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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 6 8
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,152 4,303 4,067
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.00% 15.30% 12.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.95% 16.83% 14.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,900 2,613 2,349
10th Percentile £260 £251 £265
25th Percentile £392 £380 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £713 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £486 £500
% change year-on-year +2.92% -2.84% -0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 521 278 186
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.75
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £19.48 £18.90 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year +3.10% +16.42% -68.32%
75th Percentile £39.50 £33.85 £31.43
90th Percentile £70.00 £63.51 £63.13
UK median hourly rate £18.26 £20.00 £17.00
% change year-on-year -8.70% +17.65% -66.26%

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 39,775 25,570 27,639
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.94% 90.90% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,015 16,235 16,841
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,044 1,594 1,106
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.41 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.47 £44.80 £66.90
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £74.22
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 2,205 £525 +5.00% 3,427
South East -3 829 £475 +5.56% 1,016
North of England -8 763 £450 -5.26% 1,001
Midlands -5 617 £450 +0.67% 608
West Midlands -8 445 £450 -5.26% 369
North West -7 379 £450 -1.64% 504
South West -6 320 £500 +8.11% 496
East of England 0 305 £425 -15.42% 446
Yorkshire -5 302 £475 -4.04% 330
East Midlands +2 168 £425 +13.33% 239
North East -8 84 £375 -16.67% 175
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
1 246 (4.77%) SharePoint
2 235 (4.56%) Confluence
3 90 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (1.03%) Apache Spark
5 45 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
6 42 (0.82%) Apache
7 27 (0.52%) CMS
8 23 (0.45%) SAS
9 18 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 16 (0.31%) WebLogic
10 16 (0.31%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.21%) Jupyter
12 10 (0.19%) CICS
13 9 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.14%) IIS
14 7 (0.14%) WordPress
15 6 (0.12%) Tomcat
16 5 (0.097%) FactoryTalk
16 5 (0.097%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.097%) WebLogic Portal
Applications
1 315 (6.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (4.68%) Microsoft Office
3 124 (2.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 66 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
5 51 (0.99%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 19 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 16 (0.31%) Revit
9 15 (0.29%) AutoCAD
9 15 (0.29%) Chatbot
10 11 (0.21%) Navisworks
10 11 (0.21%) Windchill
11 9 (0.17%) Sketch
12 8 (0.16%) Trello
13 6 (0.12%) CPLEX
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.058%) Acrobat
15 3 (0.058%) DaVinci Resolve
15 3 (0.058%) NUKE
16 2 (0.039%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 108 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 54 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.56%) NetSuite
4 28 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
5 25 (0.49%) Workday HCM
6 24 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
7 17 (0.33%) SAP GRC
8 14 (0.27%) Teamcenter
9 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
9 13 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
10 11 (0.21%) Oracle General Ledger
10 11 (0.21%) SAP SD
11 10 (0.19%) iTrent
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.19%) SAP HCM
12 9 (0.17%) SAP FI
12 9 (0.17%) SAP PSCD
13 8 (0.16%) Finacle
13 8 (0.16%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 1,024 (19.88%) Azure
2 691 (13.41%) AWS
3 485 (9.41%) Microsoft 365
4 423 (8.21%) Power Platform
5 292 (5.67%) GCP
6 257 (4.99%) Azure DevOps
7 215 (4.17%) Entra ID
8 193 (3.75%) GitHub
9 120 (2.33%) Serverless
10 118 (2.29%) SaaS
11 114 (2.21%) Power Automate
12 94 (1.82%) Microsoft Copilot
13 89 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
13 89 (1.73%) PowerApps
14 81 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
15 73 (1.42%) OneDrive
15 73 (1.42%) Snowflake
16 60 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
17 57 (1.11%) OpenShift
18 52 (1.01%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 200 (3.88%) DNS
2 178 (3.45%) Firewall
3 149 (2.89%) VPN
4 114 (2.21%) DHCP
5 113 (2.19%) TCP/IP
6 103 (2.00%) Network Security
7 99 (1.92%) WAN
8 85 (1.65%) LAN
9 73 (1.42%) Wi-Fi
10 61 (1.18%) Wireless
11 47 (0.91%) VLAN
12 46 (0.89%) VoIP
13 45 (0.87%) BGP
14 44 (0.85%) SAN
15 29 (0.56%) Structured Cabling
16 27 (0.52%) SD-WAN
17 25 (0.49%) MPLS
18 23 (0.45%) Broadband
19 22 (0.43%) SSL
20 21 (0.41%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 307 (5.96%) Power BI
2 189 (3.67%) SQL Server
3 155 (3.01%) Relational Database
4 154 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
5 134 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
6 90 (1.75%) Metadata
7 89 (1.73%) MongoDB
8 81 (1.57%) NoSQL
9 73 (1.42%) Tableau
10 66 (1.28%) Data Lake
11 55 (1.07%) MySQL
12 54 (1.05%) Oracle Database
13 37 (0.72%) Big Data
14 35 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 28 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
16 27 (0.52%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.49%) BigQuery
17 25 (0.49%) Db2
18 24 (0.47%) Pentaho
19 23 (0.45%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 462 (8.97%) JIRA
2 350 (6.79%) Git
3 192 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 134 (2.60%) GitLab
5 74 (1.44%) Selenium
6 45 (0.87%) Cucumber
7 41 (0.80%) Maven
8 39 (0.76%) JUnit
9 36 (0.70%) Cypress.io
9 36 (0.70%) Postman
10 32 (0.62%) Gradle
11 30 (0.58%) Bitbucket
12 28 (0.54%) SonarQube
13 26 (0.50%) REST Assured
14 24 (0.47%) JMeter
15 22 (0.43%) Mockito
16 20 (0.39%) Gatling
17 17 (0.33%) WebDriver
18 16 (0.31%) Visual Studio
19 14 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 2,747 (53.32%) Social Skills
2 2,249 (43.65%) Analytical Skills
3 1,214 (23.56%) Finance
4 527 (10.23%) Public Sector
5 435 (8.44%) Banking
6 287 (5.57%) Organisational Skills
7 271 (5.26%) Manufacturing
8 177 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
9 172 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
10 166 (3.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 156 (3.03%) Retail
12 125 (2.43%) Legal
13 114 (2.21%) Marketing
14 112 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
15 111 (2.15%) Telecoms
16 106 (2.06%) Front Office
17 91 (1.77%) Investment Banking
18 79 (1.53%) Aerospace
19 62 (1.20%) Military
20 61 (1.18%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 682 (13.24%) Analyst
2 599 (11.63%) Developer
3 503 (9.76%) Senior
4 390 (7.57%) Lead
5 276 (5.36%) Architect
6 243 (4.72%) Business Analyst
7 237 (4.60%) Consultant
8 225 (4.37%) IT Support
9 201 (3.90%) Support Engineer
10 177 (3.44%) Data Engineer
11 154 (2.99%) Project Manager
12 152 (2.95%) Administrator
13 131 (2.54%) IT Engineer
14 103 (2.00%) Data Analyst
14 103 (2.00%) IT Support Engineer
15 99 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
15 99 (1.92%) Java Developer
16 91 (1.77%) Network Engineer
17 90 (1.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
18 86 (1.67%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 354 (6.87%) REST
2 315 (6.11%) Terraform
3 182 (3.53%) .NET
4 162 (3.14%) RESTful
5 148 (2.87%) SOAP
6 147 (2.85%) React
7 127 (2.47%) Kafka
8 118 (2.29%) HTML
9 116 (2.25%) JSON
10 114 (2.21%) CSS
11 112 (2.17%) Spring
11 112 (2.17%) XML
12 104 (2.02%) Middleware
12 104 (2.02%) Web Services
13 93 (1.81%) Spring Boot
14 85 (1.65%) Node.js
15 81 (1.57%) AngularJS
16 78 (1.51%) OAuth
17 60 (1.16%) PySpark
18 55 (1.07%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 309 (6.00%) Onboarding
2 270 (5.24%) Cloud Native
3 246 (4.77%) Product Ownership
4 209 (4.06%) Management Information System
5 201 (3.90%) Self-Motivation
6 198 (3.84%) Enterprise Software
7 150 (2.91%) Data Centre
8 129 (2.50%) Data Structures
9 126 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
10 111 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
10 111 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
11 105 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
12 90 (1.75%) Virtual Team
13 81 (1.57%) AI Agents
14 78 (1.51%) Driving Licence
15 66 (1.28%) CMDB
16 56 (1.09%) Mobile App
16 56 (1.09%) NHS
16 56 (1.09%) PKI
17 55 (1.07%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 675 (13.10%) Windows
2 275 (5.34%) Linux
3 197 (3.82%) Windows Server
4 127 (2.47%) Windows 10
5 97 (1.88%) Unix
6 82 (1.59%) Apple iOS
6 82 (1.59%) macOS
7 71 (1.38%) Android
8 50 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 18 (0.35%) VMS
10 18 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.25%) Solaris
12 12 (0.23%) zOS
13 8 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 7 (0.14%) CentOS
15 6 (0.12%) AIX
16 5 (0.097%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
17 4 (0.078%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,425 (27.66%) Agile
2 1,341 (26.03%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,214 (23.56%) Continuous Improvement
4 894 (17.35%) CI/CD
5 799 (15.51%) DevOps
6 718 (13.94%) AI
7 590 (11.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 584 (11.34%) Decision-Making
9 530 (10.29%) Migration
10 480 (9.32%) Analytics
11 477 (9.26%) Customer Service
12 454 (8.81%) ITIL
13 444 (8.62%) Test Automation
14 423 (8.21%) Validation
15 364 (7.07%) Scrum
16 355 (6.89%) Business Intelligence
16 355 (6.89%) Roadmaps
17 353 (6.85%) Data Modelling
18 350 (6.79%) Technical Leadership
19 345 (6.70%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 890 (17.27%) SQL
2 769 (14.93%) Python
3 365 (7.08%) Java
4 317 (6.15%) JavaScript
5 307 (5.96%) PowerShell
6 208 (4.04%) C#
7 151 (2.93%) Bash
8 139 (2.70%) TypeScript
9 78 (1.51%) PL/SQL
10 47 (0.91%) Shell Script
10 47 (0.91%) T-SQL
11 39 (0.76%) Go
12 38 (0.74%) C++
13 30 (0.58%) Kotlin
13 30 (0.58%) Scala
14 29 (0.56%) Bicep
15 27 (0.52%) Groovy
16 23 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 20 (0.39%) Apex Code
18 19 (0.37%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,142 (22.17%) Security Cleared
2 807 (15.66%) SC Cleared
3 629 (12.21%) Degree
4 231 (4.48%) DV Cleared
5 189 (3.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 151 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
7 127 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
8 82 (1.59%) PMI Certification
9 80 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (1.49%) PMP
11 76 (1.48%) Azure Certification
12 73 (1.42%) CISSP
13 55 (1.07%) DBS Check
14 52 (1.01%) Master's Degree
15 50 (0.97%) AWS Certification
16 44 (0.85%) CISM
17 42 (0.82%) A+ Certification
18 39 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
19 37 (0.72%) CCNA
20 36 (0.70%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 385 (7.47%) Data Quality
2 358 (6.95%) QA
3 125 (2.43%) Accessibility
3 125 (2.43%) GDPR
4 111 (2.15%) SLA
5 96 (1.86%) PMO
6 80 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 60 (1.16%) NIST
8 55 (1.07%) GRC
9 33 (0.64%) WCAG
10 22 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
11 20 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.31%) NCSC
12 16 (0.31%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 14 (0.27%) GxP
14 13 (0.25%) IFRS
15 12 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 12 (0.23%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.19%) COBIT
System Software
1 396 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 322 (6.25%) Docker
3 152 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
5 58 (1.13%) Hyper-V
6 53 (1.03%) vSphere
7 51 (0.99%) VMware NSX
8 36 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 25 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
10 24 (0.47%) vCloud
11 23 (0.45%) IAG
12 16 (0.31%) Firmware
13 10 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.12%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 6 (0.12%) XenApp
14 6 (0.12%) XenDesktop
15 5 (0.097%) Microsoft App-V
15 5 (0.097%) NFS
15 5 (0.097%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.078%) RACF
Systems Management
1 360 (6.99%) Kubernetes
2 162 (3.14%) Ansible
3 132 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 92 (1.79%) Grafana
5 87 (1.69%) SCCM
6 73 (1.42%) Prometheus
7 44 (0.85%) vCenter Server
8 37 (0.72%) SCOM
9 25 (0.49%) Jamf Pro
10 23 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
11 20 (0.39%) Control-M
12 15 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 15 (0.29%) WSUS
13 13 (0.25%) Nessus
14 12 (0.23%) VxRail
15 11 (0.21%) Istio
16 10 (0.19%) Kibana
17 9 (0.17%) Functional Safety
17 9 (0.17%) NetBackup
18 8 (0.16%) Argo
Vendors
1 1,271 (24.67%) Microsoft
2 336 (6.52%) Oracle
3 312 (6.06%) SAP
4 302 (5.86%) ServiceNow
5 195 (3.78%) VMware
6 151 (2.93%) Google
7 130 (2.52%) Databricks
8 121 (2.35%) Salesforce
9 119 (2.31%) Cisco
10 106 (2.06%) Splunk
11 66 (1.28%) Workday
12 65 (1.26%) Dynatrace
13 60 (1.16%) Apple
14 58 (1.13%) IBM
15 53 (1.03%) Adobe
16 49 (0.95%) Red Hat
17 42 (0.82%) CyberArk
18 39 (0.76%) Palo Alto
19 34 (0.66%) MuleSoft
20 31 (0.60%) Citrix