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 7 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -9 +5 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,677 4,443 4,038
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.54% 16.72% 10.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.35% 18.39% 12.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,743 2,759 2,431
10th Percentile £261 £243 £250
25th Percentile £381 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £713 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 351 258 356
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.10 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.30 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.27 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +0.40% +31.02% -67.54%
75th Percentile £42.19 £38.42 £33.24
90th Percentile £74.00 £66.45 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £19.38 £21.39 £16.23
% change year-on-year -9.42% +31.79% -68.02%

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 37,874 24,162 31,847
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.36% 90.93% 85.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,840 15,529 20,666
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.80% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £517 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,373 1,216 2,288
10th Percentile £15.32 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.95 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -4.70%
75th Percentile £68.55 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -3.85%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 1,973 £512 +2.36% 1,202
North of England -9 736 £447 -5.89% 793
South East -5 734 £481 -1.84% 875
Midlands -7 538 £465 +9.41% 494
West Midlands -8 390 £469 +4.22% 251
North West -11 365 £447 -6.88% 417
Yorkshire -6 330 £450 -5.26% 266
South West -3 327 £500 - 379
East of England -2 261 £450 -4.26% 332
East Midlands -1 146 £450 +22.62% 243
North East -23 47 £356 -20.83% 126
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 (4.32%) Confluence
2 155 (3.31%) SharePoint
3 90 (1.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 57 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 38 (0.81%) Apache
5 38 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 31 (0.66%) CMS
6 31 (0.66%) SAS
7 25 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
8 18 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 13 (0.28%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.24%) nginx
11 10 (0.21%) ArcGIS
11 10 (0.21%) CICS
12 9 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.17%) Camunda
13 8 (0.17%) Jupyter
14 7 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
15 6 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 260 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (4.58%) Microsoft Office
3 90 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 69 (1.48%) MS Visio
5 60 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
6 29 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.49%) Chatbot
8 14 (0.30%) AutoCAD
9 12 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 11 (0.24%) Revit
11 8 (0.17%) CPLEX
12 7 (0.15%) Trello
13 6 (0.13%) Photoshop
13 6 (0.13%) Sketch
14 5 (0.11%) CATIA
14 5 (0.11%) Maya
15 3 (0.064%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.064%) Navisworks
15 3 (0.064%) Oracle Smart View
16 2 (0.043%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 115 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
4 21 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
5 18 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 16 (0.34%) NetSuite
6 16 (0.34%) Workday HCM
7 13 (0.28%) SAP SD
8 11 (0.24%) iTrent
8 11 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 11 (0.24%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.21%) Finacle
9 10 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
9 10 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
11 8 (0.17%) Loan IQ
11 8 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 8 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
11 8 (0.17%) SAP HCM
12 7 (0.15%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 939 (20.08%) Azure
2 680 (14.54%) AWS
3 377 (8.06%) Power Platform
4 352 (7.53%) Microsoft 365
5 261 (5.58%) GCP
6 227 (4.85%) Azure DevOps
7 170 (3.63%) Entra ID
8 153 (3.27%) GitHub
9 126 (2.69%) SaaS
10 121 (2.59%) Serverless
11 75 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
12 73 (1.56%) Amazon S3
13 68 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
14 66 (1.41%) Power Automate
15 62 (1.33%) Azure Data Factory
16 61 (1.30%) Snowflake
17 58 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
17 58 (1.24%) PowerApps
18 57 (1.22%) OpenShift
19 44 (0.94%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 197 (4.21%) DNS
2 157 (3.36%) Firewall
3 120 (2.57%) VPN
4 113 (2.42%) TCP/IP
5 103 (2.20%) DHCP
6 92 (1.97%) WAN
7 85 (1.82%) Network Security
8 80 (1.71%) LAN
9 66 (1.41%) SAN
10 63 (1.35%) Wi-Fi
11 46 (0.98%) VLAN
12 44 (0.94%) BGP
13 42 (0.90%) Wireless
14 37 (0.79%) OSPF
15 33 (0.71%) SD-WAN
16 30 (0.64%) VoIP
17 26 (0.56%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.51%) VXLAN
19 21 (0.45%) MPLS
20 19 (0.41%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (6.33%) Power BI
2 204 (4.36%) SQL Server
3 141 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
4 125 (2.67%) Relational Database
5 123 (2.63%) PostgreSQL
6 93 (1.99%) MongoDB
7 81 (1.73%) NoSQL
8 79 (1.69%) Tableau
9 78 (1.67%) Data Lake
10 76 (1.62%) Metadata
11 51 (1.09%) Oracle Database
12 46 (0.98%) Big Data
12 46 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 42 (0.90%) MySQL
14 35 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
15 27 (0.58%) Power Query
16 26 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
17 25 (0.53%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.53%) RDBMS
18 23 (0.49%) Db2
Development Applications
1 463 (9.90%) JIRA
2 266 (5.69%) Git
3 165 (3.53%) Jenkins
4 111 (2.37%) GitLab
5 61 (1.30%) Selenium
6 37 (0.79%) Postman
7 32 (0.68%) REST Assured
8 25 (0.53%) Cypress.io
9 24 (0.51%) Cucumber
10 23 (0.49%) JUnit
11 21 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 20 (0.43%) Mockito
13 16 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
13 16 (0.34%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.30%) Gradle
14 14 (0.30%) Maven
14 14 (0.30%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.28%) JMeter
15 13 (0.28%) Zephyr
16 10 (0.21%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,419 (51.72%) Social Skills
2 1,906 (40.75%) Analytical Skills
3 1,104 (23.60%) Finance
4 410 (8.77%) Public Sector
5 364 (7.78%) Banking
6 194 (4.15%) Organisational Skills
7 189 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
8 175 (3.74%) Retail
9 128 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 116 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
10 116 (2.48%) Legal
11 107 (2.29%) Manufacturing
11 107 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
12 103 (2.20%) Front Office
13 92 (1.97%) Marketing
14 89 (1.90%) Telecoms
15 76 (1.62%) Investment Banking
16 58 (1.24%) Law
17 54 (1.15%) Back Office
18 46 (0.98%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 661 (14.13%) Analyst
2 511 (10.93%) Developer
3 403 (8.62%) Senior
4 339 (7.25%) Architect
5 321 (6.86%) Lead
6 238 (5.09%) Business Analyst
7 214 (4.58%) Data Engineer
8 208 (4.45%) Consultant
9 164 (3.51%) IT Support
10 152 (3.25%) Project Manager
11 150 (3.21%) Support Engineer
12 102 (2.18%) Data Analyst
13 101 (2.16%) Administrator
14 99 (2.12%) IT Engineer
15 94 (2.01%) Java Developer
16 93 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
17 86 (1.84%) Software Engineer
18 82 (1.75%) Technical Support
19 81 (1.73%) Support Analyst
20 75 (1.60%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 264 (5.64%) REST
2 147 (3.14%) .NET
3 132 (2.82%) Kafka
4 125 (2.67%) Spring
5 123 (2.63%) React
6 122 (2.61%) RESTful
7 119 (2.54%) SOAP
8 106 (2.27%) JSON
9 97 (2.07%) Middleware
10 94 (2.01%) CSS
11 91 (1.95%) Spring Boot
12 88 (1.88%) XML
13 83 (1.77%) HTML
14 76 (1.62%) Node.js
15 75 (1.60%) AngularJS
16 57 (1.22%) PySpark
17 56 (1.20%) LDAP
17 56 (1.20%) OAuth
18 54 (1.15%) Web Services
19 46 (0.98%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 228 (4.87%) Onboarding
2 220 (4.70%) Product Ownership
3 204 (4.36%) Cloud Native
4 172 (3.68%) Data Centre
5 169 (3.61%) Self-Motivation
6 142 (3.04%) Analytical Mindset
7 132 (2.82%) Distributed Systems
8 123 (2.63%) Management Information System
9 122 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
10 113 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
11 108 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
12 104 (2.22%) Data Structures
13 96 (2.05%) Virtual Team
14 55 (1.18%) AI Agents
14 55 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 54 (1.15%) Algorithms
16 53 (1.13%) Driving Licence
17 49 (1.05%) CMDB
17 49 (1.05%) Derivative
17 49 (1.05%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 604 (12.91%) Windows
2 259 (5.54%) Linux
3 116 (2.48%) Windows Server
4 111 (2.37%) Windows 10
5 98 (2.10%) Unix
6 81 (1.73%) Mac OS
7 77 (1.65%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.54%) Android
9 44 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 12 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 11 (0.24%) VMS
12 11 (0.24%) zOS
13 9 (0.19%) Mac OS X
14 8 (0.17%) CentOS
15 7 (0.15%) Solaris
15 7 (0.15%) Windows 7
16 5 (0.11%) Debian
16 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.086%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,230 (26.30%) Agile
2 872 (18.64%) Continuous Improvement
3 817 (17.47%) Stakeholder Management
4 751 (16.06%) CI/CD
5 735 (15.72%) DevOps
6 583 (12.47%) AI
7 534 (11.42%) Decision-Making
8 519 (11.10%) Migration
9 507 (10.84%) Analytics
10 465 (9.94%) ITIL
11 446 (9.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 424 (9.07%) Customer Service
13 380 (8.12%) Validation
14 378 (8.08%) Business Intelligence
15 367 (7.85%) Data Modelling
16 359 (7.68%) Project Management
17 353 (7.55%) Test Automation
18 330 (7.06%) Change Management
19 323 (6.91%) Scrum
20 320 (6.84%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 864 (18.47%) SQL
2 796 (17.02%) Python
3 363 (7.76%) Java
4 257 (5.49%) PowerShell
5 237 (5.07%) JavaScript
6 168 (3.59%) C#
7 117 (2.50%) Bash
8 110 (2.35%) TypeScript
9 78 (1.67%) PL/SQL
10 59 (1.26%) C++
11 49 (1.05%) T-SQL
12 43 (0.92%) Shell Script
13 42 (0.90%) C
13 42 (0.90%) Go
14 35 (0.75%) Bicep
15 34 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 29 (0.62%) Apex Code
17 28 (0.60%) R
18 23 (0.49%) Kotlin
19 21 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,028 (21.98%) Security Cleared
2 679 (14.52%) SC Cleared
3 577 (12.34%) Degree
4 203 (4.34%) DV Cleared
5 178 (3.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 131 (2.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (2.46%) Cisco Certification
8 113 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
9 89 (1.90%) CISSP
10 75 (1.60%) PMP
11 67 (1.43%) A+ Certification
12 66 (1.41%) CCNA
12 66 (1.41%) PMI Certification
13 64 (1.37%) Azure Certification
14 57 (1.22%) CISM
15 53 (1.13%) Master's Degree
16 50 (1.07%) Network+ Certification
17 42 (0.90%) MCSE
18 38 (0.81%) ITIL Certification
19 37 (0.79%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 323 (6.91%) Data Quality
2 269 (5.75%) QA
3 143 (3.06%) GDPR
4 101 (2.16%) SLA
5 91 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 87 (1.86%) Accessibility
7 74 (1.58%) NIST
8 72 (1.54%) PMO
9 44 (0.94%) GRC
10 25 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
10 25 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.45%) PCI DSS
12 15 (0.32%) NCSC
13 14 (0.30%) WCAG
14 13 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.28%) ISO 20022
15 12 (0.26%) COBIT
15 12 (0.26%) PSD2
16 11 (0.24%) GxP
16 11 (0.24%) IFRS
System Software
1 354 (7.57%) Active Directory
2 294 (6.29%) Docker
3 111 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.90%) VMware NSX
5 41 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
5 41 (0.88%) vSphere
6 30 (0.64%) Hyper-V
7 28 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 21 (0.45%) vCloud
10 19 (0.41%) Firmware
11 14 (0.30%) IAG
12 11 (0.24%) Squid
13 7 (0.15%) NFS
13 7 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.086%) ACF2
14 4 (0.086%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.086%) RACF
14 4 (0.086%) Snort
14 4 (0.086%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 355 (7.59%) Kubernetes
2 273 (5.84%) Terraform
3 158 (3.38%) Ansible
4 128 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 103 (2.20%) Grafana
6 89 (1.90%) Prometheus
7 73 (1.56%) SCCM
8 53 (1.13%) vCenter Server
9 37 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 35 (0.75%) FortiGate
11 28 (0.60%) Control-M
12 22 (0.47%) Nessus
13 21 (0.45%) SCOM
14 20 (0.43%) Argo
15 18 (0.38%) IBM Guardium
15 18 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
16 17 (0.36%) WSUS
17 16 (0.34%) Kibana
18 12 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
19 11 (0.24%) Puppet
Vendors
1 906 (19.37%) Microsoft
2 331 (7.08%) Oracle
3 294 (6.29%) ServiceNow
4 286 (6.12%) SAP
5 180 (3.85%) VMware
6 142 (3.04%) Google
7 123 (2.63%) Splunk
8 113 (2.42%) Salesforce
9 108 (2.31%) Databricks
10 102 (2.18%) Cisco
11 75 (1.60%) Workday
12 61 (1.30%) Dynatrace
13 58 (1.24%) Red Hat
14 54 (1.15%) Dell
15 48 (1.03%) Apple
15 48 (1.03%) Citrix
16 47 (1.00%) Adobe
17 42 (0.90%) MuleSoft
18 39 (0.83%) CyberArk
19 37 (0.79%) F5