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

6 months to
18 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 4,989 4,350 4,017
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.81% 15.64% 12.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.75% 17.21% 14.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,836 2,658 2,337
10th Percentile £238 £250 £262
25th Percentile £379 £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 £613
90th Percentile £716 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -0.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 453 271 213
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £15.99 £15.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £18.85 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +5.62% +16.14% -70.01%
75th Percentile £41.50 £34.74 £30.00
90th Percentile £73.95 £63.75 £62.32
UK median hourly rate £18.75 £19.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -4.46% +20.92% -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 39,123 25,281 28,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.74% 90.90% 86.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,918 16,062 17,635
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 2,776 1,509 1,303
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.55
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 18 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 18 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 18 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 2,158 £525 +5.00% 4,962
South East -3 792 £478 +6.22% 1,729
North of England -10 724 £445 -6.32% 1,473
Midlands -6 597 £450 +2.39% 1,133
West Midlands -7 429 £450 -4.05% 683
North West -8 363 £450 -5.26% 803
South West -5 340 £500 +11.11% 753
Yorkshire -8 291 £450 -6.25% 469
East of England 0 271 £438 -12.50% 721
East Midlands +2 165 £475 +26.67% 449
North East -18 72 £375 -16.67% 218
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 (4.53%) SharePoint
2 224 (4.49%) Confluence
3 105 (2.10%) 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 10 (0.20%) CICS
12 10 (0.20%) Jupyter
13 7 (0.14%) IIS
14 6 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 6 (0.12%) WordPress
15 5 (0.10%) Appian
15 5 (0.10%) ArcGIS
15 5 (0.10%) Mule
15 5 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 289 (5.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (4.83%) Microsoft Office
3 105 (2.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 61 (1.22%) Microsoft Project
5 48 (0.96%) 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%) Sketch
11 8 (0.16%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.16%) 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 (2.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
4 27 (0.54%) NetSuite
5 25 (0.50%) 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
12 9 (0.18%) Shopify
13 8 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
13 8 (0.16%) Primavera
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP ERP
14 7 (0.14%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 997 (19.98%) Azure
2 709 (14.21%) AWS
3 479 (9.60%) Microsoft 365
4 417 (8.36%) Power Platform
5 281 (5.63%) GCP
6 245 (4.91%) Azure DevOps
7 209 (4.19%) Entra ID
8 173 (3.47%) GitHub
9 132 (2.65%) SaaS
10 113 (2.26%) Serverless
11 105 (2.10%) Power Automate
12 85 (1.70%) Microsoft Copilot
13 77 (1.54%) PowerApps
14 76 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
15 71 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
15 71 (1.42%) OneDrive
16 62 (1.24%) Snowflake
17 61 (1.22%) Azure Data Factory
18 55 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
19 51 (1.02%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 209 (4.19%) DNS
2 176 (3.53%) Firewall
3 160 (3.21%) VPN
4 126 (2.53%) DHCP
5 119 (2.39%) TCP/IP
6 101 (2.02%) WAN
7 92 (1.84%) Network Security
8 86 (1.72%) LAN
9 73 (1.46%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (1.18%) Wireless
11 58 (1.16%) SAN
12 51 (1.02%) VLAN
13 44 (0.88%) BGP
14 37 (0.74%) VoIP
15 32 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
16 29 (0.58%) SD-WAN
17 25 (0.50%) MPLS
18 23 (0.46%) SSL
19 22 (0.44%) OSPF
20 20 (0.40%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 316 (6.33%) Power BI
2 193 (3.87%) SQL Server
3 155 (3.11%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (3.07%) Relational Database
5 133 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
6 90 (1.80%) Metadata
7 77 (1.54%) NoSQL
7 77 (1.54%) Tableau
8 73 (1.46%) MongoDB
9 70 (1.40%) Data Lake
10 52 (1.04%) Oracle Database
11 51 (1.02%) MySQL
12 38 (0.76%) Big Data
13 32 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 27 (0.54%) Db2
16 26 (0.52%) Power Query
17 25 (0.50%) Delta Lake
18 24 (0.48%) BigQuery
18 24 (0.48%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 450 (9.02%) JIRA
2 326 (6.53%) Git
3 169 (3.39%) Jenkins
4 125 (2.51%) GitLab
5 70 (1.40%) Selenium
6 35 (0.70%) Cucumber
6 35 (0.70%) Maven
7 34 (0.68%) JUnit
7 34 (0.68%) Postman
8 33 (0.66%) Cypress.io
9 27 (0.54%) 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 16 (0.32%) Gatling
13 16 (0.32%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.28%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
General
1 2,671 (53.54%) Social Skills
2 2,168 (43.46%) Analytical Skills
3 1,152 (23.09%) Finance
4 493 (9.88%) Public Sector
5 418 (8.38%) Banking
6 253 (5.07%) Organisational Skills
7 206 (4.13%) Manufacturing
8 180 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
9 175 (3.51%) Retail
10 165 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
11 161 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 118 (2.37%) Front Office
13 111 (2.22%) Legal
14 107 (2.14%) Marketing
14 107 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
15 103 (2.06%) Telecoms
16 82 (1.64%) Investment Banking
17 64 (1.28%) Law
18 59 (1.18%) Aerospace
19 58 (1.16%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 691 (13.85%) Analyst
2 580 (11.63%) Developer
3 466 (9.34%) Senior
4 372 (7.46%) Lead
5 299 (5.99%) Architect
6 232 (4.65%) Business Analyst
7 214 (4.29%) IT Support
8 207 (4.15%) Consultant
9 197 (3.95%) Support Engineer
10 180 (3.61%) Data Engineer
11 137 (2.75%) IT Engineer
12 130 (2.61%) Administrator
13 126 (2.53%) Project Manager
14 108 (2.16%) Data Analyst
15 103 (2.06%) Java Developer
16 100 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 96 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
17 96 (1.92%) IT Support Engineer
18 89 (1.78%) Solutions Architect
19 86 (1.72%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 331 (6.63%) REST
2 298 (5.97%) Terraform
3 169 (3.39%) .NET
4 150 (3.01%) RESTful
4 150 (3.01%) SOAP
5 143 (2.87%) React
6 121 (2.43%) Kafka
7 116 (2.33%) JSON
8 114 (2.29%) HTML
9 113 (2.26%) CSS
9 113 (2.26%) Spring
10 109 (2.18%) XML
11 95 (1.90%) Web Services
12 94 (1.88%) Middleware
13 92 (1.84%) Spring Boot
14 84 (1.68%) AngularJS
15 77 (1.54%) Node.js
15 77 (1.54%) OAuth
16 57 (1.14%) PySpark
17 50 (1.00%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 295 (5.91%) Onboarding
2 248 (4.97%) Product Ownership
3 247 (4.95%) Cloud Native
4 200 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 182 (3.65%) Management Information System
6 179 (3.59%) Enterprise Software
7 153 (3.07%) Data Centre
8 139 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
9 126 (2.53%) Data Structures
10 120 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
11 114 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
12 108 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
13 87 (1.74%) Virtual Team
14 76 (1.52%) Driving Licence
15 73 (1.46%) AI Agents
16 65 (1.30%) CMDB
17 57 (1.14%) PKI
18 55 (1.10%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
19 49 (0.98%) Algorithms
20 48 (0.96%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 690 (13.83%) Windows
2 277 (5.55%) Linux
3 202 (4.05%) Windows Server
4 128 (2.57%) Windows 10
5 93 (1.86%) Unix
6 83 (1.66%) Apple iOS
7 80 (1.60%) Mac OS
8 72 (1.44%) Android
9 45 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 17 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
12 16 (0.32%) VMS
13 12 (0.24%) zOS
14 9 (0.18%) Solaris
14 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 8 (0.16%) CentOS
16 7 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.080%) AIX
17 4 (0.080%) HPUX
17 4 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,381 (27.68%) Agile
2 1,178 (23.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,137 (22.79%) Continuous Improvement
4 830 (16.64%) CI/CD
5 771 (15.45%) DevOps
6 699 (14.01%) AI
7 585 (11.73%) Decision-Making
8 566 (11.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 513 (10.28%) Migration
10 512 (10.26%) Analytics
11 486 (9.74%) Customer Service
12 473 (9.48%) ITIL
13 406 (8.14%) Test Automation
14 397 (7.96%) Validation
15 379 (7.60%) Business Intelligence
16 352 (7.06%) Data Modelling
17 348 (6.98%) Scrum
18 342 (6.86%) Roadmaps
19 339 (6.79%) ITSM
20 330 (6.61%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 891 (17.86%) SQL
2 787 (15.77%) Python
3 368 (7.38%) Java
4 301 (6.03%) PowerShell
5 298 (5.97%) JavaScript
6 192 (3.85%) C#
7 145 (2.91%) Bash
8 128 (2.57%) TypeScript
9 86 (1.72%) PL/SQL
10 47 (0.94%) T-SQL
11 46 (0.92%) C++
12 42 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 41 (0.82%) Go
14 32 (0.64%) Bicep
15 30 (0.60%) Scala
16 26 (0.52%) Groovy
16 26 (0.52%) Kotlin
17 25 (0.50%) C
17 25 (0.50%) R
18 24 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,099 (22.03%) Security Cleared
2 771 (15.45%) SC Cleared
3 597 (11.97%) Degree
4 214 (4.29%) DV Cleared
5 183 (3.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 146 (2.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 128 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
8 88 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
9 78 (1.56%) Azure Certification
10 73 (1.46%) CISSP
11 70 (1.40%) PMI Certification
12 68 (1.36%) PMP
13 57 (1.14%) A+ Certification
14 49 (0.98%) DBS Check
15 48 (0.96%) CCNA
15 48 (0.96%) Master's Degree
16 43 (0.86%) AWS Certification
17 42 (0.84%) CISM
18 39 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 39 (0.78%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 383 (7.68%) Data Quality
2 346 (6.94%) QA
3 117 (2.35%) GDPR
4 116 (2.33%) SLA
5 113 (2.26%) Accessibility
6 91 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 84 (1.68%) PMO
8 70 (1.40%) NIST
9 60 (1.20%) GRC
10 31 (0.62%) WCAG
11 22 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.28%) PCI DSS
15 13 (0.26%) GxP
15 13 (0.26%) IFRS
16 12 (0.24%) COBIT
17 11 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
17 11 (0.22%) NCSC
18 10 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 402 (8.06%) Active Directory
2 309 (6.19%) Docker
3 150 (3.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
5 62 (1.24%) Hyper-V
6 51 (1.02%) VMware NSX
7 44 (0.88%) vSphere
8 33 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
9 30 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
10 27 (0.54%) IAG
11 26 (0.52%) vCloud
12 16 (0.32%) Firmware
13 9 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.12%) NFS
14 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.080%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 4 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
15 4 (0.080%) XenApp
15 4 (0.080%) XenDesktop
16 3 (0.060%) RACF
Systems Management
1 339 (6.79%) Kubernetes
2 165 (3.31%) Ansible
3 130 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
4 91 (1.82%) Grafana
5 89 (1.78%) SCCM
6 73 (1.46%) Prometheus
7 50 (1.00%) vCenter Server
8 37 (0.74%) SCOM
9 24 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 23 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
10 23 (0.46%) WSUS
11 20 (0.40%) Control-M
12 13 (0.26%) FortiGate
13 11 (0.22%) Istio
13 11 (0.22%) Kibana
13 11 (0.22%) Nessus
13 11 (0.22%) Puppet
13 11 (0.22%) VxRail
14 9 (0.18%) Argo
14 9 (0.18%) Podman
Vendors
1 1,177 (23.59%) Microsoft
2 346 (6.94%) Oracle
3 323 (6.47%) ServiceNow
4 305 (6.11%) SAP
5 197 (3.95%) VMware
6 141 (2.83%) Google
7 130 (2.61%) Salesforce
8 120 (2.41%) Databricks
9 112 (2.24%) Cisco
10 99 (1.98%) Splunk
11 70 (1.40%) Workday
12 68 (1.36%) Dynatrace
13 57 (1.14%) Apple
14 53 (1.06%) Adobe
15 48 (0.96%) IBM
16 44 (0.88%) CyberArk
17 41 (0.82%) Red Hat
18 39 (0.78%) MuleSoft
19 36 (0.72%) Dell
20 34 (0.68%) Citrix