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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 711 658 926
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 8.09% 19.69% 15.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.67% 23.22% 19.45%
Number of salaries quoted 494 423 338
10th Percentile £28,250 £25,000 £25,675
25th Percentile £33,531 £29,250 £33,647
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £44,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% -12.00% -
75th Percentile £57,500 £58,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £75,750
England median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -14.29% -4.55%

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 6,090 2,834 4,761
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 69.32% 84.82% 78.73%
Number of salaries quoted 4,544 1,792 2,571
10th Percentile £31,711 £28,775 £28,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £37,099
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 -8 255 £55,000 +22.22% 319
Staffordshire -8 93 £47,500 +5.56% 57
Warwickshire -5 74 £40,000 -27.27% 62
Worcestershire -3 69 £40,000 +31.15% 29
Shropshire +4 59 £45,000 -5.26% 43
Coventry -10 37 £42,000 +27.27% 45
Wolverhampton 0 16 £38,500 -21.03% 20
Solihull +2 15 £31,000 -8.82% 23
Herefordshire -23 8 £28,500 -12.31% 11
Tipton - 7 £33,500 - 2
Walsall 0 6 £37,500 -16.67% 8
Halesowen -3 5 £47,500 +46.15% 1
Willenhall -2 4 £37,500 -16.67%
Dudley - 4 £31,050 - 12
Sutton Coldfield - 3 £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 43 (6.05%) SharePoint
2 29 (4.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.41%) IIS
4 8 (1.13%) Confluence
5 5 (0.70%) Skype for Business
6 4 (0.56%) CICS
7 3 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.42%) WordPress
8 2 (0.28%) Documentum
8 2 (0.28%) SAS
9 1 (0.14%) Apache
9 1 (0.14%) Appian
9 1 (0.14%) CMS
9 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 59 (8.30%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (5.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.27%) Simulink
4 6 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.70%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.42%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.28%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.14%) EPLAN
8 1 (0.14%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.14%) Revit
8 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (1.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.41%) NetSuite
3 9 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.70%) Magento
4 5 (0.70%) Shopify
5 4 (0.56%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.56%) Line 50
5 4 (0.56%) Sage 50
5 4 (0.56%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.42%) SAP Business One
6 3 (0.42%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.28%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.14%) Exchequer
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 143 (20.11%) Azure
2 124 (17.44%) Microsoft 365
3 92 (12.94%) Power Platform
4 55 (7.74%) AWS
5 52 (7.31%) Entra ID
6 46 (6.47%) SaaS
7 25 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (3.23%) Dynamics 365
9 17 (2.39%) Power Automate
10 16 (2.25%) Microsoft Purview
11 15 (2.11%) GitHub
12 14 (1.97%) PowerApps
13 13 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (1.69%) GCP
15 11 (1.55%) Microsoft Copilot
16 10 (1.41%) PaaS
17 6 (0.84%) Google Workspace
17 6 (0.84%) IaaS
18 4 (0.56%) Amazon Kinesis
18 4 (0.56%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 28 (3.94%) Firewall
2 24 (3.38%) DNS
3 23 (3.23%) TCP/IP
4 21 (2.95%) VPN
5 20 (2.81%) WAN
5 20 (2.81%) Wireless
6 16 (2.25%) DHCP
6 16 (2.25%) LAN
6 16 (2.25%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (1.69%) Network Security
7 12 (1.69%) VLAN
8 10 (1.41%) VoIP
9 7 (0.98%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.84%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (0.70%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.70%) Skype
12 4 (0.56%) Bluetooth
13 3 (0.42%) HTTP
13 3 (0.42%) Internet
13 3 (0.42%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (12.24%) Power BI
2 27 (3.80%) SQL Server
3 24 (3.38%) Tableau
4 20 (2.81%) Relational Database
5 19 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
5 19 (2.67%) Power Query
6 12 (1.69%) MySQL
6 12 (1.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 11 (1.55%) Data Mining
8 10 (1.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (1.13%) Electronic Patient Records
10 7 (0.98%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
11 6 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
12 5 (0.70%) Big Data
12 5 (0.70%) Oracle BI EE
12 5 (0.70%) QlikView
12 5 (0.70%) Star Schema
13 4 (0.56%) Db2
Development Applications
1 31 (4.36%) Git
2 27 (3.80%) JIRA
3 24 (3.38%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.98%) Cucumber
4 7 (0.98%) Eclipse
4 7 (0.98%) Postman
5 6 (0.84%) GitLab
5 6 (0.84%) JMeter
5 6 (0.84%) Maven
5 6 (0.84%) Selenium
5 6 (0.84%) SoapUI
6 5 (0.70%) JUnit
6 5 (0.70%) Zephyr
7 3 (0.42%) Mockito
8 2 (0.28%) Ant
8 2 (0.28%) Apache Ivy
8 2 (0.28%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.14%) Bugzilla
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 339 (47.68%) Social Skills
2 183 (25.74%) Analytical Skills
3 113 (15.89%) Finance
4 104 (14.63%) Manufacturing
5 52 (7.31%) Public Sector
6 51 (7.17%) Organisational Skills
7 40 (5.63%) Retail
8 30 (4.22%) Marketing
9 26 (3.66%) Electronics
10 21 (2.95%) Law
10 21 (2.95%) Legal
11 18 (2.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (2.39%) Automotive
13 16 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
14 12 (1.69%) Telecoms
15 10 (1.41%) Banking
16 8 (1.13%) Billing
16 8 (1.13%) Fire and Rescue
16 8 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.13%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 86 (12.10%) Support Engineer
2 80 (11.25%) Analyst
3 74 (10.41%) Developer
4 69 (9.70%) Technical Support
5 61 (8.58%) Technical Engineer
6 59 (8.30%) Technical Support Engineer
7 55 (7.74%) Lead
8 53 (7.45%) IT Support
9 47 (6.61%) Consultant
10 46 (6.47%) Senior
11 36 (5.06%) IT Manager
12 35 (4.92%) IT Engineer
13 32 (4.50%) Support Analyst
14 25 (3.52%) IT Support Engineer
15 23 (3.23%) Administrator
16 19 (2.67%) Architect
17 17 (2.39%) Project Manager
18 15 (2.11%) 1st Line Support
18 15 (2.11%) 2nd Line Support
19 14 (1.97%) Graduate
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (5.20%) REST
2 33 (4.64%) .NET
3 28 (3.94%) Spring
4 26 (3.66%) React
5 25 (3.52%) Spring Boot
6 15 (2.11%) CSS
6 15 (2.11%) HTML
6 15 (2.11%) RESTful
7 14 (1.97%) AngularJS
7 14 (1.97%) Playwright
8 12 (1.69%) ISPF
9 11 (1.55%) SOAP
9 11 (1.55%) Terraform
10 9 (1.27%) XML
11 7 (0.98%) JSON
11 7 (0.98%) LDAP
11 7 (0.98%) Node.js
11 7 (0.98%) SAP Fiori
12 6 (0.84%) OAuth
12 6 (0.84%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 62 (8.72%) Driving Licence
2 39 (5.49%) Onboarding
3 38 (5.34%) Management Information System
3 38 (5.34%) Self-Motivation
4 33 (4.64%) Enterprise Software
5 19 (2.67%) NHS
6 18 (2.53%) Data Centre
7 17 (2.39%) Virtual Team
8 16 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (1.97%) Legacy Applications
10 12 (1.69%) Mainframe
11 11 (1.55%) Public Cloud
12 10 (1.41%) Cloud Native
12 10 (1.41%) Data Structures
13 9 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
13 9 (1.27%) IoT
13 9 (1.27%) Mobile App
13 9 (1.27%) SystemC
14 8 (1.13%) PMI
14 8 (1.13%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 111 (15.61%) Windows
2 38 (5.34%) Linux
2 38 (5.34%) Windows Server
3 21 (2.95%) Windows 10
4 14 (1.97%) Android
5 10 (1.41%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.27%) Unix
7 6 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.56%) FreeRTOS
9 3 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.28%) Solaris
11 1 (0.14%) CentOS
11 1 (0.14%) Debian
11 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 224 (31.50%) Continuous Improvement
2 126 (17.72%) Customer Service
3 110 (15.47%) Agile
4 90 (12.66%) Business Intelligence
4 90 (12.66%) Decision-Making
5 87 (12.24%) Analytics
6 77 (10.83%) AI
7 74 (10.41%) ERP
8 73 (10.27%) Mentoring
9 68 (9.56%) Collaborative Working
10 59 (8.30%) Collaborative Culture
10 59 (8.30%) Cybersecurity
10 59 (8.30%) Stakeholder Management
11 57 (8.02%) CI/CD
12 56 (7.88%) ITIL
13 53 (7.45%) CRM
14 51 (7.17%) Project Management
15 49 (6.89%) Project Delivery
15 49 (6.89%) Workflow
16 48 (6.75%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 111 (15.61%) SQL
2 66 (9.28%) Java
3 44 (6.19%) Python
4 30 (4.22%) JavaScript
5 27 (3.80%) PowerShell
6 24 (3.38%) C#
7 19 (2.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 19 (2.67%) Ladder Logic
8 16 (2.25%) C
9 15 (2.11%) Embedded C
10 14 (1.97%) TypeScript
11 12 (1.69%) COBOL
11 12 (1.69%) JCL
12 10 (1.41%) PHP
13 9 (1.27%) MATLAB
14 7 (0.98%) RPG
15 6 (0.84%) ABAP
15 6 (0.84%) R
16 5 (0.70%) Bash
16 5 (0.70%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 110 (15.47%) Degree
2 79 (11.11%) Security Cleared
3 64 (9.00%) SC Cleared
4 21 (2.95%) Azure Certification
5 14 (1.97%) PMI Certification
6 13 (1.83%) DBS Check
7 12 (1.69%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.27%) HND
10 8 (1.13%) CCNA
10 8 (1.13%) PMP
11 7 (0.98%) ACCA
11 7 (0.98%) CIMA
11 7 (0.98%) HNC
12 6 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (0.84%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.70%) CCNP
13 5 (0.70%) ISEB
14 4 (0.56%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (6.19%) Data Quality
2 36 (5.06%) QA
3 33 (4.64%) GDPR
4 24 (3.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 24 (3.38%) SLA
5 20 (2.81%) Accessibility
5 20 (2.81%) ISO 9001
5 20 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (1.27%) ISO 14001
7 6 (0.84%) NIST
8 4 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.42%) AQAP
9 3 (0.42%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.42%) GMP
9 3 (0.42%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.42%) ISO 26262
9 3 (0.42%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.28%) Automotive SPICE
10 2 (0.28%) GRC
System Software
1 81 (11.39%) Active Directory
2 25 (3.52%) Hyper-V
3 16 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (2.11%) Docker
5 13 (1.83%) Firmware
6 11 (1.55%) Embedded Firmware
7 7 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.56%) vSphere
10 2 (0.28%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 29 (4.08%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (1.83%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.84%) Functional Safety
3 6 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (0.70%) SCCM
5 4 (0.56%) Ansible
6 3 (0.42%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.42%) Puppet
7 2 (0.28%) Grafana
7 2 (0.28%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.28%) WSUS
8 1 (0.14%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.14%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.14%) Nagios
Vendors
1 195 (27.43%) Microsoft
2 39 (5.49%) SAP
3 23 (3.23%) VMware
4 21 (2.95%) Cisco
5 18 (2.53%) Sage
6 16 (2.25%) Workday
7 13 (1.83%) ServiceNow
8 12 (1.69%) HubSpot
8 12 (1.69%) Oracle
8 12 (1.69%) Salesforce
9 10 (1.41%) Dell
9 10 (1.41%) Google
10 9 (1.27%) Apple
11 8 (1.13%) Broadcom
11 8 (1.13%) Databricks
11 8 (1.13%) Sophos
12 7 (0.98%) IBM
13 6 (0.84%) iManage
13 6 (0.84%) McAfee
13 6 (0.84%) Pega