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 20 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 5 9
Rank change year-on-year -7 +4 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,021 4,340 4,015
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.84% 15.62% 12.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.81% 17.19% 14.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,848 2,656 2,334
10th Percentile £239 £244 £262
25th Percentile £375 £375 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £612
90th Percentile £718 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 466 272 212
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £15.62 £15.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £19.79 £18.86 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% +16.20% -70.25%
75th Percentile £41.25 £34.61 £30.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £63.72 £62.41
UK median hourly rate £18.75 £20.00 £16.23
% change year-on-year -6.25% +23.23% -70.01%

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 39,208 25,244 28,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.66% 90.88% 86.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,936 16,028 17,611
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £626 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,812 1,512 1,298
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.74 £17.77 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.41 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.61% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.56 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%

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 20 September 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 20 September 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 20 September 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 2,163 £525 +4.95% 5,270
South East -4 793 £477 +5.89% 1,657
North of England -10 728 £447 -5.89% 1,468
Midlands -5 607 £450 +2.62% 1,147
West Midlands -8 433 £450 -4.00% 694
North West -10 362 £445 -5.72% 801
South West -5 340 £500 +11.11% 798
Yorkshire -7 296 £450 -7.69% 461
East of England +1 281 £438 -12.50% 756
East Midlands +2 171 £475 +26.67% 452
North East -15 72 £375 -16.67% 222
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
1 226 (4.50%) SharePoint
2 224 (4.46%) Confluence
3 103 (2.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (0.98%) Apache Spark
5 40 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 32 (0.64%) Apache
7 27 (0.54%) CMS
8 26 (0.52%) SAS
9 25 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
10 14 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.26%) WebSphere
12 11 (0.22%) CICS
13 10 (0.20%) Jupyter
14 7 (0.14%) IIS
15 6 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 6 (0.12%) WordPress
16 5 (0.100%) Appian
16 5 (0.100%) ArcGIS
16 5 (0.100%) Mule
16 5 (0.100%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 293 (5.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 246 (4.90%) Microsoft Office
3 108 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 62 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
5 46 (0.92%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.34%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.32%) AutoCAD
9 15 (0.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 15 (0.30%) Revit
10 9 (0.18%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.18%) Sketch
10 9 (0.18%) Trello
11 8 (0.16%) Windchill
12 6 (0.12%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.080%) CATIA
14 3 (0.060%) Acrobat
14 3 (0.060%) DaVinci Resolve
14 3 (0.060%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 118 (2.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
4 27 (0.54%) NetSuite
5 26 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
6 21 (0.42%) Workday HCM
7 18 (0.36%) SAP GRC
8 15 (0.30%) iTrent
9 13 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
9 13 (0.26%) SAP SD
10 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
10 11 (0.22%) Teamcenter
11 10 (0.20%) Finacle
12 9 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
13 8 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
13 8 (0.16%) Primavera
13 8 (0.16%) SAP HCM
13 8 (0.16%) Shopify
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 1,001 (19.94%) Azure
2 714 (14.22%) AWS
3 479 (9.54%) Microsoft 365
4 421 (8.38%) Power Platform
5 288 (5.74%) GCP
6 245 (4.88%) Azure DevOps
7 213 (4.24%) Entra ID
8 177 (3.53%) GitHub
9 134 (2.67%) SaaS
10 115 (2.29%) Serverless
11 107 (2.13%) Power Automate
12 88 (1.75%) Microsoft Copilot
13 79 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
14 76 (1.51%) PowerApps
15 71 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
15 71 (1.41%) OneDrive
16 64 (1.27%) Snowflake
17 62 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
18 54 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
19 52 (1.04%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 207 (4.12%) DNS
2 177 (3.53%) Firewall
3 160 (3.19%) VPN
4 125 (2.49%) DHCP
5 120 (2.39%) TCP/IP
6 99 (1.97%) WAN
7 94 (1.87%) Network Security
8 84 (1.67%) LAN
9 72 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (1.18%) SAN
11 58 (1.16%) Wireless
12 51 (1.02%) VLAN
13 44 (0.88%) BGP
14 38 (0.76%) VoIP
15 32 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
16 29 (0.58%) SD-WAN
17 26 (0.52%) MPLS
18 24 (0.48%) SSL
19 21 (0.42%) OSPF
20 20 (0.40%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 318 (6.33%) Power BI
2 194 (3.86%) SQL Server
3 156 (3.11%) Data Warehouse
4 155 (3.09%) Relational Database
5 133 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
6 91 (1.81%) Metadata
7 77 (1.53%) NoSQL
8 76 (1.51%) MongoDB
9 75 (1.49%) Tableau
10 70 (1.39%) Data Lake
11 52 (1.04%) Oracle Database
12 51 (1.02%) MySQL
13 38 (0.76%) Big Data
14 32 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
15 31 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 27 (0.54%) Db2
17 26 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 26 (0.52%) Power Query
18 25 (0.50%) Delta Lake
19 24 (0.48%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 454 (9.04%) JIRA
2 331 (6.59%) Git
3 171 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 126 (2.51%) GitLab
5 71 (1.41%) Selenium
6 36 (0.72%) Cucumber
7 35 (0.70%) Maven
7 35 (0.70%) Postman
8 34 (0.68%) Cypress.io
8 34 (0.68%) JUnit
9 28 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 26 (0.52%) Gradle
11 25 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 25 (0.50%) SonarQube
12 20 (0.40%) JMeter
12 20 (0.40%) Mockito
13 17 (0.34%) WebDriver
14 16 (0.32%) Gatling
15 15 (0.30%) Visual Studio
16 14 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 2,679 (53.36%) Social Skills
2 2,192 (43.66%) Analytical Skills
3 1,154 (22.98%) Finance
4 495 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 418 (8.33%) Banking
6 256 (5.10%) Organisational Skills
7 217 (4.32%) Manufacturing
8 181 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
9 175 (3.49%) Retail
10 168 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
11 162 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 118 (2.35%) Front Office
13 114 (2.27%) Legal
14 108 (2.15%) Marketing
15 106 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
16 105 (2.09%) Telecoms
17 80 (1.59%) Investment Banking
18 64 (1.27%) Law
19 62 (1.23%) Aerospace
20 55 (1.10%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 691 (13.76%) Analyst
2 585 (11.65%) Developer
3 465 (9.26%) Senior
4 375 (7.47%) Lead
5 297 (5.92%) Architect
6 229 (4.56%) Business Analyst
7 217 (4.32%) IT Support
8 205 (4.08%) Consultant
9 198 (3.94%) Support Engineer
10 179 (3.57%) Data Engineer
11 138 (2.75%) Administrator
11 138 (2.75%) IT Engineer
12 129 (2.57%) Project Manager
13 107 (2.13%) Data Analyst
14 103 (2.05%) Java Developer
15 100 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 98 (1.95%) IT Support Engineer
17 95 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
18 87 (1.73%) Solutions Architect
18 87 (1.73%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 331 (6.59%) REST
2 301 (5.99%) Terraform
3 171 (3.41%) .NET
4 151 (3.01%) RESTful
5 149 (2.97%) SOAP
6 143 (2.85%) React
7 120 (2.39%) Kafka
8 116 (2.31%) JSON
9 115 (2.29%) HTML
10 114 (2.27%) CSS
11 113 (2.25%) Spring
12 109 (2.17%) XML
13 96 (1.91%) Web Services
14 94 (1.87%) Middleware
15 92 (1.83%) Spring Boot
16 84 (1.67%) AngularJS
17 78 (1.55%) Node.js
18 77 (1.53%) OAuth
19 56 (1.12%) PySpark
20 50 (1.00%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 299 (5.95%) Onboarding
2 254 (5.06%) Cloud Native
3 246 (4.90%) Product Ownership
4 198 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
5 188 (3.74%) Management Information System
6 177 (3.53%) Enterprise Software
7 152 (3.03%) Data Centre
8 136 (2.71%) Distributed Systems
9 126 (2.51%) Data Structures
10 121 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
11 115 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
12 109 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
13 85 (1.69%) Virtual Team
14 78 (1.55%) Driving Licence
15 73 (1.45%) AI Agents
16 67 (1.33%) CMDB
17 58 (1.16%) PKI
18 53 (1.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
19 49 (0.98%) Algorithms
19 49 (0.98%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 698 (13.90%) Windows
2 279 (5.56%) Linux
3 204 (4.06%) Windows Server
4 129 (2.57%) Windows 10
5 92 (1.83%) Unix
6 83 (1.65%) Apple iOS
7 82 (1.63%) Mac OS
8 72 (1.43%) Android
9 50 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 18 (0.36%) VMS
12 17 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 13 (0.26%) zOS
14 11 (0.22%) Solaris
15 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
16 8 (0.16%) CentOS
17 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
19 4 (0.080%) HPUX
19 4 (0.080%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,377 (27.42%) Agile
2 1,189 (23.68%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,147 (22.84%) Continuous Improvement
4 839 (16.71%) CI/CD
5 768 (15.30%) DevOps
6 703 (14.00%) AI
7 582 (11.59%) Decision-Making
8 569 (11.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 521 (10.38%) Migration
10 506 (10.08%) Analytics
11 492 (9.80%) Customer Service
12 476 (9.48%) ITIL
13 415 (8.27%) Test Automation
14 399 (7.95%) Validation
15 378 (7.53%) Business Intelligence
16 355 (7.07%) Data Modelling
17 346 (6.89%) Scrum
18 341 (6.79%) ITSM
19 340 (6.77%) Roadmaps
20 331 (6.59%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 894 (17.81%) SQL
2 788 (15.69%) Python
3 370 (7.37%) Java
4 303 (6.03%) JavaScript
4 303 (6.03%) PowerShell
5 197 (3.92%) C#
6 146 (2.91%) Bash
7 130 (2.59%) TypeScript
8 85 (1.69%) PL/SQL
9 48 (0.96%) T-SQL
10 47 (0.94%) C++
11 41 (0.82%) Go
11 41 (0.82%) Shell Script
12 32 (0.64%) Bicep
13 30 (0.60%) Scala
14 27 (0.54%) Groovy
15 26 (0.52%) Kotlin
16 25 (0.50%) C
16 25 (0.50%) R
17 24 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,103 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 773 (15.40%) SC Cleared
3 608 (12.11%) Degree
4 215 (4.28%) DV Cleared
5 183 (3.64%) Computer Science Degree
6 148 (2.95%) Microsoft Certification
7 132 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 90 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (1.59%) Azure Certification
10 75 (1.49%) CISSP
11 72 (1.43%) PMI Certification
12 69 (1.37%) PMP
13 57 (1.14%) A+ Certification
14 48 (0.96%) AWS Certification
14 48 (0.96%) CCNA
14 48 (0.96%) DBS Check
14 48 (0.96%) Master's Degree
15 44 (0.88%) CISM
16 39 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
16 39 (0.78%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 382 (7.61%) Data Quality
2 348 (6.93%) QA
3 119 (2.37%) GDPR
4 116 (2.31%) SLA
5 111 (2.21%) Accessibility
6 94 (1.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 83 (1.65%) PMO
8 73 (1.45%) NIST
9 60 (1.19%) GRC
10 31 (0.62%) WCAG
11 22 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.26%) GxP
14 13 (0.26%) IFRS
14 13 (0.26%) NCSC
15 12 (0.24%) COBIT
16 11 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
17 10 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 402 (8.01%) Active Directory
2 311 (6.19%) Docker
3 155 (3.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.29%) VMware ESXi
5 62 (1.23%) Hyper-V
6 51 (1.02%) VMware NSX
7 48 (0.96%) vSphere
8 33 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
9 30 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
10 26 (0.52%) IAG
10 26 (0.52%) vCloud
11 16 (0.32%) Firmware
12 10 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.12%) NFS
13 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.080%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 4 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.080%) RACF
14 4 (0.080%) XenApp
14 4 (0.080%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 344 (6.85%) Kubernetes
2 165 (3.29%) Ansible
3 132 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 92 (1.83%) Grafana
5 89 (1.77%) SCCM
6 74 (1.47%) Prometheus
7 50 (1.00%) vCenter Server
8 37 (0.74%) SCOM
9 23 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
9 23 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 23 (0.46%) WSUS
10 20 (0.40%) Control-M
11 13 (0.26%) Nessus
12 12 (0.24%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.24%) VxRail
13 11 (0.22%) Istio
13 11 (0.22%) Kibana
13 11 (0.22%) Puppet
14 9 (0.18%) Podman
14 9 (0.18%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 1,186 (23.62%) Microsoft
2 344 (6.85%) Oracle
3 322 (6.41%) ServiceNow
4 312 (6.21%) SAP
5 203 (4.04%) VMware
6 147 (2.93%) Google
7 128 (2.55%) Salesforce
8 122 (2.43%) Databricks
9 115 (2.29%) Cisco
10 100 (1.99%) Splunk
11 70 (1.39%) Workday
12 68 (1.35%) Dynatrace
13 57 (1.14%) Apple
14 52 (1.04%) Adobe
14 52 (1.04%) IBM
15 44 (0.88%) CyberArk
15 44 (0.88%) Red Hat
16 38 (0.76%) Dell
16 38 (0.76%) MuleSoft
17 34 (0.68%) Citrix