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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 180 142 210
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.36% 7.24% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.15% 20.20% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 118 84 97
10th Percentile £189 £270 £158
25th Percentile £351 £356 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £466 £510
Median % change year-on-year -10.68% -8.68% +4.94%
75th Percentile £487 £557 £601
90th Percentile £600 £700 £679
England median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 14 35
10th Percentile £28.50 £21.02 £11.77
25th Percentile £29.63 £22.55 £24.15
Median hourly rate £57.81 £28.75 £26.52
Median % change year-on-year +101.06% +8.41% -34.66%
75th Percentile £178.75 £33.75 £44.64
90th Percentile - £56.38 £62.50
England median hourly rate £55.00 £51.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year +7.32% +28.13% -15.79%

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 940 703 769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.99% 35.83% 28.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 616 409 431
10th Percentile £336 £229 £300
25th Percentile £400 £387 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -2.00% -0.10%
75th Percentile £590 £575 £638
90th Percentile £678 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 44 132
10th Percentile £22.68 £18.21 £10.95
25th Percentile £28.50 £24.54 £11.94
Median hourly rate £44.90 £29.64 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +51.51% +84.53% -60.43%
75th Percentile £74.26 £59.93 £43.26
90th Percentile £111.15 £75.50 £68.24
England median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.15% -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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -2 79 £443 -5.49% 39
Manchester -19 79 £402 -15.37% 153
Cumbria -8 8 £475 - 6
Merseyside -16 8 £188 -57.14% 15
Lancashire -11 4 - - 37
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 (14.44%) Confluence
2 24 (13.33%) SharePoint
3 7 (3.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.11%) Camunda
4 2 (1.11%) 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 50 (27.78%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (8.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (6.67%) MS Visio
4 9 (5.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (5.00%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.56%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.56%) MicroStation
5 1 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (5.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.22%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.22%) Primavera
2 4 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (1.67%) SAP MM
4 2 (1.11%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.56%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.56%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 35 (19.44%) Azure
2 30 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
3 27 (15.00%) AWS
4 17 (9.44%) Power Platform
5 12 (6.67%) Entra ID
6 11 (6.11%) GCP
7 9 (5.00%) Power Automate
7 9 (5.00%) PowerApps
8 7 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (3.89%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 6 (3.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (2.78%) Microsoft Copilot
10 5 (2.78%) OneDrive
11 4 (2.22%) Figma
12 3 (1.67%) Apigee
12 3 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
12 3 (1.67%) Kong
12 3 (1.67%) OpenShift
12 3 (1.67%) SaaS
13 2 (1.11%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 18 (10.00%) Firewall
2 14 (7.78%) VPN
3 11 (6.11%) DNS
3 11 (6.11%) Skype
3 11 (6.11%) Wireless
4 7 (3.89%) WAN
5 6 (3.33%) LAN
5 6 (3.33%) Network Security
5 6 (3.33%) Wi-Fi
6 5 (2.78%) DHCP
6 5 (2.78%) VLAN
7 4 (2.22%) TCP/IP
8 3 (1.67%) Cisco ISE
8 3 (1.67%) FTP
8 3 (1.67%) Internet
8 3 (1.67%) SSH
9 2 (1.11%) BGP
9 2 (1.11%) OSPF
9 2 (1.11%) SAN
9 2 (1.11%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.11%) Power BI
2 7 (3.89%) SQL Server
3 4 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.67%) Hadoop
4 3 (1.67%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.67%) RDBMS
5 2 (1.11%) Apache Cassandra
5 2 (1.11%) MongoDB
5 2 (1.11%) NoSQL
5 2 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (1.11%) 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 (19.44%) JIRA
2 6 (3.33%) Postman
3 5 (2.78%) Git
4 2 (1.11%) ClearCase
4 2 (1.11%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.11%) GitLab
4 2 (1.11%) 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 88 (48.89%) Social Skills
2 70 (38.89%) Finance
3 39 (21.67%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (16.67%) Banking
5 16 (8.89%) Public Sector
6 10 (5.56%) Influencing Skills
6 10 (5.56%) Organisational Skills
6 10 (5.56%) Telecoms
7 9 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.44%) Manufacturing
9 6 (3.33%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (2.78%) Legal
10 5 (2.78%) Retail
11 4 (2.22%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (1.67%) Marketing
13 2 (1.11%) Agriculture
13 2 (1.11%) Environmental Health
13 2 (1.11%) Law
13 2 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (1.11%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 44 (24.44%) Analyst
2 23 (12.78%) Business Analyst
3 15 (8.33%) IT Analyst
4 13 (7.22%) Support Analyst
5 12 (6.67%) IT Support
5 12 (6.67%) IT Support Analyst
6 11 (6.11%) Senior
7 10 (5.56%) Developer
8 9 (5.00%) 1st Line Support
8 9 (5.00%) Architect
8 9 (5.00%) Consultant
8 9 (5.00%) Security Engineer
9 8 (4.44%) Designer
9 8 (4.44%) Project Manager
9 8 (4.44%) Security Consultant
9 8 (4.44%) UX Designer
10 7 (3.89%) Network Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Microsoft Engineer
12 5 (2.78%) Banking Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (7.78%) XML
2 11 (6.11%) REST
3 10 (5.56%) JSON
4 9 (5.00%) SOAP
5 8 (4.44%) HTML
6 7 (3.89%) .NET
6 7 (3.89%) 802.1X
6 7 (3.89%) Swagger
7 4 (2.22%) CSS
7 4 (2.22%) Middleware
7 4 (2.22%) OAuth
8 3 (1.67%) AngularJS
8 3 (1.67%) JWT
8 3 (1.67%) OpenAPI
8 3 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
8 3 (1.67%) React
9 2 (1.11%) Kafka
9 2 (1.11%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (1.11%) Web Services
9 2 (1.11%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 21 (11.67%) Management Information System
2 16 (8.89%) Onboarding
3 11 (6.11%) Security Posture
4 10 (5.56%) Cloud Native
4 10 (5.56%) Product Ownership
5 6 (3.33%) PKI
6 5 (2.78%) Life Science
6 5 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.22%) Data Structures
7 4 (2.22%) Digital Wallet
8 3 (1.67%) AI Agents
8 3 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.67%) Graphic Design
8 3 (1.67%) IoT
8 3 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.67%) Tandem
9 2 (1.11%) Cloud Security Posture
9 2 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.11%) PMI
9 2 (1.11%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 45 (25.00%) Windows
2 21 (11.67%) Linux
2 21 (11.67%) Windows 10
3 11 (6.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (3.89%) Unix
5 4 (2.22%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.67%) AIX
6 3 (1.67%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.11%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.56%) Android
8 1 (0.56%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (39.44%) Agile
2 48 (26.67%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (24.44%) Computer Science
4 34 (18.89%) ITIL
5 33 (18.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 31 (17.22%) Change Management
6 31 (17.22%) DevOps
7 24 (13.33%) AI
7 24 (13.33%) ITSM
7 24 (13.33%) Roadmaps
8 23 (12.78%) Customer Service
9 22 (12.22%) CI/CD
9 22 (12.22%) Scrum
10 21 (11.67%) Service Management
11 19 (10.56%) Continuous Improvement
11 19 (10.56%) Project Management
12 18 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 18 (10.00%) Validation
12 18 (10.00%) Workshop Facilitation
13 17 (9.44%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 30 (16.67%) Python
2 26 (14.44%) SQL
3 19 (10.56%) PowerShell
4 16 (8.89%) Java
5 11 (6.11%) Bash
6 7 (3.89%) C#
7 5 (2.78%) JavaScript
8 4 (2.22%) VB
9 3 (1.67%) C++
9 3 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 2 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 2 (1.11%) R
10 2 (1.11%) Shell Script
10 2 (1.11%) VB6
10 2 (1.11%) VBScript
11 1 (0.56%) Groovy
11 1 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.56%) Perl
Qualifications
1 38 (21.11%) Computer Science Degree
2 24 (13.33%) Security Cleared
3 17 (9.44%) CISSP
4 15 (8.33%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (8.33%) Master's Degree
4 15 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (7.22%) SC Cleared
6 10 (5.56%) A+ Certification
6 10 (5.56%) Azure Certification
6 10 (5.56%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (5.00%) AWS Certification
7 9 (5.00%) CCNA
7 9 (5.00%) Network+ Certification
8 8 (4.44%) CCNP
8 8 (4.44%) MBA
9 6 (3.33%) ITIL Certification
9 6 (3.33%) PMI Certification
9 6 (3.33%) PMP
10 4 (2.22%) CEH
10 4 (2.22%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.11%) NIST
2 7 (3.89%) Accessibility
2 7 (3.89%) QA
2 7 (3.89%) SLA
3 6 (3.33%) GDPR
3 6 (3.33%) GRC
3 6 (3.33%) PCI DSS
3 6 (3.33%) PSD2
4 5 (2.78%) IFRS
5 4 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.67%) IFRS 17
6 3 (1.67%) ISO 8583
7 2 (1.11%) Basel III
7 2 (1.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (1.11%) Data Quality
7 2 (1.11%) GAAP
7 2 (1.11%) HIPAA
7 2 (1.11%) ISO 20022
7 2 (1.11%) PMO
7 2 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (11.67%) Active Directory
2 13 (7.22%) Docker
3 3 (1.67%) Hyper-V
3 3 (1.67%) NFS
3 3 (1.67%) Veritas Volume Manager
3 3 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.11%) BitLocker
4 2 (1.11%) Firmware
4 2 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (7.22%) Kubernetes
2 10 (5.56%) Progress Chef
2 10 (5.56%) Terraform
3 7 (3.89%) Ansible
4 3 (1.67%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (1.67%) PowerBroker
4 3 (1.67%) Tivoli
4 3 (1.67%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 2 (1.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.11%) SCCM
6 1 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 58 (32.22%) Microsoft
2 19 (10.56%) Cisco
3 14 (7.78%) ServiceNow
4 13 (7.22%) Red Hat
4 13 (7.22%) SAP
5 12 (6.67%) Oracle
6 10 (5.56%) Remedy
7 9 (5.00%) Citrix
7 9 (5.00%) Google
8 8 (4.44%) Splunk
9 7 (3.89%) Aruba
10 6 (3.33%) ForeScout
11 5 (2.78%) CheckPoint
11 5 (2.78%) CyberArk
11 5 (2.78%) Databricks
11 5 (2.78%) Palo Alto
11 5 (2.78%) Veritas
12 4 (2.22%) Broadcom
12 4 (2.22%) IBM
12 4 (2.22%) UiPath