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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 653 705 961
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 7.67% 20.42% 14.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.11% 24.02% 18.83%
Number of salaries quoted 461 458 439
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £25,500
25th Percentile £33,250 £29,250 £32,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £44,772 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -5.07% -5.74% -5.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £61,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £69,125 £73,150
England median annual salary £47,500 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.26% -8.00% -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 5,880 2,935 5,103
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 69.09% 85.02% 78.64%
Number of salaries quoted 4,412 1,880 3,135
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,822 £28,119
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £51,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.80% -1.90% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -13 234 £52,500 +16.67% 185
Staffordshire -4 87 £47,500 -3.99% 47
Warwickshire -2 76 £35,000 -22.22% 55
Worcestershire -5 61 £37,500 +22.95% 28
Shropshire +10 48 £46,250 +8.82% 35
Coventry -9 34 £42,000 +11.79% 26
Solihull +2 12 £30,500 -44.55% 21
Wolverhampton -6 12 £38,500 +18.46% 10
Walsall +1 8 £37,500 -16.67% 11
Herefordshire -24 8 £40,500 +4.52% 10
Tipton - 8 £33,500 - 5
Halesowen 0 5 £47,500 +46.15%
Dudley - 5 £26,100 - 3
Willenhall -2 4 £37,500 -16.67%
Sutton Coldfield - 4 £42,500 -
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 36 (5.51%) SharePoint
2 27 (4.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.38%) IIS
4 5 (0.77%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.61%) Confluence
6 3 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.46%) CICS
6 3 (0.46%) WordPress
7 2 (0.31%) Documentum
7 2 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2007
7 2 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (0.31%) SAS
8 1 (0.15%) Apache
8 1 (0.15%) Appian
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
8 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (7.81%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (5.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.77%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.46%) Simulink
7 2 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.31%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.15%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.15%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.77%) Magento
3 5 (0.77%) Shopify
4 4 (0.61%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.61%) Line 50
4 4 (0.61%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.61%) Sage 50
4 4 (0.61%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.61%) SAP Business One
5 2 (0.31%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 2 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.15%) SAP CO
6 1 (0.15%) SAP FI
6 1 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 125 (19.14%) Azure
2 118 (18.07%) Microsoft 365
3 82 (12.56%) Power Platform
4 53 (8.12%) Entra ID
5 52 (7.96%) AWS
6 43 (6.58%) SaaS
7 19 (2.91%) Dynamics 365
8 15 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (1.99%) Microsoft Purview
9 13 (1.99%) Power Automate
10 11 (1.68%) PowerApps
11 10 (1.53%) GCP
11 10 (1.53%) GitHub
11 10 (1.53%) Microsoft Copilot
12 8 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (0.92%) Google Workspace
13 6 (0.92%) IaaS
13 6 (0.92%) PaaS
14 4 (0.61%) Amazon Kinesis
14 4 (0.61%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.44%) Firewall
2 22 (3.37%) DNS
3 21 (3.22%) VPN
4 18 (2.76%) TCP/IP
4 18 (2.76%) WAN
4 18 (2.76%) Wireless
5 16 (2.45%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (2.14%) DHCP
6 14 (2.14%) LAN
7 11 (1.68%) Network Security
8 10 (1.53%) VLAN
9 8 (1.23%) VoIP
10 5 (0.77%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.77%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.77%) Skype
11 4 (0.61%) Bluetooth
11 4 (0.61%) SSL
12 3 (0.46%) HTTP
12 3 (0.46%) SAN
13 2 (0.31%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (11.79%) Power BI
2 25 (3.83%) SQL Server
3 20 (3.06%) Power Query
4 18 (2.76%) Tableau
5 16 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
6 12 (1.84%) Relational Database
7 11 (1.68%) MySQL
7 11 (1.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 9 (1.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (1.23%) Electronic Patient Records
10 7 (1.07%) Data Mining
11 6 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
12 5 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
12 5 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.77%) Star Schema
13 4 (0.61%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
14 3 (0.46%) Db2
14 3 (0.46%) NoSQL
14 3 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 26 (3.98%) Git
2 19 (2.91%) JIRA
3 17 (2.60%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.92%) Maven
5 5 (0.77%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.77%) JUnit
5 5 (0.77%) Postman
6 4 (0.61%) GitLab
6 4 (0.61%) JMeter
6 4 (0.61%) Selenium
6 4 (0.61%) SoapUI
7 3 (0.46%) Mockito
7 3 (0.46%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.31%) Ant
8 2 (0.31%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.31%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.31%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.15%) Bugzilla
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 295 (45.18%) Social Skills
2 167 (25.57%) Analytical Skills
3 112 (17.15%) Finance
4 96 (14.70%) Manufacturing
5 47 (7.20%) Public Sector
6 39 (5.97%) Organisational Skills
7 34 (5.21%) Retail
8 26 (3.98%) Marketing
9 25 (3.83%) Legal
10 22 (3.37%) Law
11 19 (2.91%) Electronics
11 19 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (2.30%) Automotive
13 12 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
14 10 (1.53%) Telecoms
15 9 (1.38%) Banking
16 8 (1.23%) Investment Banking
17 7 (1.07%) Fire and Rescue
17 7 (1.07%) Games
17 7 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 91 (13.94%) Support Engineer
2 86 (13.17%) Analyst
3 69 (10.57%) Technical Support
4 66 (10.11%) Developer
5 63 (9.65%) Technical Engineer
6 61 (9.34%) Technical Support Engineer
7 55 (8.42%) IT Support
8 50 (7.66%) Senior
9 42 (6.43%) Lead
10 38 (5.82%) Consultant
10 38 (5.82%) IT Manager
11 35 (5.36%) IT Engineer
12 30 (4.59%) Support Analyst
13 28 (4.29%) IT Support Engineer
14 18 (2.76%) 1st Line Support
15 16 (2.45%) Administrator
15 16 (2.45%) Programmer
16 15 (2.30%) Architect
16 15 (2.30%) Senior Analyst
17 14 (2.14%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.82%) REST
2 25 (3.83%) .NET
2 25 (3.83%) React
3 23 (3.52%) Spring
4 20 (3.06%) Spring Boot
5 13 (1.99%) RESTful
6 12 (1.84%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.84%) CSS
6 12 (1.84%) HTML
6 12 (1.84%) Playwright
7 9 (1.38%) SOAP
8 7 (1.07%) ISPF
8 7 (1.07%) Node.js
8 7 (1.07%) SAP Fiori
9 6 (0.92%) JDBC
9 6 (0.92%) Middleware
9 6 (0.92%) OAuth
9 6 (0.92%) SAPUI5
10 5 (0.77%) LDAP
10 5 (0.77%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 50 (7.66%) Driving Licence
2 32 (4.90%) Management Information System
3 29 (4.44%) Onboarding
4 26 (3.98%) Self-Motivation
5 25 (3.83%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (2.91%) NHS
7 11 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (1.68%) Virtual Team
8 10 (1.53%) Data Centre
8 10 (1.53%) Data Structures
9 9 (1.38%) Cloud Native
9 9 (1.38%) Legacy Applications
9 9 (1.38%) Mobile App
9 9 (1.38%) Social Media
9 9 (1.38%) SystemC
10 8 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
10 8 (1.23%) IoT
11 7 (1.07%) AS400
11 7 (1.07%) iSeries
11 7 (1.07%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 103 (15.77%) Windows
2 40 (6.13%) Linux
3 34 (5.21%) Windows Server
4 26 (3.98%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.99%) Android
6 10 (1.53%) Apple iOS
7 9 (1.38%) Unix
8 6 (0.92%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.61%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.46%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.31%) CentOS
11 2 (0.31%) Debian
11 2 (0.31%) Solaris
11 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (30.78%) Continuous Improvement
2 107 (16.39%) Customer Service
3 99 (15.16%) Agile
4 84 (12.86%) Decision-Making
5 80 (12.25%) Business Intelligence
6 79 (12.10%) Analytics
7 77 (11.79%) Mentoring
8 75 (11.49%) AI
9 70 (10.72%) Collaborative Working
9 70 (10.72%) ERP
10 61 (9.34%) ITIL
11 56 (8.58%) Cybersecurity
12 53 (8.12%) Collaborative Culture
13 51 (7.81%) CI/CD
14 50 (7.66%) Stakeholder Management
15 48 (7.35%) Customer Experience
16 46 (7.04%) Root Cause Analysis
16 46 (7.04%) Service Delivery
17 44 (6.74%) CRM
18 41 (6.28%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 102 (15.62%) SQL
2 51 (7.81%) Java
3 41 (6.28%) Python
4 21 (3.22%) C#
4 21 (3.22%) PowerShell
5 20 (3.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 20 (3.06%) JavaScript
6 18 (2.76%) Ladder Logic
7 15 (2.30%) TypeScript
8 11 (1.68%) C
8 11 (1.68%) PHP
9 9 (1.38%) Embedded C
10 7 (1.07%) COBOL
10 7 (1.07%) JCL
10 7 (1.07%) RPG
11 6 (0.92%) ABAP
11 6 (0.92%) Bash
12 5 (0.77%) C++
13 4 (0.61%) PL/SQL
13 4 (0.61%) RPG/400
Qualifications
1 94 (14.40%) Degree
2 68 (10.41%) Security Cleared
3 55 (8.42%) SC Cleared
4 19 (2.91%) Azure Certification
5 15 (2.30%) DBS Check
5 15 (2.30%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (1.68%) CISSP
6 11 (1.68%) PMI Certification
7 10 (1.53%) CompTIA Security+
8 8 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.07%) ACCA
9 7 (1.07%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.07%) CIMA
9 7 (1.07%) CISA
9 7 (1.07%) SSCP
10 6 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (0.77%) CCNA
11 5 (0.77%) HND
12 4 (0.61%) A+ Certification
12 4 (0.61%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.82%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.90%) GDPR
3 28 (4.29%) QA
4 26 (3.98%) Cyber Essentials
5 24 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (3.37%) SLA
7 19 (2.91%) Accessibility
8 17 (2.60%) ISO 9001
9 15 (2.30%) NIST
10 9 (1.38%) ISO 14001
11 4 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.46%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.46%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.31%) GRC
13 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 2 (0.31%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.31%) PMO
System Software
1 78 (11.94%) Active Directory
2 24 (3.68%) Hyper-V
3 16 (2.45%) Docker
3 16 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.23%) Firmware
5 6 (0.92%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.46%) vSphere
8 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 30 (4.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (2.30%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.99%) Terraform
4 6 (0.92%) Ansible
5 5 (0.77%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.77%) SCCM
6 4 (0.61%) Progress Chef
6 4 (0.61%) Puppet
7 3 (0.46%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.31%) Grafana
8 2 (0.31%) Nagios
8 2 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.31%) WSUS
9 1 (0.15%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 173 (26.49%) Microsoft
2 33 (5.05%) SAP
3 22 (3.37%) VMware
4 20 (3.06%) Cisco
5 14 (2.14%) Sage
6 12 (1.84%) Salesforce
7 11 (1.68%) Dell
7 11 (1.68%) ServiceNow
8 10 (1.53%) HubSpot
8 10 (1.53%) Oracle
9 9 (1.38%) Workday
10 8 (1.23%) Apple
10 8 (1.23%) Google
11 7 (1.07%) IBM
11 7 (1.07%) Sophos
12 6 (0.92%) iManage
12 6 (0.92%) McAfee
13 5 (0.77%) SolarWinds
14 4 (0.61%) Adobe
14 4 (0.61%) Veeam