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 5 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 28 24
Rank change year-on-year -8 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Degree 216 148 162
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.49% 6.76% 6.69%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.32% 19.55% 23.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 79 68
10th Percentile £172 £308 £347
25th Percentile £365 £366 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £479 £458 £537
Median % change year-on-year +4.70% -14.73% +10.39%
75th Percentile £577 £528 £586
90th Percentile £631 £703 £638
England median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -6.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 23 22
10th Percentile £17.43 £15.50 £21.66
25th Percentile £28.50 £18.26 £32.82
Median hourly rate £39.50 £35.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +11.27% -23.13% +13.90%
75th Percentile £64.09 £67.58 £62.50
90th Percentile £72.75 £79.55 £91.62
England median hourly rate £39.50 £34.49 £52.50
% change year-on-year +14.53% -34.30% +9.38%

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 1,247 757 686
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 31.67% 34.58% 28.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 794 478 350
10th Percentile £305 £303 £294
25th Percentile £420 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £604 £638 £600
90th Percentile £675 £719 £676
England median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.52% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 74 60
10th Percentile £17.69 £15.50 £17.91
25th Percentile £28.10 £18.90 £23.69
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.19 £45.59
Median % change year-on-year +61.69% -40.37% -0.63%
75th Percentile £62.12 £62.12 £56.34
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.06 £80.88
England median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -52.10% -0.94%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -14 95 £510 +11.48% 406
Cheshire +6 71 £523 +20.23% 122
Lancashire -5 31 £125 -76.94% 87
Cumbria -19 10 £341 - 38
Merseyside -7 8 £126 -74.75% 81
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 38 (17.59%) SharePoint
2 18 (8.33%) Confluence
3 17 (7.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (6.02%) SharePoint Server
5 5 (2.31%) Camunda
6 3 (1.39%) SAS
7 2 (0.93%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.46%) Apache
8 1 (0.46%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.46%) JBoss
8 1 (0.46%) Mule
8 1 (0.46%) Mule ESB
8 1 (0.46%) nginx
8 1 (0.46%) WebLogic
Applications
1 48 (22.22%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (10.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (4.17%) MS Visio
5 7 (3.24%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (1.39%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.46%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 4 (1.85%) Primavera
1 4 (1.85%) SAP MM
1 4 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.46%) Oracle Utilities
2 1 (0.46%) SAP APO
2 1 (0.46%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 63 (29.17%) Azure
2 46 (21.30%) Power Platform
3 45 (20.83%) Microsoft 365
4 32 (14.81%) AWS
5 19 (8.80%) GCP
5 19 (8.80%) Power Automate
5 19 (8.80%) PowerApps
6 16 (7.41%) OneDrive
7 15 (6.94%) Azure AI
7 15 (6.94%) Azure DevOps
7 15 (6.94%) Entra ID
8 14 (6.48%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (6.48%) Azure Sentinel
9 13 (6.02%) Microsoft Copilot
10 10 (4.63%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 9 (4.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (4.17%) Google Workspace
12 6 (2.78%) OpenShift
12 6 (2.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 5 (2.31%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 21 (9.72%) Firewall
2 14 (6.48%) SSL
3 13 (6.02%) VPN
4 9 (4.17%) Network Security
5 6 (2.78%) DNS
5 6 (2.78%) Wireless
6 5 (2.31%) WAN
7 4 (1.85%) BGP
7 4 (1.85%) MPLS
7 4 (1.85%) OSPF
7 4 (1.85%) SSH
7 4 (1.85%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (1.39%) FTP
9 2 (0.93%) DMZ
9 2 (0.93%) DWDM
9 2 (0.93%) Internet
9 2 (0.93%) L2TP
9 2 (0.93%) LAN
9 2 (0.93%) VLAN
9 2 (0.93%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (12.50%) Power BI
2 16 (7.41%) SQL Server
3 12 (5.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 11 (5.09%) MySQL
5 4 (1.85%) Metadata
6 3 (1.39%) Power Query
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.93%) Big Data
7 2 (0.93%) Data Vault
7 2 (0.93%) EDRMS
7 2 (0.93%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.46%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.46%) Data Mining
8 1 (0.46%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.46%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.46%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.46%) Parquet
8 1 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.46%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.46%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 19 (8.80%) JIRA
2 9 (4.17%) GitLab
3 7 (3.24%) Jenkins
4 5 (2.31%) Git
4 5 (2.31%) JUnit
4 5 (2.31%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (1.85%) Bitbucket Server
5 4 (1.85%) Gradle
5 4 (1.85%) Maven
5 4 (1.85%) Mockito
5 4 (1.85%) REST Assured
5 4 (1.85%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.93%) ClearCase
6 2 (0.93%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.46%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.46%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.46%) Postman
7 1 (0.46%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.46%) Selenium
General
1 73 (33.80%) Social Skills
2 49 (22.69%) Finance
3 39 (18.06%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (11.57%) Manufacturing
5 13 (6.02%) Organisational Skills
6 10 (4.63%) Banking
7 9 (4.17%) Local Government
8 6 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (2.78%) Legal
8 6 (2.78%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (2.31%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.31%) Marketing
9 5 (2.31%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.39%) Automotive
11 3 (1.39%) Public Sector
12 2 (0.93%) Aviation
12 2 (0.93%) Electronics
12 2 (0.93%) Law
12 2 (0.93%) Police
Job Titles
1 26 (12.04%) Analyst
2 21 (9.72%) Security Engineer
3 19 (8.80%) Developer
4 17 (7.87%) Senior
5 15 (6.94%) Administrator
5 15 (6.94%) Cloud Engineer
6 13 (6.02%) IT Analyst
7 12 (5.56%) Lead
8 11 (5.09%) Support Analyst
9 10 (4.63%) Cloud Security Engineer
9 10 (4.63%) Consultant
9 10 (4.63%) DBA
9 10 (4.63%) IT Support
9 10 (4.63%) IT Support Analyst
9 10 (4.63%) SQL DBA
10 9 (4.17%) Architect
11 8 (3.70%) SharePoint Developer
12 7 (3.24%) Business Analyst
12 7 (3.24%) Operations Analyst
13 6 (2.78%) IT Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (10.19%) Terraform
2 6 (2.78%) CSS
2 6 (2.78%) HTML
2 6 (2.78%) Microsoft Graph
2 6 (2.78%) REST
3 5 (2.31%) React
3 5 (2.31%) SOAP
4 4 (1.85%) 802.1X
4 4 (1.85%) Hibernate
4 4 (1.85%) JPA
4 4 (1.85%) Kafka
4 4 (1.85%) Lightning Web Components
4 4 (1.85%) Redux
4 4 (1.85%) Spring Boot
5 3 (1.39%) ARM Templates
5 3 (1.39%) Azure Blueprints
5 3 (1.39%) PySpark
5 3 (1.39%) XML
6 2 (0.93%) scikit-learn
6 2 (0.93%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 43 (19.91%) Management Information System
2 17 (7.87%) Security Posture
3 16 (7.41%) Onboarding
4 14 (6.48%) Cloud Native
5 10 (4.63%) PKI
6 9 (4.17%) Clustering
6 9 (4.17%) Replication
7 7 (3.24%) Data Structures
7 7 (3.24%) Enterprise Cloud
8 6 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (2.78%) Life Science
9 5 (2.31%) Driving Licence
10 4 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.85%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.85%) Tandem
11 3 (1.39%) Cloud Security Posture
11 3 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.39%) Taxonomies
12 2 (0.93%) Algorithms
12 2 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 41 (18.98%) Windows
2 25 (11.57%) Linux
3 15 (6.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 11 (5.09%) Windows Server
5 7 (3.24%) Unix
5 7 (3.24%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.39%) AIX
7 1 (0.46%) Android
7 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.46%) CentOS
7 1 (0.46%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.46%) VMS
7 1 (0.46%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (22.69%) Agile
2 48 (22.22%) Computer Science
3 42 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
4 41 (18.98%) ITIL
5 38 (17.59%) DevOps
6 34 (15.74%) CI/CD
7 28 (12.96%) AI
8 27 (12.50%) Change Management
8 27 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
8 27 (12.50%) Scrum
8 27 (12.50%) Stakeholder Management
9 25 (11.57%) Roadmaps
10 24 (11.11%) Cybersecurity
11 23 (10.65%) Analytics
12 22 (10.19%) Cloud Security
13 21 (9.72%) Business Intelligence
13 21 (9.72%) Customer Service
13 21 (9.72%) Data Analysis
13 21 (9.72%) Decision-Making
14 20 (9.26%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 48 (22.22%) Python
2 43 (19.91%) PowerShell
3 35 (16.20%) SQL
4 24 (11.11%) Java
5 17 (7.87%) Bash
6 10 (4.63%) Bicep
6 10 (4.63%) T-SQL
7 8 (3.70%) JavaScript
8 4 (1.85%) Apex Code
8 4 (1.85%) Search Processing Language
9 3 (1.39%) C#
9 3 (1.39%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (1.39%) VB
10 2 (0.93%) Perl
10 2 (0.93%) Scala
10 2 (0.93%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.93%) VB6
11 1 (0.46%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.46%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.46%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 35 (16.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 26 (12.04%) Microsoft Certification
2 26 (12.04%) Security Cleared
3 24 (11.11%) CISSP
4 23 (10.65%) Azure Certification
5 22 (10.19%) SC Cleared
6 21 (9.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (5.56%) AWS Certification
7 12 (5.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 8 (3.70%) HNC
9 7 (3.24%) CISM
9 7 (3.24%) DBS Check
10 6 (2.78%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (2.31%) A+ Certification
11 5 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (2.31%) Master's Degree
11 5 (2.31%) Network+ Certification
12 4 (1.85%) CCNP
12 4 (1.85%) CEH
12 4 (1.85%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (8.33%) GDPR
2 8 (3.70%) Data Quality
2 8 (3.70%) NIST
3 5 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.31%) QA
3 5 (2.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 4 (1.85%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.39%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (1.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (1.39%) GRC
5 3 (1.39%) SLA
6 2 (0.93%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.93%) GAAP
6 2 (0.93%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.93%) IFRS
7 1 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.46%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.46%) PMO
System Software
1 15 (6.94%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.56%) Docker
3 11 (5.09%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.39%) NFS
4 3 (1.39%) Veritas Volume Manager
5 2 (0.93%) Firmware
6 1 (0.46%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 19 (8.80%) Kubernetes
2 16 (7.41%) Progress Chef
3 10 (4.63%) SCOM
4 8 (3.70%) Ansible
5 3 (1.39%) CASB
5 3 (1.39%) PowerBroker
5 3 (1.39%) Tivoli
5 3 (1.39%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 2 (0.93%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.93%) SCCM
7 1 (0.46%) Istio
7 1 (0.46%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.46%) QRadar
Vendors
1 76 (35.19%) Microsoft
2 24 (11.11%) Google
3 23 (10.65%) SAP
4 20 (9.26%) ServiceNow
5 16 (7.41%) Red Hat
6 15 (6.94%) Splunk
7 13 (6.02%) Cisco
8 11 (5.09%) IBM
8 11 (5.09%) Oracle
9 7 (3.24%) Databricks
10 6 (2.78%) Bomgar
10 6 (2.78%) Ribbon
10 6 (2.78%) Salesforce
11 5 (2.31%) Adobe
11 5 (2.31%) Thales
11 5 (2.31%) UiPath
11 5 (2.31%) Veracode
12 4 (1.85%) Fortinet
12 4 (1.85%) Gemalto
13 3 (1.39%) F5