Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Problem Solving
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -7 +5 +9
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 733 650 575
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 11.59% 19.56% 12.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.75% 21.82% 14.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 448 389 328
10th Percentile £286 £212 £295
25th Percentile £362 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £490 £490
Median % change year-on-year -8.16% - -2.00%
75th Percentile £530 £575 £564
90th Percentile £613 £656 £640
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 49 73
10th Percentile £14.95 £16.61 -
25th Percentile £17.00 £21.24 £10.95
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.43 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.63% +88.37% -66.50%
75th Percentile £74.63 £38.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.40 £60.56
England median hourly rate £22.00 £22.07 £16.50
% change year-on-year -0.32% +33.76% -65.91%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North of England

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 the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,332 2,979 3,977
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 84.30% 89.65% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,329 1,916 2,420
10th Percentile £313 £263 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £557 £588
90th Percentile £653 £650 £675
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 155 367
10th Percentile £16.01 £13.50 £11.07
25th Percentile £22.68 £18.51 £12.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.43 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +116.28% +41.28% -35.67%
75th Percentile £71.50 £56.76 £45.00
90th Percentile £81.55 £81.55 £58.50
England median hourly rate £47.00 £29.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +62.07% -20.55% +0.69%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the North of England

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the North of England over the 6 months to 18 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the North of England

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the North of England over the 6 months to 18 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the North of England

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

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 North of England region over the 6 months to 18 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
North West -7 353 £424 -13.43% 352
Yorkshire -6 338 £470 -3.09% 230
North East -10 50 £425 -16.26% 92
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 44 (6.00%) Confluence
2 19 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.91%) Apache Spark
4 8 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.55%) Apache
5 4 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.27%) CMS
7 2 (0.27%) JBoss
7 2 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.27%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.14%) Camunda
8 1 (0.14%) Mule
8 1 (0.14%) Mule ESB
8 1 (0.14%) nginx
8 1 (0.14%) SAS
8 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 30 (4.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (3.41%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.36%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.68%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.55%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.41%) CATIA
9 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 38 (5.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.41%) SAP SCM
5 1 (0.14%) Actimize
5 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.14%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.14%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.14%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
5 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 131 (17.87%) Azure
2 105 (14.32%) AWS
3 54 (7.37%) Microsoft 365
4 50 (6.82%) Power Platform
5 49 (6.68%) OpenShift
6 45 (6.14%) GCP
7 43 (5.87%) GitHub
8 22 (3.00%) Entra ID
9 18 (2.46%) Azure DevOps
10 17 (2.32%) SaaS
11 13 (1.77%) Serverless
12 10 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.09%) Apigee
13 8 (1.09%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
14 7 (0.95%) Azure AKS
14 7 (0.95%) Azure Functions
14 7 (0.95%) Azure Monitor
14 7 (0.95%) Power Automate
15 6 (0.82%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 34 (4.64%) DNS
2 26 (3.55%) Firewall
3 17 (2.32%) TCP/IP
4 15 (2.05%) WAN
5 12 (1.64%) LAN
6 11 (1.50%) SAN
7 10 (1.36%) Network Security
7 10 (1.36%) Wi-Fi
8 9 (1.23%) DHCP
9 7 (0.95%) Kerberos
9 7 (0.95%) VLAN
10 6 (0.82%) VPN
11 5 (0.68%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 4 (0.55%) DMZ
12 4 (0.55%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 4 (0.55%) NetScaler
12 4 (0.55%) VoIP
12 4 (0.55%) Wireless
13 3 (0.41%) NAS
13 3 (0.41%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.32%) Power BI
2 29 (3.96%) MongoDB
3 25 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (3.41%) SQL Server
4 22 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
5 17 (2.32%) Relational Database
6 16 (2.18%) NoSQL
7 12 (1.64%) Tableau
8 11 (1.50%) Hadoop
9 10 (1.36%) Metadata
10 8 (1.09%) Big Data
10 8 (1.09%) MySQL
11 7 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 6 (0.82%) Power Query
13 5 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
14 4 (0.55%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.55%) Data Vault
14 4 (0.55%) DataStage
14 4 (0.55%) DynamoDB
14 4 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 106 (14.46%) JIRA
2 47 (6.41%) Jenkins
3 33 (4.50%) Git
4 27 (3.68%) GitLab
5 12 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.50%) Mockito
7 10 (1.36%) Selenium
8 9 (1.23%) Postman
9 7 (0.95%) Cucumber
9 7 (0.95%) JUnit
10 6 (0.82%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.68%) Gatling
12 3 (0.41%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.41%) Cypress.io
12 3 (0.41%) Jasmine
12 3 (0.41%) JMeter
12 3 (0.41%) MSI
12 3 (0.41%) Oracle Forms
12 3 (0.41%) Serenity BDD
13 2 (0.27%) Gradle
General
1 357 (48.70%) Social Skills
2 282 (38.47%) Analytical Skills
3 218 (29.74%) Finance
4 85 (11.60%) Banking
5 70 (9.55%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.68%) Legal
8 21 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
8 21 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (2.05%) Law
9 15 (2.05%) Retail
9 15 (2.05%) Telecoms
10 14 (1.91%) Manufacturing
11 9 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (0.95%) Retail Banking
13 6 (0.82%) Military
14 4 (0.55%) Marketing
15 3 (0.41%) Billing
15 3 (0.41%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 138 (18.83%) Analyst
2 101 (13.78%) Developer
3 60 (8.19%) Lead
4 56 (7.64%) Business Analyst
5 49 (6.68%) Senior
6 37 (5.05%) Project Manager
7 32 (4.37%) Architect
7 32 (4.37%) Consultant
8 28 (3.82%) Java Developer
9 26 (3.55%) Data Engineer
10 24 (3.27%) Administrator
10 24 (3.27%) IT Support
11 19 (2.59%) Python Developer
12 17 (2.32%) Data Analyst
12 17 (2.32%) DevOps Engineer
12 17 (2.32%) IT Engineer
12 17 (2.32%) Technical Analyst
13 15 (2.05%) IT Analyst
13 15 (2.05%) SAP Consultant
14 14 (1.91%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (5.32%) REST
2 38 (5.18%) Spring
3 33 (4.50%) Spring Boot
4 32 (4.37%) Kafka
4 32 (4.37%) OpenTelemetry
5 24 (3.27%) RESTful
6 20 (2.73%) JSON
6 20 (2.73%) React
7 19 (2.59%) FastAPI
8 17 (2.32%) HTML
8 17 (2.32%) SOAP
9 16 (2.18%) OAuth
9 16 (2.18%) XML
10 15 (2.05%) CSS
11 13 (1.77%) AngularJS
12 12 (1.64%) .NET
12 12 (1.64%) LDAP
12 12 (1.64%) Swagger
12 12 (1.64%) YAML
13 9 (1.23%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 65 (8.87%) Product Ownership
2 31 (4.23%) Onboarding
3 27 (3.68%) Cloud Native
4 25 (3.41%) Data Protection Act
5 22 (3.00%) Data Centre
5 22 (3.00%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (2.59%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.59%) Hybrid Cloud
7 18 (2.46%) Management Information System
8 17 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (1.91%) Mobile App
10 11 (1.50%) AI Agents
10 11 (1.50%) Mainframe
11 10 (1.36%) Data Structures
11 10 (1.36%) Driving Licence
11 10 (1.36%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.23%) CMDB
13 8 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
13 8 (1.09%) Public Cloud
14 7 (0.95%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 71 (9.69%) Windows
2 51 (6.96%) Linux
3 21 (2.86%) Windows 10
4 19 (2.59%) Apple iOS
5 17 (2.32%) Mac OS
5 17 (2.32%) Unix
6 14 (1.91%) Android
7 13 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (1.36%) Windows Server
9 9 (1.23%) Ubuntu
10 8 (1.09%) CentOS
11 7 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.82%) Mac OS X
13 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.41%) VMS
15 2 (0.27%) AIX
15 2 (0.27%) HPUX
15 2 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
15 2 (0.27%) Solaris
15 2 (0.27%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (27.97%) Agile
2 154 (21.01%) CI/CD
3 143 (19.51%) Continuous Improvement
4 137 (18.69%) DevOps
5 101 (13.78%) Migration
6 95 (12.96%) Stakeholder Management
7 86 (11.73%) Project Management
8 73 (9.96%) Change Management
9 71 (9.69%) Validation
10 70 (9.55%) Analytics
11 62 (8.46%) Customer Service
11 62 (8.46%) Test Automation
12 61 (8.32%) Containerisation
12 61 (8.32%) Decision-Making
12 61 (8.32%) ITIL
13 60 (8.19%) Workshop Facilitation
14 58 (7.91%) ERP
14 58 (7.91%) Microservices
15 54 (7.37%) AI
16 52 (7.09%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 127 (17.33%) Python
2 102 (13.92%) SQL
3 70 (9.55%) Java
4 48 (6.55%) PowerShell
5 34 (4.64%) Bash
6 26 (3.55%) JavaScript
7 20 (2.73%) TypeScript
8 10 (1.36%) C#
8 10 (1.36%) Kotlin
8 10 (1.36%) R
9 9 (1.23%) Perl
9 9 (1.23%) Ruby
10 8 (1.09%) Go
10 8 (1.09%) PL/SQL
11 7 (0.95%) Bicep
11 7 (0.95%) Shell Script
11 7 (0.95%) T-SQL
12 6 (0.82%) Groovy
13 5 (0.68%) JCL
13 5 (0.68%) VBA
Qualifications
1 77 (10.50%) Security Cleared
2 73 (9.96%) Degree
3 45 (6.14%) SC Cleared
4 41 (5.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (4.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (3.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 18 (2.46%) A+ Certification
7 18 (2.46%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (2.32%) Network+ Certification
8 17 (2.32%) PMP
9 16 (2.18%) CCNA
10 14 (1.91%) CISSP
11 11 (1.50%) PMI Certification
12 10 (1.36%) RHCE
13 8 (1.09%) AWS Certification
13 8 (1.09%) MCSE
14 7 (0.95%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.95%) CCNP
15 6 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
16 5 (0.68%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.77%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.37%) QA
3 16 (2.18%) GDPR
4 12 (1.64%) Accessibility
4 12 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (1.64%) PSD2
5 11 (1.50%) PMO
6 10 (1.36%) SLA
7 9 (1.23%) GRC
7 9 (1.23%) NIST
8 8 (1.09%) ISO 20022
8 8 (1.09%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.95%) SEPA
10 5 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.55%) ISO 8583
12 3 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.41%) HL7
12 3 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 59 (8.05%) Docker
2 45 (6.14%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (2.46%) vSphere
5 16 (2.18%) VMware NSX
6 8 (1.09%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.95%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.41%) ACF2
8 3 (0.41%) Firmware
8 3 (0.41%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.41%) RACF
8 3 (0.41%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.14%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 1 (0.14%) NFS
9 1 (0.14%) SRDF
9 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 87 (11.87%) Kubernetes
2 57 (7.78%) Ansible
3 50 (6.82%) Terraform
4 44 (6.00%) Grafana
5 34 (4.64%) Prometheus
6 18 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.91%) Argo
7 14 (1.91%) Control-M
7 14 (1.91%) IBM Guardium
7 14 (1.91%) Nessus
7 14 (1.91%) vCenter Server
8 12 (1.64%) SCCM
9 10 (1.36%) Puppet
10 5 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.68%) CA Endevor
11 4 (0.55%) Kibana
12 3 (0.41%) Tivoli
12 3 (0.41%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 2 (0.27%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 121 (16.51%) Microsoft
2 61 (8.32%) SAP
3 51 (6.96%) Splunk
4 35 (4.77%) Oracle
5 33 (4.50%) ServiceNow
6 31 (4.23%) VMware
7 25 (3.41%) Red Hat
8 18 (2.46%) Google
9 16 (2.18%) Cisco
9 16 (2.18%) Workday
10 14 (1.91%) Pure Storage
10 14 (1.91%) Sage
10 14 (1.91%) Tenable
11 12 (1.64%) Dell
12 9 (1.23%) F5
12 9 (1.23%) Veeam
13 8 (1.09%) Adobe
13 8 (1.09%) Apple
13 8 (1.09%) IFS
13 8 (1.09%) Sonatype