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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -17 +4 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 503 814 823
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 8.92% 20.30% 15.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.08% 21.88% 17.97%
Number of salaries quoted 381 326 663
10th Percentile £26,250 £32,000 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,500 £42,719 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £55,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% +29.41% -16.50%
75th Percentile £58,750 £67,188 £57,500
90th Percentile £73,750 £97,500 £67,500
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -10.71%

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 4,539 3,721 4,579
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 80.48% 92.82% 86.79%
Number of salaries quoted 2,385 1,656 3,775
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 £70,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,205 £55,440
% change year-on-year -11.58% +12.20% -11.30%

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 6 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 6 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 -12 153 £47,085 -18.82% 95
Staffordshire -8 106 £31,500 -37.00% 26
Warwickshire -14 53 £32,500 -35.00% 83
Shropshire -9 39 £47,500 -13.64% 24
Worcestershire -14 31 £37,500 -42.31% 24
Herefordshire +3 26 £51,250 +95.60% 14
Solihull -2 19 £87,500 +59.09% 4
Coventry -11 18 £64,290 +9.90% 20
Halesowen -1 12 £32,500 -
Wednesbury -3 4 £42,500 -5.56%
Walsall -3 3 £45,000 +42.86% 5
Wolverhampton -18 3 £80,000 +77.78% 3
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67%
Dudley -5 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 41 (8.15%) SharePoint
2 20 (3.98%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.58%) IIS
4 6 (1.19%) Apache
4 6 (1.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.60%) Confluence
5 3 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2007
5 3 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.20%) Appian
6 1 (0.20%) HCL Notes
6 1 (0.20%) NServiceBus
6 1 (0.20%) SAS
6 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 45 (8.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (6.36%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (2.58%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.59%) AutoCAD
4 8 (1.59%) SOLIDWORKS
5 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 4 (0.80%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.40%) 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 (21.67%) Azure
2 80 (15.90%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (8.75%) Power Platform
4 37 (7.36%) SaaS
5 32 (6.36%) AWS
6 21 (4.17%) Entra ID
7 19 (3.78%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (2.78%) Power Automate
9 13 (2.58%) PowerApps
10 9 (1.79%) Serverless
11 8 (1.59%) Azure Data Factory
11 8 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.59%) OneDrive
12 7 (1.39%) GCP
13 5 (0.99%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.99%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.99%) Azure Sentinel
13 5 (0.99%) Google Workspace
13 5 (0.99%) OCI
14 4 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 30 (5.96%) VPN
2 25 (4.97%) DNS
3 23 (4.57%) DHCP
3 23 (4.57%) Internet
4 21 (4.17%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (3.98%) WAN
6 15 (2.98%) Firewall
7 14 (2.78%) LAN
8 11 (2.19%) VoIP
8 11 (2.19%) Wireless
9 9 (1.79%) ADSL
9 9 (1.79%) Ethernet
9 9 (1.79%) SD-WAN
9 9 (1.79%) VDSL
10 7 (1.39%) VLAN
11 6 (1.19%) Broadband
12 5 (0.99%) PBX
12 5 (0.99%) TCP/IP
13 3 (0.60%) Bluetooth
14 1 (0.20%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (7.36%) Power BI
2 32 (6.36%) SQL Server
3 16 (3.18%) Relational Database
4 13 (2.58%) 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 (1.19%) Crystal Reports
10 5 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.99%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (0.99%) 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%) MS Access
13 2 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (3.98%) JIRA
2 16 (3.18%) 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 (0.60%) 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
1 244 (48.51%) Social Skills
2 133 (26.44%) Analytical Skills
3 122 (24.25%) Finance
4 72 (14.31%) Manufacturing
5 36 (7.16%) Legal
5 36 (7.16%) Organisational Skills
6 34 (6.76%) Law
6 34 (6.76%) Public Sector
7 30 (5.96%) Marketing
7 30 (5.96%) Retail
8 16 (3.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (2.98%) Telecoms
10 12 (2.39%) Banking
10 12 (2.39%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (1.59%) Electronics
12 7 (1.39%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.39%) Automotive
13 6 (1.19%) Advertising
14 5 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
14 5 (0.99%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 92 (18.29%) Support Engineer
2 75 (14.91%) Analyst
3 67 (13.32%) IT Support
4 52 (10.34%) Developer
4 52 (10.34%) Lead
5 49 (9.74%) Technical Support
6 48 (9.54%) Technical Engineer
7 46 (9.15%) IT Engineer
7 46 (9.15%) Technical Support Engineer
8 42 (8.35%) Senior
9 36 (7.16%) IT Support Engineer
10 28 (5.57%) Support Analyst
11 20 (3.98%) Applications Support
11 20 (3.98%) Business Analyst
12 19 (3.78%) Architect
13 15 (2.98%) 2nd Line Support
13 15 (2.98%) Administrator
13 15 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 14 (2.78%) Senior Analyst
15 12 (2.39%) Instructor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (5.17%) .NET
2 25 (4.97%) REST
3 21 (4.17%) React
4 15 (2.98%) AngularJS
4 15 (2.98%) JSON
5 11 (2.19%) Razor View Engine
6 8 (1.59%) HTML
7 6 (1.19%) LAMP
7 6 (1.19%) Node.js
8 5 (0.99%) CSS
8 5 (0.99%) 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%) EDI
10 3 (0.60%) ODBC
10 3 (0.60%) Spring
10 3 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (8.95%) Onboarding
2 35 (6.96%) Self-Motivation
3 33 (6.56%) Driving Licence
4 21 (4.17%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.98%) FMCG
6 13 (2.58%) Social Media
7 11 (2.19%) Operational Technology
7 11 (2.19%) Product Ownership
8 9 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
8 9 (1.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 9 (1.79%) IoT
8 9 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (1.39%) Linux Command Line
10 6 (1.19%) PDA
11 5 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (0.99%) SCADA
12 4 (0.80%) Data Centre
12 4 (0.80%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.80%) Mobile App
12 4 (0.80%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 60 (11.93%) Windows
2 17 (3.38%) Linux
3 14 (2.78%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.99%) Apple iOS
5 6 (1.19%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.60%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.40%) Android
7 2 (0.40%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (18.09%) Continuous Improvement
2 71 (14.12%) Agile
3 70 (13.92%) Project Management
4 58 (11.53%) Customer Service
5 54 (10.74%) ITIL
6 50 (9.94%) Decision-Making
7 47 (9.34%) Business Intelligence
8 46 (9.15%) CRM
9 43 (8.55%) Analytics
10 39 (7.75%) Roadmaps
11 37 (7.36%) Mentoring
12 35 (6.96%) Customer Experience
13 34 (6.76%) ERP
13 34 (6.76%) Migration
14 33 (6.56%) Service Delivery
15 32 (6.36%) Computer Science
16 29 (5.77%) Coaching
17 28 (5.57%) Data Analysis
17 28 (5.57%) Stakeholder Management
18 27 (5.37%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 95 (18.89%) SQL
2 39 (7.75%) Python
3 35 (6.96%) C#
4 32 (6.36%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.77%) PowerShell
6 22 (4.37%) Java
7 15 (2.98%) PHP
8 10 (1.99%) 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 (1.19%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.99%) R
13 4 (0.80%) C++
13 4 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
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 93 (18.49%) Degree
2 56 (11.13%) Security Cleared
3 38 (7.55%) SC Cleared
4 19 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (3.58%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (3.38%) DBS Check
6 17 (3.38%) 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 7 (1.39%) A+ Certification
10 5 (0.99%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 4 (0.80%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.80%) CIPD
11 4 (0.80%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.60%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 3 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.60%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
12 3 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (4.97%) Data Quality
2 21 (4.17%) QA
3 14 (2.78%) GDPR
3 14 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.39%) SLA
5 6 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 6 (1.19%) NIST
6 5 (0.99%) 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
8 2 (0.40%) PMO
9 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.20%) COBIT
9 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.20%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (6.76%) Active Directory
2 19 (3.78%) Docker
3 5 (0.99%) 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 17 (3.38%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (1.99%) Terraform
4 5 (0.99%) 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
1 145 (28.83%) Microsoft
2 37 (7.36%) Oracle
3 28 (5.57%) SAP
4 13 (2.58%) Salesforce
5 11 (2.19%) Cisco
6 9 (1.79%) Databricks
6 9 (1.79%) Sage
7 8 (1.59%) Google
8 7 (1.39%) Infor
8 7 (1.39%) Meraki
8 7 (1.39%) ServiceNow
9 5 (0.99%) Epicor
9 5 (0.99%) Panasonic
9 5 (0.99%) Samsung
9 5 (0.99%) VMware
9 5 (0.99%) Zscaler
10 4 (0.80%) Avaya
10 4 (0.80%) SolarWinds
11 3 (0.60%) Dell
11 3 (0.60%) HP