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 13 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -8 +5 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,769 4,537 4,024
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.64% 16.62% 10.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.45% 18.32% 12.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,793 2,817 2,428
10th Percentile £261 £250 £251
25th Percentile £381 £375 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £711 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £490 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -1.01% -1.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 364 269 342
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.13 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.33 £15.50 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.49 £21.28 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% +31.12% -69.09%
75th Percentile £47.50 £40.02 £33.05
90th Percentile £74.26 £67.75 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £20.44 £21.39 £16.23
% change year-on-year -4.44% +31.79% -68.79%

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 38,320 24,760 31,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.46% 90.73% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,128 15,919 20,389
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.81% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 1,284 2,227
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.33 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.08 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -5.96%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.81 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £72.20 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 13 July 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 2,013 £512 +2.40% 1,832
South East -5 751 £475 -3.06% 859
North of England -10 745 £447 -5.89% 747
Midlands -8 543 £464 +9.18% 445
West Midlands -8 393 £466 +3.54% 263
North West -11 373 £447 -6.88% 393
South West -3 341 £500 - 525
Yorkshire -7 328 £450 -5.26% 241
East of England -2 264 £473 +0.53% 277
East Midlands 0 148 £450 +22.62% 181
North East -16 50 £366 -18.61% 123
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
1 214 (4.49%) Confluence
2 160 (3.36%) SharePoint
3 88 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 59 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 39 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 38 (0.80%) Apache
7 32 (0.67%) CMS
8 31 (0.65%) SAS
9 26 (0.55%) Oracle Workflow
10 18 (0.38%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.27%) WebSphere
12 11 (0.23%) nginx
13 10 (0.21%) ArcGIS
13 10 (0.21%) CICS
14 9 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 8 (0.17%) Camunda
16 7 (0.15%) Jupyter
16 7 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
17 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
17 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 253 (5.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 219 (4.59%) Microsoft Office
3 88 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 71 (1.49%) MS Visio
5 59 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
6 29 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.48%) Chatbot
8 14 (0.29%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 13 (0.27%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.23%) Revit
11 8 (0.17%) CPLEX
11 8 (0.17%) Trello
12 7 (0.15%) Sketch
13 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
14 5 (0.10%) CATIA
14 5 (0.10%) Maya
15 3 (0.063%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.063%) Navisworks
15 3 (0.063%) Oracle Smart View
16 2 (0.042%) Adobe Illustrator
Business Applications
1 117 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
4 21 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
5 19 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 16 (0.34%) Workday HCM
7 15 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.27%) SAP SD
9 12 (0.25%) iTrent
10 11 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
10 11 (0.23%) Teamcenter
11 10 (0.21%) Finacle
11 10 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
11 10 (0.21%) SAP HCM
11 10 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 9 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
12 9 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
13 8 (0.17%) Loan IQ
13 8 (0.17%) NEC Housing
13 8 (0.17%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 951 (19.94%) Azure
2 698 (14.64%) AWS
3 377 (7.91%) Power Platform
4 354 (7.42%) Microsoft 365
5 274 (5.75%) GCP
6 228 (4.78%) Azure DevOps
7 175 (3.67%) Entra ID
8 158 (3.31%) GitHub
9 127 (2.66%) SaaS
10 120 (2.52%) Serverless
11 74 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
12 72 (1.51%) Amazon S3
13 69 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
13 69 (1.45%) Power Automate
14 62 (1.30%) Azure Data Factory
15 60 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
16 59 (1.24%) OpenShift
16 59 (1.24%) PowerApps
17 57 (1.20%) Snowflake
18 47 (0.99%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 207 (4.34%) DNS
2 172 (3.61%) Firewall
3 125 (2.62%) VPN
4 121 (2.54%) TCP/IP
5 110 (2.31%) DHCP
6 97 (2.03%) WAN
7 88 (1.85%) Network Security
8 85 (1.78%) LAN
9 68 (1.43%) SAN
10 66 (1.38%) Wi-Fi
11 48 (1.01%) VLAN
12 46 (0.96%) BGP
13 45 (0.94%) Wireless
14 38 (0.80%) OSPF
15 34 (0.71%) SD-WAN
16 30 (0.63%) VoIP
17 28 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.50%) VXLAN
19 22 (0.46%) MPLS
20 20 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 298 (6.25%) Power BI
2 214 (4.49%) SQL Server
3 146 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
4 136 (2.85%) Relational Database
5 93 (1.95%) MongoDB
6 82 (1.72%) NoSQL
7 79 (1.66%) Data Lake
7 79 (1.66%) Tableau
8 77 (1.61%) Metadata
9 52 (1.09%) Oracle Database
10 50 (1.05%) MySQL
11 48 (1.01%) Big Data
12 47 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 37 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
14 27 (0.57%) Power Query
15 26 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
15 26 (0.55%) Delta Lake
16 25 (0.52%) RDBMS
17 24 (0.50%) Db2
Development Applications
1 477 (10.00%) JIRA
2 279 (5.85%) Git
3 166 (3.48%) Jenkins
4 112 (2.35%) GitLab
5 62 (1.30%) Selenium
6 38 (0.80%) Postman
7 31 (0.65%) REST Assured
8 27 (0.57%) Cypress.io
9 25 (0.52%) JUnit
10 24 (0.50%) Cucumber
11 22 (0.46%) Bitbucket
12 21 (0.44%) Mockito
13 19 (0.40%) Gradle
13 19 (0.40%) Maven
14 17 (0.36%) WebDriver
15 15 (0.31%) SonarQube
15 15 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
16 14 (0.29%) JMeter
17 13 (0.27%) Zephyr
18 10 (0.21%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,470 (51.79%) Social Skills
2 1,962 (41.14%) Analytical Skills
3 1,118 (23.44%) Finance
4 427 (8.95%) Public Sector
5 371 (7.78%) Banking
6 198 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 196 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
8 179 (3.75%) Retail
9 134 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 119 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
11 114 (2.39%) Legal
11 114 (2.39%) Manufacturing
12 108 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
13 100 (2.10%) Front Office
14 94 (1.97%) Marketing
15 91 (1.91%) Telecoms
16 74 (1.55%) Investment Banking
17 58 (1.22%) Law
18 54 (1.13%) Back Office
19 48 (1.01%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 671 (14.07%) Analyst
2 534 (11.20%) Developer
3 415 (8.70%) Senior
4 344 (7.21%) Lead
5 340 (7.13%) Architect
6 243 (5.10%) Business Analyst
7 214 (4.49%) Data Engineer
8 207 (4.34%) Consultant
9 163 (3.42%) IT Support
10 153 (3.21%) Project Manager
10 153 (3.21%) Support Engineer
11 103 (2.16%) Administrator
11 103 (2.16%) Data Analyst
12 101 (2.12%) Java Developer
13 100 (2.10%) IT Engineer
14 92 (1.93%) Solutions Architect
15 90 (1.89%) Software Engineer
16 83 (1.74%) Technical Support
17 81 (1.70%) Support Analyst
18 77 (1.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 269 (5.64%) REST
2 146 (3.06%) .NET
3 136 (2.85%) Kafka
4 135 (2.83%) RESTful
5 131 (2.75%) Spring
6 124 (2.60%) React
7 119 (2.50%) SOAP
8 106 (2.22%) JSON
9 100 (2.10%) CSS
10 96 (2.01%) Spring Boot
11 94 (1.97%) Middleware
12 91 (1.91%) XML
13 89 (1.87%) HTML
14 80 (1.68%) Node.js
15 76 (1.59%) AngularJS
16 58 (1.22%) OAuth
16 58 (1.22%) PySpark
17 55 (1.15%) LDAP
18 54 (1.13%) Web Services
19 46 (0.96%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 239 (5.01%) Onboarding
2 223 (4.68%) Product Ownership
3 208 (4.36%) Cloud Native
4 176 (3.69%) Data Centre
5 174 (3.65%) Self-Motivation
6 141 (2.96%) Analytical Mindset
7 135 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
8 129 (2.70%) Management Information System
9 119 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
10 114 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
11 110 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
12 108 (2.26%) Data Structures
13 99 (2.08%) Virtual Team
14 58 (1.22%) Driving Licence
15 55 (1.15%) AI Agents
16 54 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 53 (1.11%) Algorithms
17 53 (1.11%) CMDB
18 49 (1.03%) Derivative
18 49 (1.03%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 613 (12.85%) Windows
2 264 (5.54%) Linux
3 120 (2.52%) Windows Server
4 110 (2.31%) Windows 10
5 99 (2.08%) Unix
6 80 (1.68%) Mac OS
7 76 (1.59%) Apple iOS
8 71 (1.49%) Android
9 43 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 11 (0.23%) VMS
12 11 (0.23%) zOS
13 9 (0.19%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.15%) CentOS
14 7 (0.15%) Solaris
15 6 (0.13%) Windows 7
16 5 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.084%) AIX
17 4 (0.084%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,260 (26.42%) Agile
2 901 (18.89%) Continuous Improvement
3 847 (17.76%) Stakeholder Management
4 779 (16.33%) CI/CD
5 746 (15.64%) DevOps
6 591 (12.39%) AI
7 539 (11.30%) Decision-Making
8 518 (10.86%) Migration
9 509 (10.67%) Analytics
10 475 (9.96%) ITIL
11 462 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 428 (8.97%) Customer Service
13 385 (8.07%) Business Intelligence
13 385 (8.07%) Validation
14 380 (7.97%) Data Modelling
15 361 (7.57%) Test Automation
16 358 (7.51%) Project Management
17 334 (7.00%) Change Management
17 334 (7.00%) Roadmaps
18 330 (6.92%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 874 (18.33%) SQL
2 814 (17.07%) Python
3 374 (7.84%) Java
4 266 (5.58%) PowerShell
5 243 (5.10%) JavaScript
6 165 (3.46%) C#
7 126 (2.64%) Bash
8 109 (2.29%) TypeScript
9 83 (1.74%) PL/SQL
10 58 (1.22%) C++
11 49 (1.03%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.94%) Shell Script
13 42 (0.88%) C
13 42 (0.88%) Go
14 35 (0.73%) Bicep
15 34 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 31 (0.65%) Apex Code
17 28 (0.59%) R
18 25 (0.52%) Kotlin
19 22 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,054 (22.10%) Security Cleared
2 697 (14.62%) SC Cleared
3 595 (12.48%) Degree
4 210 (4.40%) DV Cleared
5 182 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 135 (2.83%) Microsoft Certification
7 119 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
8 116 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
9 90 (1.89%) CISSP
10 76 (1.59%) PMP
11 68 (1.43%) A+ Certification
11 68 (1.43%) Azure Certification
11 68 (1.43%) PMI Certification
12 67 (1.40%) CCNA
13 57 (1.20%) CISM
14 56 (1.17%) Master's Degree
15 48 (1.01%) Network+ Certification
16 42 (0.88%) MCSE
17 40 (0.84%) AWS Certification
18 37 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 338 (7.09%) Data Quality
2 282 (5.91%) QA
3 139 (2.91%) GDPR
4 102 (2.14%) SLA
5 94 (1.97%) Accessibility
6 87 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 75 (1.57%) PMO
8 74 (1.55%) NIST
9 45 (0.94%) GRC
10 25 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
10 25 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.40%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.34%) WCAG
13 13 (0.27%) HIPAA
13 13 (0.27%) ISO 20022
13 13 (0.27%) NCSC
14 12 (0.25%) GxP
14 12 (0.25%) PSD2
15 11 (0.23%) COBIT
15 11 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 360 (7.55%) Active Directory
2 310 (6.50%) Docker
3 119 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.94%) VMware NSX
5 44 (0.92%) vSphere
6 42 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (0.73%) Hyper-V
8 28 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
9 23 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
10 20 (0.42%) vCloud
11 19 (0.40%) Firmware
12 15 (0.31%) IAG
13 11 (0.23%) Squid
14 7 (0.15%) NFS
14 7 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.084%) ACF2
15 4 (0.084%) Microsoft App-V
15 4 (0.084%) RACF
15 4 (0.084%) Snort
15 4 (0.084%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 373 (7.82%) Kubernetes
2 283 (5.93%) Terraform
3 161 (3.38%) Ansible
4 127 (2.66%) Microsoft Intune
5 104 (2.18%) Grafana
6 91 (1.91%) Prometheus
7 73 (1.53%) SCCM
8 52 (1.09%) vCenter Server
9 37 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
10 35 (0.73%) FortiGate
11 30 (0.63%) Control-M
12 22 (0.46%) Nessus
13 21 (0.44%) SCOM
14 20 (0.42%) Argo
15 19 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
16 18 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
17 17 (0.36%) WSUS
18 16 (0.34%) Kibana
19 12 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
20 9 (0.19%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 927 (19.44%) Microsoft
2 347 (7.28%) Oracle
3 299 (6.27%) ServiceNow
4 289 (6.06%) SAP
5 188 (3.94%) VMware
6 146 (3.06%) Google
7 125 (2.62%) Splunk
8 118 (2.47%) Salesforce
9 107 (2.24%) Databricks
10 106 (2.22%) Cisco
11 75 (1.57%) Workday
12 63 (1.32%) Dynatrace
13 59 (1.24%) Red Hat
14 54 (1.13%) Dell
15 50 (1.05%) Apple
16 49 (1.03%) Adobe
17 48 (1.01%) Citrix
18 45 (0.94%) CyberArk
19 43 (0.90%) MuleSoft
20 38 (0.80%) Juniper