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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 7 4 10
Rank change year-on-year -3 +6 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 689 528 530
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 14.32% 14.90% 11.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.25% 17.15% 12.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 450 305 304
10th Percentile £213 £210 £216
25th Percentile £352 £358 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.89% -5.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £582
90th Percentile £618 £625 £684
England median daily rate £488 £500 £506
% change year-on-year -2.50% -1.19% -6.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 22 24
10th Percentile £15.18 £12.17 -
25th Percentile £17.30 £16.19 £16.25
Median hourly rate £20.04 £25.43 £21.56
Median % change year-on-year -21.20% +17.98% -4.20%
75th Percentile £44.94 £40.38 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.33 £90.52 £52.35
England median hourly rate £18.96 £21.23 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.69% -39.34% +14.30%

All Process and 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 4,241 3,078 4,123
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 88.17% 86.88% 88.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,817 1,756 2,729
10th Percentile £220 £263 £293
25th Percentile £363 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 149 203
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.18 £15.54
25th Percentile £19.75 £17.25 £17.75
Median hourly rate £29.60 £27.50 £30.05
Median % change year-on-year +7.64% -8.49% +33.56%
75th Percentile £54.38 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.25 £67.64 £62.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +23.09%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 -1 358 £450 -2.70% 900
Yorkshire -6 281 £480 -4.00% 745
North East -3 57 £450 -18.18% 168
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 40 (5.81%) SharePoint
2 32 (4.64%) Confluence
2 32 (4.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.31%) Apache
4 7 (1.02%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (1.02%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.87%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.29%) CMS
8 2 (0.29%) JBoss
8 2 (0.29%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.15%) CICS
9 1 (0.15%) EPiServer
9 1 (0.15%) Moodle
9 1 (0.15%) Mule
9 1 (0.15%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.15%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.15%) SAS
9 1 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 48 (6.97%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (6.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (2.32%) MS Visio
5 9 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.44%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 33 (4.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.58%) ContrOCC
3 4 (0.58%) SAP EHS
3 4 (0.58%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.44%) iTrent
4 3 (0.44%) Kondor
4 3 (0.44%) Maximo
4 3 (0.44%) SAP SCM
5 2 (0.29%) Advent Geneva
5 2 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.29%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.15%) Finacle
6 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.15%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
6 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 122 (17.71%) Azure
2 107 (15.53%) AWS
3 67 (9.72%) Microsoft 365
4 53 (7.69%) GCP
5 39 (5.66%) Power Platform
6 34 (4.93%) GitHub
7 23 (3.34%) Serverless
8 21 (3.05%) SaaS
9 19 (2.76%) OpenShift
10 16 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (2.32%) Entra ID
11 14 (2.03%) Amazon ECS
11 14 (2.03%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (2.03%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (2.03%) Google Workspace
12 10 (1.45%) Amazon S3
12 10 (1.45%) Amazon SQS
12 10 (1.45%) Apigee
12 10 (1.45%) Datadog
12 10 (1.45%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 33 (4.79%) Firewall
2 27 (3.92%) Network Security
3 18 (2.61%) DNS
4 12 (1.74%) LAN
4 12 (1.74%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.74%) WAN
5 8 (1.16%) BGP
5 8 (1.16%) VLAN
6 7 (1.02%) Skype
6 7 (1.02%) WebEx
7 6 (0.87%) Software-Defined Networking
7 6 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.73%) DHCP
8 5 (0.73%) DMZ
8 5 (0.73%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 5 (0.73%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 5 (0.73%) HTTP
9 4 (0.58%) SAN
10 3 (0.44%) Internet
10 3 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.35%) Power BI
2 28 (4.06%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (3.05%) SQL Server
4 20 (2.90%) Relational Database
5 19 (2.76%) MongoDB
6 18 (2.61%) NoSQL
7 16 (2.32%) Oracle Database
8 15 (2.18%) DynamoDB
9 13 (1.89%) MySQL
10 12 (1.74%) BigQuery
10 12 (1.74%) Power Query
11 10 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (1.16%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
13 7 (1.02%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (1.02%) PowerPivot
14 6 (0.87%) RDBMS
14 6 (0.87%) Redis
15 5 (0.73%) DB2
16 4 (0.58%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 84 (12.19%) JIRA
2 56 (8.13%) Git
3 44 (6.39%) Jenkins
4 31 (4.50%) GitLab
5 10 (1.45%) Cucumber
5 10 (1.45%) Postman
6 9 (1.31%) Selenium
7 7 (1.02%) Cypress.io
7 7 (1.02%) Maven
7 7 (1.02%) SoapUI
7 7 (1.02%) SonarQube
7 7 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.87%) Gradle
9 5 (0.73%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.58%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.58%) Mockito
10 4 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
10 4 (0.58%) TestRail
11 3 (0.44%) JMeter
11 3 (0.44%) JUnit
General
1 376 (54.57%) Social Skills
2 225 (32.66%) Analytical Skills
3 187 (27.14%) Finance
4 80 (11.61%) Public Sector
5 78 (11.32%) Banking
6 25 (3.63%) Legal
7 14 (2.03%) Manufacturing
8 13 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 13 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
9 12 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (1.74%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.16%) Law
10 8 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.02%) Local Government
11 7 (1.02%) Military
12 6 (0.87%) Electronics
12 6 (0.87%) Health Technology
12 6 (0.87%) Marketing
12 6 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 108 (15.67%) Analyst
2 106 (15.38%) Developer
3 48 (6.97%) Senior
4 44 (6.39%) Business Analyst
5 37 (5.37%) Lead
6 35 (5.08%) Consultant
7 34 (4.93%) IT Support
8 31 (4.50%) Administrator
9 30 (4.35%) Project Manager
10 29 (4.21%) Architect
11 22 (3.19%) Java Developer
12 21 (3.05%) Automation Engineer
13 20 (2.90%) Software Engineer
14 19 (2.76%) IT Engineer
14 19 (2.76%) Support Analyst
14 19 (2.76%) Support Engineer
15 18 (2.61%) Platform Engineer
16 17 (2.47%) Data Engineer
17 15 (2.18%) IT Support Engineer
18 14 (2.03%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (5.37%) Spring Boot
2 35 (5.08%) Spring
3 30 (4.35%) REST
4 22 (3.19%) RESTful
5 21 (3.05%) Kafka
6 20 (2.90%) FastAPI
7 18 (2.61%) .NET
8 17 (2.47%) React
9 15 (2.18%) Node.js
10 14 (2.03%) HTML
10 14 (2.03%) JSON
11 13 (1.89%) XML
12 12 (1.74%) AngularJS
12 12 (1.74%) Elastic Stack
13 11 (1.60%) CSS
13 11 (1.60%) OAuth
13 11 (1.60%) SOAP
14 10 (1.45%) JMS
14 10 (1.45%) JWT
14 10 (1.45%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 57 (8.27%) Product Ownership
2 28 (4.06%) Onboarding
3 24 (3.48%) Cloud Native
4 19 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
5 17 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
6 16 (2.32%) Data Structures
6 16 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (2.18%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.89%) Data Centre
8 13 (1.89%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 11 (1.60%) CMDB
10 10 (1.45%) Algorithms
11 9 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (1.31%) NHS
12 8 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.16%) Mainframe
13 7 (1.02%) Mobile App
13 7 (1.02%) Public Cloud
14 6 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 81 (11.76%) Windows
2 70 (10.16%) Linux
3 21 (3.05%) Windows 10
4 19 (2.76%) Windows Server
5 17 (2.47%) Unix
6 15 (2.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.74%) Android
8 10 (1.45%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.87%) Mac OS X
10 5 (0.73%) VMS
11 4 (0.58%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.44%) CentOS
12 3 (0.44%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 199 (28.88%) Agile
2 134 (19.45%) CI/CD
3 111 (16.11%) Continuous Improvement
4 109 (15.82%) DevOps
5 100 (14.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 70 (10.16%) Containerisation
7 68 (9.87%) Project Management
7 68 (9.87%) Test Automation
8 62 (9.00%) Decision-Making
9 59 (8.56%) Microservices
10 56 (8.13%) Mentoring
11 55 (7.98%) Migration
12 53 (7.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 52 (7.55%) Analytics
13 52 (7.55%) Change Management
14 49 (7.11%) Business Intelligence
14 49 (7.11%) SDLC
15 48 (6.97%) Scrum
16 47 (6.82%) AI
16 47 (6.82%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 111 (16.11%) Python
2 79 (11.47%) Java
3 75 (10.89%) SQL
4 39 (5.66%) PowerShell
5 36 (5.22%) Bash
6 25 (3.63%) JavaScript
6 25 (3.63%) TypeScript
7 21 (3.05%) C#
8 20 (2.90%) Shell Script
9 16 (2.32%) Perl
10 10 (1.45%) Go
10 10 (1.45%) VBA
11 9 (1.31%) Groovy
12 8 (1.16%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.87%) CLIST
13 6 (0.87%) COBOL
13 6 (0.87%) JCL
13 6 (0.87%) REXX
14 5 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 5 (0.73%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 88 (12.77%) Security Cleared
2 73 (10.60%) Degree
3 59 (8.56%) SC Cleared
4 34 (4.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (2.32%) CISSP
7 14 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (1.74%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 11 (1.60%) PMP
10 10 (1.45%) CCNA
10 10 (1.45%) CCNP
10 10 (1.45%) CISM
11 9 (1.31%) AWS Certification
11 9 (1.31%) CCDP
12 7 (1.02%) ISTQB
12 7 (1.02%) PMI Certification
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Certification
14 5 (0.73%) DBS Check
15 3 (0.44%) CBAP
15 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (6.24%) QA
2 28 (4.06%) GDPR
3 25 (3.63%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.76%) Accessibility
5 15 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (2.18%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.89%) PSD2
7 12 (1.74%) ISO 20022
8 11 (1.60%) NIST
9 10 (1.45%) SEPA
10 9 (1.31%) SLA
11 7 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.87%) HL7
13 5 (0.73%) PMO
14 4 (0.58%) WCAG
15 2 (0.29%) HIPAA
16 1 (0.15%) IEC 61508
16 1 (0.15%) ISO 26262
16 1 (0.15%) ISO 8583
16 1 (0.15%) PMBOK
System Software
1 73 (10.60%) Docker
2 42 (6.10%) Active Directory
3 12 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.45%) Oracle RAC
5 9 (1.31%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.87%) ACF2
6 6 (0.87%) RACF
6 6 (0.87%) Time Sharing Option
6 6 (0.87%) vSphere
7 4 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.44%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.15%) Firmware
10 1 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 81 (11.76%) Kubernetes
2 45 (6.53%) Terraform
3 39 (5.66%) Ansible
4 30 (4.35%) Grafana
5 24 (3.48%) SCCM
6 23 (3.34%) Prometheus
7 20 (2.90%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.45%) Control-M
8 10 (1.45%) Data Guard
8 10 (1.45%) yum
9 9 (1.31%) IBM Guardium
9 9 (1.31%) Nessus
10 7 (1.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.87%) CA Endevor
11 6 (0.87%) Tivoli
11 6 (0.87%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 5 (0.73%) Norton AntiVirus
12 5 (0.73%) Puppet
13 4 (0.58%) EMC NetWorker
13 4 (0.58%) Kibana
Vendors
1 163 (23.66%) Microsoft
2 63 (9.14%) SAP
3 47 (6.82%) Oracle
4 37 (5.37%) ServiceNow
5 30 (4.35%) Google
6 29 (4.21%) VMware
7 22 (3.19%) Splunk
8 15 (2.18%) Cisco
8 15 (2.18%) Red Hat
9 11 (1.60%) Databricks
10 10 (1.45%) Citrix
10 10 (1.45%) F5
11 9 (1.31%) Tenable
12 8 (1.16%) Brio
12 8 (1.16%) Computacenter
12 8 (1.16%) IFS
13 7 (1.02%) Adobe
13 7 (1.02%) BeyondTrust
13 7 (1.02%) CyberArk
13 7 (1.02%) Workday