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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -8 +13
Contract jobs citing Degree 180 145 240
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.68% 7.44% 8.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.91% 20.42% 28.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 114 83 105
10th Percentile £190 £244 £158
25th Percentile £350 £356 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £456 £450
Median % change year-on-year -12.28% +1.33% -
75th Percentile £488 £580 £601
90th Percentile £601 £700 £683
England median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -5.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 18 28
10th Percentile £30.00 £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 £60.61 £33.75 £36.46
90th Percentile £178.75 £40.20 £47.90
England median hourly rate £55.00 £54.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.85% +35.00% -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 904 710 829
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 28.51% 36.41% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 596 408 476
10th Percentile £325 £229 £248
25th Percentile £400 £388 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £490 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.96% -4.39% -1.25%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £651
90th Percentile £688 £650 £725
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 42 122
10th Percentile £25.15 £17.70 £10.95
25th Percentile £35.28 £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 £83.30 £83.13 £53.79
England median hourly rate £47.50 £47.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +18.75% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -5 79 £397 -15.27% 78
Manchester -18 66 £400 -14.67% 233
Lancashire +8 18 - - 69
Merseyside -13 8 £188 -57.14% 25
Cumbria 0 7 £500 +21.21% 5
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 (10.56%) Confluence
1 19 (10.56%) SharePoint
2 6 (3.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.11%) SAS
4 1 (0.56%) Apache
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.56%) Camunda
4 1 (0.56%) JBoss
4 1 (0.56%) Mule
4 1 (0.56%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.56%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.56%) WebLogic
Applications
1 44 (24.44%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (6.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (6.11%) Microsoft Project
2 11 (6.11%) MS Visio
3 10 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.56%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.56%) MicroStation
4 1 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (5.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (2.22%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (2.22%) Primavera
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 HCM
5 1 (0.56%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.56%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 30 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
2 25 (13.89%) AWS
2 25 (13.89%) Azure
3 13 (7.22%) Power Platform
4 12 (6.67%) Entra ID
5 10 (5.56%) Apigee
6 9 (5.00%) GCP
7 6 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.33%) Kong
8 5 (2.78%) Microsoft Copilot
8 5 (2.78%) OneDrive
8 5 (2.78%) Power Automate
8 5 (2.78%) PowerApps
9 4 (2.22%) GitHub
9 4 (2.22%) GitHub Copilot
9 4 (2.22%) SaaS
10 3 (1.67%) Azure Logic Apps
10 3 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (1.67%) Figma
10 3 (1.67%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.67%) Firewall
2 11 (6.11%) Skype
2 11 (6.11%) VPN
3 9 (5.00%) DNS
4 7 (3.89%) Wireless
5 6 (3.33%) LAN
5 6 (3.33%) WAN
6 5 (2.78%) DHCP
6 5 (2.78%) Network Security
6 5 (2.78%) VLAN
6 5 (2.78%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.22%) HTTP
7 4 (2.22%) HTTPS
7 4 (2.22%) TCP/IP
8 2 (1.11%) Internet
8 2 (1.11%) SAN
8 2 (1.11%) SSL
9 1 (0.56%) BGP
9 1 (0.56%) FTP
9 1 (0.56%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.44%) Relational Database
2 7 (3.89%) Power BI
3 6 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (3.33%) SQL Server
4 4 (2.22%) MySQL
5 3 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.67%) Hadoop
5 3 (1.67%) RDBMS
6 2 (1.11%) Apache Cassandra
6 2 (1.11%) MongoDB
6 2 (1.11%) NoSQL
6 2 (1.11%) Oracle Database
6 2 (1.11%) SAP HANA
6 2 (1.11%) Tableau
7 1 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.56%) Cognos Framework Manager
7 1 (0.56%) Cognos Report Studio
7 1 (0.56%) Cognos Transformer
7 1 (0.56%) OLAP Cube
7 1 (0.56%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 28 (15.56%) JIRA
2 13 (7.22%) Git
3 9 (5.00%) Postman
4 5 (2.78%) GitLab
5 4 (2.22%) Jenkins
6 2 (1.11%) JUnit
7 1 (0.56%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.56%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.56%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.56%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.56%) MLflow
7 1 (0.56%) SoapUI
General
1 91 (50.56%) Social Skills
2 70 (38.89%) Finance
3 40 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (16.67%) Banking
5 22 (12.22%) Public Sector
6 13 (7.22%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (6.67%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (5.56%) Telecoms
9 9 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (4.44%) Legal
11 7 (3.89%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (2.78%) Corporate Banking
12 5 (2.78%) Manufacturing
12 5 (2.78%) Retail
13 3 (1.67%) Local Government
13 3 (1.67%) Marketing
13 3 (1.67%) Retail Banking
14 2 (1.11%) Agriculture
14 2 (1.11%) Law
14 2 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 44 (24.44%) Analyst
2 24 (13.33%) Business Analyst
3 19 (10.56%) Developer
3 19 (10.56%) Lead
4 14 (7.78%) IT Analyst
5 13 (7.22%) Support Analyst
6 12 (6.67%) IT Support
6 12 (6.67%) IT Support Analyst
7 11 (6.11%) Senior
8 10 (5.56%) 1st Line Support
8 10 (5.56%) Java Developer
8 10 (5.56%) Project Manager
9 8 (4.44%) Architect
10 7 (3.89%) Designer
10 7 (3.89%) UX Designer
11 6 (3.33%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Microsoft Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Network Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Technical Analyst
11 6 (3.33%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (11.11%) XML
2 18 (10.00%) JSON
3 13 (7.22%) REST
4 11 (6.11%) SOAP
5 10 (5.56%) JWT
5 10 (5.56%) OAuth
5 10 (5.56%) Swagger
6 9 (5.00%) Spring
6 9 (5.00%) Spring Boot
7 8 (4.44%) Hibernate
7 8 (4.44%) RESTful
8 6 (3.33%) .NET
8 6 (3.33%) HTML
8 6 (3.33%) OpenAPI
9 4 (2.22%) 802.1X
9 4 (2.22%) JAX-RS
9 4 (2.22%) OAuth2
9 4 (2.22%) Spring MVC
9 4 (2.22%) Spring Security
10 3 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.33%) Management Information System
1 15 (8.33%) Virtual Team
2 12 (6.67%) Onboarding
3 10 (5.56%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.78%) Security Posture
4 5 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (2.22%) Cloud Native
5 4 (2.22%) Digital Wallet
6 3 (1.67%) Data Structures
6 3 (1.67%) IoT
6 3 (1.67%) Life Science
6 3 (1.67%) PMI
7 2 (1.11%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.11%) Cloud Security Posture
7 2 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.11%) Graphic Design
7 2 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.11%) PKI
7 2 (1.11%) Social Media
7 2 (1.11%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 32 (17.78%) Windows
2 21 (11.67%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.00%) Linux
4 4 (2.22%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.67%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.11%) Unix
7 1 (0.56%) AIX
7 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.56%) Solaris
7 1 (0.56%) VMS
7 1 (0.56%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (46.11%) Agile
2 50 (27.78%) Problem-Solving
3 49 (27.22%) Computer Science
4 43 (23.89%) ITIL
5 39 (21.67%) DevOps
6 35 (19.44%) Change Management
7 32 (17.78%) Project Management
7 32 (17.78%) Stakeholder Management
8 30 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
9 28 (15.56%) Project Delivery
10 23 (12.78%) AI
10 23 (12.78%) CI/CD
10 23 (12.78%) Customer Service
10 23 (12.78%) PRINCE2
11 22 (12.22%) ITSM
12 19 (10.56%) Microservices
12 19 (10.56%) Workshop Facilitation
13 18 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
13 18 (10.00%) Requirements Gathering
13 18 (10.00%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 27 (15.00%) SQL
2 16 (8.89%) Java
3 15 (8.33%) Python
4 10 (5.56%) PowerShell
5 6 (3.33%) C#
6 4 (2.22%) Bash
7 3 (1.67%) C++
7 3 (1.67%) R
8 2 (1.11%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.11%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (1.11%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.11%) Shell Script
8 2 (1.11%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.11%) VB
9 1 (0.56%) Groovy
9 1 (0.56%) Perl
9 1 (0.56%) SAS Macro
9 1 (0.56%) VB6
9 1 (0.56%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 44 (24.44%) Computer Science Degree
2 29 (16.11%) Security Cleared
3 16 (8.89%) Master's Degree
4 15 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 14 (7.78%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (7.78%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 13 (7.22%) SC Cleared
7 10 (5.56%) A+ Certification
8 9 (5.00%) CCNA
8 9 (5.00%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (5.00%) MBA
8 9 (5.00%) Network+ Certification
9 7 (3.89%) CCNP
9 7 (3.89%) CISSP
9 7 (3.89%) ITIL Certification
9 7 (3.89%) PMI Certification
9 7 (3.89%) PMP
10 5 (2.78%) Azure Certification
11 3 (1.67%) AWS Certification
11 3 (1.67%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.00%) NIST
2 8 (4.44%) GDPR
2 8 (4.44%) QA
3 6 (3.33%) Accessibility
3 6 (3.33%) GRC
3 6 (3.33%) PSD2
3 6 (3.33%) SLA
4 5 (2.78%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.67%) Basel III
5 3 (1.67%) IFRS
5 3 (1.67%) IFRS 17
5 3 (1.67%) ISO 8583
5 3 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (1.11%) Data Quality
6 2 (1.11%) HIPAA
6 2 (1.11%) ISO 20022
6 2 (1.11%) P3O
6 2 (1.11%) PMO
7 1 (0.56%) SEPA
System Software
1 21 (11.67%) Active Directory
2 14 (7.78%) Docker
3 4 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.67%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.11%) Firmware
6 1 (0.56%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.56%) NFS
6 1 (0.56%) Veritas Volume Manager
6 1 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 14 (7.78%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.33%) Ansible
3 3 (1.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (1.67%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (1.67%) Terraform
4 2 (1.11%) Progress Chef
4 2 (1.11%) SCCM
5 1 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.56%) PowerBroker
5 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (0.56%) SCOM
5 1 (0.56%) SCOrch
5 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.56%) Tivoli
5 1 (0.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 1 (0.56%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 58 (32.22%) Microsoft
2 16 (8.89%) Cisco
3 12 (6.67%) Citrix
3 12 (6.67%) Oracle
4 10 (5.56%) Remedy
4 10 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 10 (5.56%) Splunk
5 9 (5.00%) SAP
6 6 (3.33%) MuleSoft
7 5 (2.78%) Aruba
7 5 (2.78%) CheckPoint
7 5 (2.78%) CyberArk
7 5 (2.78%) Palo Alto
7 5 (2.78%) Red Hat
8 4 (2.22%) Broadcom
8 4 (2.22%) Ekahau
8 4 (2.22%) ForeScout
8 4 (2.22%) VMware
9 3 (1.67%) EMC
9 3 (1.67%) Veritas