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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 6 10
Rank change year-on-year +1 +4 -1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 374 213 201
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 14.43% 14.80% 10.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.92% 16.64% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 255 126 154
10th Percentile £260 £160 £200
25th Percentile £400 £302 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £436 £511
Median % change year-on-year +11.86% -14.67% -2.62%
75th Percentile £556 £592 £625
90th Percentile £604 £700 £688
England median daily rate £492 £500 £501
% change year-on-year -1.60% -0.10% -7.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 7
10th Percentile £14.20 £16.36 £13.10
25th Percentile £14.94 £16.51 £17.90
Median hourly rate £16.71 £17.24 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.10% -58.95% +110.00%
75th Percentile £21.17 £19.87 £60.00
90th Percentile £28.15 £21.15 £72.50
England median hourly rate £18.82 £26.12 £21.57
% change year-on-year -27.95% +21.09% -32.40%

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 2,211 1,280 1,596
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 85.33% 88.95% 84.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,432 801 1,040
10th Percentile £293 £210 £275
25th Percentile £403 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £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 81 48 112
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.64 £12.10
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.22 £16.54
Median hourly rate £21.46 £20.12 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.66% -12.52% +29.94%
75th Percentile £27.21 £30.95 £49.06
90th Percentile £35.00 £45.13 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 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 17 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 17 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 +2 100 £490 +12.84% 26
Birmingham -5 98 £475 - 92
Warwickshire +5 90 £525 -10.64% 52
Coventry -3 27 £413 +4.76% 11
Worcestershire -13 16 £563 +7.14% 24
Staffordshire +3 14 £220 +10.00% 29
Solihull -3 5 £543 +43.71% 7
Herefordshire -19 5 £600 +9.09% 9
Wolverhampton - 2 £227 - 2
Walsall - 1 £338 - 2
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 41 (10.96%) SAS
2 17 (4.55%) Confluence
3 13 (3.48%) WebLogic
4 9 (2.41%) Apache
5 8 (2.14%) JBoss
6 5 (1.34%) SharePoint
7 3 (0.80%) HCL Notes
7 3 (0.80%) SugarCRM
8 2 (0.53%) Drupal
8 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.53%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.27%) CMS
9 1 (0.27%) nginx
Applications
1 19 (5.08%) Microsoft Excel
1 19 (5.08%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.14%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.07%) Adobe XD
4 4 (1.07%) Sketch
5 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.27%) Revit
6 1 (0.27%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle Receivables
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
1 2 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
1 2 (0.53%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.27%) Aareon QL
2 1 (0.27%) Elite 3E
2 1 (0.27%) iTrent
2 1 (0.27%) Maximo
2 1 (0.27%) MIS ActiveH
2 1 (0.27%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.27%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.27%) OPENHousing
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.27%) Orchard Housing
2 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 61 (16.31%) Azure
2 56 (14.97%) AWS
3 23 (6.15%) GCP
4 19 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (4.81%) OpenShift
6 16 (4.28%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (3.21%) Serverless
8 11 (2.94%) Entra ID
9 10 (2.67%) Cloud Computing
9 10 (2.67%) GitHub
10 8 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (1.87%) Apigee
11 7 (1.87%) Cloud Functions
11 7 (1.87%) Datadog
12 6 (1.60%) Power Automate
12 6 (1.60%) PowerApps
13 5 (1.34%) Figma
13 5 (1.34%) SaaS
13 5 (1.34%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.08%) VPN
2 14 (3.74%) DNS
3 11 (2.94%) Firewall
4 10 (2.67%) DHCP
5 9 (2.41%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.87%) VSAN
7 5 (1.34%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (1.07%) WAN
8 4 (1.07%) Wireless
9 3 (0.80%) MPLS
9 3 (0.80%) Network Security
9 3 (0.80%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.53%) BGP
10 2 (0.53%) BIG-IP
10 2 (0.53%) IPsec
10 2 (0.53%) Junos
10 2 (0.53%) LAN
10 2 (0.53%) VoIP
10 2 (0.53%) Wireshark
11 1 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.42%) Pentaho
2 17 (4.55%) MongoDB
3 15 (4.01%) Elasticsearch
3 15 (4.01%) Oracle Database
4 13 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (3.48%) Power BI
5 12 (3.21%) MySQL
5 12 (3.21%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 11 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.67%) Relational Database
8 6 (1.60%) SQL Server
9 4 (1.07%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.07%) Metadata
9 4 (1.07%) NoSQL
9 4 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.80%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 3 (0.80%) WebFOCUS
11 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.53%) Big Data
11 2 (0.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 79 (21.12%) Git
2 58 (15.51%) JIRA
3 49 (13.10%) Jenkins
4 24 (6.42%) Selenium
5 23 (6.15%) JUnit
6 22 (5.88%) GitLab
7 8 (2.14%) Eclipse
7 8 (2.14%) IntelliJ
8 6 (1.60%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (1.07%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.53%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.53%) Liquibase
10 2 (0.53%) Postman
11 1 (0.27%) Jaeger
11 1 (0.27%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.27%) Storybook
11 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.27%) Vite
11 1 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 212 (56.68%) Social Skills
2 132 (35.29%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (11.50%) Finance
4 27 (7.22%) Public Sector
5 15 (4.01%) Organisational Skills
5 15 (4.01%) Presentation Skills
6 13 (3.48%) Legal
7 12 (3.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.94%) Banking
9 10 (2.67%) Military
10 9 (2.41%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.60%) Marketing
12 5 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.34%) Law
12 5 (1.34%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.07%) Local Government
14 3 (0.80%) Electronics
14 3 (0.80%) Police
14 3 (0.80%) Retail
Job Titles
1 66 (17.65%) Analyst
2 41 (10.96%) Developer
3 23 (6.15%) Lead
4 18 (4.81%) Data Engineer
5 17 (4.55%) Business Analyst
5 17 (4.55%) Senior
6 15 (4.01%) Consultant
6 15 (4.01%) Splunk Engineer
6 15 (4.01%) Test Specialist
7 14 (3.74%) Architect
7 14 (3.74%) Site Engineer
7 14 (3.74%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 13 (3.48%) Support Analyst
9 12 (3.21%) IT Analyst
9 12 (3.21%) IT Support
10 10 (2.67%) 1st Line Support
10 10 (2.67%) Delivery Manager
10 10 (2.67%) Infrastructure Analyst
10 10 (2.67%) Software Engineer
10 10 (2.67%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.70%) REST
2 20 (5.35%) Elastic Stack
3 18 (4.81%) HTML
4 17 (4.55%) Spring
5 16 (4.28%) SOAP
6 15 (4.01%) pytest
6 15 (4.01%) RESTful
7 14 (3.74%) Node.js
8 13 (3.48%) HTML5
9 11 (2.94%) Play Framework
10 9 (2.41%) CSS
10 9 (2.41%) XML
11 8 (2.14%) EJB
11 8 (2.14%) Hibernate
11 8 (2.14%) J2EE
11 8 (2.14%) J2SE
11 8 (2.14%) JSON
11 8 (2.14%) React
11 8 (2.14%) Spring Boot
12 7 (1.87%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 19 (5.08%) Cloud Native
1 19 (5.08%) Management Information System
2 18 (4.81%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.74%) Data Centre
3 14 (3.74%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (3.21%) Product Ownership
5 10 (2.67%) Linux Command Line
6 9 (2.41%) Operational Technology
7 8 (2.14%) Data Structures
7 8 (2.14%) SCADA
8 6 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.34%) Driving Licence
9 5 (1.34%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 4 (1.07%) CSOC
10 4 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.07%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.07%) Security Posture
11 3 (0.80%) NHS
11 3 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 43 (11.50%) Linux
2 28 (7.49%) Windows
3 23 (6.15%) Unix
4 11 (2.94%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (1.34%) Windows Server
7 4 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.53%) 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
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (35.29%) Agile
2 101 (27.01%) CI/CD
3 98 (26.20%) DevOps
4 88 (23.53%) Continuous Improvement
5 66 (17.65%) Stakeholder Management
6 61 (16.31%) Scrum
7 60 (16.04%) Analytics
8 56 (14.97%) Data Modelling
9 51 (13.64%) Containerisation
10 49 (13.10%) Test Automation
11 47 (12.57%) Data Pipeline
11 47 (12.57%) Migration
12 46 (12.30%) Change Management
13 40 (10.70%) ETL
14 38 (10.16%) AI
14 38 (10.16%) Business Intelligence
14 38 (10.16%) Mentoring
15 37 (9.89%) Validation
16 36 (9.63%) ITIL
17 34 (9.09%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 79 (21.12%) SQL
2 74 (19.79%) Python
3 33 (8.82%) Java
4 23 (6.15%) Bash
5 21 (5.61%) JavaScript
6 14 (3.74%) Shell Script
7 13 (3.48%) Scala
8 11 (2.94%) Perl
8 11 (2.94%) PL/SQL
9 10 (2.67%) PowerShell
10 8 (2.14%) Go
10 8 (2.14%) TypeScript
11 6 (1.60%) VBA
12 5 (1.34%) PHP
13 4 (1.07%) C#
13 4 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
14 3 (0.80%) Ruby
15 1 (0.27%) ABAP
15 1 (0.27%) Apex Code
15 1 (0.27%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 102 (27.27%) Security Cleared
2 84 (22.46%) SC Cleared
3 51 (13.64%) Degree
4 21 (5.61%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.67%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.14%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.87%) Azure Certification
8 7 (1.87%) Master's Degree
9 6 (1.60%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 5 (1.34%) MCDST
11 4 (1.07%) CCNP
11 4 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (1.07%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 3 (0.80%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.80%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.80%) PMP
13 2 (0.53%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.36%) Data Quality
2 28 (7.49%) QA
3 10 (2.67%) PMO
4 7 (1.87%) Accessibility
4 7 (1.87%) GDPR
5 5 (1.34%) ISO 19650
5 5 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.07%) WCAG
7 2 (0.53%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.53%) NIST
7 2 (0.53%) SLA
8 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 15288
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 82 (21.93%) Docker
2 22 (5.88%) Active Directory
3 16 (4.28%) 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%) Firmware
8 1 (0.27%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 82 (21.93%) Kubernetes
2 22 (5.88%) Puppet
3 20 (5.35%) Ansible
4 15 (4.01%) Kibana
5 13 (3.48%) Terraform
6 12 (3.21%) Grafana
7 11 (2.94%) SCCM
8 10 (2.67%) Prometheus
9 8 (2.14%) vRealize
9 8 (2.14%) VxRail
10 6 (1.60%) CSIRT
11 4 (1.07%) Argo
12 3 (0.80%) Control-M
12 3 (0.80%) IBM Guardium
12 3 (0.80%) Nessus
12 3 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (0.53%) BMC PATROL
13 2 (0.53%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.53%) vCenter Server
14 1 (0.27%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 64 (17.11%) Microsoft
2 41 (10.96%) ServiceNow
3 39 (10.43%) Oracle
4 32 (8.56%) Splunk
5 23 (6.15%) Denodo
5 23 (6.15%) Talend
6 20 (5.35%) Cisco
7 17 (4.55%) VMware
8 15 (4.01%) Google
9 12 (3.21%) SAP
10 10 (2.67%) HP
11 9 (2.41%) AppDynamics
11 9 (2.41%) Dell
11 9 (2.41%) SolarWinds
12 8 (2.14%) IBM
12 8 (2.14%) Red Hat
12 8 (2.14%) webMethods
13 7 (1.87%) Commvault
13 7 (1.87%) Workday
14 6 (1.60%) Okta