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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -24 +4 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 533 733 1,017
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 7.13% 21.89% 15.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.49% 24.09% 17.98%
Number of salaries quoted 396 409 769
10th Percentile £26,000 £28,200 £25,000
25th Percentile £30,250 £36,250 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £52,500 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% +23.53% -15.00%
75th Percentile £58,750 £63,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £72,500 £77,750 £70,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -13.64% +10.00% -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 5,614 3,043 5,656
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 75.13% 90.89% 83.45%
Number of salaries quoted 3,247 1,700 4,413
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,580 £26,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £35,225
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £53,688 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.21% +7.38% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +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 8 April 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 8 April 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 -12 174 £50,000 -13.04% 97
Staffordshire -11 101 £30,750 -38.50% 39
Warwickshire -13 65 £32,500 -21.21% 40
Worcestershire -14 45 £37,500 +7.14% 25
Shropshire -18 29 £42,500 - 20
Herefordshire -9 25 £52,500 +4.48% 7
Coventry -16 25 £53,599 -6.78% 12
Solihull -4 14 £90,000 +63.64% 7
Walsall +1 6 £44,000 -13.73% 5
Dudley -2 6 £75,000 +114.29% 2
Halesowen -6 5 £40,000 -
Wednesbury -5 3 £42,500 -5.56%
Tipton -7 3 £34,000 - 2
Wolverhampton -30 3 £80,000 +146.15% 4
Kingswinford -5 2 £45,250 +20.67% 1
Sutton Coldfield -9 1 £28,000 -
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 47 (8.82%) SharePoint
2 28 (5.25%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.13%) Exchange Server 2007
3 6 (1.13%) Exchange Server 2010
3 6 (1.13%) Exchange Server 2013
4 5 (0.94%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.56%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.38%) Confluence
7 1 (0.19%) Apache
7 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.19%) IIS
7 1 (0.19%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
7 1 (0.19%) WordPress
Applications
1 39 (7.32%) Microsoft Excel
1 39 (7.32%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.25%) Spreadsheet
3 7 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.75%) Fusion 360
4 4 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.56%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.38%) SOLIDWORKS
6 2 (0.38%) Trello
7 1 (0.19%) Abaqus
7 1 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 18 (3.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.13%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.56%) Dynamics NAV
4 3 (0.56%) SAP Business ByDesign
5 2 (0.38%) SAP Business One
5 2 (0.38%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.38%) Shopify
6 1 (0.19%) Exchequer
6 1 (0.19%) Line 50
6 1 (0.19%) Magento
6 1 (0.19%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.19%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 122 (22.89%) Azure
2 110 (20.64%) Microsoft 365
3 48 (9.01%) Power Platform
4 40 (7.50%) Entra ID
5 35 (6.57%) AWS
6 32 (6.00%) SaaS
7 17 (3.19%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (2.63%) Power Automate
9 13 (2.44%) PowerApps
10 11 (2.06%) OneDrive
11 9 (1.69%) Azure Data Factory
11 9 (1.69%) Google Workspace
11 9 (1.69%) Serverless
12 6 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (1.13%) GCP
13 5 (0.94%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.94%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.94%) Microsoft Copilot
13 5 (0.94%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 31 (5.82%) VPN
2 26 (4.88%) DNS
3 24 (4.50%) WAN
4 23 (4.32%) Internet
5 22 (4.13%) DHCP
5 22 (4.13%) Firewall
5 22 (4.13%) Wi-Fi
6 17 (3.19%) LAN
7 10 (1.88%) SD-WAN
8 8 (1.50%) VLAN
8 8 (1.50%) VoIP
9 6 (1.13%) Broadband
9 6 (1.13%) Network Security
10 5 (0.94%) Wireless
11 4 (0.75%) ADSL
11 4 (0.75%) Ethernet
11 4 (0.75%) TCP/IP
11 4 (0.75%) VDSL
12 3 (0.56%) Skype
13 2 (0.38%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (8.07%) Power BI
2 16 (3.00%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.88%) Oracle Reports
3 10 (1.88%) Power Query
3 10 (1.88%) Tableau
4 9 (1.69%) MySQL
4 9 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 7 (1.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 6 (1.13%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.13%) Star Schema
7 5 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (0.94%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.75%) Metadata
8 4 (0.75%) Redis
9 3 (0.56%) Crystal Reports
9 3 (0.56%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.56%) GIS
9 3 (0.56%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 21 (3.94%) Git
2 20 (3.75%) JIRA
3 6 (1.13%) JUnit
4 5 (0.94%) GitLab
4 5 (0.94%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.94%) Maven
4 5 (0.94%) Mockito
5 3 (0.56%) Appcelerator Titanium
6 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.19%) Babel
7 1 (0.19%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.19%) MLflow
7 1 (0.19%) Postman
7 1 (0.19%) Snyk
7 1 (0.19%) Vite
7 1 (0.19%) webpack
General
1 245 (45.97%) Social Skills
2 163 (30.58%) Analytical Skills
3 115 (21.58%) Finance
4 61 (11.44%) Manufacturing
5 43 (8.07%) Organisational Skills
6 42 (7.88%) Legal
7 36 (6.75%) Public Sector
8 33 (6.19%) Law
9 25 (4.69%) Marketing
10 23 (4.32%) Retail
11 14 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 13 (2.44%) Banking
13 12 (2.25%) Automotive
14 11 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (1.31%) Telecoms
16 6 (1.13%) Advertising
16 6 (1.13%) Aerospace
16 6 (1.13%) Electronics
16 6 (1.13%) Investment Banking
17 5 (0.94%) Games
Job Titles
1 96 (18.01%) Analyst
2 85 (15.95%) Support Engineer
3 77 (14.45%) IT Support
4 58 (10.88%) IT Engineer
5 48 (9.01%) IT Support Engineer
6 46 (8.63%) Lead
7 42 (7.88%) Senior
8 41 (7.69%) Developer
9 37 (6.94%) Technical Support
10 35 (6.57%) Support Analyst
11 34 (6.38%) Technical Engineer
11 34 (6.38%) Technical Support Engineer
12 24 (4.50%) Architect
13 20 (3.75%) Senior Analyst
14 19 (3.56%) Business Analyst
15 18 (3.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (3.19%) Instructor
17 16 (3.00%) Project Manager
18 15 (2.81%) 2nd Line Support
18 15 (2.81%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.63%) React
1 14 (2.63%) REST
2 12 (2.25%) .NET
3 9 (1.69%) CSS
3 9 (1.69%) HTML
4 7 (1.31%) Node.js
5 5 (0.94%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.94%) Spring
5 5 (0.94%) Vue
6 4 (0.75%) .NET Framework
6 4 (0.75%) JSON
6 4 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
6 4 (0.75%) RESTful
6 4 (0.75%) Spring Boot
7 3 (0.56%) GraphQL
7 3 (0.56%) Laravel
7 3 (0.56%) Next.js
7 3 (0.56%) React Native
7 3 (0.56%) WinForms
7 3 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (6.94%) Driving Licence
2 31 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 27 (5.07%) Self-Motivation
4 22 (4.13%) Management Information System
5 19 (3.56%) Social Media
6 15 (2.81%) FMCG
7 11 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (2.06%) Product Ownership
8 10 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
8 10 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
9 8 (1.50%) IoT
10 7 (1.31%) Cyber Defence
10 7 (1.31%) Data Centre
10 7 (1.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 5 (0.94%) Data Structures
11 5 (0.94%) EPoS
11 5 (0.94%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.75%) Reference Data
12 4 (0.75%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 80 (15.01%) Windows
2 24 (4.50%) Windows 10
3 15 (2.81%) Linux
4 12 (2.25%) Apple iOS
4 12 (2.25%) Windows Server
5 6 (1.13%) Windows 7
6 4 (0.75%) Android
7 2 (0.38%) Unix
8 1 (0.19%) CentOS
8 1 (0.19%) Debian
8 1 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (20.45%) Continuous Improvement
2 75 (14.07%) Agile
3 61 (11.44%) Customer Service
4 60 (11.26%) ITIL
5 58 (10.88%) Project Management
6 57 (10.69%) Decision-Making
7 55 (10.32%) Analytics
8 48 (9.01%) Business Intelligence
8 48 (9.01%) Mentoring
9 43 (8.07%) CRM
9 43 (8.07%) ERP
10 41 (7.69%) Roadmaps
11 38 (7.13%) Coaching
12 36 (6.75%) Migration
13 35 (6.57%) AI
14 34 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
15 33 (6.19%) Time Management
16 32 (6.00%) Computer Science
17 31 (5.82%) Project Delivery
17 31 (5.82%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 71 (13.32%) SQL
2 30 (5.63%) Python
3 18 (3.38%) Java
4 16 (3.00%) JavaScript
4 16 (3.00%) PowerShell
5 13 (2.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 11 (2.06%) Ladder Logic
6 11 (2.06%) PHP
6 11 (2.06%) T-SQL
7 10 (1.88%) C
8 9 (1.69%) Bash
9 8 (1.50%) C#
10 7 (1.31%) TypeScript
11 5 (0.94%) C++
11 5 (0.94%) PL/SQL
11 5 (0.94%) R
12 3 (0.56%) Rust
13 2 (0.38%) Bicep
13 2 (0.38%) Go
13 2 (0.38%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 85 (15.95%) Degree
2 48 (9.01%) Security Cleared
3 35 (6.57%) SC Cleared
4 21 (3.94%) DBS Check
5 19 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (2.06%) A+ Certification
8 10 (1.88%) CISSP
9 9 (1.69%) ACCA
9 9 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (1.69%) CIMA
10 8 (1.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 7 (1.31%) CISA
11 7 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
11 7 (1.31%) SSCP
12 6 (1.13%) MCITP
13 5 (0.94%) PMI Certification
14 4 (0.75%) AWS Certification
14 4 (0.75%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.75%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (6.19%) Data Quality
2 24 (4.50%) QA
3 22 (4.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (3.38%) NIST
5 17 (3.19%) GDPR
6 11 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials
7 10 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 10 (1.88%) SLA
8 6 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 5 (0.94%) Accessibility
9 5 (0.94%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.56%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 19770
12 1 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.19%) ISO 14001
12 1 (0.19%) PMO
System Software
1 60 (11.26%) Active Directory
2 19 (3.56%) Docker
3 12 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.31%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.56%) Firmware
6 2 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 27 (5.07%) Microsoft Intune
2 18 (3.38%) Kubernetes
3 13 (2.44%) Terraform
4 5 (0.94%) Ansible
5 3 (0.56%) Nagios
5 3 (0.56%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.38%) Grafana
6 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.19%) Argo
7 1 (0.19%) AWS Copilot
7 1 (0.19%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.19%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.19%) Puppet
7 1 (0.19%) SCCM
7 1 (0.19%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 148 (27.77%) Microsoft
2 26 (4.88%) SAP
3 22 (4.13%) Oracle
4 19 (3.56%) Cisco
5 15 (2.81%) VMware
6 10 (1.88%) Dell
6 10 (1.88%) Google
6 10 (1.88%) Sage
7 9 (1.69%) HP
8 8 (1.50%) Salesforce
9 7 (1.31%) Databricks
9 7 (1.31%) Meraki
9 7 (1.31%) ServiceNow
10 6 (1.13%) Zscaler
11 5 (0.94%) Avaya
11 5 (0.94%) SolarWinds
12 4 (0.75%) Epicor
12 4 (0.75%) Infor
12 4 (0.75%) McAfee
12 4 (0.75%) Sophos