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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 444 335 227
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.34% 18.06% 11.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.52% 20.22% 14.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 284 213 140
10th Percentile £306 £205 £155
25th Percentile £363 £400 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £550
90th Percentile £662 £631 £638
England median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 12 3
10th Percentile £12.94 £14.34 £16.19
25th Percentile £15.65 £15.53 £17.24
Median hourly rate £19.48 £27.17 £18.97
Median % change year-on-year -28.29% +43.20% +30.47%
75th Percentile £33.87 £36.25 £20.24
90th Percentile £50.00 £43.60 £20.99
England median hourly rate £19.48 £18.87 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.23% +16.27% -69.42%

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 3,058 1,657 1,564
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.97% 89.33% 82.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,879 1,057 985
10th Percentile £317 £250 £231
25th Percentile £413 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £585 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £678 £725
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 110 39
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.62 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.48 £16.30 £16.38
Median hourly rate £27.30 £23.03 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +18.57% -4.78% -12.07%
75th Percentile £51.25 £33.16 £35.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.65
England median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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
Shropshire -4 128 £456 -11.76% 49
Warwickshire -1 122 £470 -6.00% 90
Birmingham -14 75 £406 -9.72% 328
Coventry -9 40 £363 -18.31% 68
Staffordshire -7 19 £725 +61.11% 75
Worcestershire +9 14 £425 -25.27% 51
Solihull -11 14 - - 30
Wolverhampton 0 4 £275 +46.67% 26
Herefordshire 0 4 - - 22
Dudley - 3 £375 - 8
Wednesbury - 1 - - 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 41 (9.23%) Confluence
2 23 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 16 (3.60%) SAS
4 11 (2.48%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (1.80%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.45%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.23%) Apache
7 1 (0.23%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.23%) Appian
7 1 (0.23%) IIS
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.23%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 23 (5.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (3.38%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.68%) Revit
6 2 (0.45%) Adobe XD
6 2 (0.45%) CATIA
6 2 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.45%) Sketch
7 1 (0.23%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.23%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.23%) Fusion 360
7 1 (0.23%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.23%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (4.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (2.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (1.13%) SAP PSCD
4 3 (0.68%) ContrOCC
4 3 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.68%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.45%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.45%) SAP MDG
6 1 (0.23%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle HRMS
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.23%) Primavera
6 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.23%) SAP CX
6 1 (0.23%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.23%) SAP MM
6 1 (0.23%) SAP PP
6 1 (0.23%) SAP QM
6 1 (0.23%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.23%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 77 (17.34%) Azure
2 47 (10.59%) Microsoft 365
3 45 (10.14%) AWS
4 43 (9.68%) Power Platform
5 29 (6.53%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (4.73%) Entra ID
7 18 (4.05%) Power Automate
8 15 (3.38%) Dynamics 365
9 12 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
9 12 (2.70%) Serverless
10 11 (2.48%) Azure Functions
11 10 (2.25%) GitHub
12 8 (1.80%) Snowflake
13 7 (1.58%) GCP
13 7 (1.58%) OneDrive
14 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Purview
15 5 (1.13%) Google Analytics
16 4 (0.90%) Cloud Computing
16 4 (0.90%) SuccessFactors
17 3 (0.68%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.28%) Firewall
2 18 (4.05%) DHCP
2 18 (4.05%) DNS
3 16 (3.60%) Network Security
4 13 (2.93%) LAN
4 13 (2.93%) TCP/IP
4 13 (2.93%) VPN
4 13 (2.93%) WAN
5 8 (1.80%) SD-WAN
5 8 (1.80%) Unified Communications
6 6 (1.35%) Internet
6 6 (1.35%) VoIP
7 5 (1.13%) VXLAN
7 5 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (1.13%) Wireless
8 4 (0.90%) BGP
8 4 (0.90%) Ethernet VPN
8 4 (0.90%) NX-OS
8 4 (0.90%) Softphone
8 4 (0.90%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (8.78%) Power BI
2 23 (5.18%) SQL Server
3 20 (4.50%) Data Warehouse
3 20 (4.50%) Pentaho
4 18 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (3.83%) Metadata
6 16 (3.60%) Relational Database
7 10 (2.25%) Data Lake
7 10 (2.25%) Oracle Reports
8 9 (2.03%) NoSQL
9 8 (1.80%) Oracle Database
10 7 (1.58%) MongoDB
10 7 (1.58%) MySQL
11 6 (1.35%) Ingres
12 4 (0.90%) SAP BW
13 3 (0.68%) Big Data
13 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
14 2 (0.45%) Delta Lake
14 2 (0.45%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 53 (11.94%) JIRA
2 28 (6.31%) Git
3 19 (4.28%) Jenkins
3 19 (4.28%) Selenium
4 17 (3.83%) Postman
5 14 (3.15%) GitLab
5 14 (3.15%) Maven
6 12 (2.70%) Cypress.io
6 12 (2.70%) JUnit
7 11 (2.48%) SonarQube
7 11 (2.48%) WebDriver
8 10 (2.25%) Mockito
9 8 (1.80%) Cucumber
10 5 (1.13%) Zephyr
11 4 (0.90%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 4 (0.90%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.68%) Browser DevTools
12 3 (0.68%) Protractor
12 3 (0.68%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.68%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 248 (55.86%) Social Skills
2 185 (41.67%) Analytical Skills
3 85 (19.14%) Public Sector
4 65 (14.64%) Finance
5 30 (6.76%) Organisational Skills
6 26 (5.86%) Manufacturing
7 24 (5.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 20 (4.50%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (3.83%) Legal
10 16 (3.60%) Local Government
11 15 (3.38%) Automotive
12 13 (2.93%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (2.03%) Billing
13 9 (2.03%) Retail
14 8 (1.80%) Banking
14 8 (1.80%) Marketing
14 8 (1.80%) Telecoms
15 6 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
16 5 (1.13%) Electronics
16 5 (1.13%) Military
Job Titles
1 67 (15.09%) Analyst
2 49 (11.04%) Lead
3 47 (10.59%) Senior
4 40 (9.01%) Developer
5 31 (6.98%) Architect
5 31 (6.98%) Data Engineer
6 24 (5.41%) Consultant
7 18 (4.05%) Administrator
7 18 (4.05%) Business Analyst
7 18 (4.05%) Test Analyst
8 17 (3.83%) SAP Consultant
9 15 (3.38%) Java Developer
10 14 (3.15%) Support Engineer
11 13 (2.93%) Data Analyst
12 12 (2.70%) Technical Engineer
13 11 (2.48%) Network Engineer
13 11 (2.48%) Project Manager
14 10 (2.25%) Security Engineer
14 10 (2.25%) Senior Developer
15 9 (2.03%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (9.01%) REST
2 29 (6.53%) SOAP
3 16 (3.60%) AngularJS
4 15 (3.38%) RESTful
4 15 (3.38%) Spring
4 15 (3.38%) Spring Boot
5 14 (3.15%) Web Services
6 12 (2.70%) Oracle Fusion
6 12 (2.70%) Spring Cloud
7 11 (2.48%) Gherkin
7 11 (2.48%) Hibernate
7 11 (2.48%) JPA
7 11 (2.48%) Terraform
8 10 (2.25%) ActiveMQ
9 8 (1.80%) JSON
10 7 (1.58%) Play Framework
11 6 (1.35%) Middleware
11 6 (1.35%) XML
12 5 (1.13%) CSS
12 5 (1.13%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 30 (6.76%) Management Information System
2 28 (6.31%) Cloud Native
3 26 (5.86%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (4.73%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (3.60%) Product Ownership
6 15 (3.38%) Onboarding
7 13 (2.93%) Data Centre
8 12 (2.70%) Operational Technology
9 11 (2.48%) Virtual Team
10 9 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.80%) Analytical Mindset
11 8 (1.80%) Autonomous Agent
12 7 (1.58%) Cyber Threat
12 7 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.35%) Data Structures
13 6 (1.35%) Life Science
13 6 (1.35%) SCADA
14 5 (1.13%) Driving Licence
14 5 (1.13%) Mobile App
14 5 (1.13%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 51 (11.49%) Windows
2 16 (3.60%) Linux
3 15 (3.38%) Mac OS
4 14 (3.15%) Unix
5 12 (2.70%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.48%) Windows 10
7 5 (1.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.68%) AIX
8 3 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.68%) Solaris
8 3 (0.68%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 2 (0.45%) CentOS
9 2 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.23%) HPUX
10 1 (0.23%) SUSE
10 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (34.68%) Agile
2 139 (31.31%) Continuous Improvement
3 103 (23.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 71 (15.99%) CI/CD
5 69 (15.54%) DevOps
6 65 (14.64%) Test Automation
7 64 (14.41%) Migration
8 61 (13.74%) AI
9 55 (12.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 54 (12.16%) Scrum
11 53 (11.94%) Data Modelling
12 49 (11.04%) Decision-Making
13 46 (10.36%) Analytics
13 46 (10.36%) Business Intelligence
13 46 (10.36%) Generative AI
14 45 (10.14%) ETL
15 44 (9.91%) Mentoring
16 42 (9.46%) Validation
17 41 (9.23%) User Acceptance Testing
18 40 (9.01%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 65 (14.64%) SQL
2 42 (9.46%) Java
3 32 (7.21%) Python
4 23 (5.18%) JavaScript
5 14 (3.15%) PowerShell
6 13 (2.93%) C#
6 13 (2.93%) TypeScript
7 10 (2.25%) PL/SQL
8 9 (2.03%) C
9 8 (1.80%) Bash
9 8 (1.80%) ProC
10 7 (1.58%) ABAP
10 7 (1.58%) Scala
11 5 (1.13%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.90%) Bicep
13 3 (0.68%) C++
13 3 (0.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 2 (0.45%) MATLAB
14 2 (0.45%) VB6
14 2 (0.45%) VBA
Qualifications
1 128 (28.83%) Security Cleared
2 108 (24.32%) SC Cleared
3 50 (11.26%) Degree
4 35 (7.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (5.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.70%) Azure Certification
6 12 (2.70%) ISTQB
7 11 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (2.03%) CISSP
10 7 (1.58%) DBS Check
10 7 (1.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 6 (1.35%) CCNA
11 6 (1.35%) OCP
11 6 (1.35%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (1.13%) A+ Certification
12 5 (1.13%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.13%) DV Cleared
12 5 (1.13%) Network+ Certification
13 4 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (11.04%) Data Quality
2 42 (9.46%) QA
3 24 (5.41%) Accessibility
4 16 (3.60%) GDPR
5 15 (3.38%) SLA
6 12 (2.70%) WCAG
7 7 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (1.35%) ISO 19650
9 3 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.68%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.68%) NIST
9 3 (0.68%) PMO
10 2 (0.45%) ISO 13485
10 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 1 (0.23%) GMP
11 1 (0.23%) GRC
11 1 (0.23%) HL7
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 28 (6.31%) Docker
2 22 (4.95%) Active Directory
3 16 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.03%) VMware ESXi
4 9 (2.03%) vSphere
5 7 (1.58%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.90%) FreeRADIUS
7 3 (0.68%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 16 (3.60%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (3.38%) SCCM
3 14 (3.15%) Grafana
3 14 (3.15%) Prometheus
4 12 (2.70%) Ansible
5 6 (1.35%) Jamf Pro
6 5 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.90%) FortiGate
7 4 (0.90%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.90%) vMotion
8 3 (0.68%) Podman
9 2 (0.45%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.23%) AirWatch
10 1 (0.23%) Argo
10 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.23%) QRadar
Vendors
1 103 (23.20%) Microsoft
2 49 (11.04%) Oracle
3 37 (8.33%) SAP
4 23 (5.18%) Cisco
4 23 (5.18%) ServiceNow
4 23 (5.18%) VMware
5 15 (3.38%) Denodo
6 14 (3.15%) Talend
7 11 (2.48%) Google
8 8 (1.80%) Atlassian
9 7 (1.58%) Apple
9 7 (1.58%) Databricks
9 7 (1.58%) Qualys
9 7 (1.58%) Red Hat
9 7 (1.58%) Splunk
10 6 (1.35%) Autodesk
10 6 (1.35%) Fortinet
10 6 (1.35%) Informatica
11 5 (1.13%) Samsung
11 5 (1.13%) webMethods