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 25 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -4 +5 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,312 4,967 4,783
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.39% 16.83% 10.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.45% 18.53% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,216 3,106 2,947
10th Percentile £274 £250 £225
25th Percentile £385 £399 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -0.20% -4.57%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £716 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 244 407
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.48 £11.04
25th Percentile £14.83 £16.26 £13.84
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.94 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.36% +31.07% -60.10%
75th Percentile £51.27 £41.25 £35.36
90th Percentile £74.64 £67.05 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.25 £21.46 £15.00
% change year-on-year -14.96% +43.07% -58.68%

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 39,506 26,799 37,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.73% 90.79% 86.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,946 17,322 24,335
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.72% -0.05% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £487 £500
% change year-on-year -0.36% -2.65% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,360 1,068 2,432
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £29.07 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.60% -16.94% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £58.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.86 £28.00 £35.58
% change year-on-year +49.48% -21.29% -4.62%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 25 April 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 -4 4,555 £490 -2.00% 2,586
UK excluding London -5 2,785 £460 -2.13% 2,343
London -10 1,963 £513 -2.38% 665
Work from Home 0 1,515 £475 -5.00% 1,558
North of England -5 768 £447 -5.89% 536
South East -5 665 £488 -2.50% 709
Midlands -5 500 £450 +1.98% 417
North West -6 365 £402 -17.28% 302
Yorkshire -5 358 £455 -4.16% 164
West Midlands -6 339 £475 +5.56% 240
South West -1 319 £500 - 269
Scotland -2 253 £431 -4.17% 125
East of England -4 206 £450 - 251
East Midlands 0 160 £434 +17.48% 177
Wales 0 69 £395 +19.27% 52
North East -4 52 £425 -16.67% 79
Northern Ireland -1 27 £430 +22.86% 59
Channel Islands -5 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
1 215 (4.05%) Confluence
2 141 (2.65%) SharePoint
3 94 (1.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 90 (1.69%) Apache Spark
5 65 (1.22%) Apache
6 49 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
7 48 (0.90%) SAS
8 30 (0.56%) CMS
9 19 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 13 (0.24%) nginx
10 13 (0.24%) WebLogic
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.13%) Camunda
12 7 (0.13%) CICS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.094%) JBoss
Applications
1 307 (5.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 226 (4.25%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 80 (1.51%) Microsoft Project
5 73 (1.37%) MS Visio
6 32 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.43%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.21%) Sketch
9 9 (0.17%) Adobe XD
10 7 (0.13%) CATIA
10 7 (0.13%) Photoshop
10 7 (0.13%) Trello
11 6 (0.11%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.094%) Acrobat
12 5 (0.094%) Maya
13 4 (0.075%) InDesign
13 4 (0.075%) InVision
13 4 (0.075%) Revit
13 4 (0.075%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 110 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 20 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
5 19 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 16 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 15 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
8 14 (0.26%) NEC Housing
8 14 (0.26%) Workday HCM
9 13 (0.24%) SAP ERP
9 13 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.19%) Teamcenter
12 9 (0.17%) iTrent
12 9 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
12 9 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
12 9 (0.17%) Shopify
13 8 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
13 8 (0.15%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,093 (20.58%) Azure
2 826 (15.55%) AWS
3 394 (7.42%) Power Platform
4 357 (6.72%) GCP
5 345 (6.49%) Microsoft 365
6 245 (4.61%) Azure DevOps
7 226 (4.25%) GitHub
8 171 (3.22%) Entra ID
9 164 (3.09%) Serverless
10 128 (2.41%) SaaS
11 117 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
12 105 (1.98%) Amazon S3
13 95 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
15 75 (1.41%) OpenShift
15 75 (1.41%) Snowflake
16 74 (1.39%) Azure Data Factory
17 72 (1.36%) Power Automate
18 59 (1.11%) PowerApps
19 55 (1.04%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 186 (3.50%) DNS
1 186 (3.50%) Firewall
2 120 (2.26%) TCP/IP
3 110 (2.07%) VPN
4 108 (2.03%) Network Security
5 102 (1.92%) WAN
6 99 (1.86%) DHCP
7 78 (1.47%) LAN
8 72 (1.36%) SAN
9 64 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
10 50 (0.94%) BGP
11 46 (0.87%) VLAN
12 43 (0.81%) OSPF
13 37 (0.70%) SD-WAN
14 35 (0.66%) VoIP
15 26 (0.49%) Internet
15 26 (0.49%) MPLS
15 26 (0.49%) VXLAN
16 25 (0.47%) Wireless
17 21 (0.40%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 313 (5.89%) Power BI
2 200 (3.77%) SQL Server
3 164 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
4 138 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
5 133 (2.50%) Relational Database
6 117 (2.20%) Metadata
7 93 (1.75%) MongoDB
7 93 (1.75%) Tableau
8 88 (1.66%) NoSQL
9 86 (1.62%) Big Data
10 80 (1.51%) Data Lake
11 64 (1.20%) MySQL
12 63 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
13 55 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 49 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 45 (0.85%) Hadoop
16 35 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
17 32 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
17 32 (0.60%) DynamoDB
18 30 (0.56%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 504 (9.49%) JIRA
2 307 (5.78%) Git
3 211 (3.97%) Jenkins
4 142 (2.67%) GitLab
5 70 (1.32%) Selenium
6 41 (0.77%) Postman
7 32 (0.60%) Cucumber
8 31 (0.58%) JUnit
9 29 (0.55%) Bitbucket
10 25 (0.47%) REST Assured
11 22 (0.41%) Cypress.io
11 22 (0.41%) JMeter
12 21 (0.40%) Maven
13 19 (0.36%) Mockito
14 18 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
15 17 (0.32%) SonarQube
15 17 (0.32%) WebDriver
16 14 (0.26%) CircleCI
16 14 (0.26%) SpecFlow
16 14 (0.26%) Zephyr
General
1 2,782 (52.37%) Social Skills
2 2,039 (38.38%) Analytical Skills
3 1,234 (23.23%) Finance
4 516 (9.71%) Public Sector
5 411 (7.74%) Banking
6 223 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
7 185 (3.48%) Retail
8 182 (3.43%) Documentation Skills
9 160 (3.01%) Legal
10 138 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
11 130 (2.45%) Presentation Skills
12 122 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.81%) Telecoms
14 95 (1.79%) Front Office
15 88 (1.66%) Manufacturing
16 87 (1.64%) Marketing
17 75 (1.41%) Investment Banking
18 58 (1.09%) Financial Institution
19 57 (1.07%) Back Office
20 53 (1.00%) Military
Job Titles
1 734 (13.82%) Analyst
2 660 (12.42%) Developer
3 458 (8.62%) Senior
4 378 (7.12%) Architect
5 337 (6.34%) Lead
6 302 (5.69%) Business Analyst
7 272 (5.12%) Consultant
8 232 (4.37%) Data Engineer
9 205 (3.86%) Project Manager
10 128 (2.41%) Support Engineer
11 126 (2.37%) IT Support
12 125 (2.35%) Java Developer
13 117 (2.20%) Data Analyst
14 105 (1.98%) Administrator
15 104 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
16 92 (1.73%) Software Engineer
17 90 (1.69%) IT Engineer
18 88 (1.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 86 (1.62%) Network Engineer
20 78 (1.47%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 314 (5.91%) REST
2 163 (3.07%) Kafka
3 149 (2.80%) SOAP
4 147 (2.77%) .NET
5 146 (2.75%) RESTful
6 140 (2.64%) Spring
7 132 (2.48%) React
8 128 (2.41%) Node.js
9 114 (2.15%) CSS
10 110 (2.07%) HTML
11 108 (2.03%) AngularJS
12 106 (2.00%) Spring Boot
13 103 (1.94%) JSON
14 95 (1.79%) LDAP
15 92 (1.73%) XML
16 90 (1.69%) Middleware
17 78 (1.47%) OAuth
18 72 (1.36%) PySpark
19 58 (1.09%) Oracle Fusion
20 54 (1.02%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 273 (5.14%) Product Ownership
2 221 (4.16%) Onboarding
3 217 (4.09%) Cloud Native
4 180 (3.39%) Data Centre
5 158 (2.97%) Management Information System
6 151 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
7 142 (2.67%) Analytical Mindset
8 113 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
9 112 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
10 111 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
11 110 (2.07%) Data Structures
12 106 (2.00%) Virtual Team
13 102 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
14 70 (1.32%) Driving Licence
14 70 (1.32%) Security Posture
15 63 (1.19%) Algorithms
16 60 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
16 60 (1.13%) Mobile App
17 53 (1.00%) AI Agents
18 52 (0.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 584 (10.99%) Windows
2 311 (5.85%) Linux
3 112 (2.11%) Windows 10
4 102 (1.92%) Windows Server
5 99 (1.86%) Unix
6 89 (1.68%) Android
7 79 (1.49%) Apple iOS
8 69 (1.30%) Mac OS
9 55 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.38%) VMS
11 19 (0.36%) Ubuntu
12 14 (0.26%) CentOS
13 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
14 9 (0.17%) zOS
15 8 (0.15%) Mac OS X
15 8 (0.15%) Windows 7
16 6 (0.11%) Debian
16 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 4 (0.075%) AIX
17 4 (0.075%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,477 (27.80%) Agile
2 906 (17.06%) CI/CD
3 812 (15.29%) DevOps
4 802 (15.10%) Continuous Improvement
5 778 (14.65%) Stakeholder Management
6 608 (11.45%) Analytics
7 582 (10.96%) Decision-Making
8 576 (10.84%) Migration
9 571 (10.75%) AI
10 469 (8.83%) Project Management
11 458 (8.62%) Data Modelling
11 458 (8.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 427 (8.04%) Validation
13 418 (7.87%) Business Intelligence
14 417 (7.85%) Customer Service
15 397 (7.47%) Test Automation
16 394 (7.42%) ITIL
17 376 (7.08%) Change Management
18 375 (7.06%) Scrum
19 345 (6.49%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 976 (18.37%) Python
2 924 (17.39%) SQL
3 455 (8.57%) Java
4 329 (6.19%) PowerShell
5 284 (5.35%) JavaScript
6 199 (3.75%) C#
7 174 (3.28%) TypeScript
8 129 (2.43%) Bash
9 85 (1.60%) PL/SQL
10 66 (1.24%) C++
11 64 (1.20%) Shell Script
12 53 (1.00%) Go
13 46 (0.87%) R
14 42 (0.79%) Bicep
15 38 (0.72%) C
16 36 (0.68%) Apex Code
16 36 (0.68%) Perl
17 35 (0.66%) Scala
17 35 (0.66%) T-SQL
18 30 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,145 (21.55%) Security Cleared
2 799 (15.04%) SC Cleared
3 652 (12.27%) Degree
4 222 (4.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 189 (3.56%) DV Cleared
6 177 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 121 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
8 115 (2.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 100 (1.88%) CISSP
10 92 (1.73%) PMP
11 88 (1.66%) PMI Certification
12 84 (1.58%) Master's Degree
13 68 (1.28%) Azure Certification
14 64 (1.20%) CISM
15 62 (1.17%) CCNA
16 60 (1.13%) A+ Certification
17 54 (1.02%) Network+ Certification
18 50 (0.94%) MCSE
19 43 (0.81%) CCNP
20 37 (0.70%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 349 (6.57%) Data Quality
2 328 (6.17%) QA
3 162 (3.05%) GDPR
4 106 (2.00%) Accessibility
5 98 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 96 (1.81%) PMO
7 85 (1.60%) NIST
8 74 (1.39%) SLA
9 48 (0.90%) GRC
10 36 (0.68%) WCAG
11 31 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 29 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
12 29 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 20 (0.38%) ISO 20022
13 20 (0.38%) PSD2
14 16 (0.30%) IFRS
15 15 (0.28%) HIPAA
16 14 (0.26%) HL7
16 14 (0.26%) ISO 8583
16 14 (0.26%) NCSC
System Software
1 388 (7.30%) Active Directory
2 366 (6.89%) Docker
3 115 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.85%) vSphere
5 39 (0.73%) VMware NSX
6 32 (0.60%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.38%) Firmware
8 18 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
9 17 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
11 11 (0.21%) RACF
11 11 (0.21%) Squid
12 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 10 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
12 10 (0.19%) vCloud
13 9 (0.17%) ACF2
14 6 (0.11%) IAG
15 4 (0.075%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.075%) NFS
15 4 (0.075%) Snort
Systems Management
1 445 (8.38%) Kubernetes
2 309 (5.82%) Terraform
3 184 (3.46%) Ansible
4 128 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
5 121 (2.28%) Grafana
6 92 (1.73%) Prometheus
7 82 (1.54%) SCCM
8 40 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 37 (0.70%) FortiGate
9 37 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
10 29 (0.55%) Kibana
11 27 (0.51%) Argo
11 27 (0.51%) Puppet
12 23 (0.43%) Control-M
13 21 (0.40%) Nessus
14 17 (0.32%) IBM Guardium
15 15 (0.28%) WSUS
16 14 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 13 (0.24%) vRealize
18 11 (0.21%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 972 (18.30%) Microsoft
2 360 (6.78%) Oracle
3 293 (5.52%) SAP
4 234 (4.41%) ServiceNow
5 191 (3.60%) VMware
6 164 (3.09%) Google
7 160 (3.01%) Databricks
8 129 (2.43%) Cisco
9 124 (2.33%) Splunk
10 118 (2.22%) Salesforce
11 76 (1.43%) Dell
12 72 (1.36%) CyberArk
13 69 (1.30%) Red Hat
14 67 (1.26%) BeyondTrust
15 59 (1.11%) Adobe
15 59 (1.11%) Workday
16 55 (1.04%) Citrix
17 51 (0.96%) IBM
18 48 (0.90%) F5
18 48 (0.90%) Informatica