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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 669 700 964
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 7.84% 20.35% 14.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.37% 23.98% 19.00%
Number of salaries quoted 471 456 429
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £25,435
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 £59,500
90th Percentile £65,508 £70,000 £73,000
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -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 5,884 2,919 5,075
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 68.95% 84.88% 78.46%
Number of salaries quoted 4,420 1,852 3,065
10th Percentile £31,711 £29,000 £28,119
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £36,500
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 £65,603
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,465
% change year-on-year +9.09% -0.84% -11.26%

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 20 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 20 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 -11 242 £52,592 +16.87% 168
Staffordshire -6 88 £47,500 -7.67% 49
Warwickshire -4 74 £37,500 -21.05% 52
Worcestershire -4 65 £39,000 +27.87% 28
Shropshire +8 50 £45,000 +2.86% 34
Coventry -9 35 £42,000 +11.79% 26
Solihull -1 14 £30,750 -44.09% 16
Wolverhampton -12 12 £38,500 +18.46% 11
Tipton - 8 £33,500 - 1
Walsall +1 7 £37,500 -16.67% 5
Herefordshire -26 7 £28,500 -12.31% 14
Halesowen 0 5 £47,500 +46.15%
Willenhall -3 4 £37,500 -16.67%
Sutton Coldfield - 4 £42,500 -
Dudley - 4 £26,100 - 4
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 38 (5.68%) SharePoint
2 26 (3.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.49%) IIS
4 5 (0.75%) Confluence
4 5 (0.75%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.60%) CICS
6 3 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.45%) WordPress
7 2 (0.30%) Documentum
7 2 (0.30%) SAS
8 1 (0.15%) Apache
8 1 (0.15%) Appian
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
8 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2007
8 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (7.62%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (5.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.75%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.60%) Simulink
7 3 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.30%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.30%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.15%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.15%) LaTeX
9 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.90%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.75%) Magento
4 5 (0.75%) Shopify
5 4 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.60%) Line 50
5 4 (0.60%) Sage 50
5 4 (0.60%) Sage X3
5 4 (0.60%) SAP Business One
6 2 (0.30%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 2 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.15%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.15%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 132 (19.73%) Azure
2 117 (17.49%) Microsoft 365
3 86 (12.86%) Power Platform
4 54 (8.07%) AWS
5 52 (7.77%) Entra ID
6 45 (6.73%) SaaS
7 22 (3.29%) Dynamics 365
8 19 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (2.24%) Power Automate
10 13 (1.94%) Microsoft Purview
10 13 (1.94%) PowerApps
11 12 (1.79%) GitHub
12 11 (1.64%) GCP
13 10 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (1.49%) Microsoft Copilot
14 7 (1.05%) PaaS
15 6 (0.90%) IaaS
16 5 (0.75%) Google Workspace
17 4 (0.60%) Amazon Kinesis
17 4 (0.60%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.33%) Firewall
2 22 (3.29%) DNS
3 20 (2.99%) VPN
4 19 (2.84%) TCP/IP
5 18 (2.69%) Wireless
6 17 (2.54%) WAN
7 15 (2.24%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (2.09%) DHCP
9 13 (1.94%) LAN
10 12 (1.79%) Network Security
11 10 (1.49%) VLAN
12 8 (1.20%) VoIP
13 5 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.75%) SD-WAN
13 5 (0.75%) Skype
14 4 (0.60%) Bluetooth
14 4 (0.60%) SSL
15 3 (0.45%) HTTP
15 3 (0.45%) SAN
15 3 (0.45%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (12.11%) Power BI
2 26 (3.89%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.99%) Tableau
4 19 (2.84%) Power Query
5 17 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
5 17 (2.54%) Relational Database
6 12 (1.79%) MySQL
7 11 (1.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 9 (1.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (1.20%) Data Mining
9 8 (1.20%) Electronic Patient Records
10 6 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
11 5 (0.75%) Star Schema
12 4 (0.60%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.60%) Db2
12 4 (0.60%) FileMaker
13 3 (0.45%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 30 (4.48%) Git
2 21 (3.14%) JIRA
3 20 (2.99%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.90%) Cucumber
4 6 (0.90%) Maven
4 6 (0.90%) Postman
5 5 (0.75%) GitLab
5 5 (0.75%) JMeter
5 5 (0.75%) JUnit
5 5 (0.75%) Selenium
5 5 (0.75%) SoapUI
6 4 (0.60%) Zephyr
7 3 (0.45%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.45%) Mockito
8 2 (0.30%) Ant
8 2 (0.30%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.30%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.15%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.15%) TestRail
9 1 (0.15%) Yeoman
General
1 308 (46.04%) Social Skills
2 171 (25.56%) Analytical Skills
3 114 (17.04%) Finance
4 96 (14.35%) Manufacturing
5 48 (7.17%) Public Sector
6 41 (6.13%) Organisational Skills
7 35 (5.23%) Retail
8 27 (4.04%) Marketing
9 23 (3.44%) Legal
10 21 (3.14%) Law
11 20 (2.99%) Electronics
12 18 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 14 (2.09%) Automotive
14 13 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (1.64%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.35%) Banking
17 8 (1.20%) Investment Banking
18 7 (1.05%) Fire and Rescue
18 7 (1.05%) Games
18 7 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 88 (13.15%) Support Engineer
2 86 (12.86%) Analyst
3 73 (10.91%) Developer
4 71 (10.61%) Technical Support
5 63 (9.42%) Technical Engineer
6 61 (9.12%) Technical Support Engineer
7 53 (7.92%) IT Support
8 50 (7.47%) Senior
9 45 (6.73%) Lead
10 41 (6.13%) Consultant
11 37 (5.53%) IT Manager
12 31 (4.63%) IT Engineer
12 31 (4.63%) Support Analyst
13 25 (3.74%) IT Support Engineer
14 18 (2.69%) Administrator
15 17 (2.54%) 1st Line Support
16 16 (2.39%) Architect
16 16 (2.39%) Programmer
17 15 (2.24%) Project Manager
17 15 (2.24%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.68%) REST
2 30 (4.48%) .NET
3 27 (4.04%) React
4 25 (3.74%) Spring
5 22 (3.29%) Spring Boot
6 15 (2.24%) CSS
6 15 (2.24%) HTML
6 15 (2.24%) RESTful
7 14 (2.09%) AngularJS
8 13 (1.94%) Playwright
9 12 (1.79%) Terraform
10 10 (1.49%) SOAP
11 9 (1.35%) ISPF
12 8 (1.20%) Node.js
13 7 (1.05%) LDAP
13 7 (1.05%) SAP Fiori
14 6 (0.90%) JDBC
14 6 (0.90%) Middleware
14 6 (0.90%) OAuth
14 6 (0.90%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 50 (7.47%) Driving Licence
2 35 (5.23%) Management Information System
3 30 (4.48%) Enterprise Software
3 30 (4.48%) Onboarding
4 29 (4.33%) Self-Motivation
5 19 (2.84%) NHS
6 13 (1.94%) Virtual Team
7 12 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
7 12 (1.79%) Data Centre
8 11 (1.64%) Legacy Applications
9 10 (1.49%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.49%) Data Structures
9 10 (1.49%) IoT
10 9 (1.35%) Mainframe
10 9 (1.35%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.35%) SystemC
11 8 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.20%) PMI
11 8 (1.20%) Public Cloud
12 7 (1.05%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 103 (15.40%) Windows
2 39 (5.83%) Linux
3 37 (5.53%) Windows Server
4 23 (3.44%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.94%) Android
6 10 (1.49%) Apple iOS
7 9 (1.35%) Unix
8 6 (0.90%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.60%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.30%) CentOS
11 2 (0.30%) Debian
11 2 (0.30%) Solaris
11 2 (0.30%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.30%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (30.64%) Continuous Improvement
2 114 (17.04%) Customer Service
3 108 (16.14%) Agile
4 85 (12.71%) Decision-Making
5 84 (12.56%) Business Intelligence
6 80 (11.96%) Analytics
7 77 (11.51%) Mentoring
8 75 (11.21%) AI
9 71 (10.61%) Collaborative Working
10 70 (10.46%) ERP
11 58 (8.67%) ITIL
12 56 (8.37%) Collaborative Culture
12 56 (8.37%) Cybersecurity
13 55 (8.22%) CI/CD
14 52 (7.77%) Stakeholder Management
15 48 (7.17%) CRM
16 47 (7.03%) Customer Experience
16 47 (7.03%) Root Cause Analysis
16 47 (7.03%) Service Delivery
17 43 (6.43%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 104 (15.55%) SQL
2 55 (8.22%) Java
3 42 (6.28%) Python
4 26 (3.89%) JavaScript
5 23 (3.44%) C#
6 22 (3.29%) PowerShell
7 19 (2.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 18 (2.69%) Ladder Logic
9 15 (2.24%) TypeScript
10 12 (1.79%) C
11 11 (1.64%) PHP
12 10 (1.49%) Embedded C
13 9 (1.35%) COBOL
13 9 (1.35%) JCL
14 7 (1.05%) RPG
15 6 (0.90%) ABAP
15 6 (0.90%) Bash
16 5 (0.75%) C++
17 4 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 4 (0.60%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 97 (14.50%) Degree
2 72 (10.76%) Security Cleared
3 57 (8.52%) SC Cleared
4 20 (2.99%) Azure Certification
5 13 (1.94%) DBS Check
5 13 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (1.79%) PMI Certification
7 11 (1.64%) CISSP
8 10 (1.49%) CompTIA Security+
9 8 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.05%) ACCA
10 7 (1.05%) CIMA
10 7 (1.05%) CISA
10 7 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (1.05%) SSCP
11 6 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (0.90%) HND
12 5 (0.75%) CCNA
12 5 (0.75%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.75%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.68%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.78%) GDPR
2 32 (4.78%) QA
3 24 (3.59%) Cyber Essentials
4 23 (3.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (3.44%) SLA
5 19 (2.84%) Accessibility
6 18 (2.69%) ISO 9001
7 15 (2.24%) NIST
8 9 (1.35%) ISO 14001
9 4 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.45%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.45%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.30%) GMP
11 2 (0.30%) GRC
11 2 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.30%) PMO
System Software
1 80 (11.96%) Active Directory
2 24 (3.59%) Hyper-V
3 17 (2.54%) Docker
4 16 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (1.35%) Firmware
6 7 (1.05%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.60%) vSphere
8 3 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.30%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 28 (4.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (2.24%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.90%) Ansible
4 5 (0.75%) Functional Safety
4 5 (0.75%) SCCM
5 4 (0.60%) Progress Chef
5 4 (0.60%) Puppet
5 4 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.45%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.30%) Grafana
7 2 (0.30%) Nagios
7 2 (0.30%) WSUS
8 1 (0.15%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 179 (26.76%) Microsoft
2 35 (5.23%) SAP
3 23 (3.44%) VMware
4 19 (2.84%) Cisco
5 15 (2.24%) Sage
6 13 (1.94%) ServiceNow
7 12 (1.79%) HubSpot
7 12 (1.79%) Salesforce
8 11 (1.64%) Dell
8 11 (1.64%) Oracle
9 10 (1.49%) Workday
10 8 (1.20%) Apple
10 8 (1.20%) Google
10 8 (1.20%) Sophos
11 7 (1.05%) IBM
12 6 (0.90%) iManage
12 6 (0.90%) McAfee
13 5 (0.75%) Broadcom
13 5 (0.75%) Databricks
13 5 (0.75%) SolarWinds