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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 9
Rank change year-on-year -3 +5 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 705 547 575
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 14.26% 16.15% 11.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.20% 18.35% 13.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 327 321
10th Percentile £204 £208 £225
25th Percentile £350 £356 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £587
90th Percentile £618 £625 £688
England median daily rate £495 £500 £519
% change year-on-year -1.00% -3.61% -3.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 26 38
10th Percentile £15.18 £12.85 £11.35
25th Percentile £15.90 £16.19 £15.00
Median hourly rate £19.25 £26.28 £17.57
Median % change year-on-year -26.74% +49.56% -29.72%
75th Percentile £50.23 £36.28 £45.35
90th Percentile £72.33 £61.71 £48.16
England median hourly rate £18.50 £22.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -15.91% -12.00% -24.24%

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 4,352 2,981 4,264
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 88.04% 88.04% 87.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,899 1,733 2,758
10th Percentile £240 £263 £281
25th Percentile £363 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £645 £662 £675
England median daily rate £501 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.67% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 138 275
10th Percentile £15.45 £15.00 £12.05
25th Percentile £20.54 £17.25 £15.46
Median hourly rate £41.34 £27.50 £26.78
Median % change year-on-year +50.33% +2.69% +19.02%
75th Percentile £57.11 £45.76 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.25 £73.92 £57.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.03% -9.33% +11.41%

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 24 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 6 months to 24 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 6 months to 24 January 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 -3 362 £425 -8.11% 422
Yorkshire -4 290 £482 -3.60% 387
North East -3 60 £450 -14.89% 154
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 39 (5.53%) 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 50 (7.09%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 29 (4.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (2.55%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.71%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 40 (5.67%) 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%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.43%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.43%) SAP SCM
5 2 (0.28%) Advent Geneva
5 2 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.28%) Elite 3E
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%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 129 (18.30%) Azure
2 113 (16.03%) AWS
3 73 (10.35%) Microsoft 365
4 54 (7.66%) GCP
5 40 (5.67%) Power Platform
6 38 (5.39%) GitHub
7 26 (3.69%) Serverless
8 20 (2.84%) OpenShift
8 20 (2.84%) SaaS
9 19 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (2.55%) 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 11 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
14 10 (1.42%) Datadog
14 10 (1.42%) OneDrive
14 10 (1.42%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 34 (4.82%) Firewall
2 28 (3.97%) Network Security
3 21 (2.98%) DNS
4 17 (2.41%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.13%) LAN
5 15 (2.13%) WAN
6 9 (1.28%) DHCP
7 8 (1.13%) BGP
7 8 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.99%) Skype
8 7 (0.99%) VLAN
8 7 (0.99%) WebEx
9 6 (0.85%) Software-Defined Networking
10 5 (0.71%) HTTP
10 5 (0.71%) VPN
11 4 (0.57%) DMZ
11 4 (0.57%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 4 (0.57%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 4 (0.57%) SAN
12 3 (0.43%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.40%) Power BI
2 29 (4.11%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (2.98%) MongoDB
4 20 (2.84%) NoSQL
5 19 (2.70%) Relational Database
6 18 (2.55%) SQL Server
7 15 (2.13%) DynamoDB
7 15 (2.13%) MySQL
8 12 (1.70%) BigQuery
8 12 (1.70%) Oracle Database
8 12 (1.70%) Power Query
9 10 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (1.13%) Amazon Aurora
10 8 (1.13%) PowerPivot
11 7 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
12 6 (0.85%) RDBMS
12 6 (0.85%) Redis
13 5 (0.71%) DB2
14 4 (0.57%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 84 (11.91%) JIRA
2 51 (7.23%) Git
3 46 (6.52%) Jenkins
4 35 (4.96%) GitLab
5 12 (1.70%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.56%) Cucumber
6 11 (1.56%) Selenium
7 7 (0.99%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.99%) Maven
7 7 (0.99%) Mockito
7 7 (0.99%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.85%) Gradle
8 6 (0.85%) Postman
9 5 (0.71%) JMeter
9 5 (0.71%) JUnit
9 5 (0.71%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.57%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
11 3 (0.43%) Jasmine
11 3 (0.43%) REST Assured
General
1 386 (54.75%) Social Skills
2 238 (33.76%) Analytical Skills
3 199 (28.23%) Finance
4 87 (12.34%) Banking
5 79 (11.21%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.26%) Legal
7 17 (2.41%) Telecoms
8 14 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
9 13 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (1.84%) Manufacturing
9 13 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
10 12 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.28%) Law
12 8 (1.13%) Military
12 8 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.99%) Local Government
14 6 (0.85%) Electronics
14 6 (0.85%) Health Technology
14 6 (0.85%) Marketing
15 5 (0.71%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 117 (16.60%) Analyst
2 108 (15.32%) Developer
3 59 (8.37%) Business Analyst
4 51 (7.23%) Senior
5 41 (5.82%) Lead
6 38 (5.39%) Consultant
6 38 (5.39%) IT Support
7 34 (4.82%) Project Manager
8 28 (3.97%) Administrator
8 28 (3.97%) Architect
9 23 (3.26%) Software Engineer
10 22 (3.12%) Support Analyst
11 21 (2.98%) Java Developer
12 20 (2.84%) IT Engineer
13 19 (2.70%) Platform Engineer
14 18 (2.55%) Data Engineer
14 18 (2.55%) Support Engineer
14 18 (2.55%) Technical Analyst
15 17 (2.41%) Technical Business Analyst
16 16 (2.27%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (5.82%) REST
1 41 (5.82%) Spring Boot
2 37 (5.25%) Spring
3 30 (4.26%) RESTful
4 24 (3.40%) Kafka
5 20 (2.84%) JSON
5 20 (2.84%) React
6 19 (2.70%) SOAP
7 17 (2.41%) FastAPI
7 17 (2.41%) XML
8 15 (2.13%) Node.js
9 14 (1.99%) .NET
9 14 (1.99%) OAuth
10 13 (1.84%) HTML
10 13 (1.84%) JWT
11 12 (1.70%) Elastic Stack
11 12 (1.70%) Swagger
11 12 (1.70%) YAML
12 11 (1.56%) AngularJS
12 11 (1.56%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 68 (9.65%) Product Ownership
2 34 (4.82%) Onboarding
3 28 (3.97%) Cloud Native
4 18 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
5 16 (2.27%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.13%) Data Centre
6 15 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
6 15 (2.13%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 13 (1.84%) CMDB
7 13 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (1.84%) Management Information System
7 13 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
8 11 (1.56%) Mainframe
9 10 (1.42%) Algorithms
10 9 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
10 9 (1.28%) NHS
11 7 (0.99%) Mobile App
12 6 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (0.85%) N-Tier
12 6 (0.85%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 87 (12.34%) Windows
2 70 (9.93%) Linux
3 24 (3.40%) Windows 10
4 21 (2.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (2.98%) Windows Server
5 17 (2.41%) Unix
6 13 (1.84%) Android
7 11 (1.56%) Apple iOS
8 8 (1.13%) CentOS
8 8 (1.13%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.99%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.85%) Mac OS X
10 6 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.43%) VMS
11 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (30.50%) Agile
2 152 (21.56%) CI/CD
3 126 (17.87%) Continuous Improvement
4 120 (17.02%) DevOps
5 109 (15.46%) Stakeholder Management
6 81 (11.49%) Project Management
7 73 (10.35%) Containerisation
8 72 (10.21%) Test Automation
9 69 (9.79%) Migration
10 66 (9.36%) Microservices
11 61 (8.65%) Change Management
12 58 (8.23%) Mentoring
12 58 (8.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 57 (8.09%) Decision-Making
14 56 (7.94%) Customer Service
15 54 (7.66%) Analytics
15 54 (7.66%) ITIL
16 52 (7.38%) SDLC
17 51 (7.23%) Scrum
17 51 (7.23%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 109 (15.46%) Python
2 86 (12.20%) Java
3 80 (11.35%) SQL
4 37 (5.25%) PowerShell
5 35 (4.96%) Bash
6 30 (4.26%) TypeScript
7 26 (3.69%) JavaScript
8 21 (2.98%) Perl
9 17 (2.41%) C#
10 14 (1.99%) Shell Script
11 11 (1.56%) Go
12 10 (1.42%) VBA
13 9 (1.28%) CLIST
13 9 (1.28%) COBOL
13 9 (1.28%) Groovy
13 9 (1.28%) JCL
13 9 (1.28%) REXX
13 9 (1.28%) Ruby
14 8 (1.13%) T-SQL
15 6 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 86 (12.20%) Security Cleared
2 73 (10.35%) Degree
3 58 (8.23%) SC Cleared
4 33 (4.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (4.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 18 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
7 14 (1.99%) CCNA
8 13 (1.84%) PMP
9 12 (1.70%) CCNP
10 9 (1.28%) AWS Certification
10 9 (1.28%) CCDP
10 9 (1.28%) CISSP
11 8 (1.13%) A+ Certification
11 8 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (1.13%) RHCE
11 8 (1.13%) Six Sigma Green Belt
12 7 (0.99%) PMI Certification
13 6 (0.85%) Network+ Certification
14 5 (0.71%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.57%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (6.67%) QA
2 24 (3.40%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.70%) Accessibility
3 19 (2.70%) GDPR
4 17 (2.41%) PSD2
5 14 (1.99%) ISO 20022
6 12 (1.70%) SEPA
7 11 (1.56%) PCI DSS
8 10 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.85%) HL7
9 6 (0.85%) PMO
9 6 (0.85%) SLA
10 5 (0.71%) NIST
11 4 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.57%) WCAG
12 3 (0.43%) ISO 8583
13 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 1 (0.14%) IEC 61508
14 1 (0.14%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 78 (11.06%) Docker
2 49 (6.95%) Active Directory
3 15 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.28%) ACF2
4 9 (1.28%) RACF
4 9 (1.28%) Time Sharing Option
5 7 (0.99%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.85%) Oracle RAC
6 6 (0.85%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.71%) vSphere
8 3 (0.43%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.14%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 87 (12.34%) Kubernetes
2 49 (6.95%) Terraform
3 42 (5.96%) Ansible
4 33 (4.68%) Grafana
5 26 (3.69%) Prometheus
5 26 (3.69%) SCCM
6 24 (3.40%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.56%) Control-M
8 10 (1.42%) IBM Guardium
8 10 (1.42%) Nessus
8 10 (1.42%) Puppet
9 9 (1.28%) CA Endevor
9 9 (1.28%) Tivoli
9 9 (1.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 8 (1.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.85%) Data Guard
11 6 (0.85%) Norton AntiVirus
11 6 (0.85%) yum
12 5 (0.71%) Kibana
13 4 (0.57%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 158 (22.41%) Microsoft
2 67 (9.50%) SAP
3 44 (6.24%) Oracle
4 32 (4.54%) ServiceNow
5 29 (4.11%) VMware
6 26 (3.69%) Google
7 23 (3.26%) Splunk
8 20 (2.84%) Red Hat
9 18 (2.55%) Cisco
10 12 (1.70%) Workday
11 10 (1.42%) Citrix
11 10 (1.42%) Databricks
11 10 (1.42%) Tenable
12 9 (1.28%) Adobe
12 9 (1.28%) Veeam
13 8 (1.13%) Brio
13 8 (1.13%) F5
13 8 (1.13%) IFS
13 8 (1.13%) Sonatype
14 7 (0.99%) Symantec