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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 5 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 +4
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 393 337 282
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.43% 16.00% 10.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.62% 18.05% 11.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 221 162
10th Percentile £199 £203 £313
25th Percentile £324 £324 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £424 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.24% -7.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £500 £550 £582
90th Percentile £598 £638 £700
England median daily rate £492 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.44% -5.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 19 27
10th Percentile £14.93 £15.46 £12.35
25th Percentile £15.18 £23.74 £15.14
Median hourly rate £41.86 £27.13 £26.39
Median % change year-on-year +54.30% +2.79% -34.98%
75th Percentile £69.45 £35.56 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £57.84 £52.78
England median hourly rate £18.85 £25.22 £21.64
% change year-on-year -25.26% +16.52% -31.37%

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 2,365 1,867 2,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 86.82% 88.65% 86.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,532 1,115 1,624
10th Percentile £213 £265 £307
25th Percentile £358 £380 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £570 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 99 218
10th Percentile £16.15 £16.21 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.85 £22.72 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.69 £31.52 £29.22
Median % change year-on-year +35.42% +7.87% -22.08%
75th Percentile £61.25 £55.59 £46.18
90th Percentile £75.18 £75.30 £53.75
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -6 156 £449 +2.57% 197
Cheshire -2 135 £402 -17.79% 84
Lancashire +2 46 £550 +5.01% 70
Merseyside -8 41 £225 -10.00% 24
Cumbria +1 11 £481 +16.67% 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 28 (7.12%) Confluence
2 23 (5.85%) SharePoint
3 21 (5.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.78%) Apache
4 7 (1.78%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (1.78%) Skype for Business
5 4 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.25%) CMS
7 1 (0.25%) JBoss
7 1 (0.25%) Moodle
7 1 (0.25%) nginx
7 1 (0.25%) SAS
7 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 29 (7.38%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (5.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (4.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (3.56%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.25%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 40 (10.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.02%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.02%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.76%) iTrent
3 3 (0.76%) Kondor
3 3 (0.76%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.76%) SAP Payroll
3 3 (0.76%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.51%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.51%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.51%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.25%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.25%) Finacle
5 1 (0.25%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.25%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.25%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.25%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 76 (19.34%) Azure
2 62 (15.78%) AWS
3 43 (10.94%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (5.60%) Power Platform
5 19 (4.83%) GCP
6 16 (4.07%) Entra ID
7 15 (3.82%) GitHub
8 10 (2.54%) OneDrive
9 9 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.04%) Serverless
11 7 (1.78%) SaaS
12 6 (1.53%) Apigee
12 6 (1.53%) Kong
13 5 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
13 5 (1.27%) Amazon S3
13 5 (1.27%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (1.27%) Datadog
13 5 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
13 5 (1.27%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 23 (5.85%) Firewall
2 18 (4.58%) DNS
3 14 (3.56%) Network Security
4 9 (2.29%) DHCP
5 8 (2.04%) BGP
6 7 (1.78%) LAN
6 7 (1.78%) Skype
6 7 (1.78%) VLAN
6 7 (1.78%) WAN
6 7 (1.78%) WebEx
7 6 (1.53%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 6 (1.53%) Kerberos
7 6 (1.53%) Software-Defined Networking
8 5 (1.27%) DMZ
8 5 (1.27%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 4 (1.02%) HTTP
9 4 (1.02%) NetScaler
9 4 (1.02%) TCP/IP
10 2 (0.51%) VoIP
10 2 (0.51%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (3.56%) Power BI
2 13 (3.31%) Relational Database
2 13 (3.31%) SQL Server
3 10 (2.54%) NoSQL
4 8 (2.04%) MongoDB
4 8 (2.04%) MySQL
5 7 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
5 7 (1.78%) DynamoDB
6 5 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.02%) MS Access
7 4 (1.02%) Oracle Database
7 4 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.76%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.76%) BigQuery
8 3 (0.76%) Power Query
8 3 (0.76%) SAP HANA
8 3 (0.76%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (0.51%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (0.51%) DB2
Development Applications
1 48 (12.21%) JIRA
2 29 (7.38%) Git
3 17 (4.33%) GitLab
4 10 (2.54%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.04%) Postman
6 6 (1.53%) Mockito
7 5 (1.27%) Selenium
8 4 (1.02%) JUnit
9 3 (0.76%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.51%) JMeter
10 2 (0.51%) SoapUI
10 2 (0.51%) Zephyr
11 1 (0.25%) Appium
11 1 (0.25%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.25%) Grunt
11 1 (0.25%) gulp
11 1 (0.25%) Maven
11 1 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
11 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 177 (45.04%) Social Skills
2 150 (38.17%) Analytical Skills
3 124 (31.55%) Finance
4 48 (12.21%) Banking
5 40 (10.18%) Public Sector
6 18 (4.58%) Legal
7 12 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.80%) Manufacturing
9 8 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.78%) Retail Banking
11 6 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.53%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.27%) Law
13 4 (1.02%) Automotive
13 4 (1.02%) Games
13 4 (1.02%) Local Government
14 3 (0.76%) Military
14 3 (0.76%) Retail
Job Titles
1 76 (19.34%) Analyst
2 68 (17.30%) Developer
3 37 (9.41%) Business Analyst
4 29 (7.38%) Consultant
5 26 (6.62%) Senior
6 25 (6.36%) Administrator
7 20 (5.09%) Platform Engineer
8 18 (4.58%) SAP Consultant
9 17 (4.33%) Java Developer
10 16 (4.07%) Lead
11 15 (3.82%) IT Support
11 15 (3.82%) Support Analyst
12 14 (3.56%) Architect
12 14 (3.56%) Project Manager
13 12 (3.05%) Full-Stack Developer
13 12 (3.05%) Service Analyst
14 10 (2.54%) Data Engineer
14 10 (2.54%) Software Engineer
15 9 (2.29%) Senior Analyst
15 9 (2.29%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (8.91%) REST
2 31 (7.89%) Spring
2 31 (7.89%) Spring Boot
3 21 (5.34%) RESTful
4 19 (4.83%) JSON
4 19 (4.83%) SOAP
5 16 (4.07%) Kafka
6 15 (3.82%) HTML
6 15 (3.82%) XML
7 13 (3.31%) CSS
7 13 (3.31%) OAuth
7 13 (3.31%) React
7 13 (3.31%) Swagger
8 11 (2.80%) JMS
9 10 (2.54%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.29%) CSS3
10 9 (2.29%) HTML5
10 9 (2.29%) ISPF
10 9 (2.29%) OpenAPI
11 8 (2.04%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.16%) Product Ownership
2 19 (4.83%) Onboarding
3 16 (4.07%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.82%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 10 (2.54%) Mainframe
6 8 (2.04%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.78%) Mobile App
7 7 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.53%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.27%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.27%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.27%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.02%) CMDB
10 4 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.02%) Fat Client
10 4 (1.02%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 50 (12.72%) Windows
2 29 (7.38%) Linux
3 20 (5.09%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.58%) Windows 10
5 12 (3.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (3.05%) Unix
6 11 (2.80%) Android
7 10 (2.54%) Apple iOS
8 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.76%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.76%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (26.97%) Agile
2 69 (17.56%) Change Management
2 69 (17.56%) Continuous Improvement
3 64 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
4 60 (15.27%) CI/CD
5 53 (13.49%) DevOps
6 50 (12.72%) Migration
6 50 (12.72%) Project Management
7 49 (12.47%) Validation
8 42 (10.69%) Microservices
8 42 (10.69%) Requirements Gathering
8 42 (10.69%) Workshop Facilitation
9 39 (9.92%) Test Automation
10 38 (9.67%) Containerisation
11 37 (9.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 36 (9.16%) ERP
13 34 (8.65%) Customer Service
14 33 (8.40%) ITIL
15 30 (7.63%) Decision-Making
15 30 (7.63%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 58 (14.76%) SQL
2 52 (13.23%) Java
3 37 (9.41%) Python
4 32 (8.14%) PowerShell
5 21 (5.34%) JavaScript
6 18 (4.58%) Bash
7 16 (4.07%) TypeScript
8 9 (2.29%) C#
8 9 (2.29%) CLIST
8 9 (2.29%) COBOL
8 9 (2.29%) JCL
8 9 (2.29%) REXX
9 8 (2.04%) Perl
10 7 (1.78%) Go
11 5 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.27%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.27%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.76%) ABAP
12 3 (0.76%) Groovy
12 3 (0.76%) VBA
Qualifications
1 71 (18.07%) Security Cleared
2 53 (13.49%) Degree
3 50 (12.72%) SC Cleared
4 31 (7.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (5.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (2.54%) CCNA
6 10 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.29%) CCNP
8 8 (2.04%) CCDP
9 7 (1.78%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 6 (1.53%) A+ Certification
10 6 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (1.02%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (0.76%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.76%) CBAP
12 3 (0.76%) DBS Check
12 3 (0.76%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.76%) PMP
13 2 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 2 (0.51%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.36%) QA
2 17 (4.33%) Data Quality
3 16 (4.07%) PSD2
4 14 (3.56%) ISO 20022
5 12 (3.05%) SEPA
6 7 (1.78%) GDPR
7 6 (1.53%) PCI DSS
8 5 (1.27%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.76%) ISO 8583
10 2 (0.51%) PMO
11 1 (0.25%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.25%) HL7
11 1 (0.25%) IEC 61508
11 1 (0.25%) ISO 26262
11 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.25%) NIST
11 1 (0.25%) PMBOK
11 1 (0.25%) SLA
11 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 44 (11.20%) Active Directory
2 38 (9.67%) Docker
3 11 (2.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.29%) ACF2
4 9 (2.29%) RACF
4 9 (2.29%) Time Sharing Option
5 7 (1.78%) VMware NSX
6 6 (1.53%) vSphere
7 5 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.76%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.76%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 41 (10.43%) Kubernetes
2 25 (6.36%) SCCM
3 18 (4.58%) Terraform
4 15 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (2.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 9 (2.29%) CA Endevor
5 9 (2.29%) Tivoli
5 9 (2.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 8 (2.04%) Grafana
7 7 (1.78%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.53%) Norton AntiVirus
9 2 (0.51%) Ansible
9 2 (0.51%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.25%) Argo
10 1 (0.25%) Autotask
10 1 (0.25%) CA Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 87 (22.14%) Microsoft
2 54 (13.74%) SAP
3 27 (6.87%) Oracle
4 22 (5.60%) VMware
5 13 (3.31%) ServiceNow
6 11 (2.80%) Citrix
6 11 (2.80%) Red Hat
7 10 (2.54%) F5
7 10 (2.54%) Sage
8 8 (2.04%) Cisco
9 7 (1.78%) Symantec
9 7 (1.78%) Workday
10 6 (1.53%) Databricks
10 6 (1.53%) Google
10 6 (1.53%) McAfee
10 6 (1.53%) MuleSoft
11 5 (1.27%) Computacenter
11 5 (1.27%) Splunk
12 4 (1.02%) IFS
12 4 (1.02%) Veeam