Problem-Solving Contract Job Trends in the North West

Problem Solving
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 10
Rank change year-on-year -7 +7 +9
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 350 387 292
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.65% 19.73% 10.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.79% 21.91% 12.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 199 229 178
10th Percentile £185 £207 £300
25th Percentile £350 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £424 £492 £493
Median % change year-on-year -13.87% -0.20% +3.79%
75th Percentile £513 £584 £550
90th Percentile £601 £690 £641
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 31 50
10th Percentile £13.95 £17.44 -
25th Percentile £26.83 £22.72 £10.95
Median hourly rate £50.79 £28.75 £11.20
Median % change year-on-year +76.64% +156.81% -72.42%
75th Percentile £75.00 £49.32 £43.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.40 £53.75
England median hourly rate £22.00 £22.14 £16.50
% change year-on-year -0.63% +34.18% -67.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,736 1,766 2,290
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.26% 90.06% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,667 1,148 1,459
10th Percentile £299 £300 £311
25th Percentile £388 £390 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £585 £566 £594
90th Percentile £663 £663 £689
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 104 255
10th Percentile £17.15 £15.23 £10.97
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.74 £13.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £32.25 £25.60
Median % change year-on-year +70.54% +25.98% -26.92%
75th Percentile £74.26 £63.40 £46.03
90th Percentile £85.00 £85.03 £62.50
England median hourly rate £46.11 £28.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year +60.37% -21.23% -1.75%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in the North West

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the North West over the 6 months to 20 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the North West

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Problem-Solving.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the North West over the 6 months to 20 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the North West

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the North West

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 West region over the 6 months to 20 May 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
Manchester -7 175 £450 -2.70% 218
Cheshire -6 89 £402 -20.40% 67
Lancashire -6 36 £435 -15.94% 82
Merseyside -24 24 £175 -62.16% 36
Cumbria -6 19 £488 +59.18% 9
Problem-Solving
England

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 26 (7.43%) Confluence
2 8 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.86%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.86%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.57%) CMS
5 2 (0.57%) JBoss
6 1 (0.29%) Apache
6 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.29%) Camunda
6 1 (0.29%) Mule
6 1 (0.29%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.29%) nginx
6 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 18 (5.14%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.71%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.86%) CATIA
4 3 (0.86%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.29%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 32 (9.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.71%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (1.14%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.86%) SAP SCM
5 1 (0.29%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.29%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.29%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.29%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.29%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.29%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 73 (20.86%) Azure
2 69 (19.71%) AWS
3 25 (7.14%) Microsoft 365
3 25 (7.14%) Power Platform
4 19 (5.43%) GCP
5 14 (4.00%) Entra ID
6 13 (3.71%) GitHub
7 7 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (1.71%) dbt
8 6 (1.71%) Power Automate
9 5 (1.43%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.43%) SaaS
9 5 (1.43%) Serverless
10 4 (1.14%) Apigee
10 4 (1.14%) AWS Step Functions
10 4 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
10 4 (1.14%) Google Sheets
10 4 (1.14%) Google Workspace
10 4 (1.14%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.43%) DNS
2 17 (4.86%) Firewall
3 9 (2.57%) DHCP
4 7 (2.00%) Kerberos
4 7 (2.00%) TCP/IP
5 6 (1.71%) Network Security
5 6 (1.71%) WAN
6 5 (1.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 5 (1.43%) SAN
6 5 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (1.14%) DMZ
7 4 (1.14%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 4 (1.14%) LAN
7 4 (1.14%) NetScaler
7 4 (1.14%) VLAN
7 4 (1.14%) Wireless
8 3 (0.86%) WebEx
9 2 (0.57%) BGP
9 2 (0.57%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.57%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.71%) Power BI
2 14 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 12 (3.43%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (3.43%) MongoDB
3 12 (3.43%) Relational Database
4 8 (2.29%) NoSQL
5 7 (2.00%) MySQL
5 7 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.14%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.14%) Big Data
6 4 (1.14%) Snowflake Schema
6 4 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.86%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.86%) DataStage
7 3 (0.86%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.86%) Hadoop
7 3 (0.86%) Metadata
7 3 (0.86%) Power Query
8 2 (0.57%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 47 (13.43%) JIRA
2 21 (6.00%) Git
3 12 (3.43%) GitLab
4 10 (2.86%) Mockito
5 8 (2.29%) Postman
6 7 (2.00%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.00%) JUnit
7 5 (1.43%) Selenium
8 3 (0.86%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.86%) Gatling
8 3 (0.86%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.86%) MSI
8 3 (0.86%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.57%) Gradle
9 2 (0.57%) JMeter
9 2 (0.57%) Serenity BDD
9 2 (0.57%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.57%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.29%) Cypress.io
General
1 152 (43.43%) Social Skills
2 143 (40.86%) Analytical Skills
3 111 (31.71%) Finance
4 40 (11.43%) Banking
5 31 (8.86%) Public Sector
6 14 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
7 13 (3.71%) Manufacturing
8 11 (3.14%) Law
8 11 (3.14%) Legal
9 9 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.57%) Telecoms
10 8 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (2.00%) Retail Banking
12 5 (1.43%) Retail
13 3 (0.86%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.86%) Automotive
13 3 (0.86%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.57%) Billing
14 2 (0.57%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 66 (18.86%) Analyst
2 56 (16.00%) Developer
3 30 (8.57%) Business Analyst
4 26 (7.43%) Senior
5 23 (6.57%) Java Developer
6 20 (5.71%) Administrator
7 18 (5.14%) Consultant
8 17 (4.86%) Lead
9 15 (4.29%) Architect
9 15 (4.29%) IT Support
9 15 (4.29%) Project Manager
9 15 (4.29%) SAP Consultant
10 14 (4.00%) Data Engineer
10 14 (4.00%) IT Analyst
11 13 (3.71%) Finance Manager
11 13 (3.71%) Finance Project Manager
11 13 (3.71%) Support Analyst
11 13 (3.71%) Transformation Consultant
12 12 (3.43%) Full-Stack Developer
12 12 (3.43%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (8.57%) Spring
2 28 (8.00%) Spring Boot
3 24 (6.86%) REST
4 20 (5.71%) RESTful
5 17 (4.86%) HTML
5 17 (4.86%) Kafka
5 17 (4.86%) React
6 15 (4.29%) OAuth
7 14 (4.00%) CSS
8 13 (3.71%) JSON
8 13 (3.71%) SOAP
8 13 (3.71%) XML
9 12 (3.43%) AngularJS
10 10 (2.86%) Swagger
11 9 (2.57%) HTML5
11 9 (2.57%) OAuth2
12 8 (2.29%) CSS3
13 7 (2.00%) JAX-RS
13 7 (2.00%) LDAP
13 7 (2.00%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 30 (8.57%) Product Ownership
2 20 (5.71%) Onboarding
3 16 (4.57%) Management Information System
4 12 (3.43%) Analytical Mindset
5 11 (3.14%) Cloud Native
6 10 (2.86%) Data Centre
7 9 (2.57%) Mobile App
8 8 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (2.00%) Driving Licence
9 7 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.71%) AI Agents
10 6 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
10 6 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.43%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.43%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 4 (1.14%) CMDB
12 4 (1.14%) Data Structures
12 4 (1.14%) PKI
12 4 (1.14%) Private Cloud
12 4 (1.14%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 38 (10.86%) Windows
2 18 (5.14%) Linux
3 14 (4.00%) Windows 10
4 13 (3.71%) Unix
5 10 (2.86%) Apple iOS
6 9 (2.57%) Mac OS
7 8 (2.29%) Windows Server
8 7 (2.00%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (1.43%) Android
9 5 (1.43%) Mac OS X
10 4 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (1.14%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.57%) AIX
11 2 (0.57%) HPUX
11 2 (0.57%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.57%) Solaris
11 2 (0.57%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (24.86%) Agile
2 60 (17.14%) Change Management
2 60 (17.14%) Continuous Improvement
3 56 (16.00%) Migration
4 53 (15.14%) Stakeholder Management
5 51 (14.57%) CI/CD
6 45 (12.86%) Project Management
6 45 (12.86%) Validation
7 43 (12.29%) Workshop Facilitation
8 42 (12.00%) Microservices
9 38 (10.86%) Test Automation
10 37 (10.57%) Data Migration
10 37 (10.57%) DevOps
10 37 (10.57%) ERP
11 35 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 32 (9.14%) Requirements Gathering
13 31 (8.86%) ITIL
14 30 (8.57%) Customer Service
15 28 (8.00%) Analytics
15 28 (8.00%) Business Transformation
Programming Languages
1 53 (15.14%) SQL
2 52 (14.86%) Java
3 33 (9.43%) PowerShell
4 32 (9.14%) Python
5 20 (5.71%) JavaScript
6 16 (4.57%) TypeScript
7 8 (2.29%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.43%) Bash
8 5 (1.43%) Go
8 5 (1.43%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.14%) C#
9 4 (1.14%) PL/SQL
9 4 (1.14%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.86%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.86%) Bicep
10 3 (0.86%) COBOL
10 3 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.86%) JCL
10 3 (0.86%) REXX
10 3 (0.86%) VBA
Qualifications
1 48 (13.71%) Security Cleared
2 44 (12.57%) Degree
3 29 (8.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 28 (8.00%) SC Cleared
5 25 (7.14%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (4.57%) Microsoft Certification
7 15 (4.29%) A+ Certification
8 14 (4.00%) Network+ Certification
9 12 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
9 12 (3.43%) CISSP
10 10 (2.86%) CCNA
11 8 (2.29%) AWS Certification
12 6 (1.71%) Azure Certification
13 5 (1.43%) MCSE
14 4 (1.14%) CCNP
14 4 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
15 3 (0.86%) CRISC
15 3 (0.86%) DBS Check
15 3 (0.86%) HNC
15 3 (0.86%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (7.71%) Data Quality
2 13 (3.71%) QA
3 10 (2.86%) PSD2
4 9 (2.57%) NIST
5 8 (2.29%) GRC
6 6 (1.71%) ISO 20022
6 6 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.43%) GDPR
7 5 (1.43%) PCI DSS
7 5 (1.43%) PMO
7 5 (1.43%) SEPA
8 4 (1.14%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.14%) SLA
9 3 (0.86%) ISO 8583
10 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 36 (10.29%) Active Directory
2 25 (7.14%) Docker
3 9 (2.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.71%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (1.43%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.43%) vSphere
6 3 (0.86%) ACF2
6 3 (0.86%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.86%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.86%) RACF
6 3 (0.86%) Time Sharing Option
6 3 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.57%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 26 (7.43%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.43%) SCCM
3 11 (3.14%) Terraform
4 7 (2.00%) Grafana
4 7 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (1.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.14%) Ansible
7 3 (0.86%) CA Endevor
7 3 (0.86%) Tivoli
7 3 (0.86%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 2 (0.57%) Argo
8 2 (0.57%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.57%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.29%) CA Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.29%) Functional Safety
9 1 (0.29%) Istio
9 1 (0.29%) Norton AntiVirus
9 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.29%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 58 (16.57%) Microsoft
2 45 (12.86%) SAP
3 21 (6.00%) Oracle
4 19 (5.43%) ServiceNow
5 15 (4.29%) Splunk
6 13 (3.71%) Sage
6 13 (3.71%) VMware
7 9 (2.57%) F5
8 7 (2.00%) Cisco
9 6 (1.71%) BeyondTrust
9 6 (1.71%) CrowdStrike
9 6 (1.71%) Dell
9 6 (1.71%) Google
9 6 (1.71%) Palo Alto
9 6 (1.71%) Remedy
10 5 (1.43%) Databricks
10 5 (1.43%) DocuSign
10 5 (1.43%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.14%) Aruba
11 4 (1.14%) Atlassian