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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 22 25
Rank change year-on-year -10 +3 -7
Contract jobs citing Degree 192 161 144
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.01% 7.29% 5.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.45% 21.58% 20.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 96 72
10th Percentile £204 £321 £158
25th Percentile £375 £363 £472
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £470 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.39% -14.50% +22.22%
75th Percentile £588 £580 £601
90th Percentile £626 £716 £670
England median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 19 21
10th Percentile £17.25 £21.02 £25.35
25th Percentile £28.50 £28.00 £37.55
Median hourly rate £36.00 £34.50 £52.19
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -33.90% +28.72%
75th Percentile £66.66 £70.81 £69.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £81.00 £97.50
England median hourly rate £45.50 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +7.06% -25.89% +15.20%

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 1,100 746 690
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 28.73% 33.80% 28.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 707 418 388
10th Percentile £320 £313 £285
25th Percentile £418 £408 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year +2.20% -1.19% +1.16%
75th Percentile £621 £613 £607
90th Percentile £689 £716 £723
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 70 99
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.40 £10.95
25th Percentile £28.50 £21.30 £12.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.64 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.50% +80.21% -60.00%
75th Percentile £66.56 £59.57 £51.44
90th Percentile £83.75 £73.95 £63.95
England median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -17 90 £458 -3.53% 266
Cheshire -3 71 £484 +11.79% 67
Lancashire -1 14 £220 -59.35% 63
Cumbria -9 9 £450 - 22
Merseyside -15 8 £150 -70.00% 37
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 28 (14.58%) SharePoint
2 16 (8.33%) Confluence
3 14 (7.29%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (3.13%) SharePoint Server
5 3 (1.56%) SAS
6 2 (1.04%) Camunda
7 1 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.52%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.52%) JBoss
7 1 (0.52%) Mule
7 1 (0.52%) Mule ESB
7 1 (0.52%) nginx
7 1 (0.52%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.52%) WebLogic
Applications
1 44 (22.92%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (7.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (5.21%) MS Visio
4 8 (4.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (3.65%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.52%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.52%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 4 (2.08%) Primavera
1 4 (2.08%) SAP MM
1 4 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.52%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 57 (29.69%) Azure
2 41 (21.35%) Microsoft 365
3 37 (19.27%) AWS
4 36 (18.75%) Power Platform
5 19 (9.90%) GCP
6 17 (8.85%) Power Automate
6 17 (8.85%) PowerApps
7 14 (7.29%) Entra ID
8 13 (6.77%) OneDrive
9 11 (5.73%) Azure Sentinel
9 11 (5.73%) Microsoft Copilot
10 9 (4.69%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (4.69%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 8 (4.17%) Azure AI
11 8 (4.17%) Azure Monitor
12 7 (3.65%) AWS CloudFormation
12 7 (3.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 6 (3.13%) SaaS
14 3 (1.56%) OpenShift
14 3 (1.56%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 28 (14.58%) Firewall
2 13 (6.77%) VPN
2 13 (6.77%) Wireless
3 12 (6.25%) Network Security
4 10 (5.21%) SSL
5 9 (4.69%) WAN
6 8 (4.17%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (3.65%) DNS
8 6 (3.13%) LAN
8 6 (3.13%) VLAN
9 4 (2.08%) BGP
9 4 (2.08%) Internet
9 4 (2.08%) MPLS
9 4 (2.08%) OSPF
9 4 (2.08%) SSH
9 4 (2.08%) TCP/IP
10 3 (1.56%) Cisco ISE
10 3 (1.56%) FTP
11 2 (1.04%) Multicast
11 2 (1.04%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (11.98%) Power BI
2 11 (5.73%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (3.65%) MySQL
5 3 (1.56%) Data Vault
5 3 (1.56%) Relational Database
6 2 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.04%) Apache Cassandra
6 2 (1.04%) EDRMS
6 2 (1.04%) Metadata
6 2 (1.04%) MongoDB
6 2 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 2 (1.04%) Oracle Database
6 2 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (1.04%) Power Query
6 2 (1.04%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.52%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.52%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.52%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.52%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 22 (11.46%) JIRA
2 6 (3.13%) Git
3 5 (2.60%) GitLab
4 3 (1.56%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.04%) ClearCase
5 2 (1.04%) Cucumber
5 2 (1.04%) JUnit
6 1 (0.52%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.52%) Eclipse
6 1 (0.52%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.52%) Postman
6 1 (0.52%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.52%) Selenium
6 1 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 67 (34.90%) Social Skills
2 52 (27.08%) Finance
3 42 (21.88%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (7.81%) Manufacturing
5 12 (6.25%) Public Sector
6 10 (5.21%) Banking
7 8 (4.17%) Legal
8 7 (3.65%) Telecoms
9 6 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.56%) Automotive
11 3 (1.56%) Marketing
11 3 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (1.04%) Aerospace
12 2 (1.04%) Aviation
12 2 (1.04%) French Language
12 2 (1.04%) Local Government
12 2 (1.04%) Police
12 2 (1.04%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 33 (17.19%) Analyst
2 17 (8.85%) Security Engineer
3 15 (7.81%) IT Analyst
4 14 (7.29%) Senior
5 12 (6.25%) IT Support
5 12 (6.25%) IT Support Analyst
5 12 (6.25%) Support Analyst
6 11 (5.73%) Business Analyst
6 11 (5.73%) Cloud Engineer
7 10 (5.21%) Consultant
7 10 (5.21%) Developer
7 10 (5.21%) Network Engineer
8 9 (4.69%) Lead
8 9 (4.69%) Security Consultant
9 8 (4.17%) Architect
9 8 (4.17%) Cloud Security Engineer
10 7 (3.65%) Operations Analyst
11 6 (3.13%) IT Operations Analyst
11 6 (3.13%) Senior Developer
11 6 (3.13%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.17%) 802.1X
2 6 (3.13%) Microsoft Graph
2 6 (3.13%) REST
3 5 (2.60%) HTML
4 4 (2.08%) CSS
4 4 (2.08%) SOAP
5 3 (1.56%) .NET
5 3 (1.56%) Lightning Web Components
5 3 (1.56%) Middleware
5 3 (1.56%) PySpark
5 3 (1.56%) XML
6 2 (1.04%) AngularJS
6 2 (1.04%) Kafka
6 2 (1.04%) LangChain
6 2 (1.04%) PyTorch
6 2 (1.04%) React
6 2 (1.04%) scikit-learn
6 2 (1.04%) WinForms
6 2 (1.04%) WPF
7 1 (0.52%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 34 (17.71%) Management Information System
2 18 (9.38%) Security Posture
3 14 (7.29%) Cloud Native
4 13 (6.77%) Onboarding
5 10 (5.21%) PKI
6 8 (4.17%) Enterprise Cloud
7 7 (3.65%) Product Ownership
8 6 (3.13%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (2.60%) Clustering
9 5 (2.60%) Replication
10 4 (2.08%) Data Structures
10 4 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (2.08%) Life Science
10 4 (2.08%) Tandem
11 3 (1.56%) Graphic Design
11 3 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
12 2 (1.04%) Cloud Security Posture
12 2 (1.04%) CMDB
12 2 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
12 2 (1.04%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 41 (21.35%) Windows
2 26 (13.54%) Linux
3 14 (7.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (4.69%) Windows 10
5 7 (3.65%) Unix
5 7 (3.65%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.56%) 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 (28.65%) Agile
2 47 (24.48%) Computer Science
3 46 (23.96%) ITIL
4 45 (23.44%) Problem-Solving
5 33 (17.19%) Change Management
5 33 (17.19%) DevOps
6 30 (15.63%) CI/CD
7 26 (13.54%) Roadmaps
8 25 (13.02%) Stakeholder Management
9 23 (11.98%) Scrum
10 22 (11.46%) Cloud Security
10 22 (11.46%) Continuous Improvement
10 22 (11.46%) Service Management
11 21 (10.94%) Analytics
12 20 (10.42%) Cybersecurity
13 19 (9.90%) AI
13 19 (9.90%) Project Delivery
13 19 (9.90%) SIEM
13 19 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 18 (9.38%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 47 (24.48%) Python
2 36 (18.75%) PowerShell
3 26 (13.54%) SQL
4 19 (9.90%) Java
5 17 (8.85%) Bash
6 8 (4.17%) Bicep
7 6 (3.13%) T-SQL
8 4 (2.08%) JavaScript
8 4 (2.08%) Search Processing Language
9 3 (1.56%) Apex Code
9 3 (1.56%) C#
9 3 (1.56%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (1.56%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.56%) VB
10 2 (1.04%) Perl
10 2 (1.04%) Scala
10 2 (1.04%) TypeScript
10 2 (1.04%) VB6
11 1 (0.52%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.52%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 35 (18.23%) Computer Science Degree
2 27 (14.06%) CISSP
3 24 (12.50%) Microsoft Certification
4 20 (10.42%) Security Cleared
5 18 (9.38%) SC Cleared
6 17 (8.85%) Azure Certification
7 13 (6.77%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (6.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (5.73%) AWS Certification
10 10 (5.21%) CCNP
11 8 (4.17%) CCNA
11 8 (4.17%) ITIL Certification
11 8 (4.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 7 (3.65%) A+ Certification
12 7 (3.65%) CISM
12 7 (3.65%) Network+ Certification
13 6 (3.13%) DBS Check
14 5 (2.60%) CEH
15 4 (2.08%) CompTIA Security+
16 3 (1.56%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.73%) NIST
2 7 (3.65%) GDPR
3 6 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 6 (3.13%) QA
4 5 (2.60%) GRC
4 5 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (2.60%) PCI DSS
4 5 (2.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 5 (2.60%) SLA
5 4 (2.08%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.04%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (1.04%) GAAP
6 2 (1.04%) HIPAA
6 2 (1.04%) IFRS
7 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.52%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.52%) PMO
7 1 (0.52%) SEPA
System Software
1 18 (9.38%) Active Directory
2 13 (6.77%) Docker
3 7 (3.65%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.56%) NFS
4 3 (1.56%) Veritas Volume Manager
5 2 (1.04%) Firmware
6 1 (0.52%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (10.42%) Terraform
2 19 (9.90%) Kubernetes
3 15 (7.81%) Progress Chef
4 10 (5.21%) Ansible
5 6 (3.13%) SCOM
6 3 (1.56%) CASB
6 3 (1.56%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (1.56%) PowerBroker
6 3 (1.56%) Tivoli
6 3 (1.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 2 (1.04%) SCCM
8 1 (0.52%) Istio
8 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.52%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.52%) QRadar
Vendors
1 67 (34.90%) Microsoft
2 23 (11.98%) ServiceNow
3 18 (9.38%) SAP
4 17 (8.85%) Cisco
4 17 (8.85%) Splunk
5 15 (7.81%) Google
5 15 (7.81%) Red Hat
6 10 (5.21%) Oracle
7 7 (3.65%) Databricks
7 7 (3.65%) IBM
8 6 (3.13%) Aruba
8 6 (3.13%) Bomgar
8 6 (3.13%) ForeScout
8 6 (3.13%) Fortinet
9 5 (2.60%) Adobe
9 5 (2.60%) CheckPoint
9 5 (2.60%) CyberArk
9 5 (2.60%) Ribbon
9 5 (2.60%) Salesforce
9 5 (2.60%) UiPath