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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,447 4,128 3,947
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.71% 17.32% 10.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.63% 18.97% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,683 2,600 2,397
10th Percentile £271 £250 £250
25th Percentile £394 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £604 £638
90th Percentile £725 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 204 375
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.20 £11.00
25th Percentile £15.62 £15.09 £14.08
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.65 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.64% +31.18% -67.00%
75th Percentile £51.27 £33.84 £38.38
90th Percentile £74.13 £65.00 £62.14
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.14 £16.23
% change year-on-year -5.15% +36.41% -67.54%

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 35,196 21,756 31,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.75% 91.30% 86.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,391 14,220 20,552
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,171 917 2,255
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.41 £12.89
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.20 £15.97
Median hourly rate £45.59 £28.55 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.67% -21.78% -2.67%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.00 £60.13
90th Percentile £80.20 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.05
% change year-on-year +51.98% -22.42% -2.58%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 1,869 £520 -0.72% 1,156
North of England -8 742 £450 -7.46% 707
South East -6 645 £493 -1.40% 775
Midlands -9 494 £469 +6.71% 419
North West -8 351 £434 -11.43% 385
Yorkshire -7 348 £470 -1.05% 248
West Midlands -9 342 £475 +2.98% 265
South West -2 331 £500 -4.76% 295
East of England -3 234 £450 -5.63% 273
East Midlands -1 151 £447 +19.60% 155
North East -11 51 £425 -5.56% 85
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
1 199 (4.47%) Confluence
2 136 (3.06%) SharePoint
3 82 (1.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 36 (0.81%) Apache
6 35 (0.79%) SAS
7 34 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
8 24 (0.54%) CMS
9 20 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 12 (0.27%) nginx
11 10 (0.22%) ArcGIS
11 10 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.18%) Tomcat
14 7 (0.16%) Camunda
14 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
15 6 (0.13%) CICS
15 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 6 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 4 (0.090%) WebSphere
Applications
1 263 (5.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 206 (4.63%) Microsoft Office
3 94 (2.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 68 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
5 62 (1.39%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 22 (0.49%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.20%) Sketch
9 7 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.16%) AutoCAD
9 7 (0.16%) Trello
10 6 (0.13%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.13%) Revit
11 5 (0.11%) CATIA
11 5 (0.11%) Maya
11 5 (0.11%) Photoshop
12 4 (0.090%) Acrobat
12 4 (0.090%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.067%) LaTeX
13 3 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 98 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.47%) Aladdin
4 17 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
6 14 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 12 (0.27%) NEC Housing
8 12 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.27%) Workday HCM
9 11 (0.25%) SAP SD
10 10 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.20%) iTrent
12 8 (0.18%) NetSuite
12 8 (0.18%) Shopify
13 7 (0.16%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 7 (0.16%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 900 (20.24%) Azure
2 658 (14.80%) AWS
3 351 (7.89%) Power Platform
4 306 (6.88%) Microsoft 365
5 278 (6.25%) GCP
6 215 (4.83%) Azure DevOps
7 173 (3.89%) GitHub
8 137 (3.08%) Entra ID
9 119 (2.68%) Serverless
10 111 (2.50%) SaaS
11 83 (1.87%) GitHub Actions
12 69 (1.55%) Amazon S3
13 67 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
14 66 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
15 61 (1.37%) OpenShift
15 61 (1.37%) Snowflake
16 58 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
16 58 (1.30%) Power Automate
17 47 (1.06%) PowerApps
18 45 (1.01%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 168 (3.78%) DNS
2 143 (3.22%) Firewall
3 101 (2.27%) TCP/IP
4 98 (2.20%) VPN
5 87 (1.96%) DHCP
6 85 (1.91%) WAN
7 77 (1.73%) Network Security
8 66 (1.48%) LAN
9 62 (1.39%) SAN
10 55 (1.24%) Wi-Fi
11 43 (0.97%) VLAN
12 40 (0.90%) BGP
13 36 (0.81%) OSPF
14 31 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 27 (0.61%) Wireless
16 25 (0.56%) VoIP
17 23 (0.52%) VXLAN
18 19 (0.43%) Internet
19 18 (0.40%) BIG-IP
20 17 (0.38%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 277 (6.23%) Power BI
2 176 (3.96%) SQL Server
3 141 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
4 113 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
5 107 (2.41%) Relational Database
6 88 (1.98%) Metadata
7 79 (1.78%) MongoDB
8 76 (1.71%) Tableau
9 73 (1.64%) NoSQL
10 68 (1.53%) Data Lake
11 53 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
12 47 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 46 (1.03%) Big Data
14 44 (0.99%) Oracle Database
15 38 (0.85%) MySQL
16 27 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
16 27 (0.61%) Power Query
17 26 (0.58%) Delta Lake
18 25 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
19 24 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 448 (10.07%) JIRA
2 247 (5.55%) Git
3 163 (3.67%) Jenkins
4 105 (2.36%) GitLab
5 60 (1.35%) Selenium
6 32 (0.72%) Postman
7 25 (0.56%) Cucumber
7 25 (0.56%) REST Assured
8 22 (0.49%) Bitbucket
8 22 (0.49%) JUnit
9 19 (0.43%) Cypress.io
10 17 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
11 16 (0.36%) Mockito
12 15 (0.34%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.31%) JMeter
13 14 (0.31%) SpecFlow
14 13 (0.29%) Maven
15 12 (0.27%) WebDriver
16 11 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
16 11 (0.25%) Zephyr
General
1 2,280 (51.27%) Social Skills
2 1,747 (39.28%) Analytical Skills
3 1,020 (22.94%) Finance
4 389 (8.75%) Public Sector
5 342 (7.69%) Banking
6 198 (4.45%) Organisational Skills
7 171 (3.85%) Retail
8 161 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
9 125 (2.81%) Legal
10 103 (2.32%) Presentation Skills
11 96 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
12 90 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 88 (1.98%) Front Office
14 82 (1.84%) Marketing
15 75 (1.69%) Telecoms
16 72 (1.62%) Manufacturing
17 66 (1.48%) Investment Banking
18 60 (1.35%) Law
19 45 (1.01%) Military
20 43 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 656 (14.75%) Analyst
2 485 (10.91%) Developer
3 375 (8.43%) Senior
4 317 (7.13%) Architect
5 278 (6.25%) Lead
6 248 (5.58%) Business Analyst
7 209 (4.70%) Data Engineer
8 201 (4.52%) Consultant
9 168 (3.78%) Project Manager
10 118 (2.65%) IT Support
11 113 (2.54%) Data Analyst
12 112 (2.52%) Support Engineer
13 86 (1.93%) Software Engineer
13 86 (1.93%) Solutions Architect
14 84 (1.89%) Administrator
15 77 (1.73%) IT Engineer
15 77 (1.73%) Java Developer
16 75 (1.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 72 (1.62%) IT Analyst
18 71 (1.60%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (5.67%) REST
2 129 (2.90%) Kafka
3 127 (2.86%) SOAP
4 126 (2.83%) .NET
5 119 (2.68%) React
6 116 (2.61%) Spring
7 115 (2.59%) RESTful
8 100 (2.25%) CSS
9 92 (2.07%) HTML
10 91 (2.05%) Middleware
11 88 (1.98%) LDAP
12 87 (1.96%) Spring Boot
13 84 (1.89%) JSON
14 83 (1.87%) AngularJS
15 81 (1.82%) XML
16 80 (1.80%) Node.js
17 57 (1.28%) PySpark
18 53 (1.19%) OAuth
19 52 (1.17%) Web Services
20 48 (1.08%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 221 (4.97%) Product Ownership
2 206 (4.63%) Onboarding
3 167 (3.76%) Data Centre
4 161 (3.62%) Cloud Native
5 142 (3.19%) Self-Motivation
6 127 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 119 (2.68%) Management Information System
8 111 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
9 105 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
10 104 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
11 92 (2.07%) Virtual Team
12 88 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
13 85 (1.91%) Data Structures
14 65 (1.46%) Security Posture
15 52 (1.17%) AI Agents
16 49 (1.10%) Mobile App
17 46 (1.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 45 (1.01%) Algorithms
18 45 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
19 44 (0.99%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 512 (11.51%) Windows
2 257 (5.78%) Linux
3 106 (2.38%) Windows 10
4 90 (2.02%) Windows Server
5 86 (1.93%) Unix
6 81 (1.82%) Apple iOS
7 78 (1.75%) Android
8 66 (1.48%) Mac OS
9 45 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 21 (0.47%) Ubuntu
11 16 (0.36%) VMS
12 14 (0.31%) CentOS
13 13 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.18%) Mac OS X
14 8 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 8 (0.18%) zOS
15 7 (0.16%) Debian
16 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.090%) Solaris
17 4 (0.090%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,204 (27.07%) Agile
2 719 (16.17%) Continuous Improvement
3 708 (15.92%) CI/CD
4 680 (15.29%) DevOps
5 666 (14.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 510 (11.47%) Decision-Making
7 505 (11.36%) AI
8 497 (11.18%) Migration
9 479 (10.77%) Analytics
10 418 (9.40%) Project Management
11 392 (8.81%) Data Modelling
12 379 (8.52%) ITIL
13 372 (8.37%) Customer Service
14 371 (8.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 364 (8.19%) Validation
16 356 (8.01%) Business Intelligence
17 340 (7.65%) Test Automation
18 326 (7.33%) Change Management
19 311 (6.99%) Scrum
20 281 (6.32%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 804 (18.08%) Python
2 798 (17.94%) SQL
3 341 (7.67%) Java
4 273 (6.14%) PowerShell
5 225 (5.06%) JavaScript
6 170 (3.82%) C#
7 123 (2.77%) TypeScript
8 105 (2.36%) Bash
9 71 (1.60%) PL/SQL
10 62 (1.39%) C++
11 40 (0.90%) Go
11 40 (0.90%) Shell Script
12 37 (0.83%) C
13 34 (0.76%) T-SQL
14 33 (0.74%) Bicep
15 31 (0.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 31 (0.70%) R
16 28 (0.63%) Apex Code
17 25 (0.56%) Perl
18 23 (0.52%) Scala
Qualifications
1 992 (22.31%) Security Cleared
2 662 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 546 (12.28%) Degree
4 193 (4.34%) DV Cleared
5 177 (3.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 120 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
7 111 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
9 87 (1.96%) CISSP
10 77 (1.73%) PMP
11 65 (1.46%) PMI Certification
12 61 (1.37%) CCNA
13 58 (1.30%) A+ Certification
13 58 (1.30%) Azure Certification
13 58 (1.30%) CISM
14 55 (1.24%) Master's Degree
15 54 (1.21%) Network+ Certification
16 43 (0.97%) MCSE
17 31 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
18 29 (0.65%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 300 (6.75%) Data Quality
2 235 (5.28%) QA
3 134 (3.01%) GDPR
4 88 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 78 (1.75%) PMO
6 77 (1.73%) SLA
7 76 (1.71%) Accessibility
7 76 (1.71%) NIST
8 43 (0.97%) GRC
9 24 (0.54%) PCI DSS
10 22 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
11 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.36%) ISO 20022
13 15 (0.34%) NCSC
13 15 (0.34%) PSD2
14 14 (0.31%) WCAG
15 13 (0.29%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.29%) HL7
16 12 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
16 12 (0.27%) IFRS
System Software
1 335 (7.53%) Active Directory
2 282 (6.34%) Docker
3 100 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (0.81%) vSphere
5 34 (0.76%) VMware NSX
6 29 (0.65%) Hyper-V
7 24 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 23 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
10 18 (0.40%) Firmware
10 18 (0.40%) vCloud
11 11 (0.25%) Squid
12 7 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.13%) IAG
14 4 (0.090%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.090%) RACF
14 4 (0.090%) Snort
15 3 (0.067%) ACF2
15 3 (0.067%) ISA Server
15 3 (0.067%) NFS
Systems Management
1 338 (7.60%) Kubernetes
2 233 (5.24%) Terraform
3 156 (3.51%) Ansible
4 119 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 97 (2.18%) Grafana
6 81 (1.82%) Prometheus
7 66 (1.48%) SCCM
8 44 (0.99%) vCenter Server
9 37 (0.83%) FortiGate
10 32 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
11 27 (0.61%) Kibana
12 23 (0.52%) Control-M
12 23 (0.52%) Puppet
13 21 (0.47%) Nessus
14 19 (0.43%) Argo
15 17 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
16 15 (0.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 15 (0.34%) SCOM
17 11 (0.25%) WSUS
18 9 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 814 (18.30%) Microsoft
2 304 (6.84%) Oracle
3 244 (5.49%) SAP
4 212 (4.77%) ServiceNow
5 175 (3.94%) VMware
6 127 (2.86%) Databricks
7 121 (2.72%) Splunk
8 119 (2.68%) Google
9 105 (2.36%) Cisco
10 101 (2.27%) Salesforce
11 66 (1.48%) CyberArk
12 61 (1.37%) BeyondTrust
12 61 (1.37%) Dell
12 61 (1.37%) Workday
13 58 (1.30%) Red Hat
14 44 (0.99%) Adobe
15 43 (0.97%) Dynatrace
16 42 (0.94%) Citrix
16 42 (0.94%) F5
17 41 (0.92%) MuleSoft