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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 667 708 966
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 7.82% 20.57% 14.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.33% 24.22% 18.97%
Number of salaries quoted 468 464 432
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £25,208
25th Percentile £33,250 £29,250 £32,188
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £44,272 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -6.80% -5.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £61,250 £58,813
90th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £72,500
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 5,885 2,923 5,092
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 68.97% 84.92% 78.53%
Number of salaries quoted 4,421 1,865 3,082
10th Percentile £31,711 £29,000 £28,119
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £51,400 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.00% -2.10% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -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 19 August 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 19 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
Birmingham -11 240 £52,500 +16.67% 254
Staffordshire -6 88 £47,500 -7.67% 46
Warwickshire -3 76 £35,000 -22.22% 54
Worcestershire -4 63 £37,750 +23.77% 25
Shropshire +7 50 £45,000 +2.86% 36
Coventry -11 35 £42,000 +11.79% 30
Solihull -1 13 £30,500 -44.55% 20
Wolverhampton -11 12 £38,500 +18.46% 13
Tipton - 8 £33,500 - 2
Walsall +1 7 £37,500 -16.67% 5
Herefordshire -26 7 £28,500 -12.31% 13
Halesowen 0 5 £47,500 +46.15%
Dudley - 5 £26,100 - 4
Willenhall -3 4 £37,500 -16.67%
Sutton Coldfield - 4 £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 38 (5.70%) SharePoint
2 26 (3.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.50%) IIS
4 5 (0.75%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.60%) CICS
5 4 (0.60%) Confluence
6 3 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.45%) WordPress
7 2 (0.30%) Documentum
7 2 (0.30%) SAS
8 1 (0.15%) Apache
8 1 (0.15%) Appian
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
8 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2007
8 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (7.65%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (5.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.75%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.60%) Simulink
7 3 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.30%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.30%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.15%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.15%) LaTeX
9 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.90%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.75%) Magento
4 5 (0.75%) Shopify
5 4 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.60%) Line 50
5 4 (0.60%) Sage 50
5 4 (0.60%) Sage X3
5 4 (0.60%) SAP Business One
6 2 (0.30%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 2 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.15%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.15%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 131 (19.64%) Azure
2 117 (17.54%) Microsoft 365
3 86 (12.89%) Power Platform
4 53 (7.95%) AWS
5 52 (7.80%) Entra ID
6 44 (6.60%) SaaS
7 22 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
8 18 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (2.25%) Power Automate
10 13 (1.95%) Microsoft Purview
10 13 (1.95%) PowerApps
11 12 (1.80%) GitHub
12 11 (1.65%) GCP
13 10 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
14 7 (1.05%) PaaS
15 6 (0.90%) Google Workspace
15 6 (0.90%) IaaS
16 4 (0.60%) Amazon Kinesis
16 4 (0.60%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.35%) Firewall
2 22 (3.30%) DNS
3 20 (3.00%) VPN
4 19 (2.85%) TCP/IP
5 18 (2.70%) Wireless
6 17 (2.55%) WAN
7 15 (2.25%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (2.10%) DHCP
9 13 (1.95%) LAN
10 12 (1.80%) Network Security
11 10 (1.50%) VLAN
12 8 (1.20%) VoIP
13 5 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.75%) SD-WAN
13 5 (0.75%) Skype
14 4 (0.60%) Bluetooth
14 4 (0.60%) SSL
15 3 (0.45%) HTTP
15 3 (0.45%) SAN
15 3 (0.45%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (12.14%) Power BI
2 26 (3.90%) SQL Server
3 20 (3.00%) Tableau
4 19 (2.85%) Power Query
5 16 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (2.10%) Relational Database
7 12 (1.80%) MySQL
8 11 (1.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 9 (1.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 8 (1.20%) Data Mining
10 8 (1.20%) Electronic Patient Records
11 6 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
12 5 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
12 5 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (0.75%) Star Schema
13 4 (0.60%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.60%) Db2
13 4 (0.60%) FileMaker
14 3 (0.45%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 28 (4.20%) Git
2 20 (3.00%) JIRA
3 19 (2.85%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.90%) Maven
5 5 (0.75%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.75%) JUnit
5 5 (0.75%) Postman
6 4 (0.60%) GitLab
6 4 (0.60%) JMeter
6 4 (0.60%) Selenium
6 4 (0.60%) SoapUI
7 3 (0.45%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.45%) Mockito
7 3 (0.45%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.30%) Ant
8 2 (0.30%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.30%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.15%) Bugzilla
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 305 (45.73%) Social Skills
2 170 (25.49%) Analytical Skills
3 115 (17.24%) Finance
4 97 (14.54%) Manufacturing
5 47 (7.05%) Public Sector
6 41 (6.15%) Organisational Skills
7 36 (5.40%) Retail
8 27 (4.05%) Marketing
9 25 (3.75%) Legal
10 21 (3.15%) Law
11 20 (3.00%) Electronics
12 18 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 15 (2.25%) Automotive
14 12 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (1.65%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.35%) Banking
17 8 (1.20%) Investment Banking
18 7 (1.05%) Fire and Rescue
18 7 (1.05%) Games
18 7 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 90 (13.49%) Support Engineer
2 86 (12.89%) Analyst
3 71 (10.64%) Technical Support
4 70 (10.49%) Developer
5 64 (9.60%) Technical Engineer
6 62 (9.30%) Technical Support Engineer
7 54 (8.10%) IT Support
8 50 (7.50%) Senior
9 44 (6.60%) Lead
10 42 (6.30%) Consultant
11 37 (5.55%) IT Manager
12 32 (4.80%) IT Engineer
13 31 (4.65%) Support Analyst
14 26 (3.90%) IT Support Engineer
15 18 (2.70%) 1st Line Support
15 18 (2.70%) Administrator
16 16 (2.40%) Architect
16 16 (2.40%) Programmer
17 15 (2.25%) IT Technician
17 15 (2.25%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.70%) REST
2 29 (4.35%) .NET
3 26 (3.90%) React
4 25 (3.75%) Spring
5 22 (3.30%) Spring Boot
6 14 (2.10%) RESTful
7 13 (1.95%) AngularJS
8 12 (1.80%) CSS
8 12 (1.80%) HTML
8 12 (1.80%) Playwright
9 9 (1.35%) ISPF
9 9 (1.35%) SOAP
10 8 (1.20%) Node.js
11 7 (1.05%) SAP Fiori
12 6 (0.90%) JDBC
12 6 (0.90%) Middleware
12 6 (0.90%) OAuth
12 6 (0.90%) SAPUI5
13 5 (0.75%) LDAP
13 5 (0.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.65%) Driving Licence
2 34 (5.10%) Management Information System
3 30 (4.50%) Onboarding
4 29 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
5 28 (4.20%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (2.85%) NHS
7 12 (1.80%) Analytical Mindset
7 12 (1.80%) Data Centre
7 12 (1.80%) Virtual Team
8 11 (1.65%) Legacy Applications
9 10 (1.50%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.50%) Data Structures
10 9 (1.35%) IoT
10 9 (1.35%) Mainframe
10 9 (1.35%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.35%) SystemC
11 8 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.20%) PMI
11 8 (1.20%) Public Cloud
12 7 (1.05%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 104 (15.59%) Windows
2 39 (5.85%) Linux
3 37 (5.55%) Windows Server
4 23 (3.45%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.95%) Android
6 10 (1.50%) Apple iOS
7 9 (1.35%) Unix
8 6 (0.90%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.60%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.30%) CentOS
11 2 (0.30%) Debian
11 2 (0.30%) Solaris
11 2 (0.30%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.30%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (30.73%) Continuous Improvement
2 114 (17.09%) Customer Service
3 104 (15.59%) Agile
4 84 (12.59%) Business Intelligence
4 84 (12.59%) Decision-Making
5 80 (11.99%) Analytics
6 76 (11.39%) AI
6 76 (11.39%) Mentoring
7 70 (10.49%) Collaborative Working
7 70 (10.49%) ERP
8 58 (8.70%) ITIL
9 56 (8.40%) Collaborative Culture
9 56 (8.40%) Cybersecurity
10 54 (8.10%) CI/CD
11 50 (7.50%) Stakeholder Management
12 48 (7.20%) Customer Experience
13 47 (7.05%) CRM
13 47 (7.05%) Root Cause Analysis
14 45 (6.75%) Service Delivery
15 42 (6.30%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 103 (15.44%) SQL
2 54 (8.10%) Java
3 42 (6.30%) Python
4 23 (3.45%) JavaScript
5 22 (3.30%) C#
5 22 (3.30%) PowerShell
6 19 (2.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 18 (2.70%) Ladder Logic
8 15 (2.25%) TypeScript
9 12 (1.80%) C
10 11 (1.65%) PHP
11 10 (1.50%) Embedded C
12 9 (1.35%) COBOL
12 9 (1.35%) JCL
13 7 (1.05%) RPG
14 6 (0.90%) ABAP
14 6 (0.90%) Bash
15 5 (0.75%) C++
16 4 (0.60%) MATLAB
16 4 (0.60%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 97 (14.54%) Degree
2 70 (10.49%) Security Cleared
3 57 (8.55%) SC Cleared
4 20 (3.00%) Azure Certification
5 13 (1.95%) DBS Check
5 13 (1.95%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (1.80%) PMI Certification
7 11 (1.65%) CISSP
8 10 (1.50%) CompTIA Security+
9 8 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.05%) ACCA
10 7 (1.05%) CIMA
10 7 (1.05%) CISA
10 7 (1.05%) SSCP
11 6 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.90%) HND
12 5 (0.75%) CCNA
12 5 (0.75%) PMP
13 4 (0.60%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.70%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.80%) GDPR
3 30 (4.50%) QA
4 24 (3.60%) Cyber Essentials
5 23 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (3.30%) SLA
7 19 (2.85%) Accessibility
8 18 (2.70%) ISO 9001
9 15 (2.25%) NIST
10 9 (1.35%) ISO 14001
11 4 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.45%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.45%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.30%) GRC
13 2 (0.30%) ISO 26262
13 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.30%) PMO
System Software
1 78 (11.69%) Active Directory
2 24 (3.60%) Hyper-V
3 17 (2.55%) Docker
4 16 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (1.35%) Firmware
6 7 (1.05%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.60%) vSphere
8 3 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.30%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 28 (4.20%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (2.25%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.80%) Terraform
4 6 (0.90%) Ansible
5 5 (0.75%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.75%) SCCM
6 4 (0.60%) Progress Chef
6 4 (0.60%) Puppet
7 3 (0.45%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.30%) Grafana
8 2 (0.30%) Nagios
8 2 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.30%) WSUS
9 1 (0.15%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 178 (26.69%) Microsoft
2 34 (5.10%) SAP
3 23 (3.45%) VMware
4 19 (2.85%) Cisco
5 15 (2.25%) Sage
6 12 (1.80%) Salesforce
7 11 (1.65%) Dell
7 11 (1.65%) HubSpot
7 11 (1.65%) Oracle
7 11 (1.65%) ServiceNow
8 10 (1.50%) Workday
9 9 (1.35%) Google
10 8 (1.20%) Apple
10 8 (1.20%) Sophos
11 7 (1.05%) IBM
12 6 (0.90%) iManage
12 6 (0.90%) McAfee
13 5 (0.75%) Broadcom
13 5 (0.75%) Databricks
13 5 (0.75%) SolarWinds