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

6 months to
19 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 356 317 268
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.08% 15.32% 9.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.09% 17.39% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 199 161
10th Percentile £190 £203 £325
25th Percentile £313 £325 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% -7.50% +13.64%
75th Percentile £500 £548 £582
90th Percentile £575 £638 £700
England median daily rate £492 £500 £523
% change year-on-year -1.60% -4.31% -3.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 14 20
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.36 £16.03
25th Percentile £16.00 £22.72 £23.24
Median hourly rate £20.26 £27.13 £44.19
Median % change year-on-year -25.33% -38.62% +16.29%
75th Percentile £57.54 £35.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £50.08 £55.42
England median hourly rate £18.50 £21.46 £27.50
% change year-on-year -13.79% -21.96% -12.78%

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 2,213 1,823 2,400
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 87.54% 88.11% 87.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,448 1,037 1,615
10th Percentile £213 £281 £313
25th Percentile £358 £390 £407
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 £684
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 95 174
10th Percentile £16.44 £16.03 £13.04
25th Percentile £21.75 £21.15 £18.00
Median hourly rate £41.86 £30.40 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +37.68% -19.47% +4.86%
75th Percentile £57.50 £48.59 £46.91
90th Percentile £69.67 £74.28 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -12.50% +14.29%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -3 144 £449 -0.28% 192
Cheshire -1 134 £404 -16.02% 101
Merseyside -8 38 £225 -10.00% 43
Lancashire +2 34 £550 +4.76% 78
Cumbria -6 3 £475 +15.15% 7
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 18 (5.06%) 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%) JBoss
8 2 (0.56%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.28%) CMS
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 29 (8.15%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (6.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.65%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.40%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.28%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 32 (8.99%) 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%) Elite 3E
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 69 (19.38%) Azure
2 67 (18.82%) AWS
3 40 (11.24%) Microsoft 365
4 25 (7.02%) GCP
5 20 (5.62%) Power Platform
6 19 (5.34%) GitHub
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%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.21%) Firewall
2 13 (3.65%) 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%) DHCP
6 6 (1.69%) Software-Defined Networking
6 6 (1.69%) WebEx
7 4 (1.12%) HTTP
7 4 (1.12%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.84%) DMZ
8 3 (0.84%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 3 (0.84%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 2 (0.56%) NetScaler
9 2 (0.56%) SAN
9 2 (0.56%) VSAN
9 2 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.21%) Relational Database
2 13 (3.65%) DynamoDB
2 13 (3.65%) NoSQL
2 13 (3.65%) Power BI
3 12 (3.37%) MySQL
3 12 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (2.53%) BigQuery
5 8 (2.25%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (2.25%) SQL Server
6 7 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (1.69%) RDBMS
7 6 (1.69%) Redis
8 4 (1.12%) MS Access
8 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.84%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.84%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.84%) Power Query
9 3 (0.84%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.56%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 40 (11.24%) JIRA
2 30 (8.43%) 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 3 (0.84%) Jasmine
7 3 (0.84%) Selenium
7 3 (0.84%) TestRail
8 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.56%) JUnit
9 1 (0.28%) Appium
9 1 (0.28%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.28%) Grunt
9 1 (0.28%) Postman
9 1 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 172 (48.31%) Social Skills
2 132 (37.08%) Analytical Skills
3 108 (30.34%) Finance
4 49 (13.76%) Banking
5 33 (9.27%) Public Sector
6 18 (5.06%) Legal
7 12 (3.37%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.81%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.69%) Law
9 6 (1.69%) Local Government
9 6 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.69%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.40%) Automotive
10 5 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.40%) Retail Banking
11 4 (1.12%) Games
11 4 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.84%) Electronics
12 3 (0.84%) Military
Job Titles
1 60 (16.85%) Analyst
1 60 (16.85%) Developer
2 27 (7.58%) Consultant
3 26 (7.30%) Business Analyst
4 23 (6.46%) Administrator
5 18 (5.06%) Architect
6 17 (4.78%) Platform Engineer
6 17 (4.78%) Senior
7 15 (4.21%) Java Developer
8 14 (3.93%) IT Support
8 14 (3.93%) Support Analyst
9 13 (3.65%) SAP Consultant
10 12 (3.37%) Lead
10 12 (3.37%) Project Manager
11 11 (3.09%) Service Analyst
12 10 (2.81%) Data Engineer
13 9 (2.53%) Full-Stack Developer
14 8 (2.25%) IT Analyst
14 8 (2.25%) Service Desk Analyst
15 7 (1.97%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (10.11%) Spring Boot
2 31 (8.71%) Spring
3 30 (8.43%) 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%) SOAP
7 12 (3.37%) XML
8 11 (3.09%) JMS
8 11 (3.09%) Kafka
8 11 (3.09%) React
9 10 (2.81%) HTML
10 9 (2.53%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.53%) ISPF
11 8 (2.25%) CSS
11 8 (2.25%) Hibernate
11 8 (2.25%) OAuth2
12 7 (1.97%) .NET
12 7 (1.97%) J2EE
Miscellaneous
1 31 (8.71%) Product Ownership
2 20 (5.62%) Cloud Native
3 16 (4.49%) Onboarding
4 15 (4.21%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 10 (2.81%) Mainframe
6 7 (1.97%) Mobile App
7 6 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.69%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.69%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.69%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.69%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.40%) CMDB
8 5 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.12%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.12%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.84%) Fat Client
10 3 (0.84%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 47 (13.20%) Windows
2 22 (6.18%) Linux
3 18 (5.06%) Windows 10
4 17 (4.78%) Windows Server
5 12 (3.37%) Android
6 11 (3.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (2.81%) Apple iOS
8 9 (2.53%) Unix
9 5 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (25.00%) Agile
2 58 (16.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 57 (16.01%) CI/CD
4 56 (15.73%) Continuous Improvement
5 52 (14.61%) Change Management
6 49 (13.76%) DevOps
7 42 (11.80%) Microservices
8 40 (11.24%) Containerisation
9 39 (10.96%) Project Management
10 36 (10.11%) Migration
11 35 (9.83%) Requirements Gathering
11 35 (9.83%) Validation
12 31 (8.71%) SDLC
12 31 (8.71%) Test Automation
13 30 (8.43%) Customer Service
14 28 (7.87%) Analytics
14 28 (7.87%) Computer Science
14 28 (7.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 27 (7.58%) AI
15 27 (7.58%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 53 (14.89%) SQL
2 52 (14.61%) Java
3 43 (12.08%) 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%) CLIST
8 9 (2.53%) COBOL
8 9 (2.53%) JCL
8 9 (2.53%) REXX
9 8 (2.25%) C#
9 8 (2.25%) Perl
10 5 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.40%) Go
10 5 (1.40%) Kotlin
10 5 (1.40%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.56%) ABAP
11 2 (0.56%) Groovy
11 2 (0.56%) X++
Qualifications
1 62 (17.42%) Security Cleared
2 53 (14.89%) Degree
3 41 (11.52%) SC Cleared
4 22 (6.18%) BPSS Clearance
4 22 (6.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.09%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (2.53%) CCNA
6 9 (2.53%) CCNP
7 8 (2.25%) CCDP
7 8 (2.25%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 5 (1.40%) A+ Certification
8 5 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.12%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.12%) CISSP
10 3 (0.84%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.84%) Network+ Certification
10 3 (0.84%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.84%) PMP
11 2 (0.56%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.46%) QA
2 15 (4.21%) Data Quality
3 14 (3.93%) ISO 20022
4 13 (3.65%) PSD2
5 12 (3.37%) 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 41 (11.52%) Docker
2 31 (8.71%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.53%) ACF2
3 9 (2.53%) RACF
3 9 (2.53%) Time Sharing Option
3 9 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.12%) vSphere
6 3 (0.84%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.84%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 44 (12.36%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.46%) SCCM
3 19 (5.34%) Terraform
4 14 (3.93%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (2.53%) CA Endevor
5 9 (2.53%) Tivoli
5 9 (2.53%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 6 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 6 (1.69%) Norton AntiVirus
7 5 (1.40%) Grafana
7 5 (1.40%) Prometheus
8 4 (1.12%) HP ALM
9 2 (0.56%) QRadar
10 1 (0.28%) Ansible
10 1 (0.28%) Argo
10 1 (0.28%) Autotask
10 1 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 83 (23.31%) Microsoft
2 47 (13.20%) 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%) Google
9 7 (1.97%) MuleSoft
9 7 (1.97%) Symantec
9 7 (1.97%) Workday
10 6 (1.69%) F5
10 6 (1.69%) McAfee
11 5 (1.40%) Databricks
11 5 (1.40%) Gigya
11 5 (1.40%) Sage
12 4 (1.12%) Adobe
12 4 (1.12%) HP