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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 9
Rank change year-on-year -7 +6 +10
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 356 375 292
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.02% 19.31% 10.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.19% 21.44% 12.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 223 178
10th Percentile £202 £208 £300
25th Percentile £350 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £417 £489 £493
Median % change year-on-year -14.83% -0.81% +9.56%
75th Percentile £513 £584 £550
90th Percentile £600 £688 £641
England median daily rate £495 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.00% -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 30 50
10th Percentile £13.95 £17.44 -
25th Percentile £17.35 £22.72 £10.95
Median hourly rate £62.50 £28.75 £11.20
Median % change year-on-year +117.39% +156.81% -72.42%
75th Percentile £75.00 £42.04 £43.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.40 £53.75
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.07 £17.50
% change year-on-year +1.94% +26.11% -65.00%

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 2,699 1,749 2,286
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.53% 90.06% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,662 1,140 1,449
10th Percentile £288 £300 £308
25th Percentile £380 £389 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £576 £575 £594
90th Percentile £662 £660 £688
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 102 251
10th Percentile £17.58 £16.03 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.81 £13.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £31.88 £24.10
Median % change year-on-year +72.52% +32.28% -33.06%
75th Percentile £74.26 £62.25 £45.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £84.39 £62.50
England median hourly rate £47.00 £29.02 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.96% -20.49% -2.25%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -9 171 £450 -2.70% 210
Cheshire -6 97 £402 -19.76% 73
Lancashire -6 36 £435 -16.75% 75
Merseyside -24 26 £188 -59.46% 38
Cumbria +3 19 £488 +18.18% 8
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 (7.30%) Confluence
2 8 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.84%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.84%) Apache
4 3 (0.84%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.56%) CMS
5 2 (0.56%) JBoss
6 1 (0.28%) Camunda
6 1 (0.28%) Mule
6 1 (0.28%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.28%) nginx
6 1 (0.28%) SAS
6 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
Applications
1 19 (5.34%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.69%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.84%) CATIA
4 3 (0.84%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.28%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 32 (8.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.69%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (1.12%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.84%) SAP SCM
5 1 (0.28%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.28%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.28%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 74 (20.79%) Azure
2 72 (20.22%) AWS
3 26 (7.30%) Power Platform
4 25 (7.02%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (5.62%) GCP
6 14 (3.93%) Entra ID
7 12 (3.37%) GitHub
8 6 (1.69%) Apigee
8 6 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (1.69%) dbt
8 6 (1.69%) Kong
8 6 (1.69%) Power Automate
9 5 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.40%) SaaS
9 5 (1.40%) Serverless
10 4 (1.12%) Azure AKS
10 4 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
10 4 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 4 (1.12%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.34%) DNS
2 17 (4.78%) Firewall
3 9 (2.53%) DHCP
4 7 (1.97%) Kerberos
4 7 (1.97%) Network Security
4 7 (1.97%) TCP/IP
5 6 (1.69%) WAN
6 5 (1.40%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 5 (1.40%) SAN
6 5 (1.40%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (1.12%) DMZ
7 4 (1.12%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 4 (1.12%) LAN
7 4 (1.12%) NetScaler
7 4 (1.12%) VLAN
7 4 (1.12%) Wireless
8 3 (0.84%) WebEx
9 2 (0.56%) BGP
9 2 (0.56%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (5.90%) Power BI
2 15 (4.21%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.93%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (3.65%) Relational Database
5 10 (2.81%) MongoDB
6 9 (2.53%) MySQL
6 9 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (2.25%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.12%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 4 (1.12%) Big Data
8 4 (1.12%) BigQuery
8 4 (1.12%) Power Query
8 4 (1.12%) Snowflake Schema
8 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.84%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.84%) DataStage
9 3 (0.84%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.84%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.84%) Metadata
10 2 (0.56%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 49 (13.76%) JIRA
2 25 (7.02%) Git
3 12 (3.37%) GitLab
4 10 (2.81%) Mockito
5 8 (2.25%) Postman
6 7 (1.97%) JUnit
7 4 (1.12%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.84%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.84%) MSI
8 3 (0.84%) Selenium
9 2 (0.56%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.56%) JMeter
9 2 (0.56%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.56%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.28%) CANoe
10 1 (0.28%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.28%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.28%) Maven
10 1 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 153 (42.98%) Social Skills
2 145 (40.73%) Analytical Skills
3 121 (33.99%) Finance
4 44 (12.36%) Banking
5 34 (9.55%) Public Sector
6 14 (3.93%) Manufacturing
7 12 (3.37%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (3.09%) Law
8 11 (3.09%) Legal
9 9 (2.53%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.53%) Telecoms
10 8 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.97%) Retail Banking
12 5 (1.40%) Retail
13 3 (0.84%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.84%) Automotive
13 3 (0.84%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.56%) Billing
15 1 (0.28%) Games
Job Titles
1 68 (19.10%) Analyst
2 62 (17.42%) Developer
3 32 (8.99%) Business Analyst
4 26 (7.30%) Senior
5 25 (7.02%) Java Developer
6 21 (5.90%) Administrator
7 18 (5.06%) Consultant
8 17 (4.78%) Architect
9 16 (4.49%) IT Support
9 16 (4.49%) Lead
10 15 (4.21%) Project Manager
10 15 (4.21%) SAP Consultant
11 14 (3.93%) Data Engineer
11 14 (3.93%) IT Analyst
12 13 (3.65%) Finance Manager
12 13 (3.65%) Finance Project Manager
12 13 (3.65%) Support Analyst
12 13 (3.65%) Transformation Consultant
13 12 (3.37%) Full-Stack Developer
13 12 (3.37%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (8.71%) Spring
2 29 (8.15%) Spring Boot
3 28 (7.87%) REST
4 22 (6.18%) RESTful
5 17 (4.78%) HTML
5 17 (4.78%) Kafka
5 17 (4.78%) OAuth
6 16 (4.49%) React
7 15 (4.21%) JSON
7 15 (4.21%) SOAP
7 15 (4.21%) XML
8 14 (3.93%) CSS
9 12 (3.37%) AngularJS
9 12 (3.37%) Swagger
10 9 (2.53%) HTML5
10 9 (2.53%) OAuth2
11 8 (2.25%) CSS3
11 8 (2.25%) OpenAPI
12 7 (1.97%) JAX-RS
12 7 (1.97%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 30 (8.43%) Product Ownership
2 20 (5.62%) Onboarding
3 16 (4.49%) Management Information System
4 13 (3.65%) Cloud Native
5 12 (3.37%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (2.81%) Data Centre
7 9 (2.53%) Mobile App
8 7 (1.97%) Driving Licence
8 7 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (1.97%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 6 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.40%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.40%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.40%) Mainframe
10 5 (1.40%) Public Cloud
11 4 (1.12%) Digital Wallet
11 4 (1.12%) Private Cloud
11 4 (1.12%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 40 (11.24%) Windows
2 18 (5.06%) Linux
3 15 (4.21%) Windows 10
4 14 (3.93%) Unix
5 11 (3.09%) Apple iOS
6 10 (2.81%) Mac OS
7 8 (2.25%) Windows Server
8 7 (1.97%) Android
8 7 (1.97%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (1.40%) Mac OS X
10 4 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (1.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.56%) AIX
11 2 (0.56%) HPUX
11 2 (0.56%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.56%) Solaris
11 2 (0.56%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (26.97%) Agile
2 60 (16.85%) Change Management
2 60 (16.85%) Continuous Improvement
3 56 (15.73%) Migration
4 54 (15.17%) CI/CD
5 53 (14.89%) Stakeholder Management
6 47 (13.20%) Validation
7 45 (12.64%) Workshop Facilitation
8 44 (12.36%) Microservices
9 42 (11.80%) Project Management
10 40 (11.24%) Test Automation
11 38 (10.67%) DevOps
11 38 (10.67%) ERP
12 37 (10.39%) Data Migration
12 37 (10.39%) Requirements Gathering
12 37 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 32 (8.99%) Computer Science
13 32 (8.99%) Customer Service
13 32 (8.99%) ITIL
14 30 (8.43%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 58 (16.29%) SQL
2 53 (14.89%) Java
3 33 (9.27%) PowerShell
4 31 (8.71%) Python
5 20 (5.62%) JavaScript
6 16 (4.49%) TypeScript
7 8 (2.25%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.40%) Go
8 5 (1.40%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.40%) T-SQL
9 4 (1.12%) Bash
9 4 (1.12%) C#
9 4 (1.12%) CLIST
9 4 (1.12%) COBOL
9 4 (1.12%) JCL
9 4 (1.12%) PL/SQL
9 4 (1.12%) REXX
10 3 (0.84%) Bicep
10 3 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.84%) VBA
Qualifications
1 49 (13.76%) Degree
1 49 (13.76%) Security Cleared
2 30 (8.43%) BPSS Clearance
2 30 (8.43%) Computer Science Degree
3 27 (7.58%) SC Cleared
4 16 (4.49%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (4.21%) A+ Certification
6 14 (3.93%) Network+ Certification
7 12 (3.37%) Cisco Certification
7 12 (3.37%) CISSP
8 10 (2.81%) CCNA
9 8 (2.25%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.69%) Azure Certification
11 5 (1.40%) MCSE
12 4 (1.12%) CCNP
12 4 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
13 3 (0.84%) CRISC
13 3 (0.84%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.84%) PMI Certification
13 3 (0.84%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (7.87%) Data Quality
2 16 (4.49%) QA
3 12 (3.37%) PSD2
4 9 (2.53%) NIST
5 8 (2.25%) GRC
5 8 (2.25%) ISO 20022
6 7 (1.97%) SEPA
7 6 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.40%) GDPR
8 5 (1.40%) PCI DSS
8 5 (1.40%) PMO
9 4 (1.12%) SLA
10 3 (0.84%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.56%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 36 (10.11%) Active Directory
2 27 (7.58%) Docker
3 9 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.69%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.40%) vSphere
6 4 (1.12%) ACF2
6 4 (1.12%) RACF
6 4 (1.12%) Time Sharing Option
7 3 (0.84%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.84%) ISA Server
7 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.56%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 31 (8.71%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.37%) SCCM
2 12 (3.37%) Terraform
3 7 (1.97%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 5 (1.40%) Grafana
5 4 (1.12%) CA Endevor
5 4 (1.12%) Tivoli
5 4 (1.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 3 (0.84%) Ansible
6 3 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.56%) Argo
7 2 (0.56%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.56%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.28%) Functional Safety
8 1 (0.28%) Norton AntiVirus
8 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 61 (17.13%) Microsoft
2 46 (12.92%) SAP
3 23 (6.46%) Oracle
4 19 (5.34%) ServiceNow
5 14 (3.93%) Sage
6 13 (3.65%) Splunk
6 13 (3.65%) VMware
7 9 (2.53%) F5
8 7 (1.97%) Cisco
9 6 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
9 6 (1.69%) CrowdStrike
9 6 (1.69%) Dell
9 6 (1.69%) MuleSoft
9 6 (1.69%) Palo Alto
9 6 (1.69%) Remedy
10 5 (1.40%) Databricks
10 5 (1.40%) Google
10 5 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.12%) Aruba
11 4 (1.12%) Atlassian