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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -17 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 520 828 577
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 9.84% 19.99% 15.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.98% 21.82% 17.56%
Number of salaries quoted 395 324 477
10th Percentile £26,250 £32,325 £27,800
25th Percentile £30,250 £42,005 £31,549
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £55,000 £46,500
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% +18.28% -7.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £66,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,750 £93,875 £67,500
England median annual salary £45,203 £55,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year -17.81% +0.92% -0.91%

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 4,341 3,795 3,285
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 82.12% 91.62% 87.09%
Number of salaries quoted 2,264 1,687 2,757
10th Percentile £29,000 £32,500 £26,500
25th Percentile £37,938 £41,563 £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 £82,500 £82,500 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 January 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 January 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 -8 156 £46,250 -20.26% 58
Staffordshire -9 97 £36,250 -27.50% 26
Warwickshire -13 55 £39,000 -22.00% 40
Worcestershire -13 36 £32,000 -50.77% 26
Shropshire -12 34 £47,500 -32.14% 37
Herefordshire +5 33 £45,000 +71.75% 10
Solihull -1 25 £87,500 +52.17% 1
Coventry -8 18 £55,200 -2.73% 13
Halesowen 0 14 £32,500 -
Walsall +1 10 £45,000 +42.86% 4
Wednesbury -2 4 £42,500 -5.56%
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67%
Dudley -6 2 £75,000 +114.29% 2
Wolverhampton -19 2 £72,500 +61.11% 8
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 25 (4.81%) SharePoint
2 13 (2.50%) IIS
3 12 (2.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.15%) Apache
4 6 (1.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.38%) Confluence
5 2 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2007
5 2 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2010
5 2 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.19%) Appian
6 1 (0.19%) HCL Notes
6 1 (0.19%) NServiceBus
6 1 (0.19%) SAS
6 1 (0.19%) WebLogic
Applications
1 62 (11.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (5.58%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (2.12%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.54%) AutoCAD
4 8 (1.54%) SOLIDWORKS
5 7 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.77%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.58%) Trello
8 1 (0.19%) Abaqus
8 1 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 20 (3.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.35%) NetSuite
3 3 (0.58%) Dynamics NAV
3 3 (0.58%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.38%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
4 2 (0.38%) iTrent
4 2 (0.38%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.19%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.19%) SAP Business ByDesign
5 1 (0.19%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 104 (20.00%) Azure
2 66 (12.69%) Microsoft 365
3 47 (9.04%) Power Platform
4 37 (7.12%) SaaS
5 34 (6.54%) AWS
6 19 (3.65%) Dynamics 365
7 11 (2.12%) Entra ID
7 11 (2.12%) Power Automate
8 10 (1.92%) PowerApps
9 9 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.54%) GCP
11 7 (1.35%) Serverless
12 6 (1.15%) Amazon S3
12 6 (1.15%) Azure Sentinel
13 5 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (0.96%) Amazon EC2
13 5 (0.96%) OCI
14 4 (0.77%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (0.77%) OneDrive
14 4 (0.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (4.81%) VPN
2 22 (4.23%) DNS
3 21 (4.04%) WAN
4 19 (3.65%) Internet
5 18 (3.46%) DHCP
5 18 (3.46%) Wi-Fi
6 17 (3.27%) Firewall
7 15 (2.88%) LAN
8 12 (2.31%) Wireless
9 10 (1.92%) VoIP
10 9 (1.73%) ADSL
10 9 (1.73%) Ethernet
10 9 (1.73%) SD-WAN
10 9 (1.73%) VDSL
11 7 (1.35%) Broadband
11 7 (1.35%) VLAN
12 5 (0.96%) Bluetooth
12 5 (0.96%) PBX
13 4 (0.77%) TCP/IP
14 3 (0.58%) UWB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (7.88%) Power BI
2 34 (6.54%) SQL Server
3 17 (3.27%) Relational Database
4 14 (2.69%) MySQL
5 12 (2.31%) GIS
6 10 (1.92%) Oracle Reports
6 10 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (1.92%) Tableau
7 9 (1.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.15%) Crystal Reports
9 4 (0.77%) BusinessObjects
9 4 (0.77%) Data Mining
9 4 (0.77%) Metadata
9 4 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.38%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.38%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.38%) MS Access
11 2 (0.38%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 20 (3.85%) JIRA
2 17 (3.27%) Git
3 7 (1.35%) JUnit
4 6 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.15%) Maven
4 6 (1.15%) Mockito
5 5 (0.96%) GitLab
6 3 (0.58%) Appcelerator Titanium
7 2 (0.38%) Subversion
7 2 (0.38%) Vagrant
7 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.19%) Babel
8 1 (0.19%) Balsamiq
8 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.19%) Selenium
8 1 (0.19%) Snyk
8 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.19%) webpack
General
1 256 (49.23%) Social Skills
2 140 (26.92%) Finance
3 133 (25.58%) Analytical Skills
4 72 (13.85%) Manufacturing
5 38 (7.31%) Legal
6 37 (7.12%) Retail
7 34 (6.54%) Organisational Skills
8 32 (6.15%) Law
9 31 (5.96%) Public Sector
10 29 (5.58%) Marketing
11 17 (3.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (2.69%) Telecoms
13 12 (2.31%) Fire and Rescue
14 11 (2.12%) Banking
15 9 (1.73%) Electronics
16 7 (1.35%) Aerospace
16 7 (1.35%) Automotive
16 7 (1.35%) Digital Health
17 5 (0.96%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 82 (15.77%) Support Engineer
2 76 (14.62%) Analyst
3 62 (11.92%) IT Support
4 54 (10.38%) Developer
5 50 (9.62%) Technical Support
6 49 (9.42%) Technical Engineer
7 47 (9.04%) Technical Support Engineer
8 46 (8.85%) Lead
9 43 (8.27%) Senior
10 31 (5.96%) IT Engineer
11 25 (4.81%) Support Analyst
12 23 (4.42%) IT Support Engineer
13 21 (4.04%) Architect
14 20 (3.85%) 2nd Line Support
14 20 (3.85%) Applications Support
15 18 (3.46%) Business Analyst
16 16 (3.08%) Network Engineer
17 15 (2.88%) Administrator
18 13 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
19 11 (2.12%) Applications Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (5.19%) .NET
2 24 (4.62%) REST
3 21 (4.04%) React
4 15 (2.88%) AngularJS
4 15 (2.88%) JSON
5 11 (2.12%) Razor View Engine
6 10 (1.92%) HTML
7 6 (1.15%) CSS
7 6 (1.15%) LAMP
8 5 (0.96%) Node.js
8 5 (0.96%) RESTful
8 5 (0.96%) Vue
9 4 (0.77%) EDI
9 4 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (0.77%) Spring
9 4 (0.77%) Web Services
9 4 (0.77%) WPF
10 3 (0.58%) .NET Framework
10 3 (0.58%) ODBC
10 3 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 42 (8.08%) Onboarding
2 33 (6.35%) Self-Motivation
3 29 (5.58%) Driving Licence
4 19 (3.65%) FMCG
5 16 (3.08%) Management Information System
6 12 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
6 12 (2.31%) SCADA
7 11 (2.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 11 (2.12%) Operational Technology
7 11 (2.12%) Product Ownership
8 10 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
8 10 (1.92%) Social Media
9 8 (1.54%) IoT
10 7 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (1.15%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.15%) PDA
12 5 (0.96%) Embedded Systems
12 5 (0.96%) EPoS
12 5 (0.96%) Virtual Team
13 4 (0.77%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 60 (11.54%) Windows
2 22 (4.23%) Linux
3 16 (3.08%) Windows 10
4 9 (1.73%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.38%) Unix
5 2 (0.38%) VMS
5 2 (0.38%) Windows 7
5 2 (0.38%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.19%) Android
6 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.19%) Windows Mobile
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (20.19%) Continuous Improvement
2 73 (14.04%) Agile
3 69 (13.27%) Project Management
4 56 (10.77%) Customer Service
5 52 (10.00%) ITIL
6 51 (9.81%) Business Intelligence
6 51 (9.81%) Decision-Making
7 44 (8.46%) Analytics
8 40 (7.69%) CRM
8 40 (7.69%) Roadmaps
9 36 (6.92%) ERP
10 34 (6.54%) Mentoring
11 33 (6.35%) Migration
12 32 (6.15%) Data Analysis
12 32 (6.15%) Process Improvement
13 31 (5.96%) Customer Experience
14 30 (5.77%) Computer Science
14 30 (5.77%) Service Delivery
15 27 (5.19%) Time Management
16 25 (4.81%) AI
Programming Languages
1 98 (18.85%) SQL
2 51 (9.81%) Python
3 38 (7.31%) C#
4 32 (6.15%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.62%) Java
6 22 (4.23%) PowerShell
7 15 (2.88%) PHP
8 12 (2.31%) T-SQL
9 8 (1.54%) Bash
10 7 (1.35%) C
10 7 (1.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 6 (1.15%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.15%) R
11 6 (1.15%) TypeScript
12 5 (0.96%) C++
12 5 (0.96%) Ladder Logic
13 3 (0.58%) Delphi
13 3 (0.58%) Go
13 3 (0.58%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.38%) Perl
Qualifications
1 97 (18.65%) Degree
2 59 (11.35%) Security Cleared
3 39 (7.50%) SC Cleared
4 19 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (3.27%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (3.08%) ACCA
6 16 (3.08%) CIMA
7 14 (2.69%) DBS Check
8 11 (2.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (1.92%) Master's Degree
10 8 (1.54%) DV Cleared
10 8 (1.54%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (0.96%) AAT
11 5 (0.96%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.96%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 4 (0.77%) A+ Certification
12 4 (0.77%) CIPD
12 4 (0.77%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.77%) CISSP
12 4 (0.77%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (4.04%) Data Quality
1 21 (4.04%) QA
2 12 (2.31%) GDPR
3 11 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (1.54%) SLA
5 7 (1.35%) NIST
6 5 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 4 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.38%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.38%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.38%) PMO
9 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.19%) COBIT
9 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.19%) WCAG
System Software
1 30 (5.77%) Active Directory
2 19 (3.65%) Docker
3 4 (0.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.38%) Firmware
4 2 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 18 (3.46%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.31%) Terraform
3 9 (1.73%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (0.77%) Ansible
5 3 (0.58%) Nagios
5 3 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.38%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.38%) Grafana
7 1 (0.19%) Argo
7 1 (0.19%) AWS Copilot
7 1 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.19%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.19%) SCCM
7 1 (0.19%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 147 (28.27%) Microsoft
2 39 (7.50%) Oracle
3 28 (5.38%) SAP
4 12 (2.31%) Databricks
5 11 (2.12%) Cisco
5 11 (2.12%) Sage
5 11 (2.12%) Salesforce
6 8 (1.54%) ServiceNow
7 7 (1.35%) Infor
8 6 (1.15%) Google
8 6 (1.15%) Zscaler
9 5 (0.96%) Epicor
9 5 (0.96%) Meraki
9 5 (0.96%) Panasonic
9 5 (0.96%) Samsung
10 4 (0.77%) Avaya
10 4 (0.77%) Dell
10 4 (0.77%) SolarWinds
10 4 (0.77%) VMware
11 3 (0.58%) Cognos