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

 6 months to
8 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 +8 -2
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 355 247 198
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.26% 18.41% 10.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.53% 20.77% 12.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 158 141
10th Percentile £288 £150 £263
25th Percentile £388 £300 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.15% -8.00% -2.49%
75th Percentile £548 £538 £611
90th Percentile £649 £639 £650
England median daily rate £488 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -2.50% -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 9
10th Percentile £13.30 £14.45 £14.29
25th Percentile £15.62 £15.41 £15.13
Median hourly rate £30.27 £16.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +80.72% -60.12% +127.09%
75th Percentile £67.84 £23.18 £56.25
90th Percentile - £42.81 £72.50
England median hourly rate £22.80 £22.00 £17.50
% change year-on-year +3.63% +25.71% -65.00%

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 2,624 1,189 1,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 83.25% 88.60% 84.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,711 779 1,065
10th Percentile £306 £195 £275
25th Percentile £402 £381 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.68%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £750
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 56 115
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.62 £11.09
25th Percentile £21.49 £13.49 £14.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £18.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +88.83% -20.00% +21.62%
75th Percentile £67.84 £22.49 £40.25
90th Percentile £72.54 £39.61 £57.75
England median hourly rate £46.47 £29.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +59.40% -20.14% -2.14%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 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
Warwickshire 0 97 £525 -2.51% 49
Shropshire -13 94 £450 -2.17% 20
Birmingham -10 85 £459 +2.00% 70
Coventry -7 25 £309 -25.09% 15
Staffordshire -3 11 £313 +101.61% 31
Worcestershire -9 11 £563 +8.17% 23
Solihull -12 5 £493 - 11
Herefordshire -8 3 - - 4
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 5
Brierley Hill - 1 £390 - 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 30 (8.45%) Confluence
2 29 (8.17%) SAS
3 13 (3.66%) SharePoint
4 8 (2.25%) Oracle Workflow
4 8 (2.25%) WebLogic
5 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (1.69%) Oracle Self-Service HR
6 2 (0.56%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.28%) Appian
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.28%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 22 (6.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (5.07%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (2.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.97%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (1.13%) Adobe XD
6 4 (1.13%) Sketch
6 4 (1.13%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.85%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.85%) Revit
8 1 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.28%) CATIA
8 1 (0.28%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.28%) InDesign
8 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.69%) Oracle HRMS
3 3 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.56%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.28%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.28%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.28%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.28%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.28%) SAP QM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 61 (17.18%) Azure
2 40 (11.27%) AWS
3 29 (8.17%) Power Platform
4 20 (5.63%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (5.35%) Entra ID
6 16 (4.51%) GitHub
7 15 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
7 15 (4.23%) GCP
8 9 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (1.97%) Power Automate
10 6 (1.69%) Azure Data Factory
10 6 (1.69%) Figma
11 5 (1.41%) Amazon S3
11 5 (1.41%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.41%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.41%) Serverless
11 5 (1.41%) Snowflake
12 4 (1.13%) Datadog
12 4 (1.13%) dbt
12 4 (1.13%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.10%) DNS
2 9 (2.54%) VPN
3 6 (1.69%) Firewall
4 5 (1.41%) Intrusion Detection
4 5 (1.41%) Network Security
4 5 (1.41%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.13%) BIG-IP
5 4 (1.13%) DHCP
5 4 (1.13%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.13%) VSAN
5 4 (1.13%) WAN
6 3 (0.85%) Internet
6 3 (0.85%) VLAN
7 2 (0.56%) LAN
7 2 (0.56%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (0.56%) SAN
7 2 (0.56%) SMTP
7 2 (0.56%) SSL
7 2 (0.56%) WAAS
8 1 (0.28%) DKIM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.76%) Power BI
2 23 (6.48%) Pentaho
3 20 (5.63%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (3.10%) SQL Server
6 10 (2.82%) Metadata
7 8 (2.25%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (1.69%) MongoDB
8 6 (1.69%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (1.41%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.13%) MySQL
10 4 (1.13%) Power Query
10 4 (1.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.85%) Tableau
11 3 (0.85%) WebFOCUS
12 2 (0.56%) Big Data
12 2 (0.56%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.56%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 67 (18.87%) JIRA
2 53 (14.93%) Git
3 36 (10.14%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.82%) Selenium
5 7 (1.97%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 6 (1.69%) GitLab
6 6 (1.69%) Postman
7 5 (1.41%) Zephyr
8 4 (1.13%) JUnit
8 4 (1.13%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.85%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.85%) JMeter
9 3 (0.85%) WebDriver
10 2 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
10 2 (0.56%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.28%) CA Gen
11 1 (0.28%) Storybook
11 1 (0.28%) TestRail
11 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.28%) webpack
General
1 182 (51.27%) Social Skills
2 147 (41.41%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (12.39%) Finance
4 25 (7.04%) Public Sector
5 18 (5.07%) Organisational Skills
6 10 (2.82%) Banking
6 10 (2.82%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (2.54%) Legal
8 8 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.97%) Local Government
10 6 (1.69%) Military
11 5 (1.41%) Electronics
11 5 (1.41%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.85%) Automotive
13 3 (0.85%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (0.85%) Law
13 3 (0.85%) Marketing
13 3 (0.85%) Retail
13 3 (0.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 60 (16.90%) Analyst
2 34 (9.58%) Data Engineer
3 31 (8.73%) Developer
4 27 (7.61%) Lead
5 21 (5.92%) Senior
6 20 (5.63%) Business Analyst
7 18 (5.07%) Consultant
8 16 (4.51%) Architect
9 12 (3.38%) Data Analyst
9 12 (3.38%) Delivery Manager
10 11 (3.10%) Administrator
11 9 (2.54%) Business Intelligence Developer
11 9 (2.54%) Project Manager
11 9 (2.54%) SAP Consultant
11 9 (2.54%) Splunk Engineer
12 8 (2.25%) Site Engineer
12 8 (2.25%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 7 (1.97%) Infrastructure Analyst
13 7 (1.97%) Network Engineer
13 7 (1.97%) Scrum Master
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.94%) Spring
2 12 (3.38%) REST
3 10 (2.82%) Elastic Stack
3 10 (2.82%) Spring Boot
4 9 (2.54%) RESTful
5 7 (1.97%) AngularJS
5 7 (1.97%) OpenTelemetry
6 6 (1.69%) CSS
6 6 (1.69%) HTML
6 6 (1.69%) Middleware
6 6 (1.69%) SAML
7 5 (1.41%) CSS3
7 5 (1.41%) HTML5
7 5 (1.41%) React
7 5 (1.41%) SailPoint
8 3 (0.85%) FastAPI
8 3 (0.85%) Hugging Face
8 3 (0.85%) PyTorch
8 3 (0.85%) TensorFlow
8 3 (0.85%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.79%) Cloud Native
1 17 (4.79%) Management Information System
2 16 (4.51%) Product Ownership
3 13 (3.66%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.10%) Operational Technology
5 10 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 10 (2.82%) SCADA
6 9 (2.54%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.69%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.69%) Driving Licence
8 6 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.13%) CSOC
10 4 (1.13%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 28 (7.89%) Linux
2 27 (7.61%) Windows
3 10 (2.82%) Unix
4 8 (2.25%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.69%) Mac OS
5 6 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.69%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.85%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.28%) CentOS
7 1 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.28%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (34.37%) Agile
2 102 (28.73%) Continuous Improvement
3 75 (21.13%) CI/CD
4 65 (18.31%) DevOps
5 57 (16.06%) Data Modelling
5 57 (16.06%) Migration
6 56 (15.77%) Analytics
6 56 (15.77%) Business Intelligence
7 54 (15.21%) Scrum
8 52 (14.65%) ETL
9 51 (14.37%) Stakeholder Management
10 50 (14.08%) AI
11 49 (13.80%) Test Automation
12 41 (11.55%) Decision-Making
12 41 (11.55%) Validation
13 40 (11.27%) Generative AI
14 37 (10.42%) Change Management
15 35 (9.86%) Data Integration
15 35 (9.86%) Data Pipeline
16 31 (8.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 84 (23.66%) SQL
2 48 (13.52%) Python
3 28 (7.89%) Java
4 18 (5.07%) Bash
5 15 (4.23%) PL/SQL
6 14 (3.94%) PowerShell
7 11 (3.10%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.69%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.41%) Perl
9 5 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.13%) C#
10 4 (1.13%) C++
10 4 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.85%) C
11 3 (0.85%) Go
11 3 (0.85%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.56%) Bicep
13 1 (0.28%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.28%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 114 (32.11%) Security Cleared
2 93 (26.20%) SC Cleared
3 51 (14.37%) Degree
4 16 (4.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.38%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.82%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 6 (1.69%) Azure Certification
11 5 (1.41%) MCSE
12 4 (1.13%) CCNA
12 4 (1.13%) CCNP
12 4 (1.13%) Master's Degree
12 4 (1.13%) OCP
12 4 (1.13%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (1.13%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.13%) PMP
13 3 (0.85%) RHCA
13 3 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (14.37%) Data Quality
2 22 (6.20%) QA
3 10 (2.82%) Accessibility
4 8 (2.25%) PMO
5 5 (1.41%) GDPR
5 5 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.41%) SLA
6 4 (1.13%) ISO 19650
6 4 (1.13%) WCAG
7 3 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.85%) GRC
7 3 (0.85%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 12207
7 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.28%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.28%) NIST
9 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 59 (16.62%) Docker
2 20 (5.63%) Active Directory
3 17 (4.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (3.38%) vSphere
5 5 (1.41%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.13%) Snort
6 4 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.85%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.28%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 62 (17.46%) Kubernetes
2 20 (5.63%) Ansible
3 14 (3.94%) Grafana
3 14 (3.94%) Terraform
4 9 (2.54%) Prometheus
5 8 (2.25%) Kibana
5 8 (2.25%) Puppet
6 6 (1.69%) Argo
6 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (1.69%) SCCM
7 5 (1.41%) vRealize
7 5 (1.41%) VxRail
8 4 (1.13%) CSIRT
8 4 (1.13%) PowerCLI
8 4 (1.13%) vMotion
9 3 (0.85%) Control-M
9 3 (0.85%) IBM Guardium
9 3 (0.85%) Nessus
9 3 (0.85%) Podman
9 3 (0.85%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 69 (19.44%) Microsoft
2 42 (11.83%) Oracle
3 31 (8.73%) ServiceNow
4 23 (6.48%) Talend
5 22 (6.20%) Denodo
5 22 (6.20%) VMware
6 19 (5.35%) SAP
7 17 (4.79%) Splunk
8 15 (4.23%) Cisco
9 8 (2.25%) Atlassian
9 8 (2.25%) Red Hat
10 6 (1.69%) Adobe
10 6 (1.69%) Dell
10 6 (1.69%) SolarWinds
11 5 (1.41%) Google
11 5 (1.41%) HP
11 5 (1.41%) IBM
11 5 (1.41%) Okta
12 4 (1.13%) AppDynamics
12 4 (1.13%) Zscaler
245 Problem-Solving jobs in the West Midlands