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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -9 +5 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,497 4,238 4,076
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.46% 17.08% 10.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.28% 18.71% 12.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,669 2,645 2,451
10th Percentile £263 £250 £254
25th Percentile £383 £388 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £598 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 243 379
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.20 £11.00
25th Percentile £15.99 £15.25 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.39 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% +31.79% -68.02%
75th Percentile £44.09 £34.30 £36.11
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.50 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £20.51 £22.00 £16.23
% change year-on-year -6.77% +35.55% -68.49%

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 36,618 22,657 32,179
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.18% 91.33% 85.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,120 14,657 20,816
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.23% -1.00% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £727 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.46% -3.79% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,297 1,070 2,391
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.11 £16.04
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.40 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +71.53% -26.93% +5.19%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.19 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.21 £37.18
% change year-on-year +67.72% -29.51% +6.14%

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 18 June 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 18 June 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 18 June 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 -11 1,906 £520 +1.96% 1,146
North of England -11 717 £449 -5.53% 617
South East -6 681 £488 -2.50% 805
Midlands -8 507 £464 +9.18% 426
West Midlands -11 363 £469 +4.22% 247
North West -11 346 £440 -7.37% 357
Yorkshire -7 328 £451 -5.16% 177
South West -4 317 £500 - 331
East of England -2 249 £450 -3.74% 273
East Midlands -2 142 £447 +21.80% 180
North East -18 49 £370 -17.78% 97
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
1 201 (4.47%) Confluence
2 145 (3.22%) SharePoint
3 84 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 37 (0.82%) Apache
5 37 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 32 (0.71%) SAS
7 29 (0.64%) CMS
8 25 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
9 15 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 11 (0.24%) nginx
11 10 (0.22%) ArcGIS
11 10 (0.22%) CICS
11 10 (0.22%) Jupyter
12 9 (0.20%) WebSphere
13 8 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.18%) Camunda
14 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
Applications
1 270 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 197 (4.38%) Microsoft Office
3 92 (2.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 61 (1.36%) Microsoft Project
5 59 (1.31%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 21 (0.47%) Chatbot
8 14 (0.31%) AutoCAD
9 12 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 11 (0.24%) Revit
11 8 (0.18%) CPLEX
12 7 (0.16%) Sketch
12 7 (0.16%) Trello
13 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
14 5 (0.11%) CATIA
14 5 (0.11%) Maya
15 4 (0.089%) Acrobat
15 4 (0.089%) Adobe XD
16 3 (0.067%) Navisworks
16 3 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 110 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.40%) Aladdin
4 18 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 13 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 12 (0.27%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 11 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.22%) SAP SD
9 10 (0.22%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.20%) iTrent
10 9 (0.20%) NEC Housing
10 9 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.20%) SAP HCM
11 7 (0.16%) Finacle
11 7 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
11 7 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 7 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 915 (20.35%) Azure
2 670 (14.90%) AWS
3 361 (8.03%) Power Platform
4 328 (7.29%) Microsoft 365
5 258 (5.74%) GCP
6 207 (4.60%) Azure DevOps
7 154 (3.42%) GitHub
8 150 (3.34%) Entra ID
9 125 (2.78%) SaaS
9 125 (2.78%) Serverless
10 76 (1.69%) Amazon S3
11 75 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
11 75 (1.67%) GitHub Actions
12 61 (1.36%) Azure Data Factory
12 61 (1.36%) Snowflake
13 57 (1.27%) Power Automate
14 54 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
15 49 (1.09%) OpenShift
15 49 (1.09%) PowerApps
16 42 (0.93%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 172 (3.82%) DNS
2 140 (3.11%) Firewall
3 104 (2.31%) VPN
4 101 (2.25%) TCP/IP
5 91 (2.02%) DHCP
6 88 (1.96%) WAN
7 77 (1.71%) Network Security
8 71 (1.58%) LAN
9 60 (1.33%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (1.31%) SAN
11 45 (1.00%) VLAN
12 40 (0.89%) BGP
13 36 (0.80%) SD-WAN
14 35 (0.78%) OSPF
15 30 (0.67%) Wireless
16 26 (0.58%) VoIP
17 24 (0.53%) VXLAN
18 20 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
19 19 (0.42%) MPLS
20 18 (0.40%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 286 (6.36%) Power BI
2 181 (4.02%) SQL Server
3 138 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
4 120 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
4 120 (2.67%) Relational Database
5 93 (2.07%) MongoDB
6 82 (1.82%) NoSQL
7 78 (1.73%) Data Lake
7 78 (1.73%) Tableau
8 76 (1.69%) Metadata
9 48 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 46 (1.02%) Oracle Database
11 44 (0.98%) Big Data
12 42 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
13 38 (0.85%) MySQL
14 28 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (0.62%) Power Query
15 24 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
15 24 (0.53%) Pentaho
16 23 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 456 (10.14%) JIRA
2 240 (5.34%) Git
3 151 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 109 (2.42%) GitLab
5 54 (1.20%) Selenium
6 34 (0.76%) Postman
7 28 (0.62%) REST Assured
8 25 (0.56%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.51%) Cucumber
10 21 (0.47%) JUnit
11 20 (0.44%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.38%) Mockito
13 16 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
14 14 (0.31%) WebDriver
15 13 (0.29%) SonarQube
16 12 (0.27%) JMeter
16 12 (0.27%) Zephyr
17 11 (0.24%) Maven
18 10 (0.22%) Gradle
18 10 (0.22%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,321 (51.61%) Social Skills
2 1,793 (39.87%) Analytical Skills
3 1,044 (23.22%) Finance
4 370 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 343 (7.63%) Banking
6 189 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
7 175 (3.89%) Documentation Skills
8 173 (3.85%) Retail
9 120 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 120 (2.67%) Legal
10 101 (2.25%) Presentation Skills
11 96 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
12 91 (2.02%) Front Office
13 83 (1.85%) Manufacturing
13 83 (1.85%) Marketing
14 82 (1.82%) Telecoms
15 66 (1.47%) Investment Banking
16 59 (1.31%) Law
17 48 (1.07%) Back Office
18 44 (0.98%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 655 (14.57%) Analyst
2 478 (10.63%) Developer
3 375 (8.34%) Senior
4 330 (7.34%) Architect
5 299 (6.65%) Lead
6 237 (5.27%) Business Analyst
7 212 (4.71%) Data Engineer
8 205 (4.56%) Consultant
9 152 (3.38%) Project Manager
10 148 (3.29%) IT Support
11 130 (2.89%) Support Engineer
12 104 (2.31%) Data Analyst
13 95 (2.11%) Solutions Architect
14 94 (2.09%) Administrator
15 87 (1.93%) IT Engineer
16 84 (1.87%) Software Engineer
17 81 (1.80%) Java Developer
18 78 (1.73%) Support Analyst
19 76 (1.69%) Technical Support
20 72 (1.60%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (5.60%) REST
2 140 (3.11%) .NET
3 131 (2.91%) Kafka
4 121 (2.69%) React
4 121 (2.69%) SOAP
5 115 (2.56%) Spring
6 113 (2.51%) RESTful
7 98 (2.18%) CSS
7 98 (2.18%) JSON
8 93 (2.07%) Middleware
9 85 (1.89%) XML
10 84 (1.87%) HTML
10 84 (1.87%) Spring Boot
11 75 (1.67%) LDAP
12 73 (1.62%) Node.js
13 71 (1.58%) AngularJS
14 55 (1.22%) Web Services
15 54 (1.20%) OAuth
16 53 (1.18%) PySpark
17 45 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 216 (4.80%) Onboarding
2 215 (4.78%) Product Ownership
3 191 (4.25%) Cloud Native
4 163 (3.62%) Data Centre
5 155 (3.45%) Self-Motivation
6 131 (2.91%) Analytical Mindset
7 125 (2.78%) Management Information System
8 124 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
9 121 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
10 114 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
11 107 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
12 94 (2.09%) Virtual Team
13 92 (2.05%) Data Structures
14 63 (1.40%) Security Posture
15 57 (1.27%) AI Agents
16 52 (1.16%) Algorithms
16 52 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 46 (1.02%) Driving Licence
18 43 (0.96%) CMDB
18 43 (0.96%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 553 (12.30%) Windows
2 242 (5.38%) Linux
3 109 (2.42%) Windows 10
4 102 (2.27%) Windows Server
5 85 (1.89%) Unix
6 78 (1.73%) Apple iOS
7 73 (1.62%) Mac OS
8 71 (1.58%) Android
9 42 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 23 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 14 (0.31%) CentOS
12 13 (0.29%) VMS
13 12 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
14 10 (0.22%) zOS
15 8 (0.18%) Mac OS X
15 8 (0.18%) Windows 7
16 5 (0.11%) Debian
16 5 (0.11%) Solaris
16 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.089%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,182 (26.28%) Agile
2 781 (17.37%) Continuous Improvement
3 733 (16.30%) CI/CD
4 732 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 696 (15.48%) DevOps
6 542 (12.05%) AI
7 511 (11.36%) Decision-Making
8 506 (11.25%) Migration
9 489 (10.87%) Analytics
10 416 (9.25%) ITIL
11 407 (9.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 400 (8.89%) Customer Service
13 375 (8.34%) Project Management
14 374 (8.32%) Data Modelling
15 368 (8.18%) Business Intelligence
16 365 (8.12%) Validation
17 339 (7.54%) Test Automation
18 320 (7.12%) Change Management
19 311 (6.92%) Scrum
20 295 (6.56%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 838 (18.63%) SQL
2 807 (17.95%) Python
3 341 (7.58%) Java
4 272 (6.05%) PowerShell
5 229 (5.09%) JavaScript
6 173 (3.85%) C#
7 104 (2.31%) TypeScript
8 98 (2.18%) Bash
9 77 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 59 (1.31%) C++
11 41 (0.91%) T-SQL
12 40 (0.89%) C
13 39 (0.87%) Go
13 39 (0.87%) Shell Script
14 31 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 30 (0.67%) Bicep
16 29 (0.64%) R
17 26 (0.58%) Apex Code
18 25 (0.56%) Perl
19 22 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 966 (21.48%) Security Cleared
2 645 (14.34%) SC Cleared
3 545 (12.12%) Degree
4 191 (4.25%) DV Cleared
5 170 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
6 125 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
7 124 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
8 105 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
9 89 (1.98%) CISSP
10 75 (1.67%) PMP
11 66 (1.47%) Azure Certification
12 63 (1.40%) PMI Certification
13 62 (1.38%) A+ Certification
13 62 (1.38%) CISM
14 59 (1.31%) CCNA
15 53 (1.18%) Master's Degree
16 50 (1.11%) Network+ Certification
17 43 (0.96%) MCSE
18 35 (0.78%) AWS Certification
18 35 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 309 (6.87%) Data Quality
2 237 (5.27%) QA
3 139 (3.09%) GDPR
4 89 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (1.93%) SLA
6 83 (1.85%) Accessibility
7 76 (1.69%) NIST
8 74 (1.65%) PMO
9 44 (0.98%) GRC
10 23 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
10 23 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 20 (0.44%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.36%) COBIT
13 15 (0.33%) NCSC
14 14 (0.31%) WCAG
15 13 (0.29%) ISO 20022
16 12 (0.27%) PSD2
17 11 (0.24%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.24%) IFRS
18 10 (0.22%) HL7
System Software
1 349 (7.76%) Active Directory
2 278 (6.18%) Docker
3 103 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.87%) vSphere
5 37 (0.82%) VMware NSX
6 34 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
7 28 (0.62%) Hyper-V
8 26 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
9 25 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
10 19 (0.42%) Firmware
10 19 (0.42%) vCloud
11 11 (0.24%) Squid
12 8 (0.18%) IAG
13 6 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.089%) ACF2
14 4 (0.089%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.089%) NFS
14 4 (0.089%) RACF
14 4 (0.089%) Snort
15 3 (0.067%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 333 (7.40%) Kubernetes
2 249 (5.54%) Terraform
3 147 (3.27%) Ansible
4 130 (2.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 94 (2.09%) Grafana
6 82 (1.82%) Prometheus
7 68 (1.51%) SCCM
8 48 (1.07%) vCenter Server
9 38 (0.85%) FortiGate
10 31 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
11 24 (0.53%) Control-M
12 21 (0.47%) Nessus
13 20 (0.44%) Argo
14 19 (0.42%) Kibana
15 18 (0.40%) Puppet
16 17 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
16 17 (0.38%) SCOM
17 15 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
18 14 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
18 14 (0.31%) WSUS
Vendors
1 845 (18.79%) Microsoft
2 310 (6.89%) Oracle
3 259 (5.76%) SAP
4 255 (5.67%) ServiceNow
5 167 (3.71%) VMware
6 127 (2.82%) Google
7 113 (2.51%) Databricks
7 113 (2.51%) Splunk
8 107 (2.38%) Salesforce
9 99 (2.20%) Cisco
10 69 (1.53%) Workday
11 54 (1.20%) CyberArk
11 54 (1.20%) Dell
11 54 (1.20%) Red Hat
12 51 (1.13%) Adobe
12 51 (1.13%) Dynatrace
13 49 (1.09%) BeyondTrust
14 46 (1.02%) Citrix
15 41 (0.91%) MuleSoft
16 40 (0.89%) Apple