Could not create directory/Media uploading issue

So I recently created a staging environment and have had this problem since. Now when I try to install any plugin it says:

Unpacking the package…

Could not create directory.

And also when I try to upload some media files it says, The uploaded file could not be moved to wp-content/uploads/

Now I’ve done my research on these forums and most of the answers are a couple years old and involved some complicated wordpress jargon that I’m not really familiar with. I understand this is something to do with a permission issue and while I know how to handle that using FTP I was wondering if there was a non-FTP way to approach this because I’m only a contributor on my site. Thanks!