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 30 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
30 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 4 10
Rank change year-on-year -1 +6 -2
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 360 240 198
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 15.69% 14.54% 10.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.13% 16.84% 12.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 142 136
10th Percentile £248 £162 £203
25th Percentile £400 £352 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £444 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.87% -15.48% -
75th Percentile £559 £600 £626
90th Percentile £633 £700 £738
England median daily rate £488 £500 £512
% change year-on-year -2.45% -2.30% -5.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 2
10th Percentile £14.21 £16.41 £17.34
25th Percentile £15.28 £16.63 £21.53
Median hourly rate £16.85 £19.12 £29.77
Median % change year-on-year -11.86% -35.77% +48.85%
75th Percentile £26.44 £21.63 £39.26
90th Percentile £36.50 £21.85 £44.20
England median hourly rate £18.87 £21.46 £35.00
% change year-on-year -12.07% -38.69% +14.30%

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 1,986 1,425 1,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 86.57% 86.31% 84.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,258 889 1,025
10th Percentile £263 £222 £263
25th Percentile £400 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £519 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.66% +3.80% -
75th Percentile £584 £613 £600
90th Percentile £675 £715 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 48 51
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.70 £14.54
25th Percentile £16.13 £16.63 £17.72
Median hourly rate £18.87 £21.59 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.60% -13.64% +44.36%
75th Percentile £27.21 £34.06 £61.25
90th Percentile £35.76 £52.50 £68.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +25.00%

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025. 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
Birmingham -4 99 £479 -0.31% 180
Shropshire +2 93 £500 +15.04% 256
Warwickshire +2 83 £515 -13.26% 42
Coventry -4 30 £419 +4.69% 124
Staffordshire +3 15 £220 -43.15% 134
Worcestershire -18 12 £550 +129.17% 134
Herefordshire -18 6 £600 +1.27% 9
Solihull -4 5 £588 +60.96% 7
Wolverhampton +4 2 £227 +145.68% 131
Walsall +4 1 £338 - 7
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 47 (13.06%) SAS
2 15 (4.17%) Confluence
3 9 (2.50%) Apache
3 9 (2.50%) WebLogic
4 8 (2.22%) JBoss
4 8 (2.22%) SharePoint
5 4 (1.11%) HCL Notes
6 3 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.83%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.83%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.83%) SugarCRM
7 2 (0.56%) CMS
7 2 (0.56%) Drupal
8 1 (0.28%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.28%) nginx
8 1 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 20 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (5.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.94%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.67%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.11%) Adobe XD
5 4 (1.11%) Sketch
6 2 (0.56%) Trello
7 1 (0.28%) Revit
Business Applications
1 6 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.39%) SAP HR
2 5 (1.39%) SAP PM
3 3 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.56%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.56%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.56%) ResourceLink
4 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
4 2 (0.56%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.28%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.28%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.28%) iTrent
5 1 (0.28%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.28%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.28%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.28%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.28%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 55 (15.28%) Azure
2 45 (12.50%) AWS
3 28 (7.78%) GCP
4 18 (5.00%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (4.17%) OpenShift
5 15 (4.17%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (3.33%) GitHub
7 11 (3.06%) Serverless
8 10 (2.78%) Cloud Computing
9 9 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.22%) Power Automate
10 8 (2.22%) PowerApps
10 8 (2.22%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 7 (1.94%) Apigee
11 7 (1.94%) Cloud Functions
11 7 (1.94%) Datadog
11 7 (1.94%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.67%) Akamai
13 5 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 20 (5.56%) VPN
2 13 (3.61%) DNS
2 13 (3.61%) Firewall
3 11 (3.06%) TCP/IP
4 10 (2.78%) DHCP
5 7 (1.94%) VSAN
6 6 (1.67%) Wireshark
7 5 (1.39%) MPLS
7 5 (1.39%) VoIP
7 5 (1.39%) WAN
8 4 (1.11%) LAN
8 4 (1.11%) Wireless
9 3 (0.83%) BGP
9 3 (0.83%) IPsec
9 3 (0.83%) Junos
9 3 (0.83%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.56%) Broadband
10 2 (0.56%) Network Security
10 2 (0.56%) SSH
10 2 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.89%) Pentaho
2 14 (3.89%) Oracle Database
3 13 (3.61%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (3.33%) Elasticsearch
4 12 (3.33%) MongoDB
4 12 (3.33%) MySQL
5 11 (3.06%) Power BI
5 11 (3.06%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 9 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (2.22%) Relational Database
8 6 (1.67%) NoSQL
8 6 (1.67%) SQL Server
9 4 (1.11%) Hadoop
9 4 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (1.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.83%) Big Data
10 3 (0.83%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 2 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.56%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.56%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 81 (22.50%) Git
2 67 (18.61%) JIRA
3 55 (15.28%) Jenkins
4 23 (6.39%) Selenium
5 22 (6.11%) JUnit
6 21 (5.83%) GitLab
7 8 (2.22%) Eclipse
7 8 (2.22%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.83%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.56%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.56%) Liquibase
9 2 (0.56%) MLflow
9 2 (0.56%) Postman
9 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.28%) Jaeger
10 1 (0.28%) Mockito
10 1 (0.28%) Poetry
General
1 208 (57.78%) Social Skills
2 124 (34.44%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (12.50%) Finance
4 33 (9.17%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.44%) Legal
6 14 (3.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 14 (3.89%) Presentation Skills
7 13 (3.61%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (3.61%) Organisational Skills
8 10 (2.78%) Telecoms
9 9 (2.50%) Marketing
10 8 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.94%) Banking
11 7 (1.94%) Manufacturing
11 7 (1.94%) Military
12 3 (0.83%) Law
13 2 (0.56%) Electronics
13 2 (0.56%) Police
14 1 (0.28%) Fire and Rescue
14 1 (0.28%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 58 (16.11%) Analyst
2 37 (10.28%) Developer
3 20 (5.56%) Architect
4 19 (5.28%) Data Engineer
5 18 (5.00%) Project Manager
6 17 (4.72%) Consultant
7 16 (4.44%) Business Analyst
8 15 (4.17%) IT Analyst
8 15 (4.17%) Lead
9 14 (3.89%) Test Specialist
10 13 (3.61%) Senior
10 13 (3.61%) Support Analyst
11 12 (3.33%) IT Support
11 12 (3.33%) Splunk Engineer
11 12 (3.33%) Support Engineer
12 11 (3.06%) 1st Line Support
12 11 (3.06%) Site Engineer
12 11 (3.06%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 10 (2.78%) Infrastructure Analyst
13 10 (2.78%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (9.72%) REST
2 20 (5.56%) HTML
3 19 (5.28%) Elastic Stack
4 16 (4.44%) SOAP
5 14 (3.89%) HTML5
5 14 (3.89%) pytest
6 13 (3.61%) Node.js
7 12 (3.33%) RESTful
8 11 (3.06%) Play Framework
8 11 (3.06%) Spring
9 10 (2.78%) CSS
10 9 (2.50%) XML
11 8 (2.22%) EJB
11 8 (2.22%) Hibernate
11 8 (2.22%) J2EE
11 8 (2.22%) J2SE
11 8 (2.22%) JSON
11 8 (2.22%) React
12 6 (1.67%) GraphQL
12 6 (1.67%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
2 16 (4.44%) Management Information System
2 16 (4.44%) Onboarding
3 13 (3.61%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.33%) Data Centre
5 10 (2.78%) Cloud Native
5 10 (2.78%) Linux Command Line
6 8 (2.22%) Security Posture
7 6 (1.67%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.67%) SCADA
8 5 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.39%) Driving Licence
8 5 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.39%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 4 (1.11%) NHS
9 4 (1.11%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.11%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.83%) Learning Management System
10 3 (0.83%) PKI
10 3 (0.83%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 41 (11.39%) Linux
2 32 (8.89%) Windows
3 27 (7.50%) Unix
4 10 (2.78%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.39%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.56%) VMS
8 1 (0.28%) AIX
8 1 (0.28%) Android
8 1 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.28%) CentOS
8 1 (0.28%) Solaris
8 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.28%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (38.89%) Agile
2 108 (30.00%) DevOps
3 96 (26.67%) CI/CD
4 77 (21.39%) Continuous Improvement
5 65 (18.06%) Scrum
6 64 (17.78%) Data Modelling
6 64 (17.78%) Stakeholder Management
7 58 (16.11%) Test Automation
8 57 (15.83%) Analytics
9 53 (14.72%) Data Pipeline
10 51 (14.17%) ETL
11 45 (12.50%) Project Management
12 43 (11.94%) Containerisation
13 41 (11.39%) Business Intelligence
14 40 (11.11%) Change Management
15 39 (10.83%) Data Integration
15 39 (10.83%) Migration
16 38 (10.56%) Deployment Automation
17 36 (10.00%) Mentoring
18 34 (9.44%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 70 (19.44%) SQL
2 67 (18.61%) Python
3 24 (6.67%) JavaScript
4 20 (5.56%) Bash
5 19 (5.28%) Java
6 14 (3.89%) PowerShell
7 13 (3.61%) Scala
8 9 (2.50%) Shell Script
9 8 (2.22%) Go
10 6 (1.67%) Apex Code
10 6 (1.67%) Perl
10 6 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 6 (1.67%) VBA
11 5 (1.39%) C#
11 5 (1.39%) PHP
11 5 (1.39%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.83%) Ruby
13 2 (0.56%) ABAP
13 2 (0.56%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 93 (25.83%) Security Cleared
2 75 (20.83%) SC Cleared
3 51 (14.17%) Degree
4 20 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (2.50%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.22%) PMI Certification
7 8 (2.22%) PMP
8 7 (1.94%) Master's Degree
8 7 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (1.67%) MCP
10 5 (1.39%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.39%) MCDST
11 4 (1.11%) AWS Certification
11 4 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (1.11%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 3 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.83%) CCNA
12 3 (0.83%) CCNP
13 2 (0.56%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (10.28%) Data Quality
2 26 (7.22%) QA
3 10 (2.78%) PMO
4 7 (1.94%) Accessibility
4 7 (1.94%) GDPR
5 5 (1.39%) ISO 19650
5 5 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.83%) WCAG
7 2 (0.56%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.56%) NIST
7 2 (0.56%) SLA
8 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.28%) NCSC
8 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 83 (23.06%) Docker
2 20 (5.56%) Active Directory
3 14 (3.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.22%) vSphere
5 3 (0.83%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.28%) Firmware
6 1 (0.28%) IAG
6 1 (0.28%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 76 (21.11%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.28%) Puppet
3 17 (4.72%) Ansible
4 12 (3.33%) Kibana
5 11 (3.06%) Terraform
6 10 (2.78%) SCCM
7 8 (2.22%) Grafana
7 8 (2.22%) vRealize
7 8 (2.22%) VxRail
8 6 (1.67%) CSIRT
8 6 (1.67%) Prometheus
9 4 (1.11%) Argo
10 3 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.56%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.56%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.56%) Istio
12 1 (0.28%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
12 1 (0.28%) Rsyslog
Vendors
1 52 (14.44%) Microsoft
2 44 (12.22%) Oracle
3 32 (8.89%) Denodo
3 32 (8.89%) Talend
4 31 (8.61%) ServiceNow
5 28 (7.78%) Splunk
6 25 (6.94%) SAP
7 21 (5.83%) Cisco
8 16 (4.44%) VMware
9 14 (3.89%) Google
10 11 (3.06%) Salesforce
11 10 (2.78%) HP
11 10 (2.78%) IBM
12 9 (2.50%) AppDynamics
12 9 (2.50%) Dell
13 8 (2.22%) BeyondTrust
13 8 (2.22%) CyberArk
13 8 (2.22%) SolarWinds
13 8 (2.22%) webMethods
13 8 (2.22%) Workday
1,045 Problem-Solving jobs in the West Midlands