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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 6 7
Rank change year-on-year -9 +1 +8
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 364 364 276
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 9.12% 16.74% 11.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.98% 18.89% 13.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 207 167
10th Percentile £250 £267 £213
25th Percentile £335 £375 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +2.70% -2.63%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £550
90th Percentile £625 £673 £605
England median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 37 8
10th Percentile £15.02 £12.21 £26.25
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £40.47
Median hourly rate £37.50 £20.26 £54.28
Median % change year-on-year +85.14% -62.68% +97.38%
75th Percentile £76.50 £47.12 £66.67
90th Percentile £178.75 £66.04 £83.32
England median hourly rate £19.57 £18.90 £16.23
% change year-on-year +3.57% +16.42% -69.76%

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 3,315 1,927 1,983
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.06% 88.64% 83.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,951 1,262 1,167
10th Percentile £297 £300 £305
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £499
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -9.82% -0.20%
75th Percentile £594 £553 £588
90th Percentile £676 £662 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.95% -2.87% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 336 127 112
10th Percentile £16.01 £13.51 £16.54
25th Percentile £24.59 £17.41 £26.25
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -37.63% +15.21%
75th Percentile £73.25 £52.50 £56.21
90th Percentile £85.00 £73.00 £70.90
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -12 174 £473 -0.53% 273
Cheshire -4 123 £444 -5.28% 97
Lancashire -11 31 £300 -33.33% 92
Cumbria -10 16 £420 +34.40% 11
Merseyside -23 12 £408 -18.50% 45
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 14 (3.85%) Confluence
2 11 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.55%) Camunda
4 2 (0.55%) CMS
5 1 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.27%) JBoss
5 1 (0.27%) Mule
5 1 (0.27%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.27%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.27%) WebLogic
Applications
1 29 (7.97%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (4.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (2.20%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.82%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.82%) CATIA
7 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 11 (3.02%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.82%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.82%) Teamcenter
3 3 (0.82%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.55%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.55%) SAP HCM
4 2 (0.55%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.27%) ENOVIA
5 1 (0.27%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.27%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.27%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 63 (17.31%) Azure
2 59 (16.21%) Microsoft 365
3 55 (15.11%) AWS
4 26 (7.14%) Power Platform
5 16 (4.40%) GCP
6 14 (3.85%) Entra ID
7 11 (3.02%) Power Automate
8 8 (2.20%) GitHub
9 6 (1.65%) OpenShift
10 5 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (1.10%) PowerApps
12 3 (0.82%) Anthropic Claude
12 3 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (0.82%) ChatGPT
12 3 (0.82%) dbt
12 3 (0.82%) Google Sheets
12 3 (0.82%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.82%) n8n
12 3 (0.82%) Zapier
13 2 (0.55%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (9.89%) VPN
2 16 (4.40%) Firewall
3 14 (3.85%) WAN
4 13 (3.57%) DNS
5 11 (3.02%) LAN
6 10 (2.75%) Wireless
7 9 (2.47%) Network Security
8 7 (1.92%) DHCP
8 7 (1.92%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (1.37%) SD-WAN
9 5 (1.37%) TCP/IP
10 4 (1.10%) BIG-IP
10 4 (1.10%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 4 (1.10%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 4 (1.10%) SSL
10 4 (1.10%) VLAN
11 3 (0.82%) DMZ
11 3 (0.82%) MPLS
11 3 (0.82%) OSPF
11 3 (0.82%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (6.04%) Power BI
2 18 (4.95%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.85%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (3.30%) Relational Database
5 8 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (1.92%) DataStage
7 6 (1.65%) Db2
7 6 (1.65%) MongoDB
7 6 (1.65%) MySQL
7 6 (1.65%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.82%) Big Data
8 3 (0.82%) Power Query
8 3 (0.82%) Snowflake Schema
8 3 (0.82%) Tableau
9 2 (0.55%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.55%) Data Vault
9 2 (0.55%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.55%) Metadata
9 2 (0.55%) SAP HANA
10 1 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 32 (8.79%) JIRA
2 13 (3.57%) Git
3 10 (2.75%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.92%) GitLab
5 5 (1.37%) Cucumber
6 4 (1.10%) Gatling
6 4 (1.10%) MSI
6 4 (1.10%) REST Assured
6 4 (1.10%) Selenium
6 4 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.82%) JUnit
7 3 (0.82%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.55%) Burp Suite
8 2 (0.55%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.55%) Gradle
8 2 (0.55%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.55%) Maven
8 2 (0.55%) Mockito
8 2 (0.55%) Serenity BDD
8 2 (0.55%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 196 (53.85%) Social Skills
2 151 (41.48%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (22.25%) Finance
4 40 (10.99%) Banking
5 33 (9.07%) Manufacturing
6 18 (4.95%) Legal
6 18 (4.95%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.75%) Aerospace
7 10 (2.75%) Automotive
7 10 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.75%) Law
7 10 (2.75%) Public Sector
8 7 (1.92%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.65%) Retail
10 5 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.10%) Investment Banking
11 4 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.82%) Games
12 3 (0.82%) Marketing
13 2 (0.55%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 57 (15.66%) Analyst
2 35 (9.62%) IT Support
3 33 (9.07%) Developer
4 25 (6.87%) Support Engineer
5 23 (6.32%) Lead
6 21 (5.77%) Senior
7 20 (5.49%) Architect
8 17 (4.67%) Consultant
8 17 (4.67%) IT Engineer
9 16 (4.40%) Administrator
9 16 (4.40%) IT Analyst
10 15 (4.12%) Support Analyst
11 14 (3.85%) IT Support Engineer
11 14 (3.85%) Service Analyst
12 13 (3.57%) Java Developer
13 12 (3.30%) Data Engineer
13 12 (3.30%) IT Support Analyst
13 12 (3.30%) Service Desk Analyst
14 11 (3.02%) Network Engineer
15 10 (2.75%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.22%) Spring
2 17 (4.67%) Spring Boot
3 15 (4.12%) REST
4 13 (3.57%) Terraform
5 12 (3.30%) Kafka
5 12 (3.30%) React
6 9 (2.47%) OAuth
7 8 (2.20%) HTML
7 8 (2.20%) XML
8 6 (1.65%) JSON
8 6 (1.65%) Playwright
9 5 (1.37%) AngularJS
9 5 (1.37%) CSS
9 5 (1.37%) Node.js
9 5 (1.37%) RESTful
10 4 (1.10%) Middleware
10 4 (1.10%) OAuth2
10 4 (1.10%) OpenID
10 4 (1.10%) SailPoint
10 4 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 30 (8.24%) Onboarding
2 16 (4.40%) Driving Licence
2 16 (4.40%) Product Ownership
3 14 (3.85%) Data Protection Act
3 14 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
4 13 (3.57%) Cloud Native
4 13 (3.57%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (3.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 11 (3.02%) Data Centre
6 11 (3.02%) Management Information System
7 10 (2.75%) Data Structures
8 9 (2.47%) CMDB
9 8 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.65%) PKI
10 6 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.37%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.37%) Security Posture
11 5 (1.37%) Virtual Team
12 4 (1.10%) AI Agents
12 4 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 90 (24.73%) Windows
2 26 (7.14%) Windows 10
3 20 (5.49%) Linux
4 15 (4.12%) Windows Server
5 14 (3.85%) Unix
6 10 (2.75%) Mac OS
7 8 (2.20%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.37%) Solaris
9 2 (0.55%) AIX
9 2 (0.55%) Android
9 2 (0.55%) HPUX
9 2 (0.55%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.55%) SUSE
10 1 (0.27%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (23.90%) Continuous Improvement
2 76 (20.88%) Stakeholder Management
3 59 (16.21%) ITIL
4 55 (15.11%) Agile
5 54 (14.84%) Customer Service
6 51 (14.01%) CI/CD
7 37 (10.16%) AI
8 35 (9.62%) Migration
9 34 (9.34%) DevOps
10 33 (9.07%) Change Management
11 31 (8.52%) Root Cause Analysis
12 30 (8.24%) Analytics
12 30 (8.24%) Data Protection
13 29 (7.97%) Computer Science
13 29 (7.97%) Service Management
14 28 (7.69%) Data Modelling
15 26 (7.14%) Process Improvement
15 26 (7.14%) Software Engineering
15 26 (7.14%) Validation
16 25 (6.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 50 (13.74%) SQL
2 45 (12.36%) Python
3 33 (9.07%) PowerShell
4 32 (8.79%) Java
5 9 (2.47%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.20%) Shell Script
7 7 (1.92%) Bash
7 7 (1.92%) PL/SQL
8 5 (1.37%) T-SQL
9 4 (1.10%) Apex Code
9 4 (1.10%) Kotlin
10 3 (0.82%) C#
10 3 (0.82%) Go
10 3 (0.82%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.55%) ABAP
11 2 (0.55%) Bicep
11 2 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.27%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.27%) Korn
12 1 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 51 (14.01%) Security Cleared
2 44 (12.09%) Degree
3 35 (9.62%) SC Cleared
4 21 (5.77%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (5.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (4.40%) CISSP
7 15 (4.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 12 (3.30%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (3.02%) A+ Certification
10 10 (2.75%) Network+ Certification
11 8 (2.20%) AWS Certification
11 8 (2.20%) HNC
12 7 (1.92%) CompTIA Security+
13 6 (1.65%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 5 (1.37%) CCNA
14 5 (1.37%) CCNP
14 5 (1.37%) CEH
14 5 (1.37%) CISM
14 5 (1.37%) PMI Certification
14 5 (1.37%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.62%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.95%) SLA
3 13 (3.57%) GRC
3 13 (3.57%) NIST
4 9 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (2.20%) QA
6 4 (1.10%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.10%) GDPR
6 4 (1.10%) PMO
7 3 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.27%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.27%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.27%) NCSC
9 1 (0.27%) PSD2
9 1 (0.27%) SEPA
9 1 (0.27%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 52 (14.29%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.12%) Docker
3 14 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (1.37%) Firmware
5 5 (1.37%) Hyper-V
5 5 (1.37%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.82%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 3 (0.82%) XenApp
6 3 (0.82%) XenDesktop
7 2 (0.55%) vSphere
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 23 (6.32%) SCCM
2 20 (5.49%) Kubernetes
3 16 (4.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (2.20%) Ansible
5 7 (1.92%) Grafana
6 5 (1.37%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.82%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.82%) McAfee ePO
9 2 (0.55%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.55%) Istio
9 2 (0.55%) WMI
10 1 (0.27%) Argo
10 1 (0.27%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.27%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.27%) Puppet
10 1 (0.27%) SCOM
10 1 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.27%) WSUS
Vendors
1 102 (28.02%) Microsoft
2 50 (13.74%) ServiceNow
3 31 (8.52%) SAP
4 21 (5.77%) Oracle
5 16 (4.40%) Splunk
6 15 (4.12%) VMware
7 14 (3.85%) Cisco
8 13 (3.57%) Workday
9 11 (3.02%) Remedy
10 9 (2.47%) F5
10 9 (2.47%) Google
10 9 (2.47%) Salesforce
11 7 (1.92%) Atlassian
11 7 (1.92%) BeyondTrust
11 7 (1.92%) IBM
11 7 (1.92%) Palo Alto
12 6 (1.65%) Bomgar
12 6 (1.65%) CrowdStrike
12 6 (1.65%) Teradata
13 5 (1.37%) CyberArk