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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 2 6
Rank change year-on-year -10 +4 +10
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 722 673 632
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 10.50% 19.10% 13.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.45% 21.24% 15.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 417 390 353
10th Percentile £294 £257 £277
25th Percentile £359 £371 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% -1.04% -8.57%
75th Percentile £538 £565 £550
90th Percentile £617 £657 £638
England median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 62 69
10th Percentile £15.39 £12.27 -
25th Percentile £17.16 £17.99 £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 £42.04 £28.75
90th Percentile £116.45 £63.40 £62.50
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.25 £16.23
% change year-on-year +0.47% +30.93% -68.49%

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 5,801 3,169 4,071
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 84.40% 89.95% 83.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,476 2,048 2,421
10th Percentile £313 £279 £300
25th Percentile £400 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.30% -7.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £550 £585
90th Percentile £675 £646 £663
England median daily rate £520 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 420 173 386
10th Percentile £16.62 £12.82 £11.07
25th Percentile £22.67 £17.44 £12.55
Median hourly rate £45.97 £25.08 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +83.31% +13.98% -2.35%
75th Percentile £71.60 £50.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £80.10 £77.25 £63.75
England median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +88.87% -34.02% +8.48%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -11 352 £441 -7.11% 316
Yorkshire -6 326 £450 -5.26% 186
North East -13 50 £366 -18.61% 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 41 (5.68%) Confluence
2 21 (2.91%) Apache Spark
3 15 (2.08%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (1.11%) Apache
5 8 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.83%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.42%) 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 (4.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (3.19%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.39%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.55%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.42%) CATIA
7 2 (0.28%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 40 (5.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.42%) 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
1 119 (16.48%) Azure
2 90 (12.47%) AWS
3 52 (7.20%) Microsoft 365
4 49 (6.79%) Power Platform
5 42 (5.82%) GCP
6 39 (5.40%) OpenShift
7 37 (5.12%) GitHub
8 24 (3.32%) Entra ID
9 15 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (1.80%) SaaS
11 12 (1.66%) Serverless
12 11 (1.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (1.25%) Microsoft Copilot
14 8 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (1.11%) Power Automate
15 7 (0.97%) Azure Monitor
15 7 (0.97%) Azure Storage
15 7 (0.97%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.83%) Apigee
16 6 (0.83%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 28 (3.88%) DNS
2 24 (3.32%) Firewall
3 17 (2.35%) WAN
4 15 (2.08%) VPN
5 14 (1.94%) LAN
5 14 (1.94%) Network Security
6 12 (1.66%) TCP/IP
7 11 (1.52%) SAN
7 11 (1.52%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (1.39%) VLAN
9 8 (1.11%) DHCP
9 8 (1.11%) Wireless
10 7 (0.97%) 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 (0.42%) BGP
13 3 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 3 (0.42%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (5.54%) Power BI
2 30 (4.16%) MongoDB
3 29 (4.02%) SQL Server
4 21 (2.91%) PostgreSQL
5 19 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
6 15 (2.08%) Relational Database
7 13 (1.80%) NoSQL
7 13 (1.80%) Tableau
8 12 (1.66%) Big Data
9 11 (1.52%) Hadoop
10 9 (1.25%) Metadata
10 9 (1.25%) MySQL
11 7 (0.97%) Db2
11 7 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 5 (0.69%) DataStage
12 5 (0.69%) Power Query
12 5 (0.69%) Snowflake Schema
13 4 (0.55%) Data Vault
13 4 (0.55%) Neo4j
13 4 (0.55%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 106 (14.68%) JIRA
2 42 (5.82%) Jenkins
3 33 (4.57%) Git
4 27 (3.74%) GitLab
5 14 (1.94%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.52%) Mockito
6 11 (1.52%) Selenium
7 9 (1.25%) Postman
8 8 (1.11%) REST Assured
9 6 (0.83%) Cucumber
9 6 (0.83%) JUnit
10 5 (0.69%) Gatling
11 3 (0.42%) Cypress.io
11 3 (0.42%) Gradle
11 3 (0.42%) MSI
11 3 (0.42%) Serenity BDD
12 2 (0.28%) Burp Suite
12 2 (0.28%) JMeter
12 2 (0.28%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
General
1 349 (48.34%) Social Skills
2 307 (42.52%) Analytical Skills
3 215 (29.78%) Finance
4 83 (11.50%) Banking
5 54 (7.48%) Public Sector
6 36 (4.99%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.60%) Legal
8 25 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
9 23 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
10 16 (2.22%) Retail
11 15 (2.08%) Manufacturing
12 13 (1.80%) Law
13 12 (1.66%) Telecoms
14 8 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.97%) Financial Institution
15 7 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 6 (0.83%) Automotive
17 5 (0.69%) Retail Banking
18 4 (0.55%) Local Government
18 4 (0.55%) Military
Job Titles
1 143 (19.81%) Analyst
2 83 (11.50%) Developer
3 63 (8.73%) Lead
4 49 (6.79%) Business Analyst
5 42 (5.82%) Senior
6 41 (5.68%) Architect
7 33 (4.57%) Consultant
8 28 (3.88%) IT Support
8 28 (3.88%) Project Manager
9 26 (3.60%) Administrator
9 26 (3.60%) Java Developer
10 25 (3.46%) Data Engineer
11 22 (3.05%) Python Developer
12 21 (2.91%) Data Analyst
12 21 (2.91%) DevOps Engineer
13 18 (2.49%) IT Analyst
13 18 (2.49%) IT Engineer
14 17 (2.35%) Support Analyst
14 17 (2.35%) Technical Analyst
15 14 (1.94%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (5.40%) REST
2 36 (4.99%) Kafka
3 32 (4.43%) OpenTelemetry
4 30 (4.16%) Spring
5 25 (3.46%) Spring Boot
6 19 (2.63%) FastAPI
6 19 (2.63%) JSON
7 18 (2.49%) React
7 18 (2.49%) RESTful
8 14 (1.94%) SOAP
8 14 (1.94%) XML
9 12 (1.66%) .NET
9 12 (1.66%) OAuth
9 12 (1.66%) Playwright
10 11 (1.52%) HTML
10 11 (1.52%) LDAP
11 10 (1.39%) CSS
11 10 (1.39%) Swagger
12 9 (1.25%) Node.js
13 8 (1.11%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 59 (8.17%) Product Ownership
2 43 (5.96%) Cloud Native
3 31 (4.29%) Data Protection Act
4 30 (4.16%) Onboarding
5 26 (3.60%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (2.91%) Data Centre
7 20 (2.77%) Analytical Mindset
8 19 (2.63%) Management Information System
9 18 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
10 17 (2.35%) Mainframe
11 14 (1.94%) Driving Licence
12 13 (1.80%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
14 11 (1.52%) Data Structures
14 11 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (1.52%) Virtual Team
15 9 (1.25%) Mobile App
16 8 (1.11%) Public Cloud
16 8 (1.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 72 (9.97%) Windows
2 44 (6.09%) Linux
3 23 (3.19%) Windows 10
4 16 (2.22%) Apple iOS
4 16 (2.22%) Unix
5 13 (1.80%) Mac OS
6 11 (1.52%) Android
7 10 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (1.39%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.83%) Mac OS X
8 6 (0.83%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.69%) CentOS
9 5 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.42%) zOS
11 2 (0.28%) AIX
11 2 (0.28%) HPUX
11 2 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.28%) Solaris
11 2 (0.28%) SUSE
11 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (26.87%) Agile
2 153 (21.19%) CI/CD
3 144 (19.94%) Continuous Improvement
4 137 (18.98%) DevOps
5 105 (14.54%) Migration
5 105 (14.54%) Stakeholder Management
6 82 (11.36%) Change Management
6 82 (11.36%) Project Management
7 74 (10.25%) Analytics
8 71 (9.83%) Validation
9 69 (9.56%) ITIL
10 68 (9.42%) Test Automation
11 63 (8.73%) ERP
12 62 (8.59%) Containerisation
12 62 (8.59%) Customer Service
13 61 (8.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 59 (8.17%) AI
15 58 (8.03%) Decision-Making
16 54 (7.48%) Microservices
16 54 (7.48%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 129 (17.87%) Python
2 99 (13.71%) SQL
3 59 (8.17%) Java
4 55 (7.62%) PowerShell
5 31 (4.29%) Bash
6 22 (3.05%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.80%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.25%) C#
8 9 (1.25%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.25%) R
9 8 (1.11%) COBOL
10 7 (0.97%) Bicep
10 7 (0.97%) JCL
11 6 (0.83%) Kotlin
11 6 (0.83%) Perl
11 6 (0.83%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.83%) VBA
12 5 (0.69%) Go
12 5 (0.69%) Ruby
12 5 (0.69%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 81 (11.22%) Security Cleared
2 72 (9.97%) Degree
3 56 (7.76%) SC Cleared
4 42 (5.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 29 (4.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (3.74%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (2.35%) A+ Certification
9 16 (2.22%) CISSP
9 16 (2.22%) Network+ Certification
9 16 (2.22%) PMP
10 15 (2.08%) CCNA
11 12 (1.66%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.11%) CCNP
12 8 (1.11%) CompTIA Security+
13 7 (0.97%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.97%) Azure Certification
13 7 (0.97%) MCSE
13 7 (0.97%) RHCE
14 6 (0.83%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (5.96%) Data Quality
2 23 (3.19%) QA
3 15 (2.08%) GDPR
4 14 (1.94%) Accessibility
5 11 (1.52%) PMO
6 10 (1.39%) GRC
6 10 (1.39%) SLA
7 9 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (1.25%) NIST
8 7 (0.97%) 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 (0.42%) ISO 8583
12 3 (0.42%) 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%) MiFID
System Software
1 60 (8.31%) Docker
2 51 (7.06%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.35%) vSphere
5 14 (1.94%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.97%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.83%) Firmware
9 4 (0.55%) ACF2
9 4 (0.55%) RACF
9 4 (0.55%) Time Sharing Option
9 4 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
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%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 79 (10.94%) Kubernetes
2 55 (7.62%) Terraform
3 52 (7.20%) Ansible
4 42 (5.82%) Grafana
5 33 (4.57%) Prometheus
6 16 (2.22%) Control-M
7 15 (2.08%) Argo
7 15 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (2.08%) vCenter Server
8 14 (1.94%) IBM Guardium
8 14 (1.94%) Nessus
9 9 (1.25%) SCCM
10 5 (0.69%) CA Endevor
10 5 (0.69%) Kustomize
10 5 (0.69%) Puppet
11 3 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.42%) Istio
11 3 (0.42%) Tivoli
11 3 (0.42%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 2 (0.28%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 120 (16.62%) Microsoft
2 66 (9.14%) SAP
3 46 (6.37%) ServiceNow
3 46 (6.37%) Splunk
4 31 (4.29%) Oracle
5 29 (4.02%) VMware
6 24 (3.32%) Google
7 23 (3.19%) Red Hat
8 22 (3.05%) Workday
9 18 (2.49%) Cisco
10 15 (2.08%) Pure Storage
10 15 (2.08%) Sage
11 14 (1.94%) Tenable
12 11 (1.52%) Dell
13 10 (1.39%) Concur
14 8 (1.11%) IBM
14 8 (1.11%) Salesforce
14 8 (1.11%) Sonatype
15 7 (0.97%) Apple
15 7 (0.97%) SolarWinds