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

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 +8 +5
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 356 307 260
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.33% 14.77% 9.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.33% 16.88% 11.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 193 156
10th Percentile £198 £203 £316
25th Percentile £313 £341 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £441 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.59% -7.50% +13.64%
75th Percentile £500 £551 £582
90th Percentile £586 £635 £700
England median daily rate £492 £500 £517
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.29% -4.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 13 16
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.14 £16.68
25th Percentile £16.88 £22.72 £21.40
Median hourly rate £20.26 £27.13 £44.19
Median % change year-on-year -25.33% -38.62% +22.75%
75th Percentile £49.49 £37.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £73.78 £65.59 £49.48
England median hourly rate £18.82 £21.46 £32.32
% change year-on-year -12.30% -33.60% +3.76%

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 2,180 1,819 2,307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 87.76% 87.54% 87.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,416 1,036 1,570
10th Percentile £213 £270 £306
25th Percentile £358 £390 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £656 £676
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.43% -2.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 92 151
10th Percentile £16.35 £16.01 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.56 £21.20 £18.70
Median hourly rate £41.68 £30.20 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.01% -24.50% +14.29%
75th Percentile £57.10 £47.39 £46.91
90th Percentile £70.00 £69.59 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -26.03% -23.60% +27.14%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -2 148 £450 - 164
Cheshire 0 131 £415 -15.83% 92
Merseyside -2 38 £225 -10.00% 45
Lancashire 0 33 £550 +5.52% 89
Cumbria -3 3 £475 +15.15% 4
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 (6.18%) SharePoint
2 20 (5.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (4.78%) Confluence
4 8 (2.25%) Apache
5 7 (1.97%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (1.97%) Skype for Business
6 4 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.84%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.56%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.56%) CMS
8 2 (0.56%) JBoss
8 2 (0.56%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.28%) EPiServer
9 1 (0.28%) Moodle
9 1 (0.28%) Mule
9 1 (0.28%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.28%) SAS
9 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
Applications
1 30 (8.43%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (7.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.65%) MS Visio
5 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.28%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 33 (9.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.12%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.84%) iTrent
3 3 (0.84%) Kondor
3 3 (0.84%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.84%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.56%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.56%) ContrOCC
4 2 (0.56%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.56%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.28%) Finacle
5 1 (0.28%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.28%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.28%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 66 (18.54%) Azure
2 63 (17.70%) AWS
3 40 (11.24%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (6.46%) GCP
5 19 (5.34%) GitHub
6 18 (5.06%) Power Platform
7 15 (4.21%) Serverless
8 11 (3.09%) Amazon ECS
8 11 (3.09%) Apigee
9 10 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (2.81%) Datadog
9 10 (2.81%) OneDrive
9 10 (2.81%) SaaS
10 9 (2.53%) Amazon SQS
10 9 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (2.25%) Entra ID
12 7 (1.97%) Amazon EventBridge
12 7 (1.97%) AWS Step Functions
12 7 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.21%) Firewall
2 14 (3.93%) Network Security
3 12 (3.37%) DNS
4 8 (2.25%) BGP
4 8 (2.25%) LAN
4 8 (2.25%) WAN
5 7 (1.97%) Skype
5 7 (1.97%) VLAN
6 6 (1.69%) Software-Defined Networking
6 6 (1.69%) WebEx
7 5 (1.40%) DHCP
8 4 (1.12%) DMZ
8 4 (1.12%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 4 (1.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 4 (1.12%) HTTP
8 4 (1.12%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.56%) NetScaler
9 2 (0.56%) SAN
9 2 (0.56%) VoIP
9 2 (0.56%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.21%) Relational Database
2 13 (3.65%) DynamoDB
2 13 (3.65%) NoSQL
3 12 (3.37%) MySQL
3 12 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (3.09%) Power BI
5 9 (2.53%) BigQuery
6 8 (2.25%) Amazon Aurora
7 7 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.97%) SQL Server
8 6 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.69%) RDBMS
8 6 (1.69%) Redis
9 4 (1.12%) MS Access
9 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.84%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.84%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.56%) Big Data
11 2 (0.56%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 38 (10.67%) JIRA
2 28 (7.87%) Git
3 16 (4.49%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.81%) GitLab
5 6 (1.69%) Gradle
5 6 (1.69%) Maven
5 6 (1.69%) SonarQube
6 5 (1.40%) SonarLint
7 4 (1.12%) Selenium
8 3 (0.84%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.84%) TestRail
9 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.56%) JUnit
10 1 (0.28%) Appium
10 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.28%) Grunt
10 1 (0.28%) gulp
10 1 (0.28%) LSMW
10 1 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 171 (48.03%) Social Skills
2 127 (35.67%) Analytical Skills
3 107 (30.06%) Finance
4 44 (12.36%) Banking
5 34 (9.55%) Public Sector
6 17 (4.78%) Legal
7 11 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.81%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.69%) Local Government
9 6 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.40%) Law
10 5 (1.40%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.40%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.12%) Automotive
11 4 (1.12%) Games
11 4 (1.12%) Retail Banking
12 3 (0.84%) Electronics
12 3 (0.84%) Retail
Job Titles
1 59 (16.57%) Developer
2 58 (16.29%) Analyst
3 26 (7.30%) Consultant
4 25 (7.02%) Business Analyst
5 21 (5.90%) Administrator
6 18 (5.06%) Architect
7 17 (4.78%) Platform Engineer
7 17 (4.78%) Senior
8 14 (3.93%) Java Developer
9 12 (3.37%) IT Support
9 12 (3.37%) Lead
9 12 (3.37%) Project Manager
9 12 (3.37%) SAP Consultant
9 12 (3.37%) Support Analyst
10 11 (3.09%) Service Analyst
11 9 (2.53%) Data Engineer
11 9 (2.53%) Full-Stack Developer
12 8 (2.25%) Service Desk Analyst
12 8 (2.25%) Technical Architect
13 7 (1.97%) Java Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.55%) Spring Boot
2 29 (8.15%) Spring
3 25 (7.02%) REST
4 17 (4.78%) RESTful
5 14 (3.93%) JSON
5 14 (3.93%) OAuth
6 13 (3.65%) JWT
7 12 (3.37%) XML
8 11 (3.09%) Kafka
8 11 (3.09%) React
8 11 (3.09%) SOAP
9 10 (2.81%) HTML
10 9 (2.53%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.53%) JMS
11 8 (2.25%) .NET
11 8 (2.25%) CSS
11 8 (2.25%) Hibernate
11 8 (2.25%) OAuth2
12 7 (1.97%) J2EE
12 7 (1.97%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 30 (8.43%) Product Ownership
2 16 (4.49%) Cloud Native
3 14 (3.93%) Onboarding
4 13 (3.65%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 7 (1.97%) Mainframe
5 7 (1.97%) Mobile App
6 6 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (1.69%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.69%) Data Structures
6 6 (1.69%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (1.69%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.69%) N-Tier
7 5 (1.40%) CMDB
7 5 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.12%) Public Cloud
9 3 (0.84%) Fat Client
9 3 (0.84%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 46 (12.92%) Windows
2 21 (5.90%) Linux
3 17 (4.78%) Windows 10
4 16 (4.49%) Windows Server
5 12 (3.37%) Android
6 10 (2.81%) Apple iOS
6 10 (2.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (2.53%) Unix
8 4 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (23.60%) Agile
2 59 (16.57%) Continuous Improvement
3 57 (16.01%) Stakeholder Management
4 56 (15.73%) CI/CD
5 51 (14.33%) Change Management
6 48 (13.48%) DevOps
7 40 (11.24%) Microservices
8 39 (10.96%) Containerisation
9 38 (10.67%) Project Management
10 34 (9.55%) Requirements Gathering
11 33 (9.27%) Validation
12 31 (8.71%) Migration
12 31 (8.71%) Test Automation
13 29 (8.15%) ERP
14 28 (7.87%) Analytics
14 28 (7.87%) Customer Service
14 28 (7.87%) SDLC
15 27 (7.58%) Computer Science
15 27 (7.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 27 (7.58%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 50 (14.04%) SQL
2 49 (13.76%) Java
3 41 (11.52%) Python
4 20 (5.62%) PowerShell
5 17 (4.78%) Bash
6 15 (4.21%) JavaScript
7 10 (2.81%) TypeScript
8 9 (2.53%) C#
9 8 (2.25%) Perl
10 6 (1.69%) CLIST
10 6 (1.69%) COBOL
10 6 (1.69%) JCL
10 6 (1.69%) REXX
11 5 (1.40%) Go
11 5 (1.40%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.40%) T-SQL
12 4 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.56%) ABAP
13 2 (0.56%) Groovy
13 2 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 63 (17.70%) Security Cleared
2 53 (14.89%) Degree
3 42 (11.80%) SC Cleared
4 21 (5.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (5.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (3.09%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (3.09%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 9 (2.53%) CCNA
7 9 (2.53%) CCNP
8 8 (2.25%) CCDP
9 4 (1.12%) A+ Certification
9 4 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.12%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.12%) CISSP
9 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (1.12%) PMI Certification
9 4 (1.12%) PMP
10 3 (0.84%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.56%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.56%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (6.18%) QA
2 14 (3.93%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.37%) ISO 20022
4 11 (3.09%) PSD2
5 10 (2.81%) SEPA
6 9 (2.53%) GDPR
7 5 (1.40%) Accessibility
7 5 (1.40%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.56%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.56%) NIST
9 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.28%) GRC
9 1 (0.28%) HL7
9 1 (0.28%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.28%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.28%) ISO 8583
9 1 (0.28%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.28%) SLA
9 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 39 (10.96%) Docker
2 29 (8.15%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.69%) ACF2
4 6 (1.69%) RACF
4 6 (1.69%) Time Sharing Option
4 6 (1.69%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.12%) vSphere
6 3 (0.84%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.56%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 42 (11.80%) Kubernetes
2 22 (6.18%) SCCM
3 19 (5.34%) Terraform
4 14 (3.93%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 6 (1.69%) CA Endevor
5 6 (1.69%) Tivoli
5 6 (1.69%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 5 (1.40%) Grafana
6 5 (1.40%) Norton AntiVirus
6 5 (1.40%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.84%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.56%) QRadar
9 1 (0.28%) Ansible
9 1 (0.28%) Argo
9 1 (0.28%) Autotask
9 1 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 86 (24.16%) Microsoft
2 51 (14.33%) SAP
3 25 (7.02%) Oracle
4 18 (5.06%) VMware
5 12 (3.37%) ServiceNow
6 10 (2.81%) Cisco
6 10 (2.81%) Red Hat
7 9 (2.53%) Citrix
8 8 (2.25%) Splunk
9 7 (1.97%) F5
9 7 (1.97%) MuleSoft
9 7 (1.97%) Workday
10 6 (1.69%) Google
10 6 (1.69%) Symantec
11 5 (1.40%) Databricks
11 5 (1.40%) Gigya
11 5 (1.40%) McAfee
12 4 (1.12%) Adobe
12 4 (1.12%) IFS
12 4 (1.12%) Sage