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

6 months to
29 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 4,999 4,248 4,016
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.79% 15.42% 12.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.76% 16.95% 14.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,833 2,591 2,293
10th Percentile £250 £245 £264
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% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 479 265 204
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.26
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.25 £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 £34.48 £30.00
90th Percentile £72.75 £63.40 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £18.50 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year -8.66% +24.80% -69.42%

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 39,188 25,068 27,886
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.60% 90.98% 86.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,853 15,921 17,051
10th Percentile £325 £298 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £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 2,855 1,537 1,209
10th Percentile £13.91 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.19
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.35 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.75 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +58.05% -40.82% -1.16%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 2,139 £525 +3.42% 4,301
South East -3 807 £475 +5.56% 1,572
North of England -11 720 £450 -5.26% 1,540
Midlands -5 612 £450 +2.39% 1,119
West Midlands -8 436 £450 -5.76% 675
North West -11 354 £450 -4.66% 802
South West -4 323 £500 +11.11% 802
Yorkshire -6 295 £475 -3.80% 524
East of England 0 286 £450 -10.00% 709
East Midlands +2 172 £450 +20.00% 444
North East -13 73 £375 -16.67% 228
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
1 233 (4.66%) SharePoint
2 220 (4.40%) Confluence
3 99 (1.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (0.92%) Apache Spark
5 40 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 36 (0.72%) Apache
7 26 (0.52%) CMS
8 23 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 23 (0.46%) SAS
9 17 (0.34%) 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
12 7 (0.14%) WordPress
13 5 (0.10%) Appian
13 5 (0.10%) Mule
13 5 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 5 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 293 (5.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 243 (4.86%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 59 (1.18%) Microsoft Project
5 49 (0.98%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.42%) 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%) DaVinci Resolve
12 3 (0.060%) NUKE
13 2 (0.040%) Photoshop
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 24 (0.48%) Workday HCM
7 18 (0.36%) SAP GRC
8 14 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
9 13 (0.26%) iTrent
9 13 (0.26%) Teamcenter
10 12 (0.24%) SAP SD
11 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
11 11 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
12 10 (0.20%) Finacle
12 10 (0.20%) SAP HCM
13 9 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
14 8 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
14 8 (0.16%) Primavera
14 8 (0.16%) SAP PSCD
15 7 (0.14%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 988 (19.76%) Azure
2 690 (13.80%) AWS
3 483 (9.66%) Microsoft 365
4 414 (8.28%) Power Platform
5 291 (5.82%) GCP
6 241 (4.82%) Azure DevOps
7 211 (4.22%) Entra ID
8 177 (3.54%) GitHub
9 129 (2.58%) SaaS
10 111 (2.22%) Serverless
11 109 (2.18%) Power Automate
12 87 (1.74%) Microsoft Copilot
13 84 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
14 81 (1.62%) PowerApps
15 71 (1.42%) OneDrive
16 69 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
17 65 (1.30%) Snowflake
18 59 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
19 51 (1.02%) OpenShift
20 50 (1.00%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 202 (4.04%) DNS
2 177 (3.54%) Firewall
3 158 (3.16%) VPN
4 122 (2.44%) DHCP
5 113 (2.26%) TCP/IP
6 100 (2.00%) WAN
7 99 (1.98%) Network Security
8 86 (1.72%) LAN
9 72 (1.44%) Wi-Fi
10 60 (1.20%) Wireless
11 55 (1.10%) SAN
12 48 (0.96%) VLAN
13 45 (0.90%) BGP
14 42 (0.84%) 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
1 308 (6.16%) Power BI
2 187 (3.74%) SQL Server
3 155 (3.10%) Relational Database
4 149 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
5 133 (2.66%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (1.70%) Metadata
7 81 (1.62%) MongoDB
8 78 (1.56%) NoSQL
9 73 (1.46%) Tableau
10 69 (1.38%) Data Lake
11 53 (1.06%) MySQL
11 53 (1.06%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 32 (0.64%) Big Data
13 32 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
14 27 (0.54%) BigQuery
15 26 (0.52%) Db2
16 25 (0.50%) Power Query
17 24 (0.48%) Delta Lake
17 24 (0.48%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 441 (8.82%) JIRA
2 325 (6.50%) Git
3 173 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 126 (2.52%) GitLab
5 71 (1.42%) Selenium
6 40 (0.80%) Cucumber
7 37 (0.74%) Maven
8 36 (0.72%) JUnit
9 35 (0.70%) Cypress.io
9 35 (0.70%) Postman
10 28 (0.56%) Bitbucket
11 27 (0.54%) Gradle
12 26 (0.52%) SonarQube
13 24 (0.48%) REST Assured
14 22 (0.44%) JMeter
15 20 (0.40%) Mockito
16 18 (0.36%) Gatling
17 17 (0.34%) WebDriver
18 15 (0.30%) Visual Studio
19 13 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
General
1 2,665 (53.31%) Social Skills
2 2,175 (43.51%) Analytical Skills
3 1,152 (23.04%) Finance
4 505 (10.10%) Public Sector
5 407 (8.14%) Banking
6 265 (5.30%) Organisational Skills
7 236 (4.72%) Manufacturing
8 174 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
9 164 (3.28%) Retail
10 163 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
11 162 (3.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 117 (2.34%) Legal
13 113 (2.26%) Front Office
14 109 (2.18%) Presentation Skills
15 108 (2.16%) Marketing
16 107 (2.14%) Telecoms
17 77 (1.54%) Investment Banking
18 63 (1.26%) Aerospace
19 62 (1.24%) Law
20 59 (1.18%) Military
Job Titles
1 665 (13.30%) Analyst
2 571 (11.42%) Developer
3 466 (9.32%) Senior
4 376 (7.52%) Lead
5 289 (5.78%) Architect
6 230 (4.60%) Business Analyst
7 216 (4.32%) IT Support
8 214 (4.28%) Consultant
9 199 (3.98%) Support Engineer
10 172 (3.44%) Data Engineer
11 140 (2.80%) Administrator
12 136 (2.72%) IT Engineer
13 135 (2.70%) Project Manager
14 107 (2.14%) Data Analyst
15 100 (2.00%) IT Support Engineer
15 100 (2.00%) Java Developer
16 98 (1.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 96 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
18 90 (1.80%) Network Engineer
19 82 (1.64%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 331 (6.62%) REST
2 304 (6.08%) Terraform
3 171 (3.42%) .NET
4 149 (2.98%) RESTful
4 149 (2.98%) SOAP
5 143 (2.86%) React
6 118 (2.36%) Kafka
7 117 (2.34%) CSS
7 117 (2.34%) HTML
7 117 (2.34%) JSON
8 116 (2.32%) XML
9 109 (2.18%) Spring
10 100 (2.00%) Middleware
11 98 (1.96%) Web Services
12 89 (1.78%) 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
1 299 (5.98%) Onboarding
2 256 (5.12%) Cloud Native
3 238 (4.76%) Product Ownership
4 198 (3.96%) Self-Motivation
5 192 (3.84%) Management Information System
6 184 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
7 152 (3.04%) Data Centre
8 128 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
9 125 (2.50%) Data Structures
10 114 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
11 112 (2.24%) Analytical Mindset
12 107 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
13 83 (1.66%) Virtual Team
14 79 (1.58%) Driving Licence
15 71 (1.42%) AI Agents
16 66 (1.32%) CMDB
17 58 (1.16%) PKI
18 50 (1.00%) Mobile App
18 50 (1.00%) NHS
19 49 (0.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 695 (13.90%) Windows
2 282 (5.64%) Linux
3 203 (4.06%) Windows Server
4 123 (2.46%) Windows 10
5 97 (1.94%) Unix
6 83 (1.66%) 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 1,361 (27.23%) Agile
2 1,227 (24.54%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,138 (22.76%) Continuous Improvement
4 833 (16.66%) CI/CD
5 756 (15.12%) DevOps
6 693 (13.86%) AI
7 568 (11.36%) Decision-Making
8 559 (11.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 532 (10.64%) Migration
10 492 (9.84%) Customer Service
11 488 (9.76%) Analytics
12 464 (9.28%) ITIL
13 410 (8.20%) Test Automation
14 399 (7.98%) Validation
15 363 (7.26%) Business Intelligence
16 345 (6.90%) Data Modelling
16 345 (6.90%) Scrum
17 339 (6.78%) ITSM
18 334 (6.68%) Roadmaps
19 333 (6.66%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 881 (17.62%) SQL
2 758 (15.16%) Python
3 371 (7.42%) Java
4 309 (6.18%) JavaScript
5 299 (5.98%) PowerShell
6 197 (3.94%) C#
7 145 (2.90%) Bash
8 133 (2.66%) TypeScript
9 82 (1.64%) PL/SQL
10 47 (0.94%) T-SQL
11 44 (0.88%) Shell Script
12 43 (0.86%) Go
13 42 (0.84%) C++
14 30 (0.60%) Scala
15 29 (0.58%) Bicep
16 25 (0.50%) Groovy
16 25 (0.50%) Kotlin
17 23 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 20 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 20 (0.40%) R
Qualifications
1 1,113 (22.26%) Security Cleared
2 783 (15.66%) SC Cleared
3 609 (12.18%) Degree
4 218 (4.36%) DV Cleared
5 177 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 140 (2.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 139 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
8 86 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
9 75 (1.50%) Azure Certification
10 74 (1.48%) CISSP
11 73 (1.46%) PMI Certification
12 68 (1.36%) PMP
13 51 (1.02%) A+ Certification
14 50 (1.00%) DBS Check
15 49 (0.98%) Master's Degree
16 48 (0.96%) 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
1 370 (7.40%) Data Quality
2 350 (7.00%) QA
3 116 (2.32%) GDPR
4 114 (2.28%) Accessibility
4 114 (2.28%) SLA
5 87 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 80 (1.60%) PMO
7 64 (1.28%) NIST
8 54 (1.08%) GRC
9 31 (0.62%) WCAG
10 22 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 14 (0.28%) NCSC
15 13 (0.26%) GxP
16 12 (0.24%) IFRS
17 11 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
18 10 (0.20%) COBIT
19 9 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 401 (8.02%) Active Directory
2 309 (6.18%) Docker
3 158 (3.16%) 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 1,211 (24.22%) Microsoft
2 340 (6.80%) Oracle
3 314 (6.28%) SAP
3 314 (6.28%) ServiceNow
4 204 (4.08%) VMware
5 148 (2.96%) Google
6 123 (2.46%) Salesforce
7 120 (2.40%) Cisco
8 117 (2.34%) Databricks
9 102 (2.04%) Splunk
10 72 (1.44%) Workday
11 64 (1.28%) Dynatrace
12 58 (1.16%) Apple
13 55 (1.10%) IBM
14 53 (1.06%) Adobe
15 48 (0.96%) Red Hat
16 44 (0.88%) CyberArk
17 36 (0.72%) Dell
17 36 (0.72%) MuleSoft
18 34 (0.68%) Palo Alto