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 7 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -9 +1 +11
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 732 705 539
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 9.94% 17.80% 13.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.92% 20.05% 15.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 393 316
10th Percentile £275 £268 £300
25th Percentile £363 £380 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -2.60%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £566
90th Percentile £600 £650 £638
England median daily rate £494 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -0.40% -0.80% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 73 39
10th Percentile £14.03 £12.96 -
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.48 -
Median hourly rate £24.16 £22.14 £10.95
Median % change year-on-year +9.12% +102.19% -63.50%
75th Percentile £70.00 £30.63 £34.83
90th Percentile £85.80 £63.40 £63.75
England median hourly rate £21.00 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.68% +24.80% -69.76%

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 6,143 3,517 3,475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 83.45% 88.81% 84.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,619 2,245 2,099
10th Percentile £313 £268 £306
25th Percentile £402 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.22% -6.20% -
75th Percentile £588 £556 £586
90th Percentile £675 £650 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 500 205 245
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £11.07
25th Percentile £21.33 £17.48 £13.87
Median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £25.30
Median % change year-on-year +94.26% -10.55% -13.65%
75th Percentile £70.00 £44.78 £48.75
90th Percentile £78.88 £73.75 £69.90
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 -12 346 £450 -8.35% 464
Yorkshire -7 331 £450 -5.26% 320
North East -18 60 £375 -16.67% 128
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 30 (4.10%) Confluence
2 21 (2.87%) SharePoint
3 20 (2.73%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
6 8 (1.09%) Apache
7 6 (0.82%) CMS
7 6 (0.82%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.55%) CICS
9 3 (0.41%) WordPress
10 2 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.27%) Camunda
10 2 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.14%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.14%) JBoss
11 1 (0.14%) Mule
11 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 38 (5.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (4.10%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.50%) MS Visio
4 9 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.41%) Acrobat
8 3 (0.41%) CATIA
9 1 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.14%) EngageOne
9 1 (0.14%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.14%) Revit
Business Applications
1 29 (3.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.50%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.41%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.27%) SAP HCM
5 2 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) Actimize
6 1 (0.14%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 117 (15.98%) Azure
2 93 (12.70%) AWS
3 77 (10.52%) Microsoft 365
4 58 (7.92%) Power Platform
5 42 (5.74%) GCP
6 31 (4.23%) OpenShift
7 30 (4.10%) GitHub
8 24 (3.28%) Entra ID
9 16 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (1.91%) Serverless
11 13 (1.78%) Microsoft Copilot
11 13 (1.78%) Power Automate
12 11 (1.50%) SaaS
13 9 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (1.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (1.23%) PowerApps
14 8 (1.09%) Copilot Studio
15 7 (0.96%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
17 5 (0.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 37 (5.05%) VPN
2 30 (4.10%) DNS
3 29 (3.96%) Firewall
4 21 (2.87%) LAN
4 21 (2.87%) WAN
5 16 (2.19%) VLAN
5 16 (2.19%) Wireless
6 15 (2.05%) TCP/IP
7 14 (1.91%) Network Security
7 14 (1.91%) Wi-Fi
8 13 (1.78%) DHCP
9 11 (1.50%) VoIP
10 9 (1.23%) Cisco Nexus
10 9 (1.23%) SAN
11 8 (1.09%) BGP
11 8 (1.09%) OSPF
11 8 (1.09%) WLAN
12 6 (0.82%) SD-WAN
13 5 (0.68%) Cisco Firepower
13 5 (0.68%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (6.01%) Power BI
2 34 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 32 (4.37%) MongoDB
4 23 (3.14%) Data Warehouse
5 19 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (2.05%) NoSQL
7 14 (1.91%) Tableau
8 12 (1.64%) Big Data
8 12 (1.64%) Relational Database
9 9 (1.23%) Db2
9 9 (1.23%) Hadoop
10 8 (1.09%) Metadata
11 7 (0.96%) MySQL
12 6 (0.82%) DataStage
12 6 (0.82%) Oracle Database
12 6 (0.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.68%) Neo4j
13 5 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
14 4 (0.55%) Data Lake
14 4 (0.55%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 79 (10.79%) JIRA
2 36 (4.92%) Jenkins
3 33 (4.51%) Git
4 21 (2.87%) GitLab
5 9 (1.23%) Mockito
5 9 (1.23%) Selenium
6 8 (1.09%) REST Assured
6 8 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.82%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.82%) Gatling
8 4 (0.55%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.55%) Postman
9 3 (0.41%) Claude Code
9 3 (0.41%) Gradle
9 3 (0.41%) JUnit
9 3 (0.41%) LoadRunner
9 3 (0.41%) Maven
9 3 (0.41%) MSI
9 3 (0.41%) Serenity BDD
9 3 (0.41%) Subversion
General
1 343 (46.86%) Social Skills
2 309 (42.21%) Analytical Skills
3 195 (26.64%) Finance
4 81 (11.07%) Banking
5 73 (9.97%) Public Sector
6 33 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
7 28 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (3.69%) Legal
9 24 (3.28%) Manufacturing
10 23 (3.14%) Influencing Skills
11 17 (2.32%) Retail
12 16 (2.19%) Law
13 15 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 9 (1.23%) Financial Institution
14 9 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (1.09%) Aerospace
15 8 (1.09%) Automotive
15 8 (1.09%) Telecoms
16 7 (0.96%) Marketing
17 5 (0.68%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 135 (18.44%) Analyst
2 91 (12.43%) Developer
3 68 (9.29%) Lead
4 56 (7.65%) Senior
5 41 (5.60%) Architect
6 34 (4.64%) IT Support
7 29 (3.96%) Business Analyst
7 29 (3.96%) Java Developer
8 27 (3.69%) Consultant
9 26 (3.55%) Administrator
10 25 (3.42%) Data Engineer
11 23 (3.14%) Python Developer
12 21 (2.87%) Data Analyst
12 21 (2.87%) IT Engineer
12 21 (2.87%) Network Engineer
12 21 (2.87%) Support Engineer
13 19 (2.60%) DevOps Engineer
13 19 (2.60%) Project Manager
13 19 (2.60%) Service Analyst
14 16 (2.19%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (5.05%) Kafka
2 35 (4.78%) REST
3 28 (3.83%) Spring
4 25 (3.42%) OpenTelemetry
5 23 (3.14%) Spring Boot
6 20 (2.73%) React
7 18 (2.46%) FastAPI
8 16 (2.19%) HTML
9 15 (2.05%) CSS
9 15 (2.05%) Node.js
10 14 (1.91%) Playwright
11 13 (1.78%) .NET
12 12 (1.64%) OAuth
12 12 (1.64%) RESTful
13 10 (1.37%) JSON
14 9 (1.23%) ActiveMQ
14 9 (1.23%) JAX-RS
14 9 (1.23%) XML
15 8 (1.09%) AngularJS
15 8 (1.09%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.10%) Product Ownership
2 47 (6.42%) Cloud Native
3 32 (4.37%) Data Protection Act
4 30 (4.10%) Onboarding
5 24 (3.28%) Self-Motivation
6 23 (3.14%) Data Centre
6 23 (3.14%) Enterprise Software
7 22 (3.01%) Analytical Mindset
8 19 (2.60%) Driving Licence
8 19 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
9 16 (2.19%) Data Structures
10 15 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
10 15 (2.05%) Mainframe
10 15 (2.05%) Management Information System
11 14 (1.91%) AI Agents
12 13 (1.78%) Hybrid Cloud
12 13 (1.78%) PKI
13 12 (1.64%) Virtual Team
14 11 (1.50%) Mobile App
15 10 (1.37%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 89 (12.16%) Windows
2 36 (4.92%) Linux
3 28 (3.83%) Windows 10
4 20 (2.73%) Unix
5 19 (2.60%) Apple iOS
6 16 (2.19%) Android
7 14 (1.91%) Windows Server
8 13 (1.78%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.96%) Mac OS X
10 4 (0.55%) Solaris
10 4 (0.55%) zOS
11 3 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.27%) AIX
12 2 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.27%) HPUX
12 2 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.27%) SUSE
13 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.14%) VMS
13 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (25.55%) Agile
2 166 (22.68%) Continuous Improvement
3 153 (20.90%) CI/CD
4 126 (17.21%) DevOps
5 108 (14.75%) Stakeholder Management
6 85 (11.61%) Migration
7 75 (10.25%) AI
7 75 (10.25%) Analytics
8 72 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 72 (9.84%) Test Automation
9 66 (9.02%) ITIL
10 65 (8.88%) Containerisation
10 65 (8.88%) Customer Service
11 63 (8.61%) Change Management
11 63 (8.61%) Project Management
12 61 (8.33%) Microservices
13 60 (8.20%) Data Protection
14 58 (7.92%) Validation
15 57 (7.79%) Business Intelligence
16 56 (7.65%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 125 (17.08%) Python
2 104 (14.21%) SQL
3 60 (8.20%) Java
4 45 (6.15%) PowerShell
5 25 (3.42%) Bash
5 25 (3.42%) JavaScript
6 9 (1.23%) C#
6 9 (1.23%) PL/SQL
6 9 (1.23%) R
6 9 (1.23%) TypeScript
7 8 (1.09%) T-SQL
8 7 (0.96%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.82%) COBOL
9 6 (0.82%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.68%) ABAP
10 5 (0.68%) Bicep
11 4 (0.55%) JCL
12 3 (0.41%) Go
12 3 (0.41%) PHP
12 3 (0.41%) VBA
Qualifications
1 93 (12.70%) Security Cleared
2 73 (9.97%) Degree
3 68 (9.29%) SC Cleared
4 30 (4.10%) Computer Science Degree
5 29 (3.96%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 21 (2.87%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (2.32%) CISSP
9 13 (1.78%) PMP
10 12 (1.64%) CCNP
11 11 (1.50%) A+ Certification
11 11 (1.50%) CCNA
11 11 (1.50%) PMI Certification
12 10 (1.37%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
14 8 (1.09%) AWS Certification
14 8 (1.09%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.09%) HNC
15 7 (0.96%) OCP
15 7 (0.96%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (6.69%) Data Quality
2 28 (3.83%) QA
3 25 (3.42%) Accessibility
4 15 (2.05%) SLA
5 14 (1.91%) GDPR
6 13 (1.78%) GRC
7 10 (1.37%) NIST
8 9 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.96%) PMO
10 6 (0.82%) WCAG
11 3 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.41%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.27%) COSHH
12 2 (0.27%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 1 (0.14%) GxP
13 1 (0.14%) ISO 20022
13 1 (0.14%) SEPA
System Software
1 64 (8.74%) Docker
2 56 (7.65%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.78%) vSphere
5 12 (1.64%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.96%) Firmware
6 7 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.55%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.27%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (0.27%) KVM
9 2 (0.27%) NFS
9 2 (0.27%) SRDF
10 1 (0.14%) ACF2
10 1 (0.14%) RACF
10 1 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 77 (10.52%) Kubernetes
2 56 (7.65%) Terraform
3 39 (5.33%) Grafana
4 37 (5.05%) Ansible
5 32 (4.37%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.91%) Control-M
6 14 (1.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (1.78%) vCenter Server
8 12 (1.64%) Argo
8 12 (1.64%) IBM Guardium
8 12 (1.64%) Nessus
9 8 (1.09%) SCCM
10 4 (0.55%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.55%) Kustomize
10 4 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.41%) CA Endevor
11 3 (0.41%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.41%) Istio
11 3 (0.41%) McAfee ePO
11 3 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 145 (19.81%) Microsoft
2 61 (8.33%) ServiceNow
3 60 (8.20%) SAP
4 36 (4.92%) Splunk
5 35 (4.78%) Oracle
6 29 (3.96%) Cisco
7 23 (3.14%) Google
8 20 (2.73%) VMware
9 18 (2.46%) Workday
10 14 (1.91%) Red Hat
11 12 (1.64%) Concur
11 12 (1.64%) Palo Alto
11 12 (1.64%) Pure Storage
11 12 (1.64%) Tenable
12 11 (1.50%) IBM
12 11 (1.50%) Remedy
13 9 (1.23%) Dell
13 9 (1.23%) Sage
14 8 (1.09%) CheckPoint
14 8 (1.09%) Salesforce