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

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -18 +4 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 502 812 831
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 8.80% 20.53% 15.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.97% 22.07% 17.90%
Number of salaries quoted 380 322 663
10th Percentile £26,250 £31,600 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,500 £42,500 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £55,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% +29.41% -15.80%
75th Percentile £58,750 £67,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £99,750 £67,500
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.91%

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 4,576 3,679 4,642
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 80.24% 93.00% 86.64%
Number of salaries quoted 2,412 1,618 3,812
10th Percentile £29,000 £32,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £38,500 £42,500 £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 £69,688 £63,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -11.29% +12.73% -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 10 February 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 10 February 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 -11 151 £47,292 -18.46% 95
Staffordshire -8 109 £31,500 -37.00% 25
Warwickshire -15 56 £32,500 -35.00% 74
Shropshire -10 39 £47,500 -13.64% 24
Worcestershire -15 31 £37,500 -42.31% 24
Herefordshire +3 25 £52,500 +100.37% 10
Solihull -3 17 £87,500 +62.79% 6
Coventry -12 17 £65,895 +10.28% 18
Halesowen -1 11 £32,500 -
Walsall -1 4 £45,000 +42.86% 3
Wednesbury -3 4 £42,500 -5.56%
Wolverhampton -21 3 £80,000 +77.78% 2
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67%
Dudley -5 2 £75,000 +114.29% 2
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 (8.17%) SharePoint
2 20 (3.98%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.59%) IIS
4 6 (1.20%) Apache
4 6 (1.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 4 (0.80%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.80%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (0.80%) Exchange Server 2013
6 3 (0.60%) Confluence
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) Appian
7 1 (0.20%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.20%) SAS
7 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 45 (8.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (6.77%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (2.59%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.59%) AutoCAD
4 8 (1.59%) SOLIDWORKS
5 7 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.80%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.40%) Trello
8 1 (0.20%) Abaqus
8 1 (0.20%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 20 (3.98%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.39%) NetSuite
3 3 (0.60%) Dynamics NAV
3 3 (0.60%) SAP Business ByDesign
4 2 (0.40%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
4 2 (0.40%) iTrent
4 2 (0.40%) 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
1 111 (22.11%) Azure
2 83 (16.53%) Microsoft 365
3 46 (9.16%) Power Platform
4 37 (7.37%) SaaS
5 33 (6.57%) AWS
6 23 (4.58%) Entra ID
7 21 (4.18%) Dynamics 365
8 15 (2.99%) Power Automate
9 14 (2.79%) PowerApps
10 9 (1.79%) OneDrive
10 9 (1.79%) Serverless
11 8 (1.59%) Azure Data Factory
11 8 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (1.39%) GCP
13 6 (1.20%) Google Workspace
14 5 (1.00%) Amazon S3
14 5 (1.00%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (1.00%) Azure Sentinel
14 5 (1.00%) OCI
15 4 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 31 (6.18%) VPN
2 25 (4.98%) DNS
3 23 (4.58%) DHCP
3 23 (4.58%) Internet
4 21 (4.18%) WAN
4 21 (4.18%) Wi-Fi
5 15 (2.99%) Firewall
5 15 (2.99%) LAN
6 11 (2.19%) VoIP
6 11 (2.19%) Wireless
7 9 (1.79%) ADSL
7 9 (1.79%) Ethernet
7 9 (1.79%) SD-WAN
7 9 (1.79%) VDSL
8 7 (1.39%) VLAN
9 5 (1.00%) Broadband
9 5 (1.00%) PBX
9 5 (1.00%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.60%) Bluetooth
11 2 (0.40%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (7.57%) Power BI
2 32 (6.37%) SQL Server
3 16 (3.19%) Relational Database
4 13 (2.59%) MySQL
5 11 (2.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 10 (1.99%) Oracle Reports
7 9 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.79%) Tableau
8 8 (1.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (1.20%) Crystal Reports
10 5 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (1.00%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.00%) GIS
11 4 (0.80%) BusinessObjects
11 4 (0.80%) Metadata
12 3 (0.60%) Redis
12 3 (0.60%) TimescaleDB
13 2 (0.40%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.40%) Power Query
13 2 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (3.98%) JIRA
2 16 (3.19%) Git
3 7 (1.39%) JUnit
4 6 (1.20%) Maven
4 6 (1.20%) Mockito
5 5 (1.00%) GitLab
5 5 (1.00%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.60%) Appcelerator Titanium
7 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.20%) Babel
8 1 (0.20%) Balsamiq
8 1 (0.20%) Cucumber
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
1 246 (49.00%) Social Skills
2 133 (26.49%) Analytical Skills
3 122 (24.30%) Finance
4 72 (14.34%) Manufacturing
5 36 (7.17%) Organisational Skills
6 35 (6.97%) Legal
7 34 (6.77%) Law
7 34 (6.77%) Public Sector
8 30 (5.98%) Retail
9 29 (5.78%) Marketing
10 15 (2.99%) Telecoms
11 13 (2.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (2.39%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (2.19%) Banking
14 8 (1.59%) Electronics
15 7 (1.39%) Aerospace
15 7 (1.39%) Automotive
16 6 (1.20%) Advertising
17 5 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
18 4 (0.80%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 94 (18.73%) Support Engineer
2 76 (15.14%) Analyst
3 68 (13.55%) IT Support
4 53 (10.56%) Lead
5 52 (10.36%) Developer
6 49 (9.76%) IT Engineer
6 49 (9.76%) Technical Support
7 47 (9.36%) Technical Engineer
8 46 (9.16%) Technical Support Engineer
9 41 (8.17%) Senior
10 39 (7.77%) IT Support Engineer
11 28 (5.58%) Support Analyst
12 20 (3.98%) Applications Support
12 20 (3.98%) Architect
12 20 (3.98%) Business Analyst
13 15 (2.99%) Administrator
13 15 (2.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 14 (2.79%) 2nd Line Support
14 14 (2.79%) Senior Analyst
15 13 (2.59%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (5.18%) .NET
2 25 (4.98%) REST
3 21 (4.18%) React
4 15 (2.99%) AngularJS
4 15 (2.99%) JSON
5 11 (2.19%) Razor View Engine
6 7 (1.39%) HTML
7 6 (1.20%) LAMP
7 6 (1.20%) Node.js
8 5 (1.00%) CSS
8 5 (1.00%) Vue
9 4 (0.80%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (0.80%) RESTful
9 4 (0.80%) Web Services
9 4 (0.80%) WPF
10 3 (0.60%) .NET Framework
10 3 (0.60%) ODBC
10 3 (0.60%) React Native
10 3 (0.60%) Spring
10 3 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (8.76%) Onboarding
2 36 (7.17%) Self-Motivation
3 34 (6.77%) Driving Licence
4 21 (4.18%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.99%) FMCG
6 13 (2.59%) Social Media
7 12 (2.39%) Operational Technology
8 11 (2.19%) Product Ownership
9 9 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
9 9 (1.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 9 (1.79%) IoT
9 9 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.39%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (1.20%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.20%) PDA
12 4 (0.80%) EPoS
12 4 (0.80%) Mobile App
12 4 (0.80%) Reference Data
12 4 (0.80%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 61 (12.15%) Windows
2 17 (3.39%) Linux
3 14 (2.79%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.99%) Apple iOS
5 7 (1.39%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.80%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.40%) Android
7 2 (0.40%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (18.13%) Continuous Improvement
2 72 (14.34%) Agile
3 68 (13.55%) Project Management
4 55 (10.96%) Customer Service
5 54 (10.76%) ITIL
6 50 (9.96%) Decision-Making
7 48 (9.56%) Business Intelligence
8 46 (9.16%) CRM
9 45 (8.96%) Analytics
10 39 (7.77%) Mentoring
11 38 (7.57%) Roadmaps
12 35 (6.97%) Customer Experience
13 34 (6.77%) ERP
13 34 (6.77%) Migration
14 33 (6.57%) Computer Science
15 32 (6.37%) Service Delivery
16 29 (5.78%) Coaching
17 28 (5.58%) Stakeholder Management
18 27 (5.38%) Data Analysis
18 27 (5.38%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 95 (18.92%) SQL
2 39 (7.77%) Python
3 35 (6.97%) C#
4 32 (6.37%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.78%) PowerShell
6 22 (4.38%) Java
7 15 (2.99%) PHP
8 11 (2.19%) T-SQL
9 8 (1.59%) Bash
9 8 (1.59%) C
9 8 (1.59%) Ladder Logic
10 7 (1.39%) TypeScript
11 6 (1.20%) PL/SQL
12 5 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 5 (1.00%) R
13 4 (0.80%) C++
14 3 (0.60%) Delphi
14 3 (0.60%) VB.NET
15 2 (0.40%) Google Apps Script
15 2 (0.40%) XAML
Qualifications
1 92 (18.33%) Degree
2 56 (11.16%) Security Cleared
3 38 (7.57%) SC Cleared
4 19 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (3.59%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (3.39%) DBS Check
7 16 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (2.19%) Master's Degree
9 8 (1.59%) A+ Certification
9 8 (1.59%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (1.39%) ACCA
10 7 (1.39%) CIMA
11 5 (1.00%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 4 (0.80%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.80%) CIPD
12 4 (0.80%) MCITP
12 4 (0.80%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (0.60%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 3 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 3 (0.60%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (5.18%) Data Quality
2 21 (4.18%) QA
3 15 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (2.79%) GDPR
5 6 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 6 (1.20%) NIST
5 6 (1.20%) SLA
6 5 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 3 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.60%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.40%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 1 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.20%) COBIT
9 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.20%) PMO
9 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 36 (7.17%) Active Directory
2 19 (3.78%) Docker
3 6 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.60%) Firmware
5 2 (0.40%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 19 (3.78%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (1.99%) Terraform
4 5 (1.00%) Ansible
5 3 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.40%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.40%) Grafana
6 2 (0.40%) Nagios
6 2 (0.40%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.20%) Argo
7 1 (0.20%) AWS Copilot
7 1 (0.20%) SCCM
7 1 (0.20%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 149 (29.68%) Microsoft
2 37 (7.37%) Oracle
3 28 (5.58%) SAP
4 13 (2.59%) Salesforce
5 12 (2.39%) Cisco
6 9 (1.79%) Databricks
6 9 (1.79%) Google
6 9 (1.79%) Sage
7 7 (1.39%) Infor
7 7 (1.39%) Meraki
7 7 (1.39%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.20%) VMware
9 5 (1.00%) Epicor
9 5 (1.00%) HP
9 5 (1.00%) Panasonic
9 5 (1.00%) Samsung
9 5 (1.00%) Zscaler
10 4 (0.80%) Avaya
10 4 (0.80%) Dell
10 4 (0.80%) SolarWinds