Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Problem Solving
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +3 +1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 425 328 221
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.13% 17.91% 11.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.28% 20.20% 14.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 275 214 135
10th Percentile £306 £205 £153
25th Percentile £363 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £469 £470
Median % change year-on-year -4.05% -0.21% -8.29%
75th Percentile £536 £538 £575
90th Percentile £644 £625 £638
England median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.46% -2.40% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 11 5
10th Percentile £12.90 £14.25 -
25th Percentile £13.71 £20.06 £15.13
Median hourly rate £20.50 £33.88 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -39.49% +99.29% +16.92%
75th Percentile £35.75 £42.01 £18.97
90th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £20.49
England median hourly rate £19.48 £18.85 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.34% +16.14% -69.76%

All Process & Methodology Skills
West Midlands

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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,976 1,624 1,553
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.93% 88.69% 81.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,821 1,044 999
10th Percentile £313 £238 £250
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £576 £588 £625
90th Percentile £671 £663 £725
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 103 40
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.62 £14.48
25th Percentile £17.57 £16.13 £15.22
Median hourly rate £29.60 £24.34 £24.31
Median % change year-on-year +21.61% +0.11% -11.59%
75th Percentile £53.75 £35.30 £37.63
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.45
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.91%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

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

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the West Midlands

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

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

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the West Midlands

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

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 West Midlands region over the 6 months to 16 September 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
Shropshire -5 125 £450 -12.62% 52
Warwickshire 0 114 £470 -6.00% 88
Birmingham -13 75 £450 - 390
Coventry -10 37 £363 -14.71% 60
Staffordshire -8 16 £316 -29.72% 70
Solihull -11 15 £493 -17.92% 32
Worcestershire +12 12 £425 -22.73% 38
Wolverhampton +1 5 £275 +46.67% 26
Herefordshire +1 5 - - 17
Dudley - 3 £375 - 10
Wednesbury - 1 - - 1
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 44 (10.35%) Confluence
2 21 (4.94%) SharePoint
3 19 (4.47%) SAS
4 14 (3.29%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.94%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 2 (0.47%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.24%) Apache
8 1 (0.24%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.24%) Appian
8 1 (0.24%) IIS
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.24%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 28 (6.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (4.47%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (1.41%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.94%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.71%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.71%) Revit
7 2 (0.47%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.47%) CATIA
7 2 (0.47%) Sketch
8 1 (0.24%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.24%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.24%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.24%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.24%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (3.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (2.82%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (1.18%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.94%) Oracle HRMS
5 3 (0.71%) ContrOCC
5 3 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.71%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.47%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.47%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.24%) Maximo
7 1 (0.24%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.24%) Primavera
7 1 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.24%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.24%) SAP PP
7 1 (0.24%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.24%) SAP SD
7 1 (0.24%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 73 (17.18%) Azure
2 44 (10.35%) Microsoft 365
3 42 (9.88%) AWS
4 41 (9.65%) Power Platform
5 30 (7.06%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (4.94%) Entra ID
7 17 (4.00%) Power Automate
8 14 (3.29%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (3.29%) Serverless
9 11 (2.59%) Azure Data Factory
9 11 (2.59%) Azure Functions
10 10 (2.35%) GitHub
11 7 (1.65%) OneDrive
12 6 (1.41%) GCP
12 6 (1.41%) Microsoft Purview
12 6 (1.41%) Snowflake
13 5 (1.18%) Google Analytics
14 4 (0.94%) SuccessFactors
15 3 (0.71%) Azure Storage
15 3 (0.71%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.24%) DNS
2 17 (4.00%) DHCP
3 15 (3.53%) Firewall
4 13 (3.06%) VPN
5 12 (2.82%) TCP/IP
6 11 (2.59%) LAN
6 11 (2.59%) Network Security
6 11 (2.59%) WAN
7 8 (1.88%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.41%) Internet
8 6 (1.41%) Unified Communications
9 5 (1.18%) VoIP
10 4 (0.94%) SSL
10 4 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.71%) SAN
11 3 (0.71%) Softphone
11 3 (0.71%) VLAN
11 3 (0.71%) Wireless
12 2 (0.47%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (8.71%) Power BI
2 23 (5.41%) Data Warehouse
2 23 (5.41%) Pentaho
3 22 (5.18%) SQL Server
4 19 (4.47%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (3.76%) Relational Database
6 14 (3.29%) Metadata
7 10 (2.35%) Data Lake
8 9 (2.12%) Oracle Reports
9 8 (1.88%) NoSQL
9 8 (1.88%) Oracle Database
10 6 (1.41%) Ingres
10 6 (1.41%) MySQL
11 4 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.94%) SAP BW
12 3 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.71%) Big Data
12 3 (0.71%) Power Query
12 3 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 61 (14.35%) JIRA
2 29 (6.82%) Git
3 23 (5.41%) Jenkins
4 18 (4.24%) Selenium
5 16 (3.76%) Postman
6 14 (3.29%) Maven
7 12 (2.82%) JUnit
8 11 (2.59%) Cypress.io
8 11 (2.59%) GitLab
8 11 (2.59%) SonarQube
9 10 (2.35%) Mockito
9 10 (2.35%) WebDriver
10 7 (1.65%) Cucumber
11 5 (1.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 5 (1.18%) Zephyr
12 4 (0.94%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.94%) REST Assured
13 3 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
13 3 (0.71%) Protractor
13 3 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 237 (55.76%) Social Skills
2 174 (40.94%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (19.06%) Public Sector
4 65 (15.29%) Finance
5 23 (5.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 23 (5.41%) Organisational Skills
6 22 (5.18%) Manufacturing
7 18 (4.24%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (4.00%) Local Government
9 14 (3.29%) Legal
10 11 (2.59%) Presentation Skills
11 10 (2.35%) Automotive
12 8 (1.88%) Banking
12 8 (1.88%) Marketing
12 8 (1.88%) Retail
13 7 (1.65%) Billing
14 6 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (1.18%) Electronics
15 5 (1.18%) Telecoms
16 3 (0.71%) Military
Job Titles
1 69 (16.24%) Analyst
2 46 (10.82%) Senior
3 45 (10.59%) Lead
4 41 (9.65%) Developer
5 33 (7.76%) Data Engineer
6 25 (5.88%) Consultant
7 23 (5.41%) Architect
8 20 (4.71%) Administrator
9 19 (4.47%) Business Analyst
10 18 (4.24%) SAP Consultant
11 17 (4.00%) Test Analyst
12 15 (3.53%) Java Developer
13 13 (3.06%) Support Engineer
14 12 (2.82%) Data Analyst
15 11 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
15 11 (2.59%) Senior Developer
15 11 (2.59%) Technical Engineer
16 10 (2.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 9 (2.12%) Network Engineer
17 9 (2.12%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (8.24%) REST
2 28 (6.59%) SOAP
3 15 (3.53%) Spring
3 15 (3.53%) Spring Boot
4 14 (3.29%) AngularJS
4 14 (3.29%) RESTful
4 14 (3.29%) Web Services
5 12 (2.82%) Spring Cloud
5 12 (2.82%) Terraform
6 11 (2.59%) Hibernate
6 11 (2.59%) JPA
6 11 (2.59%) Oracle Fusion
7 10 (2.35%) ActiveMQ
7 10 (2.35%) Gherkin
8 7 (1.65%) Middleware
8 7 (1.65%) Play Framework
9 6 (1.41%) XML
10 5 (1.18%) JDBC
10 5 (1.18%) JSON
10 5 (1.18%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 29 (6.82%) Cloud Native
2 27 (6.35%) Self-Motivation
3 26 (6.12%) Management Information System
4 21 (4.94%) Enterprise Software
5 17 (4.00%) Product Ownership
6 12 (2.82%) Onboarding
7 10 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
8 9 (2.12%) Data Centre
8 9 (2.12%) Virtual Team
9 8 (1.88%) Autonomous Agent
9 8 (1.88%) Operational Technology
10 6 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (1.41%) SCADA
11 5 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (1.18%) Life Science
12 4 (0.94%) Cyber Threat
12 4 (0.94%) iPhone
12 4 (0.94%) Mobile App
12 4 (0.94%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 48 (11.29%) Windows
2 14 (3.29%) Windows 10
2 14 (3.29%) Windows Server
3 13 (3.06%) Linux
3 13 (3.06%) Mac OS
4 11 (2.59%) Unix
5 3 (0.71%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.47%) CentOS
6 2 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.47%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.24%) HPUX
7 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (36.24%) Agile
2 137 (32.24%) Continuous Improvement
3 94 (22.12%) Stakeholder Management
4 73 (17.18%) CI/CD
5 72 (16.94%) DevOps
6 65 (15.29%) Test Automation
7 58 (13.65%) Scrum
8 57 (13.41%) AI
8 57 (13.41%) Migration
9 53 (12.47%) Data Modelling
9 53 (12.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 51 (12.00%) Analytics
11 50 (11.76%) Business Intelligence
11 50 (11.76%) Decision-Making
12 49 (11.53%) ETL
13 43 (10.12%) Generative AI
14 42 (9.88%) User Acceptance Testing
15 40 (9.41%) Technical Leadership
16 38 (8.94%) Validation
17 37 (8.71%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 71 (16.71%) SQL
2 38 (8.94%) Java
3 31 (7.29%) Python
4 20 (4.71%) JavaScript
5 15 (3.53%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.06%) TypeScript
7 12 (2.82%) C#
8 11 (2.59%) C
9 10 (2.35%) Bash
9 10 (2.35%) PL/SQL
10 8 (1.88%) ProC
11 7 (1.65%) ABAP
11 7 (1.65%) Scala
12 5 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 4 (0.94%) Bicep
13 4 (0.94%) C++
14 3 (0.71%) MATLAB
15 2 (0.47%) Shell Script
15 2 (0.47%) VB
15 2 (0.47%) VBA
Qualifications
1 127 (29.88%) Security Cleared
2 108 (25.41%) SC Cleared
3 44 (10.35%) Degree
4 32 (7.53%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (5.41%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.82%) Azure Certification
7 11 (2.59%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (2.59%) ISTQB
8 9 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (1.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 7 (1.65%) CCNA
10 7 (1.65%) CISSP
11 6 (1.41%) DV Cleared
11 6 (1.41%) OCP
11 6 (1.41%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (1.18%) A+ Certification
12 5 (1.18%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.18%) MCSE
12 5 (1.18%) Network+ Certification
13 4 (0.94%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (12.24%) Data Quality
2 43 (10.12%) QA
3 20 (4.71%) Accessibility
4 17 (4.00%) GDPR
5 13 (3.06%) SLA
6 11 (2.59%) WCAG
7 10 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.94%) NIST
8 4 (0.94%) PMO
9 3 (0.71%) GRC
9 3 (0.71%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.71%) ISO 19650
10 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.24%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 1 (0.24%) GMP
11 1 (0.24%) GxP
11 1 (0.24%) HL7
11 1 (0.24%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 30 (7.06%) Docker
2 23 (5.41%) Active Directory
3 13 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.35%) vSphere
5 9 (2.12%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.88%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.71%) FreeRADIUS
8 2 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.24%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.24%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 20 (4.71%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.00%) SCCM
3 16 (3.76%) Grafana
4 14 (3.29%) Microsoft Intune
4 14 (3.29%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.35%) Ansible
6 5 (1.18%) Jamf Pro
6 5 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.94%) Podman
7 4 (0.94%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.94%) vMotion
8 3 (0.71%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.47%) Argo
10 1 (0.24%) AirWatch
10 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.24%) QRadar
10 1 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 99 (23.29%) Microsoft
2 55 (12.94%) Oracle
3 34 (8.00%) SAP
4 23 (5.41%) ServiceNow
5 20 (4.71%) VMware
6 18 (4.24%) Cisco
6 18 (4.24%) Denodo
7 17 (4.00%) Talend
8 11 (2.59%) Atlassian
9 9 (2.12%) Google
9 9 (2.12%) Splunk
10 7 (1.65%) Databricks
10 7 (1.65%) Qualys
11 6 (1.41%) Apple
11 6 (1.41%) Informatica
12 5 (1.18%) Fortinet
12 5 (1.18%) webMethods
13 4 (0.94%) Adobe
13 4 (0.94%) Red Hat
13 4 (0.94%) Siemens