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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 -2 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 727 625 559
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 9.58% 15.34% 13.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.55% 17.27% 16.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 412 364 315
10th Percentile £282 £259 £285
25th Percentile £356 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £550
90th Percentile £638 £650 £613
England median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 59 12
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.83 £13.43
25th Percentile £15.44 £17.30 £26.25
Median hourly rate £19.00 £20.26 £49.14
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -58.78% +108.11%
75th Percentile £40.00 £40.56 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.13 £63.47 £77.63
England median hourly rate £19.48 £18.85 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.34% +16.14% -69.09%

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 6,296 3,618 3,494
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 82.99% 88.81% 84.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,620 2,367 1,927
10th Percentile £310 £256 £300
25th Percentile £406 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £472 £495
Median % change year-on-year +5.93% -4.65% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £569 £575
90th Percentile £675 £675 £663
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 553 207 180
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.13 £13.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.35 £17.15
Median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £35.18
Median % change year-on-year +94.26% -35.67% +27.93%
75th Percentile £69.50 £38.38 £51.91
90th Percentile £77.00 £66.05 £70.00
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -10 360 £450 -1.64% 902
Yorkshire -8 293 £475 -4.04% 659
North East -11 76 £375 -16.67% 304
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 29 (3.99%) SharePoint
2 25 (3.44%) Confluence
3 12 (1.65%) Apache
4 11 (1.51%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.51%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.96%) CMS
5 7 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.83%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.55%) CICS
8 3 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.41%) WebLogic
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%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.28%) WebLogic Portal
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 45 (6.19%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (6.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.38%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.69%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.41%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.28%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.28%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.28%) Revit
8 1 (0.14%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 18 (2.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.38%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.41%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.41%) Teamcenter
3 3 (0.41%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.28%) SAP HCM
4 2 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
4 2 (0.28%) SAP R/3
5 1 (0.14%) CA PPM
5 1 (0.14%) ENOVIA
5 1 (0.14%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 121 (16.64%) Azure
2 100 (13.76%) Microsoft 365
3 97 (13.34%) AWS
4 49 (6.74%) Power Platform
5 44 (6.05%) GCP
6 34 (4.68%) Entra ID
7 30 (4.13%) GitHub
8 21 (2.89%) Serverless
9 20 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (2.20%) OpenShift
11 12 (1.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 11 (1.51%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (1.51%) SaaS
13 10 (1.38%) IaaS
14 9 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 9 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
14 9 (1.24%) OneDrive
14 9 (1.24%) Power Automate
14 9 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 46 (6.33%) VPN
2 42 (5.78%) Firewall
3 31 (4.26%) DNS
4 28 (3.85%) Network Security
5 25 (3.44%) WAN
6 24 (3.30%) LAN
7 21 (2.89%) Wi-Fi
8 18 (2.48%) Wireless
9 16 (2.20%) VoIP
10 15 (2.06%) DHCP
10 15 (2.06%) VLAN
11 14 (1.93%) TCP/IP
12 11 (1.51%) Cisco Nexus
13 10 (1.38%) BGP
13 10 (1.38%) BIG-IP
13 10 (1.38%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 10 (1.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 10 (1.38%) OSPF
14 9 (1.24%) WLAN
15 8 (1.10%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.68%) Power BI
2 27 (3.71%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (2.61%) MongoDB
5 15 (2.06%) Relational Database
6 11 (1.51%) Db2
7 10 (1.38%) Tableau
8 9 (1.24%) Metadata
8 9 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (1.10%) Big Data
9 8 (1.10%) DataStage
10 6 (0.83%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.83%) NoSQL
10 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
11 5 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
11 5 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (0.69%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.69%) Neo4j
12 4 (0.55%) MySQL
12 4 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 55 (7.57%) JIRA
2 38 (5.23%) Git
3 34 (4.68%) Jenkins
4 22 (3.03%) 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%) LoadRunner
10 3 (0.41%) Serenity BDD
10 3 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.28%) Burp Suite
11 2 (0.28%) Postman
11 2 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 374 (51.44%) Social Skills
2 294 (40.44%) Analytical Skills
3 158 (21.73%) Finance
4 77 (10.59%) Banking
5 57 (7.84%) Public Sector
6 46 (6.33%) Manufacturing
7 39 (5.36%) Organisational Skills
8 28 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
9 26 (3.58%) Legal
10 21 (2.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 20 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (1.79%) Retail
13 12 (1.65%) Law
13 12 (1.65%) Telecoms
14 11 (1.51%) Marketing
15 10 (1.38%) Automotive
15 10 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (1.24%) Aerospace
16 9 (1.24%) Financial Institution
17 6 (0.83%) Police
Job Titles
1 98 (13.48%) Analyst
2 86 (11.83%) Developer
3 68 (9.35%) Senior
4 59 (8.12%) Lead
5 47 (6.46%) IT Support
6 35 (4.81%) Support Engineer
7 32 (4.40%) Architect
8 26 (3.58%) IT Engineer
9 25 (3.44%) Network Engineer
10 23 (3.16%) Administrator
10 23 (3.16%) Business Analyst
11 22 (3.03%) Consultant
11 22 (3.03%) IT Support Engineer
12 19 (2.61%) Data Engineer
13 18 (2.48%) DevOps Engineer
13 18 (2.48%) Java Developer
14 17 (2.34%) Data Analyst
14 17 (2.34%) Python Developer
14 17 (2.34%) Service Analyst
15 16 (2.20%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (7.57%) Terraform
2 44 (6.05%) REST
3 25 (3.44%) Kafka
3 25 (3.44%) Spring
4 21 (2.89%) Node.js
4 21 (2.89%) Spring Boot
5 17 (2.34%) HTML
6 16 (2.20%) React
7 14 (1.93%) CSS
7 14 (1.93%) Playwright
8 11 (1.51%) .NET
8 11 (1.51%) OpenTelemetry
9 10 (1.38%) Web Services
10 9 (1.24%) JSON
10 9 (1.24%) RESTful
11 8 (1.10%) FastAPI
11 8 (1.10%) SOAP
11 8 (1.10%) XML
12 7 (0.96%) Middleware
12 7 (0.96%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 59 (8.12%) Cloud Native
2 45 (6.19%) Product Ownership
3 43 (5.91%) Onboarding
4 35 (4.81%) Data Centre
5 34 (4.68%) Self-Motivation
6 32 (4.40%) Enterprise Software
7 31 (4.26%) Data Protection Act
8 27 (3.71%) Driving Licence
9 23 (3.16%) Distributed Systems
10 20 (2.75%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (2.34%) Management Information System
11 17 (2.34%) PKI
12 15 (2.06%) Data Structures
13 14 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (1.79%) NHS
14 13 (1.79%) Public Cloud
15 11 (1.51%) AI Agents
15 11 (1.51%) Mainframe
16 9 (1.24%) CMDB
16 9 (1.24%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 126 (17.33%) Windows
2 33 (4.54%) Linux
2 33 (4.54%) Windows 10
3 26 (3.58%) Windows Server
4 25 (3.44%) Apple iOS
5 20 (2.75%) Android
6 15 (2.06%) Unix
7 11 (1.51%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.83%) Solaris
9 4 (0.55%) zOS
10 2 (0.28%) AIX
10 2 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.28%) HPUX
10 2 (0.28%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.28%) SUSE
10 2 (0.28%) VMS
11 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 178 (24.48%) Continuous Improvement
2 171 (23.52%) Agile
3 153 (21.05%) CI/CD
4 141 (19.39%) Stakeholder Management
5 109 (14.99%) DevOps
6 90 (12.38%) AI
7 82 (11.28%) Customer Service
8 76 (10.45%) ITIL
9 72 (9.90%) Test Automation
10 70 (9.63%) Migration
11 62 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 61 (8.39%) Analytics
12 61 (8.39%) Infrastructure as Code
13 60 (8.25%) Observability
13 60 (8.25%) Software Engineering
14 59 (8.12%) Decision-Making
15 57 (7.84%) Data Protection
15 57 (7.84%) Validation
16 56 (7.70%) Change Management
17 54 (7.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 115 (15.82%) Python
2 100 (13.76%) SQL
3 57 (7.84%) Java
4 54 (7.43%) PowerShell
5 26 (3.58%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.06%) Bash
7 12 (1.65%) TypeScript
8 10 (1.38%) C#
9 9 (1.24%) PL/SQL
9 9 (1.24%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.96%) ActionScript
10 7 (0.96%) R
11 6 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 6 (0.83%) COBOL
11 6 (0.83%) Go
12 5 (0.69%) ABAP
12 5 (0.69%) Kotlin
12 5 (0.69%) PHP
13 4 (0.55%) Bicep
13 4 (0.55%) JCL
Qualifications
1 111 (15.27%) Security Cleared
2 87 (11.97%) SC Cleared
3 62 (8.53%) Degree
4 29 (3.99%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (2.61%) CISSP
6 19 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
7 18 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.79%) CCNP
9 11 (1.51%) PMI Certification
9 11 (1.51%) PMP
10 10 (1.38%) AWS Certification
10 10 (1.38%) HNC
11 9 (1.24%) A+ Certification
12 8 (1.10%) Network+ Certification
13 7 (0.96%) Azure Certification
13 7 (0.96%) CISM
14 6 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
14 6 (0.83%) HND
14 6 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (7.29%) Data Quality
2 29 (3.99%) QA
3 23 (3.16%) Accessibility
4 20 (2.75%) SLA
5 12 (1.65%) GDPR
6 10 (1.38%) NIST
7 9 (1.24%) GRC
8 8 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.96%) PMO
10 6 (0.83%) WCAG
11 5 (0.69%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.41%) NCSC
13 2 (0.28%) COSHH
13 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.28%) IEC 61508
13 2 (0.28%) MiFID
14 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
14 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
14 1 (0.14%) HL7
System Software
1 75 (10.32%) Active Directory
2 50 (6.88%) Docker
3 31 (4.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.79%) Hyper-V
5 11 (1.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (1.38%) vSphere
7 7 (0.96%) Firmware
8 6 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.69%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 5 (0.69%) XenApp
9 5 (0.69%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.55%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.55%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.28%) KVM
11 2 (0.28%) NFS
11 2 (0.28%) SRDF
12 1 (0.14%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 62 (8.53%) Kubernetes
2 27 (3.71%) Grafana
2 27 (3.71%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (3.58%) Prometheus
4 23 (3.16%) SCCM
5 21 (2.89%) 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%) FortiGate
10 4 (0.55%) Kustomize
10 4 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.55%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.41%) CA Endevor
11 3 (0.41%) Istio
11 3 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
11 3 (0.41%) VxRail
11 3 (0.41%) WMI
Vendors
1 184 (25.31%) Microsoft
2 59 (8.12%) ServiceNow
3 42 (5.78%) SAP
4 37 (5.09%) Oracle
5 33 (4.54%) VMware
6 31 (4.26%) Cisco
7 22 (3.03%) Google
8 19 (2.61%) Splunk
9 17 (2.34%) F5
10 13 (1.79%) IBM
10 13 (1.79%) Palo Alto
10 13 (1.79%) Salesforce
10 13 (1.79%) Workday
11 11 (1.51%) Concur
11 11 (1.51%) Fortinet
12 10 (1.38%) Apple
12 10 (1.38%) Dell
12 10 (1.38%) Red Hat
12 10 (1.38%) Remedy
12 10 (1.38%) Tenable