Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends

Problem Solving
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -9 +5 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,178 4,971 4,630
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.54% 17.18% 10.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.45% 18.88% 12.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,017 3,077 2,813
10th Percentile £263 £250 £250
25th Percentile £385 £388 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £713 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £457 £469 £475
% change year-on-year -2.56% -1.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 391 262 424
10th Percentile £13.10 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £14.18 £15.50 £13.85
Median hourly rate £20.44 £22.14 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -7.68% +36.41% -69.03%
75th Percentile £40.38 £35.00 £34.06
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.23 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £20.87 £15.00
% change year-on-year -11.36% +39.13% -71.43%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 41,594 26,332 36,644
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.70% 91.01% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,970 16,762 23,491
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,502 1,133 2,525
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.53 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.68% -24.58% +1.39%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.29 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.09% -34.02% +8.91%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the UK

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving over the 6 months to 5 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving over the 6 months to 5 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK

Problem-Solving
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 5 June 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
England -9 4,427 £500 - 3,844
UK excluding London -5 2,765 £457 -2.56% 2,815
London -12 1,884 £520 +0.48% 1,459
Work from Home -5 1,458 £488 -2.50% 2,001
North of England -10 708 £450 -5.26% 708
South East -6 658 £488 -2.50% 787
Midlands -9 496 £463 +7.31% 431
West Midlands -10 351 £469 +4.22% 262
North West -9 335 £444 -9.20% 395
Yorkshire -7 333 £460 -3.16% 232
South West -3 316 £500 -4.76% 337
Scotland -3 278 £448 -3.76% 152
East of England -2 239 £450 -4.26% 305
East Midlands -2 144 £443 +20.41% 169
Wales -2 68 £413 +10.00% 62
North East -14 46 £375 -16.67% 93
Northern Ireland -4 24 £380 +4.83% 115
Channel Islands -4 1 - -

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 216 (4.17%) Confluence
2 149 (2.88%) SharePoint
3 84 (1.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 76 (1.47%) Apache Spark
5 48 (0.93%) Apache
5 48 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 42 (0.81%) SAS
7 32 (0.62%) CMS
8 24 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
9 13 (0.25%) nginx
10 12 (0.23%) WebLogic
11 11 (0.21%) CICS
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 8 (0.15%) Camunda
13 8 (0.15%) Tomcat
14 7 (0.14%) Jupyter
14 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
15 6 (0.12%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 6 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 298 (5.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 215 (4.15%) Microsoft Office
3 107 (2.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 70 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
5 69 (1.33%) MS Visio
6 32 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.44%) Chatbot
8 19 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 15 (0.29%) Sketch
10 10 (0.19%) AutoCAD
10 10 (0.19%) CATIA
11 8 (0.15%) Revit
12 7 (0.14%) Adobe XD
12 7 (0.14%) Trello
13 6 (0.12%) Photoshop
14 5 (0.097%) CPLEX
14 5 (0.097%) Maya
15 4 (0.077%) Acrobat
15 4 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
15 4 (0.077%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 127 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 18 (0.35%) Aladdin
4 18 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
5 17 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 15 (0.29%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.27%) SAP GRC
9 13 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.25%) Teamcenter
10 12 (0.23%) SAP SD
10 12 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 11 (0.21%) NEC Housing
12 9 (0.17%) iTrent
13 8 (0.15%) NetSuite
13 8 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
13 8 (0.15%) SAP FI
14 7 (0.14%) Loan IQ
14 7 (0.14%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 1,048 (20.24%) Azure
2 765 (14.77%) AWS
3 391 (7.55%) Power Platform
4 356 (6.88%) Microsoft 365
5 313 (6.04%) GCP
6 232 (4.48%) Azure DevOps
7 194 (3.75%) GitHub
8 166 (3.21%) Entra ID
9 134 (2.59%) Serverless
10 131 (2.53%) SaaS
11 97 (1.87%) GitHub Actions
12 81 (1.56%) Amazon S3
13 75 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
14 74 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
15 70 (1.35%) Snowflake
16 66 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
16 66 (1.27%) Power Automate
17 65 (1.26%) OpenShift
18 58 (1.12%) PowerApps
19 49 (0.95%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 195 (3.77%) DNS
2 163 (3.15%) Firewall
3 120 (2.32%) TCP/IP
4 112 (2.16%) VPN
5 108 (2.09%) WAN
6 103 (1.99%) DHCP
7 86 (1.66%) Network Security
8 82 (1.58%) SAN
9 81 (1.56%) LAN
10 68 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
11 52 (1.00%) VLAN
12 47 (0.91%) BGP
13 44 (0.85%) SD-WAN
14 42 (0.81%) OSPF
15 33 (0.64%) VoIP
15 33 (0.64%) Wireless
16 28 (0.54%) VXLAN
17 26 (0.50%) MPLS
18 23 (0.44%) Internet
18 23 (0.44%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 303 (5.85%) Power BI
2 198 (3.82%) SQL Server
3 150 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
4 135 (2.61%) Relational Database
5 129 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
6 103 (1.99%) Metadata
7 99 (1.91%) MongoDB
8 85 (1.64%) Tableau
9 84 (1.62%) NoSQL
10 79 (1.53%) Data Lake
11 73 (1.41%) Big Data
12 54 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
13 51 (0.98%) Oracle Database
14 48 (0.93%) MySQL
15 47 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 36 (0.70%) Hadoop
17 29 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
18 28 (0.54%) Delta Lake
19 27 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
19 27 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 496 (9.58%) JIRA
2 288 (5.56%) Git
3 172 (3.32%) Jenkins
4 125 (2.41%) GitLab
5 67 (1.29%) Selenium
6 40 (0.77%) Postman
7 31 (0.60%) REST Assured
8 27 (0.52%) Cucumber
9 26 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 22 (0.42%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.42%) JUnit
11 17 (0.33%) JMeter
11 17 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
11 17 (0.33%) WebDriver
12 16 (0.31%) Mockito
12 16 (0.31%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.27%) Maven
13 14 (0.27%) Zephyr
14 12 (0.23%) Gatling
15 11 (0.21%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 2,706 (52.26%) Social Skills
2 2,019 (38.99%) Analytical Skills
3 1,203 (23.23%) Finance
4 476 (9.19%) Public Sector
5 396 (7.65%) Banking
6 215 (4.15%) Organisational Skills
7 188 (3.63%) Retail
8 183 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
9 149 (2.88%) Legal
10 127 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 105 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
12 104 (2.01%) Manufacturing
13 103 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
14 102 (1.97%) Front Office
15 92 (1.78%) Marketing
16 89 (1.72%) Telecoms
17 81 (1.56%) Investment Banking
18 75 (1.45%) Back Office
19 62 (1.20%) Law
20 55 (1.06%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 724 (13.98%) Analyst
2 576 (11.12%) Developer
3 437 (8.44%) Senior
4 362 (6.99%) Architect
5 330 (6.37%) Lead
6 286 (5.52%) Business Analyst
7 255 (4.92%) Consultant
8 231 (4.46%) Data Engineer
9 185 (3.57%) Project Manager
10 154 (2.97%) IT Support
11 151 (2.92%) Support Engineer
12 122 (2.36%) Data Analyst
13 110 (2.12%) Administrator
14 109 (2.11%) IT Engineer
15 103 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
16 99 (1.91%) Java Developer
17 97 (1.87%) Software Engineer
18 94 (1.82%) Network Engineer
19 89 (1.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
20 81 (1.56%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 304 (5.87%) REST
2 157 (3.03%) .NET
3 145 (2.80%) Kafka
4 136 (2.63%) SOAP
5 135 (2.61%) React
6 129 (2.49%) RESTful
7 124 (2.39%) CSS
7 124 (2.39%) Spring
8 113 (2.18%) HTML
9 102 (1.97%) Middleware
10 95 (1.83%) JSON
11 91 (1.76%) AngularJS
11 91 (1.76%) Spring Boot
12 90 (1.74%) LDAP
12 90 (1.74%) Node.js
13 85 (1.64%) XML
14 76 (1.47%) PySpark
15 61 (1.18%) Web Services
16 55 (1.06%) OAuth
17 47 (0.91%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 253 (4.89%) Product Ownership
2 235 (4.54%) Onboarding
3 206 (3.98%) Cloud Native
4 204 (3.94%) Data Centre
5 170 (3.28%) Self-Motivation
6 148 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 138 (2.67%) Management Information System
8 130 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
9 121 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
10 120 (2.32%) Data Protection Act
11 117 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
12 112 (2.16%) Virtual Team
13 94 (1.82%) Data Structures
14 72 (1.39%) Security Posture
15 69 (1.33%) Driving Licence
16 63 (1.22%) Algorithms
17 59 (1.14%) AI Agents
18 51 (0.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
19 47 (0.91%) Mobile App
20 46 (0.89%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 627 (12.11%) Windows
2 283 (5.47%) Linux
3 118 (2.28%) Windows Server
4 114 (2.20%) Windows 10
5 103 (1.99%) Unix
6 89 (1.72%) Android
7 86 (1.66%) Apple iOS
8 85 (1.64%) Mac OS
9 51 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.39%) Ubuntu
11 14 (0.27%) CentOS
11 14 (0.27%) VMS
12 13 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
13 10 (0.19%) zOS
14 9 (0.17%) Windows 7
15 8 (0.15%) Mac OS X
16 6 (0.12%) Solaris
17 5 (0.097%) Debian
17 5 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
18 4 (0.077%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,372 (26.50%) Agile
2 839 (16.20%) CI/CD
3 830 (16.03%) Continuous Improvement
4 770 (14.87%) Stakeholder Management
5 761 (14.70%) DevOps
6 582 (11.24%) AI
7 570 (11.01%) Decision-Making
8 554 (10.70%) Migration
9 546 (10.54%) Analytics
10 468 (9.04%) Customer Service
11 464 (8.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 442 (8.54%) ITIL
13 437 (8.44%) Data Modelling
14 421 (8.13%) Project Management
15 418 (8.07%) Validation
16 398 (7.69%) Business Intelligence
17 382 (7.38%) Test Automation
18 356 (6.88%) Scrum
19 338 (6.53%) Change Management
20 306 (5.91%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 917 (17.71%) Python
2 900 (17.38%) SQL
3 401 (7.74%) Java
4 323 (6.24%) PowerShell
5 263 (5.08%) JavaScript
6 195 (3.77%) C#
7 137 (2.65%) TypeScript
8 110 (2.12%) Bash
9 74 (1.43%) C++
10 72 (1.39%) PL/SQL
11 53 (1.02%) Shell Script
12 44 (0.85%) Go
13 38 (0.73%) C
14 37 (0.71%) R
15 35 (0.68%) Perl
15 35 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 33 (0.64%) Bicep
17 32 (0.62%) Apex Code
18 31 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 29 (0.56%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,100 (21.24%) Security Cleared
2 747 (14.43%) SC Cleared
3 625 (12.07%) Degree
4 194 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 189 (3.65%) DV Cleared
6 162 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 140 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
8 135 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 94 (1.82%) CISSP
10 84 (1.62%) PMP
11 78 (1.51%) CCNA
12 76 (1.47%) PMI Certification
13 75 (1.45%) A+ Certification
14 71 (1.37%) Master's Degree
15 67 (1.29%) Network+ Certification
16 65 (1.26%) Azure Certification
17 63 (1.22%) CISM
18 59 (1.14%) MCSE
19 44 (0.85%) CCNP
20 40 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 340 (6.57%) Data Quality
2 270 (5.21%) QA
3 148 (2.86%) GDPR
4 121 (2.34%) Accessibility
5 94 (1.82%) SLA
6 92 (1.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 84 (1.62%) PMO
8 75 (1.45%) NIST
9 54 (1.04%) GRC
10 28 (0.54%) WCAG
11 26 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
11 26 (0.50%) PCI DSS
12 24 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
14 16 (0.31%) COBIT
15 15 (0.29%) NCSC
16 14 (0.27%) PSD2
17 13 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
18 12 (0.23%) HL7
18 12 (0.23%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 390 (7.53%) Active Directory
2 316 (6.10%) Docker
3 108 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.81%) vSphere
5 39 (0.75%) VMware NSX
6 33 (0.64%) Hyper-V
7 32 (0.62%) VMware ESXi
8 26 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
9 22 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
10 21 (0.41%) Firmware
11 19 (0.37%) vCloud
12 11 (0.21%) Squid
13 7 (0.14%) IAG
13 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.077%) ACF2
14 4 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.077%) NFS
14 4 (0.077%) RACF
14 4 (0.077%) Snort
15 3 (0.058%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 390 (7.53%) Kubernetes
2 270 (5.21%) Terraform
3 172 (3.32%) Ansible
4 134 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 109 (2.11%) Grafana
6 92 (1.78%) Prometheus
7 80 (1.54%) SCCM
8 49 (0.95%) vCenter Server
9 42 (0.81%) FortiGate
9 42 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
10 25 (0.48%) Kibana
11 23 (0.44%) Control-M
12 22 (0.42%) Nessus
13 21 (0.41%) Argo
14 19 (0.37%) Puppet
15 17 (0.33%) IBM Guardium
15 17 (0.33%) SCOM
16 15 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 14 (0.27%) WSUS
18 11 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 960 (18.54%) Microsoft
2 334 (6.45%) Oracle
3 303 (5.85%) SAP
4 265 (5.12%) ServiceNow
5 179 (3.46%) VMware
6 150 (2.90%) Google
7 144 (2.78%) Databricks
8 126 (2.43%) Cisco
8 126 (2.43%) Splunk
9 114 (2.20%) Salesforce
10 80 (1.54%) Dell
11 69 (1.33%) CyberArk
12 67 (1.29%) Workday
13 62 (1.20%) Adobe
13 62 (1.20%) BeyondTrust
14 60 (1.16%) Red Hat
15 52 (1.00%) Citrix
16 47 (0.91%) F5
16 47 (0.91%) Palo Alto
17 46 (0.89%) Dynatrace