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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 10
Rank change year-on-year -3 +6 -1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 373 227 200
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.43% 16.80% 10.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.80% 19.00% 12.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 255 152 143
10th Percentile £290 £160 £265
25th Percentile £400 £300 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £507
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -8.78% -3.43%
75th Percentile £538 £589 £623
90th Percentile £600 £700 £685
England median daily rate £491 £500 £511
% change year-on-year -1.80% -2.06% -2.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 9
10th Percentile £13.92 £16.41 £14.29
25th Percentile £15.62 £16.63 £15.13
Median hourly rate £22.01 £19.62 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.18% -53.29% +127.09%
75th Percentile £67.84 £31.66 £56.25
90th Percentile £69.77 £49.04 £72.50
England median hourly rate £21.00 £22.32 £18.00
% change year-on-year -5.91% +24.00% -57.72%

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 2,521 1,195 1,606
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 83.98% 88.45% 83.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,663 804 1,064
10th Percentile £305 £200 £275
25th Percentile £402 £387 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year -3.40% +1.01% -1.98%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £601
90th Percentile £650 £688 £718
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 55 117
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.40 £11.10
25th Percentile £17.09 £14.60 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.72% -20.00% +26.98%
75th Percentile £53.75 £26.20 £40.00
90th Percentile £71.17 £34.50 £57.25
England median hourly rate £39.00 £32.50 £33.07
% change year-on-year +20.00% -1.71% -11.83%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 8 April 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 -7 117 £477 +4.30% 20
Warwickshire +6 89 £550 -4.35% 40
Birmingham -12 81 £460 -1.92% 97
Coventry -8 28 £313 -20.51% 12
Staffordshire -1 15 £306 +104.17% 39
Worcestershire -11 11 £563 +8.17% 25
Solihull -8 6 £484 +16.57% 7
Wolverhampton - 3 £267 - 4
Herefordshire -18 2 - - 7
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 51 (13.67%) SAS
2 23 (6.17%) Confluence
3 13 (3.49%) WebLogic
4 7 (1.88%) SharePoint
5 6 (1.61%) Oracle Self-Service HR
5 6 (1.61%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (1.07%) Apache
6 4 (1.07%) JBoss
6 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.54%) Drupal
7 2 (0.54%) HCL Notes
7 2 (0.54%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.27%) nginx
8 1 (0.27%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 22 (5.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (5.63%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (2.68%) MS Visio
4 8 (2.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (1.07%) Adobe XD
5 4 (1.07%) Sketch
5 4 (1.07%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.27%) Fusion 360
6 1 (0.27%) InDesign
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.61%) Oracle HRMS
2 2 (0.54%) NEC Housing
2 2 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.27%) Aareon QL
3 1 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.27%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.27%) iTrent
3 1 (0.27%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.27%) OPENHousing
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.27%) Orchard Housing
3 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.27%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 62 (16.62%) Azure
2 53 (14.21%) AWS
3 20 (5.36%) Microsoft 365
3 20 (5.36%) Power Platform
4 19 (5.09%) OpenShift
5 18 (4.83%) Entra ID
5 18 (4.83%) GCP
6 16 (4.29%) GitHub
7 10 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (1.88%) Datadog
9 7 (1.88%) Power Automate
10 6 (1.61%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.61%) Figma
10 6 (1.61%) Serverless
11 5 (1.34%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (1.34%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.34%) SaaS
12 4 (1.07%) dbt
12 4 (1.07%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 12 (3.22%) DNS
2 11 (2.95%) VPN
3 8 (2.14%) Firewall
4 7 (1.88%) VSAN
5 5 (1.34%) Intrusion Detection
5 5 (1.34%) Network Security
6 4 (1.07%) BIG-IP
6 4 (1.07%) DHCP
6 4 (1.07%) SD-WAN
6 4 (1.07%) TCP/IP
6 4 (1.07%) WAN
7 3 (0.80%) LAN
8 2 (0.54%) Internet
8 2 (0.54%) SMTP
8 2 (0.54%) SSL
8 2 (0.54%) VoIP
8 2 (0.54%) WAAS
8 2 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.54%) Wireless
9 1 (0.27%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (8.31%) Pentaho
2 16 (4.29%) Power BI
3 14 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (3.49%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (3.49%) MongoDB
5 11 (2.95%) Oracle Database
6 10 (2.68%) SQL Server
7 9 (2.41%) Elasticsearch
7 9 (2.41%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 6 (1.61%) MySQL
9 5 (1.34%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.07%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (1.07%) Metadata
10 4 (1.07%) Power Query
10 4 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.80%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 3 (0.80%) Tableau
11 3 (0.80%) WebFOCUS
12 2 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
12 2 (0.54%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 84 (22.52%) Git
2 75 (20.11%) JIRA
3 61 (16.35%) Jenkins
4 23 (6.17%) Selenium
5 22 (5.90%) JUnit
6 21 (5.63%) GitLab
7 8 (2.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (1.34%) REST Assured
9 4 (1.07%) Cucumber
9 4 (1.07%) Eclipse
9 4 (1.07%) IntelliJ
10 3 (0.80%) JMeter
10 3 (0.80%) Postman
10 3 (0.80%) WebDriver
11 2 (0.54%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.54%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
12 1 (0.27%) TestRail
12 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
12 1 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 196 (52.55%) Social Skills
2 128 (34.32%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (10.72%) Finance
4 34 (9.12%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.09%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (3.49%) Legal
6 13 (3.49%) Presentation Skills
7 12 (3.22%) Banking
8 9 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (2.14%) Military
10 6 (1.61%) Local Government
11 5 (1.34%) Electronics
12 4 (1.07%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.07%) Law
13 3 (0.80%) Retail
13 3 (0.80%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.54%) Advertising
14 2 (0.54%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.54%) Police
Job Titles
1 65 (17.43%) Analyst
2 35 (9.38%) Data Engineer
3 34 (9.12%) Developer
4 24 (6.43%) Lead
5 20 (5.36%) Business Analyst
6 15 (4.02%) Test Specialist
7 13 (3.49%) Senior
8 11 (2.95%) Administrator
8 11 (2.95%) Consultant
9 10 (2.68%) Architect
9 10 (2.68%) Infrastructure Analyst
9 10 (2.68%) Splunk Engineer
10 9 (2.41%) Business Intelligence Developer
10 9 (2.41%) Data Analyst
10 9 (2.41%) Delivery Manager
10 9 (2.41%) Site Engineer
10 9 (2.41%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 8 (2.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (2.14%) Project Manager
11 8 (2.14%) SAS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (8.04%) REST
2 20 (5.36%) Spring
3 14 (3.75%) pytest
4 12 (3.22%) Elastic Stack
4 12 (3.22%) RESTful
4 12 (3.22%) Spring Boot
5 10 (2.68%) HTML
6 9 (2.41%) HTML5
7 7 (1.88%) AngularJS
7 7 (1.88%) Play Framework
7 7 (1.88%) SAML
8 6 (1.61%) CSS
8 6 (1.61%) OpenTelemetry
8 6 (1.61%) SailPoint
8 6 (1.61%) SOAP
9 5 (1.34%) CSS3
9 5 (1.34%) J2EE
9 5 (1.34%) Node.js
9 5 (1.34%) React
9 5 (1.34%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (3.49%) Management Information System
1 13 (3.49%) Onboarding
2 12 (3.22%) Cloud Native
2 12 (3.22%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.22%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (2.95%) Operational Technology
4 9 (2.41%) Data Centre
4 9 (2.41%) Linux Command Line
4 9 (2.41%) SCADA
5 7 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
5 7 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.61%) Data Structures
6 6 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.34%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.07%) CSOC
8 4 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (1.07%) Security Operations Centre
9 3 (0.80%) Algorithms
9 3 (0.80%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 35 (9.38%) Linux
2 29 (7.77%) Windows
3 15 (4.02%) Unix
4 8 (2.14%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.88%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.34%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.54%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.27%) CentOS
8 1 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.27%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (38.61%) Agile
2 112 (30.03%) Continuous Improvement
3 103 (27.61%) CI/CD
4 89 (23.86%) DevOps
5 74 (19.84%) Analytics
6 73 (19.57%) Scrum
7 68 (18.23%) Stakeholder Management
8 64 (17.16%) Data Modelling
9 63 (16.89%) Test Automation
10 56 (15.01%) Business Intelligence
11 53 (14.21%) Data Pipeline
12 50 (13.40%) ETL
13 48 (12.87%) Containerisation
14 47 (12.60%) Migration
15 43 (11.53%) Change Management
16 42 (11.26%) AI
16 42 (11.26%) Validation
17 40 (10.72%) Data Integration
17 40 (10.72%) Decision-Making
18 36 (9.65%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 92 (24.66%) SQL
2 64 (17.16%) Python
3 32 (8.58%) Java
4 20 (5.36%) Bash
5 15 (4.02%) PL/SQL
6 14 (3.75%) PowerShell
7 12 (3.22%) JavaScript
8 9 (2.41%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.88%) Scala
10 6 (1.61%) Perl
11 5 (1.34%) TypeScript
12 4 (1.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.07%) Go
12 4 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
13 3 (0.80%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.80%) Ruby
14 2 (0.54%) C
14 2 (0.54%) C#
14 2 (0.54%) C++
14 2 (0.54%) PHP
Qualifications
1 123 (32.98%) Security Cleared
2 99 (26.54%) SC Cleared
3 49 (13.14%) Degree
4 14 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.68%) DV Cleared
6 10 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (1.88%) Azure Certification
7 7 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (1.34%) CCNP
9 4 (1.07%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.07%) OCP
9 4 (1.07%) Oracle Certification
9 4 (1.07%) PMI Certification
9 4 (1.07%) PMP
10 3 (0.80%) CCNA
10 3 (0.80%) MCSE
11 2 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.54%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 2 (0.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (13.14%) Data Quality
2 22 (5.90%) QA
3 11 (2.95%) PMO
4 8 (2.14%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.61%) GDPR
6 5 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.07%) SLA
7 4 (1.07%) WCAG
8 3 (0.80%) ISO 19650
8 3 (0.80%) ISO 9001
8 3 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 2 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.54%) GRC
9 2 (0.54%) NIST
10 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.27%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.27%) NCSC
10 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 90 (24.13%) Docker
2 22 (5.90%) Active Directory
3 20 (5.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.95%) vSphere
5 5 (1.34%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.07%) Snort
7 3 (0.80%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.54%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.27%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 90 (24.13%) Kubernetes
2 16 (4.29%) Ansible
3 15 (4.02%) Terraform
4 13 (3.49%) Grafana
4 13 (3.49%) Puppet
5 9 (2.41%) Kibana
5 9 (2.41%) Prometheus
6 8 (2.14%) vRealize
6 8 (2.14%) VxRail
7 6 (1.61%) SCCM
8 5 (1.34%) Argo
9 4 (1.07%) CSIRT
9 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.80%) Control-M
10 3 (0.80%) IBM Guardium
10 3 (0.80%) Nessus
10 3 (0.80%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.54%) Podman
11 2 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 63 (16.89%) Microsoft
2 50 (13.40%) Oracle
3 39 (10.46%) ServiceNow
4 30 (8.04%) Denodo
4 30 (8.04%) Talend
5 21 (5.63%) VMware
6 18 (4.83%) Cisco
6 18 (4.83%) Splunk
7 13 (3.49%) SAP
8 9 (2.41%) HP
8 9 (2.41%) Red Hat
9 8 (2.14%) AppDynamics
9 8 (2.14%) Atlassian
9 8 (2.14%) Dell
9 8 (2.14%) SolarWinds
10 7 (1.88%) Commvault
10 7 (1.88%) IBM
11 6 (1.61%) Adobe
11 6 (1.61%) Google
11 6 (1.61%) Okta