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

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 26 19
Rank change year-on-year -6 -7 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 164 135 228
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.00% 6.87% 8.55%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.90% 19.18% 28.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 80 97
10th Percentile £185 £264 £158
25th Percentile £350 £358 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £466 £510
Median % change year-on-year -13.90% -8.68% +13.33%
75th Percentile £488 £576 £601
90th Percentile £600 £700 £671
England median daily rate £500 £513 £510
% change year-on-year -2.44% +0.49% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 16 34
10th Percentile £28.50 £22.61 £11.77
25th Percentile £36.69 £25.37 £19.34
Median hourly rate £57.81 £32.50 £26.39
Median % change year-on-year +77.86% +23.15% -34.84%
75th Percentile £178.75 £33.75 £43.05
90th Percentile - £60.13 £59.32
England median hourly rate £62.06 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +15.99% +33.75% -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 916 704 796
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.93% 35.81% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 409 454
10th Percentile £330 £230 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £497 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.43% -3.02% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £650
90th Percentile £688 £666 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 41 127
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.99 £25.15 £11.77
Median hourly rate £52.78 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +62.38% +102.37% -60.38%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £38.43
90th Percentile £111.15 £77.50 £70.83
England median hourly rate £50.00 £39.66 £40.00
% change year-on-year +26.07% -0.85% -23.81%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 73 £402 -14.83% 43
Manchester -20 69 £400 -15.79% 149
Cumbria -8 8 £475 +15.09% 3
Merseyside -13 8 £188 -57.14% 22
Lancashire -7 4 - - 46
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 21 (12.80%) SharePoint
2 20 (12.20%) Confluence
3 7 (4.27%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.22%) SAS
4 2 (1.22%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.61%) Apache
5 1 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.61%) Camunda
5 1 (0.61%) JBoss
5 1 (0.61%) Mule
5 1 (0.61%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.61%) WebLogic
Applications
1 44 (26.83%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (6.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (6.71%) MS Visio
3 10 (6.10%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (5.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.61%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.61%) MicroStation
5 1 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (6.10%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.44%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.44%) Primavera
3 3 (1.83%) SAP MM
4 2 (1.22%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.61%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.61%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 29 (17.68%) Microsoft 365
2 25 (15.24%) Azure
3 23 (14.02%) AWS
4 12 (7.32%) Power Platform
5 11 (6.71%) Entra ID
6 7 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.66%) Apigee
7 6 (3.66%) GCP
8 5 (3.05%) Kong
8 5 (3.05%) Microsoft Copilot
8 5 (3.05%) OneDrive
8 5 (3.05%) Power Automate
8 5 (3.05%) PowerApps
9 4 (2.44%) Figma
9 4 (2.44%) GitHub
10 3 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (1.83%) GitHub Copilot
10 3 (1.83%) OpenShift
10 3 (1.83%) SaaS
11 2 (1.22%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 13 (7.93%) VPN
2 12 (7.32%) Skype
3 11 (6.71%) Firewall
4 9 (5.49%) Wireless
5 8 (4.88%) DNS
6 6 (3.66%) LAN
6 6 (3.66%) WAN
7 5 (3.05%) DHCP
7 5 (3.05%) Network Security
7 5 (3.05%) VLAN
7 5 (3.05%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (2.44%) TCP/IP
9 3 (1.83%) Cisco ISE
10 2 (1.22%) Internet
10 2 (1.22%) SAN
10 2 (1.22%) SSH
10 2 (1.22%) SSL
11 1 (0.61%) BGP
11 1 (0.61%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.61%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.27%) Relational Database
2 6 (3.66%) Power BI
2 6 (3.66%) SQL Server
3 5 (3.05%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (1.83%) Hadoop
4 3 (1.83%) MySQL
4 3 (1.83%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.83%) RDBMS
5 2 (1.22%) Apache Cassandra
5 2 (1.22%) MongoDB
5 2 (1.22%) NoSQL
5 2 (1.22%) Tableau
6 1 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.61%) Base SAS
6 1 (0.61%) Cognos Framework Manager
6 1 (0.61%) Cognos Report Studio
6 1 (0.61%) Cognos Transformer
6 1 (0.61%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.61%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 29 (17.68%) JIRA
2 10 (6.10%) Git
3 6 (3.66%) Postman
4 4 (2.44%) GitLab
5 2 (1.22%) ClearCase
5 2 (1.22%) JUnit
6 1 (0.61%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.61%) Eclipse
6 1 (0.61%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.61%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.61%) MLflow
6 1 (0.61%) SoapUI
General
1 78 (47.56%) Social Skills
2 65 (39.63%) Finance
3 40 (24.39%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (17.68%) Banking
5 18 (10.98%) Public Sector
6 13 (7.93%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (6.10%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (6.10%) Telecoms
8 9 (5.49%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (4.27%) Legal
9 7 (4.27%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (3.05%) Manufacturing
10 5 (3.05%) Retail
11 4 (2.44%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (1.83%) Marketing
13 2 (1.22%) Agriculture
13 2 (1.22%) Environmental Health
13 2 (1.22%) Law
13 2 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (1.22%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 42 (25.61%) Analyst
2 24 (14.63%) Business Analyst
3 16 (9.76%) Developer
4 14 (8.54%) IT Analyst
5 13 (7.93%) Support Analyst
6 12 (7.32%) IT Support
6 12 (7.32%) IT Support Analyst
7 11 (6.71%) Senior
8 10 (6.10%) 1st Line Support
9 9 (5.49%) Architect
9 9 (5.49%) Project Manager
10 8 (4.88%) Designer
10 8 (4.88%) UX Designer
11 6 (3.66%) Java Developer
11 6 (3.66%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 6 (3.66%) Microsoft Engineer
11 6 (3.66%) Network Engineer
12 5 (3.05%) Banking Business Analyst
12 5 (3.05%) Technical Analyst
12 5 (3.05%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (10.37%) XML
2 13 (7.93%) JSON
2 13 (7.93%) REST
3 11 (6.71%) SOAP
4 9 (5.49%) Swagger
5 8 (4.88%) HTML
6 7 (4.27%) .NET
6 7 (4.27%) OAuth
7 6 (3.66%) 802.1X
7 6 (3.66%) JWT
8 5 (3.05%) OpenAPI
8 5 (3.05%) Spring
8 5 (3.05%) Spring Boot
9 4 (2.44%) CSS
9 4 (2.44%) Hibernate
9 4 (2.44%) Middleware
9 4 (2.44%) RESTful
10 3 (1.83%) Oracle Fusion
10 3 (1.83%) Spring MVC
10 3 (1.83%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 15 (9.15%) Management Information System
2 14 (8.54%) Onboarding
3 10 (6.10%) Product Ownership
4 6 (3.66%) PKI
5 5 (3.05%) Security Posture
5 5 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.44%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.44%) Digital Wallet
7 3 (1.83%) AI Agents
7 3 (1.83%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.83%) Graphic Design
7 3 (1.83%) IoT
7 3 (1.83%) Life Science
8 2 (1.22%) Cloud Security Posture
8 2 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.22%) PMI
8 2 (1.22%) Social Media
8 2 (1.22%) Tandem
8 2 (1.22%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 34 (20.73%) Windows
2 22 (13.41%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.49%) Linux
4 4 (2.44%) Unix
4 4 (2.44%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.83%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.22%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.61%) AIX
7 1 (0.61%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.61%) Solaris
7 1 (0.61%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (40.85%) Agile
2 49 (29.88%) Problem-Solving
3 45 (27.44%) Computer Science
4 32 (19.51%) Stakeholder Management
5 30 (18.29%) ITIL
6 25 (15.24%) DevOps
7 24 (14.63%) ITSM
8 23 (14.02%) AI
8 23 (14.02%) Customer Service
9 22 (13.41%) Change Management
10 20 (12.20%) CI/CD
10 20 (12.20%) Service Management
11 19 (11.59%) Project Management
11 19 (11.59%) Workshop Facilitation
12 17 (10.37%) Requirements Gathering
13 16 (9.76%) Project Delivery
13 16 (9.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 16 (9.76%) Validation
14 15 (9.15%) Continuous Improvement
14 15 (9.15%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 26 (15.85%) SQL
2 18 (10.98%) Python
3 13 (7.93%) Java
4 10 (6.10%) PowerShell
5 7 (4.27%) C#
6 4 (2.44%) Bash
6 4 (2.44%) JavaScript
6 4 (2.44%) VB
7 3 (1.83%) C++
7 3 (1.83%) R
7 3 (1.83%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.22%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.22%) Shell Script
8 2 (1.22%) VB6
8 2 (1.22%) VBScript
9 1 (0.61%) Groovy
9 1 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.61%) Perl
9 1 (0.61%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 40 (24.39%) Computer Science Degree
2 25 (15.24%) Security Cleared
3 16 (9.76%) BPSS Clearance
3 16 (9.76%) Master's Degree
4 15 (9.15%) Microsoft Certification
5 12 (7.32%) SC Cleared
6 10 (6.10%) A+ Certification
7 9 (5.49%) CCNA
7 9 (5.49%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (5.49%) Network+ Certification
8 8 (4.88%) MBA
9 7 (4.27%) CCNP
9 7 (4.27%) CISSP
10 6 (3.66%) PMI Certification
10 6 (3.66%) PMP
11 5 (3.05%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (2.44%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.83%) AWS Certification
14 2 (1.22%) DV Cleared
14 2 (1.22%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.10%) NIST
2 7 (4.27%) Accessibility
2 7 (4.27%) GDPR
2 7 (4.27%) QA
3 6 (3.66%) GRC
3 6 (3.66%) PSD2
4 5 (3.05%) PCI DSS
4 5 (3.05%) SLA
5 3 (1.83%) IFRS
5 3 (1.83%) IFRS 17
5 3 (1.83%) ISO 8583
5 3 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.22%) Basel III
6 2 (1.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (1.22%) Data Quality
6 2 (1.22%) HIPAA
6 2 (1.22%) ISO 20022
6 2 (1.22%) P3O
6 2 (1.22%) PMO
7 1 (0.61%) SEPA
System Software
1 20 (12.20%) Active Directory
2 10 (6.10%) Docker
3 4 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.83%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.22%) BitLocker
5 2 (1.22%) Firmware
6 1 (0.61%) NFS
6 1 (0.61%) Veritas Volume Manager
6 1 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 10 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.66%) Ansible
3 3 (1.83%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (1.83%) SCCM
3 3 (1.83%) Terraform
4 2 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (1.22%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.61%) CA Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.61%) PowerBroker
5 1 (0.61%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (0.61%) SCOM
5 1 (0.61%) SCOrch
5 1 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.61%) Tivoli
5 1 (0.61%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 1 (0.61%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 55 (33.54%) Microsoft
2 18 (10.98%) Cisco
3 12 (7.32%) Oracle
3 12 (7.32%) ServiceNow
4 10 (6.10%) Citrix
4 10 (6.10%) Remedy
5 7 (4.27%) Aruba
5 7 (4.27%) SAP
5 7 (4.27%) Splunk
6 6 (3.66%) ForeScout
7 5 (3.05%) CheckPoint
7 5 (3.05%) CyberArk
7 5 (3.05%) MuleSoft
7 5 (3.05%) Palo Alto
7 5 (3.05%) Red Hat
8 4 (2.44%) Broadcom
8 4 (2.44%) Ekahau
8 4 (2.44%) IBM
8 4 (2.44%) VMware
9 3 (1.83%) Adobe