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 7 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -7 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 179 144 228
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.24% 7.28% 8.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.80% 20.51% 29.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 84 106
10th Percentile £189 £270 £169
25th Percentile £352 £356 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £417 £466 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.47% -11.29% +8.02%
75th Percentile £500 £576 £600
90th Percentile £612 £700 £671
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 15 36
10th Percentile £28.50 £21.02 £11.77
25th Percentile £29.63 £22.61 £24.17
Median hourly rate £57.81 £32.50 £26.59
Median % change year-on-year +77.86% +22.23% -34.49%
75th Percentile £178.75 £50.63 £43.87
90th Percentile - £76.66 £62.50
England median hourly rate £55.75 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +11.50% +25.00% -18.35%

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 952 702 777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.84% 35.47% 28.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 626 409 429
10th Percentile £336 £230 £297
25th Percentile £400 £388 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% -2.00% -2.20%
75th Percentile £606 £575 £638
90th Percentile £688 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £536
% change year-on-year - -2.07% -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 45 134
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £28.50 £25.15 £12.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +46.53% +86.80% -60.43%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £43.10
90th Percentile £111.15 £75.25 £66.97
England median hourly rate £51.72 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +59.14% -18.75% -27.27%

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 7 June 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 7 June 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 7 June 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 +1 79 £444 -5.28% 50
Manchester -15 79 £402 -15.37% 159
Cumbria -7 8 £475 - 9
Merseyside -11 8 £188 -57.14% 13
Lancashire -11 4 - - 48
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 26 (14.53%) Confluence
2 22 (12.29%) SharePoint
3 7 (3.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.12%) Camunda
4 2 (1.12%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.56%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.56%) JBoss
5 1 (0.56%) Mule
5 1 (0.56%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.56%) WebLogic
Applications
1 48 (26.82%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (8.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (6.70%) MS Visio
4 9 (5.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (5.03%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.56%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.56%) MicroStation
5 1 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (3.91%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.23%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.23%) Primavera
2 4 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (1.68%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.56%) Infor M3
4 1 (0.56%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.56%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 34 (18.99%) Azure
2 28 (15.64%) Microsoft 365
3 27 (15.08%) AWS
4 17 (9.50%) Power Platform
5 12 (6.70%) Entra ID
6 11 (6.15%) GCP
7 9 (5.03%) Power Automate
7 9 (5.03%) PowerApps
8 7 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (3.91%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 6 (3.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (2.79%) Microsoft Copilot
10 5 (2.79%) OneDrive
11 4 (2.23%) Figma
12 3 (1.68%) Apigee
12 3 (1.68%) Kong
12 3 (1.68%) OpenShift
12 3 (1.68%) SaaS
13 2 (1.12%) Dynamics 365
13 2 (1.12%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 20 (11.17%) Firewall
2 14 (7.82%) VPN
3 11 (6.15%) DNS
3 11 (6.15%) Wireless
4 9 (5.03%) Skype
4 9 (5.03%) WAN
5 8 (4.47%) LAN
5 8 (4.47%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (3.91%) VLAN
7 6 (3.35%) Network Security
8 5 (2.79%) DHCP
9 4 (2.23%) BGP
9 4 (2.23%) OSPF
9 4 (2.23%) SSL
9 4 (2.23%) TCP/IP
10 3 (1.68%) Cisco ISE
10 3 (1.68%) FTP
10 3 (1.68%) Internet
10 3 (1.68%) MPLS
10 3 (1.68%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.15%) Power BI
2 7 (3.91%) SQL Server
3 4 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.68%) Hadoop
4 3 (1.68%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.68%) RDBMS
5 2 (1.12%) Apache Cassandra
5 2 (1.12%) MongoDB
5 2 (1.12%) NoSQL
5 2 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (1.12%) Tableau
6 1 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.56%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.56%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.56%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 35 (19.55%) JIRA
2 6 (3.35%) Postman
3 5 (2.79%) Git
4 2 (1.12%) ClearCase
4 2 (1.12%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.12%) GitLab
4 2 (1.12%) JUnit
5 1 (0.56%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.56%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.56%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.56%) MLflow
5 1 (0.56%) Selenium
5 1 (0.56%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 86 (48.04%) Social Skills
2 68 (37.99%) Finance
3 41 (22.91%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (15.64%) Banking
5 16 (8.94%) Public Sector
6 10 (5.59%) Influencing Skills
6 10 (5.59%) Telecoms
7 9 (5.03%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.47%) Manufacturing
8 8 (4.47%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (3.91%) Legal
10 6 (3.35%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (2.79%) Retail
12 4 (2.23%) Corporate Banking
13 3 (1.68%) Marketing
14 2 (1.12%) Agriculture
14 2 (1.12%) Environmental Health
14 2 (1.12%) Law
14 2 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (1.12%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 44 (24.58%) Analyst
2 23 (12.85%) Business Analyst
3 15 (8.38%) IT Analyst
4 13 (7.26%) Support Analyst
5 12 (6.70%) IT Support
5 12 (6.70%) IT Support Analyst
6 11 (6.15%) Senior
7 9 (5.03%) Architect
7 9 (5.03%) Consultant
7 9 (5.03%) Developer
7 9 (5.03%) Network Engineer
7 9 (5.03%) Security Engineer
8 8 (4.47%) Designer
8 8 (4.47%) Project Manager
8 8 (4.47%) Security Consultant
8 8 (4.47%) UX Designer
9 7 (3.91%) 1st Line Support
10 6 (3.35%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
10 6 (3.35%) Microsoft Engineer
11 5 (2.79%) Banking Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.26%) XML
2 11 (6.15%) REST
3 10 (5.59%) JSON
4 9 (5.03%) SOAP
5 7 (3.91%) 802.1X
5 7 (3.91%) HTML
5 7 (3.91%) Swagger
6 6 (3.35%) .NET
7 4 (2.23%) CSS
7 4 (2.23%) Middleware
7 4 (2.23%) OAuth
8 3 (1.68%) AngularJS
8 3 (1.68%) JWT
8 3 (1.68%) OpenAPI
8 3 (1.68%) React
9 2 (1.12%) Kafka
9 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (1.12%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (1.12%) WinForms
9 2 (1.12%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 21 (11.73%) Management Information System
2 16 (8.94%) Onboarding
3 11 (6.15%) Security Posture
4 10 (5.59%) Cloud Native
4 10 (5.59%) Product Ownership
5 8 (4.47%) PKI
6 5 (2.79%) Life Science
6 5 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.23%) Data Structures
7 4 (2.23%) Digital Wallet
8 3 (1.68%) AI Agents
8 3 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.68%) Graphic Design
8 3 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.68%) Tandem
9 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.12%) IoT
9 2 (1.12%) PMI
9 2 (1.12%) Social Media
9 2 (1.12%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 43 (24.02%) Windows
2 21 (11.73%) Linux
3 19 (10.61%) Windows 10
4 11 (6.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.91%) Unix
6 4 (2.23%) Windows Server
7 3 (1.68%) AIX
7 3 (1.68%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (1.12%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.56%) Android
9 1 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (39.11%) Agile
2 50 (27.93%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (24.58%) Computer Science
4 36 (20.11%) ITIL
5 33 (18.44%) Stakeholder Management
6 31 (17.32%) Change Management
7 30 (16.76%) DevOps
8 26 (14.53%) Roadmaps
9 22 (12.29%) CI/CD
9 22 (12.29%) ITSM
10 21 (11.73%) AI
10 21 (11.73%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (11.73%) Customer Service
10 21 (11.73%) Scrum
10 21 (11.73%) Service Management
11 19 (10.61%) Project Delivery
11 19 (10.61%) Project Management
12 18 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 18 (10.06%) Validation
12 18 (10.06%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 29 (16.20%) Python
2 25 (13.97%) SQL
3 19 (10.61%) PowerShell
4 15 (8.38%) Java
5 11 (6.15%) Bash
6 6 (3.35%) C#
7 5 (2.79%) JavaScript
8 4 (2.23%) VB
9 3 (1.68%) TypeScript
10 2 (1.12%) C++
10 2 (1.12%) PL/SQL
10 2 (1.12%) R
10 2 (1.12%) Shell Script
10 2 (1.12%) VB6
10 2 (1.12%) VBScript
11 1 (0.56%) Groovy
11 1 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.56%) Perl
Qualifications
1 38 (21.23%) Computer Science Degree
2 24 (13.41%) Security Cleared
3 17 (9.50%) CISSP
4 15 (8.38%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (8.38%) Master's Degree
4 15 (8.38%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (7.26%) SC Cleared
6 12 (6.70%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (5.59%) A+ Certification
7 10 (5.59%) Azure Certification
7 10 (5.59%) CCNP
8 9 (5.03%) AWS Certification
8 9 (5.03%) CCNA
8 9 (5.03%) Network+ Certification
9 8 (4.47%) MBA
10 6 (3.35%) ITIL Certification
10 6 (3.35%) PMI Certification
10 6 (3.35%) PMP
11 4 (2.23%) CISM
11 4 (2.23%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.15%) NIST
2 8 (4.47%) GDPR
3 7 (3.91%) Accessibility
3 7 (3.91%) QA
3 7 (3.91%) SLA
4 6 (3.35%) GRC
4 6 (3.35%) PCI DSS
4 6 (3.35%) PSD2
5 5 (2.79%) IFRS
6 4 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.68%) IFRS 17
7 3 (1.68%) ISO 8583
8 2 (1.12%) Basel III
8 2 (1.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (1.12%) Data Quality
8 2 (1.12%) GAAP
8 2 (1.12%) HIPAA
8 2 (1.12%) ISO 20022
8 2 (1.12%) P3O
8 2 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (11.73%) Active Directory
2 13 (7.26%) Docker
3 4 (2.23%) Firmware
4 3 (1.68%) Hyper-V
4 3 (1.68%) NFS
4 3 (1.68%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 3 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (1.12%) BitLocker
5 2 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (7.26%) Kubernetes
2 10 (5.59%) Progress Chef
2 10 (5.59%) Terraform
3 7 (3.91%) Ansible
4 3 (1.68%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (1.68%) PowerBroker
4 3 (1.68%) Tivoli
4 3 (1.68%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 2 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.12%) SCCM
6 1 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 55 (30.73%) Microsoft
2 19 (10.61%) Cisco
3 14 (7.82%) ServiceNow
4 13 (7.26%) Red Hat
4 13 (7.26%) SAP
5 11 (6.15%) Oracle
6 9 (5.03%) Google
7 8 (4.47%) Remedy
7 8 (4.47%) Splunk
8 7 (3.91%) Aruba
8 7 (3.91%) Citrix
9 6 (3.35%) ForeScout
10 5 (2.79%) CheckPoint
10 5 (2.79%) CyberArk
10 5 (2.79%) Databricks
10 5 (2.79%) Fortinet
10 5 (2.79%) Palo Alto
10 5 (2.79%) Veritas
11 4 (2.23%) Broadcom
11 4 (2.23%) IBM