Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Problem Solving
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Manchester requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 6 14
Rank change year-on-year -7 +8 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 175 141 140
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 10.08% 15.79% 9.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.04% 17.69% 11.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 94 99
10th Percentile £298 £216 £313
25th Percentile £366 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -7.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £522 £550 £575
90th Percentile £636 £693 £658
North West median daily rate £424 £492 £493
% change year-on-year -13.87% -0.20% +3.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 2 5
10th Percentile £15.77 £18.23 £30.95
25th Percentile £35.63 £26.45 £57.50
Median hourly rate £66.25 £41.38 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +60.10% -31.03% +221.50%
75th Percentile £155.31 £57.57 £68.88
90th Percentile £178.75 £66.53 £81.55
North West median hourly rate £50.79 £28.75 £11.20
% change year-on-year +76.64% +156.81% -72.42%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Manchester

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 Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,454 797 1,232
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 83.76% 89.25% 87.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 900 550 843
10th Percentile £304 £306 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £467 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -6.70% -
75th Percentile £575 £563 £598
90th Percentile £650 £675 £694
North West median daily rate £470 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -1.05% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 29 77
10th Percentile £21.00 £15.84 £12.46
25th Percentile £37.50 £24.25 £13.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £60.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +130.77% -25.71%
75th Percentile £77.50 £73.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £85.35 £73.30
North West median hourly rate £55.00 £32.25 £25.60
% change year-on-year +70.54% +25.98% -26.92%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in Manchester

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in Manchester over the 6 months to 20 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in Manchester

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in Manchester

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in Manchester over the 6 months to 20 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in Manchester

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

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 Manchester region over the 6 months to 20 May 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
Bolton -1 8 - - 13
Stockport +5 4 £155 -69.00% 9
Salford +2 2 £168 -62.78% 13
Altrincham 0 1 - - 4
Rochdale - 1 - - 6
Problem-Solving
North West

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 (5.71%) Confluence
2 3 (1.71%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 3 (1.71%) Apache Spark
3 2 (1.14%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.57%) Apache
4 1 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.57%) nginx
Applications
1 9 (5.14%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (4.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.86%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.71%) Chatbot
5 2 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.57%) Elite 3E
2 1 (0.57%) ResourceLink
2 1 (0.57%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.57%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.57%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 30 (17.14%) AWS
2 28 (16.00%) Azure
3 17 (9.71%) Power Platform
4 14 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (5.14%) GitHub
6 7 (4.00%) GCP
7 6 (3.43%) dbt
7 6 (3.43%) Power Automate
8 5 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
8 5 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.86%) Entra ID
8 5 (2.86%) Serverless
9 4 (2.29%) Azure AKS
9 4 (2.29%) Azure Monitor
9 4 (2.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 4 (2.29%) Google Sheets
9 4 (2.29%) Google Workspace
10 3 (1.71%) AWS Step Functions
10 3 (1.71%) Azure Logic Apps
10 3 (1.71%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.29%) Firewall
2 2 (1.14%) DNS
2 2 (1.14%) SAN
2 2 (1.14%) VPN
2 2 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.57%) BGP
3 1 (0.57%) DHCP
3 1 (0.57%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 1 (0.57%) Kerberos
3 1 (0.57%) LAN
3 1 (0.57%) Network Security
3 1 (0.57%) OSPF
3 1 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
3 1 (0.57%) SSL
3 1 (0.57%) Structured Cabling
3 1 (0.57%) WAN
3 1 (0.57%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (8.00%) Power BI
2 12 (6.86%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (6.86%) MongoDB
3 9 (5.14%) SQL Server
4 8 (4.57%) NoSQL
4 8 (4.57%) Relational Database
5 6 (3.43%) MySQL
5 6 (3.43%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (2.29%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 4 (2.29%) Big Data
6 4 (2.29%) Snowflake Schema
7 3 (1.71%) Data Vault
7 3 (1.71%) DataStage
7 3 (1.71%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.71%) Hadoop
7 3 (1.71%) Metadata
7 3 (1.71%) Power Query
8 2 (1.14%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (1.14%) DB2
8 2 (1.14%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 21 (12.00%) JIRA
2 10 (5.71%) Git
3 7 (4.00%) Mockito
4 6 (3.43%) GitLab
5 5 (2.86%) Selenium
6 4 (2.29%) Postman
7 3 (1.71%) Gatling
7 3 (1.71%) Jasmine
7 3 (1.71%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.71%) REST Assured
8 2 (1.14%) Cucumber
8 2 (1.14%) JMeter
8 2 (1.14%) Serenity BDD
8 2 (1.14%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.57%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.57%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.57%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.57%) Gradle
9 1 (0.57%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 76 (43.43%) Social Skills
2 66 (37.71%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (21.71%) Finance
4 25 (14.29%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.29%) Law
5 11 (6.29%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (5.14%) Banking
6 9 (5.14%) Telecoms
7 7 (4.00%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (2.86%) Legal
10 3 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.71%) Retail
11 2 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (1.14%) Marketing
12 1 (0.57%) Cantonese Language
12 1 (0.57%) Games
12 1 (0.57%) Mandarin Language
12 1 (0.57%) Military
Job Titles
1 38 (21.71%) Analyst
2 36 (20.57%) Developer
3 23 (13.14%) Senior
4 15 (8.57%) Java Developer
5 14 (8.00%) Data Engineer
6 11 (6.29%) Business Analyst
6 11 (6.29%) IT Analyst
6 11 (6.29%) IT Support
7 10 (5.71%) Lead
7 10 (5.71%) Support Analyst
8 9 (5.14%) Administrator
8 9 (5.14%) IT Support Analyst
9 8 (4.57%) Architect
9 8 (4.57%) Senior Analyst
10 7 (4.00%) Backend Developer
10 7 (4.00%) Full-Stack Developer
11 6 (3.43%) Mobile Developer
11 6 (3.43%) Senior Business Analyst
11 6 (3.43%) Software Engineer
12 5 (2.86%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (12.57%) Spring
2 21 (12.00%) Spring Boot
3 16 (9.14%) Kafka
4 11 (6.29%) React
4 11 (6.29%) RESTful
5 10 (5.71%) AngularJS
6 9 (5.14%) HTML
7 8 (4.57%) CSS
7 8 (4.57%) OAuth
7 8 (4.57%) OAuth2
8 7 (4.00%) ActiveMQ
8 7 (4.00%) JAX-RS
8 7 (4.00%) Playwright
9 5 (2.86%) REST
9 5 (2.86%) XML
10 4 (2.29%) ARM Templates
10 4 (2.29%) CSS3
10 4 (2.29%) HTML5
10 4 (2.29%) Node.js
10 4 (2.29%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.57%) Onboarding
2 12 (6.86%) Product Ownership
3 9 (5.14%) Mobile App
4 6 (3.43%) Data Protection Act
4 6 (3.43%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.86%) AI Agents
5 5 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
5 5 (2.86%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (2.29%) CMDB
6 4 (2.29%) Driving Licence
6 4 (2.29%) Mainframe
6 4 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.71%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.71%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.71%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.14%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.14%) PKI
9 1 (0.57%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 11 (6.29%) Windows
2 10 (5.71%) Linux
2 10 (5.71%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.14%) Unix
4 5 (2.86%) Mac OS X
5 3 (1.71%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (24.57%) Agile
2 31 (17.71%) Microservices
3 30 (17.14%) Continuous Improvement
4 27 (15.43%) Test Automation
5 26 (14.86%) CI/CD
6 24 (13.71%) Data Modelling
7 23 (13.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 20 (11.43%) Analytics
9 19 (10.86%) ETL
9 19 (10.86%) TDD
10 18 (10.29%) DevOps
11 17 (9.71%) Requirements Gathering
11 17 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 16 (9.14%) Decision-Making
13 15 (8.57%) BDD
13 15 (8.57%) Business Intelligence
14 14 (8.00%) Actionable Insight
14 14 (8.00%) Customer Service
14 14 (8.00%) ITIL
14 14 (8.00%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 41 (23.43%) SQL
2 34 (19.43%) Java
3 14 (8.00%) Python
4 12 (6.86%) JavaScript
5 9 (5.14%) TypeScript
6 8 (4.57%) Kotlin
7 6 (3.43%) PowerShell
8 4 (2.29%) T-SQL
9 3 (1.71%) CLIST
9 3 (1.71%) COBOL
9 3 (1.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (1.71%) JCL
9 3 (1.71%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.71%) REXX
9 3 (1.71%) Shell Script
10 2 (1.14%) Bash
10 2 (1.14%) Bicep
10 2 (1.14%) C#
10 2 (1.14%) Go
10 2 (1.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 21 (12.00%) Degree
2 20 (11.43%) Security Cleared
3 12 (6.86%) Microsoft Certification
4 11 (6.29%) A+ Certification
4 11 (6.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (6.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 11 (6.29%) Network+ Certification
5 6 (3.43%) SC Cleared
6 3 (1.71%) CCNA
6 3 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (1.14%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.14%) MCSE
8 1 (0.57%) APMG
8 1 (0.57%) CBAP
8 1 (0.57%) CCNP
8 1 (0.57%) City & Guilds
8 1 (0.57%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.57%) IIBA
8 1 (0.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.57%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (12.57%) Data Quality
2 5 (2.86%) QA
3 4 (2.29%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.29%) GDPR
3 4 (2.29%) PMO
4 2 (1.14%) GRC
5 1 (0.57%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.57%) NIST
5 1 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.57%) SLA
5 1 (0.57%) WCAG
System Software
1 15 (8.57%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.29%) Docker
3 3 (1.71%) ACF2
3 3 (1.71%) ISA Server
3 3 (1.71%) RACF
3 3 (1.71%) Time Sharing Option
3 3 (1.71%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 10 (5.71%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.00%) Terraform
3 5 (2.86%) Grafana
4 4 (2.29%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.71%) CA Endevor
5 3 (1.71%) SCCM
5 3 (1.71%) Tivoli
5 3 (1.71%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.57%) Ansible
7 1 (0.57%) Istio
Vendors
1 25 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 12 (6.86%) SAP
3 10 (5.71%) Oracle
4 7 (4.00%) ServiceNow
5 6 (3.43%) Splunk
6 5 (2.86%) Databricks
6 5 (2.86%) DocuSign
6 5 (2.86%) Google
7 4 (2.29%) Adobe
7 4 (2.29%) Concur
8 3 (1.71%) Dell
8 3 (1.71%) IBM
9 2 (1.14%) Atlassian
9 2 (1.14%) CA Agile Central
9 2 (1.14%) IFS
9 2 (1.14%) PagerDuty
9 2 (1.14%) Teradata
9 2 (1.14%) Workday
10 1 (0.57%) Netskope
10 1 (0.57%) Optimizely