Degree Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Academic Degree
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North of England with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 26 20
Rank change year-on-year -14 -6 +13
Contract jobs citing Degree 330 250 334
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 4.60% 6.59% 7.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.61% 21.85% 28.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 143 169
10th Percentile £187 £235 £186
25th Percentile £364 £349 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £447 £505
Median % change year-on-year +0.67% -11.49% +5.10%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £588
90th Percentile £621 £650 £656
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 22 49
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.10 £13.31
25th Percentile £26.28 £23.44 £21.25
Median hourly rate £44.25 £32.25 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.21% +19.44% -10.07%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.94 £55.79
90th Percentile £178.75 £80.05 £64.95
England median hourly rate £44.75 £42.50 £43.75
% change year-on-year +5.29% -2.86% -11.74%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
North of England

Degree falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the North of England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 1,874 1,144 1,165
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 26.11% 30.18% 24.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,207 690 675
10th Percentile £325 £274 £285
25th Percentile £406 £400 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.41% -1.60% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £592
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £525 £535
% change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 88 177
10th Percentile £21.33 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.77 £21.02 £14.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £20.74
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% +21.26% -48.79%
75th Percentile £68.75 £48.34 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £70.55 £63.75
England median hourly rate £54.00 £27.45 £43.00
% change year-on-year +96.72% -36.16% -21.82%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Degree job vacancy trend in the North of England

Degree
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in the North of England over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the North of England

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in the North of England over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the North of England

Degree
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Degree within the North of England region over the 6 months to 16 July 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
North West -12 187 £447 -1.97% 152
Yorkshire -13 127 £475 +11.76% 122
North East -41 16 £450 +130.77% 57
Degree
England

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 37 (11.21%) Confluence
2 29 (8.79%) SharePoint
3 10 (3.03%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (1.52%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.91%) SAS
6 2 (0.61%) Camunda
6 2 (0.61%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.61%) WinCC
7 1 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.30%) CMS
7 1 (0.30%) IIS
7 1 (0.30%) JBoss
7 1 (0.30%) Mule
7 1 (0.30%) Mule ESB
7 1 (0.30%) nginx
7 1 (0.30%) WebLogic
Applications
1 59 (17.88%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (8.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (7.88%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (5.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (4.85%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.30%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.30%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 13 (3.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.82%) Primavera
2 6 (1.82%) SAP MM
3 4 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.91%) NEC Housing
4 3 (0.91%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.61%) Unit4 Business World
6 1 (0.30%) Infor M3
6 1 (0.30%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.30%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 73 (22.12%) Azure
2 48 (14.55%) Microsoft 365
3 40 (12.12%) AWS
4 32 (9.70%) Entra ID
5 30 (9.09%) Power Platform
6 18 (5.45%) GCP
7 16 (4.85%) SaaS
8 13 (3.94%) PowerApps
9 11 (3.33%) Power Automate
10 9 (2.73%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 8 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (2.42%) OneDrive
12 7 (2.12%) OpenShift
12 7 (2.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 6 (1.82%) Azure Monitor
13 6 (1.82%) GitHub
13 6 (1.82%) Microsoft Copilot
14 5 (1.52%) PaaS
15 4 (1.21%) AWS CloudFormation
15 4 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 30 (9.09%) Firewall
2 20 (6.06%) VPN
3 15 (4.55%) DNS
4 13 (3.94%) WAN
5 12 (3.64%) Network Security
5 12 (3.64%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (3.64%) Wireless
6 11 (3.33%) LAN
7 8 (2.42%) SSL
8 7 (2.12%) TCP/IP
8 7 (2.12%) VLAN
8 7 (2.12%) Wireshark
9 6 (1.82%) Skype
10 5 (1.52%) 3GPP
10 5 (1.52%) DHCP
10 5 (1.52%) Internet
10 5 (1.52%) RTP
11 4 (1.21%) BGP
11 4 (1.21%) MPLS
11 4 (1.21%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (6.67%) Power BI
2 21 (6.36%) SQL Server
3 9 (2.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.82%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.82%) MySQL
5 6 (1.82%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (1.52%) Big Data
6 5 (1.52%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.52%) Tableau
7 4 (1.21%) Hadoop
7 4 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.91%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.91%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.91%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.91%) DTS
8 3 (0.91%) OLAP
9 2 (0.61%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 47 (14.24%) JIRA
2 17 (5.15%) Git
3 8 (2.42%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.82%) GitLab
5 5 (1.52%) Flyway
5 5 (1.52%) Postman
5 5 (1.52%) TeamCity
6 4 (1.21%) Cucumber
6 4 (1.21%) JUnit
7 3 (0.91%) Liquibase
8 2 (0.61%) ClearCase
8 2 (0.61%) git-flow
8 2 (0.61%) Mockito
8 2 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.30%) Eclipse
9 1 (0.30%) Gatling
9 1 (0.30%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.30%) Maven
9 1 (0.30%) MLflow
9 1 (0.30%) Selenium
General
1 140 (42.42%) Social Skills
2 98 (29.70%) Finance
3 80 (24.24%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (10.61%) Public Sector
5 33 (10.00%) Banking
6 20 (6.06%) Manufacturing
7 18 (5.45%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (5.15%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (4.85%) Legal
10 10 (3.03%) Publishing
11 9 (2.73%) Presentation Skills
11 9 (2.73%) Telecoms
12 7 (2.12%) Aviation
13 5 (1.52%) Fire and Rescue
13 5 (1.52%) Marketing
13 5 (1.52%) Police
14 4 (1.21%) Financial Institution
14 4 (1.21%) Local Government
14 4 (1.21%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 64 (19.39%) Analyst
2 25 (7.58%) Business Analyst
2 25 (7.58%) Senior
3 20 (6.06%) Architect
3 20 (6.06%) IT Support
4 19 (5.76%) Lead
5 17 (5.15%) IT Analyst
5 17 (5.15%) Project Manager
6 15 (4.55%) Developer
6 15 (4.55%) Support Analyst
7 14 (4.24%) Security Engineer
8 13 (3.94%) IT Support Analyst
9 11 (3.33%) Administrator
9 11 (3.33%) Software Engineer
10 10 (3.03%) 1st Line Support
10 10 (3.03%) Consultant
10 10 (3.03%) Network Engineer
11 9 (2.73%) Designer
11 9 (2.73%) Security Consultant
11 9 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.64%) .NET
2 11 (3.33%) REST
3 9 (2.73%) XML
4 8 (2.42%) 802.1X
4 8 (2.42%) SAP Basis
5 7 (2.12%) HTML
5 7 (2.12%) Microsoft Graph
6 6 (1.82%) JSON
6 6 (1.82%) Middleware
6 6 (1.82%) SOAP
7 5 (1.52%) .NET Core
7 5 (1.52%) Kafka
7 5 (1.52%) OAuth
7 5 (1.52%) Swagger
8 4 (1.21%) CSS
8 4 (1.21%) LDAP
8 4 (1.21%) OAuth2
8 4 (1.21%) PyTorch
8 4 (1.21%) RESTful
8 4 (1.21%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.61%) Management Information System
2 28 (8.48%) Onboarding
3 16 (4.85%) Cloud Native
3 16 (4.85%) Security Posture
4 13 (3.94%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.73%) PKI
5 9 (2.73%) Taxonomies
6 8 (2.42%) Life Science
7 7 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (2.12%) Robotics
7 7 (2.12%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.82%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.82%) NHS
9 5 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.52%) Data Structures
9 5 (1.52%) Distributed Computing
9 5 (1.52%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (1.52%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 61 (18.48%) Windows
2 33 (10.00%) Linux
3 14 (4.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 14 (4.24%) Windows 10
4 9 (2.73%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.12%) Unix
6 3 (0.91%) AIX
6 3 (0.91%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.61%) VMS
7 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.30%) Android
8 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.30%) MVS
8 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (31.82%) Computer Science
2 95 (28.79%) Agile
3 71 (21.52%) Problem-Solving
4 58 (17.58%) ITIL
5 57 (17.27%) Stakeholder Management
6 52 (15.76%) DevOps
7 50 (15.15%) Continuous Improvement
8 45 (13.64%) Roadmaps
9 43 (13.03%) Change Management
10 40 (12.12%) AI
10 40 (12.12%) Cybersecurity
11 36 (10.91%) Project Management
12 34 (10.30%) CI/CD
13 33 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 30 (9.09%) Customer Service
14 30 (9.09%) Scrum
15 29 (8.79%) Data Analysis
15 29 (8.79%) Project Delivery
16 28 (8.48%) Analytics
16 28 (8.48%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 54 (16.36%) Python
2 46 (13.94%) SQL
3 33 (10.00%) PowerShell
4 23 (6.97%) Java
5 15 (4.55%) Bash
6 12 (3.64%) C#
7 9 (2.73%) T-SQL
8 6 (1.82%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.52%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.21%) Bicep
10 4 (1.21%) VB
11 3 (0.91%) R
11 3 (0.91%) Scala
11 3 (0.91%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.61%) C++
12 2 (0.61%) Go
12 2 (0.61%) Perl
12 2 (0.61%) PromQL
12 2 (0.61%) VB6
12 2 (0.61%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 71 (21.52%) Computer Science Degree
2 32 (9.70%) Security Cleared
3 31 (9.39%) CISSP
4 24 (7.27%) Microsoft Certification
4 24 (7.27%) SC Cleared
5 18 (5.45%) Master's Degree
6 15 (4.55%) Azure Certification
6 15 (4.55%) Cisco Certification
6 15 (4.55%) PMI Certification
7 13 (3.94%) PMP
8 12 (3.64%) AWS Certification
8 12 (3.64%) CCNP
8 12 (3.64%) CISM
9 10 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (3.03%) CCNA
10 8 (2.42%) A+ Certification
11 7 (2.12%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (2.12%) Network+ Certification
12 6 (1.82%) CISA
12 6 (1.82%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.24%) NIST
2 11 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 10 (3.03%) GDPR
3 10 (3.03%) PMO
3 10 (3.03%) QA
3 10 (3.03%) SLA
4 7 (2.12%) GRC
5 5 (1.52%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.52%) IFRS
5 5 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.52%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.21%) PSD2
7 3 (0.91%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.61%) GAAP
8 2 (0.61%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.61%) P3O
8 2 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.30%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 27 (8.18%) Active Directory
2 23 (6.97%) Docker
3 6 (1.82%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.91%) NFS
4 3 (0.91%) Veritas Volume Manager
5 2 (0.61%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.61%) Firmware
5 2 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.30%) ACF2
6 1 (0.30%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.30%) RACF
Systems Management
1 23 (6.97%) Kubernetes
2 22 (6.67%) Terraform
3 13 (3.94%) Ansible
4 11 (3.33%) Progress Chef
5 10 (3.03%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.52%) Grafana
6 5 (1.52%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (1.21%) SCCM
7 4 (1.21%) SCOM
7 4 (1.21%) Tivoli
7 4 (1.21%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 3 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.91%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.91%) Foglight
8 3 (0.91%) PowerBroker
9 2 (0.61%) Consul
9 2 (0.61%) Zipkin
10 1 (0.30%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.30%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 89 (26.97%) Microsoft
2 33 (10.00%) ServiceNow
3 31 (9.39%) SAP
4 19 (5.76%) Cisco
5 15 (4.55%) Databricks
5 15 (4.55%) Google
5 15 (4.55%) Red Hat
6 12 (3.64%) Oracle
6 12 (3.64%) Splunk
7 10 (3.03%) Okta
8 8 (2.42%) IBM
9 7 (2.12%) Fortinet
9 7 (2.12%) Remedy
10 6 (1.82%) Aruba
10 6 (1.82%) Bomgar
10 6 (1.82%) ForeScout
11 5 (1.52%) BiZZdesign
11 5 (1.52%) CheckPoint
11 5 (1.52%) CyberArk
11 5 (1.52%) UiPath