Problem-Solving Contracts in the South East

Problem Solving
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East 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 29 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 10 10
Rank change year-on-year +7 0 +9
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 539 596 600
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 18.45% 10.67% 10.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.20% 12.77% 12.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 337 346 405
10th Percentile £220 £205 £240
25th Percentile £375 £313 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £510
Median % change year-on-year +4.28% -5.98% +7.37%
75th Percentile £588 £619 £614
90th Percentile £638 £688 £700
England median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 72 43
10th Percentile £13.99 £11.82 £26.56
25th Percentile £14.20 £13.05 £51.25
Median hourly rate £18.82 £19.81 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.97% -65.56% +21.05%
75th Percentile £28.00 £60.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £42.30 £72.54 £75.00
England median hourly rate £21.39 £16.23 £50.75
% change year-on-year +31.79% -68.02% +111.46%

All Process and Methodology Skills
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,668 4,666 4,983
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 91.34% 83.55% 89.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,716 2,714 3,430
10th Percentile £250 £255 £249
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +1.95% +0.05%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £619
90th Percentile £656 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 446 214
10th Percentile £13.25 £13.00 £16.24
25th Percentile £15.00 £18.23 £22.16
Median hourly rate £27.76 £47.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.56% -5.00% +127.79%
75th Percentile £62.37 £62.50 £64.91
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.93 £75.00
England median hourly rate £28.00 £37.18 £37.32
% change year-on-year -24.69% -0.38% +49.28%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Job vacancy trend for Problem-Solving in the South East

Problem-Solving
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

Daily rate trend for Problem-Solving in the South East

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the South East over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the South East

Problem-Solving
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

Hourly rate trend for Problem-Solving in the South East

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the South East over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the South East

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the South East

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 South East region over the 6 months to 29 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
Thames Valley +6 324 £500 +6.39% 2,541
Berkshire +4 236 £502 -4.38% 1,546
Hampshire +8 106 £500 -10.31% 1,026
Buckinghamshire +10 53 £375 -11.76% 625
Surrey +6 50 £450 -14.29% 636
Oxfordshire +2 37 £360 +29.00% 413
West Sussex +7 29 £444 -1.39% 353
Kent +6 18 £220 -56.00% 604
East Sussex +3 14 £450 +29.96% 311
Home Counties +2 3 £490 +3.16%
Sussex +5 1 - - 97
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East 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 21 (3.90%) Confluence
2 16 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.30%) Apache
4 7 (1.30%) IIS
5 5 (0.93%) BizTalk Server
5 5 (0.93%) CMS
6 4 (0.74%) Anypoint
6 4 (0.74%) Mule
6 4 (0.74%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.56%) Mule ESB
7 3 (0.56%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.37%) Apache Solr
8 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.37%) NetWeaver
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle Service Bus
8 2 (0.37%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.19%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.19%) Umbraco
Applications
1 40 (7.42%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (4.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.74%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.56%) Adobe Captivate
6 2 (0.37%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.37%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.37%) Revit
7 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.19%) CATIA
7 1 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 27 (5.01%) Oracle EBS
2 18 (3.34%) Oracle EBS R12
3 12 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
4 11 (2.04%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 10 (1.86%) Maximo
5 10 (1.86%) Oracle ASCP
6 4 (0.74%) Oracle ERP
6 4 (0.74%) Oracle Financials
7 3 (0.56%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle iProcurement
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
9 1 (0.19%) SAP EWM
9 1 (0.19%) SAP GTS
Cloud Services
1 109 (20.22%) Azure
2 70 (12.99%) AWS
3 33 (6.12%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (2.97%) GCP
6 15 (2.78%) Entra ID
7 14 (2.60%) Power Platform
8 10 (1.86%) Google Workspace
9 9 (1.67%) Cloud Computing
9 9 (1.67%) GitHub
9 9 (1.67%) OCI
9 9 (1.67%) SaaS
10 8 (1.48%) Azure AKS
11 7 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.30%) IaaS
11 7 (1.30%) Serverless
11 7 (1.30%) Snowflake
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.93%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.94%) Firewall
1 32 (5.94%) LAN
1 32 (5.94%) VPN
2 26 (4.82%) WAN
3 20 (3.71%) MPLS
4 18 (3.34%) Wireshark
5 17 (3.15%) ATM
5 17 (3.15%) Ethernet
5 17 (3.15%) Frame Relay
5 17 (3.15%) LTE
5 17 (3.15%) SAN
5 17 (3.15%) SDH
6 16 (2.97%) GPRS
6 16 (2.97%) GSM
6 16 (2.97%) UMTS
7 13 (2.41%) Network Security
8 12 (2.23%) DNS
9 11 (2.04%) Wireless
10 10 (1.86%) DHCP
10 10 (1.86%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (4.08%) SQL Server
2 20 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (2.04%) Power BI
4 9 (1.67%) MySQL
5 8 (1.48%) Data Lake
5 8 (1.48%) NoSQL
5 8 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (1.30%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.93%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.93%) Oracle Database
7 5 (0.93%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (0.74%) Big Data
8 4 (0.74%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.74%) MS Access
8 4 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.56%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.56%) Metadata
9 3 (0.56%) SSDT
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 51 (9.46%) JIRA
2 16 (2.97%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.78%) Git
3 15 (2.78%) Visual Studio
4 14 (2.60%) Selenium
5 12 (2.23%) GitLab
6 7 (1.30%) Cucumber
6 7 (1.30%) TestRail
7 5 (0.93%) REST Assured
7 5 (0.93%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.74%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.74%) GoogleTest
8 4 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.56%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.56%) Snyk
10 2 (0.37%) MSI
10 2 (0.37%) QARun
10 2 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.37%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.37%) WinRunner
General
1 333 (61.78%) Social Skills
2 179 (33.21%) Analytical Skills
3 67 (12.43%) Finance
4 38 (7.05%) Telecoms
5 33 (6.12%) Manufacturing
6 30 (5.57%) Organisational Skills
7 25 (4.64%) Public Sector
8 12 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.04%) Marketing
9 11 (2.04%) Retail
10 10 (1.86%) Legal
11 8 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.93%) Electronics
13 5 (0.93%) Law
14 4 (0.74%) Agriculture
14 4 (0.74%) Automotive
14 4 (0.74%) Portuguese Language
15 3 (0.56%) Banking
Job Titles
1 57 (10.58%) Analyst
1 57 (10.58%) Developer
2 41 (7.61%) Architect
3 36 (6.68%) Consultant
4 34 (6.31%) Lead
5 30 (5.57%) Network Engineer
5 30 (5.57%) Support Engineer
6 29 (5.38%) Senior
7 23 (4.27%) Project Manager
8 21 (3.90%) IT Support
9 18 (3.34%) Oracle Consultant
10 17 (3.15%) IT Engineer
11 16 (2.97%) DevOps Engineer
12 15 (2.78%) Functional Consultant
12 15 (2.78%) IP Engineer
12 15 (2.78%) Oracle Functional Consultant
13 14 (2.60%) Administrator
13 14 (2.60%) Delphi Developer
13 14 (2.60%) Test Engineer
14 13 (2.41%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (4.08%) REST
2 20 (3.71%) Web Services
3 16 (2.97%) JSON
4 15 (2.78%) React
5 14 (2.60%) RESTful
6 12 (2.23%) HTML
7 11 (2.04%) XML
8 10 (1.86%) .NET
8 10 (1.86%) CSS
8 10 (1.86%) SOAP
9 9 (1.67%) OAuth
10 6 (1.11%) ARM Templates
10 6 (1.11%) Java EE
10 6 (1.11%) Kafka
10 6 (1.11%) Middleware
11 5 (0.93%) Oracle Fusion
11 5 (0.93%) YAML
12 4 (0.74%) GraphQL
12 4 (0.74%) Playwright
12 4 (0.74%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 36 (6.68%) Self-Motivation
2 20 (3.71%) Data Centre
3 19 (3.53%) Onboarding
4 18 (3.34%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.78%) Life Science
6 14 (2.60%) Cloud Native
6 14 (2.60%) Product Ownership
7 12 (2.23%) Renewable Energy
8 11 (2.04%) Algorithms
9 10 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (1.48%) CMDB
10 8 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
10 8 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
10 8 (1.48%) PKI
11 7 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (1.30%) iPad
11 7 (1.30%) iPhone
11 7 (1.30%) Security Posture
12 6 (1.11%) CSOC
12 6 (1.11%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 102 (18.92%) Windows
2 46 (8.53%) Linux
3 22 (4.08%) Unix
4 18 (3.34%) Windows Server
5 17 (3.15%) Windows 10
6 9 (1.67%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 6 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.93%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (0.56%) Android
9 3 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.37%) CentOS
11 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.19%) VMS
11 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.19%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (19.11%) Agile
2 67 (12.43%) Migration
3 63 (11.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 60 (11.13%) Project Management
5 59 (10.95%) DevOps
6 50 (9.28%) Customer Service
7 43 (7.98%) ITIL
8 41 (7.61%) Collaborative Working
9 40 (7.42%) CI/CD
9 40 (7.42%) Continuous Improvement
9 40 (7.42%) Validation
10 36 (6.68%) Time Management
11 35 (6.49%) Computer Science
11 35 (6.49%) Test Automation
12 31 (5.75%) Root Cause Analysis
13 28 (5.19%) Data Modelling
13 28 (5.19%) Test Strategy
14 27 (5.01%) Analytics
14 27 (5.01%) Change Management
14 27 (5.01%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 95 (17.63%) SQL
2 56 (10.39%) Python
3 49 (9.09%) Java
4 36 (6.68%) PowerShell
5 30 (5.57%) C#
6 25 (4.64%) PL/SQL
7 19 (3.53%) JavaScript
8 14 (2.60%) Delphi
9 11 (2.04%) C++
10 10 (1.86%) Bash
11 6 (1.11%) Bicep
12 5 (0.93%) TypeScript
12 5 (0.93%) VB
13 4 (0.74%) Perl
13 4 (0.74%) PHP
13 4 (0.74%) Scala
14 3 (0.56%) DataWeave
14 3 (0.56%) Ruby
14 3 (0.56%) Shell Script
15 2 (0.37%) Korn
Qualifications
1 97 (18.00%) Security Cleared
2 64 (11.87%) Degree
3 60 (11.13%) SC Cleared
4 33 (6.12%) Cisco Certification
5 32 (5.94%) CCNP
6 27 (5.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (5.01%) DV Cleared
7 19 (3.53%) ISTQB
8 17 (3.15%) Master's Degree
9 16 (2.97%) CISSP
9 16 (2.97%) ISEB
9 16 (2.97%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 12 (2.23%) CCNA
11 11 (2.04%) ITIL Certification
11 11 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
11 11 (2.04%) PMI Certification
11 11 (2.04%) PMP
12 10 (1.86%) CISM
13 7 (1.30%) A+ Certification
13 7 (1.30%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (6.12%) QA
2 23 (4.27%) Data Quality
2 23 (4.27%) SLA
3 19 (3.53%) GDPR
4 11 (2.04%) NIST
5 10 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.48%) HIPAA
7 6 (1.11%) Accessibility
8 5 (0.93%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.74%) PMBOK
10 3 (0.56%) NCSC
11 2 (0.37%) COBIT
11 2 (0.37%) WCAG
12 1 (0.19%) ARP4754
12 1 (0.19%) COSO
12 1 (0.19%) GRC
12 1 (0.19%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.19%) ITGC
12 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.19%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 41 (7.61%) Active Directory
2 16 (2.97%) Docker
3 12 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.93%) vSphere
5 4 (0.74%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.37%) NFS
7 2 (0.37%) XenApp
8 1 (0.19%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 26 (4.82%) Terraform
2 21 (3.90%) Kubernetes
3 16 (2.97%) Ansible
4 9 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
5 8 (1.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (1.30%) SCCM
7 5 (0.93%) Docker Swarm
7 5 (0.93%) Podman
8 4 (0.74%) FortiGate
8 4 (0.74%) NetBackup
8 4 (0.74%) SCOM
9 3 (0.56%) CloudHub
9 3 (0.56%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.56%) Puppet
10 2 (0.37%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.37%) Grafana
10 2 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.37%) vRealize
10 2 (0.37%) vRealize Orchestrator
10 2 (0.37%) WMI
Vendors
1 132 (24.49%) Microsoft
2 60 (11.13%) Oracle
3 34 (6.31%) SAP
4 32 (5.94%) Cisco
5 29 (5.38%) ServiceNow
6 27 (5.01%) Juniper
7 22 (4.08%) Google
8 18 (3.34%) VMware
9 13 (2.41%) Citrix
10 11 (2.04%) Dell
11 9 (1.67%) HP
11 9 (1.67%) IBM
12 8 (1.48%) Red Hat
13 7 (1.30%) MobileIron
13 7 (1.30%) Nexthink
14 6 (1.11%) Adobe
14 6 (1.11%) CyberArk
14 6 (1.11%) Databricks
15 5 (0.93%) Salesforce
15 5 (0.93%) Splunk