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

 6 months to
2 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 2 11
Rank change year-on-year -8 +9 -3
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 384 280 195
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.44% 18.75% 9.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.36% 21.12% 11.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 173 137
10th Percentile £306 £152 £196
25th Percentile £362 £282 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.54% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £530 £588
90th Percentile £634 £613 £647
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 8 11
10th Percentile £12.90 £14.72 £15.13
25th Percentile £15.34 £22.53 £15.32
Median hourly rate £25.15 £31.61 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.42% +40.47% +8.67%
75th Percentile £40.94 £46.13 £56.25
90th Percentile £67.84 £54.94 £72.50
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.28 £16.23
% change year-on-year +0.33% +31.12% -68.02%

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 2,875 1,326 1,667
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 85.62% 88.81% 81.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,890 838 1,107
10th Percentile £313 £202 £263
25th Percentile £405 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.89% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £669 £731
England median daily rate £520 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 87 117
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.62 £11.24
25th Percentile £20.31 £14.14 £14.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £24.34 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.65% +8.18% -10.00%
75th Percentile £59.75 £34.43 £38.75
90th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £57.25
England median hourly rate £46.62 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +85.35% -34.02% +1.65%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -2 124 £525 +13.51% 42
Shropshire -17 90 £453 -1.63% 26
Birmingham -14 80 £450 +5.39% 78
Coventry -8 27 £406 +4.84% 11
Worcestershire +4 17 £563 +7.14% 34
Staffordshire -3 10 £313 +95.31% 27
Solihull -14 7 £493 -36.94% 3
Wolverhampton - 4 - - 4
Herefordshire -5 3 - - 6
Wednesbury - 1 - -
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 28 (7.29%) Confluence
2 26 (6.77%) SAS
3 18 (4.69%) SharePoint
4 15 (3.91%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (2.08%) WebLogic
6 6 (1.56%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 5 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.26%) Appian
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.26%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 27 (7.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (4.43%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.30%) MS Visio
5 4 (1.04%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.78%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.78%) Revit
7 2 (0.52%) CATIA
8 1 (0.26%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.26%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.26%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.26%) InDesign
8 1 (0.26%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.26%) Sketch
8 1 (0.26%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.82%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (1.56%) Oracle HRMS
4 3 (0.78%) ContrOCC
4 3 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.78%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
6 1 (0.26%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.26%) SAP CX
6 1 (0.26%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.26%) SAP QM
6 1 (0.26%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 73 (19.01%) Azure
2 41 (10.68%) AWS
3 35 (9.11%) Power Platform
4 27 (7.03%) Microsoft 365
5 23 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (4.17%) Entra ID
7 15 (3.91%) GitHub
8 13 (3.39%) GCP
9 12 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
10 9 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (2.34%) Serverless
11 8 (2.08%) Microsoft Purview
12 7 (1.82%) Power Automate
13 6 (1.56%) Azure Functions
13 6 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (1.30%) Amazon S3
14 5 (1.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (1.30%) OneDrive
14 5 (1.30%) OpenShift
14 5 (1.30%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.86%) DNS
2 8 (2.08%) Firewall
2 8 (2.08%) VPN
3 7 (1.82%) Intrusion Detection
4 6 (1.56%) DHCP
4 6 (1.56%) SD-WAN
4 6 (1.56%) WAN
5 5 (1.30%) LAN
5 5 (1.30%) Network Security
5 5 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (1.04%) BIG-IP
6 4 (1.04%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.78%) Internet
7 3 (0.78%) VLAN
8 2 (0.52%) PBX
8 2 (0.52%) SAN
8 2 (0.52%) SSL
8 2 (0.52%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.52%) VoIP
8 2 (0.52%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.55%) Power BI
2 22 (5.73%) Pentaho
3 19 (4.95%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (2.86%) SQL Server
6 10 (2.60%) Metadata
7 8 (2.08%) Ingres
8 7 (1.82%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.82%) Relational Database
9 6 (1.56%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (1.04%) MySQL
10 4 (1.04%) Oracle Database
10 4 (1.04%) Power Query
11 3 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.78%) Tableau
11 3 (0.78%) WebFOCUS
12 2 (0.52%) NoSQL
12 2 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 59 (15.36%) JIRA
2 44 (11.46%) Git
3 31 (8.07%) Jenkins
4 17 (4.43%) Selenium
5 11 (2.86%) Postman
6 8 (2.08%) GitLab
7 7 (1.82%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 7 (1.82%) REST Assured
7 7 (1.82%) WebDriver
8 6 (1.56%) Cypress.io
9 5 (1.30%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.30%) JUnit
9 5 (1.30%) Zephyr
10 4 (1.04%) JMeter
11 2 (0.52%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.52%) Gatling
11 2 (0.52%) Protractor
11 2 (0.52%) Serenity BDD
11 2 (0.52%) Team Foundation Server
11 2 (0.52%) TestRail
General
1 189 (49.22%) Social Skills
2 153 (39.84%) Analytical Skills
3 66 (17.19%) Finance
4 33 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 17 (4.43%) Local Government
6 14 (3.65%) Manufacturing
7 13 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (2.60%) Banking
9 10 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (2.08%) Automotive
10 8 (2.08%) Legal
10 8 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.56%) Electronics
12 5 (1.30%) Billing
12 5 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.30%) Marketing
12 5 (1.30%) Military
12 5 (1.30%) Retail
13 4 (1.04%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 59 (15.36%) Analyst
2 38 (9.90%) Data Engineer
2 38 (9.90%) Lead
3 30 (7.81%) Senior
4 27 (7.03%) Developer
5 21 (5.47%) Business Analyst
5 21 (5.47%) Consultant
6 19 (4.95%) Architect
7 17 (4.43%) Administrator
8 15 (3.91%) Data Analyst
9 12 (3.13%) SAP Consultant
10 10 (2.60%) Delivery Manager
10 10 (2.60%) Test Analyst
11 9 (2.34%) Network Engineer
11 9 (2.34%) Software Engineer
12 8 (2.08%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 8 (2.08%) Project Manager
13 7 (1.82%) Scrum Master
13 7 (1.82%) Senior Manager
13 7 (1.82%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (3.91%) Spring
2 12 (3.13%) REST
3 11 (2.86%) Spring Boot
4 9 (2.34%) Oracle Fusion
5 7 (1.82%) OpenTelemetry
6 5 (1.30%) Middleware
6 5 (1.30%) Playwright
7 4 (1.04%) Gherkin
8 3 (0.78%) ADO
8 3 (0.78%) FastAPI
8 3 (0.78%) Hugging Face
8 3 (0.78%) JDBC
8 3 (0.78%) Node.js
8 3 (0.78%) PyTorch
8 3 (0.78%) RESTful
8 3 (0.78%) SAML
8 3 (0.78%) SOAP
8 3 (0.78%) TensorFlow
8 3 (0.78%) WireMock
9 2 (0.52%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.43%) Cloud Native
2 13 (3.39%) Management Information System
2 13 (3.39%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.13%) Operational Technology
4 11 (2.86%) Data Centre
5 10 (2.60%) Onboarding
6 9 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
6 9 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.34%) SCADA
7 8 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.56%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.30%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.04%) CSOC
10 4 (1.04%) Driving Licence
10 4 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.04%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.78%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 40 (10.42%) Windows
2 18 (4.69%) Linux
3 10 (2.60%) Mac OS
3 10 (2.60%) Windows 10
4 8 (2.08%) Unix
4 8 (2.08%) Windows Server
5 5 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.04%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.26%) HPUX
7 1 (0.26%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (31.77%) Agile
2 116 (30.21%) Continuous Improvement
3 75 (19.53%) CI/CD
4 64 (16.67%) DevOps
4 64 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 60 (15.63%) Migration
6 59 (15.36%) Test Automation
7 57 (14.84%) Business Intelligence
8 56 (14.58%) Analytics
9 55 (14.32%) ETL
10 53 (13.80%) Scrum
11 52 (13.54%) AI
11 52 (13.54%) Data Modelling
12 46 (11.98%) Validation
13 45 (11.72%) Decision-Making
14 41 (10.68%) Generative AI
15 34 (8.85%) Data Pipeline
15 34 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 30 (7.81%) Data Integration
17 29 (7.55%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 96 (25.00%) SQL
2 45 (11.72%) Python
3 28 (7.29%) Java
4 20 (5.21%) PL/SQL
5 15 (3.91%) PowerShell
6 11 (2.86%) C
7 10 (2.60%) Bash
8 8 (2.08%) ProC
9 6 (1.56%) C#
9 6 (1.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (1.56%) JavaScript
10 5 (1.30%) Perl
10 5 (1.30%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.30%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.04%) Bicep
11 4 (1.04%) C++
11 4 (1.04%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (1.04%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.52%) ABAP
13 1 (0.26%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 124 (32.29%) Security Cleared
2 103 (26.82%) SC Cleared
3 43 (11.20%) Degree
4 12 (3.13%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (2.60%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 6 (1.56%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.56%) CCNA
10 5 (1.30%) CCNP
10 5 (1.30%) CISSP
10 5 (1.30%) MCSE
11 4 (1.04%) AWS Certification
11 4 (1.04%) ISTQB
11 4 (1.04%) OCP
11 4 (1.04%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.78%) CEH
12 3 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (14.58%) Data Quality
2 24 (6.25%) QA
3 14 (3.65%) SLA
4 13 (3.39%) Accessibility
5 10 (2.60%) GDPR
6 7 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.56%) PMO
7 6 (1.56%) WCAG
8 3 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.78%) GRC
8 3 (0.78%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 2 (0.52%) ISO 19650
9 2 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.26%) NIST
10 1 (0.26%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 46 (11.98%) Docker
2 19 (4.95%) Active Directory
3 12 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.34%) vSphere
5 6 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.04%) Snort
7 3 (0.78%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.52%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 47 (12.24%) Kubernetes
2 16 (4.17%) SCCM
3 13 (3.39%) Grafana
3 13 (3.39%) Terraform
4 12 (3.13%) Ansible
5 11 (2.86%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (1.04%) Argo
7 4 (1.04%) CSIRT
7 4 (1.04%) PowerCLI
7 4 (1.04%) vMotion
8 3 (0.78%) Control-M
8 3 (0.78%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.78%) Nessus
8 3 (0.78%) Podman
8 3 (0.78%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.52%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.52%) Kibana
9 2 (0.52%) Puppet
Vendors
1 79 (20.57%) Microsoft
2 55 (14.32%) Oracle
3 26 (6.77%) ServiceNow
4 25 (6.51%) SAP
5 23 (5.99%) Talend
6 20 (5.21%) Denodo
7 19 (4.95%) VMware
8 16 (4.17%) Cisco
9 14 (3.65%) Splunk
10 11 (2.86%) Red Hat
11 8 (2.08%) Atlassian
12 7 (1.82%) Databricks
12 7 (1.82%) Google
12 7 (1.82%) Qualys
13 6 (1.56%) Siemens
14 4 (1.04%) Adobe
14 4 (1.04%) Apple
14 4 (1.04%) Citrix
14 4 (1.04%) F5
14 4 (1.04%) Informatica
258 Problem-Solving jobs in the West Midlands