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 27 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 3 11
Rank change year-on-year 0 +8 -4
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 129 103 55
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 20.06% 22.59% 13.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 22.75% 25.12% 15.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 64 35
10th Percentile £263 £294 £383
25th Percentile £350 £361 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £430 £496 £510
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -2.72% +3.45%
75th Percentile £500 £575 £558
90th Percentile £545 £632 £583
North West median daily rate £449 £463 £500
% change year-on-year -2.97% -7.50% +13.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile £20.50 - £23.99
25th Percentile £22.75 - £24.56
Median hourly rate £29.00 - £26.00
75th Percentile £58.75 - £35.13
90th Percentile £75.10 - £40.30
North West median hourly rate £20.26 £27.13 £45.88
% change year-on-year -25.33% -40.88% +37.49%

All Process and 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 567 410 366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 88.18% 89.91% 89.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 400 246 239
10th Percentile £268 £306 £265
25th Percentile £350 £363 £436
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £487 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.12% -2.65% +11.11%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £550
90th Percentile £676 £651 £592
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +0.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 22 25
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.00 £14.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.51 £17.14
Median hourly rate £22.85 £24.18 £23.61
Median % change year-on-year -5.50% +2.41% +48.40%
75th Percentile £40.75 £33.75 £35.75
90th Percentile £72.75 £85.15 £42.25
North West median hourly rate £35.00 £31.50 £38.00
% change year-on-year +11.11% -17.11% +47.23%

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025. 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 48 £396 -20.80% 6
Chester +5 33 £513 -26.79% 63
Macclesfield 0 15 £500 +4.06% 3
Warrington -6 14 £425 +6.12% 95
Crewe -2 6 £243 -16.67% 7
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 (6.98%) Confluence
1 9 (6.98%) SharePoint
2 8 (6.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (5.43%) Exchange Server 2013
3 7 (5.43%) Skype for Business
4 2 (1.55%) Apache
4 2 (1.55%) JBoss
4 2 (1.55%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.78%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.78%) CMS
5 1 (0.78%) Mule
5 1 (0.78%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.78%) WebLogic
Applications
1 17 (13.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (10.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (9.30%) MS Visio
4 10 (7.75%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 23 (17.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (3.10%) SAP EHS
3 3 (2.33%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.78%) Finacle
4 1 (0.78%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.78%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.78%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 29 (22.48%) Azure
2 27 (20.93%) AWS
3 21 (16.28%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (6.20%) OneDrive
5 6 (4.65%) GCP
6 5 (3.88%) Apigee
6 5 (3.88%) GitHub
6 5 (3.88%) Kong
7 4 (3.10%) GitHub Copilot
7 4 (3.10%) Power Platform
8 2 (1.55%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.55%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.78%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.78%) Amazon SageMaker
9 1 (0.78%) AWS Data Pipeline
9 1 (0.78%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.78%) Google Workspace
9 1 (0.78%) npm
9 1 (0.78%) SaaS
9 1 (0.78%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (6.20%) Network Security
2 7 (5.43%) Skype
3 6 (4.65%) DNS
4 5 (3.88%) DMZ
4 5 (3.88%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 5 (3.88%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 5 (3.88%) LAN
4 5 (3.88%) WAN
5 3 (2.33%) Firewall
6 2 (1.55%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.78%) BGP
7 1 (0.78%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (0.78%) HTTP
7 1 (0.78%) Internet
7 1 (0.78%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.78%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.78%) SAN
7 1 (0.78%) VLAN
7 1 (0.78%) Wireless
7 1 (0.78%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.88%) MySQL
1 5 (3.88%) Relational Database
2 4 (3.10%) MS Access
2 4 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (1.55%) Big Data
4 1 (0.78%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.78%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.78%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.78%) Metadata
4 1 (0.78%) Power BI
4 1 (0.78%) Power Query
4 1 (0.78%) SAP Data Services
4 1 (0.78%) SAP HANA
4 1 (0.78%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.78%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 25 (19.38%) JIRA
2 18 (13.95%) Git
3 6 (4.65%) GitLab
4 5 (3.88%) Jenkins
5 3 (2.33%) TestRail
6 2 (1.55%) JUnit
6 2 (1.55%) Selenium
7 1 (0.78%) Appium
7 1 (0.78%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.78%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.78%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.78%) Gradle
7 1 (0.78%) Grunt
7 1 (0.78%) gulp
7 1 (0.78%) LSMW
7 1 (0.78%) Maven
7 1 (0.78%) MLflow
7 1 (0.78%) Postman
7 1 (0.78%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 61 (47.29%) Social Skills
2 57 (44.19%) Analytical Skills
3 53 (41.09%) Finance
4 29 (22.48%) Banking
5 8 (6.20%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (5.43%) Public Sector
7 5 (3.88%) Legal
7 5 (3.88%) Pharmaceutical
8 4 (3.10%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (2.33%) Automotive
10 2 (1.55%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.55%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.78%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.78%) Electronics
11 1 (0.78%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.78%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.78%) Marketing
11 1 (0.78%) Retail
Job Titles
1 31 (24.03%) Analyst
2 18 (13.95%) Developer
3 14 (10.85%) Business Analyst
3 14 (10.85%) Consultant
4 9 (6.98%) Java Developer
5 7 (5.43%) Operational Support Analyst
5 7 (5.43%) Operations Analyst
5 7 (5.43%) Operations Support Analyst
5 7 (5.43%) SAP Consultant
5 7 (5.43%) Support Analyst
6 6 (4.65%) Administrator
6 6 (4.65%) Automation Engineer
6 6 (4.65%) Management Consultant
6 6 (4.65%) Technical Analyst
7 5 (3.88%) Architect
7 5 (3.88%) Governance Manager
7 5 (3.88%) Programme Manager
7 5 (3.88%) Service Analyst
7 5 (3.88%) Technical Business Analyst
8 4 (3.10%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (15.50%) REST
2 15 (11.63%) Spring
2 15 (11.63%) Spring Boot
3 10 (7.75%) JSON
4 9 (6.98%) JMS
5 8 (6.20%) SOAP
5 8 (6.20%) XML
6 6 (4.65%) RESTful
6 6 (4.65%) Swagger
7 5 (3.88%) HTML
7 5 (3.88%) JWT
7 5 (3.88%) OAuth
7 5 (3.88%) OpenAPI
8 4 (3.10%) Hibernate
8 4 (3.10%) SAP Fiori
8 4 (3.10%) Spring MVC
8 4 (3.10%) Spring Security
9 3 (2.33%) CSS
9 3 (2.33%) Kafka
9 3 (2.33%) React
Miscellaneous
1 10 (7.75%) Cloud Native
1 10 (7.75%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 9 (6.98%) Onboarding
3 6 (4.65%) Product Ownership
4 3 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (2.33%) Management Information System
4 3 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.55%) CMDB
5 2 (1.55%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.78%) Blackberry
6 1 (0.78%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.78%) Digital Wallet
6 1 (0.78%) Graphic Design
6 1 (0.78%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.78%) Mobile Banking
6 1 (0.78%) Replication
6 1 (0.78%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.78%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 10 (7.75%) Windows
2 5 (3.88%) Windows 10
3 3 (2.33%) Linux
4 2 (1.55%) Unix
5 1 (0.78%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (33.33%) Agile
2 29 (22.48%) CI/CD
3 28 (21.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 25 (19.38%) Continuous Improvement
5 21 (16.28%) DevOps
5 21 (16.28%) Six Sigma
6 20 (15.50%) Validation
7 19 (14.73%) Workshop Facilitation
8 18 (13.95%) Migration
8 18 (13.95%) Requirements Gathering
9 17 (13.18%) Microservices
9 17 (13.18%) Project Management
9 17 (13.18%) SDLC
10 16 (12.40%) Change Management
10 16 (12.40%) Computer Science
10 16 (12.40%) Containerisation
10 16 (12.40%) User Acceptance Testing
11 15 (11.63%) ERP
11 15 (11.63%) Test Automation
12 14 (10.85%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 20 (15.50%) Java
2 16 (12.40%) SQL
3 10 (7.75%) Python
4 5 (3.88%) JavaScript
5 4 (3.10%) PowerShell
6 3 (2.33%) Bash
7 2 (1.55%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.78%) ABAP
8 1 (0.78%) C#
8 1 (0.78%) Perl
8 1 (0.78%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.78%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.78%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 29 (22.48%) Degree
2 23 (17.83%) Security Cleared
3 16 (12.40%) SC Cleared
4 15 (11.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (8.53%) Six Sigma Green Belt
6 6 (4.65%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (3.10%) AWS Certification
7 4 (3.10%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.55%) A+ Certification
8 2 (1.55%) BC Cleared
8 2 (1.55%) CBAP
8 2 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (1.55%) CISSP
8 2 (1.55%) CSPO
8 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.55%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.55%) PMP
8 2 (1.55%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.78%) CCSA
9 1 (0.78%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (9.30%) ISO 20022
1 12 (9.30%) QA
2 11 (8.53%) PSD2
3 10 (7.75%) SEPA
4 6 (4.65%) GDPR
5 3 (2.33%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.55%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.78%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.78%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.78%) ISO 8583
7 1 (0.78%) PMBOK
System Software
1 15 (11.63%) Docker
2 11 (8.53%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.88%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.78%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 17 (13.18%) Kubernetes
2 14 (10.85%) SCCM
3 7 (5.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (3.88%) Norton AntiVirus
5 3 (2.33%) HP ALM
6 2 (1.55%) Terraform
7 1 (0.78%) Ansible
7 1 (0.78%) Autotask
7 1 (0.78%) Grafana
7 1 (0.78%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.78%) QRadar
7 1 (0.78%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 35 (27.13%) Microsoft
2 27 (20.93%) SAP
3 14 (10.85%) Oracle
4 6 (4.65%) F5
4 6 (4.65%) MuleSoft
4 6 (4.65%) VMware
5 5 (3.88%) Computacenter
5 5 (3.88%) McAfee
5 5 (3.88%) ServiceNow
5 5 (3.88%) Symantec
6 3 (2.33%) Cisco
6 3 (2.33%) HP
6 3 (2.33%) Snow
6 3 (2.33%) Splunk
6 3 (2.33%) Workday
7 2 (1.55%) Google
7 2 (1.55%) IBM
7 2 (1.55%) IBM Sterling
7 2 (1.55%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.55%) SolarWinds