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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 9
Rank change year-on-year -5 +6 +12
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 363 374 316
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.38% 19.16% 11.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.62% 21.19% 13.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 220 197
10th Percentile £213 £208 £312
25th Percentile £350 £391 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £488 £493
Median % change year-on-year -17.54% -1.12% +9.56%
75th Percentile £500 £583 £575
90th Percentile £588 £689 £653
England median daily rate £488 £500 £511
% change year-on-year -2.50% -2.15% -2.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 29 49
10th Percentile £16.04 £17.13 -
25th Percentile £29.99 £22.50 £10.95
Median hourly rate £70.00 £27.13 £11.20
Median % change year-on-year +158.06% +142.30% -59.29%
75th Percentile £75.00 £30.63 £43.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £56.06 £52.78
England median hourly rate £22.81 £22.00 £17.50
% change year-on-year +3.68% +25.71% -61.69%

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 2,665 1,765 2,399
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.52% 90.42% 86.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,655 1,143 1,533
10th Percentile £275 £300 £306
25th Percentile £375 £393 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £590
90th Percentile £653 £661 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 106 246
10th Percentile £19.75 £16.16 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.78 £13.36
Median hourly rate £51.00 £32.25 £21.56
Median % change year-on-year +58.14% +49.62% -38.41%
75th Percentile £74.01 £60.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £84.33 £57.50
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £35.68
% change year-on-year +50.00% -15.92% -4.85%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 30 April 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 -6 176 £450 -2.70% 160
Cheshire -6 96 £402 -19.04% 63
Lancashire -8 38 £435 -15.94% 77
Merseyside -18 28 £188 -59.46% 37
Cumbria +1 19 £488 +16.42% 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 26 (7.16%) Confluence
2 8 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.65%) Apache
3 6 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.83%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.83%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.55%) CMS
5 2 (0.55%) JBoss
6 1 (0.28%) Camunda
6 1 (0.28%) Mule
6 1 (0.28%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.28%) nginx
6 1 (0.28%) SAS
6 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
Applications
1 21 (5.79%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.65%) MS Visio
4 4 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.83%) CATIA
5 3 (0.83%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.28%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 32 (8.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.10%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.10%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.83%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.55%) iTrent
5 1 (0.28%) Advent Geneva
5 1 (0.28%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.28%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.28%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.28%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 72 (19.83%) Azure
2 69 (19.01%) AWS
3 27 (7.44%) Microsoft 365
4 24 (6.61%) Power Platform
5 21 (5.79%) GCP
6 14 (3.86%) Entra ID
7 13 (3.58%) GitHub
8 7 (1.93%) Apigee
8 7 (1.93%) Kong
9 6 (1.65%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (1.65%) dbt
9 6 (1.65%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
10 5 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (1.38%) SaaS
10 5 (1.38%) Serverless
11 4 (1.10%) AWS Step Functions
11 4 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 4 (1.10%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 21 (5.79%) DNS
2 20 (5.51%) Firewall
3 10 (2.75%) Network Security
4 9 (2.48%) DHCP
5 7 (1.93%) Kerberos
5 7 (1.93%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 5 (1.38%) HTTP
6 5 (1.38%) WAN
6 5 (1.38%) WebEx
7 4 (1.10%) DMZ
7 4 (1.10%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 4 (1.10%) LAN
7 4 (1.10%) NetScaler
7 4 (1.10%) SAN
7 4 (1.10%) VLAN
7 4 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.83%) Wireless
9 2 (0.55%) BGP
9 2 (0.55%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.23%) Power BI
2 15 (4.13%) Relational Database
2 15 (4.13%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.86%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (3.03%) MySQL
5 10 (2.75%) MongoDB
5 10 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (2.20%) NoSQL
7 4 (1.10%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
7 4 (1.10%) Big Data
7 4 (1.10%) BigQuery
7 4 (1.10%) Power Query
7 4 (1.10%) Snowflake Schema
7 4 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.83%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.83%) DataStage
8 3 (0.83%) DB2
8 3 (0.83%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.83%) Hadoop
8 3 (0.83%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 50 (13.77%) JIRA
2 26 (7.16%) Git
3 13 (3.58%) GitLab
4 10 (2.75%) Mockito
5 8 (2.20%) Postman
6 6 (1.65%) JUnit
7 4 (1.10%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.83%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.83%) MSI
8 3 (0.83%) Selenium
9 2 (0.55%) JMeter
9 2 (0.55%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.55%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.28%) CANoe
10 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.28%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.28%) Gradle
10 1 (0.28%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 159 (43.80%) Social Skills
2 144 (39.67%) Analytical Skills
3 128 (35.26%) Finance
4 45 (12.40%) Banking
5 36 (9.92%) Public Sector
6 14 (3.86%) Legal
7 13 (3.58%) Manufacturing
8 12 (3.31%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (3.03%) Law
10 10 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (2.48%) Telecoms
12 8 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
13 7 (1.93%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.38%) Retail
15 4 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
16 3 (0.83%) Aerospace
16 3 (0.83%) Automotive
17 2 (0.55%) Billing
17 2 (0.55%) Local Government
18 1 (0.28%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 68 (18.73%) Analyst
2 66 (18.18%) Developer
3 33 (9.09%) Business Analyst
4 28 (7.71%) Administrator
5 26 (7.16%) Java Developer
6 25 (6.89%) Senior
7 18 (4.96%) Consultant
7 18 (4.96%) Lead
8 17 (4.68%) Architect
8 17 (4.68%) IT Support
9 16 (4.41%) Project Manager
9 16 (4.41%) SAP Consultant
10 14 (3.86%) IT Analyst
11 13 (3.58%) Data Engineer
11 13 (3.58%) Finance Manager
11 13 (3.58%) Finance Project Manager
11 13 (3.58%) Support Analyst
11 13 (3.58%) Transformation Consultant
12 12 (3.31%) IT Support Analyst
13 11 (3.03%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (8.54%) Spring
2 30 (8.26%) Spring Boot
3 27 (7.44%) REST
4 23 (6.34%) RESTful
5 19 (5.23%) OAuth
6 17 (4.68%) HTML
6 17 (4.68%) Kafka
7 16 (4.41%) JSON
7 16 (4.41%) SOAP
7 16 (4.41%) XML
8 14 (3.86%) CSS
8 14 (3.86%) React
9 13 (3.58%) Swagger
10 11 (3.03%) AngularJS
11 10 (2.75%) OAuth2
12 9 (2.48%) HTML5
12 9 (2.48%) ISPF
12 9 (2.48%) OpenAPI
13 8 (2.20%) CSS3
14 7 (1.93%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 29 (7.99%) Product Ownership
2 20 (5.51%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.86%) Management Information System
4 13 (3.58%) Cloud Native
5 9 (2.48%) Analytical Mindset
5 9 (2.48%) Mainframe
5 9 (2.48%) Mobile App
6 8 (2.20%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.93%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 6 (1.65%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.38%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.38%) Driving Licence
9 5 (1.38%) Fat Client
9 5 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.38%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.38%) Thin Client
10 4 (1.10%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 40 (11.02%) Windows
2 21 (5.79%) Linux
3 17 (4.68%) Unix
4 16 (4.41%) Windows 10
5 9 (2.48%) Apple iOS
6 8 (2.20%) Android
6 8 (2.20%) Windows Server
7 7 (1.93%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.93%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (1.38%) Mac OS X
9 4 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (1.10%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.55%) AIX
10 2 (0.55%) HPUX
10 2 (0.55%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.55%) Solaris
10 2 (0.55%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (27.00%) Agile
2 67 (18.46%) Change Management
3 59 (16.25%) Continuous Improvement
4 55 (15.15%) Migration
5 53 (14.60%) CI/CD
5 53 (14.60%) Stakeholder Management
6 47 (12.95%) Validation
6 47 (12.95%) Workshop Facilitation
7 45 (12.40%) Microservices
8 43 (11.85%) Project Management
9 41 (11.29%) ERP
10 39 (10.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 38 (10.47%) DevOps
11 38 (10.47%) Requirements Gathering
11 38 (10.47%) Test Automation
12 35 (9.64%) Data Migration
13 34 (9.37%) Computer Science
14 32 (8.82%) Customer Service
15 30 (8.26%) ITIL
16 29 (7.99%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 60 (16.53%) SQL
2 52 (14.33%) Java
3 33 (9.09%) PowerShell
4 30 (8.26%) Python
5 19 (5.23%) JavaScript
6 15 (4.13%) TypeScript
7 9 (2.48%) CLIST
7 9 (2.48%) COBOL
7 9 (2.48%) JCL
7 9 (2.48%) REXX
8 8 (2.20%) Kotlin
9 5 (1.38%) Go
9 5 (1.38%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.38%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.10%) Bash
10 4 (1.10%) C#
10 4 (1.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.83%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 51 (14.05%) Security Cleared
2 50 (13.77%) Degree
3 32 (8.82%) Computer Science Degree
4 30 (8.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 29 (7.99%) SC Cleared
6 14 (3.86%) A+ Certification
6 14 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (3.58%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (2.75%) CISSP
10 9 (2.48%) CCNA
11 6 (1.65%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.38%) Azure Certification
13 4 (1.10%) CCNP
13 4 (1.10%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (1.10%) MCSE
14 3 (0.83%) CISA
14 3 (0.83%) HNC
14 3 (0.83%) PMI Certification
14 3 (0.83%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (7.44%) Data Quality
2 17 (4.68%) QA
3 12 (3.31%) PSD2
4 8 (2.20%) GRC
4 8 (2.20%) ISO 20022
5 7 (1.93%) NIST
5 7 (1.93%) SEPA
6 6 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.38%) GDPR
7 5 (1.38%) PCI DSS
7 5 (1.38%) PMO
8 3 (0.83%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 2 (0.55%) SLA
10 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 38 (10.47%) Active Directory
2 28 (7.71%) Docker
3 9 (2.48%) ACF2
3 9 (2.48%) RACF
3 9 (2.48%) Time Sharing Option
3 9 (2.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.38%) VMware NSX
4 5 (1.38%) vSphere
5 3 (0.83%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.83%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 32 (8.82%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.31%) SCCM
2 12 (3.31%) Terraform
3 9 (2.48%) CA Endevor
3 9 (2.48%) Tivoli
3 9 (2.48%) Tivoli Storage Manager
4 6 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (1.38%) Grafana
6 3 (0.83%) Ansible
6 3 (0.83%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.55%) Argo
7 2 (0.55%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.55%) Norton AntiVirus
8 1 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.28%) Functional Safety
8 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 67 (18.46%) Microsoft
2 50 (13.77%) SAP
3 26 (7.16%) Oracle
4 16 (4.41%) ServiceNow
5 14 (3.86%) Sage
6 13 (3.58%) VMware
7 11 (3.03%) Splunk
8 9 (2.48%) F5
9 8 (2.20%) Cisco
10 7 (1.93%) MuleSoft
11 6 (1.65%) Citrix
11 6 (1.65%) Google
12 5 (1.38%) Adobe
12 5 (1.38%) Databricks
12 5 (1.38%) Dell
12 5 (1.38%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.38%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.10%) BeyondTrust
13 4 (1.10%) CrowdStrike
13 4 (1.10%) Workday