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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 +11
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 715 551 621
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 14.31% 16.48% 12.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.37% 18.66% 14.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 472 331 346
10th Percentile £213 £208 £219
25th Percentile £350 £356 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.93%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £582
90th Percentile £625 £625 £681
England median daily rate £495 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.00% -2.50% -5.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 28 45
10th Percentile £15.18 £13.19 £11.20
25th Percentile £15.51 £16.78 £11.75
Median hourly rate £19.25 £27.13 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.03% +55.00% -30.00%
75th Percentile £56.64 £34.83 £43.75
90th Percentile £73.78 £59.13 £46.18
England median hourly rate £18.50 £23.15 £22.50
% change year-on-year -20.09% +2.89% -29.49%

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 4,367 2,953 4,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 87.43% 88.33% 87.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,911 1,721 2,815
10th Percentile £230 £263 £275
25th Percentile £364 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 140 300
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.00 £11.77
25th Percentile £20.82 £17.25 £13.99
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.50 £22.31
Median % change year-on-year +52.51% +23.29% -5.51%
75th Percentile £57.50 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.68 £53.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -1.41% +1.43%

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 2 February 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 2 February 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 2 February 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 -3 378 £428 -6.04% 355
Yorkshire -5 284 £485 -3.10% 210
North East -4 61 £450 -15.29% 77
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 42 (5.87%) Confluence
2 39 (5.45%) SharePoint
3 31 (4.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.26%) Apache
5 7 (0.98%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (0.98%) Skype for Business
6 6 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.42%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 1 (0.14%) CICS
9 1 (0.14%) CMS
9 1 (0.14%) JBoss
9 1 (0.14%) Moodle
9 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.14%) nginx
9 1 (0.14%) SAS
9 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (6.99%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (6.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (4.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (2.38%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.70%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.14%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 42 (5.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.56%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.42%) iTrent
3 3 (0.42%) Kondor
3 3 (0.42%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.42%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.28%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.28%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.28%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.28%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.14%) Finacle
5 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.14%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 135 (18.88%) Azure
2 110 (15.38%) AWS
3 73 (10.21%) Microsoft 365
4 52 (7.27%) GCP
5 42 (5.87%) GitHub
6 41 (5.73%) Power Platform
7 25 (3.50%) Serverless
8 24 (3.36%) Entra ID
9 22 (3.08%) OpenShift
10 21 (2.94%) SaaS
11 20 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (1.96%) Google Workspace
13 13 (1.82%) Amazon ECS
13 13 (1.82%) Apigee
13 13 (1.82%) AWS Lambda
13 13 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
14 11 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
15 10 (1.40%) Datadog
15 10 (1.40%) OneDrive
15 10 (1.40%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 41 (5.73%) Firewall
2 30 (4.20%) Network Security
3 26 (3.64%) DNS
4 18 (2.52%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.10%) LAN
5 15 (2.10%) WAN
6 11 (1.54%) DHCP
7 8 (1.12%) BGP
7 8 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.98%) Skype
8 7 (0.98%) VLAN
8 7 (0.98%) WebEx
9 6 (0.84%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 6 (0.84%) Kerberos
9 6 (0.84%) Software-Defined Networking
9 6 (0.84%) VPN
10 5 (0.70%) DMZ
10 5 (0.70%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 5 (0.70%) HTTP
10 5 (0.70%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.34%) PostgreSQL
1 31 (4.34%) Power BI
2 22 (3.08%) MongoDB
3 20 (2.80%) NoSQL
3 20 (2.80%) Relational Database
4 15 (2.10%) DynamoDB
4 15 (2.10%) MySQL
4 15 (2.10%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.68%) Power Query
6 11 (1.54%) BigQuery
7 10 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (1.26%) Oracle Database
9 8 (1.12%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (1.12%) PowerPivot
10 7 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
11 6 (0.84%) RDBMS
12 5 (0.70%) DB2
12 5 (0.70%) Redis
13 4 (0.56%) GIS
Development Applications
1 94 (13.15%) JIRA
2 51 (7.13%) Jenkins
3 49 (6.85%) Git
4 37 (5.17%) GitLab
5 16 (2.24%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.54%) Selenium
7 10 (1.40%) Cucumber
8 7 (0.98%) Maven
8 7 (0.98%) Mockito
8 7 (0.98%) Postman
8 7 (0.98%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.84%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.84%) Gradle
10 5 (0.70%) JMeter
10 5 (0.70%) SonarLint
11 4 (0.56%) CircleCI
11 4 (0.56%) JUnit
11 4 (0.56%) Oracle Forms
12 3 (0.42%) Jasmine
12 3 (0.42%) REST Assured
General
1 382 (53.43%) Social Skills
2 245 (34.27%) Analytical Skills
3 198 (27.69%) Finance
4 90 (12.59%) Banking
5 80 (11.19%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.20%) Legal
7 17 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (2.38%) Telecoms
8 15 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (1.82%) Manufacturing
10 12 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (1.26%) Law
13 8 (1.12%) Military
13 8 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.98%) Local Government
15 6 (0.84%) Electronics
15 6 (0.84%) Health Technology
15 6 (0.84%) Marketing
16 5 (0.70%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 114 (15.94%) Analyst
2 111 (15.52%) Developer
3 58 (8.11%) Business Analyst
4 48 (6.71%) Senior
5 43 (6.01%) Lead
6 38 (5.31%) Consultant
7 37 (5.17%) IT Support
8 35 (4.90%) Project Manager
9 29 (4.06%) Architect
10 24 (3.36%) Administrator
11 22 (3.08%) Java Developer
12 21 (2.94%) Software Engineer
12 21 (2.94%) Support Analyst
13 20 (2.80%) IT Engineer
13 20 (2.80%) Platform Engineer
14 19 (2.66%) Data Engineer
15 17 (2.38%) Technical Analyst
16 16 (2.24%) SAP Consultant
16 16 (2.24%) Support Engineer
16 16 (2.24%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (5.87%) REST
2 40 (5.59%) Spring Boot
3 36 (5.03%) Spring
4 31 (4.34%) RESTful
5 25 (3.50%) Kafka
6 21 (2.94%) JSON
7 20 (2.80%) SOAP
8 18 (2.52%) React
9 17 (2.38%) XML
10 16 (2.24%) OpenTelemetry
11 15 (2.10%) FastAPI
12 14 (1.96%) .NET
12 14 (1.96%) HTML
13 13 (1.82%) Node.js
13 13 (1.82%) OAuth
13 13 (1.82%) Swagger
14 12 (1.68%) AngularJS
14 12 (1.68%) Elastic Stack
14 12 (1.68%) JWT
14 12 (1.68%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 67 (9.37%) Product Ownership
2 37 (5.17%) Onboarding
3 29 (4.06%) Cloud Native
4 17 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
5 16 (2.24%) Data Centre
5 16 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.24%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 15 (2.10%) Data Structures
7 14 (1.96%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.82%) CMDB
8 13 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
9 11 (1.54%) Mainframe
10 10 (1.40%) Algorithms
10 10 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.26%) NHS
12 7 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.98%) Mobile App
13 6 (0.84%) Greenfield Project
13 6 (0.84%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 87 (12.17%) Windows
2 69 (9.65%) Linux
3 23 (3.22%) Windows 10
4 22 (3.08%) Windows Server
5 21 (2.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (2.52%) Unix
7 12 (1.68%) Android
8 11 (1.54%) Apple iOS
9 8 (1.12%) CentOS
9 8 (1.12%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.98%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.98%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.84%) Mac OS X
12 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.42%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 214 (29.93%) Agile
2 159 (22.24%) CI/CD
3 125 (17.48%) Continuous Improvement
4 118 (16.50%) DevOps
5 112 (15.66%) Stakeholder Management
6 85 (11.89%) Project Management
7 78 (10.91%) Containerisation
8 75 (10.49%) Migration
9 68 (9.51%) Change Management
10 67 (9.37%) Test Automation
11 65 (9.09%) Microservices
12 60 (8.39%) ITIL
13 58 (8.11%) Decision-Making
13 58 (8.11%) Mentoring
14 57 (7.97%) Validation
15 55 (7.69%) Customer Service
16 54 (7.55%) Analytics
16 54 (7.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 52 (7.27%) AI
18 51 (7.13%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 108 (15.10%) Python
2 85 (11.89%) Java
3 82 (11.47%) SQL
4 44 (6.15%) PowerShell
5 35 (4.90%) Bash
6 30 (4.20%) TypeScript
7 25 (3.50%) JavaScript
8 21 (2.94%) Perl
9 17 (2.38%) C#
10 11 (1.54%) VBA
11 10 (1.40%) Go
11 10 (1.40%) Shell Script
12 9 (1.26%) CLIST
12 9 (1.26%) COBOL
12 9 (1.26%) Groovy
12 9 (1.26%) JCL
12 9 (1.26%) REXX
12 9 (1.26%) Ruby
13 8 (1.12%) T-SQL
14 6 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 91 (12.73%) Security Cleared
2 74 (10.35%) Degree
3 61 (8.53%) SC Cleared
4 34 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (4.62%) BPSS Clearance
6 19 (2.66%) Cisco Certification
7 15 (2.10%) CCNA
8 12 (1.68%) CCNP
8 12 (1.68%) PMP
9 9 (1.26%) A+ Certification
9 9 (1.26%) CCDP
9 9 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 8 (1.12%) CISSP
10 8 (1.12%) RHCE
11 7 (0.98%) Network+ Certification
11 7 (0.98%) Six Sigma Green Belt
12 6 (0.84%) PMI Certification
13 5 (0.70%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.56%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (6.85%) QA
2 24 (3.36%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.66%) Accessibility
3 19 (2.66%) GDPR
3 19 (2.66%) PSD2
4 15 (2.10%) ISO 20022
5 13 (1.82%) SEPA
6 12 (1.68%) PCI DSS
7 10 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.98%) PMO
9 6 (0.84%) HL7
9 6 (0.84%) SLA
10 5 (0.70%) NIST
11 4 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.56%) WCAG
12 3 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.42%) ISO 8583
13 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 1 (0.14%) IEC 61508
14 1 (0.14%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 81 (11.33%) Docker
2 55 (7.69%) Active Directory
3 17 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.26%) ACF2
4 9 (1.26%) RACF
4 9 (1.26%) Time Sharing Option
5 8 (1.12%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.98%) vSphere
7 6 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.42%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.14%) Firmware
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 90 (12.59%) Kubernetes
2 52 (7.27%) Terraform
3 42 (5.87%) Ansible
4 37 (5.17%) Grafana
5 30 (4.20%) Prometheus
6 27 (3.78%) SCCM
7 24 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (1.96%) Control-M
9 13 (1.82%) IBM Guardium
9 13 (1.82%) Nessus
10 10 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (1.40%) Puppet
11 9 (1.26%) CA Endevor
11 9 (1.26%) Tivoli
11 9 (1.26%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 6 (0.84%) Norton AntiVirus
13 5 (0.70%) Kibana
14 4 (0.56%) EMC NetWorker
15 3 (0.42%) Argo
16 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 157 (21.96%) Microsoft
2 67 (9.37%) SAP
3 41 (5.73%) Oracle
4 32 (4.48%) ServiceNow
5 30 (4.20%) VMware
6 28 (3.92%) Splunk
7 25 (3.50%) Google
8 21 (2.94%) Red Hat
9 18 (2.52%) Cisco
10 14 (1.96%) Workday
11 13 (1.82%) Tenable
12 12 (1.68%) Sonatype
13 11 (1.54%) F5
14 10 (1.40%) Citrix
14 10 (1.40%) Databricks
14 10 (1.40%) Veeam
15 9 (1.26%) Adobe
15 9 (1.26%) Sage
16 8 (1.12%) Brio
16 8 (1.12%) Computacenter