Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends in England

Problem Solving
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,429 4,158 3,951
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.70% 17.34% 10.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.63% 19.00% 12.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,663 2,614 2,402
10th Percentile £266 £250 £250
25th Percentile £394 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.17% -2.65%
75th Percentile £600 £603 £637
90th Percentile £725 £714 £738
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 211 379
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.20 £11.00
25th Percentile £15.62 £15.12 £14.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.39 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.85% +29.64% -67.00%
75th Percentile £51.27 £34.56 £38.38
90th Percentile £74.13 £65.25 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.14 £16.23
% change year-on-year -5.15% +36.41% -67.54%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Problem-Solving falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 35,064 21,889 31,425
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.71% 91.30% 86.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,297 14,308 20,582
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,170 926 2,283
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.35 £12.88
25th Percentile £20.39 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.18 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.69% -22.79% -2.46%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £80.28 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £27.59 £36.05
% change year-on-year +52.71% -23.47% -0.22%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in England

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in England over the 6 months to 25 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in England

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in England over the 6 months to 25 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in England

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the England region over the 6 months to 25 May 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -11 1,859 £520 -0.14% 1,080
North of England -8 741 £450 -7.46% 667
South East -7 640 £495 -1.00% 729
Midlands -8 493 £469 +6.71% 407
North West -8 350 £425 -13.27% 366
Yorkshire -6 348 £470 -1.05% 233
West Midlands -10 344 £475 +2.98% 259
South West -2 330 £500 -3.61% 284
East of England -3 236 £450 -6.00% 259
East Midlands -1 148 £445 +19.16% 149
North East -11 51 £425 -5.56% 79
Problem-Solving
UK

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 198 (4.47%) Confluence
2 136 (3.07%) SharePoint
3 82 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 36 (0.81%) Apache
6 35 (0.79%) SAS
7 33 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
8 25 (0.56%) CMS
9 20 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.27%) nginx
11 10 (0.23%) ArcGIS
11 10 (0.23%) WebLogic
12 8 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 8 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 7 (0.16%) Camunda
13 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.14%) CICS
14 6 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 6 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 4 (0.090%) WebSphere
Applications
1 263 (5.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 206 (4.65%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (2.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 67 (1.51%) Microsoft Project
5 62 (1.40%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 22 (0.50%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.20%) Sketch
9 7 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.16%) AutoCAD
9 7 (0.16%) Trello
10 6 (0.14%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.14%) Revit
11 5 (0.11%) CATIA
11 5 (0.11%) Maya
11 5 (0.11%) Photoshop
12 4 (0.090%) Acrobat
12 4 (0.090%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.068%) LaTeX
13 3 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 98 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.47%) Aladdin
4 17 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
6 14 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 12 (0.27%) NEC Housing
8 12 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.27%) Workday HCM
9 11 (0.25%) SAP SD
10 10 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.20%) iTrent
12 8 (0.18%) NetSuite
12 8 (0.18%) Shopify
13 7 (0.16%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 7 (0.16%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 898 (20.28%) Azure
2 650 (14.68%) AWS
3 351 (7.93%) Power Platform
4 307 (6.93%) Microsoft 365
5 275 (6.21%) GCP
6 214 (4.83%) Azure DevOps
7 170 (3.84%) GitHub
8 137 (3.09%) Entra ID
9 116 (2.62%) Serverless
10 111 (2.51%) SaaS
11 80 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
12 65 (1.47%) Amazon S3
13 64 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
13 64 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
14 61 (1.38%) Dynamics 365
14 61 (1.38%) OpenShift
14 61 (1.38%) Snowflake
15 58 (1.31%) Power Automate
16 48 (1.08%) PowerApps
17 45 (1.02%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 169 (3.82%) DNS
2 143 (3.23%) Firewall
3 101 (2.28%) TCP/IP
4 98 (2.21%) VPN
5 88 (1.99%) DHCP
6 85 (1.92%) WAN
7 77 (1.74%) Network Security
8 66 (1.49%) LAN
9 62 (1.40%) SAN
10 55 (1.24%) Wi-Fi
11 43 (0.97%) VLAN
12 40 (0.90%) BGP
13 36 (0.81%) OSPF
14 31 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 27 (0.61%) Wireless
16 25 (0.56%) VoIP
17 23 (0.52%) VXLAN
18 19 (0.43%) Internet
19 18 (0.41%) BIG-IP
20 17 (0.38%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 276 (6.23%) Power BI
2 175 (3.95%) SQL Server
3 138 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
4 113 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
5 107 (2.42%) Relational Database
6 86 (1.94%) Metadata
7 79 (1.78%) MongoDB
8 76 (1.72%) Tableau
9 73 (1.65%) NoSQL
10 67 (1.51%) Data Lake
11 53 (1.20%) Oracle Reports
12 46 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 44 (0.99%) Oracle Database
14 43 (0.97%) Big Data
15 38 (0.86%) MySQL
16 28 (0.63%) Power Query
17 26 (0.59%) Delta Lake
18 25 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
19 24 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
19 24 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 446 (10.07%) JIRA
2 245 (5.53%) Git
3 158 (3.57%) Jenkins
4 102 (2.30%) GitLab
5 58 (1.31%) Selenium
6 32 (0.72%) Postman
7 25 (0.56%) REST Assured
8 24 (0.54%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.50%) Bitbucket
9 22 (0.50%) JUnit
10 19 (0.43%) Cypress.io
11 17 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
12 16 (0.36%) Mockito
13 15 (0.34%) SonarQube
14 14 (0.32%) JMeter
15 13 (0.29%) Maven
15 13 (0.29%) SpecFlow
16 12 (0.27%) WebDriver
17 11 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
17 11 (0.25%) Zephyr
General
1 2,266 (51.16%) Social Skills
2 1,738 (39.24%) Analytical Skills
3 1,019 (23.01%) Finance
4 386 (8.72%) Public Sector
5 344 (7.77%) Banking
6 198 (4.47%) Organisational Skills
7 170 (3.84%) Retail
8 161 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
9 125 (2.82%) Legal
10 102 (2.30%) Presentation Skills
11 95 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
12 92 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 89 (2.01%) Front Office
14 82 (1.85%) Marketing
15 76 (1.72%) Telecoms
16 72 (1.63%) Manufacturing
17 67 (1.51%) Investment Banking
18 60 (1.35%) Law
19 44 (0.99%) Military
20 43 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 651 (14.70%) Analyst
2 476 (10.75%) Developer
3 369 (8.33%) Senior
4 317 (7.16%) Architect
5 276 (6.23%) Lead
6 247 (5.58%) Business Analyst
7 208 (4.70%) Data Engineer
8 203 (4.58%) Consultant
9 168 (3.79%) Project Manager
10 119 (2.69%) IT Support
11 113 (2.55%) Data Analyst
12 112 (2.53%) Support Engineer
13 86 (1.94%) Software Engineer
13 86 (1.94%) Solutions Architect
14 84 (1.90%) Administrator
15 77 (1.74%) IT Engineer
16 76 (1.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 76 (1.72%) Java Developer
17 72 (1.63%) IT Analyst
18 71 (1.60%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (5.62%) REST
2 128 (2.89%) Kafka
3 127 (2.87%) .NET
4 126 (2.84%) SOAP
5 119 (2.69%) React
6 114 (2.57%) Spring
7 113 (2.55%) RESTful
8 99 (2.24%) CSS
9 91 (2.05%) HTML
9 91 (2.05%) Middleware
10 88 (1.99%) LDAP
11 85 (1.92%) JSON
11 85 (1.92%) Spring Boot
12 81 (1.83%) AngularJS
13 80 (1.81%) XML
14 79 (1.78%) Node.js
15 55 (1.24%) PySpark
16 53 (1.20%) OAuth
17 52 (1.17%) Web Services
18 47 (1.06%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 220 (4.97%) Product Ownership
2 205 (4.63%) Onboarding
3 167 (3.77%) Data Centre
4 160 (3.61%) Cloud Native
5 142 (3.21%) Self-Motivation
6 128 (2.89%) Analytical Mindset
7 118 (2.66%) Management Information System
8 111 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
9 104 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
9 104 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
10 92 (2.08%) Virtual Team
11 88 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
12 82 (1.85%) Data Structures
13 65 (1.47%) Security Posture
14 53 (1.20%) AI Agents
15 49 (1.11%) Mobile App
16 46 (1.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 44 (0.99%) Algorithms
17 44 (0.99%) Driving Licence
17 44 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 513 (11.58%) Windows
2 256 (5.78%) Linux
3 106 (2.39%) Windows 10
4 91 (2.05%) Windows Server
5 86 (1.94%) Unix
6 81 (1.83%) Apple iOS
7 78 (1.76%) Android
8 66 (1.49%) Mac OS
9 45 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 21 (0.47%) Ubuntu
11 16 (0.36%) VMS
12 14 (0.32%) CentOS
13 13 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.18%) Mac OS X
14 8 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 8 (0.18%) zOS
15 7 (0.16%) Debian
16 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.090%) Solaris
17 4 (0.090%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,195 (26.98%) Agile
2 716 (16.17%) Continuous Improvement
3 700 (15.80%) CI/CD
4 676 (15.26%) DevOps
5 663 (14.97%) Stakeholder Management
6 509 (11.49%) Decision-Making
7 505 (11.40%) AI
8 498 (11.24%) Migration
9 478 (10.79%) Analytics
10 417 (9.42%) Project Management
11 388 (8.76%) Data Modelling
12 377 (8.51%) ITIL
13 373 (8.42%) Customer Service
14 370 (8.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 360 (8.13%) Validation
16 354 (7.99%) Business Intelligence
17 337 (7.61%) Test Automation
18 326 (7.36%) Change Management
19 309 (6.98%) Scrum
20 276 (6.23%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 795 (17.95%) Python
2 789 (17.81%) SQL
3 338 (7.63%) Java
4 271 (6.12%) PowerShell
5 223 (5.03%) JavaScript
6 169 (3.82%) C#
7 121 (2.73%) TypeScript
8 104 (2.35%) Bash
9 69 (1.56%) PL/SQL
10 62 (1.40%) C++
11 40 (0.90%) Go
11 40 (0.90%) Shell Script
12 37 (0.84%) C
13 33 (0.75%) Bicep
13 33 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 31 (0.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 31 (0.70%) R
15 29 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 25 (0.56%) Perl
17 23 (0.52%) Scala
Qualifications
1 984 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 657 (14.83%) SC Cleared
3 542 (12.24%) Degree
4 193 (4.36%) DV Cleared
5 174 (3.93%) Computer Science Degree
6 119 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
7 113 (2.55%) Microsoft Certification
8 108 (2.44%) Cisco Certification
9 87 (1.96%) CISSP
10 77 (1.74%) PMP
11 65 (1.47%) PMI Certification
12 62 (1.40%) CCNA
13 59 (1.33%) A+ Certification
14 58 (1.31%) Azure Certification
14 58 (1.31%) CISM
15 55 (1.24%) Master's Degree
16 54 (1.22%) Network+ Certification
17 43 (0.97%) MCSE
18 31 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
19 29 (0.65%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 296 (6.68%) Data Quality
2 234 (5.28%) QA
3 133 (3.00%) GDPR
4 87 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 78 (1.76%) PMO
6 77 (1.74%) SLA
7 76 (1.72%) Accessibility
8 75 (1.69%) NIST
9 40 (0.90%) GRC
10 24 (0.54%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
12 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 16 (0.36%) ISO 20022
14 15 (0.34%) NCSC
14 15 (0.34%) PSD2
15 14 (0.32%) WCAG
16 13 (0.29%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.29%) HL7
17 12 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
17 12 (0.27%) IFRS
System Software
1 336 (7.59%) Active Directory
2 277 (6.25%) Docker
3 101 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (0.84%) vSphere
5 34 (0.77%) VMware NSX
6 30 (0.68%) Hyper-V
7 25 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
8 23 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
10 18 (0.41%) Firmware
10 18 (0.41%) vCloud
11 11 (0.25%) Squid
12 7 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.14%) IAG
14 4 (0.090%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.090%) RACF
14 4 (0.090%) Snort
15 3 (0.068%) ACF2
15 3 (0.068%) NFS
15 3 (0.068%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 333 (7.52%) Kubernetes
2 232 (5.24%) Terraform
3 156 (3.52%) Ansible
4 119 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 97 (2.19%) Grafana
6 81 (1.83%) Prometheus
7 66 (1.49%) SCCM
8 44 (0.99%) vCenter Server
9 37 (0.84%) FortiGate
10 32 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
11 27 (0.61%) Kibana
12 23 (0.52%) Control-M
12 23 (0.52%) Puppet
13 21 (0.47%) Nessus
14 19 (0.43%) Argo
15 17 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
16 15 (0.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 15 (0.34%) SCOM
17 11 (0.25%) WSUS
18 9 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 813 (18.36%) Microsoft
2 303 (6.84%) Oracle
3 244 (5.51%) SAP
4 210 (4.74%) ServiceNow
5 176 (3.97%) VMware
6 124 (2.80%) Databricks
7 118 (2.66%) Google
8 117 (2.64%) Splunk
9 105 (2.37%) Cisco
10 101 (2.28%) Salesforce
11 66 (1.49%) CyberArk
12 61 (1.38%) BeyondTrust
12 61 (1.38%) Dell
12 61 (1.38%) Workday
13 58 (1.31%) Red Hat
14 43 (0.97%) Adobe
14 43 (0.97%) Dynatrace
15 42 (0.95%) Citrix
15 42 (0.95%) F5
16 41 (0.93%) MuleSoft