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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -11 0 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 719 644 530
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 9.45% 16.26% 12.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.36% 18.26% 15.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 412 370 310
10th Percentile £275 £263 £249
25th Percentile £356 £368 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £550
90th Percentile £600 £644 £622
England median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 57 13
10th Percentile £13.56 £13.81 £21.84
25th Percentile £16.91 £17.30 £26.25
Median hourly rate £19.67 £20.26 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -2.88% -58.29% +76.58%
75th Percentile £40.00 £31.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.70 £63.40 £76.09
England median hourly rate £19.79 £18.85 £16.23
% change year-on-year +4.96% +16.14% -69.42%

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 6,328 3,527 3,478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 83.18% 89.07% 83.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,735 2,276 2,032
10th Percentile £313 £268 £300
25th Percentile £406 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -7.50% -0.08%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £588
90th Percentile £675 £650 £680
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 524 200 182
10th Percentile £14.68 £13.51 £12.67
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.42 £16.59
Median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.26% -35.34% +27.27%
75th Percentile £70.00 £36.19 £51.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.56 £69.98
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -

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 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 13 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 13 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 -9 364 £448 -5.79% 560
Yorkshire -8 288 £450 -6.25% 387
North East -16 69 £375 -16.67% 180
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 (3.76%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.20%) Confluence
3 10 (1.39%) Apache Airflow
3 10 (1.39%) Apache Spark
4 8 (1.11%) Apache
5 7 (0.97%) CMS
5 7 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.83%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.56%) CICS
8 3 (0.42%) WordPress
9 2 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.28%) Camunda
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.14%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.14%) JBoss
10 1 (0.14%) Mule ESB
10 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 40 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (5.42%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (1.25%) MS Visio
5 8 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.56%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.42%) Acrobat
9 2 (0.28%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.28%) CATIA
9 2 (0.28%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.28%) Revit
10 1 (0.14%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 18 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.53%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.42%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.42%) Teamcenter
4 3 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 2 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) Actimize
6 1 (0.14%) CA PPM
6 1 (0.14%) ENOVIA
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.14%) SAP R/3
6 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 126 (17.52%) Azure
2 99 (13.77%) Microsoft 365
3 97 (13.49%) AWS
4 58 (8.07%) Power Platform
5 43 (5.98%) GCP
6 32 (4.45%) Entra ID
7 23 (3.20%) GitHub
8 18 (2.50%) OpenShift
9 17 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
10 15 (2.09%) Serverless
11 14 (1.95%) Microsoft Copilot
12 12 (1.67%) Power Automate
13 10 (1.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 9 (1.25%) OneDrive
14 9 (1.25%) PowerApps
14 9 (1.25%) SaaS
15 8 (1.11%) Copilot Studio
16 7 (0.97%) AWS Lambda
17 6 (0.83%) Google Workspace
17 6 (0.83%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 45 (6.26%) VPN
2 34 (4.73%) Firewall
3 29 (4.03%) DNS
4 24 (3.34%) LAN
4 24 (3.34%) WAN
5 22 (3.06%) Network Security
6 19 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
7 18 (2.50%) Wireless
8 15 (2.09%) DHCP
8 15 (2.09%) VLAN
9 14 (1.95%) TCP/IP
9 14 (1.95%) VoIP
10 11 (1.53%) Cisco Nexus
11 10 (1.39%) BGP
11 10 (1.39%) OSPF
12 9 (1.25%) WLAN
13 8 (1.11%) Cisco ASA
14 7 (0.97%) IPsec
14 7 (0.97%) SAN
15 6 (0.83%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (5.98%) Power BI
2 32 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 25 (3.48%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (2.64%) MongoDB
5 15 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 13 (1.81%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (1.81%) Tableau
7 11 (1.53%) Db2
8 10 (1.39%) Metadata
9 9 (1.25%) NoSQL
10 8 (1.11%) Big Data
10 8 (1.11%) DataStage
10 8 (1.11%) MySQL
11 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
12 5 (0.70%) Neo4j
13 4 (0.56%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.56%) Power Query
14 3 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
14 3 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
14 3 (0.42%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 60 (8.34%) JIRA
2 36 (5.01%) Git
3 31 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 21 (2.92%) GitLab
5 8 (1.11%) REST Assured
5 8 (1.11%) Selenium
6 7 (0.97%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.83%) Gatling
8 5 (0.70%) Maven
9 4 (0.56%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.56%) Gradle
9 4 (0.56%) MSI
10 3 (0.42%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.42%) JUnit
10 3 (0.42%) LoadRunner
10 3 (0.42%) Serenity BDD
10 3 (0.42%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.28%) Ant
11 2 (0.28%) Postman
General
1 360 (50.07%) Social Skills
2 291 (40.47%) Analytical Skills
3 169 (23.50%) Finance
4 84 (11.68%) Banking
5 60 (8.34%) Public Sector
6 41 (5.70%) Manufacturing
7 36 (5.01%) Organisational Skills
8 30 (4.17%) Legal
9 29 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
10 20 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
11 19 (2.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (2.23%) Law
12 16 (2.23%) Retail
13 10 (1.39%) Automotive
14 9 (1.25%) Aerospace
14 9 (1.25%) Financial Institution
14 9 (1.25%) Telecoms
15 8 (1.11%) Marketing
15 8 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.83%) Police
Job Titles
1 115 (15.99%) Analyst
2 84 (11.68%) Developer
3 58 (8.07%) Senior
4 53 (7.37%) Lead
5 49 (6.82%) IT Support
6 39 (5.42%) Architect
7 35 (4.87%) Support Engineer
8 27 (3.76%) IT Engineer
9 25 (3.48%) Business Analyst
10 24 (3.34%) Administrator
11 23 (3.20%) Java Developer
12 22 (3.06%) Consultant
12 22 (3.06%) IT Support Engineer
12 22 (3.06%) Network Engineer
13 21 (2.92%) Data Analyst
14 18 (2.50%) IT Analyst
14 18 (2.50%) Service Analyst
14 18 (2.50%) Support Analyst
15 17 (2.36%) Data Engineer
15 17 (2.36%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (6.82%) Terraform
2 41 (5.70%) REST
3 30 (4.17%) Spring
4 26 (3.62%) Kafka
5 25 (3.48%) Spring Boot
6 20 (2.78%) React
7 19 (2.64%) HTML
8 17 (2.36%) CSS
8 17 (2.36%) Node.js
9 14 (1.95%) Playwright
10 13 (1.81%) .NET
10 13 (1.81%) RESTful
11 12 (1.67%) OAuth
11 12 (1.67%) OpenTelemetry
12 9 (1.25%) FastAPI
12 9 (1.25%) SOAP
12 9 (1.25%) XML
13 8 (1.11%) AngularJS
13 8 (1.11%) Web Services
14 7 (0.97%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.95%) Product Ownership
2 47 (6.54%) Cloud Native
3 37 (5.15%) Onboarding
4 33 (4.59%) Data Protection Act
5 29 (4.03%) Enterprise Software
6 28 (3.89%) Data Centre
6 28 (3.89%) Self-Motivation
7 25 (3.48%) Driving Licence
8 21 (2.92%) Analytical Mindset
9 20 (2.78%) Data Structures
10 19 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
11 16 (2.23%) Management Information System
11 16 (2.23%) PKI
12 15 (2.09%) Mainframe
13 13 (1.81%) AI Agents
13 13 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
14 12 (1.67%) NHS
15 10 (1.39%) CMDB
15 10 (1.39%) Mobile App
15 10 (1.39%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 125 (17.39%) Windows
2 34 (4.73%) Linux
3 31 (4.31%) Windows 10
4 25 (3.48%) Windows Server
5 23 (3.20%) Apple iOS
6 20 (2.78%) Android
7 15 (2.09%) Unix
8 13 (1.81%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.70%) Solaris
10 4 (0.56%) zOS
11 3 (0.42%) 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
13 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.14%) VMS
13 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (24.62%) Continuous Improvement
2 160 (22.25%) Agile
3 142 (19.75%) CI/CD
4 131 (18.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 111 (15.44%) DevOps
6 85 (11.82%) Customer Service
7 84 (11.68%) AI
8 78 (10.85%) ITIL
9 72 (10.01%) Migration
10 63 (8.76%) Data Protection
10 63 (8.76%) Test Automation
11 62 (8.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 61 (8.48%) Analytics
13 57 (7.93%) Microservices
13 57 (7.93%) Validation
14 55 (7.65%) Change Management
14 55 (7.65%) Decision-Making
15 50 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
15 50 (6.95%) Project Management
15 50 (6.95%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 106 (14.74%) Python
1 106 (14.74%) SQL
2 58 (8.07%) Java
3 51 (7.09%) PowerShell
4 23 (3.20%) JavaScript
5 19 (2.64%) Bash
6 11 (1.53%) C#
6 11 (1.53%) PL/SQL
7 9 (1.25%) Shell Script
7 9 (1.25%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.11%) R
9 7 (0.97%) T-SQL
10 6 (0.83%) Apex Code
10 6 (0.83%) COBOL
11 5 (0.70%) ABAP
11 5 (0.70%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.56%) Bicep
12 4 (0.56%) Go
12 4 (0.56%) JCL
12 4 (0.56%) Scala
Qualifications
1 101 (14.05%) Security Cleared
2 75 (10.43%) SC Cleared
3 65 (9.04%) Degree
4 29 (4.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (3.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (3.20%) Microsoft Certification
7 20 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (2.50%) CISSP
9 13 (1.81%) CCNP
10 11 (1.53%) A+ Certification
10 11 (1.53%) PMP
11 10 (1.39%) Network+ Certification
11 10 (1.39%) PMI Certification
12 9 (1.25%) AWS Certification
13 8 (1.11%) CompTIA Security+
13 8 (1.11%) HNC
14 7 (0.97%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.97%) CEH
15 6 (0.83%) OCP
15 6 (0.83%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (7.65%) Data Quality
2 27 (3.76%) Accessibility
2 27 (3.76%) QA
3 23 (3.20%) SLA
4 14 (1.95%) GRC
5 13 (1.81%) NIST
6 12 (1.67%) GDPR
7 11 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.97%) PMO
9 6 (0.83%) WCAG
10 4 (0.56%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.28%) COSHH
12 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.28%) MiFID
13 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.14%) PSD2
System Software
1 75 (10.43%) Active Directory
2 52 (7.23%) Docker
3 28 (3.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.67%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.25%) vSphere
6 8 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (1.11%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.83%) Firmware
9 4 (0.56%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 4 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.56%) XenApp
9 4 (0.56%) XenDesktop
10 2 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 2 (0.28%) KVM
10 2 (0.28%) NFS
10 2 (0.28%) SRDF
10 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.14%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 59 (8.21%) Kubernetes
2 27 (3.76%) Ansible
2 27 (3.76%) Grafana
3 24 (3.34%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (3.20%) SCCM
5 22 (3.06%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.11%) Control-M
6 8 (1.11%) vCenter Server
7 7 (0.97%) Argo
7 7 (0.97%) Nessus
8 6 (0.83%) IBM Guardium
9 4 (0.56%) Data Guard
9 4 (0.56%) Kustomize
9 4 (0.56%) McAfee ePO
9 4 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.42%) CA Endevor
10 3 (0.42%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.42%) Istio
10 3 (0.42%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (0.42%) WMI
Vendors
1 179 (24.90%) Microsoft
2 70 (9.74%) ServiceNow
3 50 (6.95%) SAP
4 40 (5.56%) Oracle
5 30 (4.17%) Cisco
6 29 (4.03%) VMware
7 24 (3.34%) Splunk
8 20 (2.78%) Google
9 13 (1.81%) IBM
9 13 (1.81%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.81%) Workday
10 12 (1.67%) F5
10 12 (1.67%) Palo Alto
11 11 (1.53%) Concur
11 11 (1.53%) Remedy
12 9 (1.25%) Red Hat
13 8 (1.11%) Apple
13 8 (1.11%) CheckPoint
13 8 (1.11%) Dell
13 8 (1.11%) Fortinet