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 23 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -11 +4 +10
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 726 679 630
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 10.55% 19.48% 12.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.53% 21.66% 15.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 430 398 352
10th Percentile £296 £251 £254
25th Percentile £360 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £483
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% -1.55% -8.10%
75th Percentile £538 £574 £550
90th Percentile £615 £665 £638
England median daily rate £497 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.64% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 61 69
10th Percentile £15.18 £12.21 -
25th Percentile £17.13 £17.88 £10.95
Median hourly rate £32.23 £22.14 £11.50
Median % change year-on-year +45.55% +92.52% -58.18%
75th Percentile £74.26 £43.39 £28.75
90th Percentile £123.10 £63.40 £62.50
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.28 £16.23
% change year-on-year +0.33% +31.12% -68.02%

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 5,796 3,135 4,082
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 84.21% 89.96% 83.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,491 2,032 2,424
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £400 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £465 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.82% -6.48% -0.50%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £585
90th Percentile £675 £650 £665
England median daily rate £520 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 417 166 400
10th Percentile £16.62 £12.79 £11.11
25th Percentile £22.68 £17.81 £12.55
Median hourly rate £46.43 £25.15 £22.31
Median % change year-on-year +84.61% +12.75% -2.34%
75th Percentile £71.50 £52.38 £46.18
90th Percentile £80.00 £78.13 £63.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £27.06 £37.63
% change year-on-year +73.67% -28.07% +7.07%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 -11 350 £440 -7.37% 301
Yorkshire -6 332 £450 -5.26% 182
North East -18 50 £370 -17.78% 86
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 43 (5.92%) Confluence
2 21 (2.89%) Apache Spark
3 15 (2.07%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (1.10%) Apache
5 8 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.83%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.41%) CICS
8 2 (0.28%) Camunda
8 2 (0.28%) CMS
8 2 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.28%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 1 (0.14%) JBoss
9 1 (0.14%) Mule
9 1 (0.14%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.14%) nginx
9 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 36 (4.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.38%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.55%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.55%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.41%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 40 (5.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.28%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) Actimize
6 1 (0.14%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.14%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 121 (16.67%) Azure
2 90 (12.40%) AWS
3 53 (7.30%) Microsoft 365
4 49 (6.75%) Power Platform
5 41 (5.65%) GCP
6 39 (5.37%) OpenShift
7 36 (4.96%) GitHub
8 24 (3.31%) Entra ID
9 15 (2.07%) SaaS
10 14 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (1.65%) Serverless
12 11 (1.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
14 8 (1.10%) Power Automate
15 7 (0.96%) Azure Monitor
15 7 (0.96%) Azure Storage
15 7 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (0.96%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.83%) Apigee
16 6 (0.83%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (3.72%) DNS
2 24 (3.31%) Firewall
3 19 (2.62%) WAN
4 16 (2.20%) LAN
5 14 (1.93%) VPN
6 13 (1.79%) Network Security
6 13 (1.79%) TCP/IP
6 13 (1.79%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (1.52%) SAN
8 10 (1.38%) VLAN
9 8 (1.10%) Wireless
10 7 (0.96%) DHCP
10 7 (0.96%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.69%) VoIP
12 4 (0.55%) Cisco Nexus
12 4 (0.55%) NAS
12 4 (0.55%) SD-WAN
13 3 (0.41%) BGP
13 3 (0.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 3 (0.41%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (5.51%) Power BI
2 30 (4.13%) MongoDB
3 28 (3.86%) SQL Server
4 21 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
5 19 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
6 15 (2.07%) Relational Database
7 13 (1.79%) NoSQL
7 13 (1.79%) Tableau
8 12 (1.65%) Big Data
9 11 (1.52%) Hadoop
10 9 (1.24%) Metadata
10 9 (1.24%) MySQL
11 7 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 6 (0.83%) Db2
12 6 (0.83%) Power Query
13 5 (0.69%) DataStage
13 5 (0.69%) Snowflake Schema
14 4 (0.55%) Data Vault
14 4 (0.55%) Neo4j
14 4 (0.55%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 106 (14.60%) JIRA
2 41 (5.65%) Jenkins
3 31 (4.27%) Git
4 27 (3.72%) GitLab
5 13 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.52%) Mockito
7 9 (1.24%) Postman
7 9 (1.24%) Selenium
8 6 (0.83%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.83%) JUnit
8 6 (0.83%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.69%) Gatling
10 3 (0.41%) Gradle
10 3 (0.41%) MSI
10 3 (0.41%) Serenity BDD
11 2 (0.28%) JMeter
11 2 (0.28%) LoadRunner
11 2 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
11 2 (0.28%) SoapUI
11 2 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 356 (49.04%) Social Skills
2 306 (42.15%) Analytical Skills
3 217 (29.89%) Finance
4 85 (11.71%) Banking
5 54 (7.44%) Public Sector
6 38 (5.23%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.72%) Legal
8 24 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
9 23 (3.17%) Organisational Skills
10 16 (2.20%) Retail
11 15 (2.07%) Manufacturing
12 14 (1.93%) Telecoms
13 13 (1.79%) Law
14 8 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.96%) Financial Institution
16 6 (0.83%) Automotive
16 6 (0.83%) Retail Banking
17 4 (0.55%) Billing
17 4 (0.55%) Military
Job Titles
1 144 (19.83%) Analyst
2 85 (11.71%) Developer
3 65 (8.95%) Lead
4 51 (7.02%) Business Analyst
5 42 (5.79%) Senior
6 38 (5.23%) Architect
7 34 (4.68%) Consultant
8 28 (3.86%) Project Manager
9 27 (3.72%) IT Support
10 26 (3.58%) Administrator
10 26 (3.58%) Java Developer
11 25 (3.44%) Data Engineer
12 22 (3.03%) Python Developer
13 20 (2.75%) Data Analyst
13 20 (2.75%) DevOps Engineer
14 18 (2.48%) IT Analyst
15 17 (2.34%) IT Engineer
15 17 (2.34%) Support Analyst
15 17 (2.34%) Technical Analyst
16 14 (1.93%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.23%) REST
2 36 (4.96%) Kafka
3 32 (4.41%) OpenTelemetry
4 29 (3.99%) Spring
5 24 (3.31%) Spring Boot
6 20 (2.75%) JSON
7 19 (2.62%) FastAPI
7 19 (2.62%) React
8 18 (2.48%) RESTful
9 14 (1.93%) SOAP
9 14 (1.93%) XML
10 13 (1.79%) HTML
11 12 (1.65%) CSS
11 12 (1.65%) OAuth
12 11 (1.52%) .NET
12 11 (1.52%) LDAP
12 11 (1.52%) YAML
13 10 (1.38%) Playwright
13 10 (1.38%) Swagger
14 9 (1.24%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 59 (8.13%) Product Ownership
2 43 (5.92%) Cloud Native
3 31 (4.27%) Onboarding
4 30 (4.13%) Data Protection Act
5 26 (3.58%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (2.89%) Data Centre
7 20 (2.75%) Analytical Mindset
7 20 (2.75%) Management Information System
8 17 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
8 17 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
9 16 (2.20%) Mainframe
10 13 (1.79%) AI Agents
10 13 (1.79%) Driving Licence
11 12 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (1.52%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.38%) Mobile App
13 10 (1.38%) Virtual Team
14 8 (1.10%) Public Cloud
14 8 (1.10%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 73 (10.06%) Windows
2 47 (6.47%) Linux
3 22 (3.03%) Windows 10
4 16 (2.20%) Apple iOS
4 16 (2.20%) Unix
5 14 (1.93%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.52%) Android
8 10 (1.38%) Windows Server
9 9 (1.24%) Ubuntu
10 8 (1.10%) CentOS
11 6 (0.83%) Mac OS X
12 5 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.28%) AIX
13 2 (0.28%) HPUX
13 2 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.28%) Solaris
13 2 (0.28%) SUSE
13 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 195 (26.86%) Agile
2 154 (21.21%) CI/CD
3 147 (20.25%) Continuous Improvement
4 138 (19.01%) DevOps
5 110 (15.15%) Stakeholder Management
6 103 (14.19%) Migration
7 84 (11.57%) Change Management
7 84 (11.57%) Project Management
8 74 (10.19%) Analytics
9 73 (10.06%) ITIL
10 71 (9.78%) Validation
11 65 (8.95%) Test Automation
12 64 (8.82%) Customer Service
12 64 (8.82%) ERP
13 61 (8.40%) Containerisation
13 61 (8.40%) Decision-Making
14 58 (7.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 56 (7.71%) AI
16 55 (7.58%) Workshop Facilitation
17 53 (7.30%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 132 (18.18%) Python
2 98 (13.50%) SQL
3 57 (7.85%) Java
4 54 (7.44%) PowerShell
5 31 (4.27%) Bash
6 24 (3.31%) JavaScript
7 14 (1.93%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.24%) C#
8 9 (1.24%) Perl
8 9 (1.24%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.24%) R
9 8 (1.10%) COBOL
9 8 (1.10%) Ruby
10 7 (0.96%) VBA
11 6 (0.83%) Bicep
11 6 (0.83%) JCL
11 6 (0.83%) Kotlin
11 6 (0.83%) Shell Script
12 5 (0.69%) Go
12 5 (0.69%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 78 (10.74%) Security Cleared
2 73 (10.06%) Degree
3 53 (7.30%) SC Cleared
4 43 (5.92%) BPSS Clearance
5 29 (3.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (3.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.62%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (2.34%) A+ Certification
9 16 (2.20%) CISSP
9 16 (2.20%) Network+ Certification
9 16 (2.20%) PMP
10 15 (2.07%) CCNA
11 12 (1.65%) PMI Certification
12 10 (1.38%) RHCE
13 8 (1.10%) CCNP
13 8 (1.10%) CompTIA Security+
14 7 (0.96%) AWS Certification
14 7 (0.96%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.96%) MCSE
15 6 (0.83%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (5.79%) Data Quality
2 22 (3.03%) QA
3 15 (2.07%) GDPR
4 13 (1.79%) Accessibility
5 12 (1.65%) PMO
6 10 (1.38%) SLA
7 9 (1.24%) GRC
7 9 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (1.24%) NIST
8 7 (0.96%) PSD2
9 6 (0.83%) PCI DSS
10 5 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 4 (0.55%) SEPA
12 3 (0.41%) ISO 8583
12 3 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 59 (8.13%) Docker
2 50 (6.89%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.34%) vSphere
5 14 (1.93%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.10%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.83%) Firmware
9 4 (0.55%) ACF2
9 4 (0.55%) RACF
10 3 (0.41%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.28%) KVM
11 2 (0.28%) NFS
11 2 (0.28%) SRDF
11 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 78 (10.74%) Kubernetes
2 54 (7.44%) Ansible
2 54 (7.44%) Terraform
3 41 (5.65%) Grafana
4 32 (4.41%) Prometheus
5 17 (2.34%) Microsoft Intune
6 16 (2.20%) Control-M
7 15 (2.07%) Argo
7 15 (2.07%) vCenter Server
8 14 (1.93%) IBM Guardium
8 14 (1.93%) Nessus
9 9 (1.24%) SCCM
10 8 (1.10%) Puppet
11 5 (0.69%) CA Endevor
11 5 (0.69%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.41%) Istio
12 3 (0.41%) Kibana
12 3 (0.41%) Tivoli
12 3 (0.41%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 121 (16.67%) Microsoft
2 66 (9.09%) SAP
3 46 (6.34%) Splunk
4 44 (6.06%) ServiceNow
5 31 (4.27%) Oracle
6 29 (3.99%) VMware
7 26 (3.58%) Red Hat
8 24 (3.31%) Google
9 20 (2.75%) Cisco
9 20 (2.75%) Workday
10 15 (2.07%) Pure Storage
10 15 (2.07%) Sage
11 14 (1.93%) Tenable
12 11 (1.52%) Dell
13 10 (1.38%) Concur
14 8 (1.10%) Salesforce
14 8 (1.10%) Sonatype
14 8 (1.10%) Veeam
15 7 (0.96%) Apple
15 7 (0.96%) IBM