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

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 2 13
Rank change year-on-year -8 +11 -2
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 93 119 52
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 13.27% 27.93% 10.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.22% 28.88% 12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 73 77 27
10th Percentile £313 £230 £300
25th Percentile £350 £400 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £497 £525
Median % change year-on-year -19.11% -5.33% +19.32%
75th Percentile £494 £588 £583
90th Percentile £585 £715 £633
North West median daily rate £402 £486 £493
% change year-on-year -17.28% -1.42% +9.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 7
10th Percentile - £39.40 £14.00
25th Percentile £29.99 £44.50 £27.63
Median hourly rate £34.02 £53.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -36.41% +25.88% +83.59%
75th Percentile £49.37 £62.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £71.35 £66.80 -
North West median hourly rate £70.00 £27.13 £11.20
% change year-on-year +158.06% +142.30% -59.29%

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 611 412 426
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 87.16% 96.71% 84.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 435 275 284
10th Percentile £317 £314 £278
25th Percentile £385 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% -6.00% +3.65%
75th Percentile £575 £553 £580
90th Percentile £651 £638 £635
North West median daily rate £463 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -2.63% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 27 30
10th Percentile £13.47 £19.00 £13.70
25th Percentile £21.75 £27.88 £16.61
Median hourly rate £32.23 £37.00 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year -12.91% +38.78% -12.70%
75th Percentile £85.00 £85.63 £42.31
90th Percentile - £86.00 £44.13
North West median hourly rate £50.00 £32.00 £21.56
% change year-on-year +56.25% +48.46% -38.41%

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 April 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 27 April 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 27 April 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 -9 61 £393 -14.57% 1
Chester -7 15 £550 -21.43% 42
Warrington -14 7 £425 +84.78% 16
Crewe -1 5 - - 11
Alderley Edge +1 1 £400 - 2
Macclesfield 0 1 £500 -9.09% 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 16 (17.20%) Confluence
2 2 (2.15%) JBoss
3 1 (1.08%) Apache
3 1 (1.08%) Camunda
3 1 (1.08%) CMS
3 1 (1.08%) Mule
3 1 (1.08%) Mule ESB
3 1 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.08%) Tomcat
3 1 (1.08%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (3.23%) CATIA
2 2 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (1.08%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.08%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (4.30%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (2.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (2.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (1.08%) SAP HCM
3 1 (1.08%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 34 (36.56%) AWS
2 32 (34.41%) Azure
3 11 (11.83%) GCP
4 7 (7.53%) Apigee
4 7 (7.53%) Entra ID
4 7 (7.53%) Kong
5 6 (6.45%) GitHub
6 5 (5.38%) Power Platform
7 4 (4.30%) GitHub Copilot
8 3 (3.23%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (3.23%) OpenShift
9 2 (2.15%) AWS KMS
9 2 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (2.15%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (2.15%) SaaS
10 1 (1.08%) Akamai
10 1 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (1.08%) IaaS
10 1 (1.08%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (7.53%) DNS
2 6 (6.45%) Firewall
3 5 (5.38%) Kerberos
3 5 (5.38%) Network Security
4 4 (4.30%) DMZ
4 4 (4.30%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 4 (4.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 2 (2.15%) HTTP
6 1 (1.08%) DHCP
6 1 (1.08%) FlexRay
6 1 (1.08%) SAN
6 1 (1.08%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (8.60%) Relational Database
2 4 (4.30%) MySQL
2 4 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (3.23%) Power BI
3 3 (3.23%) SQL Server
4 1 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (1.08%) Power Query
4 1 (1.08%) SAP HANA
4 1 (1.08%) Star Schema
4 1 (1.08%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 27 (29.03%) JIRA
2 14 (15.05%) Git
3 9 (9.68%) GitLab
4 6 (6.45%) JUnit
5 4 (4.30%) Postman
6 3 (3.23%) Jenkins
6 3 (3.23%) Mockito
7 2 (2.15%) Zephyr
8 1 (1.08%) CANoe
8 1 (1.08%) Cucumber
8 1 (1.08%) Eclipse
8 1 (1.08%) Gradle
8 1 (1.08%) IntelliJ
8 1 (1.08%) Maven
8 1 (1.08%) Selenium
8 1 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 46 (49.46%) Analytical Skills
2 43 (46.24%) Finance
3 39 (41.94%) Social Skills
4 32 (34.41%) Banking
5 7 (7.53%) Retail Banking
6 6 (6.45%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (6.45%) Manufacturing
6 6 (6.45%) Public Sector
7 4 (4.30%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (3.23%) Aerospace
8 3 (3.23%) Automotive
8 3 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (2.15%) Billing
9 2 (2.15%) Retail
10 1 (1.08%) Financial Institution
10 1 (1.08%) Investment Banking
10 1 (1.08%) Legal
10 1 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 24 (25.81%) Analyst
2 21 (22.58%) Developer
3 20 (21.51%) Business Analyst
4 11 (11.83%) Java Developer
5 8 (8.60%) Architect
6 6 (6.45%) Technical Analyst
6 6 (6.45%) Technical Business Analyst
7 5 (5.38%) Applications Architect
8 4 (4.30%) Automation Engineer
8 4 (4.30%) Full-Stack Developer
8 4 (4.30%) Payments Analyst
8 4 (4.30%) Payments Business Analyst
8 4 (4.30%) React Developer
9 3 (3.23%) Consultant
9 3 (3.23%) Lead
9 3 (3.23%) Programmer
9 3 (3.23%) Risk Analyst
9 3 (3.23%) Security Engineer
10 2 (2.15%) Solutions Architect
10 2 (2.15%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (24.73%) REST
2 15 (16.13%) JSON
3 13 (13.98%) SOAP
3 13 (13.98%) Swagger
4 12 (12.90%) Spring
4 12 (12.90%) Spring Boot
5 11 (11.83%) RESTful
5 11 (11.83%) XML
6 9 (9.68%) OAuth
6 9 (9.68%) OpenAPI
7 8 (8.60%) HTML
8 7 (7.53%) JWT
9 6 (6.45%) CSS
9 6 (6.45%) JMS
9 6 (6.45%) React
10 5 (5.38%) HTML5
10 5 (5.38%) LDAP
10 5 (5.38%) Middleware
11 4 (4.30%) CSS3
11 4 (4.30%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 13 (13.98%) Product Ownership
2 10 (10.75%) Cloud Native
3 8 (8.60%) Management Information System
4 7 (7.53%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 5 (5.38%) Onboarding
6 4 (4.30%) Digital Wallet
7 3 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (3.23%) Data Centre
7 3 (3.23%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (2.15%) Mobile Banking
8 2 (2.15%) PKI
8 2 (2.15%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (2.15%) Virtual Team
9 1 (1.08%) Data Structures
9 1 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 1 (1.08%) Graphic Design
9 1 (1.08%) Online Banking
9 1 (1.08%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 7 (7.53%) Linux
2 5 (5.38%) Unix
2 5 (5.38%) Windows
3 3 (3.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (2.15%) AIX
4 2 (2.15%) Apple iOS
4 2 (2.15%) HPUX
4 2 (2.15%) Mac OS
4 2 (2.15%) Oracle Linux
4 2 (2.15%) Solaris
4 2 (2.15%) SUSE
5 1 (1.08%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (53.76%) Agile
2 30 (32.26%) CI/CD
3 24 (25.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 21 (22.58%) Requirements Gathering
5 20 (21.51%) Change Management
6 19 (20.43%) DevOps
7 18 (19.35%) Microservices
8 17 (18.28%) Computer Science
8 17 (18.28%) Integration Patterns
9 15 (16.13%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (16.13%) Test Automation
9 15 (16.13%) User Acceptance Testing
10 14 (15.05%) Migration
11 13 (13.98%) API Design
12 12 (12.90%) Containerisation
12 12 (12.90%) Scrum
12 12 (12.90%) Translating Business Requirements
12 12 (12.90%) Validation
12 12 (12.90%) Workshop Facilitation
13 11 (11.83%) AI
Programming Languages
1 21 (22.58%) Java
2 15 (16.13%) SQL
3 11 (11.83%) Python
4 9 (9.68%) PowerShell
5 7 (7.53%) JavaScript
5 7 (7.53%) TypeScript
6 3 (3.23%) Apex Code
7 2 (2.15%) Bash
7 2 (2.15%) Shell Script
8 1 (1.08%) ABAP
8 1 (1.08%) Bicep
8 1 (1.08%) C#
8 1 (1.08%) Korn
8 1 (1.08%) PL/SQL
8 1 (1.08%) SOQL
8 1 (1.08%) SOSL
8 1 (1.08%) T-SQL
8 1 (1.08%) VBA
Qualifications
1 22 (23.66%) Degree
2 16 (17.20%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (15.05%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (9.68%) Security Cleared
5 8 (8.60%) CISSP
6 5 (5.38%) AWS Certification
7 3 (3.23%) Azure Certification
7 3 (3.23%) CISA
7 3 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (3.23%) CompTIA Security+
7 3 (3.23%) CRISC
7 3 (3.23%) HNC
7 3 (3.23%) NVQ Level 4
8 2 (2.15%) CISM
8 2 (2.15%) GIAC
8 2 (2.15%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 2 (2.15%) PMI Certification
8 2 (2.15%) PMP
8 2 (2.15%) RHCE
8 2 (2.15%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (12.90%) PSD2
2 9 (9.68%) QA
3 8 (8.60%) ISO 20022
4 7 (7.53%) SEPA
5 6 (6.45%) GRC
5 6 (6.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (6.45%) NIST
6 5 (5.38%) PCI DSS
7 3 (3.23%) ISO 8583
8 2 (2.15%) Data Quality
8 2 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 1 (1.08%) GDPR
9 1 (1.08%) PMO
9 1 (1.08%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (15.05%) Docker
2 7 (7.53%) Active Directory
3 5 (5.38%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.08%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (15.05%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.23%) Ansible
2 3 (3.23%) Terraform
3 2 (2.15%) Argo
3 2 (2.15%) Grafana
3 2 (2.15%) HP ALM
3 2 (2.15%) Norton AntiVirus
3 2 (2.15%) SCCM
4 1 (1.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 1 (1.08%) CA Single Sign-On
4 1 (1.08%) Functional Safety
4 1 (1.08%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (1.08%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 15 (16.13%) Oracle
2 13 (13.98%) Microsoft
3 7 (7.53%) MuleSoft
3 7 (7.53%) SAP
4 5 (5.38%) Splunk
4 5 (5.38%) VMware
5 4 (4.30%) Computacenter
5 4 (4.30%) F5
5 4 (4.30%) HP
5 4 (4.30%) ServiceNow
6 3 (3.23%) Red Hat
6 3 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 2 (2.15%) BeyondTrust
7 2 (2.15%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (2.15%) Google
7 2 (2.15%) McAfee
7 2 (2.15%) Remedy
7 2 (2.15%) Symantec
8 1 (1.08%) Pure Storage
8 1 (1.08%) Sage