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 1 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 689 694 966
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 8.00% 20.14% 15.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.56% 23.82% 19.35%
Number of salaries quoted 478 452 395
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £25,500
25th Percentile £33,250 £29,250 £32,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,618 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -0.28% -10.28% -5.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £58,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £66,625 £67,500 £75,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -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 5,961 2,913 4,991
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 69.20% 84.53% 78.72%
Number of salaries quoted 4,480 1,847 2,877
10th Percentile £32,225 £28,800 £28,119
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £36,750
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 £65,000
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 1 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 1 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 -10 252 £55,000 +22.22% 300
Staffordshire -6 88 £47,500 +5.56% 68
Warwickshire -2 76 £37,500 -30.23% 70
Worcestershire -4 66 £40,000 +31.15% 39
Shropshire +5 52 £45,000 -5.26% 40
Coventry -10 36 £42,000 +11.79% 43
Wolverhampton -4 15 £38,500 +18.46% 16
Solihull +2 14 £30,750 -31.67% 22
Tipton - 8 £33,500 - 1
Herefordshire -25 7 £28,500 -12.31% 14
Walsall 0 6 £37,500 -16.67% 5
Halesowen -3 5 £47,500 +46.15%
Willenhall -2 4 £37,500 -16.67%
Dudley - 4 £26,100 - 7
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 41 (5.95%) SharePoint
2 27 (3.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.45%) IIS
4 6 (0.87%) Confluence
5 5 (0.73%) Skype for Business
6 4 (0.58%) CICS
7 3 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.44%) WordPress
8 2 (0.29%) Documentum
8 2 (0.29%) SAS
9 1 (0.15%) Apache
9 1 (0.15%) Appian
9 1 (0.15%) CMS
9 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 54 (7.84%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (5.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.02%) Simulink
4 6 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.73%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.29%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.29%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.15%) EPLAN
8 1 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (1.31%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.73%) Magento
4 5 (0.73%) Shopify
5 4 (0.58%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.58%) Line 50
5 4 (0.58%) Sage 50
5 4 (0.58%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.44%) SAP Business One
6 3 (0.44%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.29%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.15%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.15%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 134 (19.45%) Azure
2 120 (17.42%) Microsoft 365
3 89 (12.92%) Power Platform
4 53 (7.69%) AWS
5 50 (7.26%) Entra ID
6 45 (6.53%) SaaS
7 23 (3.34%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (3.05%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (2.47%) Power Automate
10 15 (2.18%) Microsoft Purview
11 14 (2.03%) PowerApps
12 13 (1.89%) GitHub
13 11 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (1.45%) GCP
15 8 (1.16%) PaaS
16 6 (0.87%) Google Workspace
17 5 (0.73%) IaaS
18 4 (0.58%) Amazon Kinesis
18 4 (0.58%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 26 (3.77%) Firewall
2 22 (3.19%) DNS
3 20 (2.90%) TCP/IP
4 19 (2.76%) VPN
4 19 (2.76%) Wireless
5 17 (2.47%) WAN
6 15 (2.18%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (2.03%) DHCP
7 14 (2.03%) LAN
8 11 (1.60%) Network Security
8 11 (1.60%) VLAN
9 9 (1.31%) VoIP
10 5 (0.73%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.73%) Skype
10 5 (0.73%) Wireshark
11 4 (0.58%) Bluetooth
11 4 (0.58%) SD-WAN
12 3 (0.44%) HTTP
12 3 (0.44%) SSL
13 2 (0.29%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (12.19%) Power BI
2 26 (3.77%) SQL Server
3 22 (3.19%) Tableau
4 18 (2.61%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (2.61%) Power Query
4 18 (2.61%) Relational Database
5 12 (1.74%) MySQL
6 11 (1.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 10 (1.45%) Data Mining
8 9 (1.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (1.16%) Electronic Patient Records
10 6 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
10 6 (0.87%) Data Lake
11 5 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.73%) Star Schema
12 4 (0.58%) Big Data
12 4 (0.58%) FileMaker
12 4 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
12 4 (0.58%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 31 (4.50%) Git
2 24 (3.48%) JIRA
3 22 (3.19%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.02%) Cucumber
4 7 (1.02%) Postman
5 6 (0.87%) GitLab
5 6 (0.87%) JMeter
5 6 (0.87%) Maven
5 6 (0.87%) Selenium
5 6 (0.87%) SoapUI
6 5 (0.73%) Eclipse
6 5 (0.73%) JUnit
6 5 (0.73%) Zephyr
7 3 (0.44%) Mockito
8 2 (0.29%) Ant
8 2 (0.29%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.29%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.15%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.15%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.15%) TestRail
General
1 321 (46.59%) Social Skills
2 178 (25.83%) Analytical Skills
3 115 (16.69%) Finance
4 98 (14.22%) Manufacturing
5 50 (7.26%) Public Sector
6 47 (6.82%) Organisational Skills
7 39 (5.66%) Retail
8 29 (4.21%) Marketing
9 24 (3.48%) Electronics
10 22 (3.19%) Legal
11 21 (3.05%) Law
12 18 (2.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 17 (2.47%) Automotive
14 13 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (1.60%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.31%) Banking
17 8 (1.16%) Billing
17 8 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
17 8 (1.16%) Investment Banking
18 7 (1.02%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 87 (12.63%) Analyst
2 85 (12.34%) Support Engineer
3 75 (10.89%) Developer
4 70 (10.16%) Technical Support
5 62 (9.00%) Technical Engineer
6 60 (8.71%) Technical Support Engineer
7 53 (7.69%) IT Support
8 51 (7.40%) Lead
8 51 (7.40%) Senior
9 44 (6.39%) Consultant
10 36 (5.22%) IT Manager
11 32 (4.64%) IT Engineer
11 32 (4.64%) Support Analyst
12 24 (3.48%) IT Support Engineer
13 22 (3.19%) Administrator
14 17 (2.47%) Architect
15 16 (2.32%) 1st Line Support
15 16 (2.32%) Project Manager
16 15 (2.18%) Programmer
16 15 (2.18%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (5.37%) REST
2 32 (4.64%) .NET
3 26 (3.77%) React
3 26 (3.77%) Spring
4 23 (3.34%) Spring Boot
5 15 (2.18%) CSS
5 15 (2.18%) HTML
5 15 (2.18%) RESTful
6 14 (2.03%) AngularJS
6 14 (2.03%) Playwright
7 11 (1.60%) SOAP
8 10 (1.45%) ISPF
8 10 (1.45%) Terraform
9 8 (1.16%) XML
10 7 (1.02%) JSON
10 7 (1.02%) LDAP
10 7 (1.02%) Node.js
10 7 (1.02%) SAP Fiori
11 6 (0.87%) OAuth
11 6 (0.87%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 55 (7.98%) Driving Licence
2 37 (5.37%) Management Information System
3 35 (5.08%) Onboarding
4 34 (4.93%) Self-Motivation
5 30 (4.35%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (2.76%) NHS
7 16 (2.32%) Virtual Team
8 15 (2.18%) Data Centre
9 14 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.74%) Legacy Applications
11 10 (1.45%) Cloud Native
11 10 (1.45%) Data Structures
11 10 (1.45%) Mainframe
11 10 (1.45%) Public Cloud
12 9 (1.31%) IoT
12 9 (1.31%) Mobile App
12 9 (1.31%) SystemC
13 8 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
13 8 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 106 (15.38%) Windows
2 38 (5.52%) Linux
3 37 (5.37%) Windows Server
4 21 (3.05%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.89%) Android
6 10 (1.45%) Apple iOS
7 9 (1.31%) Unix
8 6 (0.87%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.58%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.44%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.29%) Solaris
12 1 (0.15%) CentOS
12 1 (0.15%) Debian
12 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (30.91%) Continuous Improvement
2 119 (17.27%) Customer Service
3 113 (16.40%) Agile
4 87 (12.63%) Business Intelligence
4 87 (12.63%) Decision-Making
5 84 (12.19%) Analytics
6 80 (11.61%) Mentoring
7 77 (11.18%) AI
8 72 (10.45%) ERP
9 68 (9.87%) Collaborative Working
10 62 (9.00%) Cybersecurity
11 57 (8.27%) ITIL
12 56 (8.13%) CI/CD
12 56 (8.13%) Collaborative Culture
13 54 (7.84%) Stakeholder Management
14 51 (7.40%) CRM
15 48 (6.97%) Root Cause Analysis
16 47 (6.82%) Service Delivery
16 47 (6.82%) Workflow
17 45 (6.53%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 107 (15.53%) SQL
2 60 (8.71%) Java
3 42 (6.10%) Python
4 28 (4.06%) JavaScript
5 24 (3.48%) C#
5 24 (3.48%) PowerShell
6 18 (2.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 18 (2.61%) Ladder Logic
7 14 (2.03%) C
7 14 (2.03%) TypeScript
8 13 (1.89%) Embedded C
9 11 (1.60%) PHP
10 10 (1.45%) COBOL
10 10 (1.45%) JCL
11 7 (1.02%) MATLAB
11 7 (1.02%) RPG
12 6 (0.87%) ABAP
13 5 (0.73%) Bash
13 5 (0.73%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.73%) R
Qualifications
1 105 (15.24%) Degree
2 79 (11.47%) Security Cleared
3 64 (9.29%) SC Cleared
4 20 (2.90%) Azure Certification
5 13 (1.89%) DBS Check
5 13 (1.89%) PMI Certification
6 12 (1.74%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (1.45%) CISSP
7 10 (1.45%) CompTIA Security+
8 9 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.02%) ACCA
9 7 (1.02%) CCNA
9 7 (1.02%) CIMA
9 7 (1.02%) CISA
9 7 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.02%) PMP
9 7 (1.02%) SSCP
10 6 (0.87%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (0.87%) HND
10 6 (0.87%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (5.95%) Data Quality
2 35 (5.08%) QA
3 32 (4.64%) GDPR
4 24 (3.48%) Cyber Essentials
5 23 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 23 (3.34%) SLA
6 20 (2.90%) ISO 9001
7 19 (2.76%) Accessibility
8 15 (2.18%) NIST
9 9 (1.31%) ISO 14001
10 4 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.44%) AQAP
11 3 (0.44%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.44%) GMP
11 3 (0.44%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.44%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.44%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.29%) Automotive SPICE
12 2 (0.29%) GRC
System Software
1 78 (11.32%) Active Directory
2 24 (3.48%) Hyper-V
3 15 (2.18%) Docker
3 15 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.60%) Firmware
5 9 (1.31%) Embedded Firmware
6 5 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.58%) vSphere
8 2 (0.29%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 26 (3.77%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (1.89%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.87%) Functional Safety
4 5 (0.73%) SCCM
4 5 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.58%) Ansible
6 3 (0.44%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.44%) Puppet
7 2 (0.29%) Grafana
7 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.29%) WSUS
8 1 (0.15%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.15%) Nagios
Vendors
1 186 (27.00%) Microsoft
2 38 (5.52%) SAP
3 22 (3.19%) VMware
4 19 (2.76%) Cisco
5 17 (2.47%) Sage
6 13 (1.89%) ServiceNow
7 12 (1.74%) HubSpot
7 12 (1.74%) Oracle
7 12 (1.74%) Salesforce
7 12 (1.74%) Workday
8 10 (1.45%) Dell
9 9 (1.31%) Google
10 8 (1.16%) Apple
10 8 (1.16%) Sophos
11 7 (1.02%) Databricks
11 7 (1.02%) IBM
12 6 (0.87%) Broadcom
12 6 (0.87%) iManage
12 6 (0.87%) McAfee
13 5 (0.73%) Pega