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 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 7 6 12
Rank change year-on-year -1 +6 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 385 306 277
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.53% 13.47% 10.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.54% 15.85% 11.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 172 162
10th Percentile £215 £215 £321
25th Percentile £332 £356 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +12.36%
75th Percentile £520 £555 £586
90th Percentile £604 £625 £700
England median daily rate £476 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.85% - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 11 18
10th Percentile £15.18 £13.70 £16.85
25th Percentile £17.30 £19.31 £19.51
Median hourly rate £20.26 £27.13 £35.94
Median % change year-on-year -25.33% -24.53% +29.93%
75th Percentile £57.96 £46.13 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.18 £61.15
England median hourly rate £19.00 £19.50 £42.90
% change year-on-year -2.56% -54.55% +43.01%

All Process and 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 2,195 1,931 2,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 88.54% 84.99% 88.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,460 1,061 1,617
10th Percentile £213 £294 £275
25th Percentile £358 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £563 £575 £600
90th Percentile £657 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 116 152
10th Percentile £15.57 £16.03 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.75 £21.81 £17.75
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -8.45% +50.39%
75th Percentile £48.94 £49.31 £46.35
90th Percentile £70.68 £67.84 £64.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +18.67%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 -1 162 £450 +0.22% 414
Cheshire 0 146 £447 -10.60% 226
Merseyside +2 36 £225 -26.83% 140
Lancashire -3 36 £550 +12.82% 258
Cumbria 0 2 £475 -13.75% 13
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 22 (5.71%) SharePoint
2 19 (4.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (3.90%) Confluence
4 8 (2.08%) Apache
5 7 (1.82%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (1.82%) Skype for Business
6 5 (1.30%) JBoss
6 5 (1.30%) Tomcat
7 4 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.52%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.52%) CMS
9 1 (0.26%) EPiServer
9 1 (0.26%) Moodle
9 1 (0.26%) Mule
9 1 (0.26%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.26%) SAS
9 1 (0.26%) WebLogic
Applications
1 32 (8.31%) Microsoft Excel
1 32 (8.31%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (4.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (3.90%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.56%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.52%) Simulink
6 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 28 (7.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.04%) ContrOCC
2 4 (1.04%) SAP EHS
2 4 (1.04%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.78%) iTrent
3 3 (0.78%) Kondor
3 3 (0.78%) Maximo
4 2 (0.52%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.52%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.52%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.26%) Finacle
5 1 (0.26%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.26%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.26%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 57 (14.81%) AWS
2 55 (14.29%) Azure
3 38 (9.87%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (5.97%) GitHub
5 22 (5.71%) Power Platform
6 21 (5.45%) GCP
7 14 (3.64%) Serverless
8 11 (2.86%) SaaS
9 10 (2.60%) Amazon ECS
9 10 (2.60%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (2.60%) Datadog
10 9 (2.34%) Amazon SQS
10 9 (2.34%) OneDrive
11 8 (2.08%) Apigee
11 8 (2.08%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (1.82%) Amazon EventBridge
12 7 (1.82%) Entra ID
13 6 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (1.56%) AWS Fargate
13 6 (1.56%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 15 (3.90%) Network Security
2 12 (3.12%) Firewall
3 8 (2.08%) LAN
3 8 (2.08%) WAN
4 7 (1.82%) BGP
4 7 (1.82%) DNS
4 7 (1.82%) Skype
4 7 (1.82%) VLAN
5 6 (1.56%) Software-Defined Networking
5 6 (1.56%) WebEx
6 4 (1.04%) DMZ
6 4 (1.04%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 4 (1.04%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 4 (1.04%) HTTP
7 2 (0.52%) SAN
7 2 (0.52%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.52%) VoIP
7 2 (0.52%) VSAN
8 1 (0.26%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.26%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.16%) Power BI
2 13 (3.38%) NoSQL
2 13 (3.38%) Relational Database
3 12 (3.12%) DynamoDB
3 12 (3.12%) MySQL
3 12 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (2.60%) BigQuery
5 8 (2.08%) Amazon Aurora
6 7 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.56%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (1.56%) Redis
7 6 (1.56%) SQL Server
8 5 (1.30%) RDBMS
9 4 (1.04%) MS Access
9 4 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (1.04%) Tableau
10 3 (0.78%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.78%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.78%) Power Query
10 3 (0.78%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 45 (11.69%) JIRA
2 35 (9.09%) Git
3 23 (5.97%) Jenkins
4 15 (3.90%) GitLab
5 11 (2.86%) JUnit
6 9 (2.34%) Gradle
6 9 (2.34%) Maven
7 7 (1.82%) Selenium
7 7 (1.82%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.56%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.30%) SonarLint
10 4 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.78%) Cypress.io
11 3 (0.78%) TestRail
12 2 (0.52%) Grunt
12 2 (0.52%) gulp
12 2 (0.52%) Jasmine
13 1 (0.26%) Appium
13 1 (0.26%) MLflow
13 1 (0.26%) Zephyr
General
1 193 (50.13%) Social Skills
2 143 (37.14%) Analytical Skills
3 105 (27.27%) Finance
4 38 (9.87%) Banking
5 36 (9.35%) Public Sector
6 15 (3.90%) Legal
7 11 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.34%) Local Government
8 9 (2.34%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.34%) Pharmaceutical
9 8 (2.08%) Law
10 5 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.04%) Automotive
11 4 (1.04%) Games
11 4 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.04%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.78%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.78%) Electronics
12 3 (0.78%) Military
Job Titles
1 69 (17.92%) Developer
2 53 (13.77%) Analyst
3 30 (7.79%) Consultant
4 23 (5.97%) Administrator
4 23 (5.97%) Java Developer
5 21 (5.45%) Architect
6 19 (4.94%) Business Analyst
6 19 (4.94%) Senior
7 16 (4.16%) Lead
8 15 (3.90%) Platform Engineer
9 13 (3.38%) SAP Consultant
10 12 (3.12%) Service Analyst
11 10 (2.60%) IT Support
12 9 (2.34%) Project Manager
13 8 (2.08%) Full-Stack Developer
13 8 (2.08%) Service Desk Analyst
13 8 (2.08%) Support Analyst
13 8 (2.08%) Technical Architect
13 8 (2.08%) Technical Manager
14 7 (1.82%) Operational Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (10.65%) Spring Boot
2 37 (9.61%) Spring
3 36 (9.35%) REST
4 20 (5.19%) RESTful
5 16 (4.16%) Kafka
6 15 (3.90%) React
7 13 (3.38%) SOAP
8 12 (3.12%) HTML
8 12 (3.12%) JSON
9 11 (2.86%) AngularJS
9 11 (2.86%) OAuth
10 10 (2.60%) JMS
10 10 (2.60%) JWT
10 10 (2.60%) XML
11 9 (2.34%) CSS
11 9 (2.34%) Hibernate
12 8 (2.08%) .NET
12 8 (2.08%) J2EE
12 8 (2.08%) OAuth2
13 6 (1.56%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 33 (8.57%) Product Ownership
2 18 (4.68%) Cloud Native
3 13 (3.38%) Onboarding
3 13 (3.38%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 9 (2.34%) Mobile App
5 8 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
5 8 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (1.82%) Mainframe
6 7 (1.82%) Virtual Team
7 6 (1.56%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.56%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.56%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.56%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.30%) CMDB
9 4 (1.04%) Cyberattack
9 4 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.78%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 44 (11.43%) Windows
2 24 (6.23%) Linux
3 15 (3.90%) Windows 10
4 12 (3.12%) Unix
4 12 (3.12%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.86%) Android
6 10 (2.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (2.08%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.26%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.26%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (24.16%) Agile
2 63 (16.36%) Continuous Improvement
3 58 (15.06%) CI/CD
4 53 (13.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 47 (12.21%) Change Management
6 43 (11.17%) Microservices
7 42 (10.91%) Analytics
8 41 (10.65%) Project Management
9 40 (10.39%) DevOps
10 37 (9.61%) Containerisation
10 37 (9.61%) Requirements Gathering
11 34 (8.83%) Migration
11 34 (8.83%) Test Automation
12 31 (8.05%) AI
12 31 (8.05%) SDLC
12 31 (8.05%) User Acceptance Testing
13 29 (7.53%) ITIL
14 28 (7.27%) Computer Science
15 27 (7.01%) Decision-Making
15 27 (7.01%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 61 (15.84%) Java
2 53 (13.77%) SQL
3 44 (11.43%) Python
4 19 (4.94%) PowerShell
5 18 (4.68%) JavaScript
6 17 (4.42%) Bash
7 8 (2.08%) C#
7 8 (2.08%) Perl
8 6 (1.56%) CLIST
8 6 (1.56%) COBOL
8 6 (1.56%) JCL
8 6 (1.56%) REXX
8 6 (1.56%) TypeScript
9 5 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (1.30%) Kotlin
9 5 (1.30%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.04%) Go
10 4 (1.04%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.52%) X++
Qualifications
1 71 (18.44%) Security Cleared
2 59 (15.32%) Degree
3 51 (13.25%) SC Cleared
4 22 (5.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (2.86%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 10 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
8 8 (2.08%) CCDP
8 8 (2.08%) CCNA
8 8 (2.08%) CCNP
9 6 (1.56%) DBS Check
10 4 (1.04%) CBAP
10 4 (1.04%) CISSP
10 4 (1.04%) PMI Certification
10 4 (1.04%) PMP
11 3 (0.78%) A+ Certification
11 3 (0.78%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.78%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.78%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 3 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (7.01%) QA
2 16 (4.16%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.86%) ISO 20022
4 10 (2.60%) GDPR
4 10 (2.60%) SEPA
5 9 (2.34%) PSD2
6 6 (1.56%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.04%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.52%) COBIT
8 2 (0.52%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.52%) NIST
8 2 (0.52%) PMO
8 2 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.26%) GRC
9 1 (0.26%) HL7
9 1 (0.26%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.26%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 36 (9.35%) Docker
2 23 (5.97%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.56%) ACF2
3 6 (1.56%) RACF
3 6 (1.56%) Time Sharing Option
3 6 (1.56%) VMware NSX
4 4 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.52%) ISA Server
5 2 (0.52%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (9.87%) Kubernetes
2 20 (5.19%) SCCM
3 18 (4.68%) Terraform
4 11 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (1.56%) CA Endevor
5 6 (1.56%) Tivoli
5 6 (1.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 5 (1.30%) Grafana
6 5 (1.30%) Norton AntiVirus
6 5 (1.30%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.78%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.52%) QRadar
10 1 (0.26%) Ansible
10 1 (0.26%) Argo
10 1 (0.26%) Autotask
10 1 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.26%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 101 (26.23%) Microsoft
2 49 (12.73%) SAP
3 26 (6.75%) Oracle
4 21 (5.45%) ServiceNow
5 14 (3.64%) VMware
6 11 (2.86%) Google
7 10 (2.60%) Red Hat
8 9 (2.34%) Cisco
8 9 (2.34%) Citrix
9 6 (1.56%) Workday
10 5 (1.30%) F5
10 5 (1.30%) Gigya
10 5 (1.30%) McAfee
10 5 (1.30%) Splunk
10 5 (1.30%) Symantec
11 4 (1.04%) Computacenter
11 4 (1.04%) IBM
11 4 (1.04%) IFS
11 4 (1.04%) Liquidlogic
11 4 (1.04%) MuleSoft