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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 5 9
Rank change year-on-year -8 +4 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 5,600 5,293 4,424
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.50% 15.97% 11.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.37% 17.65% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,150 3,207 2,735
10th Percentile £250 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £375 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -2.00% -2.56%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £614
90th Percentile £700 £700 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £475
% change year-on-year -2.70% -2.63% -1.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 495 313 283
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.76 £11.75
25th Percentile £14.54 £15.25 £14.16
Median hourly rate £19.00 £21.10 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -9.95% +30.01% -70.25%
75th Percentile £39.75 £35.00 £31.13
90th Percentile £73.90 £65.00 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.75 £18.82 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.37% +15.96% -70.49%

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 45,268 29,990 33,185
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.46% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,853 18,764 21,291
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,826 1,696 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.89 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +13.33%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -7 4,868 £493 -0.51% 9,202
UK excluding London -3 3,011 £450 -2.70% 5,637
London -12 2,080 £520 +4.00% 4,655
Work from Home -6 1,538 £492 -1.60% 3,561
South East -3 773 £479 -2.24% 1,434
North of England -9 734 £450 -5.26% 1,316
Midlands -4 556 £450 +4.53% 851
West Midlands -9 402 £450 -1.50% 532
South West -1 351 £500 +5.26% 684
North West -12 346 £450 -8.16% 729
Yorkshire -7 331 £450 -5.26% 420
Scotland -4 271 £438 -2.78% 459
East of England +1 264 £450 -5.26% 595
East Midlands +1 151 £475 +26.67% 319
Wales -4 65 £475 +26.67% 155
North East -17 62 £375 -16.67% 186
Northern Ireland -6 25 £384 -23.25% 287
Channel Islands -2 1 - - 2

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
1 232 (4.14%) Confluence
2 220 (3.93%) SharePoint
3 110 (1.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 64 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 42 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 41 (0.73%) Apache
6 41 (0.73%) SAS
7 33 (0.59%) Oracle Workflow
8 31 (0.55%) CMS
9 18 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.23%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.20%) CICS
12 10 (0.18%) Jupyter
13 9 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 7 (0.13%) Anypoint
14 7 (0.13%) Appian
14 7 (0.13%) Mule
15 6 (0.11%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 6 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 314 (5.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 267 (4.77%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (1.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 80 (1.43%) MS Visio
5 64 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
6 33 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 27 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 24 (0.43%) Chatbot
9 17 (0.30%) AutoCAD
10 15 (0.27%) Sketch
11 13 (0.23%) Revit
12 11 (0.20%) Trello
13 10 (0.18%) CATIA
14 7 (0.13%) CPLEX
15 6 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
15 6 (0.11%) Final Cut Pro
16 5 (0.089%) Navisworks
17 4 (0.071%) Adobe XD
17 4 (0.071%) Photoshop
18 3 (0.054%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 138 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 39 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
4 26 (0.46%) NetSuite
4 26 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
5 22 (0.39%) SAP GRC
6 20 (0.36%) Workday HCM
7 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 13 (0.23%) iTrent
8 13 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.23%) SAP SD
9 12 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
10 11 (0.20%) SAP HCM
11 10 (0.18%) Finacle
11 10 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
11 10 (0.18%) SAP ERP
12 9 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
12 9 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
12 9 (0.16%) SAP CRM
12 9 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 1,073 (19.16%) Azure
2 801 (14.30%) AWS
3 449 (8.02%) Microsoft 365
4 432 (7.71%) Power Platform
5 316 (5.64%) GCP
6 266 (4.75%) Azure DevOps
7 228 (4.07%) Entra ID
8 196 (3.50%) GitHub
9 152 (2.71%) SaaS
10 123 (2.20%) Serverless
11 98 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
12 93 (1.66%) Power Automate
13 80 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
14 76 (1.36%) Amazon S3
15 72 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
16 69 (1.23%) PowerApps
17 68 (1.21%) OneDrive
18 66 (1.18%) Microsoft Copilot
19 63 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
19 63 (1.13%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 231 (4.13%) DNS
2 196 (3.50%) Firewall
3 151 (2.70%) VPN
4 139 (2.48%) DHCP
4 139 (2.48%) TCP/IP
5 127 (2.27%) WAN
6 105 (1.88%) LAN
7 97 (1.73%) Network Security
8 82 (1.46%) SAN
9 81 (1.45%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (1.05%) VLAN
11 56 (1.00%) Wireless
12 54 (0.96%) BGP
13 41 (0.73%) SD-WAN
14 38 (0.68%) OSPF
15 34 (0.61%) VoIP
16 33 (0.59%) MPLS
17 32 (0.57%) Structured Cabling
18 29 (0.52%) VXLAN
19 25 (0.45%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 332 (5.93%) Power BI
2 221 (3.95%) SQL Server
3 168 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
4 167 (2.98%) Relational Database
5 153 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
6 118 (2.11%) MongoDB
7 101 (1.80%) Metadata
8 92 (1.64%) NoSQL
9 89 (1.59%) Tableau
10 85 (1.52%) Data Lake
11 62 (1.11%) Big Data
12 57 (1.02%) MySQL
13 54 (0.96%) Oracle Database
14 50 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
15 46 (0.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 35 (0.63%) Db2
17 30 (0.54%) Pentaho
18 28 (0.50%) Power Query
19 27 (0.48%) DynamoDB
20 26 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 501 (8.95%) JIRA
2 350 (6.25%) Git
3 186 (3.32%) Jenkins
4 132 (2.36%) GitLab
5 75 (1.34%) Selenium
6 40 (0.71%) Cypress.io
7 38 (0.68%) Postman
8 36 (0.64%) Gradle
9 35 (0.63%) Maven
10 30 (0.54%) REST Assured
11 29 (0.52%) Cucumber
12 27 (0.48%) Bitbucket
13 25 (0.45%) JUnit
14 21 (0.38%) Mockito
15 20 (0.36%) JMeter
16 18 (0.32%) WebDriver
17 17 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
18 16 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
19 15 (0.27%) Zephyr
20 14 (0.25%) SonarQube
General
1 2,926 (52.25%) Social Skills
2 2,322 (41.46%) Analytical Skills
3 1,309 (23.38%) Finance
4 581 (10.38%) Public Sector
5 439 (7.84%) Banking
6 245 (4.38%) Organisational Skills
7 205 (3.66%) Retail
8 199 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
9 186 (3.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 179 (3.20%) Manufacturing
11 146 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
12 144 (2.57%) Legal
13 123 (2.20%) Presentation Skills
14 121 (2.16%) Marketing
15 120 (2.14%) Front Office
16 108 (1.93%) Telecoms
17 91 (1.63%) Investment Banking
18 84 (1.50%) Back Office
19 68 (1.21%) Aerospace
20 60 (1.07%) Law
Job Titles
1 741 (13.23%) Analyst
2 686 (12.25%) Developer
3 513 (9.16%) Senior
4 418 (7.46%) Lead
5 360 (6.43%) Architect
6 258 (4.61%) Consultant
7 256 (4.57%) Business Analyst
8 229 (4.09%) Data Engineer
9 212 (3.79%) IT Support
10 202 (3.61%) Support Engineer
11 169 (3.02%) Project Manager
12 143 (2.55%) Administrator
12 143 (2.55%) IT Engineer
13 134 (2.39%) Java Developer
14 118 (2.11%) Data Analyst
15 108 (1.93%) Solutions Architect
16 104 (1.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 99 (1.77%) Network Engineer
18 98 (1.75%) Software Engineer
19 93 (1.66%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 354 (6.32%) REST
2 167 (2.98%) RESTful
3 162 (2.89%) .NET
4 152 (2.71%) Kafka
5 149 (2.66%) React
5 149 (2.66%) SOAP
6 143 (2.55%) Spring
7 129 (2.30%) JSON
8 119 (2.13%) CSS
9 115 (2.05%) XML
10 111 (1.98%) HTML
11 110 (1.96%) Middleware
12 104 (1.86%) Spring Boot
13 95 (1.70%) Node.js
14 87 (1.55%) Web Services
15 86 (1.54%) AngularJS
16 80 (1.43%) OAuth
17 68 (1.21%) PySpark
18 57 (1.02%) Playwright
19 50 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 306 (5.46%) Onboarding
2 265 (4.73%) Product Ownership
3 242 (4.32%) Cloud Native
4 209 (3.73%) Self-Motivation
5 204 (3.64%) Data Centre
6 170 (3.04%) Enterprise Software
7 163 (2.91%) Management Information System
8 162 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
9 157 (2.80%) Analytical Mindset
10 131 (2.34%) Data Structures
11 127 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
12 126 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
13 101 (1.80%) Virtual Team
14 84 (1.50%) Driving Licence
15 68 (1.21%) AI Agents
15 68 (1.21%) Algorithms
16 62 (1.11%) CMDB
17 57 (1.02%) PKI
18 54 (0.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 54 (0.96%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 747 (13.34%) Windows
2 306 (5.46%) Linux
3 177 (3.16%) Windows Server
4 128 (2.29%) Windows 10
5 114 (2.04%) Unix
6 93 (1.66%) Android
7 89 (1.59%) Apple iOS
8 85 (1.52%) Mac OS
9 45 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 20 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 16 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
12 15 (0.27%) VMS
13 12 (0.21%) zOS
14 9 (0.16%) Mac OS X
15 8 (0.14%) Solaris
16 6 (0.11%) CentOS
16 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
17 5 (0.089%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,537 (27.45%) Agile
2 1,136 (20.29%) Continuous Improvement
3 1,055 (18.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 935 (16.70%) CI/CD
5 875 (15.63%) DevOps
6 711 (12.70%) AI
7 603 (10.77%) Decision-Making
7 603 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 587 (10.48%) Analytics
9 570 (10.18%) Migration
10 545 (9.73%) Customer Service
11 509 (9.09%) ITIL
12 445 (7.95%) Validation
13 434 (7.75%) Business Intelligence
13 434 (7.75%) Test Automation
14 432 (7.71%) Data Modelling
15 407 (7.27%) Scrum
16 355 (6.34%) Roadmaps
17 351 (6.27%) Project Management
18 341 (6.09%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 986 (17.61%) SQL
2 906 (16.18%) Python
3 443 (7.91%) Java
4 315 (5.63%) JavaScript
5 306 (5.46%) PowerShell
6 188 (3.36%) C#
7 150 (2.68%) Bash
8 123 (2.20%) TypeScript
9 96 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 72 (1.29%) C++
11 51 (0.91%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.79%) Shell Script
13 39 (0.70%) Go
14 37 (0.66%) Scala
15 35 (0.63%) Bicep
15 35 (0.63%) C
15 35 (0.63%) Kotlin
16 34 (0.61%) Apex Code
17 31 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 31 (0.55%) R
Qualifications
1 1,219 (21.77%) Security Cleared
2 840 (15.00%) SC Cleared
3 652 (11.64%) Degree
4 214 (3.82%) DV Cleared
5 195 (3.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 162 (2.89%) Microsoft Certification
7 155 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
8 135 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (1.43%) CISSP
10 78 (1.39%) CCNA
11 77 (1.38%) Azure Certification
12 76 (1.36%) A+ Certification
13 73 (1.30%) PMP
14 69 (1.23%) PMI Certification
15 56 (1.00%) Network+ Certification
16 54 (0.96%) Master's Degree
16 54 (0.96%) MCSE
17 51 (0.91%) CISM
18 42 (0.75%) AWS Certification
19 41 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 390 (6.96%) Data Quality
2 343 (6.13%) QA
3 143 (2.55%) Accessibility
4 141 (2.52%) GDPR
5 122 (2.18%) SLA
6 95 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 91 (1.63%) PMO
8 73 (1.30%) NIST
9 64 (1.14%) GRC
10 33 (0.59%) WCAG
11 29 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 27 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
13 24 (0.43%) GxP
14 19 (0.34%) NCSC
15 16 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 16 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
15 16 (0.29%) ISO 20022
15 16 (0.29%) PCI DSS
16 15 (0.27%) COBIT
17 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
System Software
1 439 (7.84%) Active Directory
2 365 (6.52%) Docker
3 148 (2.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 59 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 54 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
6 50 (0.89%) VMware NSX
6 50 (0.89%) vSphere
7 31 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 30 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
9 23 (0.41%) vCloud
10 21 (0.38%) Firmware
11 19 (0.34%) IAG
12 12 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
13 7 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.11%) NFS
15 5 (0.089%) Squid
16 4 (0.071%) Microsoft App-V
17 3 (0.054%) Snort
18 2 (0.036%) Microsoft Virtual Server
18 2 (0.036%) UAG
Systems Management
1 411 (7.34%) Kubernetes
2 324 (5.79%) Terraform
3 168 (3.00%) Ansible
4 136 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 96 (1.71%) Grafana
6 94 (1.68%) SCCM
7 86 (1.54%) Prometheus
8 56 (1.00%) vCenter Server
9 35 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
10 33 (0.59%) SCOM
11 28 (0.50%) FortiGate
12 27 (0.48%) Control-M
13 21 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
14 19 (0.34%) WSUS
15 16 (0.29%) Argo
16 14 (0.25%) Nessus
17 13 (0.23%) IBM Guardium
17 13 (0.23%) NetBackup
18 12 (0.21%) Kibana
18 12 (0.21%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,182 (21.11%) Microsoft
2 402 (7.18%) Oracle
3 355 (6.34%) ServiceNow
4 349 (6.23%) SAP
5 212 (3.79%) VMware
6 178 (3.18%) Google
7 148 (2.64%) Salesforce
8 136 (2.43%) Cisco
9 122 (2.18%) Splunk
10 116 (2.07%) Databricks
11 81 (1.45%) Workday
12 69 (1.23%) Adobe
12 69 (1.23%) Dynatrace
13 65 (1.16%) Dell
14 60 (1.07%) Apple
15 57 (1.02%) MuleSoft
16 54 (0.96%) Citrix
16 54 (0.96%) CyberArk
17 51 (0.91%) IBM
18 48 (0.86%) Red Hat