accessibility
8 9 (1.51%) ISO 14001
9 5 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.67%) HIPAA
10 4 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.50%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.34%) GRC
12 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.34%) PMO
System Software
1 79 (13.26%) Active Directory
2 25 (4.19%) Hyper-V
3 20 (3.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (2.18%) Docker
5 7 (1.17%) Firmware
6 5 (0.84%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.34%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 35 (5.87%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (2.01%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.85%) Terraform
4 6 (1.01%) Ansible
5 4 (0.67%) Functional Safety
6 3 (0.50%) Grafana
6 3 (0.50%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.50%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.50%) Puppet
6 3 (0.50%) SCCM
7 2 (0.34%) Nagios
8 1 (0.17%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 165 (27.68%) Microsoft
2 29 (4.87%) SAP
3 25 (4.19%) VMware
4 20 (3.36%) Cisco
5 14 (2.35%) Sage
6 12 (2.01%) Dell
7 11 (1.85%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.68%) Google
9 9 (1.51%) Oracle
10 8 (1.34%) HubSpot
11 7 (1.17%) HP
11 7 (1.17%) IBM
11 7 (1.17%) ServiceNow
12 6 (1.01%) Apple
12 6 (1.01%) iManage
12 6 (1.01%) McAfee
12 6 (1.01%) Sophos
13 5 (0.84%) Meraki
13 5 (0.84%) SolarWinds
14 4 (0.67%) Veeam