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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +17
Contract jobs citing Degree 182 147 244
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.75% 7.62% 8.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.70% 20.85% 30.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 84 109
10th Percentile £254 £247 £154
25th Percentile £351 £358 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £466 £450
Median % change year-on-year -14.12% +3.50% -
75th Percentile £496 £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 18 28
10th Percentile £29.70 £22.65 £11.77
25th Percentile - £24.71 £17.38
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £26.20
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +24.07% -24.07%
75th Percentile £57.50 £33.75 £36.46
90th Percentile £178.75 £40.20 £47.90
England median hourly rate £55.00 £54.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +0.92% +36.25% -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 924 705 810
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 29.18% 36.55% 29.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 615 409 462
10th Percentile £313 £224 £241
25th Percentile £394 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £480 £512
Median % change year-on-year -0.33% -6.31% +0.46%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £656
90th Percentile £680 £651 £725
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 43 120
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.95 £10.95
25th Percentile £31.49 £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 £38.43
90th Percentile £79.03 £82.85 £50.19
England median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £38.45
% change year-on-year -9.08% +30.03% -26.07%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -4 77 £392 -17.50% 92
Manchester -26 61 £402 -14.24% 243
Lancashire +7 24 £513 - 75
Merseyside -14 10 £249 -43.14% 33
Cumbria -5 7 £500 +21.21% 9
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 (10.44%) Confluence
2 18 (9.89%) SharePoint
3 7 (3.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.10%) SAS
5 1 (0.55%) Apache
5 1 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.55%) Camunda
5 1 (0.55%) JBoss
5 1 (0.55%) Mule
5 1 (0.55%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.55%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.55%) WebLogic
Applications
1 39 (21.43%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (6.59%) MS Visio
3 11 (6.04%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (4.95%) Microsoft Excel
5 8 (4.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.55%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.55%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (5.49%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.20%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.20%) Primavera
3 3 (1.65%) SAP MM
4 2 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.10%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.55%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.55%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.55%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.55%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 27 (14.84%) Microsoft 365
2 24 (13.19%) AWS
2 24 (13.19%) Azure
3 14 (7.69%) Power Platform
4 13 (7.14%) Entra ID
5 10 (5.49%) Apigee
6 9 (4.95%) GCP
7 6 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.30%) Kong
7 6 (3.30%) OneDrive
8 5 (2.75%) Microsoft Copilot
8 5 (2.75%) Power Automate
8 5 (2.75%) PowerApps
9 4 (2.20%) GitHub
9 4 (2.20%) GitHub Copilot
9 4 (2.20%) SaaS
10 3 (1.65%) Azure Logic Apps
10 3 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (1.65%) Figma
11 2 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 15 (8.24%) Firewall
2 11 (6.04%) Skype
2 11 (6.04%) VPN
3 9 (4.95%) DNS
4 8 (4.40%) VLAN
5 7 (3.85%) Wireless
6 6 (3.30%) LAN
6 6 (3.30%) WAN
7 5 (2.75%) DHCP
7 5 (2.75%) Network Security
7 5 (2.75%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (2.20%) BGP
8 4 (2.20%) HTTP
8 4 (2.20%) HTTPS
8 4 (2.20%) TCP/IP
9 3 (1.65%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (1.65%) Unified Communications
10 2 (1.10%) Internet
10 2 (1.10%) SAN
10 2 (1.10%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.40%) Power BI
2 7 (3.85%) Relational Database
3 5 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.75%) SQL Server
4 4 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (2.20%) MySQL
5 3 (1.65%) Hadoop
6 2 (1.10%) Qlik Sense
6 2 (1.10%) RDBMS
6 2 (1.10%) SAP HANA
6 2 (1.10%) Tableau
7 1 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.55%) Cognos Framework Manager
7 1 (0.55%) Cognos Report Studio
7 1 (0.55%) Cognos Transformer
7 1 (0.55%) OLAP
7 1 (0.55%) OLAP Cube
7 1 (0.55%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.55%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 1 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 28 (15.38%) JIRA
2 12 (6.59%) Git
3 9 (4.95%) Postman
4 5 (2.75%) GitLab
5 4 (2.20%) Jenkins
6 2 (1.10%) JUnit
7 1 (0.55%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.55%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.55%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.55%) MLflow
7 1 (0.55%) SoapUI
General
1 97 (53.30%) Social Skills
2 67 (36.81%) Finance
3 43 (23.63%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (16.48%) Banking
5 22 (12.09%) Public Sector
6 13 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
6 13 (7.14%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (4.95%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.40%) Legal
8 8 (4.40%) Telecoms
9 7 (3.85%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (2.75%) Corporate Banking
10 5 (2.75%) Manufacturing
10 5 (2.75%) Retail
11 3 (1.65%) Local Government
11 3 (1.65%) Retail Banking
12 2 (1.10%) Environmental Health
12 2 (1.10%) Law
12 2 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.55%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 41 (22.53%) Analyst
2 25 (13.74%) Business Analyst
3 19 (10.44%) Developer
3 19 (10.44%) Lead
4 11 (6.04%) Support Analyst
5 10 (5.49%) 1st Line Support
5 10 (5.49%) IT Analyst
5 10 (5.49%) IT Support
5 10 (5.49%) IT Support Analyst
5 10 (5.49%) Java Developer
5 10 (5.49%) Project Manager
5 10 (5.49%) Senior
6 8 (4.40%) Architect
7 7 (3.85%) Designer
7 7 (3.85%) UX Designer
8 6 (3.30%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 6 (3.30%) Microsoft Engineer
8 6 (3.30%) Network Engineer
8 6 (3.30%) Technical Analyst
8 6 (3.30%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (10.44%) XML
2 18 (9.89%) JSON
3 13 (7.14%) REST
4 11 (6.04%) SOAP
5 10 (5.49%) JWT
5 10 (5.49%) OAuth
5 10 (5.49%) Swagger
6 9 (4.95%) Spring
6 9 (4.95%) Spring Boot
7 8 (4.40%) Hibernate
7 8 (4.40%) RESTful
8 6 (3.30%) HTML
8 6 (3.30%) OpenAPI
9 5 (2.75%) .NET
10 4 (2.20%) 802.1X
10 4 (2.20%) JAX-RS
10 4 (2.20%) OAuth2
10 4 (2.20%) Spring MVC
10 4 (2.20%) Spring Security
11 3 (1.65%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.24%) Virtual Team
2 14 (7.69%) Management Information System
3 13 (7.14%) Product Ownership
4 11 (6.04%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.20%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.20%) Digital Wallet
6 4 (2.20%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.65%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.65%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.65%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.65%) Handset
7 3 (1.65%) IoT
7 3 (1.65%) PKI
7 3 (1.65%) PMI
8 2 (1.10%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.10%) Graphic Design
9 1 (0.55%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.55%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 34 (18.68%) Windows
2 19 (10.44%) Windows 10
3 11 (6.04%) Linux
4 8 (4.40%) Windows Server
5 6 (3.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.65%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.10%) Unix
8 1 (0.55%) AIX
8 1 (0.55%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.55%) Solaris
8 1 (0.55%) VMS
8 1 (0.55%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (44.51%) Agile
2 53 (29.12%) Problem-Solving
3 52 (28.57%) Computer Science
4 40 (21.98%) ITIL
5 37 (20.33%) Continuous Improvement
5 37 (20.33%) DevOps
6 36 (19.78%) Change Management
7 32 (17.58%) Project Management
8 31 (17.03%) Stakeholder Management
9 29 (15.93%) Project Delivery
10 24 (13.19%) ITSM
10 24 (13.19%) PRINCE2
11 23 (12.64%) AI
11 23 (12.64%) CI/CD
12 22 (12.09%) Cybersecurity
13 21 (11.54%) Customer Service
13 21 (11.54%) Requirements Gathering
13 21 (11.54%) Service Delivery
14 20 (10.99%) Workshop Facilitation
15 19 (10.44%) Six Sigma
Programming Languages
1 26 (14.29%) SQL
2 17 (9.34%) Python
3 16 (8.79%) Java
4 13 (7.14%) PowerShell
5 6 (3.30%) Bash
6 5 (2.75%) C#
7 4 (2.20%) Perl
8 3 (1.65%) C++
8 3 (1.65%) R
9 2 (1.10%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (1.10%) PL/SQL
9 2 (1.10%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.55%) Groovy
10 1 (0.55%) SAS Macro
10 1 (0.55%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.55%) VB
10 1 (0.55%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 42 (23.08%) Computer Science Degree
2 35 (19.23%) Security Cleared
3 18 (9.89%) SC Cleared
4 17 (9.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (8.79%) Master's Degree
6 15 (8.24%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 13 (7.14%) Microsoft Certification
8 12 (6.59%) CCNA
8 12 (6.59%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (5.49%) CCNP
10 9 (4.95%) MBA
11 8 (4.40%) A+ Certification
12 7 (3.85%) CISSP
12 7 (3.85%) Network+ Certification
12 7 (3.85%) PMI Certification
12 7 (3.85%) PMP
13 6 (3.30%) ITIL Certification
14 5 (2.75%) Azure Certification
15 3 (1.65%) CCDP
15 3 (1.65%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.95%) NIST
1 9 (4.95%) QA
2 7 (3.85%) GDPR
3 6 (3.30%) Accessibility
3 6 (3.30%) GRC
3 6 (3.30%) PSD2
4 5 (2.75%) PCI DSS
4 5 (2.75%) SLA
5 4 (2.20%) Data Quality
5 4 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.65%) Basel III
6 3 (1.65%) IFRS
6 3 (1.65%) IFRS 17
6 3 (1.65%) ISO 8583
7 2 (1.10%) ISO 20022
7 2 (1.10%) P3O
7 2 (1.10%) PMO
8 1 (0.55%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.55%) NEBOSH
8 1 (0.55%) SEPA
System Software
1 23 (12.64%) Active Directory
2 13 (7.14%) Docker
3 7 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.65%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.10%) Firmware
6 1 (0.55%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.55%) NFS
6 1 (0.55%) Veritas Volume Manager
6 1 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 13 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.30%) Ansible
3 4 (2.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 3 (1.65%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (1.65%) Terraform
5 2 (1.10%) Progress Chef
5 2 (1.10%) SCCM
5 2 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.55%) CA Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.55%) PowerBroker
6 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
6 1 (0.55%) SCOM
6 1 (0.55%) SCOrch
6 1 (0.55%) Tivoli
6 1 (0.55%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.55%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 56 (30.77%) Microsoft
2 16 (8.79%) Cisco
3 15 (8.24%) Citrix
4 10 (5.49%) Oracle
4 10 (5.49%) Remedy
4 10 (5.49%) ServiceNow
4 10 (5.49%) Splunk
5 9 (4.95%) SAP
6 7 (3.85%) VMware
7 6 (3.30%) MuleSoft
7 6 (3.30%) Red Hat
8 5 (2.75%) Aruba
8 5 (2.75%) CheckPoint
8 5 (2.75%) Palo Alto
9 4 (2.20%) Broadcom
9 4 (2.20%) CyberArk
9 4 (2.20%) Ekahau
9 4 (2.20%) ForeScout
10 3 (1.65%) EMC
10 3 (1.65%) Veritas