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

6 months to
24 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 372 224 204
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.97% 16.88% 10.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.43% 18.90% 12.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 150 149
10th Percentile £279 £160 £263
25th Percentile £393 £302 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £461 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.98% -7.75% -4.76%
75th Percentile £540 £587 £625
90th Percentile £600 £700 £688
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -7.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 8
10th Percentile £14.87 £16.36 £13.87
25th Percentile £15.63 £16.51 £19.72
Median hourly rate £16.52 £17.24 £49.13
Median % change year-on-year -4.16% -64.91% +137.26%
75th Percentile £17.72 £19.87 £60.31
90th Percentile £20.68 £21.15 £72.50
England median hourly rate £20.71 £24.47 £18.25
% change year-on-year -15.37% +34.08% -57.98%

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 2,411 1,185 1,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.04% 89.30% 84.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,604 802 1,101
10th Percentile £304 £200 £263
25th Percentile £402 £391 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £654 £688 £706
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 53 119
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.32 £11.11
25th Percentile £16.05 £14.70 £14.06
Median hourly rate £25.00 £18.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +38.89% -20.00% +26.98%
75th Percentile £30.00 £24.22 £40.25
90th Percentile £60.65 £34.75 £58.75
England median hourly rate £35.00 £33.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year +6.06% - -12.00%

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 24 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 24 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 -4 112 £476 +5.72% 20
Warwickshire +5 90 £550 -4.35% 41
Birmingham -11 83 £468 -0.21% 95
Coventry -9 25 £313 -20.51% 12
Staffordshire 0 15 £260 +67.74% 40
Worcestershire -9 15 £563 +8.17% 26
Solihull -7 6 £484 +16.57% 7
Herefordshire -16 2 £650 +18.18% 8
Wolverhampton - 2 £267 - 2
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 (12.90%) SAS
2 20 (5.38%) Confluence
3 13 (3.49%) WebLogic
4 7 (1.88%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.34%) Apache
6 4 (1.08%) JBoss
6 4 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.81%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 3 (0.81%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.54%) Drupal
8 2 (0.54%) HCL Notes
8 2 (0.54%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.27%) nginx
9 1 (0.27%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 22 (5.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (5.65%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (2.69%) MS Visio
4 8 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (1.08%) Adobe XD
5 4 (1.08%) Sketch
6 2 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.27%) InDesign
7 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.81%) Oracle HRMS
3 2 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.54%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.27%) Aareon QL
4 1 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.27%) Elite 3E
4 1 (0.27%) iTrent
4 1 (0.27%) Maximo
4 1 (0.27%) MIS ActiveH
4 1 (0.27%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.27%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.27%) OPENHousing
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.27%) Orchard Housing
4 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 62 (16.67%) Azure
2 52 (13.98%) AWS
3 20 (5.38%) GCP
3 20 (5.38%) Power Platform
4 19 (5.11%) OpenShift
5 15 (4.03%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (3.76%) Entra ID
7 13 (3.49%) GitHub
8 10 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.88%) Datadog
11 6 (1.61%) Azure Data Factory
11 6 (1.61%) Figma
11 6 (1.61%) Serverless
12 5 (1.34%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.34%) Power Automate
12 5 (1.34%) PowerApps
12 5 (1.34%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 4 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
13 4 (1.08%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.49%) VPN
2 11 (2.96%) DNS
3 7 (1.88%) VSAN
4 6 (1.61%) Firewall
5 5 (1.34%) Intrusion Detection
6 4 (1.08%) BIG-IP
7 3 (0.81%) DHCP
7 3 (0.81%) Network Security
7 3 (0.81%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.54%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.54%) SMTP
8 2 (0.54%) VoIP
8 2 (0.54%) WAN
8 2 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.54%) Wireless
9 1 (0.27%) Broadband
9 1 (0.27%) DKIM
9 1 (0.27%) DMARC
9 1 (0.27%) Kerberos
9 1 (0.27%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.53%) Pentaho
2 16 (4.30%) Power BI
3 14 (3.76%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (3.49%) MongoDB
4 13 (3.49%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (3.23%) Oracle Database
6 10 (2.69%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (2.69%) SQL Server
7 9 (2.42%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 7 (1.88%) MySQL
9 5 (1.34%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (1.08%) Metadata
10 4 (1.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.81%) Big Data
11 3 (0.81%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 3 (0.81%) WebFOCUS
12 2 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
12 2 (0.54%) Power Query
12 2 (0.54%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 81 (21.77%) Git
2 70 (18.82%) JIRA
3 59 (15.86%) Jenkins
4 24 (6.45%) Selenium
5 22 (5.91%) JUnit
6 21 (5.65%) GitLab
7 7 (1.88%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (1.34%) REST Assured
9 4 (1.08%) Cucumber
9 4 (1.08%) Eclipse
9 4 (1.08%) IntelliJ
10 3 (0.81%) JMeter
10 3 (0.81%) Postman
10 3 (0.81%) WebDriver
11 2 (0.54%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
12 1 (0.27%) CA Gen
12 1 (0.27%) TestRail
12 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
12 1 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 198 (53.23%) Social Skills
2 127 (34.14%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (11.56%) Finance
4 35 (9.41%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.38%) Organisational Skills
6 14 (3.76%) Presentation Skills
7 13 (3.49%) Legal
8 11 (2.96%) Banking
8 11 (2.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (2.69%) Military
10 9 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.88%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.34%) Electronics
12 5 (1.34%) Local Government
12 5 (1.34%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.08%) Law
14 3 (0.81%) Marketing
14 3 (0.81%) Retail
15 2 (0.54%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 66 (17.74%) Analyst
2 34 (9.14%) Developer
3 33 (8.87%) Data Engineer
4 29 (7.80%) Lead
5 19 (5.11%) Business Analyst
6 15 (4.03%) Senior
6 15 (4.03%) Test Specialist
7 13 (3.49%) Architect
7 13 (3.49%) Consultant
8 11 (2.96%) Administrator
8 11 (2.96%) Splunk Engineer
9 10 (2.69%) Infrastructure Analyst
9 10 (2.69%) Site Engineer
9 10 (2.69%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 9 (2.42%) 1st Line Support
10 9 (2.42%) Delivery Manager
10 9 (2.42%) Support Analyst
11 8 (2.15%) Applications Specialist
11 8 (2.15%) Data Analyst
11 8 (2.15%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (8.33%) REST
2 20 (5.38%) Spring
3 14 (3.76%) pytest
4 13 (3.49%) Elastic Stack
5 12 (3.23%) RESTful
5 12 (3.23%) Spring Boot
6 10 (2.69%) HTML
7 9 (2.42%) HTML5
8 8 (2.15%) SOAP
9 7 (1.88%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.88%) Node.js
9 7 (1.88%) Play Framework
10 6 (1.61%) CSS
10 6 (1.61%) OpenTelemetry
10 6 (1.61%) React
10 6 (1.61%) SailPoint
11 5 (1.34%) CSS3
11 5 (1.34%) J2EE
11 5 (1.34%) SAML
11 5 (1.34%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (3.76%) Management Information System
1 14 (3.76%) Product Ownership
2 13 (3.49%) Onboarding
3 12 (3.23%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.23%) Data Centre
4 11 (2.96%) Operational Technology
5 10 (2.69%) SCADA
5 10 (2.69%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.42%) Linux Command Line
7 7 (1.88%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.34%) Driving Licence
10 4 (1.08%) CSOC
10 4 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.08%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.81%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.81%) Distributed Applications
11 3 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 33 (8.87%) Linux
2 22 (5.91%) Windows
3 16 (4.30%) Unix
4 7 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.34%) Windows 10
6 4 (1.08%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.54%) 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
1 143 (38.44%) Agile
2 106 (28.49%) Continuous Improvement
3 100 (26.88%) CI/CD
4 88 (23.66%) DevOps
5 74 (19.89%) Stakeholder Management
6 71 (19.09%) Analytics
6 71 (19.09%) Scrum
7 64 (17.20%) Data Modelling
8 61 (16.40%) Test Automation
9 51 (13.71%) Business Intelligence
10 50 (13.44%) Data Pipeline
11 47 (12.63%) Containerisation
11 47 (12.63%) ETL
11 47 (12.63%) Migration
12 46 (12.37%) Change Management
13 44 (11.83%) Validation
14 42 (11.29%) AI
15 40 (10.75%) Decision-Making
16 39 (10.48%) Data Integration
17 34 (9.14%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 87 (23.39%) SQL
2 63 (16.94%) Python
3 32 (8.60%) Java
4 19 (5.11%) Bash
5 16 (4.30%) PL/SQL
6 14 (3.76%) JavaScript
7 11 (2.96%) PowerShell
8 9 (2.42%) Shell Script
9 8 (2.15%) Scala
10 6 (1.61%) Perl
10 6 (1.61%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.08%) Go
11 4 (1.08%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.81%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.81%) Ruby
13 2 (0.54%) C#
13 2 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.54%) PHP
14 1 (0.27%) Bicep
14 1 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 119 (31.99%) Security Cleared
2 95 (25.54%) SC Cleared
3 51 (13.71%) Degree
4 15 (4.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.69%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.42%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.88%) Master's Degree
9 6 (1.61%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.34%) CCNP
10 5 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (1.08%) OCP
11 4 (1.08%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.08%) PMI Certification
11 4 (1.08%) PMP
12 3 (0.81%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (0.54%) PRINCE2 Certification
14 1 (0.27%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (12.10%) Data Quality
2 26 (6.99%) QA
3 11 (2.96%) PMO
4 8 (2.15%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.34%) GDPR
5 5 (1.34%) SLA
6 4 (1.08%) WCAG
7 3 (0.81%) ISO 19650
7 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 12207
7 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (0.54%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
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 (22.58%) Docker
2 19 (5.11%) Active Directory
3 18 (4.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.96%) vSphere
5 4 (1.08%) Snort
6 3 (0.81%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.81%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.27%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.27%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 86 (23.12%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.03%) Ansible
3 14 (3.76%) Puppet
4 13 (3.49%) Grafana
4 13 (3.49%) Terraform
5 10 (2.69%) Kibana
6 9 (2.42%) Prometheus
7 8 (2.15%) vRealize
7 8 (2.15%) VxRail
8 5 (1.34%) Argo
9 4 (1.08%) CSIRT
9 4 (1.08%) SCCM
10 3 (0.81%) Control-M
10 3 (0.81%) IBM Guardium
10 3 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.81%) Nessus
10 3 (0.81%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.54%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.54%) HP ALM
12 1 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 63 (16.94%) Microsoft
2 46 (12.37%) Oracle
3 37 (9.95%) ServiceNow
4 27 (7.26%) Denodo
4 27 (7.26%) Talend
5 19 (5.11%) Cisco
5 19 (5.11%) Splunk
6 18 (4.84%) VMware
7 16 (4.30%) SAP
8 10 (2.69%) HP
9 9 (2.42%) Red Hat
10 8 (2.15%) AppDynamics
10 8 (2.15%) Dell
10 8 (2.15%) Google
10 8 (2.15%) IBM
10 8 (2.15%) SolarWinds
11 7 (1.88%) Commvault
12 6 (1.61%) Adobe
12 6 (1.61%) Okta
12 6 (1.61%) Salesforce