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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 6 5
Rank change year-on-year -9 -1 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 726 620 545
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 9.57% 15.66% 13.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.55% 17.63% 15.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 408 359 307
10th Percentile £275 £258 £258
25th Percentile £353 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.84% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £559 £551
90th Percentile £625 £650 £625
England median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 56 12
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.80 £13.43
25th Percentile £16.22 £17.30 £26.25
Median hourly rate £19.00 £20.26 £54.28
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -62.68% +108.77%
75th Percentile £39.88 £32.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.70 £63.40 £77.63
England median hourly rate £19.57 £18.85 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.82% +16.14% -70.49%

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 6,285 3,516 3,432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 82.85% 88.81% 84.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,644 2,293 1,958
10th Percentile £313 £268 £300
25th Percentile £406 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £585
90th Percentile £675 £663 £675
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 528 201 180
10th Percentile £14.06 £13.85 £13.63
25th Percentile £20.97 £17.44 £16.44
Median hourly rate £43.96 £22.58 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.73% -35.50% +27.27%
75th Percentile £69.81 £35.50 £51.88
90th Percentile £77.33 £67.25 £70.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.95%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 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
North West -11 358 £450 -4.66% 733
Yorkshire -6 298 £450 -7.69% 432
North East -11 72 £375 -16.67% 196
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 27 (3.72%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.03%) Confluence
3 11 (1.52%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.38%) Apache
4 10 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.96%) CMS
5 7 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.83%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.55%) CICS
7 4 (0.55%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.41%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.41%) WordPress
9 2 (0.28%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.28%) nginx
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.28%) WebLogic Portal
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 42 (5.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (5.65%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.24%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.55%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.41%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.28%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.28%) Revit
8 1 (0.14%) CATIA
8 1 (0.14%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 19 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.52%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.41%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 3 (0.41%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 2 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
5 2 (0.28%) SAP R/3
6 1 (0.14%) Actimize
6 1 (0.14%) CA PPM
6 1 (0.14%) ENOVIA
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%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 123 (16.94%) Azure
2 100 (13.77%) Microsoft 365
3 97 (13.36%) AWS
4 57 (7.85%) Power Platform
5 45 (6.20%) GCP
6 33 (4.55%) Entra ID
7 26 (3.58%) GitHub
8 17 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
8 17 (2.34%) Serverless
9 15 (2.07%) OpenShift
10 12 (1.65%) Microsoft Copilot
10 12 (1.65%) SaaS
11 11 (1.52%) Power Automate
12 10 (1.38%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
13 9 (1.24%) IaaS
13 9 (1.24%) OneDrive
13 9 (1.24%) PowerApps
14 7 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 7 (0.96%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 45 (6.20%) VPN
2 40 (5.51%) Firewall
3 29 (3.99%) DNS
4 25 (3.44%) Network Security
5 24 (3.31%) LAN
5 24 (3.31%) WAN
6 20 (2.75%) Wi-Fi
7 18 (2.48%) Wireless
8 15 (2.07%) DHCP
8 15 (2.07%) VLAN
8 15 (2.07%) VoIP
9 14 (1.93%) TCP/IP
10 11 (1.52%) Cisco Nexus
11 10 (1.38%) BGP
11 10 (1.38%) OSPF
12 9 (1.24%) BIG-IP
12 9 (1.24%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 9 (1.24%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 9 (1.24%) WLAN
13 8 (1.10%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (5.51%) Power BI
2 29 (3.99%) SQL Server
3 24 (3.31%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (2.75%) MongoDB
5 15 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 11 (1.52%) Db2
6 11 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
6 11 (1.52%) Tableau
7 9 (1.24%) Metadata
8 8 (1.10%) DataStage
9 7 (0.96%) Big Data
9 7 (0.96%) NoSQL
10 6 (0.83%) MySQL
10 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
11 5 (0.69%) Data Lake
11 5 (0.69%) Neo4j
12 4 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
12 4 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
12 4 (0.55%) Power Query
13 3 (0.41%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 59 (8.13%) JIRA
2 36 (4.96%) Git
3 31 (4.27%) Jenkins
4 21 (2.89%) GitLab
5 8 (1.10%) REST Assured
5 8 (1.10%) Selenium
6 7 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.83%) Gatling
8 5 (0.69%) Maven
9 4 (0.55%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.55%) Gradle
9 4 (0.55%) MSI
10 3 (0.41%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.41%) JUnit
10 3 (0.41%) LoadRunner
10 3 (0.41%) Serenity BDD
10 3 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.28%) Postman
11 2 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 369 (50.83%) Social Skills
2 305 (42.01%) Analytical Skills
3 168 (23.14%) Finance
4 81 (11.16%) Banking
5 58 (7.99%) Public Sector
6 45 (6.20%) Manufacturing
7 37 (5.10%) Organisational Skills
8 31 (4.27%) Legal
9 29 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
11 20 (2.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (2.34%) Law
13 16 (2.20%) Retail
14 11 (1.52%) Telecoms
15 10 (1.38%) Automotive
16 9 (1.24%) Marketing
17 8 (1.10%) Aerospace
17 8 (1.10%) Financial Institution
17 8 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
18 6 (0.83%) Police
Job Titles
1 111 (15.29%) Analyst
2 86 (11.85%) Developer
3 63 (8.68%) Senior
4 52 (7.16%) Lead
5 49 (6.75%) IT Support
6 36 (4.96%) Architect
7 35 (4.82%) Support Engineer
8 26 (3.58%) IT Engineer
9 25 (3.44%) Administrator
9 25 (3.44%) Business Analyst
10 24 (3.31%) Network Engineer
11 22 (3.03%) IT Support Engineer
12 21 (2.89%) Java Developer
13 20 (2.75%) Consultant
13 20 (2.75%) Data Analyst
14 18 (2.48%) Support Analyst
15 17 (2.34%) Data Engineer
15 17 (2.34%) IT Analyst
15 17 (2.34%) Service Analyst
16 16 (2.20%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (6.47%) Terraform
2 45 (6.20%) REST
3 28 (3.86%) Spring
4 26 (3.58%) Kafka
5 24 (3.31%) Spring Boot
6 21 (2.89%) Node.js
7 20 (2.75%) HTML
8 19 (2.62%) React
9 17 (2.34%) CSS
10 14 (1.93%) Playwright
11 11 (1.52%) OAuth
12 10 (1.38%) .NET
12 10 (1.38%) FastAPI
12 10 (1.38%) RESTful
13 9 (1.24%) OpenTelemetry
13 9 (1.24%) SOAP
13 9 (1.24%) Web Services
13 9 (1.24%) XML
14 8 (1.10%) JSON
15 7 (0.96%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.02%) Cloud Native
2 48 (6.61%) Product Ownership
3 40 (5.51%) Onboarding
4 33 (4.55%) Data Protection Act
5 32 (4.41%) Data Centre
5 32 (4.41%) Self-Motivation
6 30 (4.13%) Enterprise Software
7 27 (3.72%) Driving Licence
8 21 (2.89%) Analytical Mindset
9 20 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
10 19 (2.62%) Data Structures
10 19 (2.62%) PKI
11 16 (2.20%) Management Information System
12 15 (2.07%) Mainframe
13 13 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
14 12 (1.65%) AI Agents
14 12 (1.65%) NHS
15 10 (1.38%) Public Cloud
15 10 (1.38%) Virtual Team
16 9 (1.24%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 125 (17.22%) Windows
2 34 (4.68%) Linux
3 31 (4.27%) Windows 10
4 25 (3.44%) Windows Server
5 23 (3.17%) Apple iOS
6 20 (2.75%) Android
7 15 (2.07%) Unix
8 13 (1.79%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.69%) Solaris
10 4 (0.55%) zOS
11 3 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.28%) AIX
12 2 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.28%) HPUX
12 2 (0.28%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.28%) SUSE
12 2 (0.28%) VMS
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (24.38%) Continuous Improvement
2 167 (23.00%) Agile
3 145 (19.97%) CI/CD
4 137 (18.87%) Stakeholder Management
5 106 (14.60%) DevOps
6 85 (11.71%) AI
7 83 (11.43%) Customer Service
8 78 (10.74%) ITIL
9 71 (9.78%) Migration
10 68 (9.37%) Test Automation
11 63 (8.68%) Analytics
12 62 (8.54%) Data Protection
12 62 (8.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 58 (7.99%) Validation
14 55 (7.58%) Change Management
14 55 (7.58%) Decision-Making
14 55 (7.58%) Microservices
15 54 (7.44%) Software Engineering
16 53 (7.30%) Infrastructure as Code
17 52 (7.16%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 109 (15.01%) Python
2 104 (14.33%) SQL
3 60 (8.26%) Java
4 52 (7.16%) PowerShell
5 27 (3.72%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.07%) Bash
7 11 (1.52%) PL/SQL
8 10 (1.38%) TypeScript
9 9 (1.24%) C#
9 9 (1.24%) Shell Script
10 8 (1.10%) R
11 6 (0.83%) ActionScript
11 6 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 6 (0.83%) COBOL
12 5 (0.69%) ABAP
12 5 (0.69%) Kotlin
12 5 (0.69%) T-SQL
13 4 (0.55%) Bicep
13 4 (0.55%) Go
13 4 (0.55%) PHP
Qualifications
1 105 (14.46%) Security Cleared
2 80 (11.02%) SC Cleared
3 61 (8.40%) Degree
4 27 (3.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 27 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (2.89%) CISSP
7 20 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.79%) CCNP
9 11 (1.52%) A+ Certification
10 10 (1.38%) AWS Certification
10 10 (1.38%) Network+ Certification
10 10 (1.38%) PMP
11 9 (1.24%) HNC
11 9 (1.24%) PMI Certification
12 7 (0.96%) Azure Certification
12 7 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
13 6 (0.83%) CEH
13 6 (0.83%) CISM
13 6 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (7.44%) Data Quality
2 29 (3.99%) QA
3 24 (3.31%) Accessibility
4 21 (2.89%) SLA
5 11 (1.52%) GRC
5 11 (1.52%) NIST
6 10 (1.38%) GDPR
6 10 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.83%) PMO
7 6 (0.83%) WCAG
8 5 (0.69%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.28%) COSHH
9 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.28%) MiFID
9 2 (0.28%) NCSC
9 2 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.14%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 75 (10.33%) Active Directory
2 50 (6.89%) Docker
3 27 (3.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.65%) Hyper-V
5 8 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.96%) vSphere
7 6 (0.83%) Firmware
7 6 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.55%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 4 (0.55%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.55%) XenApp
8 4 (0.55%) XenDesktop
9 2 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (0.28%) KVM
9 2 (0.28%) NFS
9 2 (0.28%) SRDF
10 1 (0.14%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 55 (7.58%) Kubernetes
2 26 (3.58%) Microsoft Intune
3 24 (3.31%) Grafana
4 23 (3.17%) Prometheus
4 23 (3.17%) SCCM
5 20 (2.75%) Ansible
6 10 (1.38%) Nessus
7 9 (1.24%) Control-M
8 7 (0.96%) IBM Guardium
9 6 (0.83%) McAfee ePO
10 4 (0.55%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.55%) Kustomize
10 4 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.55%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.41%) Argo
11 3 (0.41%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.41%) Istio
11 3 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
11 3 (0.41%) VxRail
11 3 (0.41%) WMI
Vendors
1 178 (24.52%) Microsoft
2 64 (8.82%) ServiceNow
3 50 (6.89%) SAP
4 40 (5.51%) Oracle
5 30 (4.13%) Cisco
6 29 (3.99%) VMware
7 21 (2.89%) Google
8 20 (2.75%) Splunk
9 16 (2.20%) F5
10 15 (2.07%) IBM
11 13 (1.79%) Salesforce
11 13 (1.79%) Workday
12 12 (1.65%) Palo Alto
13 11 (1.52%) Concur
13 11 (1.52%) Remedy
14 10 (1.38%) Dell
14 10 (1.38%) Fortinet
14 10 (1.38%) Tenable
15 8 (1.10%) CheckPoint
15 8 (1.10%) CrowdStrike