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

6 months to
17 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 4,758 4,500 3,974
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.62% 16.54% 10.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.44% 18.24% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,779 2,787 2,420
10th Percentile £260 £250 £250
25th Percentile £385 £380 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £705 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £492 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -1.50% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 360 273 326
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.92 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.75 £21.28 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +2.19% +31.12% -69.09%
75th Percentile £48.44 £43.39 £33.00
90th Percentile £74.33 £68.75 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £20.63 £21.39 £16.23
% change year-on-year -3.55% +31.79% -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 38,249 24,669 31,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.41% 90.67% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,059 15,837 20,183
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,360 1,307 2,114
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.26 £13.18
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £16.30
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -8.14%
75th Percentile £68.75 £53.75 £63.67
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.33 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,017 £513 +2.50% 952
South East -5 754 £481 -3.56% 693
North of England -9 736 £450 -5.26% 577
Midlands -8 539 £450 +5.88% 348
West Midlands -9 390 £463 +2.78% 190
North West -11 368 £450 -7.98% 302
South West -2 338 £500 - 280
Yorkshire -7 324 £450 -5.26% 196
East of England -2 263 £450 -5.63% 233
East Midlands -1 147 £450 +20.00% 158
North East -20 50 £366 -18.61% 87
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
1 213 (4.48%) Confluence
2 171 (3.59%) SharePoint
3 89 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 57 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 40 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 36 (0.76%) Apache
7 32 (0.67%) CMS
8 27 (0.57%) Oracle Workflow
8 27 (0.57%) SAS
9 18 (0.38%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.23%) nginx
12 10 (0.21%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.21%) CICS
13 9 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 8 (0.17%) Camunda
15 7 (0.15%) Jupyter
15 7 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
16 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
16 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 249 (5.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 220 (4.62%) Microsoft Office
3 85 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 69 (1.45%) MS Visio
5 62 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
6 28 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 24 (0.50%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.34%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 13 (0.27%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.23%) Revit
11 10 (0.21%) Sketch
12 9 (0.19%) Trello
13 8 (0.17%) CPLEX
14 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
15 5 (0.11%) Adobe XD
15 5 (0.11%) CATIA
15 5 (0.11%) Maya
16 3 (0.063%) Navisworks
16 3 (0.063%) Oracle Smart View
17 2 (0.042%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 117 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 23 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
5 18 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 17 (0.36%) NetSuite
7 16 (0.34%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.29%) 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%) SAP HCM
11 10 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 9 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
12 9 (0.19%) SAP GRC
13 8 (0.17%) NEC Housing
13 8 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
13 8 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
14 7 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 937 (19.69%) Azure
2 691 (14.52%) AWS
3 373 (7.84%) Power Platform
4 356 (7.48%) Microsoft 365
5 267 (5.61%) GCP
6 227 (4.77%) Azure DevOps
7 179 (3.76%) Entra ID
8 162 (3.40%) GitHub
9 126 (2.65%) SaaS
10 117 (2.46%) Serverless
11 76 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
12 74 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
13 71 (1.49%) Amazon S3
13 71 (1.49%) Power Automate
14 59 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
14 59 (1.24%) PowerApps
15 58 (1.22%) OpenShift
16 57 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
16 57 (1.20%) Snowflake
17 51 (1.07%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 205 (4.31%) DNS
2 177 (3.72%) Firewall
3 129 (2.71%) VPN
4 123 (2.59%) TCP/IP
5 112 (2.35%) DHCP
6 99 (2.08%) WAN
7 89 (1.87%) Network Security
8 88 (1.85%) LAN
9 68 (1.43%) SAN
9 68 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
10 50 (1.05%) VLAN
11 49 (1.03%) BGP
12 47 (0.99%) Wireless
13 39 (0.82%) OSPF
14 33 (0.69%) SD-WAN
15 30 (0.63%) VoIP
16 29 (0.61%) Structured Cabling
17 24 (0.50%) MPLS
17 24 (0.50%) VXLAN
18 20 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 294 (6.18%) Power BI
2 211 (4.43%) SQL Server
3 149 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
5 134 (2.82%) Relational Database
6 94 (1.98%) MongoDB
7 82 (1.72%) NoSQL
8 79 (1.66%) Data Lake
9 78 (1.64%) Tableau
10 75 (1.58%) Metadata
11 53 (1.11%) Oracle Database
12 48 (1.01%) Big Data
12 48 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 47 (0.99%) MySQL
14 36 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
15 26 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
15 26 (0.55%) Db2
16 25 (0.53%) Power Query
16 25 (0.53%) RDBMS
17 22 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 472 (9.92%) JIRA
2 275 (5.78%) Git
3 161 (3.38%) Jenkins
4 106 (2.23%) GitLab
5 68 (1.43%) Selenium
6 39 (0.82%) Postman
7 31 (0.65%) Cypress.io
7 31 (0.65%) REST Assured
8 25 (0.53%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.50%) JUnit
10 21 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 21 (0.44%) Mockito
11 19 (0.40%) Gradle
12 18 (0.38%) Maven
12 18 (0.38%) WebDriver
13 15 (0.32%) SonarQube
14 14 (0.29%) JMeter
15 13 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
16 12 (0.25%) Zephyr
17 10 (0.21%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,460 (51.70%) Social Skills
2 1,980 (41.61%) Analytical Skills
3 1,109 (23.31%) Finance
4 438 (9.21%) Public Sector
5 369 (7.76%) Banking
6 196 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
6 196 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
7 182 (3.83%) Retail
8 134 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 124 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
10 121 (2.54%) Manufacturing
11 109 (2.29%) Legal
12 106 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
13 98 (2.06%) Marketing
14 96 (2.02%) Front Office
14 96 (2.02%) Telecoms
15 73 (1.53%) Investment Banking
16 57 (1.20%) Law
17 53 (1.11%) Back Office
18 49 (1.03%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 673 (14.14%) Analyst
2 530 (11.14%) Developer
3 411 (8.64%) Senior
4 353 (7.42%) Lead
5 338 (7.10%) Architect
6 244 (5.13%) Business Analyst
7 202 (4.25%) Consultant
8 198 (4.16%) Data Engineer
9 163 (3.43%) IT Support
10 157 (3.30%) Support Engineer
11 154 (3.24%) Project Manager
12 104 (2.19%) Data Analyst
13 103 (2.16%) Administrator
13 103 (2.16%) IT Engineer
14 98 (2.06%) Java Developer
15 92 (1.93%) Software Engineer
15 92 (1.93%) Solutions Architect
16 81 (1.70%) Support Analyst
17 78 (1.64%) Technical Support
18 77 (1.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (5.70%) REST
2 144 (3.03%) .NET
3 133 (2.80%) RESTful
4 130 (2.73%) Kafka
5 128 (2.69%) Spring
6 125 (2.63%) React
7 123 (2.59%) SOAP
8 109 (2.29%) JSON
9 103 (2.16%) CSS
10 96 (2.02%) XML
11 94 (1.98%) Middleware
12 93 (1.95%) HTML
13 92 (1.93%) Spring Boot
14 78 (1.64%) Node.js
15 77 (1.62%) AngularJS
16 61 (1.28%) Web Services
17 60 (1.26%) OAuth
18 54 (1.13%) LDAP
18 54 (1.13%) PySpark
19 47 (0.99%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 239 (5.02%) Onboarding
2 229 (4.81%) Product Ownership
3 201 (4.22%) Cloud Native
4 178 (3.74%) Data Centre
5 177 (3.72%) Self-Motivation
6 139 (2.92%) Analytical Mindset
7 134 (2.82%) Distributed Systems
8 130 (2.73%) Management Information System
9 119 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
9 119 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
10 118 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
11 110 (2.31%) Data Structures
12 98 (2.06%) Virtual Team
13 61 (1.28%) Driving Licence
14 55 (1.16%) CMDB
15 54 (1.13%) AI Agents
16 53 (1.11%) Algorithms
17 51 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 49 (1.03%) Security Posture
19 48 (1.01%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 611 (12.84%) Windows
2 257 (5.40%) Linux
3 119 (2.50%) Windows Server
4 109 (2.29%) Windows 10
5 99 (2.08%) Unix
6 78 (1.64%) Mac OS
7 76 (1.60%) Apple iOS
8 71 (1.49%) Android
9 42 (0.88%) 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%) CentOS
14 7 (0.15%) Solaris
15 5 (0.11%) Windows 7
15 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 4 (0.084%) AIX
16 4 (0.084%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,286 (27.03%) Agile
2 921 (19.36%) Continuous Improvement
3 868 (18.24%) Stakeholder Management
4 777 (16.33%) CI/CD
5 738 (15.51%) DevOps
6 609 (12.80%) AI
7 536 (11.27%) Decision-Making
8 506 (10.63%) Migration
9 497 (10.45%) Analytics
10 479 (10.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 474 (9.96%) ITIL
12 429 (9.02%) Customer Service
13 379 (7.97%) Business Intelligence
14 377 (7.92%) Validation
15 367 (7.71%) Data Modelling
16 365 (7.67%) Test Automation
17 353 (7.42%) Project Management
18 336 (7.06%) Roadmaps
19 335 (7.04%) Change Management
20 330 (6.94%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 853 (17.93%) SQL
2 789 (16.58%) Python
3 365 (7.67%) Java
4 264 (5.55%) PowerShell
5 246 (5.17%) JavaScript
6 159 (3.34%) C#
7 126 (2.65%) Bash
8 108 (2.27%) TypeScript
9 83 (1.74%) PL/SQL
10 56 (1.18%) C++
11 49 (1.03%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.95%) Shell Script
13 40 (0.84%) C
13 40 (0.84%) Go
14 32 (0.67%) Apex Code
14 32 (0.67%) Bicep
15 31 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 27 (0.57%) Kotlin
16 27 (0.57%) R
17 21 (0.44%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 1,056 (22.19%) Security Cleared
2 692 (14.54%) SC Cleared
3 589 (12.38%) Degree
4 218 (4.58%) DV Cleared
5 171 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
6 131 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
8 113 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
9 85 (1.79%) CISSP
10 76 (1.60%) PMP
11 70 (1.47%) PMI Certification
12 66 (1.39%) A+ Certification
12 66 (1.39%) Azure Certification
13 65 (1.37%) CCNA
14 55 (1.16%) Master's Degree
15 53 (1.11%) CISM
16 46 (0.97%) Network+ Certification
17 41 (0.86%) AWS Certification
17 41 (0.86%) MCSE
18 37 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 327 (6.87%) Data Quality
2 280 (5.88%) QA
3 144 (3.03%) GDPR
4 103 (2.16%) SLA
5 99 (2.08%) Accessibility
6 85 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 74 (1.56%) PMO
8 71 (1.49%) NIST
9 43 (0.90%) GRC
10 25 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
10 25 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.40%) WCAG
12 17 (0.36%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.29%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.27%) GxP
14 13 (0.27%) NCSC
15 11 (0.23%) COBIT
15 11 (0.23%) Def Stans
15 11 (0.23%) ISO 20022
16 10 (0.21%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 357 (7.50%) Active Directory
2 303 (6.37%) Docker
3 120 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (1.01%) VMware NSX
5 46 (0.97%) vSphere
6 44 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
7 34 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 29 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
9 26 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
10 21 (0.44%) vCloud
11 20 (0.42%) Firmware
12 17 (0.36%) IAG
13 11 (0.23%) Squid
14 8 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
15 7 (0.15%) NFS
16 4 (0.084%) Microsoft App-V
16 4 (0.084%) Snort
17 3 (0.063%) BitLocker
18 2 (0.042%) UAG
18 2 (0.042%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 363 (7.63%) Kubernetes
2 283 (5.95%) Terraform
3 161 (3.38%) Ansible
4 123 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 104 (2.19%) Grafana
6 92 (1.93%) Prometheus
7 71 (1.49%) SCCM
8 54 (1.13%) vCenter Server
9 36 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
10 34 (0.71%) FortiGate
11 30 (0.63%) Control-M
12 22 (0.46%) SCOM
13 20 (0.42%) Argo
13 20 (0.42%) Nessus
14 19 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
15 18 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
16 16 (0.34%) WSUS
17 15 (0.32%) Kibana
18 11 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
19 9 (0.19%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 926 (19.46%) Microsoft
2 340 (7.15%) Oracle
3 305 (6.41%) ServiceNow
4 291 (6.12%) SAP
5 187 (3.93%) VMware
6 145 (3.05%) Google
7 122 (2.56%) Salesforce
8 120 (2.52%) Splunk
9 107 (2.25%) Cisco
10 100 (2.10%) Databricks
11 75 (1.58%) Workday
12 64 (1.35%) Dynatrace
13 59 (1.24%) Red Hat
14 56 (1.18%) Adobe
15 51 (1.07%) Apple
16 50 (1.05%) Dell
17 46 (0.97%) Citrix
17 46 (0.97%) CyberArk
18 42 (0.88%) MuleSoft
19 39 (0.82%) Juniper