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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 856 614 947
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 9.48% 19.25% 16.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.51% 22.08% 20.74%
Number of salaries quoted 565 379 288
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £30,750
25th Percentile £32,250 £29,875 £40,938
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - -19.05% +7.14%
75th Percentile £56,385 £57,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £67,500 £68,750 £82,875
England median annual salary £45,050 £45,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +0.11% -16.67% -1.82%

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 6,338 2,781 4,566
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 70.18% 87.18% 81.78%
Number of salaries quoted 4,613 1,718 2,150
10th Percentile £31,250 £29,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £68,084
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% -1.32%

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 16 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 16 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 -3 298 £55,000 +22.22% 46
Staffordshire -3 113 £35,500 -11.25% 29
Warwickshire -3 87 £40,000 -27.27% 16
Shropshire +3 80 £42,000 -11.58% 16
Worcestershire -6 71 £39,000 +27.87% 7
Coventry -6 41 £42,500 +34.92% 19
Wolverhampton +11 20 £48,750 -25.00% 4
Solihull +1 15 £31,000 -6.77% 8
Walsall +1 12 £40,000 -11.11%
Herefordshire -21 9 £29,750 -8.46% 15
Dudley - 9 £36,000 - 1
Willenhall 0 5 £37,500 -16.67% 2
Sutton Coldfield - 5 £42,500 -
Tipton - 4 £33,500 -
Halesowen -6 3 £47,500 +46.15% 1
Stourbridge - 2 £45,000 - 1
Smethwick - 2 £37,500 -
Kingswinford - 1 £45,000 -
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 43 (5.02%) SharePoint
2 30 (3.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.17%) IIS
4 8 (0.93%) CICS
5 7 (0.82%) Confluence
6 5 (0.58%) WordPress
7 3 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.35%) CMS
7 3 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.23%) Documentum
8 2 (0.23%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) Apache
9 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.12%) OpenEdge
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 72 (8.41%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (7.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.40%) Simulink
4 11 (1.29%) OrCAD
5 6 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.58%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.35%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.23%) EPLAN
9 2 (0.23%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.23%) Revit
10 1 (0.12%) Elementor
10 1 (0.12%) Fusion 360
10 1 (0.12%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
10 1 (0.12%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.12%) SketchUp
Business Applications
1 11 (1.29%) NetSuite
2 8 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.70%) Shopify
4 5 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.58%) Magento
5 4 (0.47%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.47%) Sage 50
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle Cash Management
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.35%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.35%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 2 (0.23%) Line 50
7 2 (0.23%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.12%) Primavera
8 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 166 (19.39%) Azure
2 141 (16.47%) Microsoft 365
3 93 (10.86%) Power Platform
4 69 (8.06%) Entra ID
5 54 (6.31%) AWS
6 47 (5.49%) SaaS
7 36 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
8 25 (2.92%) GitHub
9 23 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
10 21 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
11 17 (1.99%) Microsoft Purview
11 17 (1.99%) Power Automate
12 14 (1.64%) PowerApps
13 13 (1.52%) GCP
13 13 (1.52%) Google Workspace
14 12 (1.40%) OneDrive
15 10 (1.17%) PaaS
16 9 (1.05%) Google Analytics
17 8 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
18 6 (0.70%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 34 (3.97%) DNS
2 33 (3.86%) VPN
3 30 (3.50%) Firewall
3 30 (3.50%) TCP/IP
3 30 (3.50%) WAN
4 26 (3.04%) LAN
5 23 (2.69%) DHCP
6 21 (2.45%) Wireless
7 18 (2.10%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (1.64%) VLAN
9 12 (1.40%) Network Security
10 9 (1.05%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.82%) Internet
11 7 (0.82%) VoIP
12 6 (0.70%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.58%) SD-WAN
14 4 (0.47%) SSL
15 3 (0.35%) Ethernet
15 3 (0.35%) HTTP
15 3 (0.35%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (10.28%) Power BI
2 32 (3.74%) Relational Database
2 32 (3.74%) SQL Server
3 23 (2.69%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (2.45%) Tableau
5 16 (1.87%) Power Query
6 14 (1.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 11 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 11 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 10 (1.17%) MySQL
9 9 (1.05%) Data Lake
9 9 (1.05%) Data Mining
10 8 (0.93%) Db2
10 8 (0.93%) Electronic Patient Records
10 8 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
11 7 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
12 6 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
13 5 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.58%) Big Data
13 5 (0.58%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 38 (4.44%) Git
2 32 (3.74%) Jenkins
3 27 (3.15%) JIRA
4 9 (1.05%) Eclipse
5 8 (0.93%) GitLab
6 7 (0.82%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.70%) JMeter
7 6 (0.70%) Maven
7 6 (0.70%) Postman
7 6 (0.70%) Selenium
8 5 (0.58%) JUnit
8 5 (0.58%) SoapUI
8 5 (0.58%) Zephyr
9 3 (0.35%) Mockito
10 2 (0.23%) Ant
10 2 (0.23%) Apache Ivy
10 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
11 1 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio
General
1 419 (48.95%) Social Skills
2 237 (27.69%) Analytical Skills
3 143 (16.71%) Manufacturing
4 131 (15.30%) Finance
5 79 (9.23%) Organisational Skills
6 59 (6.89%) Public Sector
7 58 (6.78%) Retail
8 39 (4.56%) Marketing
9 38 (4.44%) Electronics
10 24 (2.80%) Automotive
10 24 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 21 (2.45%) Law
12 20 (2.34%) Legal
12 20 (2.34%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
14 11 (1.29%) Billing
15 10 (1.17%) Fire and Rescue
16 9 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
17 8 (0.93%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 101 (11.80%) Support Engineer
2 77 (9.00%) Analyst
3 75 (8.76%) IT Support
4 72 (8.41%) Developer
5 67 (7.83%) Lead
6 66 (7.71%) Technical Support
7 58 (6.78%) Consultant
7 58 (6.78%) Technical Engineer
8 56 (6.54%) Senior
8 56 (6.54%) Technical Support Engineer
9 55 (6.43%) IT Engineer
10 41 (4.79%) IT Support Engineer
11 31 (3.62%) Administrator
11 31 (3.62%) IT Manager
12 25 (2.92%) Architect
13 23 (2.69%) Support Analyst
14 20 (2.34%) Applications Consultant
14 20 (2.34%) Data Engineer
14 20 (2.34%) Electronics Engineer
14 20 (2.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (5.26%) .NET
2 40 (4.67%) REST
3 32 (3.74%) Spring
4 29 (3.39%) Spring Boot
5 23 (2.69%) React
6 20 (2.34%) ISPF
7 14 (1.64%) Playwright
7 14 (1.64%) RESTful
7 14 (1.64%) SOAP
8 12 (1.40%) Terraform
8 12 (1.40%) XML
9 11 (1.29%) AngularJS
9 11 (1.29%) CSS
9 11 (1.29%) HTML
10 10 (1.17%) Web Services
11 8 (0.93%) LDAP
11 8 (0.93%) SAP Fiori
12 7 (0.82%) Middleware
12 7 (0.82%) Node.js
13 6 (0.70%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 83 (9.70%) Driving Licence
2 54 (6.31%) Onboarding
3 50 (5.84%) Self-Motivation
4 49 (5.72%) Enterprise Software
5 46 (5.37%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.34%) Legacy Applications
6 20 (2.34%) Mainframe
6 20 (2.34%) NHS
7 18 (2.10%) Data Centre
8 17 (1.99%) Social Media
9 16 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
9 16 (1.87%) Cloud Native
10 15 (1.75%) Virtual Team
11 12 (1.40%) Data Structures
11 12 (1.40%) Robotics
12 11 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.29%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (1.29%) IoT
12 11 (1.29%) Mobile App
12 11 (1.29%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 141 (16.47%) Windows
2 52 (6.07%) Windows Server
3 37 (4.32%) Linux
4 19 (2.22%) Windows 10
5 11 (1.29%) Android
6 8 (0.93%) Unix
7 7 (0.82%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.58%) macOS
8 5 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.35%) Solaris
10 2 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
10 2 (0.23%) 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
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (28.74%) Continuous Improvement
2 174 (20.33%) Customer Service
3 124 (14.49%) Agile
4 115 (13.43%) Decision-Making
5 99 (11.57%) Analytics
6 93 (10.86%) Business Intelligence
7 87 (10.16%) Mentoring
7 87 (10.16%) Stakeholder Management
8 80 (9.35%) AI
9 72 (8.41%) Collaborative Working
10 70 (8.18%) CI/CD
10 70 (8.18%) ERP
11 65 (7.59%) CRM
12 64 (7.48%) Project Delivery
12 64 (7.48%) Validation
13 63 (7.36%) Collaborative Culture
13 63 (7.36%) Customer Experience
14 62 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
14 62 (7.24%) DevOps
15 59 (6.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 139 (16.24%) SQL
2 73 (8.53%) Java
3 49 (5.72%) Python
4 29 (3.39%) JavaScript
5 28 (3.27%) C#
5 28 (3.27%) PowerShell
6 20 (2.34%) COBOL
6 20 (2.34%) JCL
7 18 (2.10%) C
7 18 (2.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 16 (1.87%) Ladder Logic
9 15 (1.75%) Embedded C
10 14 (1.64%) TypeScript
11 12 (1.40%) MATLAB
12 8 (0.93%) C++
12 8 (0.93%) R
13 7 (0.82%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.82%) RPG
14 6 (0.70%) ABAP
14 6 (0.70%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 130 (15.19%) Degree
2 76 (8.88%) Security Cleared
3 60 (7.01%) SC Cleared
4 23 (2.69%) Azure Certification
4 23 (2.69%) HNC
5 21 (2.45%) HND
6 19 (2.22%) DBS Check
7 12 (1.40%) PMI Certification
8 11 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (1.17%) CCNA
10 9 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (1.05%) NVQ Level 3
11 7 (0.82%) ACCA
11 7 (0.82%) CCNP
11 7 (0.82%) City & Guilds
12 6 (0.70%) CIMA
12 6 (0.70%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.58%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (7.01%) Data Quality
2 39 (4.56%) QA
3 35 (4.09%) GDPR
4 24 (2.80%) Cyber Essentials
5 22 (2.57%) Accessibility
6 19 (2.22%) ISO 9001
6 19 (2.22%) SLA
7 17 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.82%) ISO 14001
9 5 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.58%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.58%) PMO
10 4 (0.47%) GMP
11 3 (0.35%) AQAP
11 3 (0.35%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.35%) NIST
12 2 (0.23%) Automotive SPICE
12 2 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.23%) GRC
12 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 93 (10.86%) Active Directory
2 26 (3.04%) Hyper-V
3 19 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (2.10%) Docker
5 13 (1.52%) Firmware
6 11 (1.29%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.47%) vSphere
10 2 (0.23%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 38 (4.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (1.52%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.70%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.58%) SCCM
6 4 (0.47%) Ansible
7 3 (0.35%) Backup Exec
7 3 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.35%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.35%) Puppet
8 2 (0.23%) Grafana
8 2 (0.23%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.23%) WSUS
9 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.12%) Nagios
9 1 (0.12%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 255 (29.79%) Microsoft
2 36 (4.21%) SAP
2 36 (4.21%) Workday
3 25 (2.92%) Google
4 23 (2.69%) Cisco
5 22 (2.57%) VMware
6 18 (2.10%) Oracle
7 15 (1.75%) Sage
7 15 (1.75%) ServiceNow
8 13 (1.52%) Salesforce
9 12 (1.40%) Broadcom
9 12 (1.40%) EMC
10 11 (1.29%) Databricks
11 10 (1.17%) HubSpot
12 9 (1.05%) Apple
12 9 (1.05%) Cadence
13 8 (0.93%) IBM
14 7 (0.82%) Fortinet
14 7 (0.82%) Meraki
14 7 (0.82%) Veeam