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

6 months to
31 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 502 832 773
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 9.05% 20.47% 15.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.21% 22.09% 17.74%
Number of salaries quoted 383 331 627
10th Percentile £26,250 £31,500 £25,400
25th Percentile £30,250 £42,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £55,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% +29.41% -15.08%
75th Percentile £58,375 £66,125 £58,125
90th Percentile £73,750 £97,500 £70,000
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +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 4,478 3,767 4,358
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 80.77% 92.67% 86.85%
Number of salaries quoted 2,351 1,679 3,619
10th Percentile £29,000 £32,500 £26,450
25th Percentile £38,750 £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 £70,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £82,500 £82,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £61,206 £57,500
% change year-on-year -10.14% +6.45% -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 31 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 31 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 -13 152 £47,085 -18.82% 86
Staffordshire -10 104 £31,500 -37.00% 30
Warwickshire -13 51 £33,490 -33.02% 84
Shropshire -10 38 £47,500 -13.64% 25
Worcestershire -14 32 £35,000 -46.15% 19
Herefordshire +5 25 £50,000 +90.83% 10
Solihull -1 22 £87,500 +59.09% 4
Coventry -8 18 £64,290 +11.81% 18
Halesowen -1 12 £32,500 -
Walsall -2 5 £45,000 +42.86% 2
Wednesbury -3 4 £42,500 -5.56%
Wolverhampton -16 3 £80,000 +77.78% 9
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67%
Dudley -6 2 £75,000 +114.29% 3
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 (7.57%) SharePoint
2 17 (3.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.59%) IIS
4 6 (1.20%) Apache
4 6 (1.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.60%) Confluence
6 2 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2007
6 2 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) Appian
7 1 (0.20%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.20%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.20%) SAS
7 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 47 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (5.78%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (2.59%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.59%) AutoCAD
4 8 (1.59%) SOLIDWORKS
5 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 4 (0.80%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.60%) Trello
9 1 (0.20%) Abaqus
9 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
1 109 (21.71%) Azure
2 76 (15.14%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (8.76%) Power Platform
4 39 (7.77%) SaaS
5 33 (6.57%) AWS
6 19 (3.78%) Dynamics 365
7 18 (3.59%) Entra ID
8 14 (2.79%) Power Automate
9 13 (2.59%) PowerApps
10 8 (1.59%) Azure Data Factory
10 8 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.59%) Serverless
11 7 (1.39%) GCP
11 7 (1.39%) OneDrive
12 5 (1.00%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.00%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (1.00%) OCI
13 4 (0.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 4 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 29 (5.78%) VPN
2 25 (4.98%) DNS
3 23 (4.58%) Internet
4 22 (4.38%) DHCP
5 20 (3.98%) WAN
5 20 (3.98%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (2.79%) Firewall
6 14 (2.79%) LAN
7 11 (2.19%) VoIP
7 11 (2.19%) Wireless
8 9 (1.79%) ADSL
8 9 (1.79%) Ethernet
8 9 (1.79%) SD-WAN
8 9 (1.79%) VDSL
9 7 (1.39%) VLAN
10 6 (1.20%) Broadband
11 5 (1.00%) PBX
11 5 (1.00%) TCP/IP
12 3 (0.60%) Bluetooth
13 1 (0.20%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (7.37%) Power BI
2 33 (6.57%) SQL Server
3 17 (3.39%) Relational Database
4 13 (2.59%) MySQL
5 11 (2.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 10 (1.99%) Oracle Reports
6 10 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.79%) Tableau
8 8 (1.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 7 (1.39%) GIS
10 6 (1.20%) Crystal Reports
11 5 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (1.00%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.80%) BusinessObjects
12 4 (0.80%) Metadata
13 3 (0.60%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.60%) Redis
13 3 (0.60%) TimescaleDB
14 2 (0.40%) Data Lake
14 2 (0.40%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 21 (4.18%) JIRA
2 15 (2.99%) 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%) MLflow
8 1 (0.20%) Selenium
8 1 (0.20%) Snyk
8 1 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.20%) Subversion
8 1 (0.20%) Vagrant
8 1 (0.20%) Vite
8 1 (0.20%) webpack
General
1 242 (48.21%) Social Skills
2 132 (26.29%) Analytical Skills
3 121 (24.10%) Finance
4 71 (14.14%) Manufacturing
5 38 (7.57%) Legal
6 34 (6.77%) Organisational Skills
6 34 (6.77%) Public Sector
7 33 (6.57%) Law
8 30 (5.98%) Retail
9 29 (5.78%) Marketing
10 15 (2.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 15 (2.99%) Telecoms
11 13 (2.59%) Presentation Skills
12 11 (2.19%) Banking
13 8 (1.59%) Electronics
14 7 (1.39%) Aerospace
14 7 (1.39%) Automotive
14 7 (1.39%) Fire and Rescue
15 5 (1.00%) Advertising
15 5 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 88 (17.53%) Support Engineer
2 76 (15.14%) Analyst
3 65 (12.95%) IT Support
4 54 (10.76%) Developer
5 51 (10.16%) Lead
6 49 (9.76%) Technical Support
7 48 (9.56%) Technical Engineer
8 46 (9.16%) Technical Support Engineer
9 42 (8.37%) IT Engineer
10 41 (8.17%) Senior
11 32 (6.37%) IT Support Engineer
12 28 (5.58%) Support Analyst
13 20 (3.98%) Applications Support
14 19 (3.78%) Architect
14 19 (3.78%) Business Analyst
15 18 (3.59%) 2nd Line Support
16 15 (2.99%) Administrator
17 13 (2.59%) Senior Analyst
18 12 (2.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 12 (2.39%) Instructor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (5.18%) .NET
2 25 (4.98%) REST
3 22 (4.38%) React
4 15 (2.99%) AngularJS
4 15 (2.99%) JSON
5 11 (2.19%) Razor View Engine
6 9 (1.79%) HTML
7 6 (1.20%) CSS
7 6 (1.20%) LAMP
7 6 (1.20%) Node.js
8 5 (1.00%) Vue
9 4 (0.80%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (0.80%) RESTful
9 4 (0.80%) Spring
9 4 (0.80%) Web Services
9 4 (0.80%) WPF
10 3 (0.60%) .NET Framework
10 3 (0.60%) EDI
10 3 (0.60%) ODBC
10 3 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (8.96%) Onboarding
2 34 (6.77%) Self-Motivation
3 33 (6.57%) Driving Licence
4 21 (4.18%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.99%) FMCG
6 13 (2.59%) Social Media
7 12 (2.39%) Product Ownership
8 11 (2.19%) Operational Technology
9 10 (1.99%) Analytical Mindset
10 9 (1.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 9 (1.79%) IoT
10 9 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (1.39%) Linux Command Line
11 7 (1.39%) SCADA
12 6 (1.20%) PDA
13 4 (0.80%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.80%) EPoS
13 4 (0.80%) Reference Data
13 4 (0.80%) Virtual Team
13 4 (0.80%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 61 (12.15%) Windows
2 18 (3.59%) Linux
3 14 (2.79%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.99%) Apple iOS
5 6 (1.20%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.40%) Android
6 2 (0.40%) Unix
6 2 (0.40%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.20%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
2 74 (14.74%) Agile
3 69 (13.75%) Project Management
4 57 (11.35%) Customer Service
5 53 (10.56%) ITIL
6 50 (9.96%) Decision-Making
7 47 (9.36%) Business Intelligence
8 46 (9.16%) CRM
9 43 (8.57%) Analytics
10 40 (7.97%) Roadmaps
11 37 (7.37%) Mentoring
12 34 (6.77%) Customer Experience
12 34 (6.77%) ERP
13 33 (6.57%) Migration
14 32 (6.37%) Computer Science
14 32 (6.37%) Service Delivery
15 29 (5.78%) Coaching
15 29 (5.78%) Data Analysis
16 27 (5.38%) Process Improvement
16 27 (5.38%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 96 (19.12%) SQL
2 42 (8.37%) Python
3 36 (7.17%) C#
4 32 (6.37%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.78%) Java
5 24 (4.78%) PowerShell
6 15 (2.99%) PHP
7 11 (2.19%) T-SQL
8 8 (1.59%) Bash
8 8 (1.59%) C
9 7 (1.39%) Ladder Logic
9 7 (1.39%) TypeScript
10 6 (1.20%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.00%) R
12 4 (0.80%) C++
13 3 (0.60%) Delphi
13 3 (0.60%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.40%) Google Apps Script
14 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 17 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (3.39%) DBS Check
6 15 (2.99%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (2.19%) Master's Degree
8 8 (1.59%) ACCA
8 8 (1.59%) CIMA
8 8 (1.59%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 6 (1.20%) A+ Certification
10 5 (1.00%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 4 (0.80%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.80%) CIPD
11 4 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.80%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.60%) CISSP
12 3 (0.60%) DV Cleared
12 3 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (5.18%) Data Quality
2 21 (4.18%) QA
3 14 (2.79%) GDPR
4 13 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (1.39%) SLA
6 6 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (1.20%) NIST
7 5 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 3 (0.60%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.40%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (0.40%) PMO
10 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.20%) SOC 2
System Software
1 32 (6.37%) Active Directory
2 18 (3.59%) Docker
3 4 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.60%) Firmware
5 2 (0.40%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 18 (3.59%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.99%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (1.99%) Terraform
4 4 (0.80%) Ansible
5 3 (0.60%) Nagios
5 3 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.40%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.40%) Grafana
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
1 147 (29.28%) Microsoft
2 38 (7.57%) Oracle
3 28 (5.58%) SAP
4 13 (2.59%) Salesforce
5 11 (2.19%) Cisco
6 10 (1.99%) Databricks
7 9 (1.79%) Sage
8 7 (1.39%) Google
8 7 (1.39%) Infor
8 7 (1.39%) Meraki
8 7 (1.39%) ServiceNow
9 5 (1.00%) Epicor
9 5 (1.00%) Panasonic
9 5 (1.00%) Samsung
9 5 (1.00%) Zscaler
10 4 (0.80%) Avaya
10 4 (0.80%) SolarWinds
10 4 (0.80%) VMware
11 3 (0.60%) Cognos
12 2 (0.40%) HP