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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 +9
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 782 635 584
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 12.93% 19.53% 12.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.24% 21.65% 14.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 492 385 333
10th Percentile £231 £227 £213
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £529 £572 £575
90th Percentile £600 £650 £652
England median daily rate £492 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 49 68
10th Percentile £15.49 £15.67 -
25th Percentile £17.09 £21.24 £10.95
Median hourly rate £41.86 £25.43 £11.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.59% +121.13% -58.18%
75th Percentile £74.26 £30.63 £21.08
90th Percentile £85.30 £57.93 £47.90
England median hourly rate £22.80 £22.14 £17.50
% change year-on-year +2.97% +26.51% -60.10%

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 5,132 2,933 4,079
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 84.83% 90.22% 85.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,271 1,893 2,519
10th Percentile £300 £263 £285
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £563 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 156 354
10th Percentile £16.75 £14.83 £11.00
25th Percentile £25.15 £18.78 £12.43
Median hourly rate £51.02 £28.75 £17.61
Median % change year-on-year +77.46% +63.26% -35.96%
75th Percentile £70.00 £56.34 £44.07
90th Percentile £77.73 £82.00 £52.52
England median hourly rate £41.94 £31.64 £35.00
% change year-on-year +32.55% -9.60% -6.67%

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 20 April 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 20 April 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 20 April 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 -5 380 £425 -12.82% 344
Yorkshire -5 356 £465 -2.00% 215
North East -2 55 £425 -16.26% 95
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 48 (6.14%) Confluence
2 25 (3.20%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (2.17%) Apache Spark
5 8 (1.02%) Apache
6 3 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.26%) JBoss
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.26%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.26%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.13%) Camunda
8 1 (0.13%) CMS
8 1 (0.13%) Mule
8 1 (0.13%) Mule ESB
8 1 (0.13%) nginx
8 1 (0.13%) SAS
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 38 (4.86%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (4.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.41%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.64%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.38%) CATIA
7 3 (0.38%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.13%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 38 (4.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.51%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.38%) iTrent
3 3 (0.38%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.26%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.26%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.26%) SystmOne
5 1 (0.13%) Actimize
5 1 (0.13%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.13%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.13%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.13%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.13%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.13%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 133 (17.01%) Azure
2 102 (13.04%) AWS
3 63 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
4 51 (6.52%) GCP
4 51 (6.52%) Power Platform
5 50 (6.39%) OpenShift
6 46 (5.88%) GitHub
7 29 (3.71%) Entra ID
8 21 (2.69%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (2.30%) SaaS
10 17 (2.17%) Serverless
11 13 (1.66%) Google Workspace
12 12 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (1.28%) Apigee
13 10 (1.28%) Dynamics 365
14 9 (1.15%) Power Automate
15 8 (1.02%) Azure AKS
15 8 (1.02%) Azure Functions
15 8 (1.02%) Kong
16 7 (0.90%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 43 (5.50%) Firewall
2 38 (4.86%) DNS
3 25 (3.20%) Network Security
4 19 (2.43%) TCP/IP
5 13 (1.66%) WAN
6 12 (1.53%) LAN
6 12 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (1.41%) DHCP
7 11 (1.41%) VLAN
8 10 (1.28%) WebEx
9 8 (1.02%) BGP
9 8 (1.02%) SAN
10 7 (0.90%) Kerberos
10 7 (0.90%) VPN
11 6 (0.77%) HTTP
11 6 (0.77%) Software-Defined Networking
12 5 (0.64%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 4 (0.51%) DMZ
13 4 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 4 (0.51%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (4.86%) Power BI
2 29 (3.71%) MongoDB
3 28 (3.58%) PostgreSQL
4 27 (3.45%) SQL Server
5 20 (2.56%) NoSQL
6 18 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (2.05%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.66%) MySQL
9 12 (1.53%) Power Query
10 11 (1.41%) Hadoop
11 10 (1.28%) Tableau
12 9 (1.15%) Metadata
13 8 (1.02%) PowerPivot
14 7 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 6 (0.77%) Big Data
15 6 (0.77%) BigQuery
16 5 (0.64%) DynamoDB
16 5 (0.64%) Oracle Database
16 5 (0.64%) Snowflake Schema
17 4 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 112 (14.32%) JIRA
2 43 (5.50%) Jenkins
3 36 (4.60%) Git
4 27 (3.45%) GitLab
5 14 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.41%) Mockito
7 9 (1.15%) Postman
8 8 (1.02%) Selenium
9 6 (0.77%) JUnit
10 5 (0.64%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.38%) CircleCI
11 3 (0.38%) Jasmine
11 3 (0.38%) JMeter
11 3 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
12 2 (0.26%) Cypress.io
12 2 (0.26%) Maven
12 2 (0.26%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.26%) SoapUI
12 2 (0.26%) Zephyr
13 1 (0.13%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 389 (49.74%) Social Skills
2 302 (38.62%) Analytical Skills
3 239 (30.56%) Finance
4 87 (11.13%) Banking
5 86 (11.00%) Public Sector
6 35 (4.48%) Legal
7 29 (3.71%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (2.69%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.92%) Law
11 14 (1.79%) Manufacturing
12 13 (1.66%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.53%) Retail
14 9 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.90%) Retail Banking
17 6 (0.77%) Health Technology
17 6 (0.77%) Local Government
18 5 (0.64%) Military
19 3 (0.38%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 140 (17.90%) Analyst
2 112 (14.32%) Developer
3 63 (8.06%) Business Analyst
4 61 (7.80%) Lead
5 53 (6.78%) Senior
6 42 (5.37%) Project Manager
7 34 (4.35%) Consultant
7 34 (4.35%) IT Support
8 33 (4.22%) Administrator
9 32 (4.09%) Architect
10 29 (3.71%) Java Developer
11 26 (3.32%) Data Engineer
12 22 (2.81%) IT Engineer
12 22 (2.81%) Technical Analyst
13 21 (2.69%) Platform Engineer
14 19 (2.43%) Python Developer
15 17 (2.17%) Software Engineer
16 16 (2.05%) SAP Consultant
17 15 (1.92%) Support Engineer
17 15 (1.92%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (4.73%) REST
2 34 (4.35%) Spring
3 33 (4.22%) Kafka
4 32 (4.09%) OpenTelemetry
4 32 (4.09%) Spring Boot
5 30 (3.84%) RESTful
6 24 (3.07%) JSON
7 20 (2.56%) OAuth
7 20 (2.56%) XML
8 19 (2.43%) FastAPI
8 19 (2.43%) React
8 19 (2.43%) SOAP
9 18 (2.30%) .NET
10 17 (2.17%) HTML
11 15 (1.92%) CSS
12 14 (1.79%) Swagger
13 12 (1.53%) AngularJS
13 12 (1.53%) LDAP
13 12 (1.53%) YAML
14 11 (1.41%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 73 (9.34%) Product Ownership
2 33 (4.22%) Onboarding
3 30 (3.84%) Cloud Native
4 25 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
5 21 (2.69%) Data Centre
5 21 (2.69%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
7 18 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (2.05%) Analytical Mindset
8 16 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (1.79%) Mobile App
10 13 (1.66%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.66%) Mainframe
11 10 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
11 10 (1.28%) NHS
11 10 (1.28%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.15%) AI Agents
12 9 (1.15%) CMDB
12 9 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (1.15%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 88 (11.25%) Windows
2 72 (9.21%) Linux
3 25 (3.20%) Windows 10
4 24 (3.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (2.81%) Windows Server
6 18 (2.30%) Android
6 18 (2.30%) Unix
7 17 (2.17%) Apple iOS
8 13 (1.66%) Mac OS
9 8 (1.02%) CentOS
9 8 (1.02%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.77%) Mac OS X
12 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.38%) VMS
14 1 (0.13%) AIX
14 1 (0.13%) HPUX
14 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.13%) Solaris
14 1 (0.13%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 227 (29.03%) Agile
2 167 (21.36%) CI/CD
3 147 (18.80%) Continuous Improvement
4 138 (17.65%) DevOps
5 108 (13.81%) Stakeholder Management
6 100 (12.79%) Migration
7 94 (12.02%) Project Management
8 81 (10.36%) Change Management
9 77 (9.85%) Containerisation
10 74 (9.46%) Analytics
11 71 (9.08%) Validation
12 66 (8.44%) Customer Service
12 66 (8.44%) Decision-Making
13 65 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 64 (8.18%) Workshop Facilitation
15 61 (7.80%) ERP
15 61 (7.80%) Microservices
16 60 (7.67%) Test Automation
17 55 (7.03%) Data Modelling
18 53 (6.78%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 139 (17.77%) Python
2 112 (14.32%) SQL
3 69 (8.82%) Java
4 55 (7.03%) PowerShell
5 46 (5.88%) Bash
6 29 (3.71%) JavaScript
7 24 (3.07%) TypeScript
8 17 (2.17%) C#
8 17 (2.17%) Perl
9 11 (1.41%) VBA
10 10 (1.28%) T-SQL
11 9 (1.15%) CLIST
11 9 (1.15%) COBOL
11 9 (1.15%) Groovy
11 9 (1.15%) JCL
11 9 (1.15%) REXX
11 9 (1.15%) Ruby
12 8 (1.02%) Go
12 8 (1.02%) Kotlin
12 8 (1.02%) R
Qualifications
1 92 (11.76%) Security Cleared
2 78 (9.97%) Degree
3 61 (7.80%) SC Cleared
4 42 (5.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 38 (4.86%) Computer Science Degree
6 26 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (2.81%) CCNA
8 21 (2.69%) PMP
9 20 (2.56%) Microsoft Certification
10 15 (1.92%) CCNP
11 13 (1.66%) A+ Certification
11 13 (1.66%) CISSP
11 13 (1.66%) Network+ Certification
11 13 (1.66%) PMI Certification
12 9 (1.15%) CCDP
12 9 (1.15%) RHCE
13 7 (0.90%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.90%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.77%) Master's Degree
14 6 (0.77%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (4.86%) Data Quality
1 38 (4.86%) QA
2 18 (2.30%) GDPR
3 16 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.79%) PSD2
5 11 (1.41%) PCI DSS
5 11 (1.41%) PMO
6 10 (1.28%) NIST
7 9 (1.15%) Accessibility
8 8 (1.02%) ISO 20022
9 7 (0.90%) GRC
9 7 (0.90%) SEPA
9 7 (0.90%) SLA
10 5 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.64%) HL7
11 4 (0.51%) ISO 8583
12 3 (0.38%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.38%) WCAG
13 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 71 (9.08%) Docker
2 57 (7.29%) Active Directory
3 28 (3.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (2.30%) vSphere
5 17 (2.17%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.15%) ACF2
6 9 (1.15%) RACF
6 9 (1.15%) Time Sharing Option
7 8 (1.02%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.77%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.38%) ISA Server
11 2 (0.26%) Firmware
12 1 (0.13%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 1 (0.13%) NFS
12 1 (0.13%) SRDF
12 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 99 (12.66%) Kubernetes
2 58 (7.42%) Ansible
3 56 (7.16%) Terraform
4 42 (5.37%) Grafana
5 32 (4.09%) Prometheus
6 22 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (1.92%) Argo
7 15 (1.92%) Control-M
8 14 (1.79%) IBM Guardium
8 14 (1.79%) Nessus
9 13 (1.66%) vCenter Server
10 12 (1.53%) SCCM
11 10 (1.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (1.28%) Puppet
12 9 (1.15%) CA Endevor
12 9 (1.15%) Tivoli
12 9 (1.15%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 4 (0.51%) Kibana
14 3 (0.38%) EMC NetWorker
15 2 (0.26%) Norton AntiVirus
Vendors
1 147 (18.80%) Microsoft
2 67 (8.57%) SAP
3 44 (5.63%) Splunk
4 40 (5.12%) VMware
5 38 (4.86%) Oracle
6 35 (4.48%) Red Hat
7 29 (3.71%) Google
7 29 (3.71%) ServiceNow
8 22 (2.81%) Workday
9 21 (2.69%) Cisco
10 14 (1.79%) Citrix
10 14 (1.79%) Sage
10 14 (1.79%) Tenable
11 13 (1.66%) Pure Storage
12 10 (1.28%) Databricks
12 10 (1.28%) Dell
12 10 (1.28%) Sonatype
12 10 (1.28%) Veeam
13 9 (1.15%) Adobe
13 9 (1.15%) F5