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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 12
Rank change year-on-year -9 +10 -4
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 352 273 196
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.98% 18.83% 9.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.98% 21.23% 11.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 169 139
10th Percentile £300 £150 £224
25th Percentile £396 £282 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £453 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.30% -4.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £645 £638 £646
England median daily rate £500 £500 £501
% change year-on-year - -0.20% -4.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 11
10th Percentile £12.90 £14.72 £15.13
25th Percentile £15.34 £22.53 £15.32
Median hourly rate £28.79 £31.61 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% +40.47% +21.65%
75th Percentile £51.25 £46.13 £56.25
90th Percentile £67.84 £54.94 £72.50
England median hourly rate £21.00 £21.39 £16.23
% change year-on-year -1.82% +31.79% -69.03%

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 2,712 1,286 1,660
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.57% 88.69% 82.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,770 815 1,106
10th Percentile £313 £202 £263
25th Percentile £405 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% -2.50% -3.85%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £660 £731
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 72 118
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.62 £11.11
25th Percentile £22.50 £14.32 £14.31
Median hourly rate £33.99 £22.05 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.15% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £66.54 £31.19 £40.38
90th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £58.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £28.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +67.86% -25.33% +4.17%

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 10 June 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 10 June 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 10 June 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
Warwickshire -1 111 £525 +2.94% 59
Shropshire -18 84 £464 +0.87% 25
Birmingham -15 80 £450 +3.45% 61
Coventry -18 18 £516 +29.06% 19
Worcestershire 0 14 £563 +7.14% 20
Staffordshire -4 9 £313 +101.61% 28
Solihull -14 7 £493 +123.86% 2
Herefordshire -5 3 - - 2
Wolverhampton - 3 - - 4
Wednesbury - 1 - -
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 27 (7.67%) SAS
2 26 (7.39%) Confluence
3 13 (3.69%) Oracle Workflow
4 10 (2.84%) SharePoint
5 8 (2.27%) WebLogic
6 6 (1.70%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 5 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.28%) Appian
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.28%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 26 (7.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (1.14%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.85%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.85%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.85%) Revit
6 2 (0.57%) CATIA
7 1 (0.28%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.28%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.28%) Fusion 360
7 1 (0.28%) InDesign
7 1 (0.28%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.28%) Sketch
7 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (2.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.70%) Oracle HRMS
3 3 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.85%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.57%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.28%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.28%) ContrOCC
5 1 (0.28%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.28%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.28%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.28%) SAP QM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 58 (16.48%) Azure
2 40 (11.36%) AWS
3 31 (8.81%) Power Platform
4 19 (5.40%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
5 15 (4.26%) Entra ID
5 15 (4.26%) GitHub
6 13 (3.69%) GCP
7 7 (1.99%) Azure Data Factory
8 6 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (1.70%) Serverless
9 5 (1.42%) Amazon S3
9 5 (1.42%) OneDrive
9 5 (1.42%) OpenShift
9 5 (1.42%) Snowflake
10 4 (1.14%) dbt
10 4 (1.14%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (1.14%) Figma
11 3 (0.85%) Azure Functions
11 3 (0.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.13%) DNS
2 9 (2.56%) VPN
3 6 (1.70%) DHCP
3 6 (1.70%) Firewall
3 6 (1.70%) SD-WAN
3 6 (1.70%) WAN
4 5 (1.42%) Intrusion Detection
4 5 (1.42%) LAN
4 5 (1.42%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (1.14%) BIG-IP
5 4 (1.14%) TCP/IP
6 3 (0.85%) Internet
6 3 (0.85%) Network Security
6 3 (0.85%) VLAN
7 2 (0.57%) PBX
7 2 (0.57%) SAN
7 2 (0.57%) SSL
7 2 (0.57%) Unified Communications
7 2 (0.57%) VoIP
7 2 (0.57%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.10%) Power BI
2 22 (6.25%) Pentaho
3 19 (5.40%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (2.84%) Metadata
6 7 (1.99%) MongoDB
6 7 (1.99%) SQL Server
7 6 (1.70%) Oracle Reports
7 6 (1.70%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.42%) Elasticsearch
8 5 (1.42%) Ingres
9 4 (1.14%) MySQL
9 4 (1.14%) Power Query
9 4 (1.14%) Tableau
10 3 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.85%) WebFOCUS
11 2 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.57%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 58 (16.48%) JIRA
2 45 (12.78%) Git
3 32 (9.09%) Jenkins
4 13 (3.69%) Selenium
5 7 (1.99%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 7 (1.99%) GitLab
5 7 (1.99%) Postman
5 7 (1.99%) REST Assured
6 5 (1.42%) JUnit
6 5 (1.42%) Zephyr
7 4 (1.14%) JMeter
8 3 (0.85%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.85%) WebDriver
9 2 (0.57%) Browser DevTools
9 2 (0.57%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.57%) Gatling
9 2 (0.57%) Serenity BDD
9 2 (0.57%) TestRail
10 1 (0.28%) PetaLinux
10 1 (0.28%) Storybook
General
1 173 (49.15%) Social Skills
2 141 (40.06%) Analytical Skills
3 56 (15.91%) Finance
4 21 (5.97%) Public Sector
5 13 (3.69%) Local Government
6 12 (3.41%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (3.13%) Banking
7 11 (3.13%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.56%) Legal
9 8 (2.27%) Automotive
9 8 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.42%) Electronics
12 5 (1.42%) Military
13 4 (1.14%) Marketing
13 4 (1.14%) Retail
13 4 (1.14%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.85%) Billing
Job Titles
1 55 (15.63%) Analyst
2 34 (9.66%) Data Engineer
3 28 (7.95%) Lead
4 25 (7.10%) Developer
5 24 (6.82%) Senior
6 20 (5.68%) Business Analyst
7 19 (5.40%) Architect
8 18 (5.11%) Consultant
9 15 (4.26%) Administrator
9 15 (4.26%) Data Analyst
10 11 (3.13%) Delivery Manager
11 9 (2.56%) SAP Consultant
12 8 (2.27%) Project Manager
13 7 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 7 (1.99%) Network Engineer
13 7 (1.99%) Oracle Specialist
13 7 (1.99%) Scrum Master
13 7 (1.99%) Splunk Engineer
14 6 (1.70%) Senior Data Engineer
14 6 (1.70%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.26%) Spring
2 12 (3.41%) REST
3 11 (3.13%) Spring Boot
4 7 (1.99%) OpenTelemetry
4 7 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (1.42%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (1.42%) Middleware
5 5 (1.42%) Playwright
6 3 (0.85%) AngularJS
6 3 (0.85%) CSS
6 3 (0.85%) FastAPI
6 3 (0.85%) HTML
6 3 (0.85%) Hugging Face
6 3 (0.85%) Node.js
6 3 (0.85%) PyTorch
6 3 (0.85%) RESTful
6 3 (0.85%) SAML
6 3 (0.85%) TensorFlow
6 3 (0.85%) WireMock
7 2 (0.57%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.83%) Cloud Native
2 14 (3.98%) Management Information System
3 13 (3.69%) Product Ownership
4 11 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 11 (3.13%) Onboarding
5 10 (2.84%) Operational Technology
6 9 (2.56%) SCADA
7 8 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.99%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.70%) Cyber Threat
9 6 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.42%) Driving Licence
11 4 (1.14%) CSOC
11 4 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (1.14%) Security Operations Centre
12 3 (0.85%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.85%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 37 (10.51%) Windows
2 21 (5.97%) Linux
3 10 (2.84%) Windows 10
4 9 (2.56%) Mac OS
4 9 (2.56%) Unix
5 8 (2.27%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.14%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.28%) HPUX
8 1 (0.28%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (31.25%) Continuous Improvement
2 109 (30.97%) Agile
3 71 (20.17%) CI/CD
4 59 (16.76%) DevOps
5 57 (16.19%) Migration
6 54 (15.34%) Business Intelligence
7 53 (15.06%) Analytics
7 53 (15.06%) Stakeholder Management
7 53 (15.06%) Test Automation
8 51 (14.49%) ETL
9 50 (14.20%) Data Modelling
9 50 (14.20%) Scrum
10 48 (13.64%) AI
11 44 (12.50%) Validation
12 40 (11.36%) Decision-Making
13 39 (11.08%) Generative AI
14 34 (9.66%) Data Pipeline
15 32 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 31 (8.81%) Change Management
17 30 (8.52%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 88 (25.00%) SQL
2 43 (12.22%) Python
3 26 (7.39%) Java
4 16 (4.55%) PL/SQL
5 14 (3.98%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.69%) Bash
7 7 (1.99%) C
8 6 (1.70%) TypeScript
9 5 (1.42%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.42%) Perl
9 5 (1.42%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.14%) C#
10 4 (1.14%) C++
10 4 (1.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (1.14%) ProC
11 3 (0.85%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.57%) Bicep
13 1 (0.28%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.28%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 110 (31.25%) Security Cleared
2 90 (25.57%) SC Cleared
3 42 (11.93%) Degree
4 12 (3.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.84%) DV Cleared
5 10 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (1.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 6 (1.70%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.42%) MCSE
10 4 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 4 (1.14%) CCNA
10 4 (1.14%) CCNP
10 4 (1.14%) OCP
10 4 (1.14%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.85%) CISSP
11 3 (0.85%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.85%) PMP
11 3 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (14.49%) Data Quality
2 19 (5.40%) QA
3 10 (2.84%) Accessibility
3 10 (2.84%) SLA
4 6 (1.70%) PMO
5 5 (1.42%) GDPR
5 5 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (0.85%) GRC
6 3 (0.85%) ISO 19650
6 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 3 (0.85%) WCAG
7 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.28%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.28%) NIST
8 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 50 (14.20%) Docker
2 19 (5.40%) Active Directory
3 11 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.56%) vSphere
5 6 (1.70%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.14%) Snort
7 3 (0.85%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.57%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 50 (14.20%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.26%) Ansible
3 13 (3.69%) Grafana
3 13 (3.69%) SCCM
4 12 (3.41%) Terraform
5 11 (3.13%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (1.42%) Kibana
7 5 (1.42%) Puppet
8 4 (1.14%) Argo
8 4 (1.14%) CSIRT
8 4 (1.14%) PowerCLI
8 4 (1.14%) vMotion
9 3 (0.85%) Control-M
9 3 (0.85%) IBM Guardium
9 3 (0.85%) Nessus
9 3 (0.85%) Podman
9 3 (0.85%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.57%) AirWatch
10 2 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 65 (18.47%) Microsoft
2 49 (13.92%) Oracle
3 26 (7.39%) ServiceNow
4 23 (6.53%) Talend
5 21 (5.97%) Denodo
6 20 (5.68%) SAP
7 18 (5.11%) VMware
8 17 (4.83%) Splunk
9 14 (3.98%) Cisco
10 10 (2.84%) Red Hat
11 8 (2.27%) Atlassian
11 8 (2.27%) Google
12 6 (1.70%) Siemens
13 5 (1.42%) Qualys
14 4 (1.14%) 3PAR
14 4 (1.14%) Adobe
14 4 (1.14%) Autodesk
14 4 (1.14%) Citrix
14 4 (1.14%) F5
14 4 (1.14%) Zscaler