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 8 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 26 15
Rank change year-on-year -5 -11 +22
Contract jobs citing Degree 179 147 254
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.65% 7.60% 9.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.67% 20.94% 30.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 82 115
10th Percentile £251 £241 £158
25th Percentile £350 £358 £227
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £472 £460
Median % change year-on-year -15.25% +2.61% +2.22%
75th Percentile £492 £580 £600
90th Percentile £600 £700 £689
England median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 20 30
10th Percentile £28.50 £22.69 £11.77
25th Percentile - £24.14 £19.34
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £26.39
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +23.15% -9.00%
75th Percentile £55.00 £33.75 £42.88
90th Percentile £98.75 £35.90 £46.75
England median hourly rate £53.25 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -0.47% +33.75% -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 910 702 839
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 28.74% 36.30% 30.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 406 485
10th Percentile £313 £228 £258
25th Percentile £389 £388 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £510
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -3.92% -0.24%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £650
90th Percentile £679 £653 £725
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 45 126
10th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £30.12 £25.26 £11.77
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +102.37% -57.17%
75th Percentile £71.50 £60.00 £43.53
90th Percentile £76.08 £82.28 £50.00
England median hourly rate £39.50 £50.00 £38.75
% change year-on-year -21.00% +29.03% -25.48%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 8 April 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
Cheshire -8 76 £389 -22.02% 35
Manchester -25 58 £402 -15.37% 146
Lancashire +5 24 £513 - 59
Merseyside -15 11 £249 -43.14% 27
Cumbria -3 7 £500 +21.21% 11
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 19 (10.61%) Confluence
1 19 (10.61%) SharePoint
2 7 (3.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.12%) SAS
4 1 (0.56%) Apache
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.56%) Camunda
4 1 (0.56%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 39 (21.79%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (6.70%) MS Visio
3 11 (6.15%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (4.47%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (3.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (5.59%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.23%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.23%) Primavera
3 3 (1.68%) SAP MM
4 2 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.12%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.56%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.56%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.56%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.56%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 26 (14.53%) Microsoft 365
2 24 (13.41%) Azure
3 23 (12.85%) AWS
4 15 (8.38%) Power Platform
5 13 (7.26%) Entra ID
6 10 (5.59%) Apigee
7 9 (5.03%) GCP
8 6 (3.35%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.35%) Kong
8 6 (3.35%) OneDrive
8 6 (3.35%) Power Automate
8 6 (3.35%) PowerApps
9 5 (2.79%) Microsoft Copilot
10 4 (2.23%) GitHub
10 4 (2.23%) GitHub Copilot
10 4 (2.23%) SaaS
11 3 (1.68%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
11 3 (1.68%) Figma
12 2 (1.12%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 15 (8.38%) Firewall
2 11 (6.15%) Skype
2 11 (6.15%) VPN
3 8 (4.47%) DNS
3 8 (4.47%) VLAN
4 7 (3.91%) Wireless
5 6 (3.35%) LAN
5 6 (3.35%) WAN
6 5 (2.79%) DHCP
6 5 (2.79%) Network Security
6 5 (2.79%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.23%) BGP
7 4 (2.23%) HTTP
7 4 (2.23%) HTTPS
7 4 (2.23%) TCP/IP
8 3 (1.68%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (1.68%) Unified Communications
9 2 (1.12%) Internet
9 2 (1.12%) SAN
9 2 (1.12%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.47%) Power BI
2 7 (3.91%) Relational Database
3 5 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.79%) SQL Server
4 4 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (2.23%) MySQL
5 3 (1.68%) Hadoop
6 2 (1.12%) Qlik Sense
6 2 (1.12%) RDBMS
6 2 (1.12%) SAP HANA
6 2 (1.12%) Tableau
7 1 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.56%) Cognos Framework Manager
7 1 (0.56%) Cognos Report Studio
7 1 (0.56%) Cognos Transformer
7 1 (0.56%) OLAP
7 1 (0.56%) OLAP Cube
7 1 (0.56%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.56%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 1 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 28 (15.64%) JIRA
2 12 (6.70%) Git
3 9 (5.03%) Postman
4 5 (2.79%) GitLab
5 4 (2.23%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.56%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.56%) JUnit
6 1 (0.56%) MLflow
6 1 (0.56%) SoapUI
General
1 95 (53.07%) Social Skills
2 65 (36.31%) Finance
3 41 (22.91%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (16.76%) Banking
5 22 (12.29%) Public Sector
6 13 (7.26%) Influencing Skills
6 13 (7.26%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (5.03%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (3.91%) Legal
8 7 (3.91%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (3.91%) Telecoms
9 5 (2.79%) Corporate Banking
9 5 (2.79%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.79%) Retail
10 3 (1.68%) Local Government
10 3 (1.68%) Retail Banking
11 2 (1.12%) Environmental Health
11 2 (1.12%) Law
11 2 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 40 (22.35%) Analyst
2 25 (13.97%) Business Analyst
3 20 (11.17%) Lead
4 19 (10.61%) Developer
5 10 (5.59%) 1st Line Support
5 10 (5.59%) Project Manager
5 10 (5.59%) Support Analyst
6 9 (5.03%) IT Analyst
6 9 (5.03%) IT Support
6 9 (5.03%) IT Support Analyst
6 9 (5.03%) Java Developer
6 9 (5.03%) Senior
7 7 (3.91%) Architect
7 7 (3.91%) Designer
7 7 (3.91%) UX Designer
8 6 (3.35%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 6 (3.35%) Microsoft Engineer
8 6 (3.35%) Network Engineer
8 6 (3.35%) Technical Analyst
8 6 (3.35%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.06%) XML
2 17 (9.50%) JSON
3 13 (7.26%) REST
4 11 (6.15%) SOAP
5 10 (5.59%) JWT
5 10 (5.59%) OAuth
5 10 (5.59%) Swagger
6 9 (5.03%) Spring
6 9 (5.03%) Spring Boot
7 8 (4.47%) Hibernate
7 8 (4.47%) RESTful
8 6 (3.35%) HTML
8 6 (3.35%) OpenAPI
9 5 (2.79%) .NET
10 4 (2.23%) 802.1X
10 4 (2.23%) JAX-RS
10 4 (2.23%) OAuth2
10 4 (2.23%) Spring MVC
10 4 (2.23%) Spring Security
11 3 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.38%) Virtual Team
2 13 (7.26%) Management Information System
2 13 (7.26%) Product Ownership
3 10 (5.59%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (2.23%) Data Centre
5 4 (2.23%) Digital Wallet
5 4 (2.23%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.68%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.68%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.68%) Handset
6 3 (1.68%) IoT
6 3 (1.68%) PKI
6 3 (1.68%) PMI
7 2 (1.12%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.12%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.12%) Graphic Design
8 1 (0.56%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.56%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 33 (18.44%) Windows
2 18 (10.06%) Windows 10
3 10 (5.59%) Linux
4 8 (4.47%) Windows Server
5 5 (2.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.68%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.56%) Solaris
7 1 (0.56%) Unix
7 1 (0.56%) VMS
7 1 (0.56%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (44.69%) Agile
2 52 (29.05%) Problem-Solving
3 50 (27.93%) Computer Science
4 39 (21.79%) ITIL
5 38 (21.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 37 (20.67%) DevOps
7 36 (20.11%) Change Management
8 32 (17.88%) Project Management
9 30 (16.76%) Stakeholder Management
10 29 (16.20%) Project Delivery
11 24 (13.41%) ITSM
11 24 (13.41%) PRINCE2
12 23 (12.85%) AI
13 22 (12.29%) CI/CD
13 22 (12.29%) Cybersecurity
14 21 (11.73%) Requirements Gathering
14 21 (11.73%) Service Delivery
15 20 (11.17%) Customer Service
15 20 (11.17%) Workshop Facilitation
16 19 (10.61%) Six Sigma
Programming Languages
1 25 (13.97%) SQL
2 17 (9.50%) Python
3 15 (8.38%) Java
4 13 (7.26%) PowerShell
5 6 (3.35%) Bash
6 5 (2.79%) C#
7 4 (2.23%) Perl
8 3 (1.68%) C++
8 3 (1.68%) R
9 2 (1.12%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.12%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (1.12%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.56%) Groovy
10 1 (0.56%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.56%) SAS Macro
10 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.56%) VB
10 1 (0.56%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 40 (22.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 35 (19.55%) Security Cleared
3 18 (10.06%) SC Cleared
4 17 (9.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (8.94%) Master's Degree
6 15 (8.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 12 (6.70%) CCNA
7 12 (6.70%) Cisco Certification
7 12 (6.70%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (5.59%) CCNP
9 9 (5.03%) MBA
10 7 (3.91%) A+ Certification
10 7 (3.91%) CISSP
10 7 (3.91%) PMI Certification
10 7 (3.91%) PMP
11 6 (3.35%) ITIL Certification
11 6 (3.35%) Network+ Certification
12 5 (2.79%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.68%) CCDP
13 3 (1.68%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.03%) NIST
1 9 (5.03%) QA
2 7 (3.91%) GDPR
3 6 (3.35%) Accessibility
3 6 (3.35%) GRC
3 6 (3.35%) PSD2
4 5 (2.79%) PCI DSS
4 5 (2.79%) SLA
5 4 (2.23%) Data Quality
5 4 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.68%) Basel III
6 3 (1.68%) IFRS
6 3 (1.68%) IFRS 17
6 3 (1.68%) ISO 8583
7 2 (1.12%) ISO 20022
7 2 (1.12%) P3O
7 2 (1.12%) PMO
8 1 (0.56%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.56%) NEBOSH
8 1 (0.56%) SEPA
System Software
1 22 (12.29%) Active Directory
2 13 (7.26%) Docker
3 7 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.68%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.12%) Firmware
6 1 (0.56%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 13 (7.26%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.35%) Ansible
3 4 (2.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 3 (1.68%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (1.68%) Terraform
5 2 (1.12%) SCCM
5 2 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.56%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Satellite
6 1 (0.56%) SCOM
6 1 (0.56%) SCOrch
6 1 (0.56%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 54 (30.17%) Microsoft
2 16 (8.94%) Cisco
3 15 (8.38%) Citrix
4 10 (5.59%) Remedy
4 10 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 10 (5.59%) Splunk
5 8 (4.47%) Oracle
5 8 (4.47%) SAP
6 7 (3.91%) VMware
7 6 (3.35%) MuleSoft
8 5 (2.79%) Aruba
8 5 (2.79%) CheckPoint
8 5 (2.79%) Palo Alto
8 5 (2.79%) Red Hat
9 4 (2.23%) Broadcom
9 4 (2.23%) CyberArk
9 4 (2.23%) Ekahau
9 4 (2.23%) ForeScout
10 3 (1.68%) EMC
10 3 (1.68%) Google