COUNTIF error [SOLVED]

COUNTIF function does not seem to be working for the following scenario:

1. first sheet is skills sheet: simple list of skills and categories; type Y in a column and that employee gets the skill in their column [works fine]

2. second sheet: extracts the list for all employees using a UNIQUE function that filters out blanks; can be a variable length list depending how many skills get a Y [works fine]

3. THIRD SHEET TROUBLES (pink area):

- the unique list for a specific employee is copied to a certain column [works fine]; an INDEX & MATCH formula looks at the skill and puts the corresponding category in the column to the left [works fine]

- COUNTIF will NOT count the number of categories (i.e. count how many "Technical" skills are listed, or "Core" skills......

* I can't even COUNTIF the unique list on the second page as a test count of skills

* even if I paste this category column as test values somewhere I can't count it

* I've removed leading and trailing spaces

* this USED to work when I had a very complex SUMPRODUCT formula in the second sheet to collect the skills list an employee has (ignoring blanks) 

*Office 365 on Mac 

End goal third sheet:

1. employee has correct list of skills, correct category is next to skill

2. count the skill categories

3. the graph [used to work fine but need categories fixed first]

Thanks

Steve