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 15 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 4 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 +3 +2
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 622 872 578
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 17.26% 15.85% 16.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.69% 19.09% 18.12%
Number of salaries quoted 425 293 479
10th Percentile £26,250 £32,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £30,500 £42,005 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £53,300 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.26% +8.78% +4.26%
75th Percentile £57,500 £65,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £69,500 £87,500 £71,250
England median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% - -

All Process and 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 3,007 4,567 3,190
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the West Midlands 83.46% 83.02% 93.00%
Number of salaries quoted 1,968 2,078 2,535
10th Percentile £29,000 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £36,189 £40,988 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -0.10%
75th Percentile £67,500 £70,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £81,250 £81,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -0.83%

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 15 November 2025.

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 15 November 2025. 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 +2 173 £45,000 -21.74% 136
Staffordshire +5 133 £39,000 -22.00% 61
Warwickshire +7 75 £53,000 +6.00% 58
Worcestershire -2 56 £31,500 -45.69% 34
Herefordshire +6 33 £37,500 +43.12% 13
Shropshire -3 31 £47,500 -15.56% 47
Coventry +7 27 £50,000 -4.76% 23
Solihull 0 24 £65,000 - 18
Walsall +2 14 £45,000 +42.86% 5
Halesowen +1 12 £32,500 - 1
Wednesbury -1 6 £42,500 +13.33% 1
Kingswinford -1 2 £45,250 - 1
Dudley -3 2 £75,000 +114.29% 7
Wolverhampton -5 1 £65,000 +18.18% 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 19 (3.05%) SharePoint
2 15 (2.41%) IIS
3 9 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.96%) Apache
5 2 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.32%) CMS
5 2 (0.32%) Confluence
5 2 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2007
5 2 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
5 2 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Solr
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.16%) Appian
6 1 (0.16%) HCL Notes
6 1 (0.16%) nginx
6 1 (0.16%) NServiceBus
6 1 (0.16%) WebLogic
Applications
1 77 (12.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (5.31%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.29%) AutoCAD
3 8 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (1.29%) SOLIDWORKS
4 6 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.64%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.32%) Trello
8 1 (0.16%) Revit
Business Applications
1 20 (3.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.13%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.64%) SAP FI
4 3 (0.48%) Dynamics NAV
4 3 (0.48%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
4 3 (0.48%) iTrent
5 1 (0.16%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.16%) Infor CloudSuite
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle SCM
5 1 (0.16%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 103 (16.56%) Azure
2 64 (10.29%) Microsoft 365
3 60 (9.65%) Power Platform
4 36 (5.79%) SaaS
5 25 (4.02%) AWS
6 21 (3.38%) Dynamics 365
7 12 (1.93%) Power Automate
8 11 (1.77%) Cloud Computing
8 11 (1.77%) GCP
8 11 (1.77%) PowerApps
9 10 (1.61%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.61%) Entra ID
10 7 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
11 6 (0.96%) GitHub
11 6 (0.96%) OCI
12 5 (0.80%) Serverless
12 5 (0.80%) Snowflake
13 4 (0.64%) Amazon S3
13 4 (0.64%) Azure Key Vault
13 4 (0.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 34 (5.47%) WAN
2 33 (5.31%) Firewall
3 32 (5.14%) LAN
4 23 (3.70%) Wi-Fi
5 22 (3.54%) VPN
6 18 (2.89%) DNS
7 15 (2.41%) DHCP
8 12 (1.93%) TCP/IP
9 11 (1.77%) Internet
9 11 (1.77%) Wireless
10 9 (1.45%) ADSL
10 9 (1.45%) Broadband
10 9 (1.45%) Ethernet
10 9 (1.45%) VDSL
10 9 (1.45%) VoIP
11 7 (1.13%) Network Security
11 7 (1.13%) Remote Desktop
12 5 (0.80%) PBX
13 4 (0.64%) Bluetooth
14 3 (0.48%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (8.52%) Power BI
2 39 (6.27%) SQL Server
3 19 (3.05%) MySQL
3 19 (3.05%) Relational Database
4 14 (2.25%) GIS
5 11 (1.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 9 (1.45%) Metadata
6 9 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (1.45%) Tableau
7 7 (1.13%) BusinessObjects
7 7 (1.13%) Crystal Reports
8 6 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (0.80%) Data Mining
10 4 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.48%) Data Lake
11 3 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.48%) MS Access
11 3 (0.48%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 15 (2.41%) Git
1 15 (2.41%) JIRA
2 3 (0.48%) Appcelerator Titanium
2 3 (0.48%) Jenkins
2 3 (0.48%) JUnit
3 2 (0.32%) GitLab
3 2 (0.32%) Maven
3 2 (0.32%) Mockito
3 2 (0.32%) Subversion
3 2 (0.32%) Vagrant
3 2 (0.32%) Visual Studio
3 2 (0.32%) Visual Studio Code
4 1 (0.16%) Babel
4 1 (0.16%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.16%) ERwin
4 1 (0.16%) Postman
4 1 (0.16%) Selenium
4 1 (0.16%) Snyk
4 1 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.16%) TestComplete
General
1 300 (48.23%) Social Skills
2 168 (27.01%) Finance
3 138 (22.19%) Analytical Skills
4 115 (18.49%) Manufacturing
5 101 (16.24%) Retail
6 38 (6.11%) Legal
7 32 (5.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 29 (4.66%) Marketing
8 29 (4.66%) Public Sector
9 28 (4.50%) Law
10 27 (4.34%) Digital Health
11 25 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (2.25%) Fire and Rescue
12 14 (2.25%) Presentation Skills
13 13 (2.09%) Telecoms
14 11 (1.77%) Banking
15 9 (1.45%) Electronics
15 9 (1.45%) Games
16 8 (1.29%) Aerospace
17 7 (1.13%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 83 (13.34%) Support Engineer
2 81 (13.02%) Analyst
3 71 (11.41%) IT Support
4 65 (10.45%) Developer
5 61 (9.81%) Technical Support
6 59 (9.49%) Technical Engineer
7 57 (9.16%) Technical Support Engineer
8 47 (7.56%) Trainer
9 45 (7.23%) Senior
10 31 (4.98%) Lead
11 30 (4.82%) 2nd Line Support
12 22 (3.54%) Applications Support
12 22 (3.54%) Architect
13 21 (3.38%) Support Analyst
14 16 (2.57%) Network Engineer
15 15 (2.41%) Administrator
15 15 (2.41%) IT Engineer
16 14 (2.25%) Support Technician
17 13 (2.09%) Applications Support Analyst
18 12 (1.93%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (5.63%) .NET
2 27 (4.34%) React
3 21 (3.38%) REST
4 18 (2.89%) HTML
5 16 (2.57%) AngularJS
6 15 (2.41%) JSON
7 14 (2.25%) CSS
8 13 (2.09%) Razor View Engine
9 7 (1.13%) .NET Framework
10 6 (0.96%) EDI
10 6 (0.96%) LAMP
10 6 (0.96%) Vue
10 6 (0.96%) Web Services
11 5 (0.80%) Entity Framework
12 4 (0.64%) jQuery
12 4 (0.64%) Laravel
12 4 (0.64%) Node.js
12 4 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
12 4 (0.64%) WPF
12 4 (0.64%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.91%) Onboarding
2 42 (6.75%) Robotics
3 37 (5.95%) Driving Licence
4 32 (5.14%) Self-Motivation
5 31 (4.98%) FMCG
6 19 (3.05%) Analytical Mindset
7 16 (2.57%) SCADA
8 15 (2.41%) Management Information System
8 15 (2.41%) Operational Technology
9 11 (1.77%) Data Centre
10 10 (1.61%) EPoS
11 9 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (1.45%) Product Ownership
12 8 (1.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 8 (1.29%) IoT
12 8 (1.29%) Linux Command Line
12 8 (1.29%) Security Posture
13 7 (1.13%) Cyber Threat
13 7 (1.13%) Data Structures
13 7 (1.13%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 81 (13.02%) Windows
2 34 (5.47%) Windows 10
3 21 (3.38%) Linux
4 7 (1.13%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.64%) Unix
5 4 (0.64%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.32%) VMS
6 2 (0.32%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.16%) Android
7 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.16%) Windows Mobile
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (23.31%) Continuous Improvement
2 81 (13.02%) Customer Service
3 72 (11.58%) Agile
4 66 (10.61%) AI
4 66 (10.61%) Project Management
5 60 (9.65%) Business Intelligence
6 54 (8.68%) ITIL
7 53 (8.52%) Decision-Making
8 49 (7.88%) Machine Learning
9 47 (7.56%) Analytics
10 43 (6.91%) Logistics
11 42 (6.75%) Generative AI
11 42 (6.75%) LLM
11 42 (6.75%) Red Team
12 41 (6.59%) Data Privacy
13 40 (6.43%) Data Analysis
13 40 (6.43%) Mentoring
14 39 (6.27%) CRM
15 36 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
15 36 (5.79%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 107 (17.20%) SQL
2 48 (7.72%) Python
3 46 (7.40%) C#
4 42 (6.75%) JavaScript
5 22 (3.54%) Java
6 20 (3.22%) PowerShell
7 19 (3.05%) PHP
8 14 (2.25%) T-SQL
9 8 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 6 (0.96%) C++
10 6 (0.96%) TypeScript
11 5 (0.80%) Bash
11 5 (0.80%) Ladder Logic
12 4 (0.64%) R
13 3 (0.48%) Delphi
13 3 (0.48%) Go
13 3 (0.48%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.32%) C
14 2 (0.32%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 146 (23.47%) Degree
2 51 (8.20%) Security Cleared
3 31 (4.98%) SC Cleared
4 24 (3.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (2.57%) ACCA
5 16 (2.57%) CIMA
6 15 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (1.61%) CISSP
7 10 (1.61%) DV Cleared
8 9 (1.45%) Master's Degree
8 9 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.13%) AAT
10 7 (1.13%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 6 (0.96%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 5 (0.80%) CCSP
12 5 (0.80%) CISM
12 5 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.64%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.54%) Data Quality
2 15 (2.41%) SLA
3 11 (1.77%) GDPR
3 11 (1.77%) QA
4 7 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (0.96%) NIST
6 5 (0.80%) PMO
7 4 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.32%) COBIT
9 2 (0.32%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.32%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 1 (0.16%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 36 (5.79%) Active Directory
2 13 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.61%) Docker
4 2 (0.32%) Firmware
4 2 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.16%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (1.77%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 8 (1.29%) Terraform
4 3 (0.48%) Ansible
4 3 (0.48%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.32%) Grafana
5 2 (0.32%) Nagios
5 2 (0.32%) SCCM
6 1 (0.16%) AirWatch
6 1 (0.16%) Argo
6 1 (0.16%) AWS Copilot
6 1 (0.16%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.16%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.16%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 157 (25.24%) Microsoft
2 59 (9.49%) Databricks
3 49 (7.88%) Google
4 42 (6.75%) Adobe
5 32 (5.14%) SAP
6 28 (4.50%) Oracle
7 17 (2.73%) Cisco
8 14 (2.25%) Salesforce
8 14 (2.25%) VMware
9 11 (1.77%) Dell
10 10 (1.61%) Juniper
11 9 (1.45%) McAfee
11 9 (1.45%) ServiceNow
12 8 (1.29%) Infor
12 8 (1.29%) Sage
13 7 (1.13%) Apple
14 5 (0.80%) Epicor
14 5 (0.80%) Panasonic
14 5 (0.80%) Samsung
15 4 (0.64%) Guidewire