Degree Contract Job Trends in the South West

Academic Degree
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South West with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 28 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -21 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Degree 120 117 213
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.39% 6.15% 7.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.80% 11.98% 13.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 93 117
10th Percentile £150 £145 £162
25th Percentile £305 £213 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £450 £513
Median % change year-on-year -7.78% -12.20% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £688
90th Percentile £636 £649 £753
England median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 11 47
10th Percentile £14.00 £27.28 £34.39
25th Percentile £16.25 £42.63 £53.75
Median hourly rate £35.00 £65.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.15% -7.14% +5.79%
75th Percentile £41.71 £70.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £73.52 £82.75 £75.00
England median hourly rate £45.50 £42.50 £55.63
% change year-on-year +7.06% -23.60% +5.95%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South 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 South West.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 1,538 977 1,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 43.43% 51.34% 53.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 945 596 1,027
10th Percentile £334 £220 £363
25th Percentile £431 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £619 £641 £653
90th Percentile £703 £703 £722
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 106 168
10th Percentile £18.45 £18.51 £24.59
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.28 £43.75
Median hourly rate £57.35 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +128.03% -62.74% -1.82%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.00 £74.44
90th Percentile £92.53 £73.13 £80.00
England median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Degree job vacancy trend in the South West

Degree
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in the South West over the 6 months to 28 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the South West

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in the South West over the 6 months to 28 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the South West

Degree
Contract Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 28 July 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
Somerset -12 28 £339 -45.07% 21
Devon -11 26 £310 +93.44% 23
Bristol -23 24 £400 +8.11% 57
Wiltshire -14 22 £550 -6.38% 22
Gloucestershire -4 14 £500 +5.26% 55
Dorset -13 5 £575 +4.55% 23
Cornwall -3 1 - - 2
Degree
England

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 20 (16.67%) SharePoint
2 7 (5.83%) Confluence
3 6 (5.00%) Apache
4 3 (2.50%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (2.50%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 23 (19.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (18.33%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (12.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (4.17%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (2.50%) MS Visio
5 3 (2.50%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (3.33%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.67%) NetSuite
2 2 (1.67%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (1.67%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.83%) IBM Planning Analytics
Cloud Services
1 26 (21.67%) Power Platform
2 22 (18.33%) Azure
3 18 (15.00%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (12.50%) AWS
5 5 (4.17%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (3.33%) GitHub
7 3 (2.50%) GCP
8 2 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.67%) Entra ID
8 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (0.83%) Asana
9 1 (0.83%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 1 (0.83%) Cloud Composer
9 1 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.83%) Google Compute Engine
9 1 (0.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.83%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.83%) PowerApps
9 1 (0.83%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.33%) DHCP
1 4 (3.33%) DNS
1 4 (3.33%) Network Security
2 2 (1.67%) 2G
2 2 (1.67%) 3G
2 2 (1.67%) 4G
2 2 (1.67%) 5G
2 2 (1.67%) ATM
2 2 (1.67%) LTE
2 2 (1.67%) Radio Access Network
2 2 (1.67%) VPN
3 1 (0.83%) BGP
3 1 (0.83%) EIGRP
3 1 (0.83%) ICMP
3 1 (0.83%) L2TP
3 1 (0.83%) MPLS
3 1 (0.83%) OSPF
3 1 (0.83%) RIP
3 1 (0.83%) SNMP
3 1 (0.83%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (21.67%) Power BI
2 5 (4.17%) Relational Database
2 5 (4.17%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.50%) GIS
3 3 (2.50%) Oracle Database
3 3 (2.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (1.67%) Big Data
4 2 (1.67%) BigQuery
4 2 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.67%) Electronic Patient Records
4 2 (1.67%) Star Schema
5 1 (0.83%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.83%) HBase
5 1 (0.83%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.83%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.83%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.83%) Snowflake Schema
5 1 (0.83%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 11 (9.17%) JIRA
2 6 (5.00%) GitLab
3 5 (4.17%) Git
4 4 (3.33%) Cucumber
4 4 (3.33%) Jenkins
4 4 (3.33%) Postman
4 4 (3.33%) REST Assured
5 3 (2.50%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.83%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.83%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.83%) JUnit
6 1 (0.83%) Selenium
6 1 (0.83%) Visual Studio
General
1 54 (45.00%) Social Skills
2 32 (26.67%) Finance
3 23 (19.17%) Organisational Skills
4 17 (14.17%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (11.67%) Public Sector
6 12 (10.00%) Aerospace
6 12 (10.00%) Military
7 6 (5.00%) Automotive
7 6 (5.00%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (3.33%) Telecoms
9 3 (2.50%) Electronics
9 3 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (2.50%) Legal
10 2 (1.67%) Aviation
10 2 (1.67%) Banking
10 2 (1.67%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.83%) Digital Healthcare
11 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.83%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 12 (10.00%) Administrator
1 12 (10.00%) Analyst
2 10 (8.33%) Project Officer
2 10 (8.33%) Project Support Officer
2 10 (8.33%) Support Officer
3 9 (7.50%) Developer
4 8 (6.67%) Project Manager
5 7 (5.83%) Software Engineer
5 7 (5.83%) Support Engineer
5 7 (5.83%) Technical Engineer
5 7 (5.83%) Technical Support
5 7 (5.83%) Technical Support Engineer
6 6 (5.00%) Digital Product Manager
6 6 (5.00%) Lead
6 6 (5.00%) Product Manager
7 5 (4.17%) Data Engineer
7 5 (4.17%) Senior
7 5 (4.17%) Software Developer
7 5 (4.17%) Systems Engineer
8 4 (3.33%) Data Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (6.67%) React
2 7 (5.83%) JDO
3 5 (4.17%) .NET
3 5 (4.17%) ASP.NET
3 5 (4.17%) REST
4 4 (3.33%) ASP.NET Core
4 4 (3.33%) Playwright
5 3 (2.50%) Blazor
5 3 (2.50%) jQuery
5 3 (2.50%) Kafka
6 2 (1.67%) FHIR
6 2 (1.67%) Flash
6 2 (1.67%) HTML
6 2 (1.67%) Spring
6 2 (1.67%) Spring Boot
7 1 (0.83%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (0.83%) Dapper ORM
7 1 (0.83%) IDoc
7 1 (0.83%) PySpark
7 1 (0.83%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 14 (11.67%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (6.67%) Legacy Systems
2 8 (6.67%) Management Information System
3 7 (5.83%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (4.17%) Onboarding
5 4 (3.33%) Freedom of Information
5 4 (3.33%) PMI
5 4 (3.33%) Product Ownership
6 3 (2.50%) Cyber Defence
7 2 (1.67%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.67%) Clustering
7 2 (1.67%) CSOC
7 2 (1.67%) Cyber Security Posture
7 2 (1.67%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (1.67%) Learning Management System
7 2 (1.67%) PKI
7 2 (1.67%) Security Operations Centre
7 2 (1.67%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.67%) Web Conferencing
8 1 (0.83%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 11 (9.17%) Windows
2 8 (6.67%) Linux
3 5 (4.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (4.17%) Windows Server
4 4 (3.33%) Ubuntu
5 3 (2.50%) Debian
5 3 (2.50%) Rocky
6 2 (1.67%) Solaris
6 2 (1.67%) Windows 10
6 2 (1.67%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (35.83%) Agile
2 28 (23.33%) Computer Science
2 28 (23.33%) Continuous Improvement
3 24 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
4 22 (18.33%) Project Management
5 21 (17.50%) Stakeholder Management
6 18 (15.00%) CI/CD
7 15 (12.50%) DevOps
7 15 (12.50%) PRINCE2
7 15 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 14 (11.67%) Change Control
8 14 (11.67%) Software Engineering
9 13 (10.83%) Analytics
10 12 (10.00%) Waterfall
11 11 (9.17%) Collaborative Working
11 11 (9.17%) Decision-Making
11 11 (9.17%) Mentoring
11 11 (9.17%) Project Delivery
11 11 (9.17%) Scrum
12 10 (8.33%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 16 (13.33%) SQL
2 15 (12.50%) Python
3 11 (9.17%) JavaScript
4 6 (5.00%) Ada
4 6 (5.00%) Java
5 5 (4.17%) C#
6 4 (3.33%) Apex Code
7 3 (2.50%) Go
7 3 (2.50%) PL/SQL
7 3 (2.50%) T-SQL
8 2 (1.67%) Bash
8 2 (1.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (1.67%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.83%) PHP
9 1 (0.83%) Scala
9 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 50 (41.67%) Security Cleared
2 35 (29.17%) SC Cleared
3 17 (14.17%) Computer Science Degree
4 12 (10.00%) DV Cleared
5 10 (8.33%) Chartered Engineer
5 10 (8.33%) PMI Certification
5 10 (8.33%) PMP
5 10 (8.33%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 8 (6.67%) Master's Degree
7 5 (4.17%) SANS
8 4 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (3.33%) ISTQB
8 4 (3.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (2.50%) APMP
9 3 (2.50%) CCNP
10 2 (1.67%) CBAP
10 2 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 1 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
11 1 (0.83%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (10.83%) GDPR
2 8 (6.67%) QA
3 7 (5.83%) Data Quality
4 4 (3.33%) Accessibility
4 4 (3.33%) PMO
5 3 (2.50%) Def Stans
5 3 (2.50%) IEC 61508
6 2 (1.67%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (1.67%) HL7
6 2 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 2 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.67%) SNOMED CT
7 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.83%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.83%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.83%) NIST
System Software
1 7 (5.83%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (4.17%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.17%) Docker
2 5 (4.17%) Hyper-V
3 4 (3.33%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (2.50%) VMware Workstation
5 2 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.83%) KVM
6 1 (0.83%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 4 (3.33%) Ansible
3 3 (2.50%) Functional Safety
3 3 (2.50%) Terraform
4 2 (1.67%) Computer Incident Response Team
4 2 (1.67%) vCenter Server
5 1 (0.83%) Data Guard
5 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
5 1 (0.83%) Grafana
5 1 (0.83%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 1 (0.83%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.83%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.83%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.83%) Puppet
Vendors
1 34 (28.33%) Microsoft
2 11 (9.17%) ServiceNow
3 7 (5.83%) VMware
4 6 (5.00%) Salesforce
5 4 (3.33%) ArcSight
5 4 (3.33%) Conga
5 4 (3.33%) Databricks
5 4 (3.33%) GoCardless
5 4 (3.33%) Oracle
6 3 (2.50%) Cisco
6 3 (2.50%) Google
7 2 (1.67%) Huawei
7 2 (1.67%) Sparx
8 1 (0.83%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.83%) Cloudera
8 1 (0.83%) EMC
8 1 (0.83%) IBM
8 1 (0.83%) Red Hat