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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 11
Rank change year-on-year -8 +8 -3
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 399 304 176
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.48% 18.25% 9.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.37% 20.65% 11.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 281 186 122
10th Percentile £306 £168 £190
25th Percentile £363 £325 £357
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £537 £538 £588
90th Percentile £615 £647 £673
England median daily rate £493 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -0.45% -1.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 9 6
10th Percentile £12.90 £14.86 £15.13
25th Percentile £14.60 £25.00 £15.22
Median hourly rate £27.30 £33.88 £17.99
Median % change year-on-year -19.42% +88.38% -14.23%
75th Percentile £46.95 £44.00 £46.93
90th Percentile £67.84 £54.13 £56.25
England median hourly rate £21.00 £21.10 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.47% +30.01% -69.09%

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 2,985 1,472 1,514
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 85.87% 88.36% 81.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,921 928 1,032
10th Percentile £313 £220 £291
25th Percentile £406 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £626
90th Percentile £671 £663 £738
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 106 61
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £14.01 £14.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £23.42 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +45.13% +26.59% -32.73%
75th Percentile £53.75 £33.16 £37.50
90th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £56.25
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -40.82% -

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 2 August 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 2 August 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 2 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
Warwickshire -2 117 £500 +4.71% 51
Shropshire -13 109 £450 -1.50% 35
Birmingham -15 75 £450 +4.41% 111
Coventry -17 31 £363 -12.12% 18
Worcestershire +10 16 £506 -1.70% 28
Staffordshire -5 11 £313 -10.71% 40
Solihull -16 8 £447 -42.73% 11
Wolverhampton - 5 £200 - 8
Herefordshire -3 4 - - 11
Wednesbury - 1 - -
Dudley - 1 £375 - 2
Brierley Hill - 1 £390 -
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 40 (10.03%) Confluence
2 26 (6.52%) SAS
3 19 (4.76%) SharePoint
4 15 (3.76%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (2.26%) WebLogic
6 6 (1.50%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.25%) Apache
8 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.25%) Appian
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.25%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 26 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (4.51%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.25%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.75%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.75%) Revit
6 2 (0.50%) Adobe XD
6 2 (0.50%) CATIA
6 2 (0.50%) Sketch
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.25%) Fusion 360
7 1 (0.25%) InDesign
7 1 (0.25%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.25%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (3.01%) Dynamics CRM
1 12 (3.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.50%) Oracle HRMS
3 5 (1.25%) SAP PSCD
4 3 (0.75%) ContrOCC
4 3 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.75%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.25%) Maximo
5 1 (0.25%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.25%) SAP CX
5 1 (0.25%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.25%) SAP QM
5 1 (0.25%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 74 (18.55%) Azure
2 39 (9.77%) AWS
3 34 (8.52%) Power Platform
4 30 (7.52%) Microsoft 365
5 29 (7.27%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (4.26%) Entra ID
7 16 (4.01%) GitHub
8 14 (3.51%) Dynamics 365
9 13 (3.26%) GCP
9 13 (3.26%) Serverless
10 12 (3.01%) Power Automate
11 11 (2.76%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (2.51%) Azure Functions
13 8 (2.01%) Microsoft Purview
14 6 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (1.50%) OneDrive
15 5 (1.25%) Figma
15 5 (1.25%) Google Analytics
15 5 (1.25%) OpenShift
15 5 (1.25%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 14 (3.51%) DNS
2 10 (2.51%) Firewall
2 10 (2.51%) VPN
3 9 (2.26%) DHCP
4 7 (1.75%) LAN
4 7 (1.75%) WAN
5 6 (1.50%) Intrusion Detection
5 6 (1.50%) Network Security
5 6 (1.50%) SD-WAN
5 6 (1.50%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.25%) Internet
6 5 (1.25%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.75%) BIG-IP
7 3 (0.75%) SSL
7 3 (0.75%) Unified Communications
7 3 (0.75%) VoIP
8 2 (0.50%) Cisco Wireless
8 2 (0.50%) PBX
8 2 (0.50%) Remote Desktop
8 2 (0.50%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.27%) Power BI
2 23 (5.76%) Pentaho
3 20 (5.01%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (4.51%) SQL Server
5 15 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (2.51%) Metadata
7 7 (1.75%) MySQL
7 7 (1.75%) Oracle Reports
8 6 (1.50%) Ingres
8 6 (1.50%) MongoDB
8 6 (1.50%) Oracle Database
9 5 (1.25%) Big Data
9 5 (1.25%) Data Lake
9 5 (1.25%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.00%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.00%) Power Query
11 3 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.75%) SAP BW
12 2 (0.50%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 2 (0.50%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 70 (17.54%) JIRA
2 43 (10.78%) Git
3 31 (7.77%) Jenkins
4 22 (5.51%) Selenium
5 16 (4.01%) Postman
6 12 (3.01%) WebDriver
7 11 (2.76%) Cypress.io
8 10 (2.51%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 9 (2.26%) Cucumber
10 8 (2.01%) GitLab
11 7 (1.75%) JUnit
12 5 (1.25%) Bitbucket
12 5 (1.25%) REST Assured
12 5 (1.25%) Zephyr
13 4 (1.00%) JMeter
13 4 (1.00%) Maven
14 3 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
14 3 (0.75%) Protractor
14 3 (0.75%) SonarQube
15 2 (0.50%) Gatling
General
1 197 (49.37%) Social Skills
2 156 (39.10%) Analytical Skills
3 62 (15.54%) Finance
4 52 (13.03%) Public Sector
5 21 (5.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (4.01%) Local Government
7 15 (3.76%) Manufacturing
8 13 (3.26%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (2.76%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.51%) Banking
10 10 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
11 9 (2.26%) Automotive
11 9 (2.26%) Legal
12 7 (1.75%) Electronics
12 7 (1.75%) Marketing
13 5 (1.25%) Billing
13 5 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.25%) Retail
14 4 (1.00%) Military
15 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 62 (15.54%) Analyst
2 46 (11.53%) Lead
3 40 (10.03%) Data Engineer
4 34 (8.52%) Senior
5 29 (7.27%) Developer
6 26 (6.52%) Consultant
7 20 (5.01%) Administrator
7 20 (5.01%) Architect
7 20 (5.01%) Business Analyst
8 17 (4.26%) SAP Consultant
9 15 (3.76%) Test Analyst
10 11 (2.76%) Data Analyst
11 8 (2.01%) Business Intelligence Developer
11 8 (2.01%) Delivery Manager
11 8 (2.01%) Java Developer
11 8 (2.01%) Network Engineer
11 8 (2.01%) Project Manager
11 8 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
11 8 (2.01%) Software Engineer
11 8 (2.01%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.01%) REST
2 15 (3.76%) Spring
3 12 (3.01%) Spring Boot
4 9 (2.26%) Gherkin
4 9 (2.26%) Oracle Fusion
4 9 (2.26%) SOAP
5 6 (1.50%) Middleware
6 5 (1.25%) AngularJS
6 5 (1.25%) JDBC
6 5 (1.25%) OpenTelemetry
6 5 (1.25%) SAP PI
7 4 (1.00%) IDoc
7 4 (1.00%) Playwright
7 4 (1.00%) Spring Cloud
7 4 (1.00%) XML
8 3 (0.75%) ADO
8 3 (0.75%) CSS
8 3 (0.75%) HTML
8 3 (0.75%) SAML
8 3 (0.75%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.51%) Cloud Native
2 15 (3.76%) Management Information System
3 13 (3.26%) Data Centre
3 13 (3.26%) Enterprise Software
3 13 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 11 (2.76%) Operational Technology
5 10 (2.51%) Onboarding
5 10 (2.51%) SCADA
5 10 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.26%) Analytical Mindset
6 9 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.26%) Virtual Team
7 8 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (1.25%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.00%) Autonomous Agent
10 4 (1.00%) Driving Licence
11 3 (0.75%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 44 (11.03%) Windows
2 17 (4.26%) Linux
3 12 (3.01%) Mac OS
4 10 (2.51%) Unix
4 10 (2.51%) Windows 10
4 10 (2.51%) Windows Server
5 5 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.75%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.25%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (34.34%) Agile
2 122 (30.58%) Continuous Improvement
3 81 (20.30%) CI/CD
4 77 (19.30%) DevOps
5 70 (17.54%) Stakeholder Management
6 64 (16.04%) Test Automation
7 57 (14.29%) Scrum
8 56 (14.04%) Analytics
8 56 (14.04%) Migration
9 55 (13.78%) Business Intelligence
10 53 (13.28%) AI
10 53 (13.28%) ETL
11 52 (13.03%) Data Modelling
12 45 (11.28%) Decision-Making
13 44 (11.03%) Validation
14 42 (10.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 38 (9.52%) Data Pipeline
16 37 (9.27%) Generative AI
17 36 (9.02%) ITIL
18 29 (7.27%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 90 (22.56%) SQL
2 41 (10.28%) Python
3 33 (8.27%) Java
4 19 (4.76%) PL/SQL
5 13 (3.26%) PowerShell
6 11 (2.76%) C
7 10 (2.51%) Bash
7 10 (2.51%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.01%) C#
8 8 (2.01%) ProC
9 6 (1.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (1.50%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.25%) ABAP
10 5 (1.25%) MATLAB
10 5 (1.25%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.00%) C++
11 4 (1.00%) Perl
12 3 (0.75%) Bicep
12 3 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.75%) Scala
Qualifications
1 138 (34.59%) Security Cleared
2 117 (29.32%) SC Cleared
3 42 (10.53%) Degree
4 20 (5.01%) Microsoft Certification
5 18 (4.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (2.26%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.26%) ISTQB
8 8 (2.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 7 (1.75%) Azure Certification
9 7 (1.75%) CCNA
9 7 (1.75%) OCP
9 7 (1.75%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (1.50%) MCSE
11 5 (1.25%) AWS Certification
11 5 (1.25%) CISSP
12 4 (1.00%) CCNP
12 4 (1.00%) RHCA
12 4 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (12.78%) Data Quality
2 30 (7.52%) QA
3 19 (4.76%) Accessibility
4 14 (3.51%) GDPR
4 14 (3.51%) SLA
5 11 (2.76%) WCAG
6 9 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.50%) PMO
8 4 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.75%) GRC
9 3 (0.75%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 3 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 2 (0.50%) ISO 19650
10 2 (0.50%) NIST
11 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.25%) ISO 14001
11 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 42 (10.53%) Docker
2 20 (5.01%) Active Directory
3 13 (3.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.51%) vSphere
5 7 (1.75%) Hyper-V
5 7 (1.75%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.75%) Snort
6 3 (0.75%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
8 1 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 43 (10.78%) Kubernetes
2 16 (4.01%) SCCM
3 14 (3.51%) Grafana
4 13 (3.26%) Terraform
5 11 (2.76%) Ansible
6 10 (2.51%) Prometheus
7 9 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.00%) Argo
8 4 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
8 4 (1.00%) Podman
8 4 (1.00%) PowerCLI
8 4 (1.00%) vMotion
9 3 (0.75%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.75%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.25%) AirWatch
10 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.25%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.25%) QRadar
Vendors
1 80 (20.05%) Microsoft
2 57 (14.29%) Oracle
3 31 (7.77%) SAP
4 25 (6.27%) ServiceNow
5 22 (5.51%) Talend
6 21 (5.26%) Denodo
7 20 (5.01%) VMware
8 16 (4.01%) Cisco
9 14 (3.51%) Atlassian
9 14 (3.51%) Splunk
10 10 (2.51%) Google
10 10 (2.51%) Red Hat
11 8 (2.01%) Databricks
12 7 (1.75%) Qualys
13 6 (1.50%) Apple
13 6 (1.50%) Siemens
14 5 (1.25%) Adobe
14 5 (1.25%) Citrix
14 5 (1.25%) webMethods
15 4 (1.00%) Informatica