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

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 0
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 123 146 71
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 14.63% 23.47% 14.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.15% 25.66% 16.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 104 42
10th Percentile £258 £282 £325
25th Percentile £313 £362 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £469 £523
Median % change year-on-year -5.12% -10.24% +8.85%
75th Percentile £538 £537 £567
90th Percentile £565 £671 £585
North West median daily rate £445 £475 £453
% change year-on-year -6.32% +4.97% -5.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 0
10th Percentile £15.77 £26.85 -
25th Percentile £17.25 £27.38 -
Median hourly rate £24.86 £30.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -18.48% - -
75th Percentile £37.16 £33.38 -
90th Percentile £80.10 £33.75 -
North West median hourly rate £37.50 £20.26 £27.50
% change year-on-year +85.14% -26.35% -

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 717 569 426
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 85.26% 91.48% 86.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 411 432 276
10th Percentile £313 £305 £327
25th Percentile £402 £358 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £430 £488
Median % change year-on-year +10.47% -11.93% -2.35%
75th Percentile £575 £501 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £678
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 19 16
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.81 £16.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £12.82 £30.31
Median hourly rate £35.82 £17.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +101.80% -49.29% +14.60%
75th Percentile £85.00 £32.75 £43.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £45.45 £47.50
North West median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +88.87% -37.63% +18.60%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 5 September 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 -2 30 £525 -10.64% 31
Knutsford -10 30 £444 -0.34% 13
Warrington +4 20 £325 +182.61% 20
Crewe +1 15 £313 +21.55% 9
Macclesfield -5 4 £525 +5.00% 12
Northwich - 3 £300 - 2
Widnes - 1 - - 3
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 (7.32%) Confluence
2 3 (2.44%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.63%) Camunda
4 1 (0.81%) JBoss
4 1 (0.81%) Mule
4 1 (0.81%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.81%) WebLogic
Applications
1 14 (11.38%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (3.25%) MS Visio
3 3 (2.44%) CATIA
3 3 (2.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.81%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (7.32%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (2.44%) Teamcenter
3 2 (1.63%) SAP HCM
3 2 (1.63%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.81%) ENOVIA
4 1 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 27 (21.95%) Microsoft 365
2 24 (19.51%) Azure
3 20 (16.26%) AWS
4 8 (6.50%) Power Platform
5 7 (5.69%) Entra ID
6 6 (4.88%) GCP
7 2 (1.63%) AWS KMS
7 2 (1.63%) Azure Key Vault
7 2 (1.63%) OpenShift
7 2 (1.63%) Power Automate
7 2 (1.63%) PowerApps
7 2 (1.63%) Rubrik
8 1 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.81%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (0.81%) Azure API Management
8 1 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (0.81%) GitHub
8 1 (0.81%) Kong
8 1 (0.81%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (11.38%) VPN
2 6 (4.88%) WAN
3 5 (4.07%) LAN
4 4 (3.25%) DNS
5 3 (2.44%) BIG-IP
5 3 (2.44%) DMZ
5 3 (2.44%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 3 (2.44%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 3 (2.44%) Firewall
5 3 (2.44%) SAN
5 3 (2.44%) SSL
6 2 (1.63%) BGP
6 2 (1.63%) Cisco Nexus
6 2 (1.63%) MPLS
6 2 (1.63%) OSPF
6 2 (1.63%) Remote Desktop
6 2 (1.63%) VLAN
6 2 (1.63%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (1.63%) Wireless
6 2 (1.63%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.88%) Power BI
2 4 (3.25%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.44%) Relational Database
4 2 (1.63%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.81%) Metadata
5 1 (0.81%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.81%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.81%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 9 (7.32%) JIRA
2 4 (3.25%) GitLab
3 3 (2.44%) Git
3 3 (2.44%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.63%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.63%) JUnit
5 1 (0.81%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.81%) CANoe
5 1 (0.81%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.81%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.81%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.81%) Maven
5 1 (0.81%) Postman
5 1 (0.81%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.81%) Selenium
5 1 (0.81%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 63 (51.22%) Social Skills
2 57 (46.34%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (26.83%) Finance
4 18 (14.63%) Banking
5 16 (13.01%) Manufacturing
6 7 (5.69%) Automotive
7 6 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (4.07%) Aerospace
8 5 (4.07%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (3.25%) Legal
10 2 (1.63%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.81%) Aviation
11 1 (0.81%) Billing
11 1 (0.81%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.81%) German Language
11 1 (0.81%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 24 (19.51%) Analyst
2 14 (11.38%) IT Support
3 9 (7.32%) Lead
3 9 (7.32%) Support Engineer
4 8 (6.50%) Service Analyst
4 8 (6.50%) Service Desk Analyst
5 7 (5.69%) Operations Analyst
6 6 (4.88%) Desktop Engineer
6 6 (4.88%) Desktop Support
6 6 (4.88%) Desktop Support Engineer
6 6 (4.88%) Developer
6 6 (4.88%) IT Analyst
6 6 (4.88%) IT Operations Analyst
6 6 (4.88%) Operational Support Analyst
6 6 (4.88%) Operations Support Analyst
6 6 (4.88%) Security Engineer
6 6 (4.88%) Support Analyst
7 5 (4.07%) Architect
7 5 (4.07%) Consultant
7 5 (4.07%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (4.88%) REST
2 5 (4.07%) JSON
2 5 (4.07%) OAuth
3 4 (3.25%) Middleware
3 4 (3.25%) XML
4 3 (2.44%) OpenID
4 3 (2.44%) Spring
5 2 (1.63%) HTML
5 2 (1.63%) JPA
5 2 (1.63%) Kafka
5 2 (1.63%) SailPoint
5 2 (1.63%) SAML
5 2 (1.63%) Spring Boot
5 2 (1.63%) Terraform
6 1 (0.81%) .NET
6 1 (0.81%) Jakarta EE
6 1 (0.81%) Spring MVC
6 1 (0.81%) Spring Security
6 1 (0.81%) Web Services
6 1 (0.81%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.94%) Analytical Mindset
2 9 (7.32%) Enterprise Software
3 8 (6.50%) Onboarding
4 7 (5.69%) CMDB
4 7 (5.69%) Product Ownership
5 6 (4.88%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (4.07%) Data Centre
7 4 (3.25%) Cloud Native
7 4 (3.25%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (3.25%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (3.25%) Management Information System
7 4 (3.25%) PKI
7 4 (3.25%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (3.25%) Virtual Team
8 3 (2.44%) Client/Server
8 3 (2.44%) Data Structures
8 3 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.63%) Algorithms
9 2 (1.63%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 39 (31.71%) Windows
2 10 (8.13%) Linux
3 7 (5.69%) Mac OS
4 5 (4.07%) Apple iOS
5 3 (2.44%) Unix
5 3 (2.44%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.63%) AIX
6 2 (1.63%) Android
6 2 (1.63%) HPUX
6 2 (1.63%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.63%) Solaris
6 2 (1.63%) SUSE
6 2 (1.63%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (33.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 33 (26.83%) Stakeholder Management
3 27 (21.95%) ITIL
4 26 (21.14%) Customer Service
5 17 (13.82%) AI
6 16 (13.01%) Data Protection
7 15 (12.20%) Agile
7 15 (12.20%) Incident Management
8 14 (11.38%) Cybersecurity
8 14 (11.38%) ITSM
8 14 (11.38%) Risk Management
9 13 (10.57%) Change Management
9 13 (10.57%) CI/CD
9 13 (10.57%) Computer Science
9 13 (10.57%) Mentoring
9 13 (10.57%) Migration
9 13 (10.57%) Process Improvement
10 12 (9.76%) Generative AI
10 12 (9.76%) Project Delivery
10 12 (9.76%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 18 (14.63%) Python
2 16 (13.01%) PowerShell
3 11 (8.94%) SQL
4 8 (6.50%) Java
5 2 (1.63%) ABAP
5 2 (1.63%) Bash
5 2 (1.63%) C#
5 2 (1.63%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.81%) Assembly Language
6 1 (0.81%) Korn
6 1 (0.81%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.81%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.81%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 21 (17.07%) Degree
2 11 (8.94%) CISSP
3 10 (8.13%) Security Cleared
4 9 (7.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (6.50%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (5.69%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (4.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 5 (4.07%) AWS Certification
8 5 (4.07%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (3.25%) Azure Certification
9 4 (3.25%) CEH
9 4 (3.25%) CISM
9 4 (3.25%) HNC
9 4 (3.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (2.44%) A+ Certification
10 3 (2.44%) CISA
10 3 (2.44%) Network+ Certification
10 3 (2.44%) NVQ Level 4
10 3 (2.44%) PMP
10 3 (2.44%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (13.01%) SLA
2 9 (7.32%) GRC
2 9 (7.32%) NIST
3 7 (5.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (4.07%) Data Quality
5 3 (2.44%) QA
6 2 (1.63%) GDPR
6 2 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27005
7 1 (0.81%) IEC 61508
7 1 (0.81%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.81%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.81%) PSD2
7 1 (0.81%) SEPA
7 1 (0.81%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 17 (13.82%) Active Directory
2 7 (5.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.07%) Docker
4 4 (3.25%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (3.25%) VMware NSX
5 2 (1.63%) Firmware
5 2 (1.63%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.63%) vSphere
6 1 (0.81%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 1 (0.81%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 13 (10.57%) SCCM
2 9 (7.32%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (4.07%) Ansible
3 5 (4.07%) Kubernetes
4 3 (2.44%) Grafana
5 2 (1.63%) Functional Safety
5 2 (1.63%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.63%) WMI
6 1 (0.81%) Argo
6 1 (0.81%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 37 (30.08%) Microsoft
2 23 (18.70%) ServiceNow
3 9 (7.32%) Remedy
4 8 (6.50%) Splunk
4 8 (6.50%) VMware
4 8 (6.50%) Workday
5 7 (5.69%) SAP
6 6 (4.88%) Bomgar
6 6 (4.88%) Oracle
7 5 (4.07%) F5
8 4 (3.25%) Atlassian
8 4 (3.25%) BeyondTrust
8 4 (3.25%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (3.25%) HP
9 3 (2.44%) Cisco
9 3 (2.44%) Dell
9 3 (2.44%) Red Hat
9 3 (2.44%) Siemens
10 2 (1.63%) Forcepoint
10 2 (1.63%) Juniper