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 9 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 6 10
Rank change year-on-year +1 +4 -3
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 351 237 224
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 17.31% 12.50% 11.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 19.19% 15.01% 13.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 145 144
10th Percentile £242 £160 £250
25th Percentile £400 £345 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -18.18% +10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £650
90th Percentile £627 £700 £738
England median daily rate £488 £500 £517
% change year-on-year -2.50% -3.29% -5.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 2
10th Percentile £15.39 £16.54 £17.34
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.10 £21.53
Median hourly rate £33.88 £19.99 £29.77
Median % change year-on-year +69.53% -32.87% +48.85%
75th Percentile £40.02 £21.63 £39.26
90th Percentile £45.70 £21.85 £44.20
England median hourly rate £19.25 £17.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +13.24% -63.19% +58.64%

All Process and 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 1,829 1,579 1,647
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 90.19% 83.28% 84.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,163 993 1,107
10th Percentile £263 £250 £263
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £624 £600
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.50% -0.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 45 54
10th Percentile £13.19 £14.70 £16.09
25th Percentile £16.26 £17.25 £18.31
Median hourly rate £23.03 £29.00 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year -20.60% +6.42% +53.78%
75th Percentile £31.00 £35.00 £49.38
90th Percentile £50.00 £51.50 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £36.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -31.10% -17.98% +27.14%

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 9 November 2025.

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 9 November 2025.

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 9 November 2025. 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
Warwickshire +6 98 £500 -11.50% 70
Birmingham -4 94 £450 -5.26% 134
Shropshire +1 75 £500 +12.99% 46
Coventry 0 28 £425 +6.25% 24
Staffordshire +7 13 £220 -41.18% 67
Worcestershire -12 12 £550 +129.17% 26
Solihull +1 10 £600 +69.01% 16
Herefordshire -12 6 £600 -5.51% 13
Wolverhampton +1 2 £227 +145.68% 8
Walsall +2 1 £338 - 2
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 42 (11.97%) SAS
2 10 (2.85%) Confluence
2 10 (2.85%) WebLogic
3 9 (2.56%) Apache
3 9 (2.56%) SharePoint
4 8 (2.28%) JBoss
5 5 (1.42%) Oracle Self-Service HR
5 5 (1.42%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (1.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (1.14%) HCL Notes
7 3 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.85%) SugarCRM
8 2 (0.57%) CMS
8 2 (0.57%) Drupal
9 1 (0.28%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.28%) nginx
9 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 25 (7.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (5.41%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.71%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (1.42%) Revit
6 4 (1.14%) AutoCAD
6 4 (1.14%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.85%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.57%) MicroStation
8 2 (0.57%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.71%) SAP HR
3 5 (1.42%) SAP PM
4 4 (1.14%) Oracle HRMS
4 4 (1.14%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (1.14%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.85%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.57%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.57%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.57%) Oracle iProcurement
6 2 (0.57%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.57%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.57%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.57%) SAP PSCD
6 2 (0.57%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 52 (14.81%) Azure
2 46 (13.11%) AWS
3 24 (6.84%) GCP
4 21 (5.98%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (3.99%) OpenShift
6 13 (3.70%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (3.42%) GitHub
8 11 (3.13%) Serverless
9 10 (2.85%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.28%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 7 (1.99%) Apigee
11 7 (1.99%) Cloud Functions
11 7 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (1.71%) Akamai
13 5 (1.42%) Amazon S3
13 5 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (1.42%) SaaS
13 5 (1.42%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.84%) VPN
2 15 (4.27%) Firewall
3 11 (3.13%) DNS
4 10 (2.85%) DHCP
4 10 (2.85%) TCP/IP
5 6 (1.71%) Wireshark
6 5 (1.42%) MPLS
6 5 (1.42%) VoIP
6 5 (1.42%) WAN
7 4 (1.14%) LAN
7 4 (1.14%) Wireless
8 3 (0.85%) BGP
8 3 (0.85%) IPsec
8 3 (0.85%) Junos
8 3 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.85%) VSAN
9 2 (0.57%) Broadband
9 2 (0.57%) Internet
9 2 (0.57%) Structured Cabling
9 2 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (7.69%) Pentaho
2 16 (4.56%) Oracle Database
3 14 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (3.42%) MySQL
5 11 (3.13%) MongoDB
5 11 (3.13%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 10 (2.85%) Relational Database
7 8 (2.28%) Power BI
8 7 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.99%) Elasticsearch
8 7 (1.99%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.42%) Hadoop
9 5 (1.42%) SQL Server
9 5 (1.42%) Tableau
10 4 (1.14%) Big Data
10 4 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.85%) GIS
11 3 (0.85%) OLTP
11 3 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
11 3 (0.85%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 71 (20.23%) Git
2 61 (17.38%) JIRA
3 50 (14.25%) Jenkins
4 23 (6.55%) Selenium
5 22 (6.27%) JUnit
6 19 (5.41%) GitLab
7 8 (2.28%) Eclipse
7 8 (2.28%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.85%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.85%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.57%) Android Studio
9 2 (0.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.57%) Gradle
9 2 (0.57%) Liquibase
9 2 (0.57%) MLflow
9 2 (0.57%) Postman
9 2 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.57%) Xcode
10 1 (0.28%) Maven
10 1 (0.28%) TestPartner
General
1 216 (61.54%) Social Skills
2 120 (34.19%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (16.52%) Finance
4 37 (10.54%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.56%) Legal
6 13 (3.70%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (3.42%) Marketing
7 12 (3.42%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (3.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (3.13%) Manufacturing
8 11 (3.13%) Telecoms
9 8 (2.28%) Organisational Skills
10 7 (1.99%) Banking
11 6 (1.71%) Military
12 5 (1.42%) Electronics
13 4 (1.14%) Retail
14 3 (0.85%) Automotive
14 3 (0.85%) Law
15 2 (0.57%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 64 (18.23%) Analyst
2 35 (9.97%) Developer
3 23 (6.55%) Architect
4 17 (4.84%) Project Manager
4 17 (4.84%) Senior
5 16 (4.56%) Business Analyst
5 16 (4.56%) Lead
5 16 (4.56%) Support Engineer
6 15 (4.27%) Consultant
7 14 (3.99%) Test Specialist
8 13 (3.70%) Data Engineer
8 13 (3.70%) IT Analyst
9 10 (2.85%) Data Analyst
9 10 (2.85%) Support Analyst
10 9 (2.56%) IT Support
11 8 (2.28%) 1st Line Support
12 7 (1.99%) Administrator
12 7 (1.99%) GCP Developer
12 7 (1.99%) IT Support Analyst
12 7 (1.99%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (9.97%) REST
2 16 (4.56%) SOAP
3 15 (4.27%) HTML
4 14 (3.99%) Node.js
4 14 (3.99%) pytest
5 12 (3.42%) Elastic Stack
5 12 (3.42%) Spring
6 11 (3.13%) Play Framework
7 9 (2.56%) HTML5
7 9 (2.56%) XML
8 8 (2.28%) .NET
8 8 (2.28%) EJB
8 8 (2.28%) Hibernate
8 8 (2.28%) J2EE
8 8 (2.28%) J2SE
8 8 (2.28%) JSON
9 6 (1.71%) GraphQL
9 6 (1.71%) React
9 6 (1.71%) RESTful
9 6 (1.71%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.98%) Self-Motivation
2 13 (3.70%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.42%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 11 (3.13%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.85%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.99%) Security Posture
7 6 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.71%) Linux Command Line
7 6 (1.71%) SCADA
7 6 (1.71%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 5 (1.42%) NHS
8 5 (1.42%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.14%) IoT
9 4 (1.14%) Learning Management System
9 4 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.85%) Data Structures
10 3 (0.85%) PKI
10 3 (0.85%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.85%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 35 (9.97%) Linux
1 35 (9.97%) Windows
2 25 (7.12%) Unix
3 11 (3.13%) Windows 10
4 5 (1.42%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.14%) Android
5 4 (1.14%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.85%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.57%) VMS
8 1 (0.28%) AIX
8 1 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.28%) Solaris
8 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.28%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (35.04%) Agile
2 97 (27.64%) DevOps
3 87 (24.79%) CI/CD
4 73 (20.80%) Continuous Improvement
5 60 (17.09%) Scrum
6 58 (16.52%) Test Automation
7 57 (16.24%) Stakeholder Management
8 54 (15.38%) Analytics
8 54 (15.38%) Data Modelling
9 47 (13.39%) Data Pipeline
10 45 (12.82%) Business Intelligence
10 45 (12.82%) ITIL
11 44 (12.54%) ETL
12 38 (10.83%) Project Management
13 34 (9.69%) Containerisation
13 34 (9.69%) Deployment Automation
14 32 (9.12%) Migration
15 31 (8.83%) Data Integration
16 30 (8.55%) Mentoring
17 29 (8.26%) Data Management
Programming Languages
1 72 (20.51%) SQL
2 56 (15.95%) Python
3 18 (5.13%) Java
3 18 (5.13%) JavaScript
4 13 (3.70%) Bash
4 13 (3.70%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.70%) Scala
5 9 (2.56%) TypeScript
6 8 (2.28%) Shell Script
6 8 (2.28%) VBA
7 6 (1.71%) C#
7 6 (1.71%) Perl
8 5 (1.42%) Apex Code
8 5 (1.42%) Go
8 5 (1.42%) PHP
8 5 (1.42%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.85%) ABAP
9 3 (0.85%) Ruby
10 2 (0.57%) Groovy
10 2 (0.57%) JSX
Qualifications
1 82 (23.36%) Security Cleared
2 67 (19.09%) SC Cleared
3 44 (12.54%) Degree
4 17 (4.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.13%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.71%) MCP
7 6 (1.71%) PMI Certification
7 6 (1.71%) PMP
8 5 (1.42%) MCDST
8 5 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.14%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.85%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.85%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.85%) CCNA
10 3 (0.85%) CCNP
10 3 (0.85%) CEH
10 3 (0.85%) CISSP
10 3 (0.85%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.97%) Data Quality
2 28 (7.98%) QA
3 10 (2.85%) GDPR
3 10 (2.85%) PMO
3 10 (2.85%) SLA
4 5 (1.42%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.85%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.57%) ISO 19650
6 2 (0.57%) NIST
7 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.28%) PSD2
7 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (20.23%) Docker
2 18 (5.13%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.85%) vSphere
5 2 (0.57%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.57%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.28%) Firmware
6 1 (0.28%) IAG
Systems Management
1 62 (17.66%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.99%) Puppet
3 11 (3.13%) SCCM
4 10 (2.85%) Ansible
4 10 (2.85%) Terraform
5 7 (1.99%) Kibana
6 6 (1.71%) CSIRT
6 6 (1.71%) Prometheus
7 5 (1.42%) Grafana
8 3 (0.85%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.85%) vRealize
8 3 (0.85%) VxRail
9 2 (0.57%) Argo
9 2 (0.57%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.57%) Data Guard
9 2 (0.57%) HP ALM
9 2 (0.57%) Istio
9 2 (0.57%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 1 (0.28%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 53 (15.10%) Oracle
2 43 (12.25%) Microsoft
3 34 (9.69%) SAP
4 27 (7.69%) Denodo
4 27 (7.69%) Talend
5 23 (6.55%) Splunk
6 22 (6.27%) ServiceNow
7 17 (4.84%) Cisco
8 14 (3.99%) Google
9 12 (3.42%) Salesforce
10 11 (3.13%) Workday
11 10 (2.85%) CyberArk
12 8 (2.28%) BeyondTrust
12 8 (2.28%) IBM
12 8 (2.28%) VMware
12 8 (2.28%) webMethods
13 7 (1.99%) F5
14 6 (1.71%) HP
14 6 (1.71%) iManage
15 5 (1.42%) Dell