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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 5 11
Rank change year-on-year -6 +6 +14
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 175 147 169
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 11.05% 15.39% 10.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.00% 16.88% 12.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 109 115
10th Percentile £313 £223 £313
25th Percentile £367 £367 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £460 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% -8.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £516 £540 £575
90th Percentile £602 £666 £660
North West median daily rate £424 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -10.79% -5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 3
10th Percentile £17.13 £13.70 £23.19
25th Percentile £32.50 £15.12 £38.11
Median hourly rate £70.00 £26.45 £65.92
Median % change year-on-year +164.65% -59.88% +93.30%
75th Percentile £75.00 £45.88 £79.44
90th Percentile £178.75 £61.85 £85.78
North West median hourly rate £45.46 £28.13 £11.20
% change year-on-year +61.64% +151.23% -72.94%

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 1,346 871 1,373
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 85.03% 91.20% 87.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 875 609 955
10th Percentile £306 £310 £313
25th Percentile £381 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £460 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.09% -8.00% -
75th Percentile £572 £575 £585
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
North West median daily rate £456 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 35 74
10th Percentile £19.75 £15.97 £12.43
25th Percentile £25.04 £24.25 £13.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.23% +25.00% -30.67%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £89.25 £74.50 £72.31
North West median hourly rate £45.46 £31.88 £23.56
% change year-on-year +42.60% +35.34% -36.85%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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
Stockport +3 3 £155 -69.00% 9
Bolton -3 2 - - 23
Oldham - 2 - - 7
Salford +3 1 £168 -62.78% 11
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 5 (2.86%) Apache
3 4 (2.29%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.71%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (1.71%) SharePoint
5 2 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.57%) nginx
6 1 (0.57%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (3.43%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.43%) MS Visio
3 4 (2.29%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.71%) Chatbot
4 3 (1.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.14%) Advent Geneva
2 2 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.57%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.57%) Kondor
3 1 (0.57%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.57%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.57%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.57%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.57%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 36 (20.57%) Azure
2 29 (16.57%) AWS
3 22 (12.57%) Power Platform
4 11 (6.29%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (5.14%) GCP
5 9 (5.14%) GitHub
6 8 (4.57%) Power Automate
7 7 (4.00%) Entra ID
7 7 (4.00%) Serverless
8 6 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.43%) dbt
8 6 (3.43%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (2.86%) SaaS
10 4 (2.29%) Azure AKS
10 4 (2.29%) Azure Monitor
10 4 (2.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 4 (2.29%) Boomi
11 3 (1.71%) AWS Step Functions
11 3 (1.71%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.43%) Firewall
2 4 (2.29%) Network Security
3 3 (1.71%) HTTP
4 2 (1.14%) DNS
4 2 (1.14%) LAN
4 2 (1.14%) SAN
4 2 (1.14%) VPN
4 2 (1.14%) VSAN
4 2 (1.14%) WAN
4 2 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.57%) BGP
5 1 (0.57%) DHCP
5 1 (0.57%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 1 (0.57%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.57%) OSPF
5 1 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
5 1 (0.57%) SSL
5 1 (0.57%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (9.71%) Power BI
2 11 (6.29%) MongoDB
2 11 (6.29%) SQL Server
3 10 (5.71%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (4.57%) NoSQL
5 7 (4.00%) MySQL
5 7 (4.00%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (2.29%) Big Data
7 4 (2.29%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.29%) Power Query
8 3 (1.71%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.71%) BigQuery
8 3 (1.71%) Data Vault
8 3 (1.71%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.71%) Metadata
8 3 (1.71%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.71%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (1.14%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (1.14%) DB2
Development Applications
1 18 (10.29%) JIRA
2 10 (5.71%) Git
3 7 (4.00%) Mockito
4 6 (3.43%) GitLab
5 4 (2.29%) Postman
6 3 (1.71%) Jasmine
6 3 (1.71%) Selenium
7 2 (1.14%) Jenkins
7 2 (1.14%) JMeter
7 2 (1.14%) SoapUI
General
1 79 (45.14%) Social Skills
2 59 (33.71%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (25.71%) Finance
4 26 (14.86%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.29%) Banking
6 7 (4.00%) Law
6 7 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
7 6 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (3.43%) Legal
8 5 (2.86%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.14%) Games
10 2 (1.14%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.14%) Retail
Job Titles
1 44 (25.14%) Developer
2 32 (18.29%) Analyst
3 25 (14.29%) Senior
4 14 (8.00%) Data Engineer
4 14 (8.00%) Java Developer
5 11 (6.29%) Business Analyst
6 10 (5.71%) Administrator
6 10 (5.71%) Lead
7 9 (5.14%) Senior Analyst
8 8 (4.57%) Architect
8 8 (4.57%) IT Support
9 7 (4.00%) Backend Developer
9 7 (4.00%) Full-Stack Developer
9 7 (4.00%) IT Analyst
9 7 (4.00%) Support Analyst
10 6 (3.43%) IT Support Analyst
10 6 (3.43%) Mobile Developer
10 6 (3.43%) Senior Business Analyst
10 6 (3.43%) Software Engineer
11 5 (2.86%) Scrum Master
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.29%) Spring
2 17 (9.71%) Kafka
2 17 (9.71%) Spring Boot
3 10 (5.71%) RESTful
4 9 (5.14%) ISPF
4 9 (5.14%) OAuth
4 9 (5.14%) OAuth2
5 8 (4.57%) AngularJS
6 7 (4.00%) ActiveMQ
6 7 (4.00%) CSS
6 7 (4.00%) HTML
6 7 (4.00%) JAX-RS
6 7 (4.00%) React
6 7 (4.00%) XML
7 6 (3.43%) .NET
8 5 (2.86%) REST
8 5 (2.86%) SOAP
9 4 (2.29%) CSS3
9 4 (2.29%) HTML5
9 4 (2.29%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 11 (6.29%) Onboarding
2 9 (5.14%) Mainframe
2 9 (5.14%) Mobile App
3 8 (4.57%) Product Ownership
4 6 (3.43%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
5 5 (2.86%) Greenfield Project
5 5 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.29%) AI Agents
6 4 (2.29%) CMDB
6 4 (2.29%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.71%) FMCG
8 2 (1.14%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.14%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.14%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.57%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.00%) Linux
2 11 (6.29%) Unix
3 8 (4.57%) Windows
4 6 (3.43%) Windows 10
5 5 (2.86%) Mac OS X
6 3 (1.71%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.57%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (28.00%) Agile
2 28 (16.00%) Continuous Improvement
3 27 (15.43%) Microservices
4 26 (14.86%) CI/CD
5 25 (14.29%) Data Modelling
5 25 (14.29%) Test Automation
6 24 (13.71%) Analytics
6 24 (13.71%) Stakeholder Management
7 21 (12.00%) DevOps
8 20 (11.43%) TDD
9 19 (10.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 18 (10.29%) Business Intelligence
10 18 (10.29%) ETL
11 17 (9.71%) Decision-Making
11 17 (9.71%) Requirements Gathering
12 16 (9.14%) Data Pipeline
13 15 (8.57%) Change Management
14 14 (8.00%) BDD
14 14 (8.00%) Event-Driven
15 13 (7.43%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 42 (24.00%) SQL
2 32 (18.29%) Java
3 16 (9.14%) Python
4 12 (6.86%) JavaScript
5 9 (5.14%) CLIST
5 9 (5.14%) COBOL
5 9 (5.14%) JCL
5 9 (5.14%) REXX
6 8 (4.57%) Kotlin
6 8 (4.57%) TypeScript
7 7 (4.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (3.43%) C#
9 5 (2.86%) PowerShell
9 5 (2.86%) T-SQL
10 4 (2.29%) Go
11 3 (1.71%) Bash
11 3 (1.71%) Groovy
12 2 (1.14%) Bicep
12 2 (1.14%) VBA
13 1 (0.57%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (9.71%) Security Cleared
2 15 (8.57%) Degree
3 11 (6.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (4.57%) Computer Science Degree
4 8 (4.57%) Microsoft Certification
5 7 (4.00%) A+ Certification
5 7 (4.00%) Network+ Certification
6 4 (2.29%) SC Cleared
7 3 (1.71%) CCNA
7 3 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (1.14%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.14%) MCSE
8 2 (1.14%) VCAP
8 2 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 1 (0.57%) CBAP
9 1 (0.57%) CCNP
9 1 (0.57%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.57%) IIBA
9 1 (0.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.57%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (9.71%) Data Quality
2 6 (3.43%) QA
3 4 (2.29%) GDPR
3 4 (2.29%) PMO
4 2 (1.14%) GRC
5 1 (0.57%) Accessibility
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 13 (7.43%) Active Directory
1 13 (7.43%) Docker
2 9 (5.14%) ACF2
2 9 (5.14%) RACF
2 9 (5.14%) Time Sharing Option
3 3 (1.71%) ISA Server
3 3 (1.71%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.14%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.14%) vSphere
5 1 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 14 (8.00%) Kubernetes
2 11 (6.29%) Terraform
3 9 (5.14%) CA Endevor
3 9 (5.14%) Tivoli
3 9 (5.14%) Tivoli Storage Manager
4 5 (2.86%) Grafana
5 4 (2.29%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.71%) SCCM
7 1 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 28 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.14%) Oracle
2 9 (5.14%) SAP
3 7 (4.00%) Databricks
4 6 (3.43%) ServiceNow
5 4 (2.29%) Adobe
5 4 (2.29%) Splunk
6 3 (1.71%) CA Agile Central
6 3 (1.71%) Dell
6 3 (1.71%) Google
7 2 (1.14%) Advent
7 2 (1.14%) Atlassian
7 2 (1.14%) IFS
7 2 (1.14%) PagerDuty
7 2 (1.14%) VMware
7 2 (1.14%) Workday
8 1 (0.57%) Aruba
8 1 (0.57%) DocuSign
8 1 (0.57%) F5
8 1 (0.57%) Netskope