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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -11 +1 +11
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 720 704 541
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 9.71% 17.70% 13.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.65% 19.88% 15.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 402 388 316
10th Percentile £263 £269 £300
25th Percentile £358 £374 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £555
90th Percentile £600 £650 £638
England median daily rate £495 £493 £500
% change year-on-year +0.51% -1.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 73 37
10th Percentile £14.28 £12.96 -
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.44 -
Median hourly rate £24.16 £22.14 £10.95
Median % change year-on-year +9.12% +102.19% -60.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £30.63 £28.75
90th Percentile £85.80 £63.32 £63.00
England median hourly rate £21.00 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.68% +24.80% -70.25%

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 6,178 3,542 3,478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 83.32% 89.04% 84.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,643 2,258 2,087
10th Percentile £313 £268 £310
25th Percentile £403 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.50% -6.10% -
75th Percentile £588 £558 £588
90th Percentile £675 £650 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 507 210 242
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £11.07
25th Percentile £21.33 £17.48 £14.67
Median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £25.65
Median % change year-on-year +94.26% -11.77% -12.01%
75th Percentile £70.00 £43.91 £48.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.63 £69.98
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.87%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -12 343 £450 -6.25% 710
Yorkshire -8 319 £450 -5.16% 421
North East -16 63 £375 -16.67% 186
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 25 (3.47%) Confluence
2 22 (3.06%) SharePoint
3 20 (2.78%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.39%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 8 (1.11%) Apache
7 6 (0.83%) CMS
7 6 (0.83%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.56%) CICS
9 3 (0.42%) WordPress
10 2 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.28%) Camunda
10 2 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.14%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.14%) JBoss
11 1 (0.14%) Mule
11 1 (0.14%) Mule ESB
11 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 40 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (4.58%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.67%) MS Visio
4 10 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.83%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.42%) Acrobat
8 3 (0.42%) CATIA
9 2 (0.28%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.28%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.28%) Revit
10 1 (0.14%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 25 (3.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.53%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.42%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 2 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) Actimize
6 1 (0.14%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.14%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 121 (16.81%) Azure
2 94 (13.06%) AWS
3 86 (11.94%) Microsoft 365
4 59 (8.19%) Power Platform
5 44 (6.11%) GCP
6 28 (3.89%) GitHub
7 27 (3.75%) Entra ID
8 25 (3.47%) OpenShift
9 17 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (1.94%) Serverless
11 13 (1.81%) Microsoft Copilot
11 13 (1.81%) Power Automate
12 10 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (1.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 10 (1.39%) SaaS
13 9 (1.25%) PowerApps
14 8 (1.11%) Copilot Studio
15 7 (0.97%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.83%) AWS Lambda
16 6 (0.83%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 39 (5.42%) VPN
2 30 (4.17%) DNS
3 29 (4.03%) Firewall
4 23 (3.19%) LAN
4 23 (3.19%) WAN
5 18 (2.50%) Wireless
6 17 (2.36%) VLAN
7 16 (2.22%) TCP/IP
8 15 (2.08%) Wi-Fi
9 14 (1.94%) DHCP
9 14 (1.94%) Network Security
10 12 (1.67%) VoIP
11 10 (1.39%) Cisco Nexus
12 9 (1.25%) BGP
12 9 (1.25%) OSPF
12 9 (1.25%) WLAN
13 8 (1.11%) SAN
14 6 (0.83%) Cisco ASA
14 6 (0.83%) Cisco Firepower
14 6 (0.83%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (6.11%) Power BI
2 31 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 25 (3.47%) MongoDB
4 23 (3.19%) Data Warehouse
5 16 (2.22%) NoSQL
6 15 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
7 14 (1.94%) Relational Database
7 14 (1.94%) Tableau
8 12 (1.67%) Big Data
9 10 (1.39%) Metadata
10 9 (1.25%) Db2
10 9 (1.25%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.97%) MySQL
12 6 (0.83%) DataStage
12 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
13 5 (0.69%) Neo4j
13 5 (0.69%) Snowflake Schema
14 4 (0.56%) Data Lake
14 4 (0.56%) Data Vault
15 3 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 67 (9.31%) JIRA
2 36 (5.00%) Git
3 35 (4.86%) Jenkins
4 23 (3.19%) GitLab
5 9 (1.25%) Selenium
6 8 (1.11%) REST Assured
6 8 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.83%) Gatling
8 5 (0.69%) Maven
8 5 (0.69%) Mockito
9 4 (0.56%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.56%) Gradle
9 4 (0.56%) MSI
10 3 (0.42%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.42%) JUnit
10 3 (0.42%) LoadRunner
10 3 (0.42%) Serenity BDD
10 3 (0.42%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.42%) Subversion
General
1 344 (47.78%) Social Skills
2 302 (41.94%) Analytical Skills
3 189 (26.25%) Finance
4 80 (11.11%) Banking
5 67 (9.31%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
7 31 (4.31%) Manufacturing
8 27 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (3.75%) Legal
9 22 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (2.22%) Law
10 16 (2.22%) Retail
11 9 (1.25%) Aerospace
11 9 (1.25%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.25%) Telecoms
12 8 (1.11%) Automotive
12 8 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.97%) Marketing
14 6 (0.83%) Police
Job Titles
1 131 (18.19%) Analyst
2 83 (11.53%) Developer
3 64 (8.89%) Lead
4 54 (7.50%) Senior
5 41 (5.69%) IT Support
6 39 (5.42%) Architect
7 27 (3.75%) Java Developer
8 25 (3.47%) Business Analyst
8 25 (3.47%) Support Engineer
9 24 (3.33%) Consultant
9 24 (3.33%) IT Engineer
10 23 (3.19%) Data Engineer
11 22 (3.06%) Administrator
11 22 (3.06%) Network Engineer
12 21 (2.92%) Data Analyst
13 19 (2.64%) DevOps Engineer
13 19 (2.64%) IT Support Engineer
14 18 (2.50%) Python Developer
14 18 (2.50%) Service Analyst
15 17 (2.36%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.00%) REST
2 31 (4.31%) Kafka
3 30 (4.17%) Spring
4 25 (3.47%) Spring Boot
5 21 (2.92%) React
6 17 (2.36%) HTML
7 16 (2.22%) OpenTelemetry
8 15 (2.08%) CSS
8 15 (2.08%) Node.js
9 14 (1.94%) Playwright
10 13 (1.81%) .NET
10 13 (1.81%) FastAPI
10 13 (1.81%) OAuth
10 13 (1.81%) RESTful
11 10 (1.39%) XML
12 8 (1.11%) AngularJS
12 8 (1.11%) Middleware
13 7 (0.97%) JSON
13 7 (0.97%) OAuth2
14 6 (0.83%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.08%) Product Ownership
2 44 (6.11%) Cloud Native
3 31 (4.31%) Data Protection Act
3 31 (4.31%) Onboarding
4 27 (3.75%) Self-Motivation
5 25 (3.47%) Data Centre
6 24 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
7 23 (3.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 20 (2.78%) Driving Licence
9 17 (2.36%) Data Structures
10 16 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (2.08%) Mainframe
11 15 (2.08%) Management Information System
12 14 (1.94%) AI Agents
12 14 (1.94%) PKI
13 13 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
13 13 (1.81%) Virtual Team
14 11 (1.53%) Mobile App
15 9 (1.25%) NHS
16 8 (1.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 102 (14.17%) Windows
2 32 (4.44%) Linux
2 32 (4.44%) Windows 10
3 20 (2.78%) Apple iOS
4 18 (2.50%) Android
4 18 (2.50%) Windows Server
5 16 (2.22%) Unix
6 12 (1.67%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.69%) Mac OS X
8 4 (0.56%) Solaris
8 4 (0.56%) zOS
9 3 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.28%) AIX
10 2 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.28%) HPUX
10 2 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.28%) SUSE
11 1 (0.14%) VMS
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 176 (24.44%) Agile
2 169 (23.47%) Continuous Improvement
3 148 (20.56%) CI/CD
4 125 (17.36%) DevOps
5 107 (14.86%) Stakeholder Management
6 77 (10.69%) Migration
7 76 (10.56%) AI
8 71 (9.86%) Analytics
9 70 (9.72%) ITIL
10 69 (9.58%) Test Automation
11 68 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 67 (9.31%) Customer Service
13 61 (8.47%) Data Protection
14 59 (8.19%) Project Management
15 58 (8.06%) Change Management
16 57 (7.92%) Business Intelligence
16 57 (7.92%) Microservices
16 57 (7.92%) Validation
17 56 (7.78%) Containerisation
18 53 (7.36%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 117 (16.25%) Python
2 106 (14.72%) SQL
3 58 (8.06%) Java
4 46 (6.39%) PowerShell
5 25 (3.47%) JavaScript
6 22 (3.06%) Bash
7 10 (1.39%) C#
8 9 (1.25%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.25%) R
9 8 (1.11%) T-SQL
9 8 (1.11%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.97%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.83%) Bicep
11 6 (0.83%) COBOL
11 6 (0.83%) Kotlin
12 5 (0.69%) ABAP
13 4 (0.56%) JCL
14 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
14 3 (0.42%) Go
14 3 (0.42%) Scala
Qualifications
1 91 (12.64%) Security Cleared
2 73 (10.14%) Degree
3 65 (9.03%) SC Cleared
4 32 (4.44%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (3.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (3.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 21 (2.92%) Cisco Certification
8 16 (2.22%) CISSP
9 14 (1.94%) PMP
10 12 (1.67%) A+ Certification
10 12 (1.67%) CCNP
10 12 (1.67%) PMI Certification
11 11 (1.53%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (1.39%) CCNA
13 9 (1.25%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.11%) AWS Certification
14 8 (1.11%) CompTIA Security+
14 8 (1.11%) HNC
15 7 (0.97%) CEH
15 7 (0.97%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (7.08%) Data Quality
2 26 (3.61%) QA
3 25 (3.47%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.50%) SLA
5 14 (1.94%) GDPR
5 14 (1.94%) GRC
6 10 (1.39%) NIST
7 9 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.97%) PMO
9 6 (0.83%) WCAG
10 3 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.28%) COSHH
11 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.28%) MiFID
11 2 (0.28%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.14%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.14%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 62 (8.61%) Active Directory
2 59 (8.19%) Docker
3 21 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.53%) vSphere
5 10 (1.39%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.97%) Firmware
6 7 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.28%) KVM
11 2 (0.28%) NFS
11 2 (0.28%) SRDF
12 1 (0.14%) ACF2
12 1 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.14%) RACF
12 1 (0.14%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 67 (9.31%) Kubernetes
2 53 (7.36%) Terraform
3 34 (4.72%) Ansible
4 32 (4.44%) Grafana
5 25 (3.47%) Prometheus
6 18 (2.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.94%) SCCM
8 10 (1.39%) Argo
8 10 (1.39%) Control-M
8 10 (1.39%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.11%) IBM Guardium
9 8 (1.11%) Nessus
10 4 (0.56%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.56%) Kustomize
10 4 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.42%) CA Endevor
11 3 (0.42%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.42%) Istio
11 3 (0.42%) McAfee ePO
11 3 (0.42%) WMI
Vendors
1 158 (21.94%) Microsoft
2 63 (8.75%) ServiceNow
3 57 (7.92%) SAP
4 35 (4.86%) Oracle
5 31 (4.31%) Splunk
6 29 (4.03%) Cisco
7 23 (3.19%) Google
8 21 (2.92%) VMware
9 15 (2.08%) Workday
10 12 (1.67%) Concur
10 12 (1.67%) Palo Alto
10 12 (1.67%) Red Hat
11 11 (1.53%) IBM
11 11 (1.53%) Remedy
12 9 (1.25%) CheckPoint
12 9 (1.25%) Pure Storage
12 9 (1.25%) Salesforce
13 8 (1.11%) Dell
13 8 (1.11%) F5
13 8 (1.11%) Tenable