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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 5 9
Rank change year-on-year -7 +4 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 4,867 4,436 3,812
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.60% 15.99% 11.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.48% 17.60% 13.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,781 2,710 2,308
10th Percentile £238 £250 £263
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £619
90th Percentile £713 £703 £725
UK median daily rate £495 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +1.02% -2.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 408 282 241
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £15.99 £15.25 £14.48
Median hourly rate £20.44 £19.96 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +2.43% +22.95% -70.49%
75th Percentile £42.38 £34.48 £30.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £64.88 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £19.00 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year -6.20% +24.80% -70.49%

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 38,994 25,199 28,451
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.94% 90.85% 85.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,152 16,049 18,388
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £627 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,574 1,473 1,544
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.25 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.22 £17.87 £18.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -4.71%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 2,117 £525 +5.00% 1,088
South East -4 782 £480 +1.05% 1,014
North of England -12 723 £443 -6.74% 840
Midlands -7 540 £450 +2.39% 634
West Midlands -10 384 £450 -2.70% 374
North West -12 354 £445 -7.29% 414
South West -3 343 £498 +10.56% 541
Yorkshire -8 307 £450 -5.26% 305
East of England +1 254 £450 -10.00% 388
East Midlands 0 153 £475 +26.67% 260
North East -15 67 £375 -16.67% 135
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
1 221 (4.54%) SharePoint
2 220 (4.52%) Confluence
3 110 (2.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (1.05%) Apache Spark
5 37 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 30 (0.62%) Apache
7 29 (0.60%) Oracle Workflow
8 27 (0.55%) CMS
9 26 (0.53%) SAS
10 13 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.23%) CICS
11 11 (0.23%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.18%) Jupyter
13 7 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
14 6 (0.12%) IIS
14 6 (0.12%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 5 (0.10%) Mule
15 5 (0.10%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 285 (5.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 236 (4.85%) Microsoft Office
3 104 (2.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 63 (1.29%) MS Visio
5 61 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
6 26 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.35%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.33%) AutoCAD
9 15 (0.31%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 13 (0.27%) Revit
11 11 (0.23%) Trello
12 9 (0.18%) Sketch
13 7 (0.14%) CPLEX
14 5 (0.10%) CATIA
14 5 (0.10%) Navisworks
14 5 (0.10%) Windchill
15 4 (0.082%) Adobe XD
15 4 (0.082%) Photoshop
16 3 (0.062%) Acrobat
16 3 (0.062%) Maya
Business Applications
1 116 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.64%) Oracle EBS
4 26 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
5 23 (0.47%) NetSuite
6 19 (0.39%) Workday HCM
7 16 (0.33%) SAP GRC
8 14 (0.29%) SAP SD
9 13 (0.27%) Aladdin
9 13 (0.27%) iTrent
10 11 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 10 (0.21%) Finacle
12 9 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
12 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
13 8 (0.16%) Loan IQ
14 7 (0.14%) Oracle HRMS
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP HCM
14 7 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
15 6 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 999 (20.53%) Azure
2 701 (14.40%) AWS
3 442 (9.08%) Microsoft 365
4 394 (8.10%) Power Platform
5 282 (5.79%) GCP
6 249 (5.12%) Azure DevOps
7 207 (4.25%) Entra ID
8 159 (3.27%) GitHub
9 130 (2.67%) SaaS
10 113 (2.32%) Serverless
11 91 (1.87%) Power Automate
12 69 (1.42%) Dynamics 365
12 69 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
13 67 (1.38%) OneDrive
14 65 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
14 65 (1.34%) PowerApps
15 62 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
15 62 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
16 58 (1.19%) Snowflake
17 55 (1.13%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 209 (4.29%) DNS
2 179 (3.68%) Firewall
3 157 (3.23%) VPN
4 123 (2.53%) DHCP
5 117 (2.40%) TCP/IP
6 114 (2.34%) WAN
7 96 (1.97%) LAN
8 89 (1.83%) Network Security
9 73 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
10 62 (1.27%) SAN
11 58 (1.19%) Wireless
12 55 (1.13%) VLAN
13 49 (1.01%) BGP
14 36 (0.74%) SD-WAN
14 36 (0.74%) VoIP
15 33 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
16 30 (0.62%) MPLS
17 29 (0.60%) OSPF
18 22 (0.45%) 5G
18 22 (0.45%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 303 (6.23%) Power BI
2 197 (4.05%) SQL Server
3 157 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 148 (3.04%) Relational Database
5 131 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
6 87 (1.79%) NoSQL
7 86 (1.77%) Metadata
8 79 (1.62%) MongoDB
8 79 (1.62%) Tableau
9 72 (1.48%) Data Lake
10 48 (0.99%) Big Data
10 48 (0.99%) Oracle Database
11 45 (0.92%) MySQL
12 35 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 33 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 28 (0.58%) Db2
15 26 (0.53%) Power Query
16 24 (0.49%) Pentaho
17 23 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
18 22 (0.45%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 455 (9.35%) JIRA
2 305 (6.27%) Git
3 149 (3.06%) Jenkins
4 120 (2.47%) GitLab
5 68 (1.40%) Selenium
6 36 (0.74%) Cypress.io
7 34 (0.70%) Postman
8 29 (0.60%) Bitbucket
9 25 (0.51%) Maven
9 25 (0.51%) REST Assured
10 24 (0.49%) Cucumber
11 22 (0.45%) Gradle
11 22 (0.45%) JUnit
12 20 (0.41%) JMeter
13 17 (0.35%) WebDriver
14 15 (0.31%) SonarQube
15 14 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 14 (0.29%) Gatling
15 14 (0.29%) Mockito
15 14 (0.29%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,580 (53.01%) Social Skills
2 2,104 (43.23%) Analytical Skills
3 1,149 (23.61%) Finance
4 477 (9.80%) Public Sector
5 409 (8.40%) Banking
6 224 (4.60%) Organisational Skills
7 187 (3.84%) Retail
8 179 (3.68%) Documentation Skills
9 164 (3.37%) Manufacturing
10 157 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 142 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
12 113 (2.32%) Front Office
13 112 (2.30%) Legal
14 105 (2.16%) Marketing
15 104 (2.14%) Telecoms
16 99 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
17 78 (1.60%) Investment Banking
18 61 (1.25%) Law
19 56 (1.15%) Financial Institution
20 55 (1.13%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 666 (13.68%) Analyst
2 560 (11.51%) Developer
3 442 (9.08%) Senior
4 377 (7.75%) Lead
5 309 (6.35%) Architect
6 224 (4.60%) Business Analyst
7 217 (4.46%) Consultant
8 196 (4.03%) IT Support
9 193 (3.97%) Support Engineer
10 191 (3.92%) Data Engineer
11 141 (2.90%) Project Manager
12 131 (2.69%) IT Engineer
13 116 (2.38%) Administrator
14 105 (2.16%) Data Analyst
15 97 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 93 (1.91%) Java Developer
17 89 (1.83%) IT Support Engineer
18 88 (1.81%) Solutions Architect
19 85 (1.75%) DevOps Engineer
20 84 (1.73%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 297 (6.10%) REST
2 286 (5.88%) Terraform
3 159 (3.27%) .NET
4 149 (3.06%) RESTful
5 136 (2.79%) React
6 133 (2.73%) SOAP
7 118 (2.42%) Kafka
8 114 (2.34%) JSON
9 110 (2.26%) Spring
10 106 (2.18%) CSS
11 105 (2.16%) XML
12 101 (2.08%) HTML
13 95 (1.95%) Middleware
14 83 (1.71%) Web Services
15 80 (1.64%) Spring Boot
16 77 (1.58%) AngularJS
16 77 (1.58%) Node.js
17 73 (1.50%) OAuth
18 62 (1.27%) PySpark
19 49 (1.01%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 279 (5.73%) Onboarding
2 242 (4.97%) Product Ownership
3 232 (4.77%) Cloud Native
4 194 (3.99%) Self-Motivation
5 167 (3.43%) Data Centre
6 157 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
7 153 (3.14%) Management Information System
8 148 (3.04%) Distributed Systems
9 137 (2.81%) Analytical Mindset
10 124 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
11 121 (2.49%) Data Structures
12 106 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
13 89 (1.83%) Virtual Team
14 67 (1.38%) Driving Licence
15 66 (1.36%) CMDB
16 63 (1.29%) AI Agents
17 57 (1.17%) Algorithms
18 54 (1.11%) PKI
19 53 (1.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
20 48 (0.99%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 675 (13.87%) Windows
2 263 (5.40%) Linux
3 180 (3.70%) Windows Server
4 130 (2.67%) Windows 10
5 94 (1.93%) Unix
6 81 (1.66%) Apple iOS
7 80 (1.64%) Mac OS
8 72 (1.48%) Android
9 38 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.39%) Ubuntu
11 18 (0.37%) VMS
12 16 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
13 12 (0.25%) zOS
14 8 (0.16%) Solaris
14 8 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 7 (0.14%) CentOS
15 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
16 5 (0.10%) Mac OS X
16 5 (0.10%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.082%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,352 (27.78%) Agile
2 1,050 (21.57%) Continuous Improvement
3 1,023 (21.02%) Stakeholder Management
4 816 (16.77%) CI/CD
5 768 (15.78%) DevOps
6 658 (13.52%) AI
7 535 (10.99%) Decision-Making
8 529 (10.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 513 (10.54%) Migration
10 508 (10.44%) Analytics
11 484 (9.94%) ITIL
12 457 (9.39%) Customer Service
13 394 (8.10%) Test Automation
14 393 (8.07%) Validation
15 381 (7.83%) Business Intelligence
16 360 (7.40%) Data Modelling
17 348 (7.15%) Scrum
18 336 (6.90%) Roadmaps
19 328 (6.74%) ITSM
20 322 (6.62%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 884 (18.16%) SQL
2 805 (16.54%) Python
3 362 (7.44%) Java
4 296 (6.08%) PowerShell
5 282 (5.79%) JavaScript
6 174 (3.58%) C#
7 146 (3.00%) Bash
8 110 (2.26%) TypeScript
9 82 (1.68%) PL/SQL
10 54 (1.11%) C++
11 47 (0.97%) T-SQL
12 35 (0.72%) Bicep
12 35 (0.72%) Go
12 35 (0.72%) Shell Script
13 28 (0.58%) C
13 28 (0.58%) Scala
14 27 (0.55%) Apex Code
14 27 (0.55%) Kotlin
14 27 (0.55%) R
15 25 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,047 (21.51%) Security Cleared
2 708 (14.55%) SC Cleared
3 603 (12.39%) Degree
4 204 (4.19%) DV Cleared
5 192 (3.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 145 (2.98%) Microsoft Certification
7 106 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 106 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
8 75 (1.54%) PMP
9 73 (1.50%) Azure Certification
10 71 (1.46%) PMI Certification
11 69 (1.42%) CISSP
12 62 (1.27%) A+ Certification
13 58 (1.19%) CCNA
14 52 (1.07%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.88%) Network+ Certification
16 42 (0.86%) CISM
17 38 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
17 38 (0.78%) MCSE
18 37 (0.76%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 355 (7.29%) Data Quality
2 325 (6.68%) QA
3 127 (2.61%) GDPR
4 112 (2.30%) SLA
5 111 (2.28%) Accessibility
6 87 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 84 (1.73%) PMO
8 70 (1.44%) NIST
9 59 (1.21%) GRC
10 29 (0.60%) WCAG
11 26 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.29%) GxP
14 13 (0.27%) COBIT
14 13 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.27%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.25%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 12 (0.25%) IFRS
15 12 (0.25%) NCSC
16 10 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 403 (8.28%) Active Directory
2 306 (6.29%) Docker
3 148 (3.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 59 (1.21%) VMware ESXi
5 56 (1.15%) Hyper-V
6 51 (1.05%) VMware NSX
7 46 (0.95%) vSphere
8 33 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
9 27 (0.55%) vCloud
9 27 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
10 23 (0.47%) IAG
11 20 (0.41%) Firmware
12 8 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 7 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.12%) NFS
15 4 (0.082%) Microsoft App-V
15 4 (0.082%) Squid
16 3 (0.062%) BitLocker
16 3 (0.062%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 2 (0.041%) UAG
Systems Management
1 336 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 164 (3.37%) Ansible
3 133 (2.73%) Microsoft Intune
4 88 (1.81%) SCCM
5 85 (1.75%) Grafana
6 67 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 58 (1.19%) vCenter Server
8 33 (0.68%) SCOM
9 26 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
10 23 (0.47%) Control-M
11 22 (0.45%) WSUS
12 20 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
13 18 (0.37%) FortiGate
14 14 (0.29%) Argo
15 12 (0.25%) Puppet
16 11 (0.23%) Progress Chef
17 10 (0.21%) Istio
17 10 (0.21%) Kibana
18 9 (0.18%) Nessus
18 9 (0.18%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,092 (22.44%) Microsoft
2 341 (7.01%) Oracle
3 325 (6.68%) ServiceNow
4 294 (6.04%) SAP
5 204 (4.19%) VMware
6 142 (2.92%) Google
7 132 (2.71%) Salesforce
8 113 (2.32%) Cisco
9 110 (2.26%) Databricks
10 97 (1.99%) Splunk
11 75 (1.54%) Workday
12 71 (1.46%) Dynatrace
13 60 (1.23%) Apple
14 54 (1.11%) Adobe
15 45 (0.92%) CyberArk
16 44 (0.90%) IBM
17 42 (0.86%) Red Hat
18 41 (0.84%) Dell
19 39 (0.80%) MuleSoft
20 38 (0.78%) Citrix