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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 114 156 92
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 14.81% 22.91% 17.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.35% 25.45% 19.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 108 55
10th Percentile £237 £266 £300
25th Percentile £313 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £411 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.67% -10.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £500 £507 £566
90th Percentile £548 £671 £587
North West median daily rate £450 £458 £453
% change year-on-year -1.64% +1.10% -8.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 4 0
10th Percentile £14.99 £21.25 -
25th Percentile £17.25 £24.63 -
Median hourly rate £17.50 £30.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -42.62% - -
75th Percentile £54.95 £47.00 -
90th Percentile £79.05 £70.40 -
North West median hourly rate £27.31 £20.26 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.81% -66.24% +130.77%

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 657 613 465
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 85.32% 90.01% 85.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 333 462 285
10th Percentile £296 £273 £325
25th Percentile £400 £358 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £445 £488
Median % change year-on-year +6.74% -8.72% -2.50%
75th Percentile £575 £522 £575
90th Percentile £625 £688 £650
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 28 17
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £16.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £14.83 £21.05
Median hourly rate £35.46 £18.31 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +93.68% -47.69% +34.62%
75th Percentile £85.00 £37.56 £43.75
90th Percentile £111.25 £72.88 £45.25
North West median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +88.90% -37.64% +15.21%

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 11 October 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 11 October 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 11 October 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
Chester -6 23 £525 -6.12% 25
Warrington +3 22 £325 -18.75% 21
Knutsford -6 21 £434 -0.80% 12
Crewe 0 14 £313 +21.55% 8
Macclesfield +1 8 £525 +5.00% 10
Northwich - 3 £300 - 1
Congleton - 3 - - 4
Widnes - 1 - - 2
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 9 (7.89%) Confluence
2 3 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.88%) Camunda
Applications
1 14 (12.28%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (2.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (2.63%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.88%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 7 (6.14%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (2.63%) Teamcenter
3 2 (1.75%) SAP HCM
3 2 (1.75%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.88%) ENOVIA
Cloud Services
1 27 (23.68%) Microsoft 365
2 15 (13.16%) Azure
3 12 (10.53%) AWS
4 7 (6.14%) Entra ID
5 5 (4.39%) Power Platform
6 3 (2.63%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (1.75%) GCP
7 2 (1.75%) Power Automate
7 2 (1.75%) PowerApps
7 2 (1.75%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 14 (12.28%) VPN
2 6 (5.26%) WAN
3 5 (4.39%) LAN
4 3 (2.63%) BIG-IP
4 3 (2.63%) DMZ
4 3 (2.63%) DNS
4 3 (2.63%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 3 (2.63%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 3 (2.63%) Firewall
4 3 (2.63%) SAN
5 2 (1.75%) BGP
5 2 (1.75%) Cisco Nexus
5 2 (1.75%) MPLS
5 2 (1.75%) OSPF
5 2 (1.75%) Remote Desktop
5 2 (1.75%) SSL
5 2 (1.75%) VLAN
5 2 (1.75%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (1.75%) Wireless
5 2 (1.75%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.51%) Power BI
2 2 (1.75%) Relational Database
2 2 (1.75%) SAP HANA
2 2 (1.75%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.88%) Metadata
3 1 (0.88%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 8 (7.02%) JIRA
2 3 (2.63%) GitLab
3 2 (1.75%) Git
3 2 (1.75%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.88%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.88%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.88%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.88%) Maven
4 1 (0.88%) Postman
4 1 (0.88%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.88%) Selenium
4 1 (0.88%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.88%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 56 (49.12%) Social Skills
2 48 (42.11%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (19.30%) Finance
4 17 (14.91%) Manufacturing
5 12 (10.53%) Banking
6 6 (5.26%) Automotive
6 6 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (3.51%) Legal
7 4 (3.51%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (2.63%) Aerospace
9 2 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.88%) Aviation
10 1 (0.88%) German Language
10 1 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.88%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 19 (16.67%) Analyst
2 14 (12.28%) IT Support
3 10 (8.77%) Support Engineer
4 8 (7.02%) Service Analyst
4 8 (7.02%) Service Desk Analyst
5 7 (6.14%) Desktop Engineer
5 7 (6.14%) Desktop Support
5 7 (6.14%) Desktop Support Engineer
5 7 (6.14%) Lead
5 7 (6.14%) Operations Analyst
6 6 (5.26%) IT Analyst
6 6 (5.26%) IT Operations Analyst
6 6 (5.26%) Operational Support Analyst
6 6 (5.26%) Operations Support Analyst
6 6 (5.26%) Support Analyst
7 5 (4.39%) IT Engineer
7 5 (4.39%) IT Support Analyst
8 4 (3.51%) Security Engineer
8 4 (3.51%) Senior
8 4 (3.51%) Technical Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.39%) REST
2 4 (3.51%) JSON
3 3 (2.63%) Terraform
3 3 (2.63%) XML
4 2 (1.75%) Middleware
4 2 (1.75%) OAuth
4 2 (1.75%) SailPoint
4 2 (1.75%) Spring
5 1 (0.88%) HTML
5 1 (0.88%) JPA
5 1 (0.88%) Kafka
5 1 (0.88%) Playwright
5 1 (0.88%) RESTful
5 1 (0.88%) Spring Boot
5 1 (0.88%) Spring MVC
5 1 (0.88%) Spring Security
5 1 (0.88%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 10 (8.77%) Analytical Mindset
2 9 (7.89%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (6.14%) CMDB
3 7 (6.14%) Onboarding
4 6 (5.26%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (5.26%) Product Ownership
4 6 (5.26%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (3.51%) Cloud Native
5 4 (3.51%) Data Centre
5 4 (3.51%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (2.63%) Client/Server
6 3 (2.63%) Cyber Threat
6 3 (2.63%) Data Structures
6 3 (2.63%) Industry 4.0
6 3 (2.63%) Robotics
6 3 (2.63%) Virtual Team
7 2 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.75%) PKI
7 2 (1.75%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.88%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 38 (33.33%) Windows
2 8 (7.02%) Linux
3 5 (4.39%) macOS
4 3 (2.63%) Apple iOS
4 3 (2.63%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.75%) Android
5 2 (1.75%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.88%) AIX
6 1 (0.88%) HPUX
6 1 (0.88%) Oracle Linux
6 1 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.88%) Solaris
6 1 (0.88%) SUSE
6 1 (0.88%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (34.21%) Continuous Improvement
2 31 (27.19%) Stakeholder Management
3 27 (23.68%) ITIL
4 26 (22.81%) Customer Service
5 18 (15.79%) AI
6 15 (13.16%) Incident Management
7 14 (12.28%) Agile
7 14 (12.28%) Data Protection
7 14 (12.28%) Process Improvement
8 13 (11.40%) Generative AI
9 12 (10.53%) ITSM
9 12 (10.53%) Project Delivery
10 11 (9.65%) Change Management
10 11 (9.65%) CI/CD
10 11 (9.65%) Computer Science
10 11 (9.65%) Mentoring
10 11 (9.65%) Root Cause Analysis
10 11 (9.65%) Service Management
11 10 (8.77%) Cybersecurity
11 10 (8.77%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 15 (13.16%) PowerShell
2 13 (11.40%) Python
3 9 (7.89%) SQL
4 5 (4.39%) Java
5 2 (1.75%) ABAP
5 2 (1.75%) Assembly Language
5 2 (1.75%) C#
5 2 (1.75%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.88%) Bash
Qualifications
1 18 (15.79%) Degree
2 9 (7.89%) BPSS Clearance
2 9 (7.89%) Security Cleared
3 8 (7.02%) Computer Science Degree
4 6 (5.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 5 (4.39%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (4.39%) HNC
5 5 (4.39%) HND
6 4 (3.51%) CISSP
6 4 (3.51%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (2.63%) A+ Certification
7 3 (2.63%) CCNA
7 3 (2.63%) CompTIA Security+
7 3 (2.63%) MCSE
7 3 (2.63%) Network+ Certification
7 3 (2.63%) SC Cleared
8 2 (1.75%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.75%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (1.75%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (14.04%) SLA
2 5 (4.39%) Data Quality
3 4 (3.51%) GRC
4 3 (2.63%) NIST
4 3 (2.63%) QA
5 2 (1.75%) GDPR
5 2 (1.75%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.88%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 17 (14.91%) Active Directory
2 6 (5.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (3.51%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (2.63%) Docker
4 3 (2.63%) VMware NSX
5 2 (1.75%) Firmware
5 2 (1.75%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 1 (0.88%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.88%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (12.28%) SCCM
2 10 (8.77%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (2.63%) Ansible
3 3 (2.63%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.75%) Functional Safety
4 2 (1.75%) Grafana
4 2 (1.75%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.75%) WMI
Vendors
1 36 (31.58%) Microsoft
2 21 (18.42%) ServiceNow
3 8 (7.02%) Workday
4 7 (6.14%) Remedy
4 7 (6.14%) VMware
5 6 (5.26%) Bomgar
6 5 (4.39%) F5
6 5 (4.39%) Splunk
7 4 (3.51%) Atlassian
7 4 (3.51%) Siemens
8 3 (2.63%) Cisco
8 3 (2.63%) Dell
8 3 (2.63%) HP
8 3 (2.63%) SAP
9 2 (1.75%) BeyondTrust
9 2 (1.75%) Forcepoint
9 2 (1.75%) Fortinet
9 2 (1.75%) Juniper
9 2 (1.75%) Okta
9 2 (1.75%) Oracle