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 24 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 28 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -10 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 163 130 217
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.92% 6.69% 8.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.66% 18.73% 28.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 105 80 98
10th Percentile £179 £264 £158
25th Percentile £350 £359 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £472 £505
Median % change year-on-year -14.83% -6.53% +7.73%
75th Percentile £492 £576 £601
90th Percentile £601 £700 £677
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 12 35
10th Percentile £28.50 £22.52 £11.77
25th Percentile £33.25 £22.72 £24.15
Median hourly rate £60.61 £31.25 £26.52
Median % change year-on-year +93.95% +17.84% -34.59%
75th Percentile £178.75 £39.13 £44.64
90th Percentile - £64.03 £62.50
England median hourly rate £56.50 £54.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +3.67% +36.25% -11.11%

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 923 694 763
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.84% 35.70% 28.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 602 407 433
10th Percentile £333 £230 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -
75th Percentile £590 £575 £650
90th Percentile £687 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £537
% change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 40 129
10th Percentile £22.68 £19.74 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.24 £25.15 £11.77
Median hourly rate £46.80 £31.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +50.97% +93.03% -60.43%
75th Percentile £74.26 £59.93 £42.88
90th Percentile £111.15 £76.38 £69.85
England median hourly rate £47.54 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +35.83% -12.50% -25.93%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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 24 May 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 -11 72 £401 -15.58% 166
Cheshire -4 69 £424 -10.14% 40
Cumbria -10 8 £475 - 6
Merseyside -12 8 £188 -57.14% 14
Lancashire -7 4 - - 46
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 22 (13.50%) Confluence
2 21 (12.88%) SharePoint
3 7 (4.29%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.23%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.61%) Camunda
5 1 (0.61%) JBoss
5 1 (0.61%) Mule
5 1 (0.61%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.61%) WebLogic
Applications
1 45 (27.61%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (7.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (6.75%) MS Visio
4 10 (6.13%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.61%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.61%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (5.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.45%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.45%) Primavera
3 3 (1.84%) SAP MM
4 2 (1.23%) NEC Housing
4 2 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.61%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.61%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 29 (17.79%) Microsoft 365
2 26 (15.95%) Azure
3 20 (12.27%) AWS
4 14 (8.59%) Power Platform
5 12 (7.36%) Entra ID
6 7 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.68%) GCP
7 6 (3.68%) Power Automate
7 6 (3.68%) PowerApps
8 5 (3.07%) Microsoft Copilot
8 5 (3.07%) OneDrive
9 4 (2.45%) Apigee
9 4 (2.45%) Figma
10 3 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (1.84%) Kong
10 3 (1.84%) OpenShift
10 3 (1.84%) SaaS
11 2 (1.23%) Adobe Creative Cloud
11 2 (1.23%) AWS Lambda
11 2 (1.23%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 12 (7.36%) VPN
2 11 (6.75%) Firewall
2 11 (6.75%) Skype
3 9 (5.52%) Wireless
4 8 (4.91%) DNS
5 6 (3.68%) LAN
5 6 (3.68%) WAN
6 5 (3.07%) DHCP
6 5 (3.07%) Network Security
6 5 (3.07%) VLAN
6 5 (3.07%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.45%) TCP/IP
8 3 (1.84%) Cisco ISE
9 2 (1.23%) Internet
9 2 (1.23%) SAN
9 2 (1.23%) SSH
10 1 (0.61%) BGP
10 1 (0.61%) HTTPS
10 1 (0.61%) OSPF
10 1 (0.61%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.91%) Power BI
2 6 (3.68%) SQL Server
3 4 (2.45%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.84%) Hadoop
4 3 (1.84%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.84%) RDBMS
5 2 (1.23%) Apache Cassandra
5 2 (1.23%) MongoDB
5 2 (1.23%) NoSQL
5 2 (1.23%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (1.23%) Tableau
6 1 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.61%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.61%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.61%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 31 (19.02%) JIRA
2 6 (3.68%) Git
2 6 (3.68%) Postman
3 2 (1.23%) ClearCase
3 2 (1.23%) JUnit
4 1 (0.61%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.61%) Eclipse
4 1 (0.61%) GitLab
4 1 (0.61%) IntelliJ
4 1 (0.61%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.61%) MLflow
4 1 (0.61%) SoapUI
General
1 80 (49.08%) Social Skills
2 62 (38.04%) Finance
3 38 (23.31%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (17.18%) Banking
5 16 (9.82%) Public Sector
6 11 (6.75%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (6.13%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (6.13%) Telecoms
8 9 (5.52%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (3.68%) Legal
9 6 (3.68%) Manufacturing
9 6 (3.68%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (3.07%) Retail
11 4 (2.45%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (1.84%) Marketing
13 2 (1.23%) Agriculture
13 2 (1.23%) Environmental Health
13 2 (1.23%) Law
13 2 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (1.23%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 41 (25.15%) Analyst
2 23 (14.11%) Business Analyst
3 14 (8.59%) IT Analyst
4 13 (7.98%) Support Analyst
5 12 (7.36%) IT Support
5 12 (7.36%) IT Support Analyst
6 11 (6.75%) Developer
7 10 (6.13%) Senior
8 9 (5.52%) 1st Line Support
8 9 (5.52%) Architect
8 9 (5.52%) Project Manager
9 8 (4.91%) Designer
9 8 (4.91%) UX Designer
10 6 (3.68%) Consultant
10 6 (3.68%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
10 6 (3.68%) Microsoft Engineer
10 6 (3.68%) Network Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Banking Analyst
11 5 (3.07%) Banking Business Analyst
11 5 (3.07%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (9.20%) XML
2 11 (6.75%) JSON
2 11 (6.75%) REST
3 9 (5.52%) SOAP
4 8 (4.91%) HTML
5 7 (4.29%) .NET
5 7 (4.29%) Swagger
6 6 (3.68%) 802.1X
7 5 (3.07%) OAuth
8 4 (2.45%) CSS
8 4 (2.45%) JWT
8 4 (2.45%) Middleware
9 3 (1.84%) AngularJS
9 3 (1.84%) OpenAPI
9 3 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
9 3 (1.84%) React
10 2 (1.23%) Kafka
10 2 (1.23%) Spring Boot
10 2 (1.23%) Web Services
10 2 (1.23%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 15 (9.20%) Management Information System
1 15 (9.20%) Onboarding
2 10 (6.13%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.07%) PKI
3 5 (3.07%) Security Posture
3 5 (3.07%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (2.45%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.45%) Digital Wallet
5 3 (1.84%) AI Agents
5 3 (1.84%) Data Structures
5 3 (1.84%) Graphic Design
5 3 (1.84%) IoT
5 3 (1.84%) Life Science
6 2 (1.23%) Cloud Security Posture
6 2 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
6 2 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.23%) PMI
6 2 (1.23%) Social Media
6 2 (1.23%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 34 (20.86%) Windows
2 21 (12.88%) Windows 10
3 10 (6.13%) Linux
4 4 (2.45%) Unix
5 3 (1.84%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.84%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.23%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.61%) AIX
7 1 (0.61%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.61%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (37.42%) Agile
2 45 (27.61%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (23.93%) Computer Science
4 33 (20.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 29 (17.79%) ITIL
6 23 (14.11%) Change Management
6 23 (14.11%) DevOps
6 23 (14.11%) ITSM
7 22 (13.50%) Customer Service
8 21 (12.88%) AI
9 20 (12.27%) Service Management
10 19 (11.66%) Project Management
11 18 (11.04%) Workshop Facilitation
12 16 (9.82%) CI/CD
12 16 (9.82%) Continuous Improvement
12 16 (9.82%) Project Delivery
12 16 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 15 (9.20%) Roadmaps
13 15 (9.20%) Scrum
13 15 (9.20%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 23 (14.11%) SQL
2 17 (10.43%) Python
3 10 (6.13%) Java
3 10 (6.13%) PowerShell
4 7 (4.29%) C#
5 4 (2.45%) JavaScript
5 4 (2.45%) VB
6 3 (1.84%) Bash
6 3 (1.84%) C++
6 3 (1.84%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.23%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.23%) R
7 2 (1.23%) Shell Script
7 2 (1.23%) VB6
7 2 (1.23%) VBScript
8 1 (0.61%) Groovy
8 1 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 34 (20.86%) Computer Science Degree
2 23 (14.11%) Security Cleared
3 15 (9.20%) BPSS Clearance
3 15 (9.20%) Master's Degree
3 15 (9.20%) Microsoft Certification
4 12 (7.36%) SC Cleared
5 10 (6.13%) A+ Certification
6 9 (5.52%) CCNA
6 9 (5.52%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (5.52%) CISSP
6 9 (5.52%) Network+ Certification
7 8 (4.91%) MBA
8 7 (4.29%) CCNP
9 6 (3.68%) PMI Certification
9 6 (3.68%) PMP
10 5 (3.07%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (2.45%) Azure Certification
12 3 (1.84%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.84%) CEH
12 3 (1.84%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.13%) NIST
2 7 (4.29%) Accessibility
2 7 (4.29%) QA
3 6 (3.68%) GDPR
3 6 (3.68%) GRC
3 6 (3.68%) PSD2
4 5 (3.07%) IFRS
4 5 (3.07%) PCI DSS
4 5 (3.07%) SLA
5 3 (1.84%) IFRS 17
5 3 (1.84%) ISO 8583
5 3 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.23%) Basel III
6 2 (1.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (1.23%) Data Quality
6 2 (1.23%) GAAP
6 2 (1.23%) HIPAA
6 2 (1.23%) P3O
6 2 (1.23%) PMO
6 2 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 20 (12.27%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.29%) Docker
3 3 (1.84%) Hyper-V
3 3 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.23%) BitLocker
4 2 (1.23%) Firmware
5 1 (0.61%) NFS
5 1 (0.61%) Veritas Volume Manager
5 1 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 7 (4.29%) Kubernetes
2 5 (3.07%) Ansible
3 3 (1.84%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (1.84%) Terraform
4 2 (1.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (1.23%) Progress Chef
4 2 (1.23%) SCCM
5 1 (0.61%) CA Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.61%) PowerBroker
5 1 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.61%) Tivoli
5 1 (0.61%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 54 (33.13%) Microsoft
2 18 (11.04%) Cisco
3 13 (7.98%) ServiceNow
4 10 (6.13%) Oracle
4 10 (6.13%) Remedy
5 9 (5.52%) Citrix
5 9 (5.52%) SAP
6 8 (4.91%) Splunk
7 7 (4.29%) Aruba
8 6 (3.68%) ForeScout
9 5 (3.07%) CheckPoint
9 5 (3.07%) CyberArk
9 5 (3.07%) Palo Alto
10 4 (2.45%) Broadcom
10 4 (2.45%) Ekahau
10 4 (2.45%) Red Hat
11 3 (1.84%) Databricks
11 3 (1.84%) EMC
11 3 (1.84%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.84%) Veritas