Problem-Solving Contracts in the Midlands

Problem Solving
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Midlands requiring Problem-Solving skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Problem-Solving over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 11 8
Rank change year-on-year +8 -3 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 318 309 459
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Midlands 16.61% 11.21% 13.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.97% 13.64% 15.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 219 301
10th Percentile £163 £254 £231
25th Percentile £275 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% -1.04% +1.05%
75th Percentile £538 £611 £550
90th Percentile £638 £688 £650
England median daily rate £500 £512 £525
% change year-on-year -2.41% -2.41% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 18 24
10th Percentile £13.78 £11.50 £10.90
25th Percentile £14.94 £12.13 £11.80
Median hourly rate £16.26 £16.95 £16.49
Median % change year-on-year -4.07% +2.77% +67.10%
75th Percentile £23.38 £40.19 £21.68
90th Percentile £60.63 £61.13 £25.96
England median hourly rate £21.90 £17.50 £45.68
% change year-on-year +25.14% -61.69% +128.40%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Midlands

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 the Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,676 2,266 3,045
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands 87.57% 82.19% 88.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,099 1,510 2,125
10th Percentile £200 £237 £250
25th Percentile £358 £356 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year - -4.04% +4.21%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £588
90th Percentile £650 £700 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 172 119
10th Percentile £12.62 £11.07 £11.96
25th Percentile £13.81 £13.81 £15.05
Median hourly rate £18.13 £19.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -4.58% +7.22% +1.37%
75th Percentile £24.22 £35.00 £26.81
90th Percentile £36.55 £55.00 £55.50
England median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Job postings citing Problem-Solving as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

Job vacancy trend for Problem-Solving in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Problem-Solving in the Midlands.

Daily rate trend for Problem-Solving in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the Midlands over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Midlands

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Problem-Solving in the Midlands.

Hourly rate trend for Problem-Solving in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the Midlands over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the Midlands

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

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 Midlands region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
West Midlands +7 243 £450 -10.63% 657
East Midlands +1 73 £373 +6.43% 485
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Midlands by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 12 (3.77%) SharePoint
2 9 (2.83%) Confluence
3 6 (1.89%) IIS
4 5 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (1.26%) Oracle Self-Service HR
5 4 (1.26%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.94%) IBM Notes
7 2 (0.63%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.63%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.31%) Apache
8 1 (0.31%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.31%) BizTalk Server
Applications
1 14 (4.40%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (3.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.94%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.31%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.31%) Final Cut Pro
5 1 (0.31%) Fusion 360
5 1 (0.31%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.31%) QuarkXPress
5 1 (0.31%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.31%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 4 (1.26%) Oracle HRMS
2 3 (0.94%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.63%) Exstream
3 2 (0.63%) Magento
3 2 (0.63%) Maximo
3 2 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.63%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.31%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 64 (20.13%) Azure
2 43 (13.52%) Power Platform
3 37 (11.64%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (8.49%) AWS
5 24 (7.55%) Entra ID
6 23 (7.23%) PowerApps
7 11 (3.46%) GCP
8 9 (2.83%) Power Automate
9 8 (2.52%) Serverless
9 8 (2.52%) SuccessFactors
10 7 (2.20%) Cloud Computing
10 7 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
10 7 (2.20%) OneDrive
10 7 (2.20%) SaaS
11 6 (1.89%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
11 6 (1.89%) Snowflake
12 5 (1.57%) Amazon Kinesis
12 5 (1.57%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (0.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.46%) Firewall
1 11 (3.46%) VPN
2 9 (2.83%) Network Security
3 7 (2.20%) BGP
4 6 (1.89%) OSPF
4 6 (1.89%) Remote Desktop
5 5 (1.57%) VLAN
6 4 (1.26%) IPsec
6 4 (1.26%) SSL
6 4 (1.26%) TCP/IP
6 4 (1.26%) WAN
7 3 (0.94%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.63%) Broadband
8 2 (0.63%) DHCP
8 2 (0.63%) DNS
8 2 (0.63%) EIGRP
8 2 (0.63%) Internet
8 2 (0.63%) LAN
8 2 (0.63%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.66%) Power BI
2 17 (5.35%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (4.09%) SQL Server
4 10 (3.14%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.89%) Data Lake
5 6 (1.89%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (1.89%) Oracle Database
6 4 (1.26%) Big Data
6 4 (1.26%) DynamoDB
6 4 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.94%) MySQL
7 3 (0.94%) Power Query
7 3 (0.94%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.94%) Tableau
8 2 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.63%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (0.63%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.63%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 17 (5.35%) JIRA
2 16 (5.03%) Jenkins
3 15 (4.72%) Git
4 8 (2.52%) GitLab
5 5 (1.57%) Selenium
6 4 (1.26%) JMeter
7 3 (0.94%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.94%) Postman
7 3 (0.94%) REST Assured
7 3 (0.94%) TestNG
7 3 (0.94%) Travis CI
8 2 (0.63%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.63%) Maven
8 2 (0.63%) NetBeans
9 1 (0.31%) ERwin
9 1 (0.31%) LabVIEW
9 1 (0.31%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.31%) Zephyr
General
1 202 (63.52%) Social Skills
2 124 (38.99%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (12.58%) Finance
4 22 (6.92%) Presentation Skills
5 14 (4.40%) Banking
5 14 (4.40%) Legal
6 13 (4.09%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (4.09%) Public Sector
7 8 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (2.20%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.89%) Advertising
9 6 (1.89%) Marketing
10 5 (1.57%) Games
10 5 (1.57%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.57%) Retail
11 4 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.94%) General Ledger
12 3 (0.94%) Local Government
13 2 (0.63%) Automotive
13 2 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 41 (12.89%) Analyst
2 31 (9.75%) Architect
2 31 (9.75%) Developer
3 27 (8.49%) Lead
4 20 (6.29%) Senior
5 18 (5.66%) Support Engineer
6 16 (5.03%) Data Engineer
7 13 (4.09%) Junior
7 13 (4.09%) Solutions Architect
8 12 (3.77%) Consultant
9 11 (3.46%) Business Analyst
9 11 (3.46%) Technical Leader
10 9 (2.83%) 2nd Line Support
10 9 (2.83%) Desktop Engineer
10 9 (2.83%) IT Analyst
10 9 (2.83%) IT Support
11 8 (2.52%) Project Manager
11 8 (2.52%) Windows Engineer
12 7 (2.20%) 1st Line Support
12 7 (2.20%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.03%) HTML
2 12 (3.77%) React
3 11 (3.46%) Middleware
3 11 (3.46%) RESTful
4 8 (2.52%) .NET
4 8 (2.52%) CSS
5 7 (2.20%) Kafka
6 6 (1.89%) SailPoint
7 5 (1.57%) REST
8 4 (1.26%) LDAP
8 4 (1.26%) Node.js
9 3 (0.94%) ActiveMQ
9 3 (0.94%) Apache Axis
9 3 (0.94%) ASP.NET
9 3 (0.94%) Web Services
10 2 (0.63%) .NET Framework
10 2 (0.63%) Ajax
10 2 (0.63%) Entity Framework
10 2 (0.63%) jQuery
10 2 (0.63%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 15 (4.72%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.77%) Data Protection Act
2 12 (3.77%) Onboarding
3 11 (3.46%) Security Posture
4 10 (3.14%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.83%) Driving Licence
5 9 (2.83%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.89%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.89%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.26%) Cloud Native
8 4 (1.26%) EPoS
8 4 (1.26%) Public Cloud
9 3 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (0.94%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (0.94%) IoT
10 2 (0.63%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (0.63%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.63%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (0.63%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 39 (12.26%) Windows
2 19 (5.97%) Windows 10
3 14 (4.40%) Linux
4 6 (1.89%) Android
5 5 (1.57%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.26%) Check Point GAiA
6 4 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.94%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.94%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.94%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.63%) AIX
8 2 (0.63%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (25.79%) Agile
2 40 (12.58%) DevOps
3 38 (11.95%) Project Management
4 36 (11.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 33 (10.38%) Continuous Improvement
6 32 (10.06%) Data Modelling
7 31 (9.75%) Computer Science
8 29 (9.12%) Migration
9 28 (8.81%) Process Improvement
10 27 (8.49%) Business Intelligence
10 27 (8.49%) CI/CD
11 26 (8.18%) Customer Service
12 25 (7.86%) ITIL
13 22 (6.92%) Decision-Making
14 19 (5.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 18 (5.66%) Data Integration
15 18 (5.66%) Project Delivery
15 18 (5.66%) Workflow
16 17 (5.35%) Technical Leadership
16 17 (5.35%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 59 (18.55%) SQL
2 37 (11.64%) Python
3 25 (7.86%) JavaScript
4 22 (6.92%) PowerShell
5 21 (6.60%) Java
6 12 (3.77%) C#
7 9 (2.83%) Bash
8 6 (1.89%) PHP
9 5 (1.57%) Ruby
10 4 (1.26%) Scala
10 4 (1.26%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.94%) C++
11 3 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.63%) C
12 2 (0.63%) Go
13 1 (0.31%) ABAP
13 1 (0.31%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.31%) Perl
13 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 57 (17.92%) Degree
2 49 (15.41%) Security Cleared
3 34 (10.69%) SC Cleared
4 21 (6.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.77%) CISSP
6 9 (2.83%) DV Cleared
7 7 (2.20%) CEH
8 6 (1.89%) AWS Certification
8 6 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.57%) Azure Certification
10 4 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (1.26%) CCSE
10 4 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.26%) CISM
10 4 (1.26%) PMI Certification
10 4 (1.26%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (0.94%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.94%) OCP
11 3 (0.94%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.94%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (9.12%) QA
2 15 (4.72%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.77%) SLA
4 9 (2.83%) GDPR
5 7 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.26%) NIST
6 4 (1.26%) PMO
7 3 (0.94%) Software Quality Assurance
8 2 (0.63%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.63%) MISRA
8 2 (0.63%) MISRA C
8 2 (0.63%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.31%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.31%) NCSC
9 1 (0.31%) PERC
9 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 42 (13.21%) Active Directory
2 18 (5.66%) Docker
3 6 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.63%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.63%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.31%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 17 (5.35%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.40%) SCCM
3 12 (3.77%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (2.83%) Terraform
5 7 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (1.89%) Ansible
7 5 (1.57%) FortiGate
8 4 (1.26%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.94%) AirWatch
9 3 (0.94%) Grafana
9 3 (0.94%) Kibana
9 3 (0.94%) Opsview
10 2 (0.63%) Tivoli
10 2 (0.63%) Tivoli Storage Manager
11 1 (0.31%) Podman
11 1 (0.31%) Rancher
11 1 (0.31%) SCOM
11 1 (0.31%) SELinux
11 1 (0.31%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 65 (20.44%) Microsoft
2 22 (6.92%) ServiceNow
3 19 (5.97%) Oracle
4 18 (5.66%) SAP
5 10 (3.14%) Cisco
5 10 (3.14%) CyberArk
6 7 (2.20%) VMware
7 5 (1.57%) Adobe
7 5 (1.57%) Apple
7 5 (1.57%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.26%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.26%) Databricks
8 4 (1.26%) Google
9 3 (0.94%) BT
9 3 (0.94%) Citrix
9 3 (0.94%) Denodo
9 3 (0.94%) Lotus
9 3 (0.94%) Nexthink
9 3 (0.94%) PagerDuty
9 3 (0.94%) Siemens