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

6 months to
2 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 4,615 4,339 4,046
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.52% 16.80% 10.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.32% 18.43% 12.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,706 2,699 2,432
10th Percentile £263 £249 £250
25th Percentile £380 £378 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.54% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £713 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 345 251 360
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.20 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £15.25 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.28 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +0.33% +31.12% -68.02%
75th Percentile £42.38 £38.42 £34.06
90th Percentile £74.00 £66.00 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £21.90 £16.23
% change year-on-year -8.68% +34.94% -68.49%

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 37,451 23,541 31,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.35% 91.15% 85.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,583 15,155 20,721
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £729 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.08% -3.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,352 1,173 2,326
10th Percentile £15.26 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.79 £17.88 £16.06
Median hourly rate £46.62 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +85.35% -34.02% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.50 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £73.07
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -11 1,955 £512 +2.45% 1,304
North of England -12 725 £446 -6.05% 706
South East -5 718 £480 -3.76% 844
Midlands -7 529 £459 +7.94% 457
West Midlands -8 384 £466 +3.54% 251
North West -12 353 £446 -8.05% 389
Yorkshire -6 330 £450 -5.26% 226
South West -4 320 £500 - 342
East of England -2 259 £450 -4.76% 290
East Midlands -1 143 £449 +22.21% 207
North East -17 48 £356 -20.83% 108
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
1 200 (4.33%) Confluence
2 152 (3.29%) SharePoint
3 88 (1.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 37 (0.80%) Apache
5 37 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 31 (0.67%) SAS
7 30 (0.65%) CMS
8 25 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
9 18 (0.39%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.28%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.24%) nginx
12 10 (0.22%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.22%) CICS
13 8 (0.17%) 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 (5.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 211 (4.57%) Microsoft Office
3 91 (1.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 67 (1.45%) MS Visio
5 57 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
6 29 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
7 22 (0.48%) 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 (0.065%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.065%) Navisworks
15 3 (0.065%) Oracle Smart View
16 2 (0.043%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 115 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
4 19 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
5 16 (0.35%) Aladdin
5 16 (0.35%) Workday HCM
6 14 (0.30%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.26%) SAP SD
8 11 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 11 (0.24%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.22%) Finacle
9 10 (0.22%) iTrent
9 10 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 10 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
10 8 (0.17%) Loan IQ
10 8 (0.17%) NEC Housing
10 8 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
10 8 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.17%) SAP HCM
11 7 (0.15%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 929 (20.13%) Azure
2 674 (14.60%) AWS
3 375 (8.13%) Power Platform
4 338 (7.32%) Microsoft 365
5 255 (5.53%) GCP
6 227 (4.92%) Azure DevOps
7 161 (3.49%) Entra ID
8 158 (3.42%) GitHub
9 124 (2.69%) SaaS
10 122 (2.64%) Serverless
11 74 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
11 74 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
12 73 (1.58%) Amazon S3
13 64 (1.39%) Power Automate
14 63 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
15 59 (1.28%) Snowflake
16 58 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
17 56 (1.21%) PowerApps
18 55 (1.19%) OpenShift
19 43 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 190 (4.12%) DNS
2 148 (3.21%) Firewall
3 112 (2.43%) VPN
4 108 (2.34%) TCP/IP
5 101 (2.19%) DHCP
6 86 (1.86%) WAN
7 85 (1.84%) Network Security
8 73 (1.58%) LAN
9 65 (1.41%) SAN
10 61 (1.32%) Wi-Fi
11 46 (1.00%) VLAN
12 43 (0.93%) BGP
13 38 (0.82%) Wireless
14 37 (0.80%) OSPF
15 32 (0.69%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.67%) VoIP
17 24 (0.52%) VXLAN
18 23 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
19 20 (0.43%) MPLS
20 18 (0.39%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (6.41%) Power BI
2 202 (4.38%) SQL Server
3 141 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
4 122 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
4 122 (2.64%) Relational Database
5 92 (1.99%) MongoDB
6 82 (1.78%) NoSQL
7 79 (1.71%) Tableau
8 77 (1.67%) Data Lake
9 76 (1.65%) Metadata
10 51 (1.11%) Oracle Database
11 47 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 46 (1.00%) Big Data
13 42 (0.91%) MySQL
14 37 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
15 28 (0.61%) Power Query
16 25 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
16 25 (0.54%) Delta Lake
16 25 (0.54%) RDBMS
17 23 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 461 (9.99%) JIRA
2 263 (5.70%) Git
3 162 (3.51%) Jenkins
4 110 (2.38%) GitLab
5 60 (1.30%) Selenium
6 37 (0.80%) Postman
7 32 (0.69%) REST Assured
8 25 (0.54%) Cucumber
9 24 (0.52%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.48%) JUnit
11 21 (0.46%) Bitbucket
12 20 (0.43%) Mockito
13 16 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
13 16 (0.35%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.30%) SonarQube
15 13 (0.28%) Maven
15 13 (0.28%) Zephyr
16 12 (0.26%) Gradle
16 12 (0.26%) JMeter
17 10 (0.22%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,382 (51.61%) Social Skills
2 1,877 (40.67%) Analytical Skills
3 1,084 (23.49%) Finance
4 398 (8.62%) Public Sector
5 354 (7.67%) Banking
6 192 (4.16%) Organisational Skills
7 187 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 177 (3.84%) Retail
9 128 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 112 (2.43%) Legal
11 110 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
12 109 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
13 100 (2.17%) Front Office
14 98 (2.12%) Manufacturing
15 85 (1.84%) Marketing
15 85 (1.84%) Telecoms
16 76 (1.65%) Investment Banking
17 55 (1.19%) Law
18 54 (1.17%) Back Office
19 46 (1.00%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 655 (14.19%) Analyst
2 499 (10.81%) Developer
3 392 (8.49%) Senior
4 338 (7.32%) Architect
5 317 (6.87%) Lead
6 240 (5.20%) Business Analyst
7 212 (4.59%) Data Engineer
8 206 (4.46%) Consultant
9 160 (3.47%) IT Support
10 151 (3.27%) Project Manager
11 145 (3.14%) Support Engineer
12 103 (2.23%) Data Analyst
13 98 (2.12%) Administrator
14 97 (2.10%) IT Engineer
15 94 (2.04%) Solutions Architect
16 89 (1.93%) Java Developer
17 85 (1.84%) Software Engineer
18 82 (1.78%) Technical Support
19 80 (1.73%) Support Analyst
20 74 (1.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (5.63%) REST
2 147 (3.19%) .NET
3 133 (2.88%) Kafka
4 124 (2.69%) Spring
5 122 (2.64%) React
6 119 (2.58%) RESTful
7 116 (2.51%) SOAP
8 103 (2.23%) JSON
9 95 (2.06%) Middleware
10 94 (2.04%) CSS
11 90 (1.95%) Spring Boot
12 87 (1.89%) XML
13 80 (1.73%) HTML
14 75 (1.63%) Node.js
15 74 (1.60%) AngularJS
16 59 (1.28%) LDAP
17 57 (1.24%) PySpark
18 56 (1.21%) OAuth
19 52 (1.13%) Web Services
20 46 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 220 (4.77%) Onboarding
2 217 (4.70%) Product Ownership
3 201 (4.36%) Cloud Native
4 170 (3.68%) Data Centre
5 166 (3.60%) Self-Motivation
6 141 (3.06%) Analytical Mindset
7 129 (2.80%) Distributed Systems
8 122 (2.64%) Management Information System
9 120 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
10 110 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
11 108 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
12 103 (2.23%) Data Structures
13 95 (2.06%) Virtual Team
14 56 (1.21%) AI Agents
15 54 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 53 (1.15%) Algorithms
17 51 (1.11%) Security Posture
18 48 (1.04%) Driving Licence
19 47 (1.02%) CMDB
20 46 (1.00%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 586 (12.70%) Windows
2 256 (5.55%) Linux
3 111 (2.41%) Windows Server
4 108 (2.34%) Windows 10
5 94 (2.04%) Unix
6 78 (1.69%) Mac OS
7 77 (1.67%) Apple iOS
8 71 (1.54%) Android
9 46 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.43%) Ubuntu
11 12 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 11 (0.24%) VMS
12 11 (0.24%) zOS
13 10 (0.22%) CentOS
14 9 (0.20%) Mac OS X
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 (0.087%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,212 (26.26%) Agile
2 847 (18.35%) Continuous Improvement
3 794 (17.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 749 (16.23%) CI/CD
5 727 (15.75%) DevOps
6 574 (12.44%) AI
7 524 (11.35%) Decision-Making
8 517 (11.20%) Migration
9 502 (10.88%) Analytics
10 448 (9.71%) ITIL
11 435 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 415 (8.99%) Customer Service
13 377 (8.17%) Business Intelligence
13 377 (8.17%) Validation
14 366 (7.93%) Data Modelling
15 356 (7.71%) Project Management
16 347 (7.52%) Test Automation
17 324 (7.02%) Change Management
18 317 (6.87%) Scrum
19 309 (6.70%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 859 (18.61%) SQL
2 798 (17.29%) Python
3 353 (7.65%) Java
4 259 (5.61%) PowerShell
5 230 (4.98%) JavaScript
6 169 (3.66%) C#
7 116 (2.51%) Bash
8 107 (2.32%) TypeScript
9 79 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 59 (1.28%) C++
11 49 (1.06%) T-SQL
12 42 (0.91%) C
12 42 (0.91%) Shell Script
13 41 (0.89%) Go
14 35 (0.76%) Bicep
15 34 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 29 (0.63%) Apex Code
17 28 (0.61%) R
18 22 (0.48%) Kotlin
19 21 (0.46%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,004 (21.76%) Security Cleared
2 665 (14.41%) SC Cleared
3 568 (12.31%) Degree
4 198 (4.29%) DV Cleared
5 173 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
6 131 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
8 114 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
9 87 (1.89%) CISSP
10 75 (1.63%) PMP
11 67 (1.45%) A+ Certification
12 66 (1.43%) CCNA
13 65 (1.41%) PMI Certification
14 64 (1.39%) Azure Certification
15 56 (1.21%) CISM
16 50 (1.08%) Master's Degree
16 50 (1.08%) Network+ Certification
17 42 (0.91%) MCSE
18 37 (0.80%) AWS Certification
18 37 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 322 (6.98%) Data Quality
2 264 (5.72%) QA
3 143 (3.10%) GDPR
4 96 (2.08%) SLA
5 88 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 86 (1.86%) Accessibility
7 72 (1.56%) NIST
8 70 (1.52%) PMO
9 43 (0.93%) GRC
10 25 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
12 21 (0.46%) PCI DSS
13 15 (0.33%) NCSC
14 14 (0.30%) WCAG
15 13 (0.28%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.28%) ISO 20022
16 12 (0.26%) COBIT
16 12 (0.26%) PSD2
17 11 (0.24%) Def Stans
17 11 (0.24%) IFRS
System Software
1 342 (7.41%) Active Directory
2 291 (6.31%) Docker
3 110 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (0.87%) vSphere
5 38 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
5 38 (0.82%) VMware NSX
6 31 (0.67%) Hyper-V
7 28 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
8 24 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.41%) Firmware
9 19 (0.41%) vCloud
10 13 (0.28%) IAG
11 11 (0.24%) Squid
12 6 (0.13%) NFS
12 6 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.087%) ACF2
13 4 (0.087%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.087%) RACF
13 4 (0.087%) Snort
13 4 (0.087%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 350 (7.58%) Kubernetes
2 267 (5.79%) Terraform
3 157 (3.40%) Ansible
4 124 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 101 (2.19%) Grafana
6 88 (1.91%) Prometheus
7 70 (1.52%) SCCM
8 50 (1.08%) vCenter Server
9 35 (0.76%) FortiGate
9 35 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
10 27 (0.59%) Control-M
11 22 (0.48%) Nessus
12 20 (0.43%) Argo
13 19 (0.41%) SCOM
14 18 (0.39%) IBM Guardium
15 17 (0.37%) Kibana
15 17 (0.37%) WSUS
16 16 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
17 13 (0.28%) Puppet
18 12 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 888 (19.24%) Microsoft
2 324 (7.02%) Oracle
3 285 (6.18%) ServiceNow
4 281 (6.09%) SAP
5 175 (3.79%) VMware
6 138 (2.99%) Google
7 120 (2.60%) Splunk
8 111 (2.41%) Salesforce
9 109 (2.36%) Databricks
10 100 (2.17%) Cisco
11 74 (1.60%) Workday
12 60 (1.30%) Dynatrace
12 60 (1.30%) Red Hat
13 54 (1.17%) Dell
14 47 (1.02%) Citrix
15 46 (1.00%) Apple
16 45 (0.98%) Adobe
17 42 (0.91%) CyberArk
17 42 (0.91%) MuleSoft
18 36 (0.78%) IBM