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

6 months to
18 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 134 101 56
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 20.90% 23.11% 12.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 23.34% 25.70% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 58 32
10th Percentile £267 £284 £451
25th Percentile £338 £356 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £404 £481 £510
Median % change year-on-year -16.02% -5.78% +4.08%
75th Percentile £492 £567 £558
90th Percentile £538 £622 £583
North West median daily rate £425 £463 £500
% change year-on-year -8.11% -7.50% +13.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 5
10th Percentile £20.50 - £24.37
25th Percentile £22.75 £36.00 £25.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £37.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.62% -12.94% +269.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £38.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £75.10 - -
North West median hourly rate £20.26 £27.13 £44.19
% change year-on-year -25.33% -38.62% +16.29%

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 574 393 394
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 89.55% 89.93% 87.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 415 226 252
10th Percentile £275 £298 £267
25th Percentile £354 £356 £437
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.89% -5.00% +8.70%
75th Percentile £519 £574 £550
90th Percentile £651 £651 £613
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 27 27
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.00 £15.20
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.02 £17.49
Median hourly rate £22.85 £24.19 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year -5.54% -9.26% +65.90%
75th Percentile £42.25 £57.75 £39.00
90th Percentile £74.95 £86.00 £43.75
North West median hourly rate £41.86 £30.40 £38.00
% change year-on-year +37.68% -20.00% +5.56%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -7 57 £360 -27.44% 5
Chester +3 31 £513 -26.79% 41
Warrington -3 15 £425 +6.12% 24
Macclesfield +1 12 £500 +5.26% 3
Crewe -5 6 £325 +11.68% 6
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 13 (9.70%) Confluence
2 9 (6.72%) SharePoint
3 8 (5.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (5.22%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (5.22%) Skype for Business
5 2 (1.49%) Apache
5 2 (1.49%) JBoss
5 2 (1.49%) 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 17 (12.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (10.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (8.96%) MS Visio
4 10 (7.46%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (1.49%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (14.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.99%) SAP EHS
3 3 (2.24%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.75%) Finacle
4 1 (0.75%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.75%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.75%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 34 (25.37%) Azure
2 33 (24.63%) AWS
3 22 (16.42%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (5.97%) GCP
4 8 (5.97%) OneDrive
5 6 (4.48%) Apigee
5 6 (4.48%) Kong
6 5 (3.73%) GitHub
7 4 (2.99%) GitHub Copilot
7 4 (2.99%) Power Platform
8 2 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.49%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.75%) Amazon Kinesis
9 1 (0.75%) Amazon SageMaker
9 1 (0.75%) AWS Data Pipeline
9 1 (0.75%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.75%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.75%) npm
9 1 (0.75%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (5.22%) Skype
2 6 (4.48%) Network Security
3 5 (3.73%) LAN
3 5 (3.73%) WAN
4 4 (2.99%) DNS
5 3 (2.24%) DMZ
5 3 (2.24%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 3 (2.24%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 3 (2.24%) Firewall
6 2 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.75%) BGP
7 1 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (0.75%) HTTP
7 1 (0.75%) Internet
7 1 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.75%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.75%) SAN
7 1 (0.75%) VLAN
7 1 (0.75%) Wireless
7 1 (0.75%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.73%) MySQL
1 5 (3.73%) Relational Database
2 4 (2.99%) MS Access
2 4 (2.99%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (1.49%) Big Data
4 1 (0.75%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.75%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.75%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.75%) Metadata
4 1 (0.75%) Power BI
4 1 (0.75%) Power Query
4 1 (0.75%) SAP Data Services
4 1 (0.75%) SAP HANA
4 1 (0.75%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.75%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 32 (23.88%) JIRA
2 20 (14.93%) Git
3 6 (4.48%) GitLab
4 5 (3.73%) Jenkins
5 3 (2.24%) TestRail
6 2 (1.49%) JUnit
6 2 (1.49%) 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%) Postman
7 1 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.75%) Zephyr
General
1 63 (47.01%) Analytical Skills
2 62 (46.27%) Social Skills
3 56 (41.79%) Finance
4 37 (27.61%) Banking
5 9 (6.72%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (5.97%) Public Sector
7 5 (3.73%) Legal
7 5 (3.73%) Retail Banking
8 4 (2.99%) Automotive
8 4 (2.99%) Pharmaceutical
8 4 (2.99%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (2.24%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.49%) Retail
11 1 (0.75%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.75%) Electronics
11 1 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.75%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.75%) Marketing
11 1 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 33 (24.63%) Analyst
2 21 (15.67%) Developer
3 18 (13.43%) Business Analyst
4 14 (10.45%) Consultant
5 11 (8.21%) Java Developer
6 7 (5.22%) Administrator
6 7 (5.22%) Architect
6 7 (5.22%) Operational Support Analyst
6 7 (5.22%) Operations Analyst
6 7 (5.22%) Operations Support Analyst
6 7 (5.22%) SAP Consultant
6 7 (5.22%) Support Analyst
6 7 (5.22%) Technical Analyst
7 6 (4.48%) Management Consultant
7 6 (4.48%) Technical Business Analyst
8 5 (3.73%) Governance Manager
8 5 (3.73%) Programme Manager
8 5 (3.73%) Service Analyst
9 4 (2.99%) Automation Engineer
9 4 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (18.66%) REST
2 17 (12.69%) Spring
2 17 (12.69%) Spring Boot
3 12 (8.96%) JSON
4 11 (8.21%) JMS
5 9 (6.72%) SOAP
5 9 (6.72%) XML
6 7 (5.22%) RESTful
6 7 (5.22%) Swagger
7 6 (4.48%) HTML
7 6 (4.48%) JWT
7 6 (4.48%) OAuth
7 6 (4.48%) OpenAPI
8 4 (2.99%) CSS
8 4 (2.99%) Hibernate
8 4 (2.99%) React
8 4 (2.99%) SAP Fiori
8 4 (2.99%) Spring MVC
8 4 (2.99%) Spring Security
9 3 (2.24%) CSS3
Miscellaneous
1 14 (10.45%) Cloud Native
2 12 (8.96%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 10 (7.46%) Onboarding
3 10 (7.46%) Product Ownership
4 5 (3.73%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (2.24%) Management Information System
5 3 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.49%) CMDB
6 2 (1.49%) Mobile Banking
6 2 (1.49%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.75%) Blackberry
7 1 (0.75%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.75%) Digital Wallet
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%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 11 (8.21%) Windows
2 5 (3.73%) Windows 10
3 4 (2.99%) Linux
4 2 (1.49%) Unix
5 1 (0.75%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (39.55%) Agile
2 33 (24.63%) CI/CD
3 32 (23.88%) Stakeholder Management
4 24 (17.91%) DevOps
5 22 (16.42%) Continuous Improvement
5 22 (16.42%) Requirements Gathering
6 21 (15.67%) Migration
6 21 (15.67%) Validation
7 20 (14.93%) Microservices
7 20 (14.93%) SDLC
8 19 (14.18%) User Acceptance Testing
9 18 (13.43%) Six Sigma
9 18 (13.43%) Workshop Facilitation
10 17 (12.69%) Change Management
10 17 (12.69%) Computer Science
10 17 (12.69%) Containerisation
10 17 (12.69%) Project Management
10 17 (12.69%) Test Automation
11 14 (10.45%) AI
11 14 (10.45%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 24 (17.91%) Java
2 19 (14.18%) SQL
3 12 (8.96%) Python
4 6 (4.48%) JavaScript
5 4 (2.99%) PowerShell
6 3 (2.24%) Bash
6 3 (2.24%) TypeScript
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%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 30 (22.39%) Degree
2 24 (17.91%) Security Cleared
3 17 (12.69%) SC Cleared
4 16 (11.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (8.96%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (5.97%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 4 (2.99%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.99%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.49%) A+ Certification
8 2 (1.49%) BC Cleared
8 2 (1.49%) CBAP
8 2 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (1.49%) CISSP
8 2 (1.49%) CSPO
8 2 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.49%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.49%) PMP
8 2 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.75%) CCNP
9 1 (0.75%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (11.19%) QA
2 14 (10.45%) ISO 20022
3 13 (9.70%) PSD2
4 12 (8.96%) SEPA
5 6 (4.48%) GDPR
6 3 (2.24%) PCI DSS
7 2 (1.49%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.75%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.75%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.75%) ISO 8583
8 1 (0.75%) PMBOK
System Software
1 17 (12.69%) Docker
2 11 (8.21%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.24%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 19 (14.18%) Kubernetes
2 15 (11.19%) SCCM
3 7 (5.22%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (4.48%) Norton AntiVirus
5 4 (2.99%) HP ALM
6 2 (1.49%) Terraform
7 1 (0.75%) Ansible
7 1 (0.75%) Autotask
7 1 (0.75%) Grafana
7 1 (0.75%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.75%) QRadar
7 1 (0.75%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 37 (27.61%) Microsoft
2 24 (17.91%) SAP
3 16 (11.94%) Oracle
4 7 (5.22%) MuleSoft
5 6 (4.48%) McAfee
5 6 (4.48%) Symantec
6 5 (3.73%) ServiceNow
7 4 (2.99%) F5
7 4 (2.99%) HP
7 4 (2.99%) VMware
8 3 (2.24%) Cisco
8 3 (2.24%) Computacenter
8 3 (2.24%) Google
8 3 (2.24%) Snow
8 3 (2.24%) Splunk
8 3 (2.24%) Workday
9 2 (1.49%) IBM
9 2 (1.49%) IBM Sterling
9 2 (1.49%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.49%) SolarWinds