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 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 5 10
Rank change year-on-year -6 +5 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,234 4,978 4,622
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.90% 17.09% 10.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.92% 18.78% 12.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,115 3,116 2,809
10th Percentile £264 £250 £242
25th Percentile £388 £390 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% -0.60% -4.19%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £716 £700 £727
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -1.86% - -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 248 415
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £14.95 £15.62 £13.86
Median hourly rate £21.00 £22.14 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.15% +34.18% -67.00%
75th Percentile £48.13 £41.06 £36.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £66.00 £62.14
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.25 £21.24 £15.00
% change year-on-year -14.08% +41.60% -63.74%

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 40,526 26,506 36,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.38% 90.99% 86.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,448 17,044 23,613
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,394 1,081 2,430
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.20 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.49 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.96% -32.19% +7.14%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 -5 4,475 £495 -1.00% 3,296
UK excluding London -5 2,802 £466 -1.86% 2,632
London -12 1,893 £520 -0.95% 1,001
Work from Home -2 1,493 £475 -5.00% 1,566
North of England -8 741 £450 -7.98% 686
South East -6 654 £488 -2.50% 781
Midlands -7 503 £469 +5.39% 434
North West -7 357 £420 -14.11% 361
West Midlands -9 347 £478 +3.38% 259
Yorkshire -6 342 £467 -2.81% 235
South West 0 331 £500 -3.61% 308
Scotland -2 271 £433 -6.83% 107
East of England -3 227 £450 -3.54% 285
East Midlands -1 155 £443 +20.41% 175
Wales -3 72 £400 +20.78% 70
North East -9 50 £425 -16.26% 97
Northern Ireland -4 26 £447 +9.69% 32
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 (4.13%) Confluence
2 151 (2.88%) SharePoint
3 86 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 81 (1.55%) Apache Spark
5 56 (1.07%) Apache
6 50 (0.96%) SAS
7 46 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
8 31 (0.59%) CMS
9 20 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
10 13 (0.25%) nginx
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 10 (0.19%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 8 (0.15%) Tomcat
14 7 (0.13%) Camunda
14 7 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
15 6 (0.11%) CICS
15 6 (0.11%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 6 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.096%) WordPress
Applications
1 301 (5.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 226 (4.32%) Microsoft Office
3 115 (2.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 78 (1.49%) Microsoft Project
5 71 (1.36%) MS Visio
6 31 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 24 (0.46%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.19%) Sketch
10 8 (0.15%) CATIA
11 7 (0.13%) AutoCAD
11 7 (0.13%) Photoshop
11 7 (0.13%) Trello
12 6 (0.11%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.11%) Revit
13 5 (0.096%) Maya
14 4 (0.076%) Acrobat
14 4 (0.076%) CPLEX
14 4 (0.076%) InDesign
15 3 (0.057%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.42%) Aladdin
3 22 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 18 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.27%) NEC Housing
6 14 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 12 (0.23%) SAP GRC
8 12 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.23%) Workday HCM
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.17%) iTrent
10 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
10 9 (0.17%) SAP SD
10 9 (0.17%) Shopify
11 8 (0.15%) Loan IQ
11 8 (0.15%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,041 (19.89%) Azure
2 801 (15.30%) AWS
3 393 (7.51%) Power Platform
4 348 (6.65%) Microsoft 365
5 324 (6.19%) GCP
6 235 (4.49%) Azure DevOps
7 217 (4.15%) GitHub
8 156 (2.98%) Entra ID
9 146 (2.79%) Serverless
10 125 (2.39%) SaaS
11 111 (2.12%) GitHub Actions
12 93 (1.78%) Amazon S3
13 84 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
14 79 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
15 71 (1.36%) OpenShift
15 71 (1.36%) Snowflake
16 70 (1.34%) Power Automate
17 69 (1.32%) Azure Data Factory
18 57 (1.09%) PowerApps
19 51 (0.97%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 192 (3.67%) DNS
2 174 (3.32%) Firewall
3 122 (2.33%) TCP/IP
4 110 (2.10%) VPN
5 106 (2.03%) DHCP
5 106 (2.03%) WAN
6 87 (1.66%) Network Security
7 84 (1.60%) SAN
8 79 (1.51%) LAN
9 67 (1.28%) Wi-Fi
10 50 (0.96%) VLAN
11 48 (0.92%) BGP
12 42 (0.80%) OSPF
13 39 (0.75%) SD-WAN
14 29 (0.55%) VoIP
15 28 (0.53%) Wireless
16 26 (0.50%) VXLAN
17 24 (0.46%) MPLS
18 23 (0.44%) Internet
19 21 (0.40%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 308 (5.88%) Power BI
2 200 (3.82%) SQL Server
3 158 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
4 138 (2.64%) Relational Database
5 131 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
6 110 (2.10%) Metadata
7 89 (1.70%) MongoDB
8 84 (1.60%) Tableau
9 83 (1.59%) NoSQL
10 80 (1.53%) Big Data
11 77 (1.47%) Data Lake
12 58 (1.11%) MySQL
13 57 (1.09%) Oracle Reports
14 50 (0.96%) Oracle Database
14 50 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 41 (0.78%) Hadoop
16 33 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
17 29 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
17 29 (0.55%) Pentaho
17 29 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 500 (9.55%) JIRA
2 299 (5.71%) Git
3 204 (3.90%) Jenkins
4 143 (2.73%) GitLab
5 70 (1.34%) Selenium
6 40 (0.76%) Postman
7 32 (0.61%) Cucumber
8 30 (0.57%) REST Assured
9 26 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 23 (0.44%) Cypress.io
10 23 (0.44%) JUnit
11 21 (0.40%) JMeter
12 17 (0.32%) SonarQube
12 17 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
12 17 (0.32%) WebDriver
13 16 (0.31%) Mockito
14 15 (0.29%) Maven
14 15 (0.29%) SpecFlow
15 14 (0.27%) Gatling
15 14 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 2,703 (51.64%) Social Skills
2 2,006 (38.33%) Analytical Skills
3 1,214 (23.19%) Finance
4 498 (9.51%) Public Sector
5 398 (7.60%) Banking
6 225 (4.30%) Organisational Skills
7 186 (3.55%) Retail
8 179 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
9 152 (2.90%) Legal
10 122 (2.33%) Presentation Skills
11 113 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 112 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
13 97 (1.85%) Front Office
14 93 (1.78%) Manufacturing
14 93 (1.78%) Telecoms
15 89 (1.70%) Marketing
16 80 (1.53%) Investment Banking
17 62 (1.18%) Back Office
18 59 (1.13%) Law
19 53 (1.01%) Military
Job Titles
1 727 (13.89%) Analyst
2 630 (12.04%) Developer
3 463 (8.85%) Senior
4 355 (6.78%) Architect
5 324 (6.19%) Lead
6 291 (5.56%) Business Analyst
7 260 (4.97%) Consultant
8 235 (4.49%) Data Engineer
9 199 (3.80%) Project Manager
10 141 (2.69%) Support Engineer
11 133 (2.54%) IT Support
12 126 (2.41%) Data Analyst
13 111 (2.12%) Java Developer
14 101 (1.93%) IT Engineer
15 98 (1.87%) Software Engineer
16 96 (1.83%) Solutions Architect
17 95 (1.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 95 (1.82%) Network Engineer
18 93 (1.78%) Administrator
19 75 (1.43%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 299 (5.71%) REST
2 151 (2.88%) Kafka
3 144 (2.75%) .NET
4 138 (2.64%) SOAP
4 138 (2.64%) Spring
5 136 (2.60%) RESTful
6 128 (2.45%) React
7 116 (2.22%) CSS
8 109 (2.08%) HTML
9 108 (2.06%) Node.js
10 105 (2.01%) Spring Boot
11 102 (1.95%) AngularJS
12 100 (1.91%) LDAP
13 97 (1.85%) Middleware
14 96 (1.83%) JSON
15 89 (1.70%) XML
16 72 (1.38%) PySpark
17 66 (1.26%) OAuth
18 56 (1.07%) Web Services
19 51 (0.97%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 260 (4.97%) Product Ownership
2 230 (4.39%) Onboarding
3 206 (3.94%) Data Centre
4 205 (3.92%) Cloud Native
5 160 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
6 149 (2.85%) Analytical Mindset
7 144 (2.75%) Management Information System
8 120 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
9 116 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
10 115 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
11 113 (2.16%) Virtual Team
12 107 (2.04%) Data Structures
13 98 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
14 72 (1.38%) Driving Licence
15 66 (1.26%) Security Posture
16 60 (1.15%) Algorithms
16 60 (1.15%) Mobile App
17 56 (1.07%) AI Agents
18 51 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
19 48 (0.92%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 597 (11.41%) Windows
2 310 (5.92%) Linux
3 111 (2.12%) Windows Server
4 110 (2.10%) Windows 10
5 102 (1.95%) Unix
6 94 (1.80%) Android
7 90 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 78 (1.49%) Mac OS
9 53 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 22 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.29%) CentOS
11 15 (0.29%) VMS
12 12 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.15%) Mac OS X
13 8 (0.15%) Windows 7
13 8 (0.15%) zOS
14 7 (0.13%) Debian
15 4 (0.076%) Solaris
15 4 (0.076%) Windows 8
15 4 (0.076%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,411 (26.96%) Agile
2 875 (16.72%) CI/CD
3 792 (15.13%) Continuous Improvement
4 790 (15.09%) DevOps
5 748 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
6 579 (11.06%) Decision-Making
7 573 (10.95%) AI
8 563 (10.76%) Migration
9 560 (10.70%) Analytics
10 457 (8.73%) Project Management
11 448 (8.56%) Data Modelling
12 437 (8.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 431 (8.23%) Customer Service
14 422 (8.06%) Validation
15 420 (8.02%) ITIL
16 408 (7.80%) Business Intelligence
17 397 (7.59%) Test Automation
18 362 (6.92%) Scrum
19 359 (6.86%) Change Management
20 323 (6.17%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 946 (18.07%) Python
2 902 (17.23%) SQL
3 429 (8.20%) Java
4 323 (6.17%) PowerShell
5 274 (5.24%) JavaScript
6 201 (3.84%) C#
7 163 (3.11%) TypeScript
8 125 (2.39%) Bash
9 76 (1.45%) PL/SQL
10 73 (1.39%) C++
11 56 (1.07%) Shell Script
12 51 (0.97%) Go
13 44 (0.84%) R
14 38 (0.73%) Bicep
14 38 (0.73%) C
15 36 (0.69%) T-SQL
16 35 (0.67%) Perl
17 32 (0.61%) Apex Code
18 31 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 30 (0.57%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,136 (21.70%) Security Cleared
2 776 (14.83%) SC Cleared
3 638 (12.19%) Degree
4 203 (3.88%) Computer Science Degree
5 197 (3.76%) DV Cleared
6 164 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 138 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
8 125 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 92 (1.76%) CISSP
10 89 (1.70%) PMP
11 83 (1.59%) PMI Certification
12 77 (1.47%) CCNA
13 75 (1.43%) Master's Degree
14 71 (1.36%) A+ Certification
15 67 (1.28%) Network+ Certification
16 64 (1.22%) Azure Certification
17 62 (1.18%) CISM
18 58 (1.11%) MCSE
19 47 (0.90%) CCNP
20 38 (0.73%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 344 (6.57%) Data Quality
2 294 (5.62%) QA
3 153 (2.92%) GDPR
4 106 (2.03%) Accessibility
5 98 (1.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 90 (1.72%) PMO
7 84 (1.60%) NIST
8 78 (1.49%) SLA
9 55 (1.05%) GRC
10 28 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
10 28 (0.53%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.53%) WCAG
11 26 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.44%) ISO 20022
13 17 (0.32%) PSD2
14 16 (0.31%) IFRS
15 15 (0.29%) NCSC
16 14 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
17 13 (0.25%) HIPAA
17 13 (0.25%) HL7
System Software
1 389 (7.43%) Active Directory
2 346 (6.61%) Docker
3 112 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (0.76%) vSphere
5 38 (0.73%) VMware NSX
6 35 (0.67%) Hyper-V
7 24 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
8 22 (0.42%) Firmware
9 21 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
10 19 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
11 16 (0.31%) vCloud
12 11 (0.21%) Squid
13 8 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.11%) IAG
15 5 (0.096%) RACF
16 4 (0.076%) Microsoft App-V
16 4 (0.076%) NFS
16 4 (0.076%) Snort
17 3 (0.057%) ACF2
17 3 (0.057%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 418 (7.99%) Kubernetes
2 278 (5.31%) Terraform
3 182 (3.48%) Ansible
4 122 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 121 (2.31%) Grafana
6 95 (1.82%) Prometheus
7 78 (1.49%) SCCM
8 42 (0.80%) FortiGate
8 42 (0.80%) vCenter Server
9 40 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
10 27 (0.52%) Kibana
11 24 (0.46%) Puppet
12 23 (0.44%) Argo
13 22 (0.42%) Control-M
14 21 (0.40%) Nessus
15 17 (0.32%) IBM Guardium
16 15 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 12 (0.23%) SCOM
17 12 (0.23%) WSUS
18 10 (0.19%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 956 (18.27%) Microsoft
2 349 (6.67%) Oracle
3 300 (5.73%) SAP
4 236 (4.51%) ServiceNow
5 190 (3.63%) VMware
6 156 (2.98%) Databricks
7 145 (2.77%) Google
8 130 (2.48%) Cisco
8 130 (2.48%) Splunk
9 110 (2.10%) Salesforce
10 84 (1.60%) Dell
11 74 (1.41%) CyberArk
12 69 (1.32%) BeyondTrust
13 64 (1.22%) Red Hat
14 62 (1.18%) Workday
15 57 (1.09%) Adobe
16 51 (0.97%) Palo Alto
17 50 (0.96%) Citrix
18 49 (0.94%) F5
18 49 (0.94%) HP