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

 6 months to
3 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 10
Rank change year-on-year 0 +5 -1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 364 221 205
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 14.67% 14.61% 10.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.23% 16.53% 12.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 125 153
10th Percentile £263 £159 £213
25th Percentile £406 £320 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £438 £510
Median % change year-on-year +12.46% -14.22% -2.86%
75th Percentile £550 £594 £623
90th Percentile £600 £675 £688
England median daily rate £498 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -0.50% -2.44% -5.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 7
10th Percentile £14.20 £16.41 £13.10
25th Percentile £14.94 £16.63 £17.90
Median hourly rate £16.71 £19.12 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.63% -54.48% +110.00%
75th Percentile £21.17 £21.63 £60.00
90th Percentile £28.15 £21.85 £72.50
England median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £22.50
% change year-on-year -23.49% +7.47% -27.29%

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 2,112 1,337 1,606
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 85.09% 88.37% 84.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,370 821 1,051
10th Percentile £290 £213 £263
25th Percentile £405 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +5.64% -2.50%
75th Percentile £584 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 51 106
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.70 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.14 £16.51 £17.25
Median hourly rate £20.25 £21.59 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.21% -6.13% +29.94%
75th Percentile £26.70 £33.65 £48.75
90th Percentile £35.18 £52.50 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -1.41% +1.43%

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 3 February 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 3 February 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 3 February 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 -1 100 £500 +14.94% 23
Birmingham -5 95 £475 -1.14% 91
Warwickshire +5 88 £500 -14.89% 85
Coventry -4 25 £413 +3.13% 20
Worcestershire -16 14 £563 +100.89% 20
Staffordshire +4 13 £200 -33.33% 28
Solihull -1 6 £575 +52.32% 5
Herefordshire -20 5 £600 +50.00% 12
Wolverhampton +3 2 £227 +145.68% 5
Walsall +3 1 £338 - 5
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 52 (14.29%) SAS
2 12 (3.30%) Confluence
3 9 (2.47%) Apache
3 9 (2.47%) WebLogic
4 8 (2.20%) JBoss
5 5 (1.37%) SharePoint
6 4 (1.10%) HCL Notes
7 3 (0.82%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.82%) SugarCRM
8 2 (0.55%) Drupal
8 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.27%) CMS
9 1 (0.27%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (5.49%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (4.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.92%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (1.10%) Adobe XD
5 4 (1.10%) Sketch
6 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.27%) Revit
7 1 (0.27%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.55%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.55%) Oracle Receivables
2 2 (0.55%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 2 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.55%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.27%) Aareon QL
3 1 (0.27%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.27%) iTrent
3 1 (0.27%) Maximo
3 1 (0.27%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.27%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.27%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.27%) OPENHousing
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.27%) Orchard Housing
3 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 60 (16.48%) Azure
2 54 (14.84%) AWS
3 26 (7.14%) GCP
4 19 (5.22%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (4.95%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.40%) OpenShift
7 12 (3.30%) Serverless
8 11 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (3.02%) Entra ID
9 10 (2.75%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (2.20%) GitHub
10 8 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.20%) Power Automate
10 8 (2.20%) PowerApps
11 7 (1.92%) Apigee
11 7 (1.92%) Cloud Functions
11 7 (1.92%) Datadog
12 6 (1.65%) Akamai
13 5 (1.37%) Amazon S3
13 5 (1.37%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.22%) VPN
2 13 (3.57%) Firewall
3 12 (3.30%) DNS
4 10 (2.75%) DHCP
5 9 (2.47%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.92%) VSAN
7 6 (1.65%) Wireshark
8 4 (1.10%) WAN
8 4 (1.10%) Wireless
9 3 (0.82%) MPLS
9 3 (0.82%) Network Security
9 3 (0.82%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.55%) BGP
10 2 (0.55%) Broadband
10 2 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
10 2 (0.55%) IPsec
10 2 (0.55%) Junos
10 2 (0.55%) LAN
10 2 (0.55%) VoIP
11 1 (0.27%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (9.89%) Pentaho
2 15 (4.12%) Elasticsearch
2 15 (4.12%) Oracle Database
3 13 (3.57%) MongoDB
3 13 (3.57%) Power BI
4 12 (3.30%) MySQL
4 12 (3.30%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (3.30%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 11 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (2.75%) Relational Database
7 6 (1.65%) SQL Server
8 4 (1.10%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.10%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.10%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.82%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 2 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.55%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.55%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.55%) Metadata
10 2 (0.55%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 87 (23.90%) Git
2 62 (17.03%) JIRA
3 59 (16.21%) Jenkins
4 24 (6.59%) Selenium
5 23 (6.32%) GitLab
5 23 (6.32%) JUnit
6 8 (2.20%) Eclipse
6 8 (2.20%) IntelliJ
7 4 (1.10%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.82%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.55%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.55%) Liquibase
9 2 (0.55%) Postman
10 1 (0.27%) Jaeger
10 1 (0.27%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.27%) Storybook
10 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.27%) Vite
10 1 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 203 (55.77%) Social Skills
2 132 (36.26%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (10.44%) Finance
4 31 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 14 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 14 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
6 13 (3.57%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (3.02%) Legal
8 9 (2.47%) Banking
8 9 (2.47%) Telecoms
9 8 (2.20%) Military
10 7 (1.92%) Marketing
11 5 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.37%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.10%) Law
13 3 (0.82%) Local Government
13 3 (0.82%) Police
14 1 (0.27%) Fire and Rescue
14 1 (0.27%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 61 (16.76%) Analyst
2 39 (10.71%) Developer
3 21 (5.77%) Data Engineer
4 18 (4.95%) Lead
5 16 (4.40%) Senior
6 15 (4.12%) Business Analyst
6 15 (4.12%) IT Analyst
6 15 (4.12%) Splunk Engineer
6 15 (4.12%) Test Specialist
7 14 (3.85%) Consultant
7 14 (3.85%) Site Engineer
7 14 (3.85%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 13 (3.57%) Support Analyst
9 12 (3.30%) IT Support
9 12 (3.30%) Project Manager
10 11 (3.02%) 1st Line Support
10 11 (3.02%) Architect
11 10 (2.75%) Infrastructure Analyst
11 10 (2.75%) IT Support Analyst
11 10 (2.75%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (10.71%) REST
2 20 (5.49%) Elastic Stack
3 19 (5.22%) HTML
4 16 (4.40%) SOAP
5 15 (4.12%) pytest
5 15 (4.12%) RESTful
6 13 (3.57%) HTML5
6 13 (3.57%) Node.js
6 13 (3.57%) Spring
7 11 (3.02%) Play Framework
8 9 (2.47%) CSS
8 9 (2.47%) XML
9 8 (2.20%) EJB
9 8 (2.20%) Hibernate
9 8 (2.20%) J2EE
9 8 (2.20%) J2SE
9 8 (2.20%) JSON
9 8 (2.20%) React
10 7 (1.92%) .NET
10 7 (1.92%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 19 (5.22%) Management Information System
2 16 (4.40%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
4 13 (3.57%) Cloud Native
5 11 (3.02%) Data Centre
5 11 (3.02%) Product Ownership
6 10 (2.75%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (2.47%) Security Posture
8 8 (2.20%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.37%) Driving Licence
10 5 (1.37%) SCADA
10 5 (1.37%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 4 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.10%) Operational Technology
11 4 (1.10%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.82%) IoT
12 3 (0.82%) NHS
12 3 (0.82%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 42 (11.54%) Linux
2 31 (8.52%) Windows
3 29 (7.97%) Unix
4 11 (3.02%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.37%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.10%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.55%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.27%) AIX
9 1 (0.27%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.27%) CentOS
9 1 (0.27%) Solaris
9 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.27%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (38.19%) Agile
2 107 (29.40%) DevOps
3 106 (29.12%) CI/CD
4 85 (23.35%) Continuous Improvement
5 68 (18.68%) Analytics
6 67 (18.41%) Scrum
7 66 (18.13%) Data Modelling
8 63 (17.31%) Test Automation
9 62 (17.03%) Stakeholder Management
10 57 (15.66%) Data Pipeline
11 51 (14.01%) ETL
12 48 (13.19%) Containerisation
13 47 (12.91%) Business Intelligence
14 43 (11.81%) Data Integration
15 42 (11.54%) Change Management
15 42 (11.54%) Migration
16 39 (10.71%) Deployment Automation
17 36 (9.89%) ITIL
17 36 (9.89%) Mentoring
18 35 (9.62%) Data Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 80 (21.98%) SQL
2 76 (20.88%) Python
3 23 (6.32%) Java
3 23 (6.32%) JavaScript
4 22 (6.04%) Bash
5 17 (4.67%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.57%) Scala
7 10 (2.75%) Shell Script
8 8 (2.20%) Go
9 7 (1.92%) Perl
9 7 (1.92%) TypeScript
10 6 (1.65%) C#
10 6 (1.65%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.65%) VBA
11 5 (1.37%) PHP
12 3 (0.82%) Ruby
13 1 (0.27%) ABAP
13 1 (0.27%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.27%) Bicep
13 1 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 103 (28.30%) Security Cleared
2 85 (23.35%) SC Cleared
3 46 (12.64%) Degree
4 22 (6.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (2.47%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.92%) Azure Certification
8 7 (1.92%) Master's Degree
9 6 (1.65%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 5 (1.37%) MCDST
11 4 (1.10%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 3 (0.82%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.82%) CCNP
12 3 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 3 (0.82%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.82%) PMP
13 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.55%) CCNA
13 2 (0.55%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (12.36%) Data Quality
2 27 (7.42%) QA
3 8 (2.20%) PMO
4 7 (1.92%) Accessibility
4 7 (1.92%) GDPR
5 5 (1.37%) ISO 19650
5 5 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.10%) WCAG
7 2 (0.55%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.55%) NIST
7 2 (0.55%) SLA
8 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.27%) NCSC
8 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 92 (25.27%) Docker
2 22 (6.04%) Active Directory
3 15 (4.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.20%) vSphere
5 3 (0.82%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.27%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.27%) Firmware
6 1 (0.27%) Postfix
6 1 (0.27%) Snort
Systems Management
1 84 (23.08%) Kubernetes
2 22 (6.04%) Puppet
3 19 (5.22%) Ansible
4 15 (4.12%) Kibana
5 11 (3.02%) SCCM
5 11 (3.02%) Terraform
6 10 (2.75%) Grafana
6 10 (2.75%) Prometheus
7 8 (2.20%) vRealize
7 8 (2.20%) VxRail
8 7 (1.92%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.55%) Argo
10 2 (0.55%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.55%) Control-M
10 2 (0.55%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.55%) IBM Guardium
10 2 (0.55%) Nessus
11 1 (0.27%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 64 (17.58%) Microsoft
2 47 (12.91%) Oracle
3 35 (9.62%) Denodo
3 35 (9.62%) ServiceNow
3 35 (9.62%) Talend
4 32 (8.79%) Splunk
5 19 (5.22%) Cisco
6 17 (4.67%) VMware
7 14 (3.85%) Google
8 12 (3.30%) SAP
9 10 (2.75%) HP
10 9 (2.47%) AppDynamics
10 9 (2.47%) Dell
10 9 (2.47%) SolarWinds
11 8 (2.20%) IBM
11 8 (2.20%) webMethods
12 7 (1.92%) BeyondTrust
12 7 (1.92%) Commvault
12 7 (1.92%) CyberArk
12 7 (1.92%) Workday
311 Problem-Solving jobs in the West Midlands