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 27 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 26 12
Rank change year-on-year 0 -14 +25
Contract jobs citing Degree 182 142 296
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.51% 6.88% 10.67%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.34% 20.34% 35.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 67 136
10th Percentile £242 £187 £158
25th Percentile £350 £356 £248
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £475 £457
Median % change year-on-year -15.79% +4.05% +1.44%
75th Percentile £494 £594 £600
90th Percentile £600 £700 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £516
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.74% -6.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 20 38
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.69 £11.77
25th Percentile £31.63 £24.14 £24.12
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +21.91% -3.75%
75th Percentile £48.49 £33.75 £45.57
90th Percentile £62.56 £47.09 £46.18
England median hourly rate £37.50 £46.84 £40.00
% change year-on-year -19.94% +17.10% -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 895 698 832
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 32.00% 33.83% 29.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 602 395 490
10th Percentile £242 £213 £248
25th Percentile £381 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -9.52% +3.45%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £649
90th Percentile £680 £662 £703
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 42 110
10th Percentile £19.29 £22.84 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £25.51 £16.06
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +21.91% -25.94%
75th Percentile £67.84 £59.57 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.00 £64.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -48.67% +15.29% -10.53%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 27 February 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 -3 84 £390 -22.00% 50
Manchester -24 51 £401 -15.58% 126
Lancashire +5 25 £513 - 58
Merseyside -22 11 £236 -46.00% 24
Cumbria +2 8 £508 +23.03% 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 29 (15.93%) SharePoint
2 25 (13.74%) Confluence
3 10 (5.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (2.75%) Skype for Business
5 4 (2.20%) Exchange Server 2013
6 2 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (1.10%) SAS
7 1 (0.55%) Apache
7 1 (0.55%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 37 (20.33%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (8.24%) MS Visio
3 12 (6.59%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (5.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (5.49%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.55%) InVision
5 1 (0.55%) Sketch
5 1 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (5.49%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.20%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.65%) Primavera
4 2 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.10%) NEC Housing
4 2 (1.10%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.55%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.55%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.55%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.55%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.55%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 30 (16.48%) Microsoft 365
2 29 (15.93%) Azure
3 21 (11.54%) AWS
4 19 (10.44%) Power Platform
5 11 (6.04%) Entra ID
6 10 (5.49%) Apigee
6 10 (5.49%) SaaS
7 9 (4.95%) GCP
7 9 (4.95%) OneDrive
8 6 (3.30%) Kong
9 5 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (2.75%) GitHub
9 5 (2.75%) Power Automate
9 5 (2.75%) PowerApps
10 4 (2.20%) GitHub Copilot
10 4 (2.20%) Microsoft Copilot
11 3 (1.65%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (1.10%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 15 (8.24%) Skype
2 12 (6.59%) DNS
3 11 (6.04%) Firewall
3 11 (6.04%) VPN
4 9 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
5 8 (4.40%) Unified Communications
6 7 (3.85%) SSH
6 7 (3.85%) VLAN
7 5 (2.75%) DHCP
7 5 (2.75%) Internet
7 5 (2.75%) LAN
7 5 (2.75%) WAN
8 4 (2.20%) BGP
8 4 (2.20%) HTTP
8 4 (2.20%) HTTPS
9 3 (1.65%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (1.65%) TCP/IP
9 3 (1.65%) Wireless
10 2 (1.10%) SAN
10 2 (1.10%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.85%) Power BI
2 6 (3.30%) Relational Database
3 5 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (2.20%) MySQL
5 3 (1.65%) Hadoop
5 3 (1.65%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.65%) Tableau
6 2 (1.10%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.10%) Qlik Sense
6 2 (1.10%) RDBMS
6 2 (1.10%) SAP HANA
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%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.55%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 1 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 30 (16.48%) JIRA
2 11 (6.04%) Git
3 9 (4.95%) Postman
4 4 (2.20%) GitLab
4 4 (2.20%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.55%) MLflow
5 1 (0.55%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 109 (59.89%) Social Skills
2 69 (37.91%) Finance
3 44 (24.18%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (16.48%) Banking
5 19 (10.44%) Public Sector
6 15 (8.24%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (7.14%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (6.04%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (4.40%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (2.75%) Corporate Banking
10 5 (2.75%) Legal
10 5 (2.75%) Retail
11 4 (2.20%) Manufacturing
11 4 (2.20%) Telecoms
12 3 (1.65%) Retail Banking
13 2 (1.10%) Law
13 2 (1.10%) Local Government
13 2 (1.10%) Marketing
13 2 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (1.10%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 44 (24.18%) Analyst
2 24 (13.19%) Business Analyst
2 24 (13.19%) Lead
3 17 (9.34%) Developer
4 11 (6.04%) IT Support
4 11 (6.04%) Support Analyst
5 10 (5.49%) 1st Line Support
5 10 (5.49%) Project Manager
6 9 (4.95%) Senior
7 8 (4.40%) Architect
7 8 (4.40%) Java Developer
8 6 (3.30%) Banking Analyst
8 6 (3.30%) Banking Business Analyst
8 6 (3.30%) IT Analyst
8 6 (3.30%) IT Support Analyst
8 6 (3.30%) Technical Analyst
8 6 (3.30%) Technical Business Analyst
9 5 (2.75%) Designer
9 5 (2.75%) Microsoft Engineer
9 5 (2.75%) Service Desk Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (9.89%) XML
2 17 (9.34%) JSON
3 11 (6.04%) REST
3 11 (6.04%) SOAP
4 10 (5.49%) JWT
4 10 (5.49%) OAuth
4 10 (5.49%) Swagger
5 8 (4.40%) Hibernate
5 8 (4.40%) RESTful
5 8 (4.40%) Spring
5 8 (4.40%) Spring Boot
6 6 (3.30%) OpenAPI
7 4 (2.20%) .NET
7 4 (2.20%) JAX-RS
7 4 (2.20%) OAuth2
7 4 (2.20%) Spring MVC
7 4 (2.20%) Spring Security
8 3 (1.65%) 802.1X
8 3 (1.65%) HTML
8 3 (1.65%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.24%) Virtual Team
2 14 (7.69%) Management Information System
3 10 (5.49%) Product Ownership
4 7 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
4 7 (3.85%) Onboarding
4 7 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
4 7 (3.85%) Tandem
5 5 (2.75%) Low-Code
5 5 (2.75%) Video Conferencing
6 4 (2.20%) Digital Wallet
6 4 (2.20%) PKI
6 4 (2.20%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.65%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.65%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.65%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.65%) Handset
7 3 (1.65%) IoT
7 3 (1.65%) PMI
8 2 (1.10%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.55%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 39 (21.43%) Windows
2 15 (8.24%) Windows 10
3 8 (4.40%) Unix
3 8 (4.40%) Windows Server
4 7 (3.85%) Linux
5 5 (2.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.65%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.55%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.55%) Solaris
7 1 (0.55%) VMS
7 1 (0.55%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (42.31%) Agile
2 55 (30.22%) Computer Science
3 51 (28.02%) Problem-Solving
4 43 (23.63%) ITIL
5 40 (21.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 39 (21.43%) Project Management
7 38 (20.88%) Change Management
8 36 (19.78%) Continuous Improvement
8 36 (19.78%) DevOps
9 34 (18.68%) Project Delivery
10 27 (14.84%) Cybersecurity
11 23 (12.64%) Service Delivery
11 23 (12.64%) Validation
12 22 (12.09%) AI
12 22 (12.09%) CI/CD
12 22 (12.09%) Customer Service
12 22 (12.09%) PRINCE2
12 22 (12.09%) Six Sigma
13 21 (11.54%) ITSM
14 19 (10.44%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 25 (13.74%) SQL
2 23 (12.64%) Python
3 13 (7.14%) Java
4 11 (6.04%) 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
10 1 (0.55%) Groovy
10 1 (0.55%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.55%) SAS Macro
10 1 (0.55%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.55%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.55%) VB
10 1 (0.55%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 44 (24.18%) Computer Science Degree
2 38 (20.88%) Security Cleared
3 19 (10.44%) Master's Degree
4 18 (9.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (8.79%) SC Cleared
6 15 (8.24%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 10 (5.49%) MBA
8 7 (3.85%) CCNA
8 7 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (3.30%) Azure Certification
9 6 (3.30%) CCNP
9 6 (3.30%) ITIL Certification
9 6 (3.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 6 (3.30%) PMI Certification
9 6 (3.30%) PMP
10 5 (2.75%) AWS Certification
10 5 (2.75%) CISSP
11 4 (2.20%) A+ Certification
12 3 (1.65%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.04%) QA
2 7 (3.85%) GDPR
3 6 (3.30%) NIST
4 5 (2.75%) PSD2
5 4 (2.20%) Data Quality
5 4 (2.20%) GRC
5 4 (2.20%) PCI DSS
6 3 (1.65%) Accessibility
6 3 (1.65%) Basel III
6 3 (1.65%) IFRS
6 3 (1.65%) IFRS 17
6 3 (1.65%) ISO 8583
6 3 (1.65%) SLA
7 2 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (1.10%) P3O
7 2 (1.10%) PMO
8 1 (0.55%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.55%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.55%) NEBOSH
8 1 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 26 (14.29%) 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%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 13 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 11 (6.04%) SCCM
3 9 (4.95%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (2.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 4 (2.20%) Terraform
5 3 (1.65%) Ansible
6 2 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.55%) CA Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.55%) Control-M
7 1 (0.55%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.55%) SCOM
7 1 (0.55%) SCOrch
7 1 (0.55%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 60 (32.97%) Microsoft
2 15 (8.24%) Citrix
3 12 (6.59%) Cisco
3 12 (6.59%) ServiceNow
4 10 (5.49%) Remedy
5 9 (4.95%) IBM
5 9 (4.95%) Oracle
5 9 (4.95%) SAP
6 7 (3.85%) VMware
7 6 (3.30%) Gemalto
7 6 (3.30%) MuleSoft
7 6 (3.30%) Splunk
7 6 (3.30%) Thales
8 5 (2.75%) Red Hat
9 4 (2.20%) Aruba
9 4 (2.20%) CheckPoint
9 4 (2.20%) Palo Alto
10 3 (1.65%) Ekahau
10 3 (1.65%) EMC
10 3 (1.65%) Google