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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 6 8
Rank change year-on-year -6 +2 +5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,033 5,075 4,686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.91% 15.25% 12.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.86% 16.85% 14.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,348 3,011 2,726
10th Percentile £262 £241 £263
25th Percentile £392 £383 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.06% -3.00% -0.10%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 632 330 206
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.25 £14.50
25th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £18.25 £20.00 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.75% +17.65% -66.26%
75th Percentile £33.75 £33.50 £31.43
90th Percentile £70.00 £63.44 £62.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.00 £18.82 £16.23
% change year-on-year -4.36% +15.96% -66.47%

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 46,911 30,121 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.54% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,189 18,721 19,488
10th Percentile £325 £296 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,476 1,911 1,239
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.24 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.07% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.24 £22.27 £40.00
% change year-on-year +67.26% -44.34% -8.88%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 5,189 £495 +1.54% 1,942
UK excluding London -2 3,244 £450 - 1,694
London -11 2,209 £524 +4.75% 494
Work from Home -4 1,613 £500 - 889
South East -3 836 £475 +5.56% 466
North of England -7 775 £450 -5.26% 402
Midlands -5 619 £450 +2.39% 297
West Midlands -8 449 £450 -5.26% 165
North West -7 387 £450 -2.44% 193
South West -6 323 £506 +10.90% 270
Scotland -3 314 £427 -5.11% 65
East of England 0 307 £423 -15.50% 175
Yorkshire -5 304 £475 -4.04% 142
East Midlands +2 166 £423 +12.12% 132
North East -4 86 £375 -16.67% 74
Wales -7 68 £468 +13.33% 54
Northern Ireland -4 29 £438 -15.87% 17
Channel Islands -2 5 £600 -

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
1 261 (4.33%) SharePoint
2 253 (4.19%) Confluence
3 94 (1.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 65 (1.08%) Apache Spark
5 49 (0.81%) Apache
5 49 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 27 (0.45%) CMS
7 24 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
7 24 (0.40%) SAS
8 18 (0.30%) WebLogic
9 16 (0.27%) WebSphere
10 13 (0.22%) Jupyter
11 11 (0.18%) CICS
12 9 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 8 (0.13%) IIS
14 7 (0.12%) WebLogic Portal
14 7 (0.12%) WordPress
15 6 (0.099%) Anypoint
15 6 (0.099%) Mule
Applications
1 372 (6.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 271 (4.49%) Microsoft Office
3 150 (2.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 71 (1.18%) Microsoft Project
5 68 (1.13%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 25 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
8 17 (0.28%) Revit
9 16 (0.27%) AutoCAD
10 15 (0.25%) Chatbot
10 15 (0.25%) Sketch
11 11 (0.18%) Navisworks
11 11 (0.18%) Windchill
12 10 (0.17%) Trello
13 6 (0.099%) Adobe After Effects
13 6 (0.099%) Final Cut Pro
14 5 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 4 (0.066%) Adobe XD
16 3 (0.050%) NUKE
16 3 (0.050%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 130 (2.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 55 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 35 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
4 32 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 32 (0.53%) Workday HCM
5 28 (0.46%) SAP GRC
6 25 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
7 17 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
8 15 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
9 14 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
10 13 (0.22%) Aladdin
10 13 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
11 12 (0.20%) SAP HCM
11 12 (0.20%) SAP SD
12 11 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
13 10 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
13 10 (0.17%) SAP CRM
13 10 (0.17%) SAP FI
14 9 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 1,168 (19.36%) Azure
2 805 (13.34%) AWS
3 518 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 464 (7.69%) Power Platform
5 347 (5.75%) GCP
6 302 (5.01%) Azure DevOps
7 243 (4.03%) Entra ID
8 234 (3.88%) GitHub
9 152 (2.52%) SaaS
10 134 (2.22%) Serverless
11 120 (1.99%) Power Automate
12 107 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
13 104 (1.72%) Microsoft Copilot
14 97 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
15 95 (1.57%) PowerApps
16 83 (1.38%) Snowflake
17 79 (1.31%) OneDrive
18 68 (1.13%) OpenShift
19 64 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
20 63 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 211 (3.50%) DNS
2 203 (3.36%) Firewall
3 158 (2.62%) VPN
4 129 (2.14%) TCP/IP
5 127 (2.11%) WAN
6 126 (2.09%) Network Security
7 120 (1.99%) DHCP
8 106 (1.76%) LAN
9 79 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
10 71 (1.18%) Wireless
11 50 (0.83%) SAN
11 50 (0.83%) VoIP
12 49 (0.81%) VLAN
13 48 (0.80%) BGP
14 33 (0.55%) Intranet
14 33 (0.55%) MPLS
14 33 (0.55%) SD-WAN
15 30 (0.50%) HTTP
16 28 (0.46%) Broadband
17 27 (0.45%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 341 (5.65%) Power BI
2 208 (3.45%) SQL Server
3 194 (3.22%) Relational Database
4 167 (2.77%) Data Warehouse
5 156 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
6 106 (1.76%) MongoDB
7 101 (1.67%) Metadata
8 85 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 80 (1.33%) Tableau
10 77 (1.28%) Data Lake
11 67 (1.11%) Oracle Database
12 66 (1.09%) MySQL
13 41 (0.68%) Big Data
14 36 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 35 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
16 30 (0.50%) Delta Lake
17 29 (0.48%) Db2
17 29 (0.48%) DynamoDB
17 29 (0.48%) Power Query
18 28 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 512 (8.49%) JIRA
2 416 (6.90%) Git
3 225 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 157 (2.60%) GitLab
5 79 (1.31%) Selenium
6 55 (0.91%) Maven
7 50 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 50 (0.83%) Gradle
8 45 (0.75%) Cypress.io
9 44 (0.73%) JUnit
10 37 (0.61%) Postman
11 34 (0.56%) Bitbucket
12 31 (0.51%) REST Assured
13 29 (0.48%) SonarQube
14 26 (0.43%) Mockito
15 24 (0.40%) JMeter
16 20 (0.33%) Gatling
17 18 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
18 17 (0.28%) WebDriver
19 16 (0.27%) Visual Studio
General
1 3,240 (53.70%) Social Skills
2 2,585 (42.85%) Analytical Skills
3 1,405 (23.29%) Finance
4 646 (10.71%) Public Sector
5 495 (8.20%) Banking
6 332 (5.50%) Organisational Skills
7 296 (4.91%) Manufacturing
8 199 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
9 185 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
10 184 (3.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 170 (2.82%) Legal
12 164 (2.72%) Retail
13 131 (2.17%) Telecoms
14 127 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
15 124 (2.06%) Marketing
16 117 (1.94%) Front Office
17 105 (1.74%) Investment Banking
18 92 (1.52%) Aerospace
19 77 (1.28%) Back Office
20 68 (1.13%) Military
Job Titles
1 767 (12.71%) Analyst
2 751 (12.45%) Developer
3 593 (9.83%) Senior
4 440 (7.29%) Lead
5 315 (5.22%) Architect
6 296 (4.91%) Consultant
7 278 (4.61%) Business Analyst
8 241 (3.99%) IT Support
9 228 (3.78%) Support Engineer
10 199 (3.30%) Data Engineer
11 187 (3.10%) Administrator
12 177 (2.93%) Project Manager
13 141 (2.34%) IT Engineer
14 138 (2.29%) Java Developer
15 129 (2.14%) Data Analyst
16 116 (1.92%) Network Engineer
17 115 (1.91%) DevOps Engineer
18 113 (1.87%) IT Support Engineer
19 111 (1.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
20 103 (1.71%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 436 (7.23%) REST
2 366 (6.07%) Terraform
3 201 (3.33%) .NET
3 201 (3.33%) RESTful
4 174 (2.88%) SOAP
5 169 (2.80%) React
6 157 (2.60%) Kafka
7 153 (2.54%) Spring
8 143 (2.37%) XML
9 141 (2.34%) HTML
10 139 (2.30%) JSON
11 135 (2.24%) Web Services
12 133 (2.20%) CSS
12 133 (2.20%) Spring Boot
13 122 (2.02%) Middleware
14 102 (1.69%) Node.js
15 92 (1.52%) AngularJS
16 87 (1.44%) OAuth
17 73 (1.21%) PySpark
18 65 (1.08%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 356 (5.90%) Onboarding
2 293 (4.86%) Cloud Native
3 289 (4.79%) Product Ownership
4 239 (3.96%) Enterprise Software
5 236 (3.91%) Management Information System
6 227 (3.76%) Self-Motivation
7 176 (2.92%) Data Centre
8 160 (2.65%) Distributed Systems
9 149 (2.47%) Data Structures
10 130 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
11 125 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
12 119 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
13 100 (1.66%) Virtual Team
14 95 (1.57%) AI Agents
15 91 (1.51%) Driving Licence
16 76 (1.26%) CMDB
17 68 (1.13%) Mobile App
18 66 (1.09%) NHS
19 62 (1.03%) Algorithms
20 59 (0.98%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 757 (12.55%) Windows
2 343 (5.69%) Linux
3 210 (3.48%) Windows Server
4 136 (2.25%) Windows 10
5 119 (1.97%) Unix
6 91 (1.51%) Apple iOS
7 86 (1.43%) macOS
8 83 (1.38%) Android
9 58 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 21 (0.35%) Ubuntu
11 20 (0.33%) VMS
12 17 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
13 13 (0.22%) Solaris
13 13 (0.22%) zOS
14 9 (0.15%) CentOS
14 9 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
15 8 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.099%) AIX
16 6 (0.099%) Embedded Linux
17 5 (0.083%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,669 (27.66%) Agile
2 1,568 (25.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,398 (23.17%) Continuous Improvement
4 1,050 (17.40%) CI/CD
5 930 (15.42%) DevOps
6 799 (13.24%) AI
7 695 (11.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 661 (10.96%) Decision-Making
9 606 (10.04%) Migration
10 577 (9.56%) Customer Service
11 571 (9.46%) Analytics
12 512 (8.49%) ITIL
13 510 (8.45%) Validation
14 505 (8.37%) Test Automation
15 449 (7.44%) Scrum
16 419 (6.95%) Data Modelling
17 404 (6.70%) Project Delivery
18 401 (6.65%) Software Engineering
19 398 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
19 398 (6.60%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,021 (16.92%) SQL
2 903 (14.97%) Python
3 456 (7.56%) Java
4 365 (6.05%) JavaScript
5 347 (5.75%) PowerShell
6 235 (3.90%) C#
7 172 (2.85%) Bash
8 157 (2.60%) TypeScript
9 89 (1.48%) PL/SQL
10 54 (0.90%) C++
11 52 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 48 (0.80%) T-SQL
13 46 (0.76%) Go
14 37 (0.61%) Scala
15 36 (0.60%) Bicep
16 35 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 28 (0.46%) Groovy
18 27 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 26 (0.43%) R
20 24 (0.40%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,317 (21.83%) Security Cleared
2 958 (15.88%) SC Cleared
3 699 (11.59%) Degree
4 242 (4.01%) DV Cleared
5 214 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 210 (3.48%) Computer Science Degree
7 133 (2.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 100 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
9 89 (1.48%) PMI Certification
10 87 (1.44%) Azure Certification
11 83 (1.38%) PMP
12 79 (1.31%) CISSP
13 63 (1.04%) Master's Degree
14 59 (0.98%) DBS Check
15 57 (0.94%) AWS Certification
16 51 (0.85%) A+ Certification
17 47 (0.78%) CISM
18 44 (0.73%) CCNA
18 44 (0.73%) ISTQB
18 44 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 449 (7.44%) Data Quality
2 409 (6.78%) QA
3 164 (2.72%) Accessibility
4 133 (2.20%) GDPR
5 127 (2.11%) SLA
6 110 (1.82%) PMO
7 90 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 68 (1.13%) GRC
9 63 (1.04%) NIST
10 40 (0.66%) WCAG
11 28 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 24 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.36%) GxP
14 20 (0.33%) NCSC
15 18 (0.30%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 18 (0.30%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 14 (0.23%) ISO 20022
18 13 (0.22%) GMP
18 13 (0.22%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 436 (7.23%) Active Directory
2 387 (6.41%) Docker
3 169 (2.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.09%) Hyper-V
4 66 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
5 58 (0.96%) vSphere
6 52 (0.86%) VMware NSX
7 41 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
8 29 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
9 24 (0.40%) vCloud
10 23 (0.38%) IAG
11 16 (0.27%) Firmware
12 11 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.099%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 6 (0.099%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.099%) NFS
13 6 (0.099%) XenApp
13 6 (0.099%) XenDesktop
14 5 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.083%) RACF
Systems Management
1 440 (7.29%) Kubernetes
2 176 (2.92%) Ansible
3 137 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
4 97 (1.61%) SCCM
5 95 (1.57%) Grafana
6 75 (1.24%) Prometheus
7 44 (0.73%) vCenter Server
8 42 (0.70%) SCOM
9 32 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
10 26 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
11 18 (0.30%) Control-M
12 16 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 15 (0.25%) NetBackup
13 15 (0.25%) WSUS
14 12 (0.20%) Kibana
14 12 (0.20%) VxRail
15 11 (0.18%) Istio
16 10 (0.17%) Functional Safety
16 10 (0.17%) Nessus
16 10 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,436 (23.80%) Microsoft
2 402 (6.66%) Oracle
3 373 (6.18%) SAP
4 347 (5.75%) ServiceNow
5 215 (3.56%) VMware
6 185 (3.07%) Google
7 148 (2.45%) Cisco
8 146 (2.42%) Databricks
9 143 (2.37%) Salesforce
10 127 (2.11%) Splunk
11 77 (1.28%) Workday
12 71 (1.18%) Dynatrace
13 68 (1.13%) IBM
14 63 (1.04%) Adobe
15 60 (0.99%) Apple
16 53 (0.88%) Red Hat
17 52 (0.86%) CyberArk
18 48 (0.80%) MuleSoft
18 48 (0.80%) Palo Alto
19 37 (0.61%) Citrix