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

6 months to
12 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 4,479 4,217 4,030
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.50% 17.20% 10.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.33% 18.83% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,664 2,638 2,440
10th Percentile £263 £250 £254
25th Percentile £388 £389 £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 £738
UK median daily rate £493 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 234 381
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% -69.03%
75th Percentile £42.65 £34.39 £36.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.38 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £20.48 £22.14 £16.23
% change year-on-year -7.52% +36.41% -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 36,315 22,393 32,018
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.15% 91.34% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,987 14,479 20,805
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £414 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,273 1,020 2,369
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.80
25th Percentile £20.82 £18.10 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +69.64% -25.33% +5.63%
75th Percentile £68.00 £58.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -12 1,917 £520 +1.46% 747
North of England -10 706 £448 -7.01% 586
South East -6 670 £488 -2.50% 732
Midlands -9 500 £466 +7.60% 414
West Midlands -11 356 £472 +4.19% 245
North West -10 338 £425 -13.09% 334
Yorkshire -7 325 £450 -5.21% 181
South West -4 320 £500 - 295
East of England -2 243 £450 -3.54% 264
East Midlands -2 143 £445 +21.36% 171
North East -18 49 £375 -16.67% 82
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
1 198 (4.42%) Confluence
2 138 (3.08%) SharePoint
3 85 (1.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 54 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 36 (0.80%) Apache
6 35 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
7 32 (0.71%) SAS
8 29 (0.65%) CMS
9 24 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
10 13 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 12 (0.27%) nginx
12 10 (0.22%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.22%) CICS
13 8 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.18%) Camunda
13 8 (0.18%) Jupyter
13 8 (0.18%) Tomcat
14 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.16%) WebSphere
15 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
Applications
1 267 (5.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 194 (4.33%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (2.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 60 (1.34%) Microsoft Project
5 59 (1.32%) MS Visio
6 28 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
7 22 (0.49%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.29%) AutoCAD
9 11 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 10 (0.22%) Revit
11 7 (0.16%) Sketch
11 7 (0.16%) Trello
12 6 (0.13%) CPLEX
12 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
13 5 (0.11%) CATIA
13 5 (0.11%) Maya
14 4 (0.089%) Acrobat
15 3 (0.067%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.067%) LaTeX
15 3 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 106 (2.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.40%) Aladdin
3 18 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 14 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.25%) NEC Housing
6 11 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 10 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
7 10 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 10 (0.22%) SAP SD
7 10 (0.22%) Teamcenter
8 9 (0.20%) iTrent
8 9 (0.20%) SAP HCM
9 7 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.16%) Oracle HRMS
9 7 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 7 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 926 (20.67%) Azure
2 676 (15.09%) AWS
3 360 (8.04%) Power Platform
4 322 (7.19%) Microsoft 365
5 277 (6.18%) GCP
6 207 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
7 160 (3.57%) GitHub
8 147 (3.28%) Entra ID
9 125 (2.79%) Serverless
10 123 (2.75%) SaaS
11 78 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
12 75 (1.67%) Amazon S3
13 74 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
14 62 (1.38%) Snowflake
15 60 (1.34%) Azure Data Factory
16 56 (1.25%) Dynamics 365
16 56 (1.25%) Power Automate
17 51 (1.14%) OpenShift
18 50 (1.12%) PowerApps
19 46 (1.03%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 174 (3.88%) DNS
2 139 (3.10%) Firewall
3 105 (2.34%) TCP/IP
4 103 (2.30%) VPN
5 90 (2.01%) DHCP
6 87 (1.94%) WAN
7 71 (1.59%) Network Security
8 70 (1.56%) LAN
9 60 (1.34%) SAN
10 58 (1.29%) Wi-Fi
11 44 (0.98%) VLAN
12 40 (0.89%) BGP
13 36 (0.80%) OSPF
13 36 (0.80%) SD-WAN
14 28 (0.63%) VoIP
14 28 (0.63%) Wireless
15 25 (0.56%) VXLAN
16 19 (0.42%) Internet
16 19 (0.42%) MPLS
17 18 (0.40%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (6.34%) Power BI
2 181 (4.04%) SQL Server
3 138 (3.08%) Data Warehouse
4 121 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
5 116 (2.59%) Relational Database
6 89 (1.99%) MongoDB
7 81 (1.81%) Metadata
8 79 (1.76%) Tableau
9 78 (1.74%) NoSQL
10 77 (1.72%) Data Lake
11 47 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 45 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
13 44 (0.98%) Big Data
13 44 (0.98%) Oracle Database
14 38 (0.85%) MySQL
15 27 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
15 27 (0.60%) Power Query
16 23 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
16 23 (0.51%) Delta Lake
16 23 (0.51%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 452 (10.09%) JIRA
2 249 (5.56%) Git
3 151 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 108 (2.41%) GitLab
5 55 (1.23%) Selenium
6 32 (0.71%) Postman
7 27 (0.60%) REST Assured
8 24 (0.54%) Bitbucket
9 22 (0.49%) Cucumber
10 21 (0.47%) JUnit
11 18 (0.40%) Cypress.io
12 16 (0.36%) Mockito
12 16 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.29%) Maven
14 12 (0.27%) SonarQube
14 12 (0.27%) WebDriver
14 12 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 11 (0.25%) JMeter
16 10 (0.22%) Rational Rhapsody
16 10 (0.22%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,321 (51.82%) Social Skills
2 1,771 (39.54%) Analytical Skills
3 1,035 (23.11%) Finance
4 365 (8.15%) Public Sector
5 344 (7.68%) Banking
6 187 (4.18%) Organisational Skills
7 172 (3.84%) Retail
8 169 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.68%) Legal
10 115 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 97 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
12 91 (2.03%) Front Office
12 91 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
13 88 (1.96%) Marketing
14 82 (1.83%) Manufacturing
15 79 (1.76%) Telecoms
16 69 (1.54%) Investment Banking
17 60 (1.34%) Law
18 49 (1.09%) Back Office
19 41 (0.92%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 662 (14.78%) Analyst
2 470 (10.49%) Developer
3 373 (8.33%) Senior
4 332 (7.41%) Architect
5 294 (6.56%) Lead
6 246 (5.49%) Business Analyst
7 209 (4.67%) Data Engineer
8 207 (4.62%) Consultant
9 151 (3.37%) Project Manager
10 143 (3.19%) IT Support
11 125 (2.79%) Support Engineer
12 103 (2.30%) Data Analyst
13 95 (2.12%) Administrator
14 91 (2.03%) Solutions Architect
15 88 (1.96%) IT Engineer
16 84 (1.88%) Software Engineer
17 79 (1.76%) Java Developer
17 79 (1.76%) Support Analyst
18 73 (1.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 72 (1.61%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (5.85%) REST
2 143 (3.19%) .NET
3 129 (2.88%) Kafka
3 129 (2.88%) SOAP
4 121 (2.70%) React
5 111 (2.48%) Spring
6 108 (2.41%) RESTful
7 100 (2.23%) CSS
8 96 (2.14%) JSON
9 92 (2.05%) Middleware
10 87 (1.94%) HTML
11 86 (1.92%) LDAP
12 84 (1.88%) XML
13 81 (1.81%) Spring Boot
14 75 (1.67%) Node.js
15 74 (1.65%) AngularJS
16 56 (1.25%) Web Services
17 54 (1.21%) OAuth
18 51 (1.14%) PySpark
19 45 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 213 (4.76%) Onboarding
2 209 (4.67%) Product Ownership
3 183 (4.09%) Cloud Native
4 166 (3.71%) Data Centre
5 150 (3.35%) Self-Motivation
6 131 (2.92%) Analytical Mindset
7 123 (2.75%) Management Information System
8 121 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
9 115 (2.57%) Distributed Systems
10 110 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
11 107 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
12 96 (2.14%) Virtual Team
13 83 (1.85%) Data Structures
14 68 (1.52%) Security Posture
15 56 (1.25%) AI Agents
16 53 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 49 (1.09%) Algorithms
18 45 (1.00%) Driving Licence
19 42 (0.94%) Derivative
19 42 (0.94%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 551 (12.30%) Windows
2 247 (5.51%) Linux
3 108 (2.41%) Windows 10
4 100 (2.23%) Windows Server
5 87 (1.94%) Unix
6 80 (1.79%) Apple iOS
7 75 (1.67%) Mac OS
8 74 (1.65%) Android
9 45 (1.00%) 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 1,166 (26.03%) Agile
2 755 (16.86%) Continuous Improvement
3 723 (16.14%) CI/CD
4 704 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
5 686 (15.32%) DevOps
6 537 (11.99%) AI
7 511 (11.41%) Migration
8 495 (11.05%) Decision-Making
9 486 (10.85%) Analytics
10 406 (9.06%) Customer Service
11 404 (9.02%) ITIL
11 404 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 384 (8.57%) Project Management
13 378 (8.44%) Data Modelling
14 365 (8.15%) Business Intelligence
15 363 (8.10%) Validation
16 336 (7.50%) Test Automation
17 318 (7.10%) Change Management
18 314 (7.01%) Scrum
19 285 (6.36%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 821 (18.33%) SQL
2 813 (18.15%) Python
3 342 (7.64%) Java
4 280 (6.25%) PowerShell
5 224 (5.00%) JavaScript
6 174 (3.88%) C#
7 109 (2.43%) TypeScript
8 100 (2.23%) Bash
9 76 (1.70%) PL/SQL
10 60 (1.34%) C++
11 42 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 41 (0.92%) Go
13 40 (0.89%) T-SQL
14 38 (0.85%) C
15 32 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 29 (0.65%) Bicep
16 29 (0.65%) R
17 26 (0.58%) Apex Code
18 25 (0.56%) Perl
19 22 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 962 (21.48%) Security Cleared
2 645 (14.40%) SC Cleared
3 544 (12.15%) Degree
4 185 (4.13%) DV Cleared
5 173 (3.86%) Computer Science Degree
6 125 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
7 123 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
8 108 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
9 87 (1.94%) CISSP
10 75 (1.67%) PMP
11 67 (1.50%) Azure Certification
12 64 (1.43%) PMI Certification
13 61 (1.36%) A+ Certification
13 61 (1.36%) CCNA
13 61 (1.36%) CISM
14 52 (1.16%) Network+ Certification
15 51 (1.14%) Master's Degree
16 44 (0.98%) MCSE
17 36 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
18 33 (0.74%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 304 (6.79%) Data Quality
2 234 (5.22%) QA
3 137 (3.06%) GDPR
4 88 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 84 (1.88%) SLA
6 78 (1.74%) PMO
7 77 (1.72%) Accessibility
8 75 (1.67%) NIST
9 43 (0.96%) GRC
10 22 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
11 21 (0.47%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.36%) NCSC
13 15 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 14 (0.31%) COBIT
14 14 (0.31%) PSD2
15 13 (0.29%) WCAG
16 12 (0.27%) HL7
17 11 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
17 11 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 352 (7.86%) Active Directory
2 274 (6.12%) Docker
3 101 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.87%) vSphere
5 36 (0.80%) VMware NSX
6 33 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
7 31 (0.69%) Hyper-V
8 26 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
9 24 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
10 18 (0.40%) vCloud
11 17 (0.38%) Firmware
12 11 (0.25%) Squid
13 7 (0.16%) IAG
14 6 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.089%) ACF2
15 4 (0.089%) Microsoft App-V
15 4 (0.089%) NFS
15 4 (0.089%) RACF
15 4 (0.089%) Snort
16 3 (0.067%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 332 (7.41%) Kubernetes
2 251 (5.60%) Terraform
3 153 (3.42%) Ansible
4 129 (2.88%) Microsoft Intune
5 96 (2.14%) Grafana
6 82 (1.83%) Prometheus
7 67 (1.50%) SCCM
8 47 (1.05%) vCenter Server
9 38 (0.85%) FortiGate
10 32 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
11 23 (0.51%) Control-M
12 21 (0.47%) Argo
12 21 (0.47%) Nessus
13 20 (0.45%) Kibana
14 19 (0.42%) Puppet
15 17 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
16 16 (0.36%) SCOM
17 14 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 14 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
18 13 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 837 (18.69%) Microsoft
2 306 (6.83%) Oracle
3 255 (5.69%) SAP
4 244 (5.45%) ServiceNow
5 170 (3.80%) VMware
6 135 (3.01%) Google
7 117 (2.61%) Splunk
8 116 (2.59%) Databricks
9 105 (2.34%) Salesforce
10 100 (2.23%) Cisco
11 68 (1.52%) Workday
12 64 (1.43%) CyberArk
13 59 (1.32%) BeyondTrust
14 58 (1.29%) Dell
14 58 (1.29%) Red Hat
15 49 (1.09%) Dynatrace
16 48 (1.07%) Adobe
17 47 (1.05%) Citrix
18 38 (0.85%) Apple
18 38 (0.85%) MuleSoft