Problem-Solving Contracts in the South West

Problem Solving
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South West 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 7 11 31
Rank change year-on-year +4 +20 +1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 235 342 226
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 14.00% 10.69% 6.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.50% 12.88% 6.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 194 166
10th Percentile £211 £166 £200
25th Percentile £406 £300 £321
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -0.49%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £638
90th Percentile £666 £700 £718
England median daily rate £500 £512 £525
% change year-on-year -2.41% -2.41% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 47 20
10th Percentile £14.17 £12.50 £30.10
25th Percentile £17.13 £14.54 £50.91
Median hourly rate £38.56 £25.00 £56.29
Median % change year-on-year +54.25% -55.59% +12.13%
75th Percentile £64.69 £47.11 £73.61
90th Percentile £69.75 £57.40 £78.00
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
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,516 2,656 3,250
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 90.35% 83.03% 89.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 965 1,696 2,395
10th Percentile £235 £220 £313
25th Percentile £400 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £549
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.37% +9.80%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £644
90th Percentile £688 £700 £719
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 336 335
10th Percentile £18.33 £13.86 £9.80
25th Percentile £20.48 £27.50 £17.00
Median hourly rate £63.00 £50.00 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.00% -18.70% +26.16%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.30
90th Percentile £70.00 £77.50 £83.36
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 South West

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

Job vacancy trend for Problem-Solving in the South West

Problem-Solving
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

Daily rate trend for Problem-Solving in the South West

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

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

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the South West

Problem-Solving
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

Hourly rate trend for Problem-Solving in the South West

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

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

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the South West

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West 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
Wiltshire +9 82 £600 +26.32% 79
Bristol +14 61 £450 -12.20% 218
Gloucestershire 0 42 £425 -27.66% 193
Somerset -3 17 £563 +36.36% 97
Dorset -5 14 £400 +128.57% 47
Devon -6 9 £325 +94.03% 90
Cornwall -1 2 £423 +181.67% 15
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South West 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 (8.94%) Confluence
2 19 (8.09%) SharePoint
3 8 (3.40%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.43%) Apache
4 1 (0.43%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.43%) Appian
4 1 (0.43%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
4 1 (0.43%) CMS
4 1 (0.43%) IIS
4 1 (0.43%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.43%) Tomcat
Applications
1 14 (5.96%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.85%) InfoPath
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.43%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.43%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 2 (0.85%) BASE24
1 2 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.43%) Dynamics AX
2 1 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.43%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.43%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 38 (16.17%) Azure
2 23 (9.79%) AWS
3 21 (8.94%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (6.81%) SaaS
5 15 (6.38%) Power Platform
6 11 (4.68%) PaaS
7 9 (3.83%) GCP
8 8 (3.40%) Entra ID
9 4 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.70%) Power Automate
9 4 (1.70%) PowerApps
9 4 (1.70%) Snowflake
10 3 (1.28%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (0.85%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (0.85%) dbt
11 2 (0.85%) Figma
11 2 (0.85%) GitHub
11 2 (0.85%) Matillion
11 2 (0.85%) Serverless
12 1 (0.43%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (5.11%) VoIP
2 11 (4.68%) PBX
3 8 (3.40%) 5G
3 8 (3.40%) VPN
4 7 (2.98%) Firewall
5 6 (2.55%) DNS
5 6 (2.55%) WAN
6 5 (2.13%) DHCP
6 5 (2.13%) Network Security
7 4 (1.70%) 4G
7 4 (1.70%) LAN
7 4 (1.70%) VLAN
8 3 (1.28%) BGP
9 2 (0.85%) 2G
9 2 (0.85%) ATM
9 2 (0.85%) MPLS
9 2 (0.85%) OSPF
9 2 (0.85%) SAN
9 2 (0.85%) Unified Communications
9 2 (0.85%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (5.53%) Power BI
2 4 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (1.28%) NoSQL
3 3 (1.28%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (1.28%) SAP HANA
3 3 (1.28%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.85%) Metadata
4 2 (0.85%) NonStop SQL
5 1 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.43%) CockroachDB
5 1 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.43%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.43%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.43%) MySQL
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.43%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.43%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 25 (10.64%) JIRA
2 19 (8.09%) Git
3 12 (5.11%) Bitbucket
3 12 (5.11%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.70%) GitLab
5 2 (0.85%) Selenium
6 1 (0.43%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.43%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.43%) Gatling
6 1 (0.43%) JMeter
6 1 (0.43%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.43%) MLflow
6 1 (0.43%) Storybook
6 1 (0.43%) TestRail
6 1 (0.43%) VersaTest
6 1 (0.43%) Vite
6 1 (0.43%) webpack
General
1 140 (59.57%) Social Skills
2 96 (40.85%) Analytical Skills
3 27 (11.49%) Finance
4 21 (8.94%) Telecoms
5 19 (8.09%) Public Sector
6 14 (5.96%) Legal
7 13 (5.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (3.83%) Marketing
8 9 (3.83%) Presentation Skills
9 8 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (2.98%) Local Government
11 6 (2.55%) Manufacturing
12 5 (2.13%) Electronics
13 4 (1.70%) Billing
13 4 (1.70%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (1.70%) Retail
14 3 (1.28%) Banking
14 3 (1.28%) Military
15 2 (0.85%) Aerospace
15 2 (0.85%) Law
Job Titles
1 31 (13.19%) Analyst
2 21 (8.94%) Developer
3 14 (5.96%) Service Analyst
4 13 (5.53%) Lead
4 13 (5.53%) Project Manager
4 13 (5.53%) Senior
5 12 (5.11%) Administrator
5 12 (5.11%) Support Engineer
6 11 (4.68%) Capacity Manager
7 10 (4.26%) Architect
7 10 (4.26%) Availability Manager
7 10 (4.26%) Capacity and Availability Manager
8 9 (3.83%) Consultant
9 7 (2.98%) Business Analyst
9 7 (2.98%) DevOps Engineer
9 7 (2.98%) Report Analyst
9 7 (2.98%) Service Desk Analyst
10 6 (2.55%) Security Administrator
10 6 (2.55%) ServiceNow Developer
10 6 (2.55%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (6.38%) REST
2 12 (5.11%) SOAP
3 11 (4.68%) CSS
3 11 (4.68%) HTML
4 9 (3.83%) AngularJS
4 9 (3.83%) RESTful
5 8 (3.40%) Oracle Fusion
6 6 (2.55%) jQuery
6 6 (2.55%) React
7 3 (1.28%) .NET
7 3 (1.28%) CSS3
7 3 (1.28%) HTML5
7 3 (1.28%) Node.js
7 3 (1.28%) Web Services
8 2 (0.85%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.85%) Kafka
8 2 (0.85%) Vue
9 1 (0.43%) .NET Core
9 1 (0.43%) Redux
9 1 (0.43%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 25 (10.64%) Management Information System
2 13 (5.53%) Product Ownership
3 10 (4.26%) Video Conferencing
4 9 (3.83%) Blackberry
5 7 (2.98%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.98%) Mainframe
5 7 (2.98%) Self-Motivation
6 6 (2.55%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.70%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (1.70%) iPad
7 4 (1.70%) iPhone
7 4 (1.70%) PKI
8 3 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.28%) Security Posture
9 2 (0.85%) CMDB
9 2 (0.85%) Educational Technology
9 2 (0.85%) IBM Mainframe
9 2 (0.85%) Marketing Technology
9 2 (0.85%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (19.15%) Windows
2 24 (10.21%) Linux
3 19 (8.09%) Windows Server
4 8 (3.40%) Windows 10
5 6 (2.55%) zOS
6 3 (1.28%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.43%) Android
7 1 (0.43%) CentOS
7 1 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.43%) Solaris
7 1 (0.43%) Unix
7 1 (0.43%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (25.53%) Agile
2 48 (20.43%) ITIL
3 44 (18.72%) Service Management
4 36 (15.32%) Continuous Improvement
5 27 (11.49%) Project Management
6 25 (10.64%) Migration
6 25 (10.64%) Validation
7 24 (10.21%) Time Management
8 22 (9.36%) Decision-Making
9 21 (8.94%) CI/CD
9 21 (8.94%) Mentoring
10 20 (8.51%) Roadmaps
10 20 (8.51%) Scrum
10 20 (8.51%) Task Automation
11 19 (8.09%) Business Intelligence
11 19 (8.09%) Configuration Management
11 19 (8.09%) DevOps
11 19 (8.09%) Root Cause Analysis
11 19 (8.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 18 (7.66%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 32 (13.62%) Python
2 30 (12.77%) PowerShell
3 20 (8.51%) Bash
4 18 (7.66%) JavaScript
5 15 (6.38%) SQL
6 6 (2.55%) Java
7 4 (1.70%) TypeScript
8 2 (0.85%) C#
8 2 (0.85%) C++
8 2 (0.85%) COBOL
8 2 (0.85%) Go
8 2 (0.85%) Ruby
9 1 (0.43%) C
9 1 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.43%) Perl
9 1 (0.43%) PHP
9 1 (0.43%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.43%) X++
Qualifications
1 108 (45.96%) Security Cleared
2 93 (39.57%) SC Cleared
3 27 (11.49%) ITIL Certification
4 25 (10.64%) DV Cleared
5 23 (9.79%) CCNP
5 23 (9.79%) Cisco Certification
6 20 (8.51%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 14 (5.96%) Degree
8 10 (4.26%) OCA
8 10 (4.26%) Oracle Certification
8 10 (4.26%) RHCA
8 10 (4.26%) RHCE
9 7 (2.98%) A+ Certification
9 7 (2.98%) CISSP
9 7 (2.98%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (2.55%) IBM Certification
11 5 (2.13%) PMI Certification
11 5 (2.13%) PMP
12 4 (1.70%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.83%) QA
2 7 (2.98%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.70%) SLA
4 3 (1.28%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.28%) NIST
5 2 (0.85%) GDPR
6 1 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.43%) GRC
6 1 (0.43%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.43%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.43%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.43%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (14.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (10.64%) Active Directory
3 11 (4.68%) Docker
4 6 (2.55%) RACF
5 4 (1.70%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.85%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.43%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 22 (9.36%) Ansible
2 16 (6.81%) Puppet
3 13 (5.53%) Kubernetes
4 12 (5.11%) vCenter Server
5 11 (4.68%) Progress Chef
6 9 (3.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (3.83%) Terraform
7 7 (2.98%) SCCM
8 4 (1.70%) Amdocs OSS
8 4 (1.70%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (1.28%) Automic
9 3 (1.28%) Grafana
9 3 (1.28%) McAfee ePO
9 3 (1.28%) Norton AntiVirus
9 3 (1.28%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
10 2 (0.85%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
11 1 (0.43%) NetApp OnCommand
11 1 (0.43%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 52 (22.13%) Microsoft
2 34 (14.47%) VMware
3 28 (11.91%) Cisco
4 23 (9.79%) Oracle
5 17 (7.23%) Ericsson
5 17 (7.23%) Nokia
6 15 (6.38%) Juniper
6 15 (6.38%) SAP
7 14 (5.96%) Palo Alto
8 13 (5.53%) Atlassian
8 13 (5.53%) F5
9 12 (5.11%) ServiceNow
10 9 (3.83%) Avaya
10 9 (3.83%) Ribbon
11 7 (2.98%) McAfee
12 6 (2.55%) Ariba
12 6 (2.55%) Google
12 6 (2.55%) IBM
13 5 (2.13%) Red Hat
14 4 (1.70%) NetApp