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 3 months leading up to 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

3 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 9
Rank change year-on-year -2 +6 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 382 234 237
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 14.83% 17.57% 11.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.22% 19.42% 12.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 276 154 141
10th Percentile £213 £204 £180
25th Percentile £350 £369 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £486 £495
Median % change year-on-year -7.31% -1.92% +4.21%
75th Percentile £532 £550 £575
90th Percentile £605 £639 £688
England median daily rate £492 £505 £513
% change year-on-year -2.57% -1.46% -5.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 17 14
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £15.90 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.86 £25.43 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.59% +45.31% -43.07%
75th Percentile £69.25 £38.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £73.95 £50.80
England median hourly rate £20.18 £27.13 £22.31
% change year-on-year -25.61% +21.61% -44.58%

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 2,218 1,205 1,875
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 86.14% 90.47% 87.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,459 777 1,150
10th Percentile £256 £250 £300
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £452 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.85% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £538 £583 £588
90th Percentile £625 £680 £688
England median daily rate £500 £530 £530
% change year-on-year -5.57% -0.09% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 72 108
10th Percentile £16.73 £15.91 £11.94
25th Percentile £25.15 £19.00 £14.16
Median hourly rate £45.46 £29.12 £22.31
Median % change year-on-year +56.14% +30.53% -10.78%
75th Percentile £57.50 £45.56 £46.91
90th Percentile £69.31 £85.26 £54.88
England median hourly rate £28.00 £34.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -18.84% -1.43% +20.69%

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 3 months to 16 January 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 3 months to 16 January 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 3 months to 16 January 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 3 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North West -3 181 £425 -11.55% 365
Yorkshire +1 170 £475 +2.15% 288
North East +5 36 £450 -18.18% 130
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 (5.82%) SharePoint
2 36 (5.11%) Confluence
3 32 (4.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.28%) Apache
5 7 (0.99%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (0.99%) Skype for Business
6 6 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.28%) JBoss
9 2 (0.28%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.14%) CICS
10 1 (0.14%) CMS
10 1 (0.14%) Moodle
10 1 (0.14%) Mule
10 1 (0.14%) Mule ESB
10 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.14%) SAS
10 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 48 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
1 48 (6.81%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (4.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (2.27%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.71%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 41 (5.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.57%) SAP EHS
4 3 (0.43%) iTrent
4 3 (0.43%) Kondor
4 3 (0.43%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.43%) SAP SCM
5 2 (0.28%) Advent Geneva
5 2 (0.28%) ContrOCC
5 2 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) Finacle
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 126 (17.87%) Azure
2 110 (15.60%) AWS
3 74 (10.50%) Microsoft 365
4 52 (7.38%) GCP
5 38 (5.39%) Power Platform
6 35 (4.96%) GitHub
7 25 (3.55%) Serverless
8 20 (2.84%) OpenShift
8 20 (2.84%) SaaS
9 18 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
10 17 (2.41%) Entra ID
11 14 (1.99%) Amazon ECS
11 14 (1.99%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (1.99%) Google Workspace
12 13 (1.84%) Apigee
13 12 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
14 10 (1.42%) Datadog
14 10 (1.42%) OneDrive
14 10 (1.42%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 30 (4.26%) Firewall
2 25 (3.55%) Network Security
3 16 (2.27%) DNS
4 14 (1.99%) TCP/IP
5 13 (1.84%) LAN
5 13 (1.84%) WAN
6 8 (1.13%) BGP
6 8 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (0.99%) DHCP
7 7 (0.99%) Skype
7 7 (0.99%) VLAN
7 7 (0.99%) WebEx
8 6 (0.85%) Software-Defined Networking
9 5 (0.71%) HTTP
10 3 (0.43%) DMZ
10 3 (0.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 3 (0.43%) Internet
10 3 (0.43%) SAN
10 3 (0.43%) VoIP
10 3 (0.43%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.11%) Power BI
2 28 (3.97%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (2.98%) SQL Server
4 20 (2.84%) Relational Database
5 19 (2.70%) MongoDB
6 18 (2.55%) NoSQL
7 16 (2.27%) Oracle Database
8 15 (2.13%) DynamoDB
9 13 (1.84%) MySQL
10 12 (1.70%) BigQuery
11 11 (1.56%) Power Query
12 10 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
13 8 (1.13%) Amazon Aurora
13 8 (1.13%) PowerPivot
14 7 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
15 6 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
15 6 (0.85%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.85%) Redis
16 5 (0.71%) DB2
17 4 (0.57%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 83 (11.77%) JIRA
2 55 (7.80%) Git
3 45 (6.38%) Jenkins
4 30 (4.26%) GitLab
5 11 (1.56%) Cucumber
6 9 (1.28%) Selenium
6 9 (1.28%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.99%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.99%) Maven
7 7 (0.99%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.85%) Gradle
9 5 (0.71%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.57%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.57%) Mockito
10 4 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
10 4 (0.57%) TestRail
11 3 (0.43%) Jasmine
11 3 (0.43%) JMeter
11 3 (0.43%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.28%) Postman
General
1 389 (55.18%) Social Skills
2 235 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
3 202 (28.65%) Finance
4 88 (12.48%) Banking
5 80 (11.35%) Public Sector
6 29 (4.11%) Legal
7 16 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
7 16 (2.27%) Telecoms
8 13 (1.84%) Manufacturing
8 13 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.13%) Law
11 8 (1.13%) Military
11 8 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (0.99%) Local Government
13 6 (0.85%) Electronics
13 6 (0.85%) Health Technology
13 6 (0.85%) Marketing
14 5 (0.71%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 113 (16.03%) Analyst
2 106 (15.04%) Developer
3 54 (7.66%) Business Analyst
4 49 (6.95%) Senior
5 40 (5.67%) Lead
6 37 (5.25%) Consultant
7 36 (5.11%) IT Support
8 35 (4.96%) Project Manager
9 31 (4.40%) Administrator
10 30 (4.26%) Architect
11 22 (3.12%) Java Developer
11 22 (3.12%) Software Engineer
12 21 (2.98%) Support Analyst
13 19 (2.70%) Automation Engineer
14 18 (2.55%) IT Engineer
14 18 (2.55%) Platform Engineer
14 18 (2.55%) Technical Analyst
15 17 (2.41%) Data Engineer
15 17 (2.41%) Support Engineer
16 16 (2.27%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (5.53%) Spring Boot
2 36 (5.11%) Spring
3 35 (4.96%) REST
4 23 (3.26%) RESTful
5 22 (3.12%) Kafka
6 20 (2.84%) FastAPI
7 17 (2.41%) JSON
7 17 (2.41%) React
8 16 (2.27%) .NET
9 15 (2.13%) Node.js
9 15 (2.13%) XML
10 14 (1.99%) OAuth
10 14 (1.99%) SOAP
11 13 (1.84%) HTML
11 13 (1.84%) JWT
12 12 (1.70%) Elastic Stack
13 11 (1.56%) AngularJS
13 11 (1.56%) CSS
13 11 (1.56%) JMS
14 10 (1.42%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 64 (9.08%) Product Ownership
2 34 (4.82%) Onboarding
3 27 (3.83%) Cloud Native
4 17 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
4 17 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (2.27%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.13%) Data Centre
6 15 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (2.13%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 14 (1.99%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.84%) CMDB
9 12 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
10 11 (1.56%) Mainframe
11 10 (1.42%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
12 9 (1.28%) NHS
13 7 (0.99%) Mobile App
13 7 (0.99%) Public Cloud
14 6 (0.85%) N-Tier
Operating Systems
1 86 (12.20%) Windows
2 73 (10.35%) Linux
3 23 (3.26%) Windows 10
4 20 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (2.70%) Windows Server
6 17 (2.41%) Unix
7 13 (1.84%) Android
8 11 (1.56%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.99%) CentOS
9 7 (0.99%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.99%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.85%) Mac OS X
11 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.43%) VMS
13 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (30.07%) Agile
2 143 (20.28%) CI/CD
3 124 (17.59%) Continuous Improvement
4 123 (17.45%) DevOps
5 109 (15.46%) Stakeholder Management
6 84 (11.91%) Project Management
7 72 (10.21%) Containerisation
8 71 (10.07%) Test Automation
9 66 (9.36%) Migration
10 63 (8.94%) Microservices
11 59 (8.37%) Change Management
11 59 (8.37%) Decision-Making
12 56 (7.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 55 (7.80%) SDLC
14 54 (7.66%) Customer Service
14 54 (7.66%) ITIL
14 54 (7.66%) Mentoring
15 52 (7.38%) Analytics
16 51 (7.23%) Roadmaps
17 50 (7.09%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 110 (15.60%) Python
2 81 (11.49%) Java
3 79 (11.21%) SQL
4 35 (4.96%) Bash
4 35 (4.96%) PowerShell
5 26 (3.69%) TypeScript
6 24 (3.40%) JavaScript
7 20 (2.84%) Perl
8 19 (2.70%) C#
9 18 (2.55%) Shell Script
10 10 (1.42%) Go
11 9 (1.28%) CLIST
11 9 (1.28%) COBOL
11 9 (1.28%) Groovy
11 9 (1.28%) JCL
11 9 (1.28%) REXX
11 9 (1.28%) VBA
12 8 (1.13%) Ruby
12 8 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 5 (0.71%) Scala
Qualifications
1 86 (12.20%) Security Cleared
2 72 (10.21%) Degree
3 57 (8.09%) SC Cleared
4 32 (4.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (4.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 15 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (1.84%) PMP
8 11 (1.56%) CCNA
8 11 (1.56%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 10 (1.42%) CCNP
10 9 (1.28%) AWS Certification
10 9 (1.28%) CCDP
10 9 (1.28%) CISSP
11 7 (0.99%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.99%) RHCE
12 6 (0.85%) A+ Certification
12 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.71%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.71%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.57%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (6.67%) QA
2 24 (3.40%) Data Quality
3 20 (2.84%) GDPR
4 19 (2.70%) Accessibility
5 15 (2.13%) PSD2
6 14 (1.99%) ISO 20022
7 12 (1.70%) SEPA
8 10 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 9 (1.28%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.99%) PMO
10 7 (0.99%) SLA
11 6 (0.85%) HL7
12 5 (0.71%) NIST
13 4 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.57%) WCAG
14 3 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
16 1 (0.14%) IEC 61508
16 1 (0.14%) ISO 26262
16 1 (0.14%) PMBOK
System Software
1 76 (10.78%) Docker
2 45 (6.38%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.42%) Oracle RAC
5 9 (1.28%) ACF2
5 9 (1.28%) RACF
5 9 (1.28%) Time Sharing Option
6 6 (0.85%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.71%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.57%) vSphere
9 3 (0.43%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.14%) Firmware
10 1 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 84 (11.91%) Kubernetes
2 47 (6.67%) Terraform
3 43 (6.10%) Ansible
4 30 (4.26%) Grafana
5 25 (3.55%) SCCM
6 23 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (3.26%) Prometheus
7 10 (1.42%) Control-M
7 10 (1.42%) Data Guard
7 10 (1.42%) yum
8 9 (1.28%) CA Endevor
8 9 (1.28%) IBM Guardium
8 9 (1.28%) Nessus
8 9 (1.28%) Puppet
8 9 (1.28%) Tivoli
8 9 (1.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 7 (0.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.85%) Norton AntiVirus
11 5 (0.71%) Kibana
12 4 (0.57%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 160 (22.70%) Microsoft
2 69 (9.79%) SAP
3 48 (6.81%) Oracle
4 34 (4.82%) ServiceNow
5 27 (3.83%) VMware
6 25 (3.55%) Google
7 21 (2.98%) Splunk
8 19 (2.70%) Red Hat
9 16 (2.27%) Cisco
10 11 (1.56%) Databricks
10 11 (1.56%) Workday
11 10 (1.42%) Citrix
12 9 (1.28%) Adobe
12 9 (1.28%) Tenable
13 8 (1.13%) Brio
13 8 (1.13%) IFS
13 8 (1.13%) Veeam
14 7 (0.99%) MuleSoft
14 7 (0.99%) Sonatype
14 7 (0.99%) Symantec