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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 11
Rank change year-on-year -3 +7 +7
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 378 336 286
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.46% 16.04% 9.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.62% 18.15% 11.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 217 171
10th Percentile £198 £203 £325
25th Percentile £322 £325 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £428 £455 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.04% -9.00% +12.99%
75th Percentile £500 £550 £583
90th Percentile £600 £631 £700
England median daily rate £495 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.00% -2.50% -5.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 18 23
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.24 £11.60
25th Percentile £15.29 £23.23 £16.68
Median hourly rate £19.52 £27.13 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.04% -36.18% +11.84%
75th Percentile £63.21 £33.08 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £43.18 £51.46
England median hourly rate £18.50 £23.15 £22.50
% change year-on-year -20.09% +2.89% -29.49%

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 2,275 1,851 2,515
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 87.03% 88.35% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,499 1,079 1,678
10th Percentile £213 £275 £306
25th Percentile £358 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £551 £568 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £683
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 98 208
10th Percentile £16.25 £16.19 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.58 £22.72 £15.92
Median hourly rate £41.94 £31.51 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.10% +5.03% -19.57%
75th Percentile £57.50 £52.13 £46.18
90th Percentile £73.90 £75.58 £54.13
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -1.41% +1.43%

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 2 February 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 2 February 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 2 February 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 -6 151 £450 +1.41% 200
Cheshire -1 137 £402 -17.96% 71
Merseyside -7 42 £225 -10.00% 25
Lancashire +1 40 £550 +5.01% 93
Cumbria -7 5 £475 +15.15% 12
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 23 (6.08%) Confluence
1 23 (6.08%) SharePoint
2 20 (5.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.12%) Apache
4 7 (1.85%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (1.85%) Skype for Business
5 4 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.79%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.53%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.26%) CMS
8 1 (0.26%) JBoss
8 1 (0.26%) Moodle
8 1 (0.26%) nginx
8 1 (0.26%) SAS
8 1 (0.26%) Tomcat
Applications
1 30 (7.94%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (4.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.44%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.53%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.26%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 37 (9.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.06%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.06%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.79%) iTrent
3 3 (0.79%) Kondor
3 3 (0.79%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.79%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.53%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.53%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.26%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.26%) Finacle
5 1 (0.26%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.26%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.26%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.26%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 79 (20.90%) Azure
2 69 (18.25%) AWS
3 42 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
4 25 (6.61%) GCP
5 22 (5.82%) Power Platform
6 20 (5.29%) GitHub
7 15 (3.97%) Entra ID
8 14 (3.70%) Serverless
9 11 (2.91%) Apigee
9 11 (2.91%) SaaS
10 10 (2.65%) Amazon ECS
10 10 (2.65%) Datadog
10 10 (2.65%) OneDrive
11 9 (2.38%) Amazon SQS
11 9 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
12 8 (2.12%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (1.85%) Amazon EventBridge
13 7 (1.85%) AWS Step Functions
14 6 (1.59%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 24 (6.35%) Firewall
2 18 (4.76%) DNS
3 16 (4.23%) Network Security
4 9 (2.38%) DHCP
5 8 (2.12%) BGP
5 8 (2.12%) LAN
5 8 (2.12%) WAN
6 7 (1.85%) Skype
6 7 (1.85%) VLAN
7 6 (1.59%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 6 (1.59%) Kerberos
7 6 (1.59%) Software-Defined Networking
7 6 (1.59%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.59%) WebEx
8 5 (1.32%) DMZ
8 5 (1.32%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 4 (1.06%) HTTP
9 4 (1.06%) NetScaler
10 2 (0.53%) VoIP
10 2 (0.53%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (4.76%) Relational Database
2 15 (3.97%) NoSQL
3 14 (3.70%) MySQL
3 14 (3.70%) Power BI
4 13 (3.44%) DynamoDB
5 11 (2.91%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.38%) SQL Server
7 8 (2.12%) Amazon Aurora
7 8 (2.12%) BigQuery
8 7 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (1.59%) RDBMS
10 5 (1.32%) MongoDB
10 5 (1.32%) Redis
11 4 (1.06%) MS Access
11 4 (1.06%) Oracle Database
11 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.79%) Power Query
12 3 (0.79%) Snowflake Schema
13 2 (0.53%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 42 (11.11%) JIRA
2 36 (9.52%) Git
3 17 (4.50%) GitLab
4 16 (4.23%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.59%) Gradle
5 6 (1.59%) Maven
5 6 (1.59%) Postman
5 6 (1.59%) SonarQube
6 5 (1.32%) Selenium
6 5 (1.32%) SonarLint
7 4 (1.06%) JUnit
8 3 (0.79%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.79%) Mockito
9 2 (0.53%) JMeter
10 1 (0.26%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.26%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.26%) gulp
10 1 (0.26%) LSMW
10 1 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 176 (46.56%) Social Skills
2 136 (35.98%) Analytical Skills
3 114 (30.16%) Finance
4 47 (12.43%) Banking
5 36 (9.52%) Public Sector
6 17 (4.50%) Legal
7 10 (2.65%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (1.85%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.59%) Law
10 6 (1.59%) Local Government
10 6 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.32%) Retail Banking
12 4 (1.06%) Games
13 3 (0.79%) Automotive
13 3 (0.79%) Electronics
13 3 (0.79%) Military
Job Titles
1 67 (17.72%) Analyst
2 63 (16.67%) Developer
3 31 (8.20%) Business Analyst
4 28 (7.41%) Consultant
5 20 (5.29%) Administrator
6 19 (5.03%) Architect
6 19 (5.03%) Platform Engineer
6 19 (5.03%) Senior
7 16 (4.23%) SAP Consultant
8 15 (3.97%) IT Support
8 15 (3.97%) Java Developer
8 15 (3.97%) Support Analyst
9 14 (3.70%) Lead
9 14 (3.70%) Project Manager
10 12 (3.17%) Full-Stack Developer
11 11 (2.91%) Service Analyst
12 10 (2.65%) Data Engineer
13 9 (2.38%) IT Analyst
13 9 (2.38%) Software Engineer
14 8 (2.12%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (10.05%) Spring Boot
2 35 (9.26%) REST
3 32 (8.47%) Spring
4 25 (6.61%) RESTful
5 17 (4.50%) JSON
5 17 (4.50%) SOAP
6 14 (3.70%) HTML
6 14 (3.70%) XML
7 13 (3.44%) Kafka
7 13 (3.44%) OAuth
7 13 (3.44%) Swagger
8 12 (3.17%) CSS
8 12 (3.17%) JMS
8 12 (3.17%) JWT
8 12 (3.17%) React
9 10 (2.65%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.38%) ISPF
10 9 (2.38%) OpenAPI
11 8 (2.12%) .NET
11 8 (2.12%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.52%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.82%) Cloud Native
3 19 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 16 (4.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 10 (2.65%) Mainframe
6 9 (2.38%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.85%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.59%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.59%) N-Tier
9 5 (1.32%) CMDB
9 5 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.32%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.32%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.06%) Data Centre
10 4 (1.06%) Digital Wallet
11 3 (0.79%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 49 (12.96%) Windows
2 25 (6.61%) Linux
3 19 (5.03%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.76%) Windows 10
5 11 (2.91%) Android
5 11 (2.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (2.65%) Apple iOS
7 9 (2.38%) Unix
8 7 (1.85%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.53%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.26%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (27.25%) Agile
2 66 (17.46%) Stakeholder Management
3 65 (17.20%) CI/CD
4 62 (16.40%) Continuous Improvement
5 61 (16.14%) Change Management
6 52 (13.76%) DevOps
7 44 (11.64%) Project Management
7 44 (11.64%) Validation
8 43 (11.38%) Microservices
9 42 (11.11%) Containerisation
9 42 (11.11%) Migration
10 40 (10.58%) Requirements Gathering
11 37 (9.79%) Test Automation
12 35 (9.26%) Workshop Facilitation
13 32 (8.47%) ERP
14 31 (8.20%) Customer Service
14 31 (8.20%) ITIL
14 31 (8.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 29 (7.67%) Computer Science
16 28 (7.41%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 56 (14.81%) Java
2 54 (14.29%) SQL
3 44 (11.64%) Python
4 30 (7.94%) PowerShell
5 19 (5.03%) JavaScript
6 18 (4.76%) Bash
7 14 (3.70%) TypeScript
8 9 (2.38%) C#
8 9 (2.38%) CLIST
8 9 (2.38%) COBOL
8 9 (2.38%) JCL
8 9 (2.38%) REXX
9 8 (2.12%) Perl
10 7 (1.85%) Go
11 5 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.32%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.32%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.79%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.79%) VBA
13 2 (0.53%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 66 (17.46%) Security Cleared
2 53 (14.02%) Degree
3 43 (11.38%) SC Cleared
4 24 (6.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (6.08%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (2.91%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.38%) CCNA
7 9 (2.38%) CCNP
8 8 (2.12%) CCDP
9 7 (1.85%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 6 (1.59%) A+ Certification
10 6 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (1.06%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (0.79%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.79%) CISSP
12 3 (0.79%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.53%) CSPO
13 2 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (0.53%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.61%) QA
2 17 (4.50%) PSD2
3 15 (3.97%) Data Quality
3 15 (3.97%) ISO 20022
4 13 (3.44%) SEPA
5 8 (2.12%) GDPR
5 8 (2.12%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.32%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.79%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.53%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.53%) NIST
8 2 (0.53%) SLA
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%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.26%) PMO
9 1 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 44 (11.64%) Docker
2 41 (10.85%) Active Directory
3 11 (2.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.38%) ACF2
4 9 (2.38%) RACF
4 9 (2.38%) Time Sharing Option
5 7 (1.85%) VMware NSX
6 6 (1.59%) vSphere
7 5 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.79%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.79%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 48 (12.70%) Kubernetes
2 25 (6.61%) SCCM
3 22 (5.82%) Terraform
4 15 (3.97%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (2.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 9 (2.38%) CA Endevor
5 9 (2.38%) Tivoli
5 9 (2.38%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 7 (1.85%) Grafana
6 7 (1.85%) Prometheus
7 6 (1.59%) Norton AntiVirus
8 2 (0.53%) Ansible
8 2 (0.53%) QRadar
9 1 (0.26%) Argo
9 1 (0.26%) Autotask
9 1 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.26%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.26%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 86 (22.75%) Microsoft
2 50 (13.23%) SAP
3 26 (6.88%) Oracle
4 22 (5.82%) VMware
5 12 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 11 (2.91%) F5
7 10 (2.65%) Cisco
7 10 (2.65%) Red Hat
8 9 (2.38%) Citrix
9 8 (2.12%) Sage
10 7 (1.85%) Splunk
10 7 (1.85%) Symantec
10 7 (1.85%) Workday
11 6 (1.59%) Google
11 6 (1.59%) McAfee
11 6 (1.59%) MuleSoft
12 5 (1.32%) Computacenter
12 5 (1.32%) Databricks
12 5 (1.32%) Gigya
12 5 (1.32%) Veeam