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 31 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 24 24
Rank change year-on-year -14 0 -3
Contract jobs citing Degree 193 166 144
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.90% 7.51% 5.96%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.41% 22.10% 20.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 97 68
10th Percentile £204 £312 £356
25th Percentile £371 £363 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £458 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.98% -16.82% +15.79%
75th Percentile £560 £550 £598
90th Percentile £627 £670 £670
England median daily rate £500 £500 £511
% change year-on-year - -2.17% -4.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 19 21
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.82 £21.25
25th Percentile £28.50 £28.00 £37.55
Median hourly rate £34.75 £34.50 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +0.72% -28.95% +21.40%
75th Percentile £64.73 £67.58 £62.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £75.20 £93.00
England median hourly rate £39.75 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -4.22% -27.64% +20.74%

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 1,176 751 687
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 29.86% 33.97% 28.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 760 441 394
10th Percentile £313 £313 £313
25th Percentile £418 £409 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -0.89% -3.81%
75th Percentile £618 £619 £602
90th Percentile £688 £716 £724
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 74 73
10th Percentile £17.25 £16.85 £10.95
25th Percentile £28.55 £20.26 £12.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.64 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +43.50% -2.75% -25.88%
75th Percentile £65.71 £58.50 £54.00
90th Percentile £83.75 £73.06 £77.29
England median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -20 87 £471 +1.13% 186
Cheshire -5 74 £475 +12.44% 57
Lancashire -4 16 £220 -59.35% 59
Merseyside -14 9 £150 -70.00% 20
Cumbria -11 6 £384 - 19
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 27 (13.99%) SharePoint
2 18 (9.33%) Confluence
3 11 (5.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (3.11%) SharePoint Server
5 5 (2.59%) Camunda
6 3 (1.55%) SAS
7 2 (1.04%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.52%) JBoss
8 1 (0.52%) Mule
8 1 (0.52%) Mule ESB
8 1 (0.52%) nginx
8 1 (0.52%) WebLogic
Applications
1 46 (23.83%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (8.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (5.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (5.18%) MS Visio
4 8 (4.15%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.52%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.52%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 5 (2.59%) Primavera
1 5 (2.59%) SAP MM
2 4 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.52%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 54 (27.98%) Azure
2 40 (20.73%) Microsoft 365
3 36 (18.65%) Power Platform
4 35 (18.13%) AWS
5 19 (9.84%) GCP
6 14 (7.25%) Entra ID
7 13 (6.74%) Power Automate
7 13 (6.74%) PowerApps
8 12 (6.22%) Azure Sentinel
9 11 (5.70%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (5.18%) OneDrive
11 9 (4.66%) Azure Monitor
11 9 (4.66%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 8 (4.15%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (4.15%) Azure AI
13 7 (3.63%) Microsoft Copilot
14 6 (3.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 5 (2.59%) OpenShift
16 4 (2.07%) SaaS
16 4 (2.07%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 24 (12.44%) Firewall
2 13 (6.74%) VPN
3 11 (5.70%) Network Security
4 10 (5.18%) SSL
4 10 (5.18%) Wireless
5 7 (3.63%) DNS
6 6 (3.11%) WAN
7 5 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (2.07%) BGP
8 4 (2.07%) Internet
8 4 (2.07%) MPLS
8 4 (2.07%) OSPF
8 4 (2.07%) SSH
9 3 (1.55%) Cisco ISE
9 3 (1.55%) FTP
9 3 (1.55%) LAN
9 3 (1.55%) VLAN
10 2 (1.04%) DMZ
10 2 (1.04%) DWDM
10 2 (1.04%) L2TP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (12.95%) Power BI
2 13 (6.74%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (3.63%) MySQL
5 3 (1.55%) Metadata
5 3 (1.55%) Power Query
6 2 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.04%) Data Vault
6 2 (1.04%) EDRMS
6 2 (1.04%) Oracle Database
6 2 (1.04%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.52%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.52%) Big Data
7 1 (0.52%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.52%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.52%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.52%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.52%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.52%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (12.44%) JIRA
2 8 (4.15%) GitLab
3 6 (3.11%) Git
3 6 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 5 (2.59%) JUnit
5 4 (2.07%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.55%) Bitbucket Server
6 3 (1.55%) Gradle
6 3 (1.55%) Maven
6 3 (1.55%) Mockito
6 3 (1.55%) REST Assured
6 3 (1.55%) SonarQube
7 2 (1.04%) ClearCase
7 2 (1.04%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.52%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.52%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.52%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.52%) Postman
8 1 (0.52%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.52%) Selenium
General
1 64 (33.16%) Social Skills
2 50 (25.91%) Finance
3 40 (20.73%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (10.36%) Manufacturing
5 13 (6.74%) Banking
6 8 (4.15%) Legal
7 7 (3.63%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (3.63%) Public Sector
7 7 (3.63%) Telecoms
8 5 (2.59%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.55%) Automotive
10 3 (1.55%) Marketing
11 2 (1.04%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.04%) Agriculture
11 2 (1.04%) Aviation
11 2 (1.04%) French Language
11 2 (1.04%) Law
11 2 (1.04%) Local Government
11 2 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 32 (16.58%) Analyst
2 17 (8.81%) Security Engineer
3 15 (7.77%) IT Analyst
4 14 (7.25%) Developer
5 13 (6.74%) Senior
5 13 (6.74%) Support Analyst
6 12 (6.22%) Cloud Engineer
6 12 (6.22%) IT Support
6 12 (6.22%) IT Support Analyst
7 10 (5.18%) Consultant
8 9 (4.66%) Architect
8 9 (4.66%) Cloud Security Engineer
8 9 (4.66%) Lead
8 9 (4.66%) Security Consultant
9 8 (4.15%) Business Analyst
10 7 (3.63%) Network Engineer
10 7 (3.63%) Operations Analyst
10 7 (3.63%) Senior Developer
11 6 (3.11%) IT Operations Analyst
11 6 (3.11%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (10.36%) Terraform
2 8 (4.15%) HTML
3 7 (3.63%) CSS
3 7 (3.63%) Microsoft Graph
3 7 (3.63%) REST
4 5 (2.59%) 802.1X
4 5 (2.59%) React
4 5 (2.59%) SOAP
5 4 (2.07%) JPA
5 4 (2.07%) Kafka
5 4 (2.07%) Lightning Web Components
5 4 (2.07%) Spring Boot
6 3 (1.55%) .NET
6 3 (1.55%) Hibernate
6 3 (1.55%) Middleware
6 3 (1.55%) PySpark
6 3 (1.55%) Redux
6 3 (1.55%) XML
7 2 (1.04%) AngularJS
7 2 (1.04%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 34 (17.62%) Management Information System
2 15 (7.77%) Security Posture
3 13 (6.74%) Cloud Native
3 13 (6.74%) Onboarding
4 10 (5.18%) PKI
5 8 (4.15%) Enterprise Cloud
6 7 (3.63%) Data Structures
6 7 (3.63%) Product Ownership
7 6 (3.11%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (2.59%) Clustering
8 5 (2.59%) Replication
9 4 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (2.07%) Life Science
9 4 (2.07%) Tandem
10 3 (1.55%) Graphic Design
11 2 (1.04%) Algorithms
11 2 (1.04%) CMDB
11 2 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.04%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 41 (21.24%) Windows
2 27 (13.99%) Linux
3 14 (7.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (4.66%) Windows 10
5 7 (3.63%) Unix
5 7 (3.63%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.55%) AIX
7 1 (0.52%) Android
7 1 (0.52%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.52%) CentOS
7 1 (0.52%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.52%) VMS
7 1 (0.52%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (28.50%) Agile
2 51 (26.42%) Computer Science
3 43 (22.28%) ITIL
4 42 (21.76%) Problem-Solving
5 34 (17.62%) DevOps
6 33 (17.10%) CI/CD
7 31 (16.06%) Change Management
8 26 (13.47%) Scrum
9 25 (12.95%) Continuous Improvement
9 25 (12.95%) Stakeholder Management
10 23 (11.92%) AI
10 23 (11.92%) Roadmaps
11 22 (11.40%) Analytics
11 22 (11.40%) Cybersecurity
12 21 (10.88%) Cloud Security
13 19 (9.84%) Business Intelligence
13 19 (9.84%) Service Management
14 18 (9.33%) Cryptography
14 18 (9.33%) Generative AI
14 18 (9.33%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (24.35%) Python
2 39 (20.21%) PowerShell
3 30 (15.54%) SQL
4 24 (12.44%) Java
5 16 (8.29%) Bash
6 9 (4.66%) Bicep
7 7 (3.63%) JavaScript
8 6 (3.11%) T-SQL
9 4 (2.07%) Apex Code
9 4 (2.07%) Search Processing Language
10 3 (1.55%) C#
10 3 (1.55%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (1.55%) VB
11 2 (1.04%) Perl
11 2 (1.04%) Scala
11 2 (1.04%) Shell Script
11 2 (1.04%) TypeScript
11 2 (1.04%) VB6
12 1 (0.52%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.52%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 37 (19.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 26 (13.47%) CISSP
3 22 (11.40%) Microsoft Certification
4 19 (9.84%) Security Cleared
5 17 (8.81%) Azure Certification
6 16 (8.29%) SC Cleared
7 12 (6.22%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (5.70%) AWS Certification
9 10 (5.18%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (4.15%) CCNP
10 8 (4.15%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 7 (3.63%) A+ Certification
11 7 (3.63%) CISM
11 7 (3.63%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (3.63%) Network+ Certification
12 6 (3.11%) DBS Check
13 5 (2.59%) CCNA
13 5 (2.59%) CEH
13 5 (2.59%) Master's Degree
14 4 (2.07%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.18%) NIST
2 6 (3.11%) Data Quality
2 6 (3.11%) GDPR
2 6 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (3.11%) QA
3 5 (2.59%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.59%) GRC
3 5 (2.59%) PCI DSS
3 5 (2.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 4 (2.07%) SLA
5 2 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 2 (1.04%) GAAP
5 2 (1.04%) IFRS
6 1 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.52%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.52%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.52%) PMO
6 1 (0.52%) PSD2
6 1 (0.52%) SEPA
System Software
1 16 (8.29%) Active Directory
2 13 (6.74%) Docker
3 7 (3.63%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.55%) NFS
4 3 (1.55%) Veritas Volume Manager
5 2 (1.04%) Firmware
6 1 (0.52%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 18 (9.33%) Kubernetes
2 15 (7.77%) Progress Chef
3 10 (5.18%) Ansible
4 6 (3.11%) SCOM
5 3 (1.55%) CASB
5 3 (1.55%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (1.55%) PowerBroker
5 3 (1.55%) Tivoli
5 3 (1.55%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (1.04%) SCCM
7 1 (0.52%) Istio
7 1 (0.52%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.52%) QRadar
Vendors
1 68 (35.23%) Microsoft
2 20 (10.36%) SAP
3 19 (9.84%) ServiceNow
4 18 (9.33%) Splunk
5 16 (8.29%) Cisco
6 15 (7.77%) Google
6 15 (7.77%) Red Hat
7 10 (5.18%) IBM
7 10 (5.18%) Oracle
8 7 (3.63%) Databricks
9 6 (3.11%) Bomgar
9 6 (3.11%) Ribbon
9 6 (3.11%) Salesforce
10 5 (2.59%) Adobe
10 5 (2.59%) ForeScout
10 5 (2.59%) Thales
10 5 (2.59%) UiPath
11 4 (2.07%) CyberArk
11 4 (2.07%) Fortinet
11 4 (2.07%) Veracode