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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -22 +4 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 505 768 967
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 7.62% 21.30% 15.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.80% 22.95% 18.31%
Number of salaries quoted 372 394 758
10th Percentile £26,250 £29,250 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,250 £38,750 £29,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £53,688 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -20.84% +26.32% -15.08%
75th Percentile £58,750 £65,000 £57,500
90th Percentile £73,675 £85,000 £67,500
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 5,151 3,346 5,281
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 77.75% 92.82% 85.01%
Number of salaries quoted 2,845 1,735 4,197
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £39,000 £41,250 £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 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £82,500 £82,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +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 15 March 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 15 March 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 -11 163 £47,500 -18.10% 93
Staffordshire -9 97 £30,750 -38.50% 38
Warwickshire -14 62 £32,500 -27.78% 40
Worcestershire -17 37 £37,500 -23.48% 27
Shropshire -13 32 £47,500 +8.57% 21
Herefordshire -4 24 £52,500 +4.48% 4
Coventry -16 19 £67,500 +12.97% 14
Solihull -4 16 £87,500 +59.09% 7
Halesowen -4 7 £32,500 -
Dudley -4 5 £75,000 +114.29% 3
Walsall -2 4 £44,000 +4.76% 2
Wednesbury -5 4 £42,500 -5.56%
Wolverhampton -24 3 £80,000 +146.15% 4
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67% 1
Sutton Coldfield -7 1 £28,000 -
Tipton -7 1 £34,500 -
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 40 (7.92%) SharePoint
2 24 (4.75%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.19%) Exchange Server 2007
3 6 (1.19%) Exchange Server 2010
3 6 (1.19%) Exchange Server 2013
3 6 (1.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 5 (0.99%) IIS
5 4 (0.79%) Apache
6 2 (0.40%) Confluence
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.20%) SAS
7 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 37 (7.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (6.93%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (2.57%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.58%) AutoCAD
5 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (1.39%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 4 (0.79%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.40%) Trello
9 1 (0.20%) Abaqus
9 1 (0.20%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 18 (3.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.39%) NetSuite
3 3 (0.59%) Dynamics NAV
3 3 (0.59%) SAP Business ByDesign
4 2 (0.40%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
4 2 (0.40%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.20%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.20%) Raiser’s Edge
5 1 (0.20%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.20%) SAP Business One
5 1 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.20%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 122 (24.16%) Azure
2 97 (19.21%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (8.71%) Power Platform
4 37 (7.33%) AWS
4 37 (7.33%) SaaS
5 34 (6.73%) Entra ID
6 20 (3.96%) Dynamics 365
7 16 (3.17%) Power Automate
8 15 (2.97%) PowerApps
9 11 (2.18%) OneDrive
10 9 (1.78%) Azure Data Factory
10 9 (1.78%) Google Workspace
10 9 (1.78%) Serverless
11 7 (1.39%) GCP
12 5 (0.99%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.99%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (0.99%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (0.99%) OCI
13 4 (0.79%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (6.34%) VPN
2 25 (4.95%) DNS
2 25 (4.95%) Internet
3 24 (4.75%) WAN
4 23 (4.55%) DHCP
5 18 (3.56%) Firewall
5 18 (3.56%) LAN
5 18 (3.56%) Wi-Fi
6 9 (1.78%) SD-WAN
7 8 (1.58%) VoIP
8 7 (1.39%) VLAN
8 7 (1.39%) Wireless
9 6 (1.19%) ADSL
9 6 (1.19%) Broadband
9 6 (1.19%) Ethernet
9 6 (1.19%) VDSL
10 5 (0.99%) Network Security
10 5 (0.99%) TCP/IP
11 2 (0.40%) NAS
11 2 (0.40%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (7.52%) Power BI
2 20 (3.96%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.98%) MySQL
3 10 (1.98%) Oracle Reports
3 10 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.98%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 8 (1.58%) Relational Database
5 7 (1.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 7 (1.39%) Tableau
6 5 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.99%) Crystal Reports
6 5 (0.99%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (0.99%) Power Query
7 4 (0.79%) Metadata
7 4 (0.79%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.79%) Redis
7 4 (0.79%) TimescaleDB
8 3 (0.59%) Data Mining
8 3 (0.59%) GIS
8 3 (0.59%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (3.96%) JIRA
2 18 (3.56%) Git
3 7 (1.39%) JUnit
4 6 (1.19%) Maven
4 6 (1.19%) Mockito
5 5 (0.99%) GitLab
5 5 (0.99%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.59%) 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%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.20%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.20%) MLflow
8 1 (0.20%) Postman
8 1 (0.20%) Snyk
8 1 (0.20%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.20%) Vite
8 1 (0.20%) webpack
General
1 240 (47.52%) Social Skills
2 149 (29.50%) Analytical Skills
3 114 (22.57%) Finance
4 58 (11.49%) Manufacturing
5 42 (8.32%) Organisational Skills
6 39 (7.72%) Legal
7 34 (6.73%) Law
8 32 (6.34%) Public Sector
9 27 (5.35%) Retail
10 21 (4.16%) Marketing
11 12 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (2.18%) Banking
12 11 (2.18%) Presentation Skills
13 10 (1.98%) Automotive
14 9 (1.78%) Telecoms
15 7 (1.39%) Aerospace
16 6 (1.19%) Advertising
16 6 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
17 5 (0.99%) Games
18 4 (0.79%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 90 (17.82%) Analyst
2 85 (16.83%) Support Engineer
3 74 (14.65%) IT Support
4 56 (11.09%) IT Engineer
5 47 (9.31%) Lead
6 46 (9.11%) IT Support Engineer
7 44 (8.71%) Developer
7 44 (8.71%) Senior
8 39 (7.72%) Technical Support
9 36 (7.13%) Technical Engineer
9 36 (7.13%) Technical Support Engineer
10 31 (6.14%) Support Analyst
11 21 (4.16%) Architect
11 21 (4.16%) Business Analyst
11 21 (4.16%) Senior Analyst
12 18 (3.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 17 (3.37%) Applications Support
13 17 (3.37%) Instructor
14 16 (3.17%) Consultant
15 14 (2.77%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.76%) .NET
2 17 (3.37%) REST
3 16 (3.17%) React
4 7 (1.39%) JSON
4 7 (1.39%) Node.js
5 6 (1.19%) AngularJS
5 6 (1.19%) HTML
6 5 (0.99%) .NET Framework
6 5 (0.99%) CSS
6 5 (0.99%) Vue
7 4 (0.79%) LAMP
7 4 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
7 4 (0.79%) WPF
8 3 (0.59%) ODBC
8 3 (0.59%) Razor View Engine
8 3 (0.59%) RESTful
8 3 (0.59%) Spring
8 3 (0.59%) Web Services
8 3 (0.59%) WinForms
8 3 (0.59%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (7.33%) Driving Licence
2 34 (6.73%) Onboarding
3 29 (5.74%) Self-Motivation
4 23 (4.55%) Management Information System
5 19 (3.76%) Social Media
6 15 (2.97%) FMCG
7 11 (2.18%) Product Ownership
8 10 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (1.78%) IoT
10 8 (1.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 8 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (1.39%) Cyber Defence
12 6 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
13 5 (0.99%) Data Centre
13 5 (0.99%) Data Structures
13 5 (0.99%) EPoS
13 5 (0.99%) Linux Command Line
14 4 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
14 4 (0.79%) Mobile App
14 4 (0.79%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 70 (13.86%) Windows
2 19 (3.76%) Windows 10
3 18 (3.56%) Linux
4 10 (1.98%) Apple iOS
5 8 (1.58%) Windows Server
6 6 (1.19%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.40%) Android
7 2 (0.40%) Unix
8 1 (0.20%) CentOS
8 1 (0.20%) Debian
8 1 (0.20%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (18.81%) Continuous Improvement
2 79 (15.64%) Agile
3 63 (12.48%) Project Management
4 55 (10.89%) ITIL
5 54 (10.69%) Customer Service
6 53 (10.50%) Decision-Making
7 52 (10.30%) Analytics
8 49 (9.70%) Mentoring
9 45 (8.91%) Business Intelligence
10 43 (8.51%) CRM
11 41 (8.12%) Coaching
12 40 (7.92%) ERP
13 38 (7.52%) Roadmaps
14 37 (7.33%) Migration
15 33 (6.53%) Time Management
16 32 (6.34%) Customer Experience
17 31 (6.14%) Cybersecurity
18 30 (5.94%) Computer Science
18 30 (5.94%) Stakeholder Management
19 28 (5.54%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 82 (16.24%) SQL
2 33 (6.53%) Python
3 24 (4.75%) JavaScript
4 20 (3.96%) Java
5 18 (3.56%) C#
6 16 (3.17%) PowerShell
7 12 (2.38%) T-SQL
8 11 (2.18%) PHP
9 9 (1.78%) Bash
9 9 (1.78%) C
9 9 (1.78%) TypeScript
10 8 (1.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 8 (1.58%) Ladder Logic
11 6 (1.19%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.19%) R
12 4 (0.79%) C++
12 4 (0.79%) Delphi
13 3 (0.59%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.40%) VB
14 2 (0.40%) XAML
Qualifications
1 90 (17.82%) Degree
2 47 (9.31%) Security Cleared
3 33 (6.53%) SC Cleared
4 23 (4.55%) DBS Check
5 21 (4.16%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (2.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (1.98%) A+ Certification
9 8 (1.58%) CISSP
9 8 (1.58%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (1.39%) CISA
10 7 (1.39%) CompTIA Security+
10 7 (1.39%) SSCP
11 6 (1.19%) ACCA
11 6 (1.19%) CIMA
11 6 (1.19%) Master's Degree
11 6 (1.19%) MCITP
12 5 (0.99%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 4 (0.79%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.79%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (5.94%) Data Quality
2 22 (4.36%) QA
3 19 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (3.17%) NIST
5 13 (2.57%) GDPR
6 10 (1.98%) Cyber Essentials
6 10 (1.98%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 7 (1.39%) SLA
8 5 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 3 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.59%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.20%) PMO
11 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.20%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 48 (9.50%) Active Directory
2 21 (4.16%) Docker
3 8 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.40%) Firmware
5 2 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 25 (4.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (3.96%) Kubernetes
3 13 (2.57%) Terraform
4 6 (1.19%) Ansible
5 3 (0.59%) Grafana
5 3 (0.59%) Nagios
5 3 (0.59%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.20%) Argo
7 1 (0.20%) AWS Copilot
7 1 (0.20%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.20%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.20%) Puppet
7 1 (0.20%) SCCM
7 1 (0.20%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 148 (29.31%) Microsoft
2 29 (5.74%) Oracle
3 25 (4.95%) SAP
4 17 (3.37%) Cisco
5 12 (2.38%) Google
6 11 (2.18%) Salesforce
7 9 (1.78%) Databricks
7 9 (1.78%) HP
7 9 (1.78%) Sage
8 8 (1.58%) VMware
9 7 (1.39%) Infor
9 7 (1.39%) Meraki
9 7 (1.39%) ServiceNow
10 6 (1.19%) Dell
11 5 (0.99%) Epicor
11 5 (0.99%) Zscaler
12 4 (0.79%) Avaya
12 4 (0.79%) SolarWinds
13 3 (0.59%) Cognos
14 2 (0.40%) Panasonic