Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Problem Solving
North West > Cheshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Cheshire requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 2 12
Rank change year-on-year -1 +10 -5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 133 105 56
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 20.43% 23.49% 11.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 22.89% 26.05% 13.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 64 32
10th Percentile £290 £291 £406
25th Percentile £350 £356 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £493 £510
Median % change year-on-year -18.47% -3.32% +3.45%
75th Percentile £492 £567 £558
90th Percentile £553 £632 £583
North West median daily rate £425 £463 £500
% change year-on-year -8.11% -7.50% +13.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 6
10th Percentile £25.70 - £24.56
25th Percentile £35.75 £36.00 £29.44
Median hourly rate £52.50 £37.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.89% -12.94% +269.57%
75th Percentile £69.25 £38.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £79.30 - -
North West median hourly rate £20.15 £27.13 £42.50
% change year-on-year -25.72% -36.18% +11.84%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Cheshire

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 Cheshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 581 403 414
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 89.25% 90.16% 87.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 421 237 271
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
25th Percentile £356 £356 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £444 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.63% -5.00% +6.61%
75th Percentile £526 £572 £551
90th Percentile £663 £651 £614
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 28 29
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.00 £16.43
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.53 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.85 £25.79 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.39% -26.32% +117.80%
75th Percentile £43.00 £79.63 £40.00
90th Percentile £76.05 £86.00 £43.75
North West median hourly rate £41.94 £31.50 £36.50
% change year-on-year +33.14% -13.70% -2.14%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in Cheshire

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in Cheshire over the 6 months to 25 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in Cheshire

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in Cheshire over the 6 months to 25 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in Cheshire

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in Cheshire

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 Cheshire region over the 6 months to 25 January 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
Knutsford -8 58 £371 -24.71% 10
Chester +3 31 £513 -26.79% 38
Warrington -5 15 £425 +6.12% 23
Macclesfield -2 12 £500 +1.42% 3
Crewe -4 5 £325 +11.68% 5
Problem-Solving
North West

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire 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 16 (12.03%) Confluence
2 9 (6.77%) SharePoint
3 8 (6.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (5.26%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (5.26%) Skype for Business
5 2 (1.50%) Apache
5 2 (1.50%) JBoss
5 2 (1.50%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.75%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.75%) CMS
6 1 (0.75%) Mule
6 1 (0.75%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.75%) WebLogic
Applications
1 15 (11.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (10.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (9.02%) MS Visio
4 10 (7.52%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (15.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (3.01%) SAP EHS
3 3 (2.26%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (2.26%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.75%) Finacle
4 1 (0.75%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.75%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 33 (24.81%) AWS
1 33 (24.81%) Azure
2 22 (16.54%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (6.02%) OneDrive
4 7 (5.26%) GCP
5 6 (4.51%) Apigee
5 6 (4.51%) Kong
6 5 (3.76%) GitHub
7 4 (3.01%) GitHub Copilot
7 4 (3.01%) Power Platform
8 2 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.50%) Entra ID
8 2 (1.50%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.75%) Amazon Glacier
9 1 (0.75%) Amazon Kinesis
9 1 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.75%) AWS Data Pipeline
9 1 (0.75%) Datadog
9 1 (0.75%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 7 (5.26%) Network Security
1 7 (5.26%) Skype
2 5 (3.76%) DNS
2 5 (3.76%) LAN
2 5 (3.76%) WAN
3 4 (3.01%) DMZ
3 4 (3.01%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 4 (3.01%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 4 (3.01%) Firewall
4 2 (1.50%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.75%) BGP
5 1 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
5 1 (0.75%) HTTP
5 1 (0.75%) Internet
5 1 (0.75%) iSCSI
5 1 (0.75%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.75%) SAN
5 1 (0.75%) VLAN
5 1 (0.75%) Wireless
5 1 (0.75%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.26%) Relational Database
2 5 (3.76%) MySQL
3 4 (3.01%) MS Access
3 4 (3.01%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.50%) Big Data
5 1 (0.75%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.75%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.75%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.75%) Metadata
5 1 (0.75%) Power BI
5 1 (0.75%) Power Query
5 1 (0.75%) SAP Data Services
5 1 (0.75%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.75%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.75%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 31 (23.31%) JIRA
2 20 (15.04%) Git
3 9 (6.77%) GitLab
4 5 (3.76%) Jenkins
4 5 (3.76%) JUnit
5 3 (2.26%) Mockito
5 3 (2.26%) Postman
6 2 (1.50%) Selenium
7 1 (0.75%) Appium
7 1 (0.75%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.75%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.75%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.75%) Gradle
7 1 (0.75%) Grunt
7 1 (0.75%) gulp
7 1 (0.75%) LSMW
7 1 (0.75%) Maven
7 1 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.75%) Zephyr
General
1 62 (46.62%) Social Skills
2 60 (45.11%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (43.61%) Finance
4 36 (27.07%) Banking
5 8 (6.02%) Public Sector
6 5 (3.76%) Influencing Skills
6 5 (3.76%) Retail Banking
7 4 (3.01%) Legal
7 4 (3.01%) Pharmaceutical
7 4 (3.01%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (2.26%) Automotive
8 3 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.26%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.50%) Retail
10 1 (0.75%) Electronics
10 1 (0.75%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.75%) Marketing
10 1 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 35 (26.32%) Analyst
2 25 (18.80%) Developer
3 20 (15.04%) Business Analyst
4 14 (10.53%) Consultant
5 11 (8.27%) Java Developer
6 7 (5.26%) Administrator
6 7 (5.26%) Operational Support Analyst
6 7 (5.26%) Operations Analyst
6 7 (5.26%) Operations Support Analyst
6 7 (5.26%) SAP Consultant
6 7 (5.26%) Support Analyst
6 7 (5.26%) Technical Analyst
7 6 (4.51%) Architect
7 6 (4.51%) Management Consultant
7 6 (4.51%) Technical Business Analyst
8 5 (3.76%) Automation Engineer
8 5 (3.76%) Service Analyst
9 4 (3.01%) Applications Architect
9 4 (3.01%) Full-Stack Developer
9 4 (3.01%) Technical Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (21.80%) REST
2 17 (12.78%) Spring
2 17 (12.78%) Spring Boot
3 15 (11.28%) JSON
4 13 (9.77%) SOAP
5 12 (9.02%) Swagger
6 11 (8.27%) JMS
6 11 (8.27%) RESTful
6 11 (8.27%) XML
7 9 (6.77%) HTML
7 9 (6.77%) OpenAPI
8 7 (5.26%) CSS
9 6 (4.51%) JWT
9 6 (4.51%) OAuth
10 5 (3.76%) React
11 4 (3.01%) CSS3
11 4 (3.01%) HTML5
11 4 (3.01%) Redux
11 4 (3.01%) SAP Fiori
11 4 (3.01%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 14 (10.53%) Cloud Native
2 12 (9.02%) Product Ownership
2 12 (9.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 9 (6.77%) Onboarding
4 5 (3.76%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (3.76%) Management Information System
5 3 (2.26%) Digital Wallet
5 3 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.50%) CMDB
6 2 (1.50%) Mobile Banking
6 2 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.75%) Blackberry
7 1 (0.75%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.75%) Graphic Design
7 1 (0.75%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.75%) Online Banking
7 1 (0.75%) Replication
7 1 (0.75%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.75%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 11 (8.27%) Windows
2 5 (3.76%) Windows 10
3 4 (3.01%) Linux
4 2 (1.50%) Unix
5 1 (0.75%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (42.86%) Agile
2 37 (27.82%) CI/CD
3 30 (22.56%) Stakeholder Management
4 24 (18.05%) DevOps
4 24 (18.05%) Requirements Gathering
5 23 (17.29%) Validation
6 22 (16.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 21 (15.79%) Migration
8 20 (15.04%) Microservices
8 20 (15.04%) Test Automation
8 20 (15.04%) Workshop Facilitation
9 19 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
10 18 (13.53%) SDLC
10 18 (13.53%) Six Sigma
11 17 (12.78%) Change Management
11 17 (12.78%) Computer Science
11 17 (12.78%) Containerisation
12 16 (12.03%) Unit Testing
13 15 (11.28%) Integration Patterns
13 15 (11.28%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (20.30%) Java
2 19 (14.29%) SQL
3 12 (9.02%) Python
4 9 (6.77%) JavaScript
5 5 (3.76%) PowerShell
5 5 (3.76%) TypeScript
6 3 (2.26%) Apex Code
6 3 (2.26%) Bash
7 1 (0.75%) ABAP
7 1 (0.75%) C#
7 1 (0.75%) Perl
7 1 (0.75%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.75%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.75%) SOQL
7 1 (0.75%) SOSL
7 1 (0.75%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 30 (22.56%) Degree
2 22 (16.54%) Security Cleared
3 17 (12.78%) SC Cleared
4 16 (12.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (9.77%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (6.02%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 4 (3.01%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.50%) A+ Certification
8 2 (1.50%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.50%) CBAP
8 2 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (1.50%) CISSP
8 2 (1.50%) CSPO
8 2 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.50%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.50%) PMP
8 2 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.75%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 1 (0.75%) CCNA CyberOps
9 1 (0.75%) Check Point Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (11.28%) PSD2
1 15 (11.28%) QA
2 14 (10.53%) ISO 20022
3 12 (9.02%) SEPA
4 5 (3.76%) GDPR
4 5 (3.76%) PCI DSS
5 3 (2.26%) ISO 8583
6 2 (1.50%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.75%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.75%) PMBOK
System Software
1 17 (12.78%) Docker
2 12 (9.02%) Active Directory
3 4 (3.01%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 19 (14.29%) Kubernetes
2 15 (11.28%) SCCM
3 7 (5.26%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (4.51%) Norton AntiVirus
5 2 (1.50%) HP ALM
5 2 (1.50%) Terraform
6 1 (0.75%) Ansible
6 1 (0.75%) Autotask
6 1 (0.75%) Grafana
6 1 (0.75%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.75%) QRadar
6 1 (0.75%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 36 (27.07%) Microsoft
2 24 (18.05%) SAP
3 16 (12.03%) Oracle
4 7 (5.26%) MuleSoft
5 6 (4.51%) McAfee
5 6 (4.51%) Symantec
6 5 (3.76%) F5
6 5 (3.76%) ServiceNow
6 5 (3.76%) VMware
7 4 (3.01%) Computacenter
7 4 (3.01%) Salesforce
8 3 (2.26%) Cisco
8 3 (2.26%) Google
8 3 (2.26%) Snow
8 3 (2.26%) Splunk
8 3 (2.26%) Workday
9 2 (1.50%) HP
9 2 (1.50%) IBM
9 2 (1.50%) IBM Sterling
9 2 (1.50%) Palo Alto