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 4 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 5 9
Rank change year-on-year -7 +4 +5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,030 4,340 4,045
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.86% 15.46% 12.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.82% 16.99% 14.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,823 2,643 2,332
10th Percentile £255 £254 £264
25th Percentile £381 £380 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £716 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.20% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 501 274 197
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.50
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £19.48 £18.86 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +3.29% +16.20% -69.09%
75th Percentile £40.00 £34.48 £31.24
90th Percentile £70.50 £63.93 £63.75
UK median hourly rate £18.38 £19.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -6.34% +20.92% -69.09%

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 39,229 25,540 27,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.96% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,740 16,195 17,136
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £738 £734 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,947 1,574 1,191
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.54 £17.87 £20.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £46.55 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.62 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +53.57% -40.82% -

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -12 2,147 £525 +5.00% 5,795
South East -3 820 £475 +5.56% 2,144
North of England -10 729 £450 -5.26% 2,060
Midlands -5 618 £450 +0.67% 1,398
West Midlands -8 442 £450 -5.26% 837
North West -9 359 £450 -2.44% 1,019
South West -5 318 £500 +11.11% 1,073
Yorkshire -7 295 £475 -4.04% 708
East of England 0 290 £450 -12.11% 1,031
East Midlands +2 172 £446 +19.00% 561
North East -13 77 £375 -16.67% 358
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
1 234 (4.65%) SharePoint
2 224 (4.45%) Confluence
3 95 (1.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (0.99%) Apache Spark
5 42 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 41 (0.82%) Apache
7 26 (0.52%) CMS
8 22 (0.44%) SAS
9 20 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
10 16 (0.32%) WebLogic
11 15 (0.30%) WebSphere
12 10 (0.20%) CICS
12 10 (0.20%) Jupyter
13 9 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.14%) IIS
14 7 (0.14%) WordPress
15 6 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.099%) Appian
16 5 (0.099%) Mule
16 5 (0.099%) Tomcat
Applications
1 301 (5.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 246 (4.89%) Microsoft Office
3 113 (2.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 65 (1.29%) Microsoft Project
5 49 (0.97%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 16 (0.32%) AutoCAD
8 16 (0.32%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.32%) Revit
9 10 (0.20%) Navisworks
9 10 (0.20%) Windchill
10 9 (0.18%) Sketch
11 8 (0.16%) Trello
12 6 (0.12%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.060%) Acrobat
14 3 (0.060%) DaVinci Resolve
14 3 (0.060%) NUKE
15 2 (0.040%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 113 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 51 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
4 28 (0.56%) NetSuite
5 25 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
6 24 (0.48%) Workday HCM
7 17 (0.34%) SAP GRC
8 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
9 14 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
10 13 (0.26%) iTrent
11 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
12 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
12 11 (0.22%) SAP SD
13 10 (0.20%) Finacle
13 10 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
13 10 (0.20%) SAP HCM
14 9 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
14 9 (0.18%) SAP PSCD
15 8 (0.16%) Primavera
15 8 (0.16%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 997 (19.82%) Azure
2 686 (13.64%) AWS
3 476 (9.46%) Microsoft 365
4 413 (8.21%) Power Platform
5 292 (5.81%) GCP
6 248 (4.93%) Azure DevOps
7 211 (4.19%) Entra ID
8 184 (3.66%) GitHub
9 123 (2.45%) SaaS
10 113 (2.25%) Serverless
11 108 (2.15%) Power Automate
12 87 (1.73%) Microsoft Copilot
13 84 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
14 82 (1.63%) PowerApps
15 74 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
16 70 (1.39%) OneDrive
16 70 (1.39%) Snowflake
17 58 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
18 56 (1.11%) OpenShift
19 52 (1.03%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 201 (4.00%) DNS
2 175 (3.48%) Firewall
3 150 (2.98%) VPN
4 120 (2.39%) DHCP
5 112 (2.23%) TCP/IP
6 102 (2.03%) Network Security
7 97 (1.93%) WAN
8 84 (1.67%) LAN
9 71 (1.41%) Wi-Fi
10 60 (1.19%) Wireless
11 51 (1.01%) SAN
12 47 (0.93%) VLAN
13 45 (0.89%) BGP
14 43 (0.85%) VoIP
15 30 (0.60%) Structured Cabling
16 25 (0.50%) MPLS
16 25 (0.50%) SD-WAN
17 23 (0.46%) SSL
18 21 (0.42%) Broadband
18 21 (0.42%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 308 (6.12%) Power BI
2 190 (3.78%) SQL Server
3 158 (3.14%) Relational Database
4 149 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
5 130 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
6 91 (1.81%) Metadata
7 84 (1.67%) MongoDB
8 79 (1.57%) NoSQL
9 73 (1.45%) Tableau
10 66 (1.31%) Data Lake
11 54 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 53 (1.05%) MySQL
13 36 (0.72%) Big Data
14 33 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 29 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
16 28 (0.56%) BigQuery
17 26 (0.52%) Db2
17 26 (0.52%) Delta Lake
18 23 (0.46%) Pentaho
18 23 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 446 (8.87%) JIRA
2 333 (6.62%) Git
3 178 (3.54%) Jenkins
4 130 (2.58%) GitLab
5 71 (1.41%) Selenium
6 41 (0.82%) Cucumber
7 39 (0.78%) Maven
8 35 (0.70%) Cypress.io
8 35 (0.70%) JUnit
9 34 (0.68%) Postman
10 30 (0.60%) Bitbucket
11 29 (0.58%) Gradle
12 26 (0.52%) SonarQube
13 25 (0.50%) REST Assured
14 22 (0.44%) JMeter
15 19 (0.38%) Mockito
16 18 (0.36%) Gatling
17 17 (0.34%) WebDriver
18 15 (0.30%) Visual Studio
19 13 (0.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 2,683 (53.34%) Social Skills
2 2,192 (43.58%) Analytical Skills
3 1,178 (23.42%) Finance
4 513 (10.20%) Public Sector
5 416 (8.27%) Banking
6 280 (5.57%) Organisational Skills
7 253 (5.03%) Manufacturing
8 171 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
9 168 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
10 162 (3.22%) Retail
11 161 (3.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 118 (2.35%) Legal
13 113 (2.25%) Marketing
14 112 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
15 105 (2.09%) Front Office
15 105 (2.09%) Telecoms
16 84 (1.67%) Investment Banking
17 69 (1.37%) Aerospace
18 61 (1.21%) Military
19 60 (1.19%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 668 (13.28%) Analyst
2 580 (11.53%) Developer
3 484 (9.62%) Senior
4 382 (7.59%) Lead
5 278 (5.53%) Architect
6 230 (4.57%) Business Analyst
7 221 (4.39%) Consultant
8 219 (4.35%) IT Support
9 199 (3.96%) Support Engineer
10 171 (3.40%) Data Engineer
11 146 (2.90%) Project Manager
12 144 (2.86%) Administrator
13 133 (2.64%) IT Engineer
14 106 (2.11%) Data Analyst
15 101 (2.01%) IT Support Engineer
16 97 (1.93%) Java Developer
17 96 (1.91%) DevOps Engineer
18 94 (1.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 89 (1.77%) Network Engineer
20 84 (1.67%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 335 (6.66%) REST
2 312 (6.20%) Terraform
3 174 (3.46%) .NET
4 151 (3.00%) RESTful
5 143 (2.84%) React
5 143 (2.84%) SOAP
6 120 (2.39%) Kafka
7 117 (2.33%) HTML
8 116 (2.31%) CSS
9 115 (2.29%) JSON
10 114 (2.27%) XML
11 109 (2.17%) Spring
12 100 (1.99%) Middleware
13 98 (1.95%) Web Services
14 89 (1.77%) Spring Boot
15 78 (1.55%) Node.js
16 77 (1.53%) AngularJS
17 73 (1.45%) OAuth
18 57 (1.13%) PySpark
19 52 (1.03%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 303 (6.02%) Onboarding
2 262 (5.21%) Cloud Native
3 235 (4.67%) Product Ownership
4 201 (4.00%) Management Information System
5 197 (3.92%) Self-Motivation
6 188 (3.74%) Enterprise Software
7 149 (2.96%) Data Centre
8 125 (2.49%) Data Structures
9 123 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
10 114 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
11 109 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
12 105 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
13 81 (1.61%) Virtual Team
14 78 (1.55%) Driving Licence
15 74 (1.47%) AI Agents
16 66 (1.31%) CMDB
17 55 (1.09%) NHS
17 55 (1.09%) PKI
18 51 (1.01%) Algorithms
19 50 (0.99%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 682 (13.56%) Windows
2 275 (5.47%) Linux
3 200 (3.98%) Windows Server
4 124 (2.47%) Windows 10
5 97 (1.93%) Unix
6 82 (1.63%) Apple iOS
7 77 (1.53%) Mac OS
8 70 (1.39%) Android
9 50 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.38%) Ubuntu
11 17 (0.34%) VMS
11 17 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
12 15 (0.30%) Solaris
13 12 (0.24%) zOS
14 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 8 (0.16%) AIX
15 8 (0.16%) CentOS
16 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.080%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
17 4 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,381 (27.46%) Agile
2 1,263 (25.11%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,165 (23.16%) Continuous Improvement
4 852 (16.94%) CI/CD
5 769 (15.29%) DevOps
6 704 (14.00%) AI
7 583 (11.59%) Decision-Making
8 566 (11.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 523 (10.40%) Migration
10 486 (9.66%) Analytics
11 483 (9.60%) Customer Service
12 451 (8.97%) ITIL
13 422 (8.39%) Test Automation
14 409 (8.13%) Validation
15 359 (7.14%) Business Intelligence
16 353 (7.02%) Scrum
17 350 (6.96%) Data Modelling
18 340 (6.76%) Technical Leadership
19 336 (6.68%) ITSM
19 336 (6.68%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 887 (17.63%) SQL
2 760 (15.11%) Python
3 364 (7.24%) Java
4 308 (6.12%) JavaScript
5 300 (5.96%) PowerShell
6 204 (4.06%) C#
7 148 (2.94%) Bash
8 131 (2.60%) TypeScript
9 79 (1.57%) PL/SQL
10 45 (0.89%) Shell Script
10 45 (0.89%) T-SQL
11 42 (0.83%) C++
11 42 (0.83%) Go
12 30 (0.60%) Bicep
13 29 (0.58%) Scala
14 26 (0.52%) Groovy
15 24 (0.48%) Kotlin
16 23 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 20 (0.40%) C
17 20 (0.40%) R
Qualifications
1 1,113 (22.13%) Security Cleared
2 782 (15.55%) SC Cleared
3 614 (12.21%) Degree
4 223 (4.43%) DV Cleared
5 179 (3.56%) Computer Science Degree
6 141 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
7 134 (2.66%) Microsoft Certification
8 83 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.61%) PMI Certification
10 76 (1.51%) PMP
11 73 (1.45%) Azure Certification
11 73 (1.45%) CISSP
12 53 (1.05%) DBS Check
13 50 (0.99%) Master's Degree
14 48 (0.95%) A+ Certification
14 48 (0.95%) AWS Certification
15 43 (0.85%) CISM
16 42 (0.83%) CCNA
17 39 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 34 (0.68%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 371 (7.38%) Data Quality
2 349 (6.94%) QA
3 122 (2.43%) GDPR
4 117 (2.33%) Accessibility
5 111 (2.21%) SLA
6 88 (1.75%) PMO
7 84 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 62 (1.23%) NIST
9 54 (1.07%) GRC
10 32 (0.64%) WCAG
11 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 17 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.30%) NCSC
14 15 (0.30%) PCI DSS
15 13 (0.26%) GxP
16 11 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 11 (0.22%) IFRS
16 11 (0.22%) ISO 9001
17 10 (0.20%) COBIT
System Software
1 397 (7.89%) Active Directory
2 308 (6.12%) Docker
3 156 (3.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
5 62 (1.23%) Hyper-V
6 53 (1.05%) vSphere
7 51 (1.01%) VMware NSX
8 35 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 26 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
10 24 (0.48%) IAG
10 24 (0.48%) vCloud
11 17 (0.34%) Firmware
12 10 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.12%) NFS
13 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.099%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 5 (0.099%) Microsoft App-V
14 5 (0.099%) XenApp
14 5 (0.099%) XenDesktop
15 4 (0.080%) RACF
Systems Management
1 349 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 165 (3.28%) Ansible
3 128 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
4 90 (1.79%) Grafana
5 83 (1.65%) SCCM
6 73 (1.45%) Prometheus
7 46 (0.91%) vCenter Server
8 37 (0.74%) SCOM
9 24 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
10 21 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
11 20 (0.40%) Control-M
12 18 (0.36%) WSUS
13 14 (0.28%) FortiGate
14 13 (0.26%) Nessus
15 12 (0.24%) VxRail
16 11 (0.22%) Istio
17 10 (0.20%) Kibana
18 9 (0.18%) NetBackup
19 8 (0.16%) Puppet
19 8 (0.16%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,225 (24.35%) Microsoft
2 342 (6.80%) Oracle
3 315 (6.26%) SAP
4 304 (6.04%) ServiceNow
5 200 (3.98%) VMware
6 150 (2.98%) Google
7 123 (2.45%) Databricks
8 121 (2.41%) Salesforce
9 119 (2.37%) Cisco
10 103 (2.05%) Splunk
11 72 (1.43%) Workday
12 63 (1.25%) Dynatrace
13 60 (1.19%) Apple
14 55 (1.09%) Adobe
15 54 (1.07%) IBM
16 49 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 43 (0.85%) CyberArk
18 37 (0.74%) Palo Alto
19 36 (0.72%) MuleSoft
20 33 (0.66%) Dell