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

6 months to
14 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 4,499 4,219 4,048
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.52% 17.11% 10.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.36% 18.73% 12.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,666 2,637 2,437
10th Percentile £263 £250 £254
25th Percentile £388 £388 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £719 £738
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.10% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 327 235 378
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.20 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.00 £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 £42.51 £34.74 £36.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.25 £61.87
UK median hourly rate £20.44 £22.14 £16.23
% change year-on-year -7.68% +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 36,403 22,531 32,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.14% 91.36% 85.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,041 14,566 20,743
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.77% -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 2,276 1,039 2,376
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.82 £18.13 £16.02
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.53 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.72% -26.59% +5.63%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.00 £37.09
% change year-on-year +62.81% -27.20% +5.97%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 1,924 £520 +1.96% 782
North of England -10 712 £450 -5.26% 595
South East -6 674 £488 -2.50% 735
Midlands -10 502 £466 +9.63% 411
West Midlands -10 358 £472 +4.89% 244
North West -10 342 £433 -8.95% 332
Yorkshire -6 329 £451 -5.16% 189
South West -4 322 £500 - 299
East of England -2 243 £450 -3.54% 266
East Midlands -1 143 £445 +21.36% 169
North East -18 47 £373 -17.22% 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
1 202 (4.49%) Confluence
2 137 (3.05%) SharePoint
3 86 (1.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (1.18%) Apache Spark
5 35 (0.78%) Apache
6 34 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
7 32 (0.71%) SAS
8 29 (0.64%) CMS
9 24 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
10 15 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 12 (0.27%) nginx
12 10 (0.22%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.22%) CICS
13 9 (0.20%) WebSphere
14 8 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 8 (0.18%) Camunda
14 8 (0.18%) Jupyter
14 8 (0.18%) Tomcat
15 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
16 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
Applications
1 269 (5.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 195 (4.33%) Microsoft Office
3 92 (2.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 61 (1.36%) Microsoft Project
5 60 (1.33%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 22 (0.49%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.29%) AutoCAD
9 11 (0.24%) 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
1 107 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.40%) Aladdin
5 17 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.31%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.24%) NEC Housing
7 11 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 10 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 10 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.22%) SAP SD
8 10 (0.22%) Teamcenter
9 9 (0.20%) iTrent
9 9 (0.20%) SAP HCM
10 7 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.16%) Oracle HRMS
10 7 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 7 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 926 (20.58%) Azure
2 675 (15.00%) AWS
3 358 (7.96%) Power Platform
4 322 (7.16%) Microsoft 365
5 272 (6.05%) GCP
6 208 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
7 161 (3.58%) GitHub
8 147 (3.27%) Entra ID
9 123 (2.73%) SaaS
9 123 (2.73%) Serverless
10 79 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
11 75 (1.67%) Amazon S3
12 74 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
13 62 (1.38%) Snowflake
14 60 (1.33%) Azure Data Factory
15 54 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
15 54 (1.20%) Power Automate
16 52 (1.16%) OpenShift
17 48 (1.07%) PowerApps
18 43 (0.96%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 175 (3.89%) DNS
2 143 (3.18%) Firewall
3 105 (2.33%) TCP/IP
3 105 (2.33%) VPN
4 90 (2.00%) DHCP
5 88 (1.96%) WAN
6 73 (1.62%) Network Security
7 71 (1.58%) LAN
8 60 (1.33%) SAN
9 59 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
10 44 (0.98%) VLAN
11 39 (0.87%) BGP
12 37 (0.82%) SD-WAN
13 35 (0.78%) OSPF
14 31 (0.69%) Wireless
15 26 (0.58%) VoIP
16 25 (0.56%) VXLAN
17 19 (0.42%) Internet
17 19 (0.42%) MPLS
17 19 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (6.31%) Power BI
2 180 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 140 (3.11%) Data Warehouse
4 122 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
5 117 (2.60%) Relational Database
6 91 (2.02%) MongoDB
7 81 (1.80%) Metadata
8 79 (1.76%) Data Lake
8 79 (1.76%) Tableau
9 77 (1.71%) NoSQL
10 47 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 45 (1.00%) Oracle Database
12 44 (0.98%) Big Data
12 44 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
13 38 (0.84%) MySQL
14 28 (0.62%) Power Query
15 27 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
16 24 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
16 24 (0.53%) Pentaho
16 24 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 459 (10.20%) JIRA
2 246 (5.47%) Git
3 154 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 110 (2.44%) GitLab
5 55 (1.22%) Selenium
6 32 (0.71%) Postman
7 29 (0.64%) REST Assured
8 24 (0.53%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.51%) Cucumber
10 21 (0.47%) JUnit
11 18 (0.40%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
13 16 (0.36%) Mockito
14 13 (0.29%) Maven
14 13 (0.29%) SonarQube
15 12 (0.27%) WebDriver
15 12 (0.27%) Zephyr
16 11 (0.24%) JMeter
17 10 (0.22%) Gradle
17 10 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,328 (51.74%) Social Skills
2 1,795 (39.90%) Analytical Skills
3 1,046 (23.25%) Finance
4 366 (8.14%) Public Sector
5 350 (7.78%) Banking
6 188 (4.18%) Organisational Skills
7 173 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
8 172 (3.82%) Retail
9 121 (2.69%) Legal
10 117 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 99 (2.20%) Presentation Skills
12 93 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
13 90 (2.00%) Front Office
14 86 (1.91%) Marketing
15 82 (1.82%) Manufacturing
16 79 (1.76%) Telecoms
17 68 (1.51%) Investment Banking
18 61 (1.36%) Law
19 49 (1.09%) Back Office
20 43 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 661 (14.69%) Analyst
2 468 (10.40%) Developer
3 372 (8.27%) Senior
4 332 (7.38%) Architect
5 297 (6.60%) Lead
6 244 (5.42%) Business Analyst
7 209 (4.65%) Consultant
7 209 (4.65%) Data Engineer
8 153 (3.40%) Project Manager
9 146 (3.25%) IT Support
10 129 (2.87%) Support Engineer
11 104 (2.31%) Data Analyst
12 96 (2.13%) Administrator
13 93 (2.07%) Solutions Architect
14 90 (2.00%) IT Engineer
15 84 (1.87%) Software Engineer
16 80 (1.78%) Java Developer
17 79 (1.76%) Support Analyst
18 73 (1.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 72 (1.60%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 261 (5.80%) REST
2 143 (3.18%) .NET
3 130 (2.89%) Kafka
4 127 (2.82%) SOAP
5 120 (2.67%) React
6 112 (2.49%) Spring
7 110 (2.44%) RESTful
8 99 (2.20%) CSS
9 97 (2.16%) JSON
10 94 (2.09%) Middleware
11 86 (1.91%) HTML
12 84 (1.87%) LDAP
12 84 (1.87%) XML
13 82 (1.82%) Spring Boot
14 73 (1.62%) AngularJS
14 73 (1.62%) Node.js
15 56 (1.24%) Web Services
16 53 (1.18%) OAuth
17 51 (1.13%) PySpark
18 45 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 217 (4.82%) Onboarding
2 212 (4.71%) Product Ownership
3 184 (4.09%) Cloud Native
4 167 (3.71%) Data Centre
5 152 (3.38%) Self-Motivation
6 129 (2.87%) Analytical Mindset
7 127 (2.82%) Management Information System
8 122 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
9 117 (2.60%) Distributed Systems
10 112 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
11 108 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
12 95 (2.11%) Virtual Team
13 84 (1.87%) Data Structures
14 67 (1.49%) Security Posture
15 56 (1.24%) AI Agents
16 51 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 49 (1.09%) Algorithms
18 47 (1.04%) Driving Licence
19 42 (0.93%) Derivative
19 42 (0.93%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 555 (12.34%) Windows
2 247 (5.49%) Linux
3 109 (2.42%) Windows 10
4 101 (2.24%) Windows Server
5 87 (1.93%) Unix
6 78 (1.73%) Apple iOS
7 73 (1.62%) Mac OS
8 72 (1.60%) Android
9 42 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 23 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 14 (0.31%) CentOS
12 12 (0.27%) VMS
12 12 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 10 (0.22%) zOS
14 8 (0.18%) Mac OS X
14 8 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 5 (0.11%) Debian
15 5 (0.11%) Solaris
15 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 4 (0.089%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,167 (25.94%) Agile
2 764 (16.98%) Continuous Improvement
3 728 (16.18%) CI/CD
4 718 (15.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 691 (15.36%) DevOps
6 541 (12.02%) AI
7 513 (11.40%) Migration
8 502 (11.16%) Decision-Making
9 488 (10.85%) Analytics
10 406 (9.02%) Customer Service
10 406 (9.02%) ITIL
10 406 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 386 (8.58%) Project Management
12 377 (8.38%) Data Modelling
13 366 (8.14%) Business Intelligence
14 363 (8.07%) Validation
15 337 (7.49%) Test Automation
16 323 (7.18%) Change Management
17 312 (6.93%) Scrum
18 291 (6.47%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 830 (18.45%) SQL
2 816 (18.14%) Python
3 345 (7.67%) Java
4 283 (6.29%) PowerShell
5 223 (4.96%) JavaScript
6 173 (3.85%) C#
7 106 (2.36%) TypeScript
8 101 (2.24%) Bash
9 77 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 60 (1.33%) C++
11 42 (0.93%) Shell Script
12 41 (0.91%) Go
13 40 (0.89%) T-SQL
14 38 (0.84%) C
15 32 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 30 (0.67%) Bicep
16 30 (0.67%) R
17 26 (0.58%) Apex Code
18 25 (0.56%) Perl
19 22 (0.49%) Scala
Qualifications
1 966 (21.47%) Security Cleared
2 649 (14.43%) SC Cleared
3 548 (12.18%) Degree
4 188 (4.18%) DV Cleared
5 174 (3.87%) Computer Science Degree
6 125 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
7 124 (2.76%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
9 88 (1.96%) CISSP
10 77 (1.71%) PMP
11 67 (1.49%) Azure Certification
12 66 (1.47%) PMI Certification
13 62 (1.38%) A+ Certification
13 62 (1.38%) CISM
14 60 (1.33%) CCNA
15 53 (1.18%) Master's Degree
16 52 (1.16%) Network+ Certification
17 44 (0.98%) MCSE
18 35 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
19 34 (0.76%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 304 (6.76%) Data Quality
2 235 (5.22%) QA
3 137 (3.05%) GDPR
4 89 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (1.91%) SLA
6 77 (1.71%) Accessibility
7 76 (1.69%) PMO
8 75 (1.67%) NIST
9 45 (1.00%) GRC
10 23 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
11 21 (0.47%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.36%) NCSC
13 15 (0.33%) COBIT
13 15 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 14 (0.31%) PSD2
15 13 (0.29%) WCAG
16 12 (0.27%) HL7
17 11 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
17 11 (0.24%) HIPAA
System Software
1 353 (7.85%) Active Directory
2 278 (6.18%) Docker
3 101 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.87%) vSphere
5 37 (0.82%) VMware NSX
6 34 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
7 31 (0.69%) Hyper-V
8 26 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
9 24 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
10 19 (0.42%) vCloud
11 18 (0.40%) Firmware
12 11 (0.24%) 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
1 336 (7.47%) Kubernetes
2 253 (5.62%) Terraform
3 151 (3.36%) Ansible
4 129 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 97 (2.16%) Grafana
6 82 (1.82%) Prometheus
7 69 (1.53%) SCCM
8 48 (1.07%) vCenter Server
9 38 (0.84%) FortiGate
10 31 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
11 23 (0.51%) Control-M
12 21 (0.47%) Argo
12 21 (0.47%) Nessus
13 20 (0.44%) Kibana
14 19 (0.42%) Puppet
15 17 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
15 17 (0.38%) SCOM
16 14 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 14 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
17 13 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 841 (18.69%) Microsoft
2 308 (6.85%) Oracle
3 256 (5.69%) SAP
4 249 (5.53%) ServiceNow
5 168 (3.73%) VMware
6 132 (2.93%) Google
7 119 (2.65%) Splunk
8 115 (2.56%) Databricks
9 105 (2.33%) Salesforce
10 100 (2.22%) Cisco
11 68 (1.51%) Workday
12 62 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 58 (1.29%) Dell
14 57 (1.27%) BeyondTrust
15 55 (1.22%) Red Hat
16 51 (1.13%) Dynatrace
17 48 (1.07%) Adobe
18 47 (1.04%) Citrix
19 40 (0.89%) Apple
20 38 (0.84%) Informatica