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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 9
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 -1
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 95 142 59
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 12.18% 23.83% 12.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.20% 25.87% 14.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 106 34
10th Percentile £261 £267 £303
25th Percentile £350 £384 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £489 £523
Median % change year-on-year -7.98% -6.41% +16.11%
75th Percentile £538 £569 £573
90th Percentile £593 £694 £585
North West median daily rate £450 £485 £490
% change year-on-year -7.12% -1.17% +2.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 3 3
10th Percentile - £27.20 -
25th Percentile £17.25 £28.25 -
Median hourly rate £32.23 £32.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.70% +128.57% -44.72%
75th Percentile £37.16 £52.00 £28.88
90th Percentile £85.45 £62.80 £37.80
North West median hourly rate £40.00 £28.43 £10.95
% change year-on-year +40.70% +159.63% -73.02%

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 669 549 417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 85.77% 92.11% 87.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 396 416 279
10th Percentile £333 £312 £310
25th Percentile £413 £358 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £446 £475
Median % change year-on-year +8.80% -6.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £586 £528 £575
90th Percentile £651 £642 £638
North West median daily rate £492 £460 £500
% change year-on-year +6.96% -8.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 21 22
10th Percentile £14.48 - £14.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £12.82 £17.02
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -8.57% +14.60%
75th Percentile £85.00 £50.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £85.40 £70.00 £47.13
North West median hourly rate £50.00 £28.75 £32.00
% change year-on-year +73.91% -10.16% +4.78%

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 -11 32 £443 -3.28% 14
Chester -8 20 £550 -15.38% 15
Warrington -6 15 £335 +45.65% 10
Crewe 0 4 £550 +54.93% 6
Northwich - 3 £300 - 3
Alderley Edge -1 1 £400 - 1
Macclesfield -2 1 £525 +5.00% 8
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 10 (10.53%) Confluence
2 2 (2.11%) Camunda
3 1 (1.05%) JBoss
3 1 (1.05%) Mule
3 1 (1.05%) Mule ESB
3 1 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.05%) WebLogic
Applications
1 10 (10.53%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (3.16%) CATIA
3 2 (2.11%) MS Visio
4 1 (1.05%) Chatbot
4 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (8.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (3.16%) SAP HCM
2 3 (3.16%) SAP Payroll
3 1 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 22 (23.16%) Azure
2 18 (18.95%) AWS
3 15 (15.79%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (8.42%) Power Platform
5 7 (7.37%) GCP
6 6 (6.32%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.11%) AWS KMS
7 2 (2.11%) Azure Key Vault
7 2 (2.11%) GitHub
7 2 (2.11%) OpenShift
7 2 (2.11%) Power Automate
7 2 (2.11%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.05%) Akamai
8 1 (1.05%) Apigee
8 1 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (1.05%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (1.05%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (1.05%) Kong
8 1 (1.05%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (13.68%) VPN
2 3 (3.16%) DNS
2 3 (3.16%) Firewall
2 3 (3.16%) LAN
2 3 (3.16%) SAN
2 3 (3.16%) SSL
2 3 (3.16%) WAN
3 2 (2.11%) BGP
3 2 (2.11%) Cisco Nexus
3 2 (2.11%) MPLS
3 2 (2.11%) OSPF
3 2 (2.11%) VLAN
3 2 (2.11%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (2.11%) Wireshark
4 1 (1.05%) BIG-IP
4 1 (1.05%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 1 (1.05%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 1 (1.05%) FlexRay
4 1 (1.05%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (1.05%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.32%) Power BI
2 3 (3.16%) SAP HANA
2 3 (3.16%) SQL Server
3 2 (2.11%) Relational Database
4 1 (1.05%) MongoDB
4 1 (1.05%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 11 (11.58%) JIRA
2 4 (4.21%) GitLab
3 3 (3.16%) Jenkins
4 2 (2.11%) Cucumber
4 2 (2.11%) Git
4 2 (2.11%) JUnit
5 1 (1.05%) Bitbucket
5 1 (1.05%) CANoe
5 1 (1.05%) Claude Code
5 1 (1.05%) Eclipse
5 1 (1.05%) IntelliJ
5 1 (1.05%) Postman
5 1 (1.05%) Selenium
5 1 (1.05%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (1.05%) Zephyr
General
1 50 (52.63%) Analytical Skills
2 47 (49.47%) Social Skills
3 29 (30.53%) Finance
4 17 (17.89%) Banking
5 5 (5.26%) Manufacturing
6 4 (4.21%) Aerospace
6 4 (4.21%) Automotive
7 3 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (3.16%) Legal
7 3 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.11%) Retail Banking
9 1 (1.05%) Aviation
9 1 (1.05%) Billing
9 1 (1.05%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.05%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 22 (23.16%) Analyst
2 9 (9.47%) Lead
3 7 (7.37%) Security Engineer
4 6 (6.32%) Business Analyst
4 6 (6.32%) Consultant
4 6 (6.32%) IT Analyst
4 6 (6.32%) IT Operations Analyst
4 6 (6.32%) IT Support
4 6 (6.32%) Operations Analyst
4 6 (6.32%) Service Analyst
4 6 (6.32%) Service Desk Analyst
5 5 (5.26%) Architect
5 5 (5.26%) Developer
5 5 (5.26%) IT Support Analyst
5 5 (5.26%) Operational Support Analyst
5 5 (5.26%) Operations Support Analyst
5 5 (5.26%) Support Analyst
6 4 (4.21%) IT Engineer
6 4 (4.21%) Senior
7 3 (3.16%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.26%) JSON
1 5 (5.26%) OAuth
1 5 (5.26%) REST
2 4 (4.21%) Middleware
3 3 (3.16%) OpenID
3 3 (3.16%) XML
4 2 (2.11%) HTML
4 2 (2.11%) HTML5
4 2 (2.11%) Kafka
4 2 (2.11%) React
4 2 (2.11%) SailPoint
4 2 (2.11%) SAML
4 2 (2.11%) Spring
5 1 (1.05%) .NET
5 1 (1.05%) CSS
5 1 (1.05%) Jakarta EE
5 1 (1.05%) JPA
5 1 (1.05%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.05%) RESTful
5 1 (1.05%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (10.53%) Analytical Mindset
2 7 (7.37%) Product Ownership
3 6 (6.32%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (5.26%) Data Centre
5 4 (4.21%) Cyber Threat
5 4 (4.21%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (4.21%) Onboarding
5 4 (4.21%) PKI
5 4 (4.21%) Virtual Team
6 3 (3.16%) Cloud Native
6 3 (3.16%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (3.16%) Management Information System
7 2 (2.11%) Algorithms
7 2 (2.11%) Client/Server
7 2 (2.11%) Data Structures
7 2 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (2.11%) Security Posture
8 1 (1.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (1.05%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.05%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 22 (23.16%) Windows
2 6 (6.32%) Linux
2 6 (6.32%) Mac OS
3 5 (5.26%) Apple iOS
4 3 (3.16%) Unix
5 2 (2.11%) AIX
5 2 (2.11%) Android
5 2 (2.11%) HPUX
5 2 (2.11%) Oracle Linux
5 2 (2.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (2.11%) Solaris
5 2 (2.11%) SUSE
5 2 (2.11%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.05%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (31.58%) Continuous Improvement
2 23 (24.21%) Stakeholder Management
3 19 (20.00%) ITIL
4 18 (18.95%) Customer Service
5 17 (17.89%) Agile
6 14 (14.74%) Data Protection
7 13 (13.68%) AI
7 13 (13.68%) Risk Management
8 12 (12.63%) CI/CD
8 12 (12.63%) Cybersecurity
8 12 (12.63%) ITSM
9 11 (11.58%) Change Management
9 11 (11.58%) DevOps
9 11 (11.58%) Migration
9 11 (11.58%) Project Management
10 10 (10.53%) Computer Science
10 10 (10.53%) Incident Management
10 10 (10.53%) Mentoring
11 9 (9.47%) Root Cause Analysis
11 9 (9.47%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 12 (12.63%) Python
2 9 (9.47%) PowerShell
3 5 (5.26%) Java
4 4 (4.21%) SQL
5 3 (3.16%) ABAP
5 3 (3.16%) Bash
6 2 (2.11%) JavaScript
6 2 (2.11%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.05%) Bicep
7 1 (1.05%) C#
7 1 (1.05%) Korn
7 1 (1.05%) PL/SQL
7 1 (1.05%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 18 (18.95%) Degree
2 11 (11.58%) CISSP
3 8 (8.42%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (7.37%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (5.26%) AWS Certification
5 5 (5.26%) CompTIA Security+
5 5 (5.26%) Security Cleared
6 4 (4.21%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (4.21%) CEH
6 4 (4.21%) CISM
6 4 (4.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 4 (4.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (3.16%) A+ Certification
7 3 (3.16%) CCNA
7 3 (3.16%) CISA
7 3 (3.16%) HNC
7 3 (3.16%) MCSE
7 3 (3.16%) Network+ Certification
7 3 (3.16%) PMI Certification
7 3 (3.16%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (9.47%) NIST
2 7 (7.37%) GRC
2 7 (7.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (7.37%) SLA
3 4 (4.21%) QA
4 2 (2.11%) GDPR
4 2 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 1 (1.05%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.05%) ISO 20022
5 1 (1.05%) PCI DSS
5 1 (1.05%) PSD2
5 1 (1.05%) SEPA
5 1 (1.05%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 10 (10.53%) Active Directory
2 5 (5.26%) Docker
3 2 (2.11%) Firmware
3 2 (2.11%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (2.11%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.05%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 5 (5.26%) Ansible
1 5 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 4 (4.21%) Grafana
2 4 (4.21%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (3.16%) Prometheus
4 2 (2.11%) Argo
4 2 (2.11%) SCCM
4 2 (2.11%) Terraform
4 2 (2.11%) WMI
5 1 (1.05%) Functional Safety
5 1 (1.05%) HP ALM
5 1 (1.05%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 18 (18.95%) ServiceNow
2 17 (17.89%) Microsoft
3 8 (8.42%) Remedy
3 8 (8.42%) SAP
3 8 (8.42%) Workday
4 6 (6.32%) Bomgar
4 6 (6.32%) Splunk
5 5 (5.26%) HP
5 5 (5.26%) Oracle
6 4 (4.21%) BeyondTrust
6 4 (4.21%) CrowdStrike
7 3 (3.16%) Cisco
7 3 (3.16%) Dell
7 3 (3.16%) F5
7 3 (3.16%) Red Hat
8 2 (2.11%) Atlassian
8 2 (2.11%) Forcepoint
8 2 (2.11%) Fortinet
8 2 (2.11%) Juniper
8 2 (2.11%) VMware