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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 10
Rank change year-on-year -2 +6 0
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 374 214 202
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.16% 16.22% 10.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.58% 18.07% 12.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 258 138 153
10th Percentile £272 £159 £263
25th Percentile £396 £300 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £453 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.78% -9.33% -4.76%
75th Percentile £539 £600 £625
90th Percentile £601 £700 £688
England median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 7
10th Percentile £14.87 £16.36 £17.12
25th Percentile £15.63 £16.51 £31.38
Median hourly rate £16.52 £17.24 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year -4.16% -69.35% +171.67%
75th Percentile £17.72 £19.87 £64.38
90th Percentile £20.68 £21.15 £72.50
England median hourly rate £20.53 £25.43 £18.50
% change year-on-year -19.26% +37.46% -56.98%

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 2,400 1,184 1,648
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.48% 89.76% 84.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,595 786 1,094
10th Percentile £304 £200 £275
25th Percentile £402 £393 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £673 £700 £700
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 53 119
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.32 £11.11
25th Percentile £16.14 £14.70 £14.50
Median hourly rate £22.26 £18.13 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.75% -21.17% +29.80%
75th Percentile £28.44 £24.18 £40.25
90th Percentile £58.30 £34.75 £58.75
England median hourly rate £30.79 £34.11 £32.50
% change year-on-year -9.73% +4.95% -12.87%

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 March 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
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 March 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 -3 110 £477 +6.36% 23
Warwickshire +5 89 £525 -9.68% 37
Birmingham -10 88 £468 -1.37% 91
Coventry -7 25 £316 -19.75% 12
Worcestershire -12 16 £563 +7.14% 29
Staffordshire -1 15 £210 +31.25% 37
Solihull -6 5 £475 +14.46% 8
Herefordshire -17 3 £600 +9.09% 5
Wolverhampton - 2 £267 - 5
Walsall - 1 £338 - 4
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 48 (12.83%) SAS
2 20 (5.35%) Confluence
3 13 (3.48%) WebLogic
4 7 (1.87%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.34%) Apache
6 4 (1.07%) JBoss
6 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.53%) Drupal
7 2 (0.53%) HCL Notes
7 2 (0.53%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.27%) nginx
8 1 (0.27%) SugarCRM
8 1 (0.27%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 22 (5.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (5.08%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.14%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (1.07%) Adobe XD
5 4 (1.07%) Sketch
6 1 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.27%) InDesign
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (1.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.53%) Oracle HRMS
2 2 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.53%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.27%) Aareon QL
3 1 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
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 Payables
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.27%) Orchard Housing
3 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 62 (16.58%) Azure
2 52 (13.90%) AWS
3 23 (6.15%) GCP
4 21 (5.61%) Power Platform
5 18 (4.81%) OpenShift
6 16 (4.28%) Microsoft 365
7 14 (3.74%) Entra ID
8 12 (3.21%) GitHub
9 10 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (1.87%) Datadog
10 7 (1.87%) Serverless
11 6 (1.60%) Figma
12 5 (1.34%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.34%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (1.34%) Power Automate
12 5 (1.34%) PowerApps
12 5 (1.34%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 4 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
13 4 (1.07%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.01%) VPN
2 12 (3.21%) DNS
3 7 (1.87%) Firewall
3 7 (1.87%) VSAN
4 5 (1.34%) DHCP
4 5 (1.34%) Intrusion Detection
4 5 (1.34%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.80%) BIG-IP
5 3 (0.80%) Network Security
6 2 (0.53%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.53%) SMTP
6 2 (0.53%) VoIP
6 2 (0.53%) WAN
6 2 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.53%) Wireless
7 1 (0.27%) Broadband
7 1 (0.27%) DKIM
7 1 (0.27%) DMARC
7 1 (0.27%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.27%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.49%) Pentaho
2 17 (4.55%) Power BI
3 16 (4.28%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (3.74%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (3.48%) MongoDB
6 12 (3.21%) Oracle Database
7 11 (2.94%) Elasticsearch
7 11 (2.94%) MySQL
8 10 (2.67%) SQL Server
9 9 (2.41%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 8 (2.14%) Relational Database
11 4 (1.07%) Amazon Redshift
11 4 (1.07%) Metadata
11 4 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.80%) Big Data
12 3 (0.80%) SAS Visual Analytics
12 3 (0.80%) WebFOCUS
13 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
13 2 (0.53%) Power Query
13 2 (0.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (22.46%) Git
2 67 (17.91%) JIRA
3 58 (15.51%) Jenkins
4 24 (6.42%) Selenium
5 22 (5.88%) JUnit
6 21 (5.61%) GitLab
7 7 (1.87%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (1.07%) Cucumber
8 4 (1.07%) Eclipse
8 4 (1.07%) IntelliJ
8 4 (1.07%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.80%) JMeter
9 3 (0.80%) Postman
9 3 (0.80%) WebDriver
10 2 (0.53%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.27%) CA Gen
11 1 (0.27%) TestRail
11 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 199 (53.21%) Social Skills
2 131 (35.03%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (11.76%) Finance
4 35 (9.36%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.08%) Organisational Skills
6 14 (3.74%) Legal
6 14 (3.74%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (2.94%) Banking
7 11 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 10 (2.67%) Military
9 9 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (2.14%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.34%) Local Government
11 5 (1.34%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.07%) Electronics
12 4 (1.07%) Law
12 4 (1.07%) Marketing
13 3 (0.80%) Retail
14 2 (0.53%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 63 (16.84%) Analyst
2 39 (10.43%) Developer
3 32 (8.56%) Data Engineer
4 29 (7.75%) Lead
5 16 (4.28%) Business Analyst
6 15 (4.01%) Consultant
6 15 (4.01%) Test Specialist
7 14 (3.74%) Senior
8 13 (3.48%) Architect
9 12 (3.21%) Splunk Engineer
10 11 (2.94%) Site Engineer
10 11 (2.94%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 10 (2.67%) Administrator
11 10 (2.67%) Infrastructure Analyst
11 10 (2.67%) Support Analyst
12 9 (2.41%) 1st Line Support
13 8 (2.14%) Applications Specialist
13 8 (2.14%) Data Analyst
13 8 (2.14%) Project Manager
13 8 (2.14%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (8.82%) REST
2 20 (5.35%) Spring
3 14 (3.74%) Elastic Stack
3 14 (3.74%) pytest
4 12 (3.21%) RESTful
4 12 (3.21%) Spring Boot
5 11 (2.94%) HTML
5 11 (2.94%) Node.js
6 10 (2.67%) SOAP
7 9 (2.41%) HTML5
8 7 (1.87%) AngularJS
8 7 (1.87%) CSS
8 7 (1.87%) Play Framework
8 7 (1.87%) React
9 6 (1.60%) SailPoint
10 5 (1.34%) CSS3
10 5 (1.34%) J2EE
10 5 (1.34%) OpenTelemetry
10 5 (1.34%) SAML
10 5 (1.34%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (4.01%) Management Information System
2 14 (3.74%) Cloud Native
2 14 (3.74%) Onboarding
2 14 (3.74%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.21%) Data Centre
4 11 (2.94%) Operational Technology
4 11 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
5 10 (2.67%) SCADA
6 9 (2.41%) Linux Command Line
7 7 (1.87%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.34%) Driving Licence
8 5 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.07%) CSOC
9 4 (1.07%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.07%) Security Operations Centre
10 3 (0.80%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.80%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (0.80%) Distributed Applications
10 3 (0.80%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 34 (9.09%) Linux
2 23 (6.15%) Windows
3 17 (4.55%) Unix
4 7 (1.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.60%) Windows 10
6 4 (1.07%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.80%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.27%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.27%) CentOS
8 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.27%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (36.63%) Agile
2 103 (27.54%) CI/CD
2 103 (27.54%) Continuous Improvement
3 90 (24.06%) DevOps
4 71 (18.98%) Stakeholder Management
5 68 (18.18%) Analytics
6 67 (17.91%) Scrum
7 65 (17.38%) Data Modelling
8 60 (16.04%) Test Automation
9 52 (13.90%) Data Pipeline
10 50 (13.37%) Business Intelligence
11 49 (13.10%) ETL
12 47 (12.57%) Change Management
13 46 (12.30%) Containerisation
14 45 (12.03%) Migration
15 43 (11.50%) Validation
16 41 (10.96%) Data Integration
17 40 (10.70%) AI
18 37 (9.89%) Decision-Making
19 34 (9.09%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 89 (23.80%) SQL
2 65 (17.38%) Python
3 32 (8.56%) Java
4 18 (4.81%) Bash
5 16 (4.28%) JavaScript
5 16 (4.28%) PL/SQL
6 10 (2.67%) PowerShell
6 10 (2.67%) Shell Script
7 8 (2.14%) Scala
8 7 (1.87%) Perl
8 7 (1.87%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.07%) Go
9 4 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (1.07%) VBA
10 3 (0.80%) C#
10 3 (0.80%) PHP
10 3 (0.80%) Ruby
11 2 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.53%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.27%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 118 (31.55%) Security Cleared
2 94 (25.13%) SC Cleared
3 50 (13.37%) Degree
4 16 (4.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.67%) DV Cleared
6 10 (2.67%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (1.87%) Azure Certification
7 7 (1.87%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.07%) CCNP
8 4 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (1.07%) OCP
8 4 (1.07%) Oracle Certification
9 3 (0.80%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 3 (0.80%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.80%) PMP
10 2 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (0.53%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (11.76%) Data Quality
2 26 (6.95%) QA
3 11 (2.94%) PMO
4 8 (2.14%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.34%) SLA
6 4 (1.07%) GDPR
6 4 (1.07%) WCAG
7 3 (0.80%) ISO 19650
8 2 (0.53%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.27%) NCSC
9 1 (0.27%) NIST
9 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 84 (22.46%) Docker
2 20 (5.35%) Active Directory
3 17 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.67%) vSphere
5 4 (1.07%) Snort
6 3 (0.80%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.53%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.27%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.27%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 85 (22.73%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.01%) Ansible
2 15 (4.01%) Puppet
3 12 (3.21%) Terraform
4 11 (2.94%) Grafana
4 11 (2.94%) Kibana
5 9 (2.41%) Prometheus
6 8 (2.14%) vRealize
6 8 (2.14%) VxRail
7 6 (1.60%) SCCM
8 5 (1.34%) CSIRT
9 4 (1.07%) Argo
10 3 (0.80%) Control-M
10 3 (0.80%) IBM Guardium
10 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.80%) Nessus
11 2 (0.53%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.53%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.53%) vCenter Server
12 1 (0.27%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 62 (16.58%) Microsoft
2 45 (12.03%) Oracle
3 37 (9.89%) ServiceNow
4 27 (7.22%) Denodo
4 27 (7.22%) Talend
5 21 (5.61%) Splunk
6 18 (4.81%) Cisco
7 17 (4.55%) VMware
8 15 (4.01%) SAP
9 11 (2.94%) Google
10 10 (2.67%) HP
11 9 (2.41%) AppDynamics
12 8 (2.14%) Dell
12 8 (2.14%) IBM
12 8 (2.14%) Red Hat
12 8 (2.14%) SolarWinds
13 7 (1.87%) Commvault
14 6 (1.60%) Adobe
14 6 (1.60%) Okta
14 6 (1.60%) Salesforce