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

 6 months to
2 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 5 12
Rank change year-on-year -14 +7 +5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 173 154 131
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 8.65% 15.40% 10.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.29% 17.28% 12.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 79 77
10th Percentile £250 £291 £308
25th Percentile £360 £411 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £525
90th Percentile £638 £712 £623
North West median daily rate £444 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -6.53% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 15 3
10th Percentile £16.15 £15.23 -
25th Percentile £24.19 £17.30 £57.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £20.26 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +208.57% -66.24% +61.07%
75th Percentile £77.00 £21.44 £77.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £27.19 £86.90
North West median hourly rate £36.66 £20.26 £10.95
% change year-on-year +80.99% +84.98% -68.56%

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 1,681 891 1,041
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 84.01% 89.10% 87.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,015 572 643
10th Percentile £310 £303 £326
25th Percentile £405 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £576 £600
90th Percentile £698 £672 £713
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 62 43
10th Percentile £21.00 £14.20 £16.17
25th Percentile £30.00 £19.07 £22.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £22.63 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +143.04% -35.34% +79.49%
75th Percentile £75.00 £54.38 £60.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.88 £73.90
North West median hourly rate £46.43 £25.15 £40.16
% change year-on-year +84.61% -37.38% +18.13%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 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
Bolton +7 15 £160 -13.51% 15
Rochdale - 3 - - 4
Salford -1 2 £168 -79.06% 13
Bury -11 2 £634 - 3
Altrincham 0 1 - - 6
Oldham -3 1 - - 2
Stockport -3 1 £140 -76.67% 21
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 5 (2.89%) Confluence
2 2 (1.16%) Apache Spark
2 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.58%) CMS
3 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (5.78%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.73%) Acrobat
3 3 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.58%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (2.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.73%) SAP ERP
3 2 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.16%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.58%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.58%) ResourceLink
4 1 (0.58%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 29 (16.76%) AWS
2 26 (15.03%) Azure
3 25 (14.45%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (9.25%) Power Platform
5 7 (4.05%) GCP
5 7 (4.05%) Power Automate
6 6 (3.47%) GitHub
7 4 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (2.31%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.73%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (1.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (1.73%) dbt
8 3 (1.73%) Entra ID
8 3 (1.73%) Google Sheets
8 3 (1.73%) Google Workspace
9 2 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.16%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 2 (1.16%) PowerApps
9 2 (1.16%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 10 (5.78%) VPN
2 9 (5.20%) Firewall
3 5 (2.89%) Wireless
4 3 (1.73%) DHCP
4 3 (1.73%) DNS
4 3 (1.73%) LAN
4 3 (1.73%) Network Security
4 3 (1.73%) VoIP
4 3 (1.73%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (1.16%) PABX
5 2 (1.16%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (1.16%) VLAN
5 2 (1.16%) WAN
6 1 (0.58%) BGP
6 1 (0.58%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.58%) HTTP
6 1 (0.58%) MPLS
6 1 (0.58%) OSPF
6 1 (0.58%) SSL
6 1 (0.58%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (8.67%) Data Warehouse
2 14 (8.09%) Power BI
3 11 (6.36%) SQL Server
4 9 (5.20%) Relational Database
5 7 (4.05%) DataStage
6 6 (3.47%) Db2
6 6 (3.47%) NoSQL
6 6 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (2.89%) MongoDB
7 5 (2.89%) MySQL
8 4 (2.31%) Big Data
8 4 (2.31%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (1.73%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
9 3 (1.73%) Power Query
9 3 (1.73%) Tableau
10 2 (1.16%) Data Vault
10 2 (1.16%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
11 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 18 (10.40%) JIRA
2 10 (5.78%) Git
3 6 (3.47%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.31%) Gatling
4 4 (2.31%) REST Assured
5 3 (1.73%) Cucumber
5 3 (1.73%) GitLab
5 3 (1.73%) Selenium
5 3 (1.73%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.16%) Burp Suite
6 2 (1.16%) Gradle
6 2 (1.16%) LoadRunner
6 2 (1.16%) Mockito
6 2 (1.16%) Serenity BDD
6 2 (1.16%) SonarQube
6 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.58%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.58%) JUnit
7 1 (0.58%) Maven
7 1 (0.58%) MSI
General
1 91 (52.60%) Social Skills
2 79 (45.66%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (21.39%) Finance
4 20 (11.56%) Banking
5 13 (7.51%) Manufacturing
6 11 (6.36%) Law
6 11 (6.36%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (5.20%) Public Sector
8 7 (4.05%) Telecoms
9 6 (3.47%) Legal
10 4 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (2.31%) Retail
11 3 (1.73%) Automotive
11 3 (1.73%) Games
11 3 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.73%) Marketing
11 3 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (1.16%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.58%) Electronics
13 1 (0.58%) Military
Job Titles
1 31 (17.92%) Analyst
2 26 (15.03%) Developer
3 14 (8.09%) Architect
4 13 (7.51%) IT Support
4 13 (7.51%) Senior
5 12 (6.94%) Administrator
5 12 (6.94%) Data Engineer
6 11 (6.36%) Lead
7 10 (5.78%) Java Developer
8 9 (5.20%) Support Analyst
9 8 (4.62%) Consultant
9 8 (4.62%) IT Analyst
9 8 (4.62%) Technical Administrator
10 7 (4.05%) IT Support Analyst
10 7 (4.05%) Senior Developer
10 7 (4.05%) Software Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) Service Analyst
11 6 (3.47%) Support Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) Test Engineer
12 5 (2.89%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (9.25%) Spring
2 15 (8.67%) Spring Boot
3 11 (6.36%) React
4 10 (5.78%) Terraform
5 9 (5.20%) Kafka
5 9 (5.20%) REST
6 6 (3.47%) HTML
7 5 (2.89%) CSS
7 5 (2.89%) Node.js
7 5 (2.89%) Playwright
8 4 (2.31%) AngularJS
8 4 (2.31%) Lightning Web Components
8 4 (2.31%) RESTful
8 4 (2.31%) SOAP
8 4 (2.31%) XML
9 3 (1.73%) EDI
9 3 (1.73%) EDIFACT
9 3 (1.73%) OAuth
9 3 (1.73%) OAuth2
10 2 (1.16%) JAX-RS
Miscellaneous
1 16 (9.25%) Onboarding
2 9 (5.20%) Data Protection Act
3 8 (4.62%) Cloud Native
4 6 (3.47%) Data Structures
4 6 (3.47%) Driving Licence
4 6 (3.47%) Product Ownership
5 5 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (2.89%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (2.89%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.73%) AI Agents
7 3 (1.73%) Blackberry
7 3 (1.73%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.73%) Private Cloud
7 3 (1.73%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.73%) Smartphone
8 2 (1.16%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.16%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.16%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 26 (15.03%) Windows
2 14 (8.09%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.20%) Unix
4 6 (3.47%) Linux
4 6 (3.47%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.58%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.58%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (20.23%) Continuous Improvement
2 34 (19.65%) Agile
2 34 (19.65%) CI/CD
3 32 (18.50%) Stakeholder Management
4 27 (15.61%) Data Modelling
5 19 (10.98%) DevOps
5 19 (10.98%) ITIL
5 19 (10.98%) Test Automation
6 18 (10.40%) Analytics
6 18 (10.40%) Validation
7 17 (9.83%) Change Management
7 17 (9.83%) Customer Service
7 17 (9.83%) Data Pipeline
7 17 (9.83%) ETL
7 17 (9.83%) Microservices
7 17 (9.83%) Software Engineering
8 16 (9.25%) Business Intelligence
8 16 (9.25%) ERP
8 16 (9.25%) SDLC
9 15 (8.67%) AI
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.39%) SQL
2 22 (12.72%) Java
3 21 (12.14%) Python
4 9 (5.20%) PowerShell
5 8 (4.62%) JavaScript
6 6 (3.47%) PL/SQL
6 6 (3.47%) Shell Script
6 6 (3.47%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.31%) Apex Code
7 4 (2.31%) Bash
7 4 (2.31%) Kotlin
8 2 (1.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (1.16%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.58%) Bicep
9 1 (0.58%) Perl
9 1 (0.58%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 21 (12.14%) Security Cleared
2 19 (10.98%) Degree
3 13 (7.51%) SC Cleared
4 11 (6.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (6.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (5.78%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (4.05%) A+ Certification
6 7 (4.05%) Network+ Certification
7 4 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.73%) CCIE
8 3 (1.73%) CCNP
8 3 (1.73%) CISSP
9 2 (1.16%) CCIE Security
9 2 (1.16%) CCSP
9 2 (1.16%) City & Guilds
9 2 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (1.16%) HNC
9 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 2 (1.16%) PMI Certification
9 2 (1.16%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (16.76%) Data Quality
2 4 (2.31%) Accessibility
2 4 (2.31%) GRC
2 4 (2.31%) PMO
3 3 (1.73%) NIST
3 3 (1.73%) QA
4 2 (1.16%) GDPR
4 2 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.16%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.16%) SLA
5 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.58%) NCSC
5 1 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 18 (10.40%) Active Directory
2 10 (5.78%) Docker
3 2 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.58%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 12 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 4 (2.31%) Grafana
2 4 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (2.31%) Single Sign-On
3 3 (1.73%) Ansible
3 3 (1.73%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.16%) Istio
5 1 (0.58%) Data Guard
5 1 (0.58%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.58%) Puppet
5 1 (0.58%) SCCM
5 1 (0.58%) SCOM
Vendors
1 37 (21.39%) Microsoft
2 20 (11.56%) SAP
3 19 (10.98%) ServiceNow
4 13 (7.51%) Oracle
5 7 (4.05%) Google
5 7 (4.05%) IBM
6 6 (3.47%) Splunk
6 6 (3.47%) Teradata
7 5 (2.89%) Adobe
7 5 (2.89%) Salesforce
8 4 (2.31%) Cisco
8 4 (2.31%) CyberArk
8 4 (2.31%) DocuSign
8 4 (2.31%) Dynatrace
8 4 (2.31%) Workday
9 3 (1.73%) Concur
9 3 (1.73%) iManage
9 3 (1.73%) Intapp
9 3 (1.73%) Litera
10 2 (1.16%) Moogsoft
537 Problem-Solving jobs in Manchester