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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 815 628 921
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 9.02% 19.19% 16.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.99% 22.04% 19.79%
Number of salaries quoted 543 396 302
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £26,750
25th Percentile £32,750 £29,625 £37,813
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - -15.00% -
75th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £46,000 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.22% -14.29% -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 6,274 2,849 4,653
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 69.43% 87.05% 80.92%
Number of salaries quoted 4,576 1,745 2,261
10th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,009 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +5.82%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -2.44%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -4 294 £55,000 +22.22% 262
Staffordshire -3 112 £44,250 -1.67% 114
Warwickshire -4 84 £40,000 -27.27% 115
Shropshire +2 72 £42,500 -10.53% 58
Worcestershire -3 66 £40,000 +31.15% 71
Coventry -5 40 £42,500 +34.92% 71
Wolverhampton +8 17 £49,250 -24.23% 28
Solihull +2 16 £31,000 -6.77% 34
Herefordshire -22 10 £29,750 -15.00% 24
Walsall -2 7 £40,000 -11.11% 7
Dudley - 7 £34,500 - 8
Sutton Coldfield - 5 £42,500 -
Tipton - 5 £33,500 - 10
Willenhall -2 4 £37,500 -16.67% 2
Halesowen -4 4 £47,500 +46.15%
Smethwick - 1 £37,500 - 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 44 (5.40%) SharePoint
2 31 (3.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.23%) IIS
4 7 (0.86%) Confluence
5 6 (0.74%) CICS
6 4 (0.49%) WordPress
7 3 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.37%) CMS
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.37%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.25%) Documentum
8 2 (0.25%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) Apache
9 1 (0.12%) Appian
9 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 69 (8.47%) Microsoft Office
2 57 (6.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.35%) Simulink
4 8 (0.98%) OrCAD
5 6 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 3 (0.37%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.25%) EPLAN
8 2 (0.25%) Fusion 360
8 2 (0.25%) Revit
8 2 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.12%) LaTeX
9 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
9 1 (0.12%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.12%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.12%) SketchUp
9 1 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 10 (1.23%) NetSuite
2 9 (1.10%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.74%) Magento
3 6 (0.74%) Shopify
4 4 (0.49%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.49%) Sage 50
4 4 (0.49%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.37%) Line 50
5 3 (0.37%) Oracle Cash Management
5 3 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.37%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.37%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.25%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 2 (0.25%) SAP Business One
7 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 157 (19.26%) Azure
2 136 (16.69%) Microsoft 365
3 95 (11.66%) Power Platform
4 63 (7.73%) Entra ID
5 55 (6.75%) AWS
6 47 (5.77%) SaaS
7 31 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (2.82%) Dynamics 365
9 19 (2.33%) GitHub
10 17 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (2.09%) Microsoft Purview
11 16 (1.96%) Power Automate
12 14 (1.72%) GCP
13 13 (1.60%) PowerApps
14 11 (1.35%) Google Workspace
14 11 (1.35%) PaaS
15 10 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
15 10 (1.23%) OneDrive
16 8 (0.98%) Google Analytics
17 7 (0.86%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 30 (3.68%) Firewall
1 30 (3.68%) VPN
2 29 (3.56%) DNS
3 26 (3.19%) TCP/IP
3 26 (3.19%) WAN
4 22 (2.70%) LAN
5 21 (2.58%) DHCP
5 21 (2.58%) Wireless
6 16 (1.96%) Wi-Fi
7 13 (1.60%) VLAN
8 12 (1.47%) Network Security
9 9 (1.10%) Wireshark
10 8 (0.98%) VoIP
11 6 (0.74%) Cisco IOS
11 6 (0.74%) Internet
12 5 (0.61%) SD-WAN
13 4 (0.49%) Bluetooth
14 3 (0.37%) 5G
14 3 (0.37%) Skype
14 3 (0.37%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (11.04%) Power BI
2 34 (4.17%) SQL Server
3 23 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (2.70%) Relational Database
4 22 (2.70%) Tableau
5 17 (2.09%) Power Query
6 14 (1.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 11 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (1.23%) Data Mining
8 10 (1.23%) MySQL
8 10 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 9 (1.10%) Data Lake
10 8 (0.98%) Electronic Patient Records
10 8 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
11 7 (0.86%) PostgreSQL
12 6 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
12 6 (0.74%) Db2
13 5 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.61%) Big Data
13 5 (0.61%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 30 (3.68%) Git
2 28 (3.44%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.07%) JIRA
4 9 (1.10%) Eclipse
5 8 (0.98%) GitLab
6 7 (0.86%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.74%) JMeter
7 6 (0.74%) Maven
7 6 (0.74%) Postman
7 6 (0.74%) Selenium
8 5 (0.61%) JUnit
8 5 (0.61%) SoapUI
8 5 (0.61%) Zephyr
9 3 (0.37%) Mockito
10 2 (0.25%) Ant
10 2 (0.25%) Apache Ivy
10 2 (0.25%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.12%) Bugzilla
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
11 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio
General
1 401 (49.20%) Social Skills
2 214 (26.26%) Analytical Skills
3 130 (15.95%) Manufacturing
4 126 (15.46%) Finance
5 74 (9.08%) Organisational Skills
6 59 (7.24%) Public Sector
7 58 (7.12%) Retail
8 39 (4.79%) Marketing
9 35 (4.29%) Electronics
10 23 (2.82%) Automotive
11 22 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 20 (2.45%) Law
12 20 (2.45%) Legal
13 16 (1.96%) Telecoms
14 15 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (1.35%) Billing
16 10 (1.23%) Fire and Rescue
17 9 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.98%) Banking
18 8 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 94 (11.53%) Support Engineer
2 83 (10.18%) Analyst
3 71 (8.71%) Developer
4 66 (8.10%) IT Support
4 66 (8.10%) Technical Support
5 63 (7.73%) Lead
6 58 (7.12%) Technical Engineer
7 56 (6.87%) Technical Support Engineer
8 55 (6.75%) Consultant
9 53 (6.50%) Senior
10 48 (5.89%) IT Engineer
11 36 (4.42%) IT Support Engineer
12 32 (3.93%) IT Manager
13 31 (3.80%) Administrator
14 28 (3.44%) Support Analyst
15 22 (2.70%) Architect
16 18 (2.21%) 2nd Line Support
16 18 (2.21%) Electronics Engineer
16 18 (2.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 16 (1.96%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (4.91%) REST
2 39 (4.79%) .NET
3 30 (3.68%) Spring
4 27 (3.31%) Spring Boot
5 24 (2.94%) React
6 16 (1.96%) ISPF
7 14 (1.72%) Playwright
7 14 (1.72%) RESTful
7 14 (1.72%) SOAP
8 12 (1.47%) AngularJS
9 11 (1.35%) CSS
9 11 (1.35%) HTML
9 11 (1.35%) Terraform
10 10 (1.23%) XML
11 8 (0.98%) LDAP
11 8 (0.98%) SAP Fiori
11 8 (0.98%) Web Services
12 7 (0.86%) Node.js
13 6 (0.74%) JSON
13 6 (0.74%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 79 (9.69%) Driving Licence
2 47 (5.77%) Onboarding
3 43 (5.28%) Enterprise Software
3 43 (5.28%) Self-Motivation
4 41 (5.03%) Management Information System
5 19 (2.33%) NHS
6 17 (2.09%) Data Centre
7 16 (1.96%) Legacy Applications
7 16 (1.96%) Mainframe
7 16 (1.96%) Virtual Team
8 15 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
8 15 (1.84%) Social Media
9 13 (1.60%) Cloud Native
10 12 (1.47%) Data Structures
11 11 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
11 11 (1.35%) Mobile App
11 11 (1.35%) Public Cloud
11 11 (1.35%) Robotics
12 10 (1.23%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 133 (16.32%) Windows
2 48 (5.89%) Windows Server
3 38 (4.66%) Linux
4 21 (2.58%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.47%) Android
6 8 (0.98%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.98%) Unix
7 6 (0.74%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.49%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.37%) Solaris
10 2 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.12%) AIX
11 1 (0.12%) CentOS
11 1 (0.12%) Debian
11 1 (0.12%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (28.96%) Continuous Improvement
2 163 (20.00%) Customer Service
3 121 (14.85%) Agile
4 98 (12.02%) Decision-Making
5 96 (11.78%) Business Intelligence
6 93 (11.41%) Analytics
7 82 (10.06%) Mentoring
8 78 (9.57%) ERP
9 77 (9.45%) AI
10 74 (9.08%) Collaborative Working
10 74 (9.08%) Stakeholder Management
11 63 (7.73%) CI/CD
11 63 (7.73%) CRM
11 63 (7.73%) Cybersecurity
12 61 (7.48%) Collaborative Culture
13 60 (7.36%) Customer Experience
14 59 (7.24%) Project Delivery
15 58 (7.12%) Validation
16 57 (6.99%) Project Management
17 56 (6.87%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 130 (15.95%) SQL
2 68 (8.34%) Java
3 53 (6.50%) Python
4 29 (3.56%) PowerShell
5 26 (3.19%) C#
5 26 (3.19%) JavaScript
6 19 (2.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 17 (2.09%) C
7 17 (2.09%) Embedded C
8 16 (1.96%) COBOL
8 16 (1.96%) JCL
8 16 (1.96%) Ladder Logic
9 13 (1.60%) TypeScript
10 11 (1.35%) MATLAB
11 8 (0.98%) R
12 7 (0.86%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.86%) RPG
13 6 (0.74%) ABAP
14 5 (0.61%) Ruby
15 4 (0.49%) Bash
Qualifications
1 125 (15.34%) Degree
2 79 (9.69%) Security Cleared
3 64 (7.85%) SC Cleared
4 22 (2.70%) Azure Certification
5 19 (2.33%) HNC
6 17 (2.09%) DBS Check
6 17 (2.09%) HND
7 12 (1.47%) PMI Certification
8 11 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (1.10%) CCNA
10 8 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (0.86%) ACCA
11 7 (0.86%) NVQ Level 3
12 6 (0.74%) CCNP
12 6 (0.74%) CIMA
12 6 (0.74%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.61%) ISEB
13 5 (0.61%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (6.01%) Data Quality
2 37 (4.54%) QA
3 33 (4.05%) GDPR
4 25 (3.07%) Cyber Essentials
5 22 (2.70%) SLA
6 20 (2.45%) Accessibility
7 19 (2.33%) ISO 9001
8 17 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 8 (0.98%) ISO 14001
10 5 (0.61%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.49%) GMP
11 4 (0.49%) PMO
12 3 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.37%) AQAP
12 3 (0.37%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.37%) NIST
13 2 (0.25%) Automotive SPICE
13 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.25%) GRC
13 2 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 90 (11.04%) Active Directory
2 25 (3.07%) Hyper-V
3 18 (2.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.96%) Docker
5 15 (1.84%) Firmware
6 13 (1.60%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.49%) vSphere
10 2 (0.25%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 34 (4.17%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (1.47%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.74%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.61%) SCCM
6 4 (0.49%) Ansible
7 3 (0.37%) Backup Exec
7 3 (0.37%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.37%) Puppet
8 2 (0.25%) Grafana
8 2 (0.25%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.25%) WSUS
9 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.12%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.12%) Nagios
9 1 (0.12%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 237 (29.08%) Microsoft
2 38 (4.66%) SAP
3 32 (3.93%) Workday
4 24 (2.94%) VMware
5 21 (2.58%) Google
6 19 (2.33%) Cisco
6 19 (2.33%) Oracle
7 17 (2.09%) Sage
8 14 (1.72%) ServiceNow
9 13 (1.60%) Salesforce
10 11 (1.35%) HubSpot
11 10 (1.23%) Broadcom
11 10 (1.23%) Databricks
12 9 (1.10%) Apple
12 9 (1.10%) EMC
13 7 (0.86%) Dell
13 7 (0.86%) IBM
13 7 (0.86%) Sophos
13 7 (0.86%) Veeam
14 6 (0.74%) Pega