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

6 months to
5 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 708 665 581
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 10.65% 19.90% 12.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.66% 22.17% 14.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 422 389 332
10th Percentile £298 £229 £241
25th Percentile £363 £375 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -3.27%
75th Percentile £537 £565 £553
90th Percentile £617 £650 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 54 72
10th Percentile £14.45 £15.43 -
25th Percentile £17.00 £21.24 £10.95
Median hourly rate £32.23 £25.22 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.80% +86.78% -61.43%
75th Percentile £74.26 £37.03 £31.79
90th Percentile £150.93 £63.40 £61.53
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.39 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.19% +31.79% -69.03%

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 5,591 2,999 3,993
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 84.14% 89.76% 84.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,430 1,936 2,404
10th Percentile £313 £267 £300
25th Percentile £400 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year - -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £588
90th Percentile £675 £645 £675
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 150 388
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £11.07
25th Percentile £22.84 £17.93 £12.55
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £20.77
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% +21.09% -21.62%
75th Percentile £71.50 £51.50 £46.18
90th Percentile £81.00 £76.38 £63.75
England median hourly rate £47.50 £28.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +66.67% -24.00% +1.35%

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 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 5 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 5 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 -9 335 £444 -9.20% 418
Yorkshire -7 333 £460 -3.16% 247
North East -14 46 £375 -16.67% 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 46 (6.50%) Confluence
2 17 (2.40%) Apache Spark
3 16 (2.26%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.56%) Apache
7 3 (0.42%) CICS
8 2 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.28%) Camunda
8 2 (0.28%) CMS
8 2 (0.28%) JBoss
8 2 (0.28%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.28%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.28%) WebLogic
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%) WebSphere
Applications
1 34 (4.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (3.25%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (2.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.71%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.56%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.42%) CATIA
9 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 40 (5.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.42%) SAP SCM
5 1 (0.14%) Actimize
5 1 (0.14%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.14%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.14%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
5 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 130 (18.36%) Azure
2 92 (12.99%) AWS
3 55 (7.77%) Microsoft 365
4 49 (6.92%) Power Platform
5 45 (6.36%) GCP
6 42 (5.93%) OpenShift
7 39 (5.51%) GitHub
8 23 (3.25%) Entra ID
9 17 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (2.40%) SaaS
10 14 (1.98%) Serverless
11 10 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (1.27%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 9 (1.27%) Microsoft Copilot
13 8 (1.13%) Power Automate
14 7 (0.99%) Azure Functions
14 7 (0.99%) Azure Monitor
14 7 (0.99%) Azure Storage
14 7 (0.99%) Google Workspace
15 6 (0.85%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 31 (4.38%) DNS
2 26 (3.67%) Firewall
3 18 (2.54%) WAN
4 16 (2.26%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.12%) LAN
6 13 (1.84%) Network Security
7 12 (1.69%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (1.55%) SAN
9 10 (1.41%) VLAN
10 8 (1.13%) DHCP
10 8 (1.13%) VPN
11 7 (0.99%) Kerberos
12 6 (0.85%) Wireless
13 4 (0.56%) BGP
13 4 (0.56%) Cisco Nexus
13 4 (0.56%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 4 (0.56%) NAS
13 4 (0.56%) NetScaler
13 4 (0.56%) SSL
13 4 (0.56%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.51%) Power BI
2 29 (4.10%) MongoDB
3 26 (3.67%) SQL Server
4 23 (3.25%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
6 15 (2.12%) Relational Database
7 13 (1.84%) NoSQL
8 12 (1.69%) Tableau
9 11 (1.55%) Hadoop
10 10 (1.41%) Big Data
11 9 (1.27%) Metadata
12 8 (1.13%) MySQL
13 7 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 6 (0.85%) Power Query
15 5 (0.71%) Db2
16 4 (0.56%) DataStage
16 4 (0.56%) Neo4j
16 4 (0.56%) Oracle Database
16 4 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
16 4 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 111 (15.68%) JIRA
2 43 (6.07%) Jenkins
3 30 (4.24%) Git
4 23 (3.25%) GitLab
5 13 (1.84%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.55%) Mockito
7 10 (1.41%) Postman
7 10 (1.41%) Selenium
8 7 (0.99%) JUnit
9 6 (0.85%) Cucumber
9 6 (0.85%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.56%) Gatling
11 3 (0.42%) MSI
11 3 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
11 3 (0.42%) Serenity BDD
12 2 (0.28%) Gradle
12 2 (0.28%) JMeter
12 2 (0.28%) Maven
12 2 (0.28%) SoapUI
12 2 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 357 (50.42%) Social Skills
2 291 (41.10%) Analytical Skills
3 211 (29.80%) Finance
4 86 (12.15%) Banking
5 60 (8.47%) Public Sector
6 35 (4.94%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (3.95%) Legal
8 24 (3.39%) Influencing Skills
9 22 (3.11%) Organisational Skills
10 17 (2.40%) Retail
11 16 (2.26%) Law
12 15 (2.12%) Telecoms
13 14 (1.98%) Manufacturing
14 9 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.99%) Retail Banking
17 5 (0.71%) Local Government
18 4 (0.56%) Automotive
18 4 (0.56%) Marketing
18 4 (0.56%) Military
Job Titles
1 141 (19.92%) Analyst
2 82 (11.58%) Developer
3 60 (8.47%) Lead
4 54 (7.63%) Business Analyst
5 46 (6.50%) Senior
6 36 (5.08%) Architect
7 35 (4.94%) Consultant
8 32 (4.52%) Project Manager
9 25 (3.53%) Data Engineer
9 25 (3.53%) Java Developer
10 24 (3.39%) Administrator
11 23 (3.25%) IT Support
12 20 (2.82%) DevOps Engineer
12 20 (2.82%) Python Developer
13 18 (2.54%) Data Analyst
14 16 (2.26%) IT Analyst
14 16 (2.26%) IT Engineer
14 16 (2.26%) Support Analyst
14 16 (2.26%) Technical Analyst
15 15 (2.12%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.37%) REST
2 35 (4.94%) Kafka
3 32 (4.52%) OpenTelemetry
4 26 (3.67%) Spring
5 21 (2.97%) Spring Boot
6 20 (2.82%) React
6 20 (2.82%) RESTful
7 19 (2.68%) FastAPI
8 18 (2.54%) JSON
9 16 (2.26%) SOAP
10 14 (1.98%) HTML
10 14 (1.98%) XML
11 13 (1.84%) CSS
12 12 (1.69%) .NET
12 12 (1.69%) LDAP
13 11 (1.55%) Swagger
13 11 (1.55%) YAML
14 10 (1.41%) OAuth
15 9 (1.27%) AngularJS
16 8 (1.13%) JAX-RS
Miscellaneous
1 61 (8.62%) Product Ownership
2 35 (4.94%) Cloud Native
3 30 (4.24%) Onboarding
4 26 (3.67%) Data Protection Act
5 24 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
6 22 (3.11%) Data Centre
7 21 (2.97%) Management Information System
8 19 (2.68%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (2.12%) Mainframe
12 13 (1.84%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.69%) Driving Licence
14 10 (1.41%) Mobile App
14 10 (1.41%) Public Cloud
14 10 (1.41%) Virtual Team
15 9 (1.27%) Data Structures
15 9 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
15 9 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
16 8 (1.13%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 72 (10.17%) Windows
2 49 (6.92%) Linux
3 18 (2.54%) Unix
3 18 (2.54%) Windows 10
4 17 (2.40%) Apple iOS
5 15 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.69%) Android
8 10 (1.41%) Windows Server
9 9 (1.27%) Ubuntu
10 8 (1.13%) CentOS
11 7 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.85%) Mac OS X
13 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.28%) AIX
14 2 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.28%) HPUX
14 2 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.28%) VMS
14 2 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 196 (27.68%) Agile
2 151 (21.33%) CI/CD
3 142 (20.06%) Continuous Improvement
4 139 (19.63%) DevOps
5 101 (14.27%) Migration
5 101 (14.27%) Stakeholder Management
6 88 (12.43%) Project Management
7 78 (11.02%) Change Management
8 73 (10.31%) Analytics
9 68 (9.60%) Validation
10 64 (9.04%) ITIL
11 62 (8.76%) Test Automation
12 60 (8.47%) Customer Service
12 60 (8.47%) Decision-Making
12 60 (8.47%) ERP
13 59 (8.33%) Containerisation
14 56 (7.91%) Workshop Facilitation
15 55 (7.77%) Microservices
16 52 (7.34%) Data Migration
16 52 (7.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 126 (17.80%) Python
2 92 (12.99%) SQL
3 58 (8.19%) Java
4 51 (7.20%) PowerShell
5 31 (4.38%) Bash
6 27 (3.81%) JavaScript
7 17 (2.40%) TypeScript
8 10 (1.41%) C#
9 9 (1.27%) Perl
9 9 (1.27%) R
9 9 (1.27%) Ruby
10 8 (1.13%) COBOL
10 8 (1.13%) Go
10 8 (1.13%) PL/SQL
10 8 (1.13%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.85%) Bicep
11 6 (0.85%) JCL
11 6 (0.85%) Kotlin
11 6 (0.85%) VBA
12 5 (0.71%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 75 (10.59%) Degree
2 72 (10.17%) Security Cleared
3 44 (6.21%) SC Cleared
4 40 (5.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 32 (4.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (3.53%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (2.40%) A+ Certification
8 17 (2.40%) CISSP
8 17 (2.40%) PMP
9 16 (2.26%) Network+ Certification
10 15 (2.12%) CCNA
11 12 (1.69%) PMI Certification
12 10 (1.41%) RHCE
13 9 (1.27%) CCNP
14 8 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 8 (1.13%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.13%) CompTIA Security+
15 7 (0.99%) CISM
15 7 (0.99%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.94%) Data Quality
2 23 (3.25%) QA
3 19 (2.68%) GDPR
4 13 (1.84%) Accessibility
5 12 (1.69%) PMO
6 11 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (1.41%) SLA
8 9 (1.27%) GRC
8 9 (1.27%) NIST
8 9 (1.27%) PSD2
9 8 (1.13%) PCI DSS
10 5 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.71%) ISO 20022
11 4 (0.56%) ISO 8583
11 4 (0.56%) SEPA
12 3 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.28%) HL7
13 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 59 (8.33%) Docker
2 47 (6.64%) Active Directory
3 26 (3.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (2.68%) vSphere
5 15 (2.12%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.27%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.99%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.71%) Firmware
10 4 (0.56%) ACF2
10 4 (0.56%) RACF
11 3 (0.42%) Time Sharing Option
12 2 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.28%) NFS
12 2 (0.28%) SRDF
12 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
13 1 (0.14%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 83 (11.72%) Kubernetes
2 54 (7.63%) Ansible
3 52 (7.34%) Terraform
4 42 (5.93%) Grafana
5 33 (4.66%) Prometheus
6 19 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (2.12%) Argo
7 15 (2.12%) Control-M
7 15 (2.12%) vCenter Server
8 14 (1.98%) IBM Guardium
8 14 (1.98%) Nessus
9 9 (1.27%) SCCM
10 8 (1.13%) Puppet
11 5 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.71%) CA Endevor
11 5 (0.71%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.42%) Kibana
12 3 (0.42%) Tivoli
12 3 (0.42%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 2 (0.28%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 116 (16.38%) Microsoft
2 66 (9.32%) SAP
3 48 (6.78%) Splunk
4 35 (4.94%) ServiceNow
5 31 (4.38%) Oracle
5 31 (4.38%) VMware
6 26 (3.67%) Red Hat
7 23 (3.25%) Google
8 19 (2.68%) Cisco
9 16 (2.26%) Workday
10 15 (2.12%) Pure Storage
11 14 (1.98%) Sage
11 14 (1.98%) Tenable
12 12 (1.69%) Dell
13 10 (1.41%) F5
13 10 (1.41%) Veeam
14 8 (1.13%) Databricks
14 8 (1.13%) Sonatype
15 7 (0.99%) Adobe
15 7 (0.99%) HP