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 20 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 3 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 +4 +1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 153 93 60
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 22.27% 17.61% 14.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 24.72% 20.48% 16.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 60 34
10th Percentile £266 £323 £364
25th Percentile £358 £364 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +1.01% -10.00%
75th Percentile £506 £569 £538
90th Percentile £665 £600 £572
North West median daily rate £456 £463 £495
% change year-on-year -1.41% -6.57% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 2
10th Percentile £21.25 - £23.80
25th Percentile £24.63 - £24.08
Median hourly rate £30.50 - £24.81
75th Percentile £47.00 - £25.78
90th Percentile £70.40 - £26.21
North West median hourly rate £20.26 £60.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -66.24% +130.77% -35.00%

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 619 454 373
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 90.10% 85.98% 90.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 466 277 219
10th Percentile £271 £325 £287
25th Percentile £358 £382 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £439 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -2.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £520 £567 £586
90th Percentile £688 £650 £625
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 19 29
10th Percentile £12.82 £16.00 £15.80
25th Percentile £15.50 £21.05 £17.50
Median hourly rate £18.87 £35.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.09% +34.62% +61.79%
75th Percentile £40.00 £39.38 £35.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £40.00
North West median hourly rate £25.15 £40.33 £35.00
% change year-on-year -37.64% +15.21% +40.00%

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 20 October 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 20 October 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 20 October 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 0 64 £438 -16.27% 7
Chester +8 39 £550 -2.22% 27
Macclesfield -3 14 £500 - 4
Warrington -9 11 £400 +6.67% 54
Crewe +4 6 £325 +11.68% 16
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 (8.50%) Skype for Business
2 9 (5.88%) SharePoint
3 8 (5.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (4.58%) Exchange Server 2013
5 6 (3.92%) Confluence
5 6 (3.92%) JBoss
5 6 (3.92%) Mattermost
5 6 (3.92%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.96%) CICS
7 1 (0.65%) Apache
7 1 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.65%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.65%) Mule
7 1 (0.65%) Mule ESB
7 1 (0.65%) WebLogic
Applications
1 19 (12.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (9.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 15 (9.80%) MS Visio
3 10 (6.54%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 22 (14.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.61%) SAP EHS
3 3 (1.96%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.65%) Finacle
4 1 (0.65%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.65%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.65%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 28 (18.30%) AWS
2 23 (15.03%) Azure
3 18 (11.76%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (5.23%) OneDrive
5 6 (3.92%) GCP
5 6 (3.92%) GitHub
5 6 (3.92%) OpenShift
6 4 (2.61%) Cloud Computing
7 3 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (1.96%) Amazon Glacier
7 3 (1.96%) Amazon Kinesis
7 3 (1.96%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.96%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (1.96%) Serverless
8 2 (1.31%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.31%) BrowserStack
8 2 (1.31%) npm
8 2 (1.31%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.65%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.65%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 13 (8.50%) Skype
2 6 (3.92%) Softphone
2 6 (3.92%) Unified Communications
2 6 (3.92%) WebEx
3 5 (3.27%) LAN
3 5 (3.27%) Network Security
3 5 (3.27%) WAN
4 4 (2.61%) DNS
5 3 (1.96%) DMZ
5 3 (1.96%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 3 (1.96%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 2 (1.31%) Firewall
6 2 (1.31%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.65%) BGP
7 1 (0.65%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (0.65%) Internet
7 1 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.65%) SAN
7 1 (0.65%) VLAN
7 1 (0.65%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.61%) MS Access
2 3 (1.96%) DynamoDB
3 2 (1.31%) Big Data
3 2 (1.31%) Easytrieve
4 1 (0.65%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.65%) DB2
4 1 (0.65%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.65%) Metadata
4 1 (0.65%) MySQL
4 1 (0.65%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.65%) Power BI
4 1 (0.65%) Power Query
4 1 (0.65%) SAP Data Services
4 1 (0.65%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 28 (18.30%) JIRA
2 19 (12.42%) Git
3 16 (10.46%) Jenkins
4 11 (7.19%) JUnit
5 7 (4.58%) GitLab
6 6 (3.92%) Cucumber
7 5 (3.27%) Gradle
7 5 (3.27%) Maven
7 5 (3.27%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (1.96%) Selenium
8 3 (1.96%) TestRail
9 2 (1.31%) Cypress.io
9 2 (1.31%) Grunt
9 2 (1.31%) gulp
9 2 (1.31%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.65%) Appium
10 1 (0.65%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.65%) LSMW
10 1 (0.65%) MLflow
General
1 78 (50.98%) Social Skills
2 77 (50.33%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (28.10%) Finance
4 26 (16.99%) Banking
5 6 (3.92%) Influencing Skills
5 6 (3.92%) Pharmaceutical
5 6 (3.92%) Presentation Skills
6 5 (3.27%) Legal
7 3 (1.96%) Automotive
7 3 (1.96%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.31%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.65%) Electronics
9 1 (0.65%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.65%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.65%) Marketing
9 1 (0.65%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 32 (20.92%) Analyst
2 24 (15.69%) Developer
3 17 (11.11%) Architect
4 13 (8.50%) Consultant
4 13 (8.50%) Java Developer
5 12 (7.84%) Operational Support Analyst
5 12 (7.84%) Operations Analyst
5 12 (7.84%) Operations Support Analyst
5 12 (7.84%) Support Analyst
6 10 (6.54%) Business Analyst
7 8 (5.23%) Solutions Architect
8 7 (4.58%) Senior
8 7 (4.58%) Support Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) Management Consultant
9 6 (3.92%) Messaging Support
9 6 (3.92%) Messaging Support Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) Operations Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) Operations Support Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) SAP Consultant
9 6 (3.92%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (17.65%) REST
2 17 (11.11%) Spring
2 17 (11.11%) Spring Boot
3 10 (6.54%) Kafka
4 9 (5.88%) RESTful
4 9 (5.88%) SOAP
5 7 (4.58%) HTML
5 7 (4.58%) React
6 6 (3.92%) CSS
6 6 (3.92%) JMS
6 6 (3.92%) JSON
6 6 (3.92%) Web Services
6 6 (3.92%) XMPP
7 4 (2.61%) AngularJS
7 4 (2.61%) SAP Fiori
7 4 (2.61%) Spring Cloud
7 4 (2.61%) XML
8 3 (1.96%) ActiveMQ
8 3 (1.96%) LDAP
9 2 (1.31%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 12 (7.84%) Management Information System
2 10 (6.54%) Onboarding
3 8 (5.23%) Product Ownership
4 7 (4.58%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 6 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.61%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.61%) Virtual Team
7 3 (1.96%) CMDB
7 3 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.96%) Mainframe
7 3 (1.96%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.96%) VSAM
8 2 (1.31%) Cyberattack
8 2 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.65%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.65%) Replication
9 1 (0.65%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 12 (7.84%) Linux
2 8 (5.23%) Windows
3 5 (3.27%) Apple iOS
3 5 (3.27%) Unix
4 4 (2.61%) Android
4 4 (2.61%) Windows 10
5 2 (1.31%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (21.57%) Agile
2 28 (18.30%) Continuous Improvement
3 27 (17.65%) CI/CD
3 27 (17.65%) Migration
4 23 (15.03%) ITIL
5 21 (13.73%) SDLC
5 21 (13.73%) User Acceptance Testing
6 20 (13.07%) Six Sigma
7 19 (12.42%) Stakeholder Management
8 18 (11.76%) Project Management
8 18 (11.76%) Test Automation
9 17 (11.11%) AI
9 17 (11.11%) Analytics
9 17 (11.11%) Microservices
9 17 (11.11%) Validation
10 16 (10.46%) Roadmaps
11 15 (9.80%) Process Improvement
11 15 (9.80%) Unit Testing
12 14 (9.15%) DevOps
12 14 (9.15%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 27 (17.65%) Java
2 22 (14.38%) SQL
3 12 (7.84%) Python
4 10 (6.54%) PowerShell
5 9 (5.88%) JavaScript
6 5 (3.27%) Shell Script
7 3 (1.96%) Bash
7 3 (1.96%) COBOL
7 3 (1.96%) JCL
8 1 (0.65%) ABAP
8 1 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.65%) Perl
8 1 (0.65%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 27 (17.65%) Degree
2 20 (13.07%) Security Cleared
3 17 (11.11%) SC Cleared
4 11 (7.19%) Six Sigma Green Belt
5 9 (5.88%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (5.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (3.92%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (2.61%) CBAP
9 3 (1.96%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.96%) Azure Certification
9 3 (1.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.96%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (1.31%) A+ Certification
10 2 (1.31%) BC Cleared
10 2 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (1.31%) CISSP
10 2 (1.31%) CSPO
10 2 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.65%) Check Point Certification
11 1 (0.65%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.46%) QA
2 11 (7.19%) SEPA
3 9 (5.88%) GDPR
4 8 (5.23%) ISO 20022
5 6 (3.92%) PSD2
6 4 (2.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (1.96%) Data Quality
8 2 (1.31%) Accessibility
8 2 (1.31%) COBIT
8 2 (1.31%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.65%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 17 (11.11%) Active Directory
2 9 (5.88%) Docker
3 3 (1.96%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (8.50%) SCCM
2 9 (5.88%) Kubernetes
3 7 (4.58%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (3.92%) SCOM
5 4 (2.61%) Norton AntiVirus
6 3 (1.96%) HP ALM
6 3 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (1.31%) Terraform
8 1 (0.65%) Ansible
8 1 (0.65%) Autotask
8 1 (0.65%) Grafana
8 1 (0.65%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.65%) QRadar
8 1 (0.65%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 38 (24.84%) Microsoft
2 28 (18.30%) SAP
3 13 (8.50%) Oracle
4 10 (6.54%) ServiceNow
5 9 (5.88%) Cisco
6 8 (5.23%) Splunk
7 6 (3.92%) Red Hat
8 4 (2.61%) F5
8 4 (2.61%) McAfee
8 4 (2.61%) Symantec
8 4 (2.61%) VMware
9 3 (1.96%) Computacenter
9 3 (1.96%) HP
10 2 (1.31%) IBM
10 2 (1.31%) IBM Sterling
10 2 (1.31%) Palo Alto
10 2 (1.31%) Perforce
10 2 (1.31%) SolarWinds
11 1 (0.65%) UiPath
11 1 (0.65%) Zscaler