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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 433 318 220
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.24% 17.66% 11.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.44% 19.90% 14.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 205 137
10th Percentile £306 £200 £155
25th Percentile £363 £400 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -7.50%
75th Percentile £536 £540 £575
90th Percentile £656 £630 £638
England median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 11 4
10th Percentile £12.90 £14.25 £15.24
25th Percentile £14.14 £20.06 £15.41
Median hourly rate £20.50 £33.88 £17.99
Median % change year-on-year -39.49% +88.38% +23.69%
75th Percentile £35.75 £42.01 £19.60
90th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £20.74
England median hourly rate £19.57 £18.85 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.82% +16.14% -70.49%

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 2,999 1,598 1,541
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.77% 88.73% 81.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,833 1,019 982
10th Percentile £313 £242 £251
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £725
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 106 38
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.62 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.57 £16.30 £15.94
Median hourly rate £29.55 £24.34 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.41% -14.60% +3.64%
75th Percentile £53.75 £35.00 £42.88
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.85
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.95%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 -5 125 £450 -12.62% 57
Warwickshire 0 115 £460 -8.00% 94
Birmingham -11 78 £438 -2.78% 279
Coventry -8 40 £363 -14.71% 61
Staffordshire -6 17 £519 +29.69% 75
Solihull -12 15 £493 -17.92% 32
Worcestershire +13 12 £425 -27.66% 51
Wolverhampton +1 5 £275 +46.67% 29
Herefordshire +1 5 - - 20
Dudley - 3 £375 - 10
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 44 (10.16%) Confluence
2 22 (5.08%) SharePoint
3 19 (4.39%) SAS
4 14 (3.23%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.92%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 2 (0.46%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.23%) Apache
8 1 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.23%) Appian
8 1 (0.23%) IIS
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.23%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 24 (5.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.69%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.69%) Revit
7 2 (0.46%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.46%) CATIA
7 2 (0.46%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.46%) Sketch
8 1 (0.23%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.23%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.23%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.23%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.23%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (3.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (3.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (1.15%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.92%) Oracle HRMS
5 3 (0.69%) ContrOCC
5 3 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.69%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.46%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.46%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.23%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.23%) Maximo
7 1 (0.23%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.23%) SAP CX
7 1 (0.23%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.23%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.23%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.23%) SAP SD
7 1 (0.23%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 73 (16.86%) Azure
2 46 (10.62%) Microsoft 365
3 43 (9.93%) AWS
4 42 (9.70%) Power Platform
5 29 (6.70%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (4.85%) Entra ID
7 19 (4.39%) Power Automate
8 15 (3.46%) Dynamics 365
9 13 (3.00%) Serverless
10 11 (2.54%) Azure Functions
10 11 (2.54%) GitHub
11 10 (2.31%) Azure Data Factory
12 7 (1.62%) GCP
12 7 (1.62%) OneDrive
13 6 (1.39%) Microsoft Purview
13 6 (1.39%) Snowflake
14 5 (1.15%) Google Analytics
15 4 (0.92%) SuccessFactors
16 3 (0.69%) Figma
16 3 (0.69%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.16%) DHCP
1 18 (4.16%) DNS
2 17 (3.93%) Firewall
3 13 (3.00%) Network Security
3 13 (3.00%) TCP/IP
3 13 (3.00%) VPN
4 11 (2.54%) LAN
4 11 (2.54%) WAN
5 8 (1.85%) SD-WAN
6 7 (1.62%) Unified Communications
7 6 (1.39%) Internet
8 5 (1.15%) VoIP
9 4 (0.92%) SSL
9 4 (0.92%) VXLAN
9 4 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
9 4 (0.92%) Wireless
10 3 (0.69%) BGP
10 3 (0.69%) Ethernet VPN
10 3 (0.69%) NX-OS
10 3 (0.69%) Softphone
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (8.78%) Power BI
2 23 (5.31%) Pentaho
2 23 (5.31%) SQL Server
3 22 (5.08%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (4.62%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (3.93%) Relational Database
6 14 (3.23%) Metadata
7 10 (2.31%) Data Lake
7 10 (2.31%) Oracle Reports
8 9 (2.08%) NoSQL
9 8 (1.85%) Oracle Database
10 7 (1.62%) MySQL
11 6 (1.39%) Ingres
12 5 (1.15%) MongoDB
13 4 (0.92%) SAP BW
14 3 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.69%) Big Data
14 3 (0.69%) Power Query
14 3 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 3 (0.69%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 58 (13.39%) JIRA
2 31 (7.16%) Git
3 22 (5.08%) Jenkins
4 19 (4.39%) Selenium
5 17 (3.93%) Postman
6 14 (3.23%) Maven
7 13 (3.00%) GitLab
8 12 (2.77%) Cypress.io
8 12 (2.77%) JUnit
9 11 (2.54%) SonarQube
9 11 (2.54%) WebDriver
10 10 (2.31%) Mockito
11 8 (1.85%) Cucumber
12 5 (1.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 5 (1.15%) Zephyr
13 4 (0.92%) Bitbucket
14 3 (0.69%) Browser DevTools
14 3 (0.69%) Protractor
14 3 (0.69%) REST Assured
14 3 (0.69%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 239 (55.20%) Social Skills
2 181 (41.80%) Analytical Skills
3 83 (19.17%) Public Sector
4 62 (14.32%) Finance
5 24 (5.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 23 (5.31%) Organisational Skills
7 22 (5.08%) Manufacturing
8 19 (4.39%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (3.93%) Local Government
10 15 (3.46%) Legal
11 12 (2.77%) Automotive
11 12 (2.77%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (2.08%) Banking
13 8 (1.85%) Billing
13 8 (1.85%) Marketing
13 8 (1.85%) Retail
14 7 (1.62%) Telecoms
15 6 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
16 4 (0.92%) Electronics
17 3 (0.69%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 69 (15.94%) Analyst
2 45 (10.39%) Lead
3 44 (10.16%) Senior
4 43 (9.93%) Developer
5 32 (7.39%) Data Engineer
6 27 (6.24%) Architect
7 25 (5.77%) Consultant
8 19 (4.39%) Administrator
9 18 (4.16%) Business Analyst
9 18 (4.16%) SAP Consultant
9 18 (4.16%) Test Analyst
10 15 (3.46%) Java Developer
11 13 (3.00%) Data Analyst
11 13 (3.00%) Support Engineer
12 11 (2.54%) Senior Developer
12 11 (2.54%) Technical Engineer
13 10 (2.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 9 (2.08%) Delivery Manager
14 9 (2.08%) Senior Analyst
14 9 (2.08%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (8.78%) REST
2 29 (6.70%) SOAP
3 15 (3.46%) AngularJS
3 15 (3.46%) Spring
3 15 (3.46%) Spring Boot
4 14 (3.23%) RESTful
4 14 (3.23%) Web Services
5 12 (2.77%) Oracle Fusion
5 12 (2.77%) Spring Cloud
6 11 (2.54%) Gherkin
6 11 (2.54%) Hibernate
6 11 (2.54%) JPA
6 11 (2.54%) Terraform
7 10 (2.31%) ActiveMQ
8 7 (1.62%) JSON
8 7 (1.62%) Play Framework
9 6 (1.39%) Middleware
9 6 (1.39%) XML
10 5 (1.15%) JDBC
10 5 (1.15%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 28 (6.47%) Cloud Native
1 28 (6.47%) Management Information System
2 27 (6.24%) Self-Motivation
3 20 (4.62%) Enterprise Software
4 17 (3.93%) Product Ownership
5 13 (3.00%) Onboarding
6 12 (2.77%) Data Centre
7 9 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.08%) Operational Technology
7 9 (2.08%) Virtual Team
8 8 (1.85%) Autonomous Agent
9 6 (1.39%) Cyber Threat
9 6 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.39%) SCADA
10 5 (1.15%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.15%) Life Science
11 4 (0.92%) Driving Licence
11 4 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (0.92%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 52 (12.01%) Windows
2 15 (3.46%) Linux
3 14 (3.23%) Mac OS
3 14 (3.23%) Windows 10
3 14 (3.23%) Windows Server
4 12 (2.77%) Unix
5 4 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.69%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.46%) CentOS
7 2 (0.46%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 2 (0.46%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.23%) AIX
8 1 (0.23%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.23%) HPUX
8 1 (0.23%) Solaris
8 1 (0.23%) SUSE
8 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (34.64%) Agile
2 138 (31.87%) Continuous Improvement
3 95 (21.94%) Stakeholder Management
4 73 (16.86%) CI/CD
5 70 (16.17%) DevOps
6 67 (15.47%) Test Automation
7 59 (13.63%) Migration
8 58 (13.39%) AI
9 56 (12.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 55 (12.70%) Data Modelling
11 54 (12.47%) Scrum
12 51 (11.78%) Business Intelligence
13 49 (11.32%) Analytics
14 48 (11.09%) ETL
15 47 (10.85%) Decision-Making
16 43 (9.93%) Generative AI
17 41 (9.47%) User Acceptance Testing
18 40 (9.24%) Mentoring
18 40 (9.24%) Technical Leadership
19 38 (8.78%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 71 (16.40%) SQL
2 39 (9.01%) Java
3 32 (7.39%) Python
4 22 (5.08%) JavaScript
5 15 (3.46%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.00%) C#
6 13 (3.00%) TypeScript
7 11 (2.54%) C
8 10 (2.31%) PL/SQL
9 9 (2.08%) Bash
10 8 (1.85%) ProC
11 7 (1.62%) ABAP
11 7 (1.62%) Scala
12 5 (1.15%) C++
12 5 (1.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 4 (0.92%) Bicep
14 3 (0.69%) Shell Script
15 2 (0.46%) MATLAB
15 2 (0.46%) VB
15 2 (0.46%) VB6
Qualifications
1 128 (29.56%) Security Cleared
2 108 (24.94%) SC Cleared
3 48 (11.09%) Degree
4 33 (7.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 24 (5.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.77%) Azure Certification
6 12 (2.77%) ISTQB
7 11 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (1.85%) CISSP
9 8 (1.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 7 (1.62%) CCNA
11 6 (1.39%) DBS Check
11 6 (1.39%) DV Cleared
11 6 (1.39%) OCP
11 6 (1.39%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (1.15%) A+ Certification
12 5 (1.15%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.15%) MCSE
12 5 (1.15%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (11.78%) Data Quality
2 42 (9.70%) QA
3 21 (4.85%) Accessibility
4 17 (3.93%) GDPR
5 14 (3.23%) SLA
6 12 (2.77%) WCAG
7 9 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.92%) ISO 19650
8 4 (0.92%) NIST
8 4 (0.92%) PMO
9 3 (0.69%) GRC
9 3 (0.69%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.46%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 1 (0.23%) GMP
11 1 (0.23%) GxP
11 1 (0.23%) HL7
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 32 (7.39%) Docker
2 23 (5.31%) Active Directory
3 15 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.08%) VMware ESXi
4 9 (2.08%) vSphere
5 8 (1.85%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.69%) FreeRADIUS
7 2 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.46%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 19 (4.39%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.93%) SCCM
3 14 (3.23%) Grafana
3 14 (3.23%) Microsoft Intune
3 14 (3.23%) Prometheus
4 12 (2.77%) Ansible
5 5 (1.15%) Jamf Pro
5 5 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.92%) Podman
6 4 (0.92%) PowerCLI
6 4 (0.92%) vMotion
7 3 (0.69%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.23%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.23%) Argo
8 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.23%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.23%) QRadar
Vendors
1 100 (23.09%) Microsoft
2 55 (12.70%) Oracle
3 35 (8.08%) SAP
4 24 (5.54%) ServiceNow
5 22 (5.08%) VMware
6 21 (4.85%) Cisco
7 18 (4.16%) Denodo
8 17 (3.93%) Talend
9 11 (2.54%) Atlassian
9 11 (2.54%) Google
10 7 (1.62%) Qualys
10 7 (1.62%) Splunk
11 6 (1.39%) Apple
11 6 (1.39%) Databricks
11 6 (1.39%) Informatica
11 6 (1.39%) Red Hat
12 5 (1.15%) Autodesk
12 5 (1.15%) Fortinet
12 5 (1.15%) webMethods
13 4 (0.92%) Siemens