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 13 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +11
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 755 558 623
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 14.51% 16.57% 12.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.59% 18.71% 14.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 501 345 343
10th Percentile £213 £207 £210
25th Percentile £350 £356 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -4.04% +4.21%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £582
90th Percentile £625 £633 £685
England median daily rate £492 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.44% -5.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 28 49
10th Percentile £14.57 £14.44 £11.40
25th Percentile £15.51 £17.08 £11.75
Median hourly rate £21.15 £27.13 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.02% +55.00% -47.56%
75th Percentile £69.30 £37.25 £43.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.72 £47.50
England median hourly rate £18.85 £25.22 £21.64
% change year-on-year -25.26% +16.52% -31.37%

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 4,550 2,983 4,301
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 87.47% 88.57% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,001 1,788 2,736
10th Percentile £250 £262 £278
25th Percentile £369 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £674
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 138 310
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.15 £11.77
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £13.80
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.51% +22.22% -10.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £74.05 £53.75
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 -1 393 £424 -8.24% 347
Yorkshire -5 308 £482 -3.60% 185
North East -4 62 £450 -11.33% 69
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 47 (6.23%) Confluence
2 39 (5.17%) SharePoint
3 32 (4.24%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.19%) Apache
5 7 (0.93%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.93%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (0.93%) Skype for Business
6 5 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.13%) CICS
8 1 (0.13%) CMS
8 1 (0.13%) JBoss
8 1 (0.13%) Moodle
8 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.13%) nginx
8 1 (0.13%) SAS
8 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 49 (6.49%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (6.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (4.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (2.38%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.66%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.26%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 45 (5.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.53%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.40%) iTrent
3 3 (0.40%) Kondor
3 3 (0.40%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.40%) SAP Payroll
3 3 (0.40%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.26%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.26%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.26%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.26%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.13%) Finacle
5 1 (0.13%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
5 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 136 (18.01%) Azure
2 106 (14.04%) AWS
3 74 (9.80%) Microsoft 365
4 48 (6.36%) GCP
5 43 (5.70%) GitHub
5 43 (5.70%) Power Platform
6 32 (4.24%) OpenShift
7 25 (3.31%) Entra ID
8 22 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (2.65%) Serverless
10 19 (2.52%) SaaS
11 14 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (1.85%) Google Workspace
12 11 (1.46%) Dynamics 365
13 10 (1.32%) OneDrive
13 10 (1.32%) Power Automate
14 9 (1.19%) Amazon S3
14 9 (1.19%) Apigee
14 9 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 40 (5.30%) Firewall
2 30 (3.97%) DNS
3 28 (3.71%) Network Security
4 16 (2.12%) TCP/IP
5 14 (1.85%) LAN
5 14 (1.85%) WAN
6 11 (1.46%) DHCP
7 8 (1.06%) BGP
7 8 (1.06%) WebEx
7 8 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.93%) Skype
8 7 (0.93%) VLAN
9 6 (0.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 6 (0.79%) Kerberos
9 6 (0.79%) Software-Defined Networking
9 6 (0.79%) VPN
10 5 (0.66%) DMZ
10 5 (0.66%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 5 (0.66%) HTTP
11 4 (0.53%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (4.37%) Power BI
2 29 (3.84%) MongoDB
2 29 (3.84%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (2.52%) SQL Server
4 16 (2.12%) Relational Database
5 14 (1.85%) NoSQL
6 12 (1.59%) Power Query
7 11 (1.46%) Data Warehouse
8 10 (1.32%) MySQL
9 9 (1.19%) DynamoDB
10 8 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 8 (1.06%) PowerPivot
11 6 (0.79%) BigQuery
11 6 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 5 (0.66%) Data Lake
12 5 (0.66%) DB2
12 5 (0.66%) Metadata
12 5 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.53%) GIS
13 4 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 106 (14.04%) JIRA
2 49 (6.49%) Jenkins
3 40 (5.30%) Git
4 37 (4.90%) GitLab
5 16 (2.12%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.46%) Mockito
7 10 (1.32%) Cucumber
7 10 (1.32%) Selenium
8 9 (1.19%) Postman
9 6 (0.79%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.66%) JMeter
11 4 (0.53%) CircleCI
11 4 (0.53%) JUnit
11 4 (0.53%) Oracle Forms
12 3 (0.40%) Jasmine
12 3 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 2 (0.26%) Gatling
13 2 (0.26%) SoapUI
13 2 (0.26%) SonarQube
13 2 (0.26%) Zephyr
General
1 389 (51.52%) Social Skills
2 271 (35.89%) Analytical Skills
3 214 (28.34%) Finance
4 91 (12.05%) Banking
5 83 (10.99%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.24%) Legal
7 24 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
8 17 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (2.25%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.85%) Manufacturing
10 11 (1.46%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (1.06%) Law
12 8 (1.06%) Military
13 7 (0.93%) Retail
13 7 (0.93%) Retail Banking
14 6 (0.79%) Electronics
14 6 (0.79%) Health Technology
14 6 (0.79%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 124 (16.42%) Analyst
2 121 (16.03%) Developer
3 65 (8.61%) Business Analyst
4 57 (7.55%) Senior
5 48 (6.36%) Lead
6 40 (5.30%) Consultant
7 37 (4.90%) IT Support
7 37 (4.90%) Project Manager
8 29 (3.84%) Administrator
9 27 (3.58%) Architect
10 25 (3.31%) Java Developer
11 23 (3.05%) Data Engineer
12 22 (2.91%) Platform Engineer
12 22 (2.91%) Software Engineer
13 21 (2.78%) Support Analyst
14 20 (2.65%) IT Engineer
15 18 (2.38%) SAP Consultant
15 18 (2.38%) Technical Analyst
16 16 (2.12%) Service Analyst
16 16 (2.12%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (5.70%) REST
2 35 (4.64%) Spring
3 33 (4.37%) Kafka
3 33 (4.37%) Spring Boot
4 29 (3.84%) OpenTelemetry
5 27 (3.58%) JSON
6 26 (3.44%) RESTful
7 22 (2.91%) SOAP
8 19 (2.52%) React
9 18 (2.38%) FastAPI
9 18 (2.38%) XML
10 15 (1.99%) HTML
11 14 (1.85%) .NET
11 14 (1.85%) Swagger
12 13 (1.72%) CSS
12 13 (1.72%) Node.js
12 13 (1.72%) OAuth
13 12 (1.59%) AngularJS
13 12 (1.59%) Elastic Stack
13 12 (1.59%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 66 (8.74%) Product Ownership
2 38 (5.03%) Onboarding
3 27 (3.58%) Cloud Native
4 20 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
5 18 (2.38%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
6 15 (1.99%) Data Structures
6 15 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (1.99%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 14 (1.85%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
9 12 (1.59%) CMDB
10 11 (1.46%) Mainframe
11 10 (1.32%) Algorithms
11 10 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.19%) NHS
13 7 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
13 7 (0.93%) Mobile App
14 6 (0.79%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 88 (11.66%) Windows
2 74 (9.80%) Linux
3 23 (3.05%) Windows 10
3 23 (3.05%) Windows Server
4 22 (2.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (2.91%) Unix
5 12 (1.59%) Android
6 11 (1.46%) Apple iOS
7 8 (1.06%) CentOS
7 8 (1.06%) Mac OS
7 8 (1.06%) Mac OS X
7 8 (1.06%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.40%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (29.01%) Agile
2 163 (21.59%) CI/CD
3 134 (17.75%) Continuous Improvement
4 127 (16.82%) DevOps
5 110 (14.57%) Stakeholder Management
6 93 (12.32%) Project Management
7 89 (11.79%) Migration
8 82 (10.86%) Containerisation
9 77 (10.20%) Change Management
10 69 (9.14%) Test Automation
11 66 (8.74%) Validation
12 65 (8.61%) Decision-Making
12 65 (8.61%) Microservices
13 63 (8.34%) Analytics
14 62 (8.21%) ITIL
15 61 (8.08%) Customer Service
16 59 (7.81%) Mentoring
16 59 (7.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 54 (7.15%) Workshop Facilitation
18 52 (6.89%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 116 (15.36%) Python
2 88 (11.66%) SQL
3 81 (10.73%) Java
4 49 (6.49%) PowerShell
5 41 (5.43%) Bash
6 32 (4.24%) TypeScript
7 27 (3.58%) JavaScript
8 21 (2.78%) Perl
9 18 (2.38%) C#
10 11 (1.46%) Groovy
10 11 (1.46%) VBA
11 10 (1.32%) Go
12 9 (1.19%) CLIST
12 9 (1.19%) COBOL
12 9 (1.19%) JCL
12 9 (1.19%) REXX
12 9 (1.19%) Ruby
13 8 (1.06%) Shell Script
13 8 (1.06%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 97 (12.85%) Security Cleared
2 75 (9.93%) Degree
3 70 (9.27%) SC Cleared
4 41 (5.43%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (4.37%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
7 16 (2.12%) CCNA
8 14 (1.85%) PMP
9 12 (1.59%) CCNP
10 9 (1.19%) A+ Certification
10 9 (1.19%) CCDP
10 9 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (1.06%) AWS Certification
11 8 (1.06%) PMI Certification
11 8 (1.06%) RHCE
12 7 (0.93%) CISSP
12 7 (0.93%) Network+ Certification
12 7 (0.93%) Six Sigma Green Belt
13 5 (0.66%) CBAP
13 5 (0.66%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (6.49%) QA
2 28 (3.71%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.52%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.38%) GDPR
4 18 (2.38%) PSD2
5 14 (1.85%) ISO 20022
6 12 (1.59%) SEPA
7 11 (1.46%) PCI DSS
8 9 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 8 (1.06%) PMO
10 6 (0.79%) HL7
11 5 (0.66%) SLA
12 4 (0.53%) NIST
12 4 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.53%) WCAG
13 3 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.40%) ISO 8583
14 1 (0.13%) HIPAA
14 1 (0.13%) IEC 61508
14 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
System Software
1 79 (10.46%) Docker
2 58 (7.68%) Active Directory
3 20 (2.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.72%) VMware NSX
5 12 (1.59%) vSphere
6 9 (1.19%) ACF2
6 9 (1.19%) RACF
6 9 (1.19%) Time Sharing Option
7 7 (0.93%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.40%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.13%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 98 (12.98%) Kubernetes
2 56 (7.42%) Terraform
3 47 (6.23%) Grafana
4 46 (6.09%) Ansible
5 39 (5.17%) Prometheus
6 27 (3.58%) SCCM
7 24 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
8 18 (2.38%) Control-M
9 17 (2.25%) IBM Guardium
9 17 (2.25%) Nessus
10 10 (1.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (1.32%) Puppet
11 9 (1.19%) CA Endevor
11 9 (1.19%) Tivoli
11 9 (1.19%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 8 (1.06%) Argo
13 6 (0.79%) Norton AntiVirus
13 6 (0.79%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.53%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.53%) Kibana
Vendors
1 161 (21.32%) Microsoft
2 71 (9.40%) SAP
3 42 (5.56%) Oracle
4 35 (4.64%) VMware
5 33 (4.37%) ServiceNow
5 33 (4.37%) Splunk
6 26 (3.44%) Google
6 26 (3.44%) Red Hat
7 17 (2.25%) Tenable
7 17 (2.25%) Workday
8 16 (2.12%) Cisco
9 12 (1.59%) Citrix
9 12 (1.59%) Databricks
9 12 (1.59%) Sonatype
10 11 (1.46%) Sage
11 10 (1.32%) F5
12 9 (1.19%) Adobe
12 9 (1.19%) Veeam
13 8 (1.06%) Brio
13 8 (1.06%) Computacenter