Degree Contract Job Trends in the North West

Academic Degree
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 14 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 175 149 239
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.05% 7.46% 8.50%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.21% 21.47% 30.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 91 112
10th Percentile £195 £313 £183
25th Percentile £352 £359 £322
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £418 £469 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.98% -10.67% +8.02%
75th Percentile £509 £580 £600
90th Percentile £613 £716 £670
England median daily rate £500 £503 £500
% change year-on-year -0.60% +0.60% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 14 37
10th Percentile £28.50 £21.02 £11.77
25th Percentile £28.88 £23.44 £24.19
Median hourly rate £49.00 £32.50 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year +50.77% +21.91% -34.32%
75th Percentile £153.75 £57.81 £46.18
90th Percentile £178.75 £77.75 £62.50
England median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.25
% change year-on-year +5.00% +24.22% -15.26%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
North West

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 West.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 961 694 774
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.76% 34.73% 27.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 631 405 427
10th Percentile £344 £250 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.26% -4.00% -2.96%
75th Percentile £608 £580 £610
90th Percentile £688 £695 £718
England median daily rate £525 £525 £535
% change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 48 133
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.62 £22.13 £12.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.64 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +48.34% +84.53% -60.43%
75th Percentile £74.26 £59.93 £43.10
90th Percentile £97.45 £74.50 £67.60
England median hourly rate £51.22 £31.57 £41.27
% change year-on-year +62.27% -23.51% -24.97%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Degree job vacancy trend in the North West

Degree
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in the North West over the 6 months to 14 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the North West

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in the North West over the 6 months to 14 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the North West

Degree
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 Degree within the North West region over the 6 months to 14 June 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 -12 79 £401 -15.58% 138
Cheshire -5 78 £446 -4.90% 56
Merseyside -15 7 £200 -54.29% 15
Cumbria -7 6 £475 - 10
Lancashire -11 4 - - 52
Degree
England

Degree
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 25 (14.29%) Confluence
2 21 (12.00%) SharePoint
3 7 (4.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.14%) Camunda
4 2 (1.14%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.57%) JBoss
5 1 (0.57%) Mule
5 1 (0.57%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.57%) WebLogic
Applications
1 50 (28.57%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (9.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (8.00%) MS Visio
4 11 (6.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (5.71%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.57%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.57%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (3.43%) Primavera
1 6 (3.43%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (2.86%) SAP MM
3 4 (2.29%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (2.29%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.57%) Infor M3
4 1 (0.57%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.57%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 32 (18.29%) Azure
2 27 (15.43%) Microsoft 365
3 26 (14.86%) AWS
4 17 (9.71%) Power Platform
5 12 (6.86%) Entra ID
6 10 (5.71%) GCP
7 9 (5.14%) Power Automate
7 9 (5.14%) PowerApps
8 7 (4.00%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 6 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (3.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (2.86%) Microsoft Copilot
10 5 (2.86%) OneDrive
11 4 (2.29%) Figma
11 4 (2.29%) SaaS
12 3 (1.71%) Apigee
12 3 (1.71%) Kong
12 3 (1.71%) OpenShift
13 2 (1.14%) Dynamics 365
13 2 (1.14%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 19 (10.86%) Firewall
2 13 (7.43%) VPN
3 11 (6.29%) DNS
3 11 (6.29%) Wireless
4 8 (4.57%) Skype
4 8 (4.57%) WAN
4 8 (4.57%) Wi-Fi
5 7 (4.00%) LAN
5 7 (4.00%) VLAN
6 6 (3.43%) Network Security
7 5 (2.86%) DHCP
8 4 (2.29%) TCP/IP
9 3 (1.71%) BGP
9 3 (1.71%) Cisco ISE
9 3 (1.71%) FTP
9 3 (1.71%) Internet
9 3 (1.71%) MPLS
9 3 (1.71%) OSPF
9 3 (1.71%) SSH
9 3 (1.71%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (6.86%) Power BI
2 6 (3.43%) SQL Server
3 3 (1.71%) Hadoop
3 3 (1.71%) Relational Database
4 2 (1.14%) Apache Cassandra
4 2 (1.14%) MongoDB
4 2 (1.14%) NoSQL
4 2 (1.14%) Oracle Database
4 2 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.14%) RDBMS
4 2 (1.14%) Tableau
5 1 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.57%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.57%) Data Vault
5 1 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.57%) Power Query
5 1 (0.57%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 34 (19.43%) JIRA
2 6 (3.43%) Postman
3 5 (2.86%) Git
4 2 (1.14%) ClearCase
4 2 (1.14%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.14%) GitLab
4 2 (1.14%) JUnit
5 1 (0.57%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.57%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.57%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.57%) MLflow
5 1 (0.57%) Selenium
5 1 (0.57%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 83 (47.43%) Social Skills
2 67 (38.29%) Finance
3 43 (24.57%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (14.86%) Banking
5 16 (9.14%) Public Sector
6 11 (6.29%) Influencing Skills
6 11 (6.29%) Manufacturing
7 10 (5.71%) Telecoms
8 9 (5.14%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (4.57%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (3.43%) Legal
10 6 (3.43%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (2.86%) Retail
12 3 (1.71%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (1.71%) Marketing
13 2 (1.14%) Agriculture
13 2 (1.14%) Environmental Health
13 2 (1.14%) Publishing
14 1 (0.57%) Aviation
14 1 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 44 (25.14%) Analyst
2 23 (13.14%) Business Analyst
3 15 (8.57%) IT Analyst
4 13 (7.43%) Support Analyst
5 12 (6.86%) IT Support
5 12 (6.86%) IT Support Analyst
6 10 (5.71%) Senior
7 9 (5.14%) Architect
7 9 (5.14%) Consultant
7 9 (5.14%) Security Engineer
8 8 (4.57%) Designer
8 8 (4.57%) Developer
8 8 (4.57%) Network Engineer
8 8 (4.57%) Security Consultant
8 8 (4.57%) UX Designer
9 7 (4.00%) Project Manager
10 6 (3.43%) 1st Line Support
10 6 (3.43%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
10 6 (3.43%) Microsoft Engineer
11 5 (2.86%) Project Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.43%) XML
2 11 (6.29%) REST
3 10 (5.71%) JSON
4 9 (5.14%) SOAP
5 7 (4.00%) 802.1X
5 7 (4.00%) HTML
5 7 (4.00%) Swagger
6 6 (3.43%) .NET
7 4 (2.29%) CSS
7 4 (2.29%) Middleware
7 4 (2.29%) OAuth
8 3 (1.71%) AngularJS
8 3 (1.71%) JWT
8 3 (1.71%) OpenAPI
8 3 (1.71%) React
9 2 (1.14%) Kafka
9 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (1.14%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (1.14%) Web Services
9 2 (1.14%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 24 (13.71%) Management Information System
2 16 (9.14%) Onboarding
3 11 (6.29%) Security Posture
4 10 (5.71%) Cloud Native
5 9 (5.14%) Product Ownership
6 7 (4.00%) PKI
7 5 (2.86%) Life Science
7 5 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (2.29%) Data Structures
8 4 (2.29%) Digital Wallet
9 3 (1.71%) AI Agents
9 3 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (1.71%) Graphic Design
9 3 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.71%) Tandem
10 2 (1.14%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (1.14%) IoT
10 2 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.14%) Social Media
10 2 (1.14%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 41 (23.43%) Windows
2 21 (12.00%) Linux
3 17 (9.71%) Windows 10
4 11 (6.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (4.00%) Unix
6 4 (2.29%) Windows Server
7 3 (1.71%) AIX
7 3 (1.71%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (1.14%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.57%) Android
9 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.57%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (39.43%) Agile
2 47 (26.86%) Problem-Solving
3 41 (23.43%) Computer Science
4 35 (20.00%) ITIL
5 33 (18.86%) Stakeholder Management
6 30 (17.14%) DevOps
7 29 (16.57%) Change Management
8 26 (14.86%) Roadmaps
9 22 (12.57%) CI/CD
10 21 (12.00%) Service Management
11 20 (11.43%) AI
11 20 (11.43%) Project Management
12 19 (10.86%) Continuous Improvement
12 19 (10.86%) Customer Service
12 19 (10.86%) ITSM
12 19 (10.86%) Scrum
13 18 (10.29%) Workshop Facilitation
14 17 (9.71%) Decision-Making
14 17 (9.71%) Project Delivery
14 17 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 29 (16.57%) Python
2 24 (13.71%) SQL
3 19 (10.86%) PowerShell
4 15 (8.57%) Java
5 11 (6.29%) Bash
6 5 (2.86%) C#
6 5 (2.86%) JavaScript
7 4 (2.29%) VB
8 3 (1.71%) TypeScript
9 2 (1.14%) C++
9 2 (1.14%) R
9 2 (1.14%) Shell Script
9 2 (1.14%) VB6
9 2 (1.14%) VBScript
10 1 (0.57%) Groovy
10 1 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.57%) Perl
10 1 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (19.43%) Computer Science Degree
2 22 (12.57%) Security Cleared
3 17 (9.71%) CISSP
4 16 (9.14%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (8.57%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (8.00%) Master's Degree
7 13 (7.43%) SC Cleared
8 11 (6.29%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (5.71%) Azure Certification
10 9 (5.14%) A+ Certification
10 9 (5.14%) AWS Certification
10 9 (5.14%) CCNP
10 9 (5.14%) Network+ Certification
11 8 (4.57%) CCNA
12 7 (4.00%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (4.00%) MBA
13 5 (2.86%) PMI Certification
13 5 (2.86%) PMP
14 4 (2.29%) CEH
14 4 (2.29%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.29%) NIST
2 7 (4.00%) Accessibility
2 7 (4.00%) GDPR
2 7 (4.00%) SLA
3 6 (3.43%) GRC
3 6 (3.43%) PCI DSS
3 6 (3.43%) PSD2
4 5 (2.86%) IFRS
4 5 (2.86%) QA
5 4 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.71%) IFRS 17
6 3 (1.71%) ISO 8583
6 3 (1.71%) PMO
7 2 (1.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (1.14%) Data Quality
7 2 (1.14%) GAAP
7 2 (1.14%) HIPAA
7 2 (1.14%) ISO 20022
7 2 (1.14%) P3O
7 2 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (12.00%) Active Directory
2 13 (7.43%) Docker
3 3 (1.71%) Hyper-V
3 3 (1.71%) NFS
3 3 (1.71%) Veritas Volume Manager
3 3 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.14%) BitLocker
4 2 (1.14%) Firmware
4 2 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (7.43%) Kubernetes
2 10 (5.71%) Progress Chef
2 10 (5.71%) Terraform
3 7 (4.00%) Ansible
4 3 (1.71%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (1.71%) PowerBroker
4 3 (1.71%) Tivoli
4 3 (1.71%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 2 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.14%) SCCM
6 1 (0.57%) CA Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 58 (33.14%) Microsoft
2 17 (9.71%) Cisco
3 16 (9.14%) SAP
4 15 (8.57%) ServiceNow
5 13 (7.43%) Red Hat
6 10 (5.71%) Oracle
7 9 (5.14%) Google
8 7 (4.00%) Remedy
8 7 (4.00%) Splunk
9 6 (3.43%) Aruba
9 6 (3.43%) Citrix
9 6 (3.43%) ForeScout
10 5 (2.86%) CyberArk
10 5 (2.86%) Databricks
10 5 (2.86%) Fortinet
11 4 (2.29%) CheckPoint
11 4 (2.29%) Ekahau
11 4 (2.29%) IBM
11 4 (2.29%) Palo Alto
11 4 (2.29%) UiPath