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

6 months to
27 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 5,000 4,303 4,033
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.78% 15.41% 12.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.75% 16.95% 14.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,828 2,626 2,306
10th Percentile £250 £248 £263
25th Percentile £381 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £605
90th Percentile £715 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £483 £500
% change year-on-year +3.63% -3.50% -0.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 478 267 208
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.50 £15.40
Median hourly rate £19.48 £18.85 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +3.34% +16.14% -69.76%
75th Percentile £40.00 £34.74 £30.31
90th Percentile £72.83 £63.54 £62.88
UK median hourly rate £18.25 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year -9.90% +24.80% -69.76%

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 39,218 25,382 28,205
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.59% 90.90% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,880 16,110 17,293
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £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 2,852 1,550 1,234
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.26
Median hourly rate £41.03 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.14% -41.51% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.41 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.28 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +57.06% -40.82% -

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -12 2,145 £525 +3.42% 4,203
South East -3 802 £475 +5.56% 1,546
North of England -10 723 £450 -5.26% 1,532
Midlands -4 612 £450 +2.33% 1,089
West Midlands -8 436 £450 -6.25% 651
North West -11 356 £450 -4.05% 795
South West -5 324 £500 +11.11% 788
Yorkshire -7 297 £465 -5.69% 518
East of England 0 283 £450 -10.00% 711
East Midlands +1 173 £450 +20.00% 436
North East -15 72 £375 -16.67% 234
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
1 234 (4.68%) SharePoint
2 219 (4.38%) Confluence
3 100 (2.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (0.92%) Apache Spark
5 41 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 36 (0.72%) Apache
7 26 (0.52%) CMS
8 24 (0.48%) SAS
9 23 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
10 16 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 16 (0.32%) WebSphere
11 10 (0.20%) CICS
11 10 (0.20%) Jupyter
12 7 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 7 (0.14%) IIS
13 6 (0.12%) WordPress
14 5 (0.10%) Appian
14 5 (0.10%) Mule
14 5 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 5 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 296 (5.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 247 (4.94%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (2.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 59 (1.18%) Microsoft Project
5 48 (0.96%) MS Visio
6 23 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.34%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.34%) AutoCAD
7 17 (0.34%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.32%) Revit
9 9 (0.18%) Navisworks
9 9 (0.18%) Sketch
9 9 (0.18%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Windchill
10 6 (0.12%) CPLEX
11 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.060%) Acrobat
12 3 (0.060%) CATIA
12 3 (0.060%) DaVinci Resolve
12 3 (0.060%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 116 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 51 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
4 27 (0.54%) NetSuite
5 26 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
6 23 (0.46%) Workday HCM
7 18 (0.36%) SAP GRC
8 14 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
9 13 (0.26%) iTrent
10 12 (0.24%) SAP SD
11 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
11 11 (0.22%) Teamcenter
12 10 (0.20%) Finacle
12 10 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
12 10 (0.20%) SAP HCM
13 8 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
13 8 (0.16%) Primavera
13 8 (0.16%) Shopify
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 991 (19.82%) Azure
2 693 (13.86%) AWS
3 483 (9.66%) Microsoft 365
4 419 (8.38%) Power Platform
5 292 (5.84%) GCP
6 240 (4.80%) Azure DevOps
7 209 (4.18%) Entra ID
8 176 (3.52%) GitHub
9 130 (2.60%) SaaS
10 111 (2.22%) Serverless
11 109 (2.18%) Power Automate
12 90 (1.80%) Microsoft Copilot
13 83 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
14 81 (1.62%) PowerApps
15 71 (1.42%) OneDrive
16 69 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
17 66 (1.32%) Snowflake
18 59 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
19 51 (1.02%) OpenShift
20 50 (1.00%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 201 (4.02%) DNS
2 175 (3.50%) Firewall
3 158 (3.16%) VPN
4 122 (2.44%) DHCP
5 113 (2.26%) TCP/IP
6 99 (1.98%) WAN
7 96 (1.92%) Network Security
8 85 (1.70%) LAN
9 69 (1.38%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (1.18%) Wireless
11 55 (1.10%) SAN
12 48 (0.96%) VLAN
13 45 (0.90%) BGP
14 40 (0.80%) VoIP
15 31 (0.62%) Structured Cabling
16 28 (0.56%) SD-WAN
17 26 (0.52%) MPLS
18 24 (0.48%) SSL
19 21 (0.42%) OSPF
19 21 (0.42%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 312 (6.24%) Power BI
2 188 (3.76%) SQL Server
3 155 (3.10%) Relational Database
4 150 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
5 133 (2.66%) PostgreSQL
6 86 (1.72%) Metadata
7 82 (1.64%) MongoDB
8 78 (1.56%) NoSQL
9 73 (1.46%) Tableau
10 70 (1.40%) Data Lake
11 53 (1.06%) MySQL
12 52 (1.04%) Oracle Database
13 33 (0.66%) Big Data
13 33 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 32 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
15 28 (0.56%) BigQuery
16 26 (0.52%) Db2
17 25 (0.50%) Pentaho
17 25 (0.50%) Power Query
18 24 (0.48%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 437 (8.74%) JIRA
2 326 (6.52%) Git
3 173 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 125 (2.50%) GitLab
5 71 (1.42%) Selenium
6 40 (0.80%) Cucumber
7 36 (0.72%) JUnit
7 36 (0.72%) Maven
8 35 (0.70%) Cypress.io
8 35 (0.70%) Postman
9 28 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 27 (0.54%) Gradle
11 26 (0.52%) SonarQube
12 24 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 22 (0.44%) JMeter
14 21 (0.42%) Mockito
15 18 (0.36%) Gatling
16 17 (0.34%) WebDriver
17 15 (0.30%) Visual Studio
18 13 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
General
1 2,671 (53.42%) Social Skills
2 2,171 (43.42%) Analytical Skills
3 1,156 (23.12%) Finance
4 504 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 406 (8.12%) Banking
6 263 (5.26%) Organisational Skills
7 228 (4.56%) Manufacturing
8 174 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
9 168 (3.36%) Influencing Skills
10 167 (3.34%) Retail
11 161 (3.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 118 (2.36%) Legal
13 112 (2.24%) Front Office
14 111 (2.22%) Presentation Skills
15 110 (2.20%) Marketing
16 106 (2.12%) Telecoms
17 76 (1.52%) Investment Banking
18 65 (1.30%) Law
19 60 (1.20%) Aerospace
20 59 (1.18%) Military
Job Titles
1 671 (13.42%) Analyst
2 572 (11.44%) Developer
3 470 (9.40%) Senior
4 377 (7.54%) Lead
5 288 (5.76%) Architect
6 230 (4.60%) Business Analyst
7 215 (4.30%) IT Support
8 206 (4.12%) Consultant
9 197 (3.94%) Support Engineer
10 175 (3.50%) Data Engineer
11 136 (2.72%) Administrator
12 135 (2.70%) IT Engineer
13 133 (2.66%) Project Manager
14 108 (2.16%) Data Analyst
15 99 (1.98%) IT Support Engineer
15 99 (1.98%) Java Developer
16 97 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 96 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
18 88 (1.76%) Network Engineer
19 82 (1.64%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 331 (6.62%) REST
2 304 (6.08%) Terraform
3 172 (3.44%) .NET
4 150 (3.00%) RESTful
4 150 (3.00%) SOAP
5 142 (2.84%) React
6 118 (2.36%) Kafka
7 116 (2.32%) CSS
7 116 (2.32%) HTML
7 116 (2.32%) JSON
8 114 (2.28%) XML
9 108 (2.16%) Spring
10 98 (1.96%) Middleware
11 96 (1.92%) Web Services
12 88 (1.76%) Spring Boot
13 81 (1.62%) AngularJS
13 81 (1.62%) Node.js
14 75 (1.50%) OAuth
15 57 (1.14%) PySpark
16 51 (1.02%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 298 (5.96%) Onboarding
2 256 (5.12%) Cloud Native
3 240 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 199 (3.98%) Self-Motivation
5 190 (3.80%) Management Information System
6 181 (3.62%) Enterprise Software
7 150 (3.00%) Data Centre
8 131 (2.62%) Distributed Systems
9 126 (2.52%) Data Structures
10 113 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
11 112 (2.24%) Analytical Mindset
12 106 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
13 83 (1.66%) Virtual Team
14 79 (1.58%) Driving Licence
15 72 (1.44%) AI Agents
16 66 (1.32%) CMDB
17 58 (1.16%) PKI
18 51 (1.02%) NHS
19 50 (1.00%) Mobile App
20 49 (0.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 695 (13.90%) Windows
2 281 (5.62%) Linux
3 202 (4.04%) Windows Server
4 125 (2.50%) Windows 10
5 98 (1.96%) Unix
6 84 (1.68%) Mac OS
7 82 (1.64%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.44%) Android
9 51 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 18 (0.36%) VMS
12 17 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 15 (0.30%) Solaris
14 12 (0.24%) zOS
15 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
16 8 (0.16%) AIX
16 8 (0.16%) CentOS
17 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
18 4 (0.080%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
18 4 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,360 (27.20%) Agile
2 1,223 (24.46%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,138 (22.76%) Continuous Improvement
4 833 (16.66%) CI/CD
5 756 (15.12%) DevOps
6 694 (13.88%) AI
7 569 (11.38%) Decision-Making
8 559 (11.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 529 (10.58%) Migration
10 493 (9.86%) Customer Service
11 490 (9.80%) Analytics
12 466 (9.32%) ITIL
13 411 (8.22%) Test Automation
14 399 (7.98%) Validation
15 368 (7.36%) Business Intelligence
16 348 (6.96%) Data Modelling
17 344 (6.88%) Scrum
18 338 (6.76%) ITSM
19 333 (6.66%) Roadmaps
20 332 (6.64%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 882 (17.64%) SQL
2 760 (15.20%) Python
3 369 (7.38%) Java
4 308 (6.16%) JavaScript
5 299 (5.98%) PowerShell
6 199 (3.98%) C#
7 145 (2.90%) Bash
8 132 (2.64%) TypeScript
9 82 (1.64%) PL/SQL
10 47 (0.94%) T-SQL
11 43 (0.86%) Go
11 43 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 42 (0.84%) C++
13 30 (0.60%) Scala
14 29 (0.58%) Bicep
15 25 (0.50%) Groovy
15 25 (0.50%) Kotlin
16 23 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 23 (0.46%) R
17 21 (0.42%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,108 (22.16%) Security Cleared
2 779 (15.58%) SC Cleared
3 606 (12.12%) Degree
4 217 (4.34%) DV Cleared
5 177 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 141 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
7 138 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
8 86 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
9 75 (1.50%) CISSP
10 74 (1.48%) Azure Certification
11 72 (1.44%) PMI Certification
12 68 (1.36%) PMP
13 52 (1.04%) A+ Certification
14 50 (1.00%) DBS Check
15 49 (0.98%) Master's Degree
16 47 (0.94%) AWS Certification
17 45 (0.90%) CCNA
18 42 (0.84%) CISM
19 39 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
20 35 (0.70%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 372 (7.44%) Data Quality
2 350 (7.00%) QA
3 117 (2.34%) GDPR
4 115 (2.30%) Accessibility
4 115 (2.30%) SLA
5 88 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 81 (1.62%) PMO
7 65 (1.30%) NIST
8 55 (1.10%) GRC
9 31 (0.62%) WCAG
10 22 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.26%) GxP
14 13 (0.26%) NCSC
15 12 (0.24%) IFRS
16 11 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 11 (0.22%) COBIT
17 9 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 401 (8.02%) Active Directory
2 310 (6.20%) Docker
3 159 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
5 62 (1.24%) Hyper-V
6 53 (1.06%) vSphere
7 52 (1.04%) VMware NSX
8 32 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 29 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
10 25 (0.50%) IAG
10 25 (0.50%) vCloud
11 16 (0.32%) Firmware
12 10 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.12%) NFS
13 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.10%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 5 (0.10%) XenApp
14 5 (0.10%) XenDesktop
15 4 (0.080%) FreeRADIUS
15 4 (0.080%) RACF
Systems Management
1 339 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 160 (3.20%) Ansible
3 132 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 91 (1.82%) Grafana
5 84 (1.68%) SCCM
6 73 (1.46%) Prometheus
7 49 (0.98%) vCenter Server
8 37 (0.74%) SCOM
9 25 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
10 23 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
11 20 (0.40%) Control-M
12 19 (0.38%) WSUS
13 13 (0.26%) FortiGate
13 13 (0.26%) Nessus
14 12 (0.24%) VxRail
15 11 (0.22%) Istio
15 11 (0.22%) Kibana
16 9 (0.18%) Argo
16 9 (0.18%) NetBackup
17 8 (0.16%) Podman
Vendors
1 1,213 (24.26%) Microsoft
2 339 (6.78%) Oracle
3 314 (6.28%) ServiceNow
4 308 (6.16%) SAP
5 205 (4.10%) VMware
6 151 (3.02%) Google
7 125 (2.50%) Salesforce
8 118 (2.36%) Cisco
8 118 (2.36%) Databricks
9 102 (2.04%) Splunk
10 70 (1.40%) Workday
11 64 (1.28%) Dynatrace
12 58 (1.16%) Apple
13 55 (1.10%) IBM
14 54 (1.08%) Adobe
15 48 (0.96%) Red Hat
16 43 (0.86%) CyberArk
17 36 (0.72%) Dell
17 36 (0.72%) MuleSoft
18 33 (0.66%) Palo Alto