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

 6 months to
17 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 11
Rank change year-on-year -9 +9 -2
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 346 260 194
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.94% 18.58% 10.26%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.14% 20.95% 12.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 165 139
10th Percentile £300 £150 £256
25th Percentile £400 £282 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £550 £538 £594
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
England median daily rate £495 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.00% -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 9
10th Percentile £13.20 £14.45 £14.29
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.41 £15.13
Median hourly rate £32.64 £16.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.84% -60.12% +127.09%
75th Percentile £67.84 £23.18 £56.25
90th Percentile - £42.81 £72.50
England median hourly rate £22.00 £22.14 £17.00
% change year-on-year -0.63% +30.24% -66.00%

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 2,633 1,241 1,586
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 83.27% 88.71% 83.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,701 809 1,055
10th Percentile £313 £193 £275
25th Percentile £404 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £662 £750
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 58 114
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.62 £11.08
25th Percentile £22.50 £13.96 £14.03
Median hourly rate £34.38 £18.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +89.60% -19.42% +8.67%
75th Percentile £67.84 £24.81 £40.38
90th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £58.00
England median hourly rate £47.00 £29.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +62.07% -20.55% +1.39%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -1 94 £538 +0.09% 54
Shropshire -14 90 £460 -0.38% 18
Birmingham -7 87 £469 +5.58% 82
Coventry -8 20 £520 +38.67% 20
Worcestershire -7 12 £563 +7.14% 25
Staffordshire -3 11 £313 +95.31% 33
Solihull -11 6 £493 +123.86% 6
Herefordshire -10 3 - - 1
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 6
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 31 (8.96%) SAS
2 28 (8.09%) Confluence
3 13 (3.76%) SharePoint
4 8 (2.31%) Oracle Workflow
4 8 (2.31%) WebLogic
5 6 (1.73%) Oracle Self-Service HR
6 5 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.58%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.29%) Appian
8 1 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.29%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 25 (7.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (5.20%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (3.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.45%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (1.45%) MS Visio
5 4 (1.16%) Adobe XD
5 4 (1.16%) Sketch
5 4 (1.16%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.87%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.87%) Revit
7 1 (0.29%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.29%) CATIA
7 1 (0.29%) Fusion 360
7 1 (0.29%) InDesign
7 1 (0.29%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (2.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.73%) Oracle HRMS
3 3 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.58%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.58%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.29%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.29%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.29%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.29%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.29%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.29%) SAP QM
5 1 (0.29%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 57 (16.47%) Azure
2 40 (11.56%) AWS
3 31 (8.96%) Power Platform
4 20 (5.78%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (5.20%) Entra ID
5 18 (5.20%) GitHub
6 15 (4.34%) Azure DevOps
7 14 (4.05%) GCP
8 9 (2.60%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (1.73%) Azure Data Factory
9 6 (1.73%) Figma
9 6 (1.73%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.45%) Amazon S3
10 5 (1.45%) OneDrive
10 5 (1.45%) OpenShift
10 5 (1.45%) Serverless
10 5 (1.45%) Snowflake
11 4 (1.16%) dbt
11 4 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
11 4 (1.16%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.89%) VPN
2 9 (2.60%) DNS
3 6 (1.73%) Firewall
4 5 (1.45%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (1.16%) BIG-IP
5 4 (1.16%) DHCP
5 4 (1.16%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.16%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.16%) WAN
6 3 (0.87%) Internet
6 3 (0.87%) LAN
6 3 (0.87%) Network Security
6 3 (0.87%) VLAN
6 3 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.58%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (0.58%) SAN
7 2 (0.58%) SMTP
7 2 (0.58%) SSL
7 2 (0.58%) VSAN
7 2 (0.58%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.23%) Pentaho
2 24 (6.94%) Power BI
3 21 (6.07%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (2.89%) Metadata
5 10 (2.89%) SQL Server
6 8 (2.31%) Elasticsearch
7 7 (2.02%) MongoDB
8 6 (1.73%) Oracle Reports
8 6 (1.73%) Relational Database
9 4 (1.16%) MySQL
9 4 (1.16%) Power Query
10 3 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.87%) Tableau
10 3 (0.87%) WebFOCUS
11 2 (0.58%) Big Data
11 2 (0.58%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.58%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 65 (18.79%) JIRA
2 52 (15.03%) Git
3 38 (10.98%) Jenkins
4 12 (3.47%) Selenium
5 8 (2.31%) GitLab
6 7 (2.02%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 6 (1.73%) Postman
7 6 (1.73%) REST Assured
8 5 (1.45%) Zephyr
9 4 (1.16%) JUnit
10 3 (0.87%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.87%) JMeter
10 3 (0.87%) WebDriver
11 2 (0.58%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.58%) CircleCI
11 2 (0.58%) Gatling
11 2 (0.58%) Serenity BDD
12 1 (0.29%) PetaLinux
12 1 (0.29%) Storybook
12 1 (0.29%) Vite
General
1 185 (53.47%) Social Skills
2 143 (41.33%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (12.72%) Finance
4 22 (6.36%) Public Sector
5 18 (5.20%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (3.18%) Banking
7 9 (2.60%) Legal
7 9 (2.60%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (2.02%) Local Government
10 6 (1.73%) Military
11 5 (1.45%) Electronics
11 5 (1.45%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.16%) Marketing
12 4 (1.16%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.87%) Automotive
13 3 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.87%) Law
13 3 (0.87%) Retail
Job Titles
1 57 (16.47%) Analyst
2 36 (10.40%) Data Engineer
3 30 (8.67%) Developer
4 27 (7.80%) Lead
5 22 (6.36%) Senior
6 20 (5.78%) Business Analyst
7 18 (5.20%) Consultant
8 16 (4.62%) Architect
9 13 (3.76%) Data Analyst
10 12 (3.47%) Delivery Manager
11 10 (2.89%) Administrator
11 10 (2.89%) Splunk Engineer
12 9 (2.60%) Project Manager
12 9 (2.60%) SAP Consultant
13 8 (2.31%) Business Intelligence Developer
13 8 (2.31%) Site Engineer
13 8 (2.31%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 7 (2.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 7 (2.02%) Network Engineer
14 7 (2.02%) Scrum Master
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.34%) Spring
2 12 (3.47%) REST
3 11 (3.18%) Spring Boot
4 10 (2.89%) Elastic Stack
5 7 (2.02%) OpenTelemetry
5 7 (2.02%) RESTful
6 6 (1.73%) AngularJS
6 6 (1.73%) CSS
6 6 (1.73%) HTML
6 6 (1.73%) Middleware
7 5 (1.45%) CSS3
7 5 (1.45%) HTML5
7 5 (1.45%) React
7 5 (1.45%) SAML
8 4 (1.16%) Kafka
8 4 (1.16%) Playwright
8 4 (1.16%) SailPoint
9 3 (0.87%) LDAP
9 3 (0.87%) Node.js
9 3 (0.87%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.20%) Management Information System
2 17 (4.91%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.05%) Product Ownership
4 11 (3.18%) Operational Technology
5 10 (2.89%) Data Centre
5 10 (2.89%) Onboarding
5 10 (2.89%) SCADA
6 8 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.73%) Driving Licence
8 6 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.45%) Data Structures
9 5 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.16%) CSOC
10 4 (1.16%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.87%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 30 (8.67%) Windows
2 27 (7.80%) Linux
3 10 (2.89%) Unix
3 10 (2.89%) Windows 10
4 9 (2.60%) Mac OS
5 6 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.73%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.16%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.29%) CentOS
7 1 (0.29%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.29%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.29%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (33.53%) Agile
2 104 (30.06%) Continuous Improvement
3 77 (22.25%) CI/CD
4 67 (19.36%) DevOps
5 58 (16.76%) Data Modelling
6 57 (16.47%) Analytics
6 57 (16.47%) Migration
7 56 (16.18%) Business Intelligence
8 54 (15.61%) Scrum
9 53 (15.32%) ETL
9 53 (15.32%) Stakeholder Management
10 51 (14.74%) Test Automation
11 49 (14.16%) AI
12 42 (12.14%) Validation
13 39 (11.27%) Generative AI
14 38 (10.98%) Decision-Making
15 36 (10.40%) Change Management
15 36 (10.40%) Data Pipeline
16 34 (9.83%) Data Integration
17 32 (9.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 80 (23.12%) SQL
2 48 (13.87%) Python
3 25 (7.23%) Java
4 18 (5.20%) Bash
5 14 (4.05%) PowerShell
6 11 (3.18%) PL/SQL
7 10 (2.89%) JavaScript
8 5 (1.45%) Perl
8 5 (1.45%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.45%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.16%) C#
9 4 (1.16%) C++
9 4 (1.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.87%) C
10 3 (0.87%) Go
10 3 (0.87%) MATLAB
11 2 (0.58%) Bicep
12 1 (0.29%) SystemVerilog
12 1 (0.29%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 104 (30.06%) Security Cleared
2 86 (24.86%) SC Cleared
3 50 (14.45%) Degree
4 16 (4.62%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (2.89%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (2.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 5 (1.45%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.45%) MCSE
10 4 (1.16%) CCNA
10 4 (1.16%) CCNP
10 4 (1.16%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.16%) OCP
10 4 (1.16%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (1.16%) PMI Certification
10 4 (1.16%) PMP
11 3 (0.87%) CISSP
11 3 (0.87%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (14.45%) Data Quality
2 21 (6.07%) QA
3 12 (3.47%) Accessibility
4 6 (1.73%) PMO
5 5 (1.45%) GDPR
5 5 (1.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.45%) SLA
6 4 (1.16%) ISO 19650
6 4 (1.16%) WCAG
7 3 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.87%) GRC
7 3 (0.87%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 12207
7 3 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.29%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.29%) NIST
9 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 61 (17.63%) Docker
2 20 (5.78%) Active Directory
3 13 (3.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.60%) vSphere
5 5 (1.45%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.16%) Snort
6 4 (1.16%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.87%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.58%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.29%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.29%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 61 (17.63%) Kubernetes
2 20 (5.78%) Ansible
3 16 (4.62%) Grafana
4 14 (4.05%) Terraform
5 11 (3.18%) Prometheus
6 8 (2.31%) Kibana
6 8 (2.31%) Puppet
6 8 (2.31%) SCCM
7 6 (1.73%) Argo
7 6 (1.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.16%) CSIRT
8 4 (1.16%) PowerCLI
8 4 (1.16%) vMotion
9 3 (0.87%) Control-M
9 3 (0.87%) IBM Guardium
9 3 (0.87%) Nessus
9 3 (0.87%) Podman
9 3 (0.87%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.58%) VxRail
Vendors
1 69 (19.94%) Microsoft
2 42 (12.14%) Oracle
3 28 (8.09%) ServiceNow
4 25 (7.23%) Talend
5 24 (6.94%) Denodo
6 20 (5.78%) SAP
6 20 (5.78%) Splunk
7 18 (5.20%) VMware
8 14 (4.05%) Cisco
9 8 (2.31%) Atlassian
9 8 (2.31%) Red Hat
10 6 (1.73%) Adobe
10 6 (1.73%) Google
11 4 (1.16%) 3PAR
11 4 (1.16%) Autodesk
11 4 (1.16%) Citrix
11 4 (1.16%) Dell
11 4 (1.16%) F5
11 4 (1.16%) Siemens
11 4 (1.16%) SolarWinds
257 Problem-Solving jobs in the West Midlands