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 13 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 10
Rank change year-on-year -5 +7 +11
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 390 363 305
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.25% 18.82% 11.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.58% 20.77% 12.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 221 181
10th Percentile £216 £208 £313
25th Percentile £350 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -13.27% -2.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £513 £584 £575
90th Percentile £579 £685 £656
England median daily rate £490 £500 £510
% change year-on-year -2.00% -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 28 47
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.98 -
25th Percentile £29.99 £21.24 £10.95
Median hourly rate £62.50 £27.13 £11.20
Median % change year-on-year +130.41% +142.30% -61.56%
75th Percentile £74.63 £30.63 £35.07
90th Percentile £104.55 £46.94 £51.91
England median hourly rate £22.01 £22.14 £17.50
% change year-on-year -0.59% +26.51% -61.69%

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 2,675 1,748 2,388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 84.04% 90.62% 86.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,666 1,134 1,545
10th Percentile £263 £300 £308
25th Percentile £375 £391 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £664 £689
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 111 244
10th Percentile £19.75 £16.25 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.61 £13.20
Median hourly rate £45.46 £31.52 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year +44.23% +46.60% -39.44%
75th Percentile £71.91 £60.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.59 £52.52
England median hourly rate £40.54 £32.00 £34.21
% change year-on-year +26.69% -6.46% -8.77%

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 13 April 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 13 April 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 13 April 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 -5 180 £450 -2.70% 189
Cheshire -7 100 £402 -20.40% 54
Lancashire -3 55 £550 +6.28% 68
Merseyside -11 35 £225 -51.35% 33
Cumbria 0 16 £504 +20.24% 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 28 (7.18%) Confluence
2 14 (3.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (3.59%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.54%) Apache
4 4 (1.03%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.77%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.51%) JBoss
7 1 (0.26%) Camunda
7 1 (0.26%) CMS
7 1 (0.26%) Moodle
7 1 (0.26%) Mule
7 1 (0.26%) Mule ESB
7 1 (0.26%) nginx
7 1 (0.26%) SAS
7 1 (0.26%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.26%) WebLogic
Applications
1 23 (5.90%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.79%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.77%) CATIA
6 3 (0.77%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.26%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 33 (8.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.03%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.77%) iTrent
3 3 (0.77%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.51%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.26%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.26%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.26%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.26%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.26%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 81 (20.77%) Azure
2 70 (17.95%) AWS
3 33 (8.46%) Microsoft 365
4 29 (7.44%) Power Platform
5 22 (5.64%) GCP
6 20 (5.13%) Entra ID
7 15 (3.85%) GitHub
8 9 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.31%) Power Automate
9 7 (1.79%) Apigee
9 7 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (1.79%) Kong
9 7 (1.79%) SaaS
10 6 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
10 6 (1.54%) dbt
10 6 (1.54%) Serverless
11 4 (1.03%) AWS Step Functions
11 4 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (1.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 4 (1.03%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 26 (6.67%) Firewall
2 22 (5.64%) DNS
3 14 (3.59%) Network Security
4 10 (2.56%) VLAN
5 9 (2.31%) DHCP
5 9 (2.31%) WebEx
6 8 (2.05%) BGP
7 7 (1.79%) Kerberos
7 7 (1.79%) TCP/IP
8 6 (1.54%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 6 (1.54%) Software-Defined Networking
9 5 (1.28%) DMZ
9 5 (1.28%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 5 (1.28%) HTTP
9 5 (1.28%) LAN
9 5 (1.28%) WAN
9 5 (1.28%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (1.03%) NetScaler
11 3 (0.77%) Wireless
12 2 (0.51%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (4.87%) Power BI
2 17 (4.36%) SQL Server
3 15 (3.85%) Relational Database
4 13 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (3.08%) MySQL
6 11 (2.82%) MongoDB
7 10 (2.56%) NoSQL
7 10 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (1.28%) Snowflake Schema
9 4 (1.03%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
9 4 (1.03%) Big Data
9 4 (1.03%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.03%) Metadata
9 4 (1.03%) Power Query
9 4 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.77%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.77%) Data Vault
10 3 (0.77%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.77%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.51%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 51 (13.08%) JIRA
2 27 (6.92%) Git
3 14 (3.59%) GitLab
4 10 (2.56%) Mockito
5 8 (2.05%) Postman
6 6 (1.54%) JUnit
7 5 (1.28%) Jenkins
8 4 (1.03%) Selenium
9 3 (0.77%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.51%) JMeter
10 2 (0.51%) SoapUI
10 2 (0.51%) Zephyr
11 1 (0.26%) CANoe
11 1 (0.26%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.26%) Eclipse
11 1 (0.26%) Gradle
11 1 (0.26%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.26%) Maven
11 1 (0.26%) ScriptRunner
11 1 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 169 (43.33%) Social Skills
2 153 (39.23%) Analytical Skills
3 130 (33.33%) Finance
4 43 (11.03%) Banking
5 40 (10.26%) Public Sector
6 18 (4.62%) Legal
7 12 (3.08%) Manufacturing
8 11 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.82%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (2.56%) Law
10 9 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.79%) Retail Banking
11 7 (1.79%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.28%) Retail
13 4 (1.03%) Automotive
13 4 (1.03%) Local Government
14 3 (0.77%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
15 2 (0.51%) Billing
Job Titles
1 70 (17.95%) Developer
2 69 (17.69%) Analyst
3 34 (8.72%) Business Analyst
4 28 (7.18%) Senior
5 27 (6.92%) Administrator
6 26 (6.67%) Java Developer
7 21 (5.38%) Lead
8 20 (5.13%) Consultant
9 18 (4.62%) IT Support
9 18 (4.62%) Platform Engineer
9 18 (4.62%) Project Manager
10 16 (4.10%) Architect
10 16 (4.10%) SAP Consultant
11 14 (3.59%) Data Engineer
12 13 (3.33%) Finance Manager
12 13 (3.33%) Finance Project Manager
12 13 (3.33%) Transformation Consultant
13 12 (3.08%) IT Analyst
13 12 (3.08%) Support Analyst
14 11 (2.82%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.95%) Spring
2 30 (7.69%) Spring Boot
3 29 (7.44%) REST
4 24 (6.15%) RESTful
5 20 (5.13%) OAuth
6 18 (4.62%) JSON
6 18 (4.62%) Kafka
6 18 (4.62%) SOAP
6 18 (4.62%) XML
7 16 (4.10%) HTML
8 14 (3.59%) CSS
8 14 (3.59%) React
9 13 (3.33%) Swagger
10 11 (2.82%) AngularJS
10 11 (2.82%) OAuth2
11 10 (2.56%) .NET
12 9 (2.31%) HTML5
12 9 (2.31%) ISPF
12 9 (2.31%) OpenAPI
12 9 (2.31%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 40 (10.26%) Product Ownership
2 19 (4.87%) Onboarding
3 15 (3.85%) Management Information System
4 13 (3.33%) Cloud Native
5 9 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
5 9 (2.31%) Mainframe
5 9 (2.31%) Mobile App
6 8 (2.05%) Data Structures
6 8 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (1.79%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 6 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.28%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.28%) Fat Client
9 5 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.28%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.28%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.28%) Thin Client
10 4 (1.03%) Digital Wallet
Operating Systems
1 46 (11.79%) Windows
2 30 (7.69%) Linux
3 19 (4.87%) Windows Server
4 17 (4.36%) Windows 10
5 14 (3.59%) Unix
6 13 (3.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (2.56%) Android
8 9 (2.31%) Apple iOS
9 7 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (1.54%) Mac OS
11 5 (1.28%) Mac OS X
12 4 (1.03%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.26%) AIX
13 1 (0.26%) HPUX
13 1 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.26%) Solaris
13 1 (0.26%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (28.21%) Agile
2 73 (18.72%) Change Management
3 70 (17.95%) Continuous Improvement
4 62 (15.90%) CI/CD
5 59 (15.13%) Stakeholder Management
6 55 (14.10%) Migration
7 50 (12.82%) Project Management
8 49 (12.56%) Validation
9 47 (12.05%) Microservices
9 47 (12.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 47 (12.05%) Workshop Facilitation
10 45 (11.54%) DevOps
11 43 (11.03%) Requirements Gathering
12 39 (10.00%) ERP
12 39 (10.00%) Test Automation
13 38 (9.74%) Data Migration
14 36 (9.23%) Computer Science
15 33 (8.46%) Customer Service
16 32 (8.21%) Decision-Making
17 31 (7.95%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 64 (16.41%) SQL
2 56 (14.36%) Java
3 40 (10.26%) Python
4 39 (10.00%) PowerShell
5 22 (5.64%) JavaScript
6 16 (4.10%) TypeScript
7 15 (3.85%) Bash
8 9 (2.31%) C#
8 9 (2.31%) CLIST
8 9 (2.31%) COBOL
8 9 (2.31%) JCL
8 9 (2.31%) REXX
9 8 (2.05%) Kotlin
9 8 (2.05%) Perl
10 7 (1.79%) T-SQL
11 6 (1.54%) Go
12 5 (1.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 3 (0.77%) Bicep
13 3 (0.77%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.77%) VBA
Qualifications
1 66 (16.92%) Security Cleared
2 53 (13.59%) Degree
3 43 (11.03%) SC Cleared
4 33 (8.46%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (7.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (4.10%) Cisco Certification
7 14 (3.59%) CCNA
8 11 (2.82%) CCNP
9 10 (2.56%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (2.31%) A+ Certification
10 9 (2.31%) CISSP
10 9 (2.31%) Network+ Certification
11 8 (2.05%) CCDP
12 5 (1.28%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.28%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.28%) PMI Certification
12 5 (1.28%) PMP
13 4 (1.03%) CISM
13 4 (1.03%) CompTIA Security+
14 3 (0.77%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.92%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.62%) QA
3 12 (3.08%) PSD2
4 8 (2.05%) ISO 20022
4 8 (2.05%) NIST
5 7 (1.79%) GRC
5 7 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (1.79%) SEPA
6 6 (1.54%) GDPR
7 5 (1.28%) PCI DSS
7 5 (1.28%) PMO
8 3 (0.77%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 2 (0.51%) SLA
10 1 (0.26%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 45 (11.54%) Active Directory
2 35 (8.97%) Docker
3 12 (3.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.31%) ACF2
4 9 (2.31%) RACF
4 9 (2.31%) Time Sharing Option
5 8 (2.05%) VMware NSX
6 7 (1.79%) vSphere
7 5 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.77%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.77%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 38 (9.74%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.59%) Terraform
3 12 (3.08%) SCCM
4 9 (2.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 9 (2.31%) CA Endevor
4 9 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (2.31%) Tivoli
4 9 (2.31%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 6 (1.54%) Grafana
6 4 (1.03%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.77%) Ansible
7 3 (0.77%) Norton AntiVirus
8 2 (0.51%) Argo
8 2 (0.51%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.26%) Functional Safety
9 1 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.26%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 75 (19.23%) Microsoft
2 50 (12.82%) SAP
3 26 (6.67%) Oracle
4 23 (5.90%) VMware
5 17 (4.36%) ServiceNow
6 14 (3.59%) Sage
7 13 (3.33%) Citrix
7 13 (3.33%) Red Hat
8 10 (2.56%) Cisco
8 10 (2.56%) F5
9 9 (2.31%) Splunk
10 8 (2.05%) Workday
11 7 (1.79%) MuleSoft
12 6 (1.54%) Databricks
12 6 (1.54%) Google
13 5 (1.28%) Computacenter
14 4 (1.03%) Adobe
14 4 (1.03%) Aruba
14 4 (1.03%) Atlassian
14 4 (1.03%) Veeam