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

6 months to
28 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 4,773 4,456 3,778
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.59% 16.24% 11.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.42% 17.90% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,773 2,744 2,335
10th Percentile £250 £250 £250
25th Percentile £381 £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 £709 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £492 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +0.77% -2.35% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 377 281 274
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 £51.25 £38.42 £32.88
90th Percentile £74.56 £67.50 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £19.33 £21.25 £16.23
% change year-on-year -9.04% +30.93% -69.58%

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 38,425 24,898 29,471
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.24% 90.75% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,067 15,953 19,300
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £424 £405 £416
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 £521 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,362 1,833
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.21 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £17.69
Median hourly rate £46.90 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +86.48% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £69.46 £51.65 £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 28 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 28 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 28 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 2,025 £520 +4.00% 1,340
South East -5 761 £487 -2.65% 851
North of England -9 736 £450 -5.26% 704
Midlands -6 544 £450 +5.88% 487
West Midlands -9 398 £450 - 276
North West -11 356 £450 -7.98% 345
South West 0 340 £500 +5.26% 333
Yorkshire -7 327 £450 -5.26% 251
East of England -2 258 £450 -4.26% 290
East Midlands -1 144 £473 +26.00% 211
North East -17 59 £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
1 219 (4.59%) Confluence
2 187 (3.92%) 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
7 30 (0.63%) SAS
8 26 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
9 19 (0.40%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 10 (0.21%) CICS
12 8 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 8 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 8 (0.17%) Jupyter
13 6 (0.13%) Camunda
13 6 (0.13%) nginx
13 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
14 5 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
14 5 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 254 (5.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 222 (4.65%) Microsoft Office
3 84 (1.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 67 (1.40%) MS Visio
5 65 (1.36%) 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 16 (0.34%) 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
1 930 (19.48%) Azure
2 690 (14.46%) AWS
3 378 (7.92%) Power Platform
4 377 (7.90%) Microsoft 365
5 267 (5.59%) GCP
6 228 (4.78%) Azure DevOps
7 182 (3.81%) Entra ID
8 164 (3.44%) GitHub
9 127 (2.66%) 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 62 (1.30%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.26%) OpenShift
16 59 (1.24%) PowerApps
17 55 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
17 55 (1.15%) Snowflake
18 53 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 204 (4.27%) DNS
2 172 (3.60%) 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 85 (1.78%) Network Security
9 72 (1.51%) Wi-Fi
10 65 (1.36%) SAN
11 56 (1.17%) 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 31 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
18 25 (0.52%) MPLS
18 25 (0.52%) VXLAN
19 20 (0.42%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 298 (6.24%) Power BI
2 210 (4.40%) SQL Server
3 155 (3.25%) Data Warehouse
4 138 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
5 133 (2.79%) Relational Database
6 96 (2.01%) MongoDB
7 83 (1.74%) Data Lake
8 82 (1.72%) NoSQL
9 79 (1.66%) Metadata
10 76 (1.59%) Tableau
11 51 (1.07%) Big Data
12 50 (1.05%) MySQL
12 50 (1.05%) Oracle Database
13 45 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 37 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
15 27 (0.57%) Db2
16 25 (0.52%) Power Query
17 23 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
17 23 (0.48%) BigQuery
17 23 (0.48%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 473 (9.91%) JIRA
2 282 (5.91%) Git
3 162 (3.39%) 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
10 23 (0.48%) Maven
11 22 (0.46%) JUnit
12 19 (0.40%) Gradle
12 19 (0.40%) Mockito
13 18 (0.38%) WebDriver
14 16 (0.34%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 13 (0.27%) JMeter
15 13 (0.27%) Zephyr
16 12 (0.25%) SonarQube
16 12 (0.25%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,468 (51.71%) Social Skills
2 1,998 (41.86%) Analytical Skills
3 1,110 (23.26%) Finance
4 459 (9.62%) Public Sector
5 374 (7.84%) Banking
6 205 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
7 185 (3.88%) Retail
8 180 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
9 150 (3.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 132 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
11 122 (2.56%) Manufacturing
12 110 (2.30%) Legal
13 108 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
14 104 (2.18%) Marketing
15 102 (2.14%) Front Office
16 94 (1.97%) Telecoms
17 70 (1.47%) Investment Banking
18 60 (1.26%) Law
19 53 (1.11%) Back Office
20 49 (1.03%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 666 (13.95%) Analyst
2 540 (11.31%) Developer
3 422 (8.84%) Senior
4 368 (7.71%) Lead
5 334 (7.00%) Architect
6 234 (4.90%) Business Analyst
7 206 (4.32%) Consultant
8 205 (4.29%) Data Engineer
9 173 (3.62%) IT Support
10 161 (3.37%) Support Engineer
11 147 (3.08%) Project Manager
12 108 (2.26%) Data Analyst
13 107 (2.24%) Administrator
13 107 (2.24%) IT Engineer
14 102 (2.14%) Java Developer
15 93 (1.95%) Software Engineer
16 91 (1.91%) Solutions Architect
17 80 (1.68%) Support Analyst
18 78 (1.63%) DevOps Engineer
19 77 (1.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 279 (5.85%) REST
2 144 (3.02%) .NET
3 132 (2.77%) Kafka
3 132 (2.77%) RESTful
4 131 (2.74%) SOAP
5 128 (2.68%) React
6 122 (2.56%) Spring
7 117 (2.45%) JSON
8 106 (2.22%) CSS
9 96 (2.01%) XML
10 95 (1.99%) HTML
11 90 (1.89%) Middleware
12 88 (1.84%) Spring Boot
13 80 (1.68%) AngularJS
14 79 (1.66%) Node.js
15 69 (1.45%) OAuth
16 65 (1.36%) Web Services
17 55 (1.15%) PySpark
18 46 (0.96%) Playwright
18 46 (0.96%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 256 (5.36%) Onboarding
2 235 (4.92%) Product Ownership
3 209 (4.38%) Cloud Native
4 183 (3.83%) Self-Motivation
5 173 (3.62%) Data Centre
6 139 (2.91%) Distributed Systems
7 137 (2.87%) Analytical Mindset
8 136 (2.85%) Management Information System
9 133 (2.79%) Enterprise Software
10 119 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
11 117 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
12 112 (2.35%) 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 54 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 51 (1.07%) PKI
19 46 (0.96%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 628 (13.16%) Windows
2 252 (5.28%) Linux
3 132 (2.77%) Windows Server
4 110 (2.30%) Windows 10
5 95 (1.99%) Unix
6 78 (1.63%) Apple iOS
7 77 (1.61%) Mac OS
8 74 (1.55%) Android
9 42 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 12 (0.25%) VMS
12 11 (0.23%) 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 1,295 (27.13%) Agile
2 954 (19.99%) Continuous Improvement
3 903 (18.92%) Stakeholder Management
4 783 (16.40%) CI/CD
5 743 (15.57%) DevOps
6 622 (13.03%) AI
7 539 (11.29%) Decision-Making
8 504 (10.56%) Analytics
8 504 (10.56%) Migration
9 488 (10.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 472 (9.89%) ITIL
11 433 (9.07%) Customer Service
12 386 (8.09%) Business Intelligence
13 369 (7.73%) Data Modelling
13 369 (7.73%) Test Automation
14 368 (7.71%) Validation
15 343 (7.19%) Project Management
16 338 (7.08%) Roadmaps
17 328 (6.87%) Scrum
18 320 (6.70%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 854 (17.89%) SQL
2 790 (16.55%) Python
3 366 (7.67%) Java
4 262 (5.49%) JavaScript
5 261 (5.47%) PowerShell
6 161 (3.37%) C#
7 134 (2.81%) Bash
8 106 (2.22%) TypeScript
9 82 (1.72%) PL/SQL
10 51 (1.07%) C++
11 50 (1.05%) T-SQL
12 42 (0.88%) Shell Script
13 36 (0.75%) Go
14 34 (0.71%) Bicep
15 33 (0.69%) C
16 31 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 28 (0.59%) Apex Code
17 28 (0.59%) Kotlin
18 25 (0.52%) Groovy
18 25 (0.52%) R
Qualifications
1 1,058 (22.17%) Security Cleared
2 708 (14.83%) SC Cleared
3 589 (12.34%) Degree
4 213 (4.46%) DV Cleared
5 171 (3.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 132 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 113 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
8 110 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
9 76 (1.59%) CISSP
9 76 (1.59%) PMP
10 71 (1.49%) PMI Certification
11 67 (1.40%) Azure Certification
12 62 (1.30%) CCNA
13 61 (1.28%) A+ Certification
14 52 (1.09%) Master's Degree
15 48 (1.01%) CISM
16 41 (0.86%) Network+ Certification
17 39 (0.82%) MCSE
18 37 (0.78%) AWS Certification
18 37 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 335 (7.02%) Data Quality
2 287 (6.01%) QA
3 136 (2.85%) GDPR
4 108 (2.26%) Accessibility
5 102 (2.14%) SLA
6 83 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 79 (1.66%) PMO
8 67 (1.40%) 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%) HL7
System Software
1 361 (7.56%) Active Directory
2 309 (6.47%) Docker
3 121 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 49 (1.03%) VMware NSX
5 48 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
6 46 (0.96%) vSphere
7 40 (0.84%) Hyper-V
8 31 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
9 28 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
10 22 (0.46%) vCloud
11 19 (0.40%) 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%) UAG
Systems Management
1 359 (7.52%) Kubernetes
2 290 (6.08%) Terraform
3 162 (3.39%) Ansible
4 125 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 96 (2.01%) Grafana
6 81 (1.70%) Prometheus
7 75 (1.57%) SCCM
8 57 (1.19%) vCenter Server
9 30 (0.63%) FortiGate
10 28 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
11 27 (0.57%) Control-M
12 23 (0.48%) SCOM
13 21 (0.44%) Argo
14 18 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
15 16 (0.34%) WSUS
16 15 (0.31%) Nessus
17 13 (0.27%) IBM Guardium
17 13 (0.27%) Kibana
18 11 (0.23%) Puppet
19 10 (0.21%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 956 (20.03%) Microsoft
2 339 (7.10%) Oracle
3 313 (6.56%) ServiceNow
4 291 (6.10%) SAP
5 192 (4.02%) VMware
6 149 (3.12%) Google
7 121 (2.54%) Salesforce
7 121 (2.54%) Splunk
8 114 (2.39%) Cisco
9 101 (2.12%) Databricks
10 79 (1.66%) Workday
11 65 (1.36%) Dynatrace
12 54 (1.13%) Adobe
13 53 (1.11%) Red Hat
14 51 (1.07%) Apple
15 48 (1.01%) Citrix
16 45 (0.94%) Dell
16 45 (0.94%) MuleSoft
17 44 (0.92%) CyberArk
18 39 (0.82%) Juniper