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 9 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 9
Rank change year-on-year -3 +5 +11
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 377 365 323
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 13.19% 17.87% 11.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 15.47% 19.87% 13.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 231 182
10th Percentile £213 £206 £313
25th Percentile £344 £359 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% -5.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £513 £575 £580
90th Percentile £575 £669 £688
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 27 52
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.02 -
25th Percentile £16.00 £23.74 £10.95
Median hourly rate £41.86 £28.75 £11.20
Median % change year-on-year +45.58% +156.81% -75.86%
75th Percentile £74.26 £35.56 £30.73
90th Percentile £74.78 £60.42 £46.18
England median hourly rate £20.00 £25.00 £18.50
% change year-on-year -20.00% +35.14% -54.32%

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 2,437 1,837 2,468
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 85.24% 89.96% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,540 1,135 1,602
10th Percentile £213 £291 £306
25th Percentile £362 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £452 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.74% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £659 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 115 265
10th Percentile £17.13 £16.14 £11.00
25th Percentile £24.63 £22.85 £14.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £31.76 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.69% +41.16% -39.84%
75th Percentile £63.63 £59.08 £45.88
90th Percentile £75.79 £79.35 £56.82
England median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -7.22%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 -7 159 £450 -2.70% 197
Cheshire -4 106 £402 -19.04% 92
Lancashire -2 53 £550 +5.77% 80
Merseyside -8 41 £225 -10.00% 34
Cumbria +4 14 £494 +19.70% 11
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 25 (6.63%) Confluence
2 16 (4.24%) SharePoint
3 15 (3.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.86%) Apache
5 3 (0.80%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.53%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.27%) CMS
7 1 (0.27%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.27%) JBoss
7 1 (0.27%) Moodle
7 1 (0.27%) nginx
7 1 (0.27%) SAS
7 1 (0.27%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.27%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (6.10%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (4.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (2.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (2.92%) MS Visio
4 4 (1.06%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.27%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 35 (9.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.06%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.80%) iTrent
3 3 (0.80%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.80%) SAP Payroll
3 3 (0.80%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.53%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.53%) Kondor
4 2 (0.53%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.27%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.27%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 71 (18.83%) Azure
2 57 (15.12%) AWS
3 34 (9.02%) Microsoft 365
4 24 (6.37%) Power Platform
5 19 (5.04%) GCP
6 18 (4.77%) Entra ID
7 17 (4.51%) GitHub
8 12 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (2.65%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (2.65%) Serverless
10 7 (1.86%) SaaS
11 6 (1.59%) Apigee
11 6 (1.59%) Kong
12 5 (1.33%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (1.33%) Power Automate
13 4 (1.06%) Amazon ECS
13 4 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (1.06%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (1.06%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 26 (6.90%) Firewall
2 21 (5.57%) DNS
3 14 (3.71%) Network Security
4 10 (2.65%) LAN
4 10 (2.65%) VLAN
4 10 (2.65%) WAN
5 9 (2.39%) DHCP
5 9 (2.39%) WebEx
6 8 (2.12%) BGP
7 7 (1.86%) TCP/IP
8 6 (1.59%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 6 (1.59%) Kerberos
8 6 (1.59%) Software-Defined Networking
9 5 (1.33%) DMZ
9 5 (1.33%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 5 (1.33%) HTTP
9 5 (1.33%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (1.06%) NetScaler
10 4 (1.06%) Wireless
11 2 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.98%) Power BI
2 14 (3.71%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.45%) Relational Database
4 11 (2.92%) MongoDB
5 8 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.12%) MySQL
5 8 (2.12%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.86%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.06%) MS Access
8 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.80%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.80%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.80%) Metadata
9 3 (0.80%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.80%) Power Query
9 3 (0.80%) SAP HANA
9 3 (0.80%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.53%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 41 (10.88%) JIRA
2 27 (7.16%) Git
3 15 (3.98%) GitLab
4 9 (2.39%) Mockito
5 8 (2.12%) Postman
6 7 (1.86%) Jenkins
7 4 (1.06%) JUnit
7 4 (1.06%) Selenium
8 3 (0.80%) Jasmine
9 2 (0.53%) JMeter
9 2 (0.53%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.53%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.27%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.27%) Gradle
10 1 (0.27%) Maven
10 1 (0.27%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 164 (43.50%) Social Skills
2 143 (37.93%) Analytical Skills
3 120 (31.83%) Finance
4 42 (11.14%) Banking
5 40 (10.61%) Public Sector
6 17 (4.51%) Legal
7 14 (3.71%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.39%) Manufacturing
9 8 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
10 7 (1.86%) Retail Banking
11 6 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.33%) Law
12 5 (1.33%) Retail
13 4 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.06%) Local Government
13 4 (1.06%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.80%) Automotive
15 2 (0.53%) Games
15 2 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 67 (17.77%) Analyst
2 65 (17.24%) Developer
3 36 (9.55%) Business Analyst
4 28 (7.43%) Administrator
5 27 (7.16%) Senior
6 25 (6.63%) Consultant
7 19 (5.04%) Lead
7 19 (5.04%) SAP Consultant
8 18 (4.77%) Java Developer
8 18 (4.77%) Platform Engineer
9 16 (4.24%) Architect
9 16 (4.24%) Project Manager
10 14 (3.71%) IT Support
11 12 (3.18%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.18%) Finance Manager
11 12 (3.18%) Finance Project Manager
11 12 (3.18%) Transformation Consultant
12 11 (2.92%) Software Engineer
13 10 (2.65%) Full-Stack Developer
13 10 (2.65%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (7.96%) REST
2 25 (6.63%) Spring
2 25 (6.63%) Spring Boot
3 21 (5.57%) RESTful
4 19 (5.04%) SOAP
5 18 (4.77%) JSON
6 16 (4.24%) Kafka
7 15 (3.98%) XML
8 13 (3.45%) HTML
8 13 (3.45%) OAuth
8 13 (3.45%) Swagger
9 12 (3.18%) CSS
10 11 (2.92%) React
11 10 (2.65%) .NET
12 9 (2.39%) ISPF
12 9 (2.39%) OpenAPI
12 9 (2.39%) XMPP
13 8 (2.12%) AngularJS
13 8 (2.12%) CSS3
13 8 (2.12%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.55%) Product Ownership
2 16 (4.24%) Onboarding
3 12 (3.18%) Cloud Native
4 10 (2.65%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.39%) Mainframe
5 9 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.39%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 7 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.59%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.59%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.33%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.33%) Fat Client
8 5 (1.33%) Private Cloud
8 5 (1.33%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.33%) Thin Client
9 4 (1.06%) CMDB
9 4 (1.06%) Digital Wallet
Operating Systems
1 45 (11.94%) Windows
2 30 (7.96%) Linux
3 19 (5.04%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.77%) Windows 10
5 14 (3.71%) Unix
6 12 (3.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.92%) Android
8 8 (2.12%) Apple iOS
9 7 (1.86%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (1.59%) Mac OS X
11 4 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.80%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (28.12%) Agile
2 71 (18.83%) Change Management
3 62 (16.45%) Continuous Improvement
4 58 (15.38%) CI/CD
4 58 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 51 (13.53%) DevOps
5 51 (13.53%) Migration
6 49 (13.00%) Validation
7 47 (12.47%) Project Management
8 44 (11.67%) Workshop Facilitation
9 41 (10.88%) Microservices
10 40 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 39 (10.34%) Requirements Gathering
12 38 (10.08%) Test Automation
13 35 (9.28%) ERP
14 34 (9.02%) Customer Service
14 34 (9.02%) Data Migration
15 33 (8.75%) Containerisation
16 31 (8.22%) Analytics
17 30 (7.96%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 56 (14.85%) SQL
2 47 (12.47%) Java
3 37 (9.81%) PowerShell
3 37 (9.81%) Python
4 20 (5.31%) JavaScript
5 17 (4.51%) Bash
6 16 (4.24%) TypeScript
7 10 (2.65%) C#
8 9 (2.39%) CLIST
8 9 (2.39%) COBOL
8 9 (2.39%) JCL
8 9 (2.39%) REXX
9 8 (2.12%) Perl
10 5 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.33%) Go
10 5 (1.33%) Kotlin
10 5 (1.33%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.80%) ABAP
11 3 (0.80%) Bicep
11 3 (0.80%) VBA
Qualifications
1 68 (18.04%) Security Cleared
2 49 (13.00%) SC Cleared
3 48 (12.73%) Degree
4 31 (8.22%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (6.63%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (3.71%) CCNA
6 14 (3.71%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (2.92%) CCNP
8 8 (2.12%) CCDP
9 5 (1.33%) A+ Certification
9 5 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.33%) Network+ Certification
10 4 (1.06%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.80%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.80%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.80%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.80%) PMP
11 3 (0.80%) Six Sigma Green Belt
12 2 (0.53%) ISTQB
12 2 (0.53%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.04%) Data Quality
1 19 (5.04%) QA
2 12 (3.18%) PSD2
3 8 (2.12%) ISO 20022
4 7 (1.86%) SEPA
5 4 (1.06%) GDPR
5 4 (1.06%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.80%) Accessibility
6 3 (0.80%) ISO 8583
7 2 (0.53%) PMO
8 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.27%) NIST
8 1 (0.27%) SLA
8 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 40 (10.61%) Active Directory
2 34 (9.02%) Docker
3 11 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.39%) ACF2
4 9 (2.39%) RACF
4 9 (2.39%) Time Sharing Option
5 7 (1.86%) VMware NSX
6 6 (1.59%) vSphere
7 5 (1.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.80%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.80%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (9.55%) Kubernetes
2 18 (4.77%) Terraform
3 16 (4.24%) SCCM
4 9 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 9 (2.39%) CA Endevor
4 9 (2.39%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (2.39%) Tivoli
4 9 (2.39%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 7 (1.86%) Grafana
6 6 (1.59%) Norton AntiVirus
6 6 (1.59%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.53%) Ansible
7 2 (0.53%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.27%) Argo
8 1 (0.27%) Autotask
8 1 (0.27%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 77 (20.42%) Microsoft
2 47 (12.47%) SAP
3 22 (5.84%) Oracle
3 22 (5.84%) VMware
4 14 (3.71%) ServiceNow
5 13 (3.45%) Citrix
5 13 (3.45%) Sage
6 11 (2.92%) Red Hat
7 10 (2.65%) Cisco
7 10 (2.65%) F5
8 7 (1.86%) Databricks
8 7 (1.86%) Google
8 7 (1.86%) Symantec
8 7 (1.86%) Workday
9 6 (1.59%) McAfee
9 6 (1.59%) MuleSoft
9 6 (1.59%) Splunk
10 5 (1.33%) Computacenter
11 4 (1.06%) Aruba
11 4 (1.06%) Veeam