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

 6 months to
5 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 3 9
Rank change year-on-year -9 +6 -1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 400 304 188
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.48% 18.28% 10.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.42% 20.69% 12.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 283 186 126
10th Percentile £306 £170 £175
25th Percentile £363 £331 £354
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £537 £538 £588
90th Percentile £644 £675 £663
England median daily rate £493 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -1.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 9 6
10th Percentile £12.90 £14.86 £15.13
25th Percentile £14.60 £25.00 £15.22
Median hourly rate £27.30 £33.88 £17.99
Median % change year-on-year -19.42% +88.38% -14.23%
75th Percentile £46.95 £44.00 £46.93
90th Percentile £67.84 £54.13 £56.25
England median hourly rate £21.00 £20.50 £16.23
% change year-on-year +2.44% +26.31% -69.76%

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 2,980 1,469 1,527
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 85.53% 88.33% 81.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,911 928 1,034
10th Percentile £313 £229 £287
25th Percentile £406 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £626
90th Percentile £671 £669 £738
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 106 61
10th Percentile £14.33 £12.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £14.01 £14.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £23.42 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +45.13% +26.59% -32.73%
75th Percentile £53.75 £33.16 £37.50
90th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £56.25
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -40.82% -

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 5 August 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 5 August 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 5 August 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 -12 116 £450 -2.70% 40
Warwickshire -2 115 £500 +5.26% 61
Birmingham -15 74 £450 +4.65% 127
Coventry -17 31 £363 -12.12% 25
Worcestershire +9 15 £506 -1.70% 28
Staffordshire -5 10 £316 -9.64% 47
Solihull -21 8 £447 -25.46% 12
Wolverhampton - 5 £200 - 13
Herefordshire -3 4 - - 16
Wednesbury - 1 - -
Dudley - 1 £375 - 2
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 40 (10.00%) Confluence
2 27 (6.75%) SAS
3 20 (5.00%) SharePoint
4 15 (3.75%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (2.25%) WebLogic
6 6 (1.50%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.25%) Apache
8 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.25%) Appian
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.25%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 26 (6.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (4.50%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.25%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.75%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.75%) Revit
6 2 (0.50%) Adobe XD
6 2 (0.50%) CATIA
6 2 (0.50%) Sketch
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.25%) Fusion 360
7 1 (0.25%) InDesign
7 1 (0.25%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.25%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (3.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (3.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (1.50%) Oracle HRMS
4 5 (1.25%) SAP PSCD
5 3 (0.75%) ContrOCC
5 3 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.75%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.25%) Maximo
6 1 (0.25%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.25%) SAP CX
6 1 (0.25%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.25%) SAP QM
6 1 (0.25%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 76 (19.00%) Azure
2 39 (9.75%) AWS
3 37 (9.25%) Power Platform
4 31 (7.75%) Microsoft 365
5 29 (7.25%) Azure DevOps
6 18 (4.50%) Entra ID
7 14 (3.50%) Dynamics 365
8 13 (3.25%) GitHub
8 13 (3.25%) Power Automate
8 13 (3.25%) Serverless
9 12 (3.00%) GCP
10 11 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
11 10 (2.50%) Azure Functions
12 8 (2.00%) Microsoft Purview
13 7 (1.75%) OneDrive
14 5 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (1.25%) Google Analytics
14 5 (1.25%) Snowflake
15 4 (1.00%) Figma
15 4 (1.00%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.25%) DNS
2 10 (2.50%) DHCP
2 10 (2.50%) Firewall
2 10 (2.50%) VPN
3 7 (1.75%) LAN
3 7 (1.75%) WAN
4 6 (1.50%) Intrusion Detection
4 6 (1.50%) Network Security
4 6 (1.50%) SD-WAN
4 6 (1.50%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.25%) Internet
5 5 (1.25%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (0.75%) BIG-IP
6 3 (0.75%) SSL
6 3 (0.75%) Unified Communications
6 3 (0.75%) VoIP
7 2 (0.50%) Cisco Wireless
7 2 (0.50%) PBX
7 2 (0.50%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (0.50%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.00%) Power BI
2 26 (6.50%) Pentaho
3 22 (5.50%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (4.75%) SQL Server
5 15 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
6 11 (2.75%) Metadata
7 8 (2.00%) Data Lake
7 8 (2.00%) Oracle Reports
8 7 (1.75%) MySQL
9 6 (1.50%) Ingres
9 6 (1.50%) MongoDB
9 6 (1.50%) NoSQL
10 5 (1.25%) Oracle Database
10 5 (1.25%) Relational Database
11 4 (1.00%) Big Data
11 4 (1.00%) Power Query
11 4 (1.00%) SAP BW
12 3 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 2 (0.50%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 70 (17.50%) JIRA
2 41 (10.25%) Git
3 28 (7.00%) Jenkins
4 21 (5.25%) Selenium
5 16 (4.00%) Postman
6 12 (3.00%) WebDriver
7 11 (2.75%) Cypress.io
8 10 (2.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 9 (2.25%) Cucumber
10 8 (2.00%) GitLab
11 6 (1.50%) JUnit
12 5 (1.25%) Bitbucket
12 5 (1.25%) Zephyr
13 4 (1.00%) JMeter
13 4 (1.00%) Maven
13 4 (1.00%) REST Assured
14 3 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
14 3 (0.75%) Protractor
14 3 (0.75%) SonarQube
15 2 (0.50%) Mockito
General
1 198 (49.50%) Social Skills
2 156 (39.00%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (14.50%) Finance
4 57 (14.25%) Public Sector
5 21 (5.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (4.00%) Local Government
7 15 (3.75%) Manufacturing
8 14 (3.50%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.50%) Presentation Skills
11 9 (2.25%) Automotive
11 9 (2.25%) Legal
12 7 (1.75%) Banking
12 7 (1.75%) Marketing
13 6 (1.50%) Electronics
14 5 (1.25%) Billing
14 5 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (1.00%) Military
15 4 (1.00%) Retail
16 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 59 (14.75%) Analyst
2 45 (11.25%) Lead
3 42 (10.50%) Data Engineer
4 34 (8.50%) Senior
5 29 (7.25%) Developer
6 28 (7.00%) Consultant
7 20 (5.00%) Administrator
8 19 (4.75%) Architect
9 18 (4.50%) Business Analyst
9 18 (4.50%) SAP Consultant
10 15 (3.75%) Test Analyst
11 10 (2.50%) Data Analyst
12 8 (2.00%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 8 (2.00%) Delivery Manager
12 8 (2.00%) Java Developer
12 8 (2.00%) Network Engineer
12 8 (2.00%) Project Manager
12 8 (2.00%) Software Engineer
12 8 (2.00%) Test Engineer
13 7 (1.75%) Scrum Master
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (3.75%) Spring
2 14 (3.50%) REST
3 12 (3.00%) Spring Boot
4 10 (2.50%) Oracle Fusion
4 10 (2.50%) SOAP
5 9 (2.25%) Gherkin
6 6 (1.50%) Middleware
6 6 (1.50%) Play Framework
7 5 (1.25%) JDBC
7 5 (1.25%) SAP PI
8 4 (1.00%) AngularJS
8 4 (1.00%) IDoc
8 4 (1.00%) Playwright
8 4 (1.00%) Spring Cloud
8 4 (1.00%) XML
9 3 (0.75%) OpenTelemetry
9 3 (0.75%) PyTorch
9 3 (0.75%) React
9 3 (0.75%) TensorFlow
9 3 (0.75%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 20 (5.00%) Cloud Native
2 15 (3.75%) Management Information System
3 13 (3.25%) Data Centre
3 13 (3.25%) Enterprise Software
4 12 (3.00%) Product Ownership
5 11 (2.75%) Operational Technology
5 11 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
6 10 (2.50%) Onboarding
6 10 (2.50%) SCADA
7 9 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (2.00%) Virtual Team
9 6 (1.50%) Autonomous Agent
10 5 (1.25%) Cyber Threat
10 5 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (1.00%) Driving Licence
12 3 (0.75%) Algorithms
12 3 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 44 (11.00%) Windows
2 17 (4.25%) Linux
3 12 (3.00%) Mac OS
4 11 (2.75%) Unix
4 11 (2.75%) Windows Server
5 10 (2.50%) Windows 10
6 5 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.75%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.25%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (35.00%) Agile
2 125 (31.25%) Continuous Improvement
3 81 (20.25%) CI/CD
4 78 (19.50%) DevOps
5 69 (17.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 65 (16.25%) Test Automation
7 59 (14.75%) Analytics
7 59 (14.75%) Business Intelligence
8 57 (14.25%) Scrum
9 56 (14.00%) Data Modelling
9 56 (14.00%) ETL
9 56 (14.00%) Migration
10 55 (13.75%) AI
11 47 (11.75%) Decision-Making
12 41 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 41 (10.25%) Validation
13 40 (10.00%) Data Pipeline
14 37 (9.25%) Generative AI
14 37 (9.25%) ITIL
15 30 (7.50%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 91 (22.75%) SQL
2 36 (9.00%) Python
3 34 (8.50%) Java
4 19 (4.75%) PL/SQL
5 13 (3.25%) PowerShell
6 11 (2.75%) C
7 9 (2.25%) Bash
7 9 (2.25%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.00%) C#
8 8 (2.00%) ProC
9 6 (1.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (1.50%) Scala
10 5 (1.25%) ABAP
10 5 (1.25%) MATLAB
10 5 (1.25%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.25%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.00%) C++
11 4 (1.00%) Perl
12 3 (0.75%) Bicep
12 3 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 143 (35.75%) Security Cleared
2 122 (30.50%) SC Cleared
3 42 (10.50%) Degree
4 20 (5.00%) BPSS Clearance
4 20 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
5 10 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (2.25%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.25%) ISTQB
7 8 (2.00%) Azure Certification
7 8 (2.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 7 (1.75%) CCNA
8 7 (1.75%) OCP
8 7 (1.75%) Oracle Certification
9 6 (1.50%) MCSE
10 5 (1.25%) AWS Certification
10 5 (1.25%) CISSP
11 4 (1.00%) CCNP
11 4 (1.00%) RHCA
11 4 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (13.25%) Data Quality
2 30 (7.50%) QA
3 18 (4.50%) Accessibility
4 15 (3.75%) GDPR
5 14 (3.50%) SLA
6 10 (2.50%) WCAG
7 9 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (1.50%) PMO
9 4 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.75%) GRC
10 3 (0.75%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 3 (0.75%) NIST
11 2 (0.50%) ISO 19650
12 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.25%) ISO 14001
12 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 1 (0.25%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 40 (10.00%) Docker
2 21 (5.25%) Active Directory
3 12 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.25%) vSphere
5 8 (2.00%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (1.75%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.75%) Snort
8 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.25%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
9 1 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.25%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 40 (10.00%) Kubernetes
2 16 (4.00%) SCCM
3 12 (3.00%) Grafana
3 12 (3.00%) Terraform
4 10 (2.50%) Prometheus
5 9 (2.25%) Ansible
5 9 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (1.00%) Podman
6 4 (1.00%) PowerCLI
6 4 (1.00%) vMotion
7 3 (0.75%) CSIRT
7 3 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.50%) Argo
9 1 (0.25%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.25%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.25%) QRadar
9 1 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 82 (20.50%) Microsoft
2 57 (14.25%) Oracle
3 32 (8.00%) SAP
4 25 (6.25%) ServiceNow
5 23 (5.75%) Denodo
6 22 (5.50%) Talend
7 19 (4.75%) VMware
8 16 (4.00%) Cisco
9 14 (3.50%) Atlassian
10 12 (3.00%) Splunk
11 9 (2.25%) Databricks
11 9 (2.25%) Google
12 8 (2.00%) Red Hat
13 7 (1.75%) Qualys
14 6 (1.50%) Apple
14 6 (1.50%) Siemens
15 5 (1.25%) Adobe
15 5 (1.25%) Citrix
15 5 (1.25%) webMethods
16 4 (1.00%) Informatica
392 Problem-Solving jobs in the West Midlands