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

6 months to
27 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 4,774 4,491 3,780
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.61% 16.27% 11.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.44% 17.93% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,778 2,765 2,336
10th Percentile £250 £250 £250
25th Percentile £380 £375 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £707 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £492 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.41% -2.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 375 281 274
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.78 £11.20
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.24 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% +30.87% -69.09%
75th Percentile £51.26 £38.42 £32.88
90th Percentile £74.70 £67.50 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £19.67 £21.25 £16.23
% change year-on-year -7.46% +30.93% -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 38,369 25,044 29,488
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.25% 90.72% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,058 16,057 19,314
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £423 £405 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £633 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,388 1,359 1,834
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £69.56 £51.77 £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 27 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 27 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 27 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 2,020 £519 +3.85% 1,339
South East -5 762 £488 -2.50% 843
North of England -9 741 £450 -5.26% 688
Midlands -6 546 £450 +5.88% 475
West Midlands -9 398 £450 - 269
North West -10 361 £450 -7.98% 333
South West -1 337 £500 +5.26% 339
Yorkshire -7 328 £450 -5.26% 246
East of England -2 258 £450 -4.26% 291
East Midlands -1 146 £470 +25.33% 206
North East -16 58 £370 -17.78% 119
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 (4.61%) Confluence
2 188 (3.94%) SharePoint
3 92 (1.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 54 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 38 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 33 (0.69%) Apache
7 30 (0.63%) CMS
8 29 (0.61%) SAS
9 26 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
10 19 (0.40%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.27%) WebSphere
12 10 (0.21%) CICS
13 8 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 8 (0.17%) Jupyter
14 6 (0.13%) Camunda
14 6 (0.13%) nginx
14 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 5 (0.10%) Tomcat
16 4 (0.084%) IIS
Applications
1 255 (5.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 222 (4.65%) Microsoft Office
3 87 (1.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 68 (1.42%) MS Visio
5 64 (1.34%) Microsoft Project
6 26 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 24 (0.50%) Chatbot
8 17 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 13 (0.27%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.23%) Revit
11 10 (0.21%) Trello
12 9 (0.19%) Sketch
13 8 (0.17%) CPLEX
14 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
15 5 (0.10%) CATIA
15 5 (0.10%) Maya
16 4 (0.084%) Adobe XD
17 3 (0.063%) Acrobat
17 3 (0.063%) Navisworks
17 3 (0.063%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 117 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
4 24 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 22 (0.46%) NetSuite
6 20 (0.42%) Workday HCM
7 17 (0.36%) Aladdin
8 14 (0.29%) SAP SD
9 13 (0.27%) iTrent
10 11 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 10 (0.21%) Finacle
11 10 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
11 10 (0.21%) SAP GRC
11 10 (0.21%) SAP HCM
11 10 (0.21%) Teamcenter
12 8 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
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
1 936 (19.61%) Azure
2 695 (14.56%) AWS
3 377 (7.90%) Power Platform
4 375 (7.86%) Microsoft 365
5 269 (5.63%) GCP
6 226 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
7 184 (3.85%) Entra ID
8 165 (3.46%) GitHub
9 126 (2.64%) SaaS
10 113 (2.37%) Serverless
11 77 (1.61%) GitHub Actions
12 75 (1.57%) Power Automate
13 68 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
14 64 (1.34%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.26%) OpenShift
15 60 (1.26%) PowerApps
16 56 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
17 55 (1.15%) Snowflake
18 53 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 205 (4.29%) DNS
2 174 (3.64%) Firewall
3 134 (2.81%) VPN
4 120 (2.51%) TCP/IP
5 118 (2.47%) DHCP
6 104 (2.18%) WAN
7 92 (1.93%) LAN
8 84 (1.76%) Network Security
9 72 (1.51%) Wi-Fi
10 65 (1.36%) SAN
11 55 (1.15%) VLAN
12 50 (1.05%) Wireless
13 49 (1.03%) BGP
14 37 (0.78%) OSPF
15 34 (0.71%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.69%) VoIP
17 30 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
18 25 (0.52%) MPLS
18 25 (0.52%) VXLAN
19 20 (0.42%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 295 (6.18%) Power BI
2 211 (4.42%) SQL Server
3 152 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
5 132 (2.76%) Relational Database
6 95 (1.99%) MongoDB
7 83 (1.74%) NoSQL
8 82 (1.72%) Data Lake
9 79 (1.65%) Metadata
10 76 (1.59%) Tableau
11 52 (1.09%) Oracle Database
12 51 (1.07%) Big Data
13 48 (1.01%) MySQL
13 48 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 36 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
15 27 (0.57%) 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
1 476 (9.97%) JIRA
2 281 (5.89%) Git
3 163 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 104 (2.18%) GitLab
5 66 (1.38%) Selenium
6 34 (0.71%) Postman
7 32 (0.67%) Cypress.io
8 28 (0.59%) REST Assured
9 26 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 23 (0.48%) Bitbucket
11 22 (0.46%) Maven
12 21 (0.44%) JUnit
13 19 (0.40%) Gradle
14 18 (0.38%) Mockito
14 18 (0.38%) WebDriver
15 16 (0.34%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 13 (0.27%) JMeter
16 13 (0.27%) Zephyr
17 12 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
17 12 (0.25%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,466 (51.65%) Social Skills
2 1,996 (41.81%) Analytical Skills
3 1,111 (23.27%) Finance
4 460 (9.64%) Public Sector
5 376 (7.88%) Banking
6 204 (4.27%) Organisational Skills
7 186 (3.90%) Retail
8 184 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
9 149 (3.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 131 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
11 122 (2.56%) Manufacturing
12 110 (2.30%) Legal
13 107 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
14 102 (2.14%) Marketing
15 99 (2.07%) Front Office
16 94 (1.97%) Telecoms
17 69 (1.45%) Investment Banking
18 58 (1.21%) Law
19 53 (1.11%) Back Office
20 49 (1.03%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 666 (13.95%) Analyst
2 534 (11.19%) Developer
3 422 (8.84%) Senior
4 366 (7.67%) Lead
5 335 (7.02%) Architect
6 234 (4.90%) Business Analyst
7 207 (4.34%) Consultant
8 204 (4.27%) Data Engineer
9 173 (3.62%) IT Support
10 160 (3.35%) Support Engineer
11 148 (3.10%) Project Manager
12 110 (2.30%) Data Analyst
13 107 (2.24%) Administrator
14 106 (2.22%) IT Engineer
15 100 (2.09%) Java Developer
16 93 (1.95%) Software Engineer
17 91 (1.91%) Solutions Architect
18 81 (1.70%) Support Analyst
19 78 (1.63%) DevOps Engineer
20 77 (1.61%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 276 (5.78%) REST
2 142 (2.97%) .NET
3 131 (2.74%) Kafka
3 131 (2.74%) RESTful
4 128 (2.68%) SOAP
5 126 (2.64%) React
6 122 (2.56%) Spring
7 115 (2.41%) JSON
8 106 (2.22%) CSS
9 95 (1.99%) HTML
9 95 (1.99%) XML
10 88 (1.84%) Middleware
10 88 (1.84%) Spring Boot
11 79 (1.65%) AngularJS
11 79 (1.65%) Node.js
12 67 (1.40%) OAuth
13 65 (1.36%) Web Services
14 55 (1.15%) PySpark
15 47 (0.98%) Playwright
16 46 (0.96%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 257 (5.38%) Onboarding
2 234 (4.90%) Product Ownership
3 209 (4.38%) Cloud Native
4 182 (3.81%) Self-Motivation
5 173 (3.62%) Data Centre
6 138 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
7 137 (2.87%) Analytical Mindset
8 134 (2.81%) Management Information System
9 131 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
10 118 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
11 117 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
12 114 (2.39%) Data Structures
13 97 (2.03%) Virtual Team
14 66 (1.38%) Driving Licence
15 56 (1.17%) AI Agents
15 56 (1.17%) Algorithms
16 55 (1.15%) CMDB
17 52 (1.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 51 (1.07%) PKI
19 47 (0.98%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 626 (13.11%) Windows
2 253 (5.30%) Linux
3 129 (2.70%) Windows Server
4 110 (2.30%) Windows 10
5 94 (1.97%) Unix
6 78 (1.63%) Apple iOS
7 77 (1.61%) Mac OS
8 74 (1.55%) Android
9 41 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 12 (0.25%) VMS
11 12 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
12 11 (0.23%) zOS
13 9 (0.19%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.15%) Solaris
15 6 (0.13%) CentOS
16 4 (0.084%) AIX
16 4 (0.084%) Debian
16 4 (0.084%) HPUX
16 4 (0.084%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,293 (27.08%) Agile
2 949 (19.88%) Continuous Improvement
3 903 (18.91%) Stakeholder Management
4 784 (16.42%) CI/CD
5 744 (15.58%) DevOps
6 622 (13.03%) AI
7 537 (11.25%) Decision-Making
8 506 (10.60%) Migration
9 501 (10.49%) Analytics
10 485 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 471 (9.87%) ITIL
12 435 (9.11%) Customer Service
13 384 (8.04%) Business Intelligence
14 371 (7.77%) Validation
15 370 (7.75%) Test Automation
16 366 (7.67%) Data Modelling
17 342 (7.16%) Project Management
18 340 (7.12%) Roadmaps
19 329 (6.89%) Scrum
20 322 (6.74%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 858 (17.97%) SQL
2 793 (16.61%) Python
3 362 (7.58%) Java
4 267 (5.59%) PowerShell
5 262 (5.49%) JavaScript
6 160 (3.35%) C#
7 134 (2.81%) Bash
8 104 (2.18%) TypeScript
9 82 (1.72%) PL/SQL
10 50 (1.05%) C++
10 50 (1.05%) T-SQL
11 42 (0.88%) Shell Script
12 36 (0.75%) Go
13 34 (0.71%) Bicep
14 33 (0.69%) C
15 31 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 28 (0.59%) Apex Code
16 28 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 25 (0.52%) Groovy
17 25 (0.52%) R
Qualifications
1 1,061 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 706 (14.79%) SC Cleared
3 586 (12.27%) Degree
4 215 (4.50%) DV Cleared
5 167 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 131 (2.74%) Microsoft Certification
7 113 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
8 109 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
9 79 (1.65%) CISSP
10 77 (1.61%) PMP
11 71 (1.49%) PMI Certification
12 67 (1.40%) Azure Certification
13 62 (1.30%) CCNA
14 61 (1.28%) A+ Certification
15 51 (1.07%) CISM
15 51 (1.07%) Master's Degree
16 41 (0.86%) Network+ Certification
17 39 (0.82%) MCSE
18 37 (0.78%) AWS Certification
19 36 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 334 (7.00%) Data Quality
2 287 (6.01%) QA
3 138 (2.89%) GDPR
4 107 (2.24%) Accessibility
5 102 (2.14%) SLA
6 86 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 78 (1.63%) PMO
8 70 (1.47%) NIST
9 46 (0.96%) GRC
10 27 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.52%) WCAG
12 24 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.29%) GxP
13 14 (0.29%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.27%) NCSC
15 11 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 11 (0.23%) COBIT
15 11 (0.23%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.23%) ISO 20022
16 9 (0.19%) IFRS
System Software
1 366 (7.67%) Active Directory
2 309 (6.47%) Docker
3 121 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (1.01%) VMware NSX
5 47 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
6 46 (0.96%) vSphere
7 38 (0.80%) Hyper-V
8 30 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
9 27 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
10 22 (0.46%) vCloud
11 20 (0.42%) Firmware
12 18 (0.38%) IAG
13 10 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.13%) NFS
14 6 (0.13%) Squid
15 4 (0.084%) Microsoft App-V
15 4 (0.084%) Snort
16 2 (0.042%) EMC RecoverPoint
16 2 (0.042%) SRDF
16 2 (0.042%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 360 (7.54%) Kubernetes
2 289 (6.05%) Terraform
3 164 (3.44%) Ansible
4 124 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
5 96 (2.01%) Grafana
6 82 (1.72%) Prometheus
7 74 (1.55%) SCCM
8 56 (1.17%) vCenter Server
9 30 (0.63%) FortiGate
10 28 (0.59%) Control-M
10 28 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
11 23 (0.48%) SCOM
12 21 (0.44%) Argo
13 18 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
14 16 (0.34%) Nessus
14 16 (0.34%) WSUS
15 14 (0.29%) IBM Guardium
16 12 (0.25%) Kibana
17 11 (0.23%) Puppet
18 10 (0.21%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 954 (19.98%) Microsoft
2 339 (7.10%) Oracle
3 313 (6.56%) ServiceNow
4 291 (6.10%) SAP
5 192 (4.02%) VMware
6 148 (3.10%) Google
7 123 (2.58%) Splunk
8 119 (2.49%) Salesforce
9 112 (2.35%) Cisco
10 102 (2.14%) Databricks
11 78 (1.63%) Workday
12 65 (1.36%) Dynatrace
13 54 (1.13%) Adobe
14 53 (1.11%) Red Hat
15 51 (1.07%) Apple
16 48 (1.01%) Citrix
17 47 (0.98%) CyberArk
18 46 (0.96%) Dell
19 43 (0.90%) MuleSoft
20 39 (0.82%) Juniper