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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -8 +5 +5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,804 4,461 3,818
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.64% 16.28% 11.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.46% 17.94% 12.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,792 2,746 2,360
10th Percentile £255 £250 £250
25th Percentile £381 £375 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £704 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £490 £490 £500
% change year-on-year - -2.00% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 373 278 283
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.83 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.49 £21.24 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +1.18% +30.87% -69.09%
75th Percentile £51.27 £38.42 £33.04
90th Percentile £74.85 £67.88 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £21.27 £16.23
% change year-on-year -5.95% +31.02% -69.33%

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 38,549 24,860 29,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.39% 90.73% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,182 15,935 19,502
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £420 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,381 1,342 1,889
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.26 £13.67
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.90 £17.50
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £69.50 £52.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 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 25 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 25 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 2,030 £516 +3.25% 1,339
South East -5 759 £488 -2.50% 810
North of England -9 753 £450 -5.26% 660
Midlands -6 554 £450 +5.88% 442
West Midlands -9 405 £450 - 252
North West -10 367 £450 -7.98% 330
South West +1 337 £500 +5.26% 326
Yorkshire -7 333 £450 -5.26% 223
East of England -2 260 £450 -4.26% 283
East Midlands 0 147 £460 +22.67% 190
North East -16 59 £373 -17.22% 117
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
1 220 (4.58%) Confluence
2 182 (3.79%) SharePoint
3 92 (1.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 54 (1.12%) Apache Spark
5 39 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 33 (0.69%) Apache
7 29 (0.60%) CMS
7 29 (0.60%) SAS
8 26 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
9 19 (0.40%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 10 (0.21%) ArcGIS
11 10 (0.21%) CICS
12 8 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 8 (0.17%) Jupyter
13 6 (0.12%) Camunda
13 6 (0.12%) nginx
13 6 (0.12%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 6 (0.12%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.083%) IIS
Applications
1 253 (5.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 222 (4.62%) Microsoft Office
3 86 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 68 (1.42%) MS Visio
5 63 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
6 26 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.52%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 13 (0.27%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.23%) Revit
11 9 (0.19%) Trello
12 8 (0.17%) CPLEX
12 8 (0.17%) Sketch
13 6 (0.12%) Photoshop
14 5 (0.10%) CATIA
14 5 (0.10%) Maya
15 4 (0.083%) Adobe XD
16 3 (0.062%) Acrobat
16 3 (0.062%) Navisworks
16 3 (0.062%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 120 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
4 24 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 22 (0.46%) NetSuite
6 20 (0.42%) Workday HCM
7 17 (0.35%) Aladdin
8 14 (0.29%) SAP SD
9 12 (0.25%) iTrent
10 11 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 10 (0.21%) Finacle
11 10 (0.21%) SAP GRC
11 10 (0.21%) SAP HCM
11 10 (0.21%) Teamcenter
12 9 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
12 9 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
13 7 (0.15%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.15%) Oracle HRMS
13 7 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
13 7 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 943 (19.63%) Azure
2 695 (14.47%) AWS
3 378 (7.87%) Power Platform
4 373 (7.76%) Microsoft 365
5 271 (5.64%) GCP
6 229 (4.77%) Azure DevOps
7 187 (3.89%) Entra ID
8 167 (3.48%) GitHub
9 125 (2.60%) SaaS
10 114 (2.37%) Serverless
11 79 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
12 75 (1.56%) Power Automate
13 69 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
14 64 (1.33%) Amazon S3
15 61 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
16 60 (1.25%) PowerApps
17 59 (1.23%) OpenShift
18 57 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
19 56 (1.17%) Snowflake
20 52 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 206 (4.29%) DNS
2 176 (3.66%) Firewall
3 135 (2.81%) VPN
4 121 (2.52%) TCP/IP
5 119 (2.48%) DHCP
6 105 (2.19%) WAN
7 93 (1.94%) LAN
8 84 (1.75%) Network Security
9 72 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
10 66 (1.37%) SAN
11 55 (1.14%) VLAN
12 50 (1.04%) Wireless
13 49 (1.02%) BGP
14 38 (0.79%) OSPF
15 35 (0.73%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.69%) VoIP
17 30 (0.62%) Structured Cabling
18 25 (0.52%) MPLS
18 25 (0.52%) VXLAN
19 20 (0.42%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 297 (6.18%) Power BI
2 212 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 153 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 139 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
5 135 (2.81%) Relational Database
6 93 (1.94%) MongoDB
7 83 (1.73%) Data Lake
7 83 (1.73%) NoSQL
8 80 (1.67%) Metadata
9 77 (1.60%) Tableau
10 56 (1.17%) Oracle Database
11 51 (1.06%) Big Data
12 48 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 47 (0.98%) MySQL
14 34 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
15 26 (0.54%) Db2
16 25 (0.52%) Power Query
17 24 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
18 23 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
18 23 (0.48%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 480 (9.99%) JIRA
2 280 (5.83%) Git
3 165 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 102 (2.12%) GitLab
5 66 (1.37%) Selenium
6 34 (0.71%) Postman
7 31 (0.65%) Cypress.io
8 28 (0.58%) Cucumber
8 28 (0.58%) REST Assured
9 23 (0.48%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.48%) Maven
10 22 (0.46%) JUnit
11 19 (0.40%) Gradle
11 19 (0.40%) Mockito
12 18 (0.37%) WebDriver
13 16 (0.33%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 13 (0.27%) JMeter
14 13 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
14 13 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 12 (0.25%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,471 (51.44%) Social Skills
2 1,999 (41.61%) Analytical Skills
3 1,118 (23.27%) Finance
4 461 (9.60%) Public Sector
5 377 (7.85%) Banking
6 198 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
7 186 (3.87%) Retail
8 184 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
9 148 (3.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 132 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
11 121 (2.52%) Manufacturing
12 112 (2.33%) Legal
13 106 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
14 101 (2.10%) Marketing
15 99 (2.06%) Front Office
16 97 (2.02%) Telecoms
17 70 (1.46%) Investment Banking
18 59 (1.23%) Law
19 53 (1.10%) Back Office
20 50 (1.04%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 670 (13.95%) Analyst
2 541 (11.26%) Developer
3 424 (8.83%) Senior
4 373 (7.76%) Lead
5 335 (6.97%) Architect
6 237 (4.93%) Business Analyst
7 207 (4.31%) Consultant
8 204 (4.25%) Data Engineer
9 170 (3.54%) IT Support
10 159 (3.31%) Support Engineer
11 151 (3.14%) Project Manager
12 110 (2.29%) Data Analyst
13 105 (2.19%) Administrator
13 105 (2.19%) IT Engineer
14 102 (2.12%) Java Developer
15 91 (1.89%) Solutions Architect
16 90 (1.87%) Software Engineer
17 81 (1.69%) Support Analyst
18 79 (1.64%) DevOps Engineer
19 77 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 275 (5.72%) REST
2 145 (3.02%) .NET
3 132 (2.75%) Kafka
4 131 (2.73%) RESTful
5 126 (2.62%) React
5 126 (2.62%) SOAP
5 126 (2.62%) Spring
6 114 (2.37%) JSON
7 107 (2.23%) CSS
8 96 (2.00%) HTML
8 96 (2.00%) XML
9 91 (1.89%) Spring Boot
10 89 (1.85%) Middleware
11 80 (1.67%) Node.js
12 78 (1.62%) AngularJS
13 64 (1.33%) OAuth
14 63 (1.31%) Web Services
15 55 (1.14%) PySpark
16 47 (0.98%) LDAP
16 47 (0.98%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 255 (5.31%) Onboarding
2 236 (4.91%) Product Ownership
3 210 (4.37%) Cloud Native
4 182 (3.79%) Self-Motivation
5 174 (3.62%) Data Centre
6 140 (2.91%) Distributed Systems
7 139 (2.89%) Analytical Mindset
8 135 (2.81%) Management Information System
9 130 (2.71%) Enterprise Software
10 120 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
11 117 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
12 113 (2.35%) Data Structures
13 98 (2.04%) Virtual Team
14 67 (1.39%) Driving Licence
15 57 (1.19%) AI Agents
16 56 (1.17%) Algorithms
17 54 (1.12%) CMDB
18 52 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
19 50 (1.04%) PKI
20 47 (0.98%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 625 (13.01%) Windows
2 257 (5.35%) Linux
3 127 (2.64%) Windows Server
4 108 (2.25%) Windows 10
5 98 (2.04%) Unix
6 78 (1.62%) Apple iOS
6 78 (1.62%) Mac OS
7 73 (1.52%) Android
8 41 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.40%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.25%) VMS
10 12 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.23%) zOS
12 9 (0.19%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.15%) Solaris
14 6 (0.12%) CentOS
15 4 (0.083%) AIX
15 4 (0.083%) Debian
15 4 (0.083%) HPUX
15 4 (0.083%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,303 (27.12%) Agile
2 946 (19.69%) Continuous Improvement
3 903 (18.80%) Stakeholder Management
4 789 (16.42%) CI/CD
5 751 (15.63%) DevOps
6 625 (13.01%) AI
7 542 (11.28%) Decision-Making
8 515 (10.72%) Migration
9 502 (10.45%) Analytics
10 487 (10.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 477 (9.93%) ITIL
12 436 (9.08%) Customer Service
13 384 (7.99%) Business Intelligence
14 377 (7.85%) Validation
15 368 (7.66%) Data Modelling
15 368 (7.66%) Test Automation
16 348 (7.24%) Project Management
17 337 (7.01%) Roadmaps
18 331 (6.89%) Scrum
19 330 (6.87%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 869 (18.09%) SQL
2 799 (16.63%) Python
3 369 (7.68%) Java
4 270 (5.62%) PowerShell
5 261 (5.43%) JavaScript
6 160 (3.33%) C#
7 134 (2.79%) Bash
8 107 (2.23%) TypeScript
9 84 (1.75%) PL/SQL
10 50 (1.04%) C++
10 50 (1.04%) T-SQL
11 44 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 36 (0.75%) Go
13 34 (0.71%) Bicep
13 34 (0.71%) C
14 31 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 28 (0.58%) Apex Code
16 27 (0.56%) Kotlin
17 25 (0.52%) R
18 24 (0.50%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 1,061 (22.09%) Security Cleared
2 712 (14.82%) SC Cleared
3 591 (12.30%) Degree
4 210 (4.37%) DV Cleared
5 167 (3.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 131 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
7 114 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
8 110 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
9 79 (1.64%) CISSP
10 78 (1.62%) PMP
11 71 (1.48%) PMI Certification
12 67 (1.39%) Azure Certification
13 63 (1.31%) CCNA
14 62 (1.29%) A+ Certification
15 51 (1.06%) CISM
15 51 (1.06%) Master's Degree
16 42 (0.87%) Network+ Certification
17 40 (0.83%) MCSE
18 37 (0.77%) AWS Certification
19 36 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 337 (7.01%) Data Quality
2 291 (6.06%) QA
3 141 (2.94%) GDPR
4 107 (2.23%) Accessibility
5 102 (2.12%) SLA
6 87 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 74 (1.54%) PMO
8 70 (1.46%) NIST
9 46 (0.96%) GRC
10 27 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
11 25 (0.52%) WCAG
12 14 (0.29%) GxP
12 14 (0.29%) NCSC
12 14 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 11 (0.23%) COBIT
13 11 (0.23%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.23%) ISO 20022
14 10 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 370 (7.70%) Active Directory
2 314 (6.54%) Docker
3 121 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.98%) VMware NSX
5 46 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
5 46 (0.96%) vSphere
6 38 (0.79%) Hyper-V
7 30 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
8 27 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
9 21 (0.44%) vCloud
10 20 (0.42%) Firmware
11 18 (0.37%) IAG
12 10 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.12%) NFS
13 6 (0.12%) Squid
14 4 (0.083%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.083%) Snort
15 2 (0.042%) SRDF
15 2 (0.042%) UAG
15 2 (0.042%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 368 (7.66%) Kubernetes
2 291 (6.06%) Terraform
3 165 (3.43%) Ansible
4 123 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 99 (2.06%) Grafana
6 84 (1.75%) Prometheus
7 74 (1.54%) SCCM
8 55 (1.14%) vCenter Server
9 30 (0.62%) Control-M
9 30 (0.62%) FortiGate
10 29 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
11 22 (0.46%) SCOM
12 20 (0.42%) Argo
13 19 (0.40%) Nessus
14 18 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
15 17 (0.35%) IBM Guardium
16 16 (0.33%) WSUS
17 12 (0.25%) Kibana
18 10 (0.21%) Puppet
19 9 (0.19%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 951 (19.80%) Microsoft
2 346 (7.20%) Oracle
3 313 (6.52%) ServiceNow
4 294 (6.12%) SAP
5 190 (3.96%) VMware
6 150 (3.12%) Google
7 123 (2.56%) Splunk
8 119 (2.48%) Salesforce
9 111 (2.31%) Cisco
10 103 (2.14%) Databricks
11 79 (1.64%) Workday
12 65 (1.35%) Dynatrace
13 53 (1.10%) Adobe
13 53 (1.10%) Red Hat
14 51 (1.06%) Apple
15 48 (1.00%) Citrix
15 48 (1.00%) Dell
16 47 (0.98%) CyberArk
17 43 (0.90%) MuleSoft
18 38 (0.79%) Juniper