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

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -18 +4 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 510 829 620
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 9.53% 20.19% 15.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.66% 21.97% 17.40%
Number of salaries quoted 392 326 504
10th Percentile £26,250 £31,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,250 £42,129 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £55,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% +22.22% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £66,188 £58,750
90th Percentile £74,875 £96,250 £67,500
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -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 4,374 3,773 3,564
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 81.74% 91.91% 87.05%
Number of salaries quoted 2,290 1,691 2,975
10th Percentile £29,000 £32,500 £26,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £42,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,500 £70,000 £63,059
90th Percentile £82,500 £82,500 £76,250
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 January 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 January 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 -8 155 £47,500 -18.10% 71
Staffordshire -10 95 £33,250 -33.50% 35
Warwickshire -15 54 £37,500 -25.00% 53
Shropshire -12 36 £47,500 -32.14% 48
Worcestershire -13 34 £32,500 -50.00% 24
Herefordshire +3 30 £45,000 +71.75% 10
Solihull -1 23 £87,500 +59.09% 1
Coventry -11 18 £55,200 -4.00% 18
Halesowen 0 14 £32,500 -
Walsall +1 9 £45,000 +42.86% 4
Wednesbury -2 4 £42,500 -5.56%
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67%
Dudley -6 2 £75,000 +114.29% 4
Wolverhampton -17 2 £72,500 +61.11% 9
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 27 (5.29%) SharePoint
2 13 (2.55%) IIS
2 13 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.18%) Apache
3 6 (1.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.39%) Confluence
4 2 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2007
4 2 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
5 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.20%) Appian
5 1 (0.20%) HCL Notes
5 1 (0.20%) NServiceBus
5 1 (0.20%) SAS
5 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 59 (11.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (5.69%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (2.75%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.57%) AutoCAD
4 8 (1.57%) SOLIDWORKS
5 7 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.78%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.59%) Trello
8 1 (0.20%) Abaqus
8 1 (0.20%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 20 (3.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.37%) NetSuite
3 3 (0.59%) Dynamics NAV
3 3 (0.59%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.39%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
4 2 (0.39%) iTrent
4 2 (0.39%) SAP Business ByDesign
4 2 (0.39%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.20%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.20%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 103 (20.20%) Azure
2 67 (13.14%) Microsoft 365
3 45 (8.82%) Power Platform
4 38 (7.45%) SaaS
5 34 (6.67%) AWS
6 19 (3.73%) Dynamics 365
7 12 (2.35%) Entra ID
8 11 (2.16%) Power Automate
9 10 (1.96%) PowerApps
10 9 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.57%) GCP
12 7 (1.37%) Serverless
13 6 (1.18%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.98%) Amazon EC2
14 5 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
14 5 (0.98%) OCI
14 5 (0.98%) OneDrive
15 4 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
15 4 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 26 (5.10%) VPN
2 23 (4.51%) DNS
2 23 (4.51%) Internet
3 19 (3.73%) DHCP
3 19 (3.73%) WAN
4 17 (3.33%) Wi-Fi
5 14 (2.75%) Firewall
6 13 (2.55%) LAN
7 11 (2.16%) VoIP
7 11 (2.16%) Wireless
8 9 (1.76%) ADSL
8 9 (1.76%) Ethernet
8 9 (1.76%) SD-WAN
8 9 (1.76%) VDSL
9 7 (1.37%) Broadband
9 7 (1.37%) VLAN
10 5 (0.98%) PBX
11 4 (0.78%) Bluetooth
11 4 (0.78%) TCP/IP
12 2 (0.39%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (7.65%) Power BI
2 34 (6.67%) SQL Server
3 17 (3.33%) Relational Database
4 14 (2.75%) MySQL
5 11 (2.16%) GIS
6 10 (1.96%) Oracle Reports
6 10 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 9 (1.76%) Tableau
8 6 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.18%) Crystal Reports
9 4 (0.78%) BusinessObjects
9 4 (0.78%) Data Mining
9 4 (0.78%) Metadata
9 4 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.59%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.39%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.39%) Redis
Development Applications
1 20 (3.92%) JIRA
2 16 (3.14%) Git
3 7 (1.37%) JUnit
4 6 (1.18%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.18%) Maven
4 6 (1.18%) Mockito
5 5 (0.98%) GitLab
6 3 (0.59%) Appcelerator Titanium
7 2 (0.39%) Subversion
7 2 (0.39%) Vagrant
7 2 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.20%) Babel
8 1 (0.20%) Balsamiq
8 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.20%) MLflow
8 1 (0.20%) Selenium
8 1 (0.20%) Snyk
8 1 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.20%) Vite
8 1 (0.20%) webpack
General
1 244 (47.84%) Social Skills
2 134 (26.27%) Analytical Skills
3 128 (25.10%) Finance
4 74 (14.51%) Manufacturing
5 38 (7.45%) Legal
6 33 (6.47%) Organisational Skills
6 33 (6.47%) Public Sector
7 32 (6.27%) Law
8 31 (6.08%) Retail
9 28 (5.49%) Marketing
10 15 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (2.75%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (2.75%) Telecoms
12 11 (2.16%) Fire and Rescue
13 10 (1.96%) Banking
14 9 (1.76%) Electronics
15 7 (1.37%) Aerospace
15 7 (1.37%) Automotive
16 5 (0.98%) Advertising
16 5 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 83 (16.27%) Support Engineer
2 77 (15.10%) Analyst
3 63 (12.35%) IT Support
4 54 (10.59%) Developer
5 49 (9.61%) Technical Support
6 48 (9.41%) Lead
6 48 (9.41%) Technical Engineer
7 46 (9.02%) Technical Support Engineer
8 44 (8.63%) Senior
9 34 (6.67%) IT Engineer
10 26 (5.10%) IT Support Engineer
10 26 (5.10%) Support Analyst
11 21 (4.12%) Architect
12 20 (3.92%) Applications Support
13 18 (3.53%) 2nd Line Support
13 18 (3.53%) Business Analyst
14 15 (2.94%) Administrator
14 15 (2.94%) Network Engineer
15 13 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
16 12 (2.35%) Instructor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (5.29%) .NET
2 24 (4.71%) REST
3 21 (4.12%) React
4 15 (2.94%) AngularJS
4 15 (2.94%) JSON
5 11 (2.16%) Razor View Engine
6 10 (1.96%) HTML
7 6 (1.18%) CSS
7 6 (1.18%) LAMP
8 5 (0.98%) Node.js
8 5 (0.98%) RESTful
8 5 (0.98%) Vue
9 4 (0.78%) EDI
9 4 (0.78%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (0.78%) Spring
9 4 (0.78%) Web Services
9 4 (0.78%) WPF
10 3 (0.59%) .NET Framework
10 3 (0.59%) ODBC
10 3 (0.59%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (8.63%) Onboarding
2 34 (6.67%) Self-Motivation
3 29 (5.69%) Driving Licence
4 17 (3.33%) Management Information System
5 13 (2.55%) FMCG
5 13 (2.55%) Social Media
6 12 (2.35%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (2.16%) Operational Technology
7 11 (2.16%) Product Ownership
7 11 (2.16%) SCADA
8 10 (1.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 10 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
9 8 (1.57%) IoT
10 7 (1.37%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (1.18%) PDA
12 5 (0.98%) Data Centre
12 5 (0.98%) EPoS
13 4 (0.78%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.78%) Reference Data
13 4 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 62 (12.16%) Windows
2 21 (4.12%) Linux
3 15 (2.94%) Windows 10
4 9 (1.76%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.59%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.39%) Unix
6 2 (0.39%) VMS
6 2 (0.39%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.20%) Android
7 1 (0.20%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.20%) Windows Mobile
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (18.82%) Continuous Improvement
2 72 (14.12%) Agile
3 70 (13.73%) Project Management
4 55 (10.78%) Customer Service
5 53 (10.39%) ITIL
6 49 (9.61%) Business Intelligence
6 49 (9.61%) Decision-Making
7 43 (8.43%) Analytics
8 41 (8.04%) CRM
9 39 (7.65%) Roadmaps
10 37 (7.25%) ERP
11 34 (6.67%) Mentoring
11 34 (6.67%) Migration
12 32 (6.27%) Data Analysis
12 32 (6.27%) Process Improvement
13 31 (6.08%) Customer Experience
14 30 (5.88%) Computer Science
14 30 (5.88%) Service Delivery
15 26 (5.10%) Time Management
16 25 (4.90%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 96 (18.82%) SQL
2 48 (9.41%) Python
3 38 (7.45%) C#
4 32 (6.27%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.71%) Java
6 22 (4.31%) PowerShell
7 15 (2.94%) PHP
8 12 (2.35%) T-SQL
9 8 (1.57%) Bash
10 7 (1.37%) C
10 7 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 6 (1.18%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.18%) R
11 6 (1.18%) TypeScript
12 5 (0.98%) Ladder Logic
13 4 (0.78%) C++
14 3 (0.59%) Delphi
14 3 (0.59%) Go
14 3 (0.59%) VB.NET
15 2 (0.39%) XAML
Qualifications
1 94 (18.43%) Degree
2 58 (11.37%) Security Cleared
3 38 (7.45%) SC Cleared
4 19 (3.73%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (3.33%) DBS Check
6 14 (2.75%) ACCA
6 14 (2.75%) CIMA
7 11 (2.16%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.96%) Master's Degree
9 8 (1.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (1.37%) DV Cleared
11 5 (0.98%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.98%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 4 (0.78%) A+ Certification
12 4 (0.78%) AAT
12 4 (0.78%) CIPD
12 4 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.78%) CISSP
12 4 (0.78%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.51%) Data Quality
2 20 (3.92%) QA
3 13 (2.55%) GDPR
4 11 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.57%) SLA
6 7 (1.37%) NIST
7 5 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 4 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.39%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.39%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.39%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (0.39%) PMO
10 1 (0.20%) COBIT
10 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.20%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (5.69%) Active Directory
2 19 (3.73%) Docker
3 3 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.39%) Firmware
4 2 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 18 (3.53%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.35%) Terraform
3 10 (1.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (0.78%) Ansible
5 3 (0.59%) Nagios
5 3 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.39%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.39%) Grafana
7 1 (0.20%) Argo
7 1 (0.20%) AWS Copilot
7 1 (0.20%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.20%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.20%) SCCM
7 1 (0.20%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 147 (28.82%) Microsoft
2 39 (7.65%) Oracle
3 29 (5.69%) SAP
4 12 (2.35%) Databricks
4 12 (2.35%) Salesforce
5 10 (1.96%) Cisco
5 10 (1.96%) Sage
6 8 (1.57%) ServiceNow
7 7 (1.37%) Google
7 7 (1.37%) Infor
8 5 (0.98%) Epicor
8 5 (0.98%) Meraki
8 5 (0.98%) Panasonic
8 5 (0.98%) Samsung
8 5 (0.98%) Zscaler
9 4 (0.78%) Avaya
9 4 (0.78%) SolarWinds
10 3 (0.59%) Cognos
10 3 (0.59%) Dell
10 3 (0.59%) VMware