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

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 7 5 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 +8 +3
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 360 307 262
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.23% 14.25% 9.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.15% 16.43% 11.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 187 159
10th Percentile £213 £205 £324
25th Percentile £320 £348 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -7.50% +13.64%
75th Percentile £513 £550 £582
90th Percentile £588 £625 £700
England median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 13 17
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.14 £16.77
25th Percentile £17.30 £22.72 £19.25
Median hourly rate £20.26 £27.13 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -25.33% -40.88% +37.49%
75th Percentile £45.07 £37.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £71.85 £65.59 £63.20
England median hourly rate £18.96 £20.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year -5.20% -45.21% +19.20%

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 2,229 1,869 2,350
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 88.14% 86.73% 88.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,448 1,053 1,606
10th Percentile £213 £266 £302
25th Percentile £358 £390 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £555 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £656 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.67% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 102 162
10th Percentile £16.90 £16.00 £16.03
25th Percentile £21.06 £21.05 £18.13
Median hourly rate £33.75 £30.95 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.05% -22.63% +54.98%
75th Percentile £56.27 £51.91 £48.05
90th Percentile £69.61 £69.59 £64.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +22.56%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -3 158 £458 +10.91% 380
Cheshire 0 129 £436 -11.52% 194
Merseyside 0 37 £225 -10.00% 98
Lancashire -1 30 £550 +5.52% 152
Cumbria -3 2 £475 +15.15% 10
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 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 20 (5.56%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (4.17%) Confluence
4 8 (2.22%) Apache
5 7 (1.94%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (1.94%) Skype for Business
6 4 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.83%) 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 31 (8.61%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (4.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.61%) MS Visio
5 6 (1.67%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.28%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 28 (7.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.11%) ContrOCC
2 4 (1.11%) SAP EHS
2 4 (1.11%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.83%) iTrent
3 3 (0.83%) Kondor
3 3 (0.83%) Maximo
3 3 (0.83%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.56%) Advent Geneva
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 HCM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.28%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 67 (18.61%) Azure
2 59 (16.39%) AWS
3 41 (11.39%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (6.39%) GCP
5 19 (5.28%) GitHub
6 18 (5.00%) Power Platform
7 15 (4.17%) Serverless
8 13 (3.61%) SaaS
9 11 (3.06%) Amazon ECS
10 10 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (2.78%) Datadog
10 10 (2.78%) OneDrive
11 9 (2.50%) Amazon SQS
11 9 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (2.22%) Apigee
12 8 (2.22%) Entra ID
13 7 (1.94%) Amazon EventBridge
13 7 (1.94%) AWS Step Functions
13 7 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.17%) Firewall
1 15 (4.17%) Network Security
2 11 (3.06%) DNS
3 8 (2.22%) BGP
3 8 (2.22%) LAN
3 8 (2.22%) WAN
4 7 (1.94%) Skype
4 7 (1.94%) VLAN
5 6 (1.67%) Software-Defined Networking
5 6 (1.67%) WebEx
6 5 (1.39%) DMZ
6 5 (1.39%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 5 (1.39%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 4 (1.11%) HTTP
7 4 (1.11%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.83%) DHCP
9 2 (0.56%) NetScaler
9 2 (0.56%) SAN
9 2 (0.56%) VoIP
9 2 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.17%) Relational Database
2 13 (3.61%) DynamoDB
2 13 (3.61%) NoSQL
3 12 (3.33%) MySQL
3 12 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (3.06%) Power BI
5 9 (2.50%) BigQuery
6 8 (2.22%) Amazon Aurora
7 7 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.94%) SQL Server
8 6 (1.67%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.67%) RDBMS
8 6 (1.67%) Redis
9 4 (1.11%) MS Access
9 4 (1.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.83%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.83%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.83%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.56%) Big Data
11 2 (0.56%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 36 (10.00%) JIRA
2 28 (7.78%) Git
3 16 (4.44%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.78%) GitLab
5 6 (1.67%) Gradle
5 6 (1.67%) Maven
5 6 (1.67%) SonarQube
6 5 (1.39%) SonarLint
7 4 (1.11%) Selenium
8 3 (0.83%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.83%) JUnit
8 3 (0.83%) TestRail
9 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.28%) Ant
10 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.28%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.28%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.28%) LSMW
10 1 (0.28%) NUnit
10 1 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
General
1 177 (49.17%) Social Skills
2 128 (35.56%) Analytical Skills
3 100 (27.78%) Finance
4 41 (11.39%) Banking
5 34 (9.44%) Public Sector
6 16 (4.44%) Legal
7 11 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.78%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.67%) Local Government
9 6 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
9 6 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.39%) Law
11 4 (1.11%) Automotive
11 4 (1.11%) Games
11 4 (1.11%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.83%) Electronics
12 3 (0.83%) Military
12 3 (0.83%) Retail
Job Titles
1 60 (16.67%) Developer
2 54 (15.00%) Analyst
3 28 (7.78%) Consultant
4 23 (6.39%) Administrator
5 21 (5.83%) Business Analyst
6 19 (5.28%) Senior
7 18 (5.00%) Architect
8 17 (4.72%) Platform Engineer
9 15 (4.17%) Java Developer
10 14 (3.89%) Lead
11 11 (3.06%) SAP Consultant
11 11 (3.06%) Service Analyst
12 10 (2.78%) IT Support
13 9 (2.50%) Data Engineer
13 9 (2.50%) Full-Stack Developer
13 9 (2.50%) Project Manager
13 9 (2.50%) Support Analyst
14 8 (2.22%) Service Desk Analyst
14 8 (2.22%) Technical Architect
15 7 (1.94%) Java Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.44%) Spring Boot
2 30 (8.33%) Spring
3 22 (6.11%) REST
4 16 (4.44%) RESTful
5 11 (3.06%) Kafka
5 11 (3.06%) OAuth
5 11 (3.06%) React
5 11 (3.06%) XML
6 10 (2.78%) AngularJS
6 10 (2.78%) HTML
6 10 (2.78%) JMS
6 10 (2.78%) JSON
6 10 (2.78%) JWT
7 9 (2.50%) .NET
7 9 (2.50%) Hibernate
8 8 (2.22%) J2EE
8 8 (2.22%) OAuth2
8 8 (2.22%) SOAP
9 7 (1.94%) CSS
9 7 (1.94%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.78%) Product Ownership
2 18 (5.00%) Cloud Native
3 14 (3.89%) Onboarding
4 13 (3.61%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 8 (2.22%) Analytical Mindset
6 7 (1.94%) Mainframe
6 7 (1.94%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (1.67%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.67%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.67%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.67%) Mobile App
7 6 (1.67%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.39%) CMDB
8 5 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.11%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.11%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.83%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.83%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 44 (12.22%) Windows
2 21 (5.83%) Linux
3 16 (4.44%) Windows 10
4 14 (3.89%) Windows Server
5 12 (3.33%) Android
6 10 (2.78%) Apple iOS
6 10 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (2.50%) Unix
8 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (21.94%) Agile
2 63 (17.50%) Continuous Improvement
3 52 (14.44%) CI/CD
3 52 (14.44%) Stakeholder Management
4 47 (13.06%) Change Management
5 45 (12.50%) DevOps
6 39 (10.83%) Containerisation
7 37 (10.28%) Microservices
8 32 (8.89%) Project Management
9 31 (8.61%) Analytics
9 31 (8.61%) Requirements Gathering
10 30 (8.33%) Test Automation
11 28 (7.78%) SDLC
12 27 (7.50%) AI
12 27 (7.50%) Computer Science
13 26 (7.22%) User Acceptance Testing
14 25 (6.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 24 (6.67%) Customer Service
15 24 (6.67%) Migration
15 24 (6.67%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 50 (13.89%) Java
2 48 (13.33%) SQL
3 43 (11.94%) Python
4 22 (6.11%) PowerShell
5 17 (4.72%) Bash
6 16 (4.44%) JavaScript
7 10 (2.78%) C#
8 9 (2.50%) TypeScript
9 8 (2.22%) Perl
10 6 (1.67%) CLIST
10 6 (1.67%) COBOL
10 6 (1.67%) JCL
10 6 (1.67%) REXX
11 5 (1.39%) Go
11 5 (1.39%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.39%) T-SQL
12 4 (1.11%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.56%) ABAP
13 2 (0.56%) Groovy
13 2 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 65 (18.06%) Security Cleared
2 53 (14.72%) Degree
3 45 (12.50%) SC Cleared
4 21 (5.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (4.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (3.06%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (3.06%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 9 (2.50%) CCNA
7 9 (2.50%) CCNP
8 8 (2.22%) CCDP
9 4 (1.11%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.11%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.11%) CISSP
9 4 (1.11%) PMI Certification
9 4 (1.11%) PMP
10 3 (0.83%) A+ Certification
10 3 (0.83%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.56%) CBAP
11 2 (0.56%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.83%) QA
2 15 (4.17%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.33%) ISO 20022
4 11 (3.06%) PSD2
5 10 (2.78%) SEPA
6 9 (2.50%) GDPR
7 5 (1.39%) PCI DSS
8 4 (1.11%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.56%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.56%) NIST
10 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.28%) GRC
10 1 (0.28%) HL7
10 1 (0.28%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 8583
10 1 (0.28%) PMBOK
10 1 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 39 (10.83%) Docker
2 26 (7.22%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.94%) VMware NSX
4 6 (1.67%) ACF2
4 6 (1.67%) RACF
4 6 (1.67%) Time Sharing Option
4 6 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.11%) vSphere
6 3 (0.83%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 42 (11.67%) Kubernetes
2 22 (6.11%) SCCM
3 19 (5.28%) Terraform
4 14 (3.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (1.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 6 (1.67%) CA Endevor
5 6 (1.67%) Tivoli
5 6 (1.67%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 5 (1.39%) Grafana
6 5 (1.39%) Norton AntiVirus
6 5 (1.39%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.83%) 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 88 (24.44%) Microsoft
2 47 (13.06%) SAP
3 24 (6.67%) Oracle
4 17 (4.72%) VMware
5 13 (3.61%) ServiceNow
6 10 (2.78%) Cisco
6 10 (2.78%) Red Hat
7 9 (2.50%) Citrix
8 8 (2.22%) F5
8 8 (2.22%) Splunk
9 7 (1.94%) Google
9 7 (1.94%) Workday
10 6 (1.67%) Symantec
11 5 (1.39%) Computacenter
11 5 (1.39%) Databricks
11 5 (1.39%) Gigya
11 5 (1.39%) McAfee
12 4 (1.11%) IFS
12 4 (1.11%) Liquidlogic
12 4 (1.11%) MuleSoft