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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 32 22
Rank change year-on-year +8 -10 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 180 115 213
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 6.63% 6.15% 6.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.46% 11.53% 12.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 62 86
10th Percentile £371 £151 £269
25th Percentile £507 £419 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £649 £556 £563
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -1.11% +2.27%
75th Percentile £738 £688 £684
90th Percentile - £773 £731
England median daily rate £500 £525 £517
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.55% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 14 66
10th Percentile £23.60 £44.50 £34.63
25th Percentile - £55.31 £40.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £65.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -48.46% +15.06% -13.09%
75th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £78.02
90th Percentile £108.90 - £83.40
England median hourly rate £35.00 £42.94 £40.00
% change year-on-year -18.49% +7.35% -11.11%

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 1,445 997 1,719
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 53.20% 53.29% 55.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 892 624 1,082
10th Percentile £313 £246 £358
25th Percentile £450 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £657 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
England median daily rate £520 £525 £541
% change year-on-year -0.95% -3.00% -1.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 68 193
10th Percentile £17.69 £29.28 £25.00
25th Percentile £19.72 £55.94 £40.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £65.00 £57.29
Median % change year-on-year -61.31% +13.47% -11.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £75.00 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -47.05% +3.53% +1.96%

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 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
Wiltshire +10 75 £725 +16.00% 15
Bristol +12 59 £550 +57.03% 65
Gloucestershire -3 14 £450 -22.55% 48
Somerset -15 10 £405 -35.97% 27
Dorset +8 9 £400 - 14
Devon -4 9 £335 +204.55% 30
Cornwall -7 1 - - 3
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 50 (27.78%) Confluence
2 10 (5.56%) SharePoint
3 8 (4.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (2.78%) Skype for Business
5 4 (2.22%) Apache
6 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 79 (43.89%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (26.11%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (6.11%) MS Visio
4 10 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
5 6 (3.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.56%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.56%) InVision
6 1 (0.56%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.56%) Simulink
6 1 (0.56%) Sketch
6 1 (0.56%) Stateflow
6 1 (0.56%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (3.33%) Remedy ITSM
1 6 (3.33%) SAP EWM
1 6 (3.33%) SAP WM
2 3 (1.67%) Primavera
3 2 (1.11%) NEC Housing
3 2 (1.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.56%) Cerner Millennium
4 1 (0.56%) SystmOne
4 1 (0.56%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 14 (7.78%) Power Platform
2 13 (7.22%) Azure
3 12 (6.67%) AWS
4 10 (5.56%) Lucidchart
4 10 (5.56%) OCI
5 6 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.78%) Power Automate
7 4 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
7 4 (2.22%) GitHub
8 3 (1.67%) GCP
8 3 (1.67%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.67%) PowerApps
9 2 (1.11%) Asana
9 2 (1.11%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.56%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.56%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.56%) Figma
10 1 (0.56%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (5.00%) Skype
2 7 (3.89%) Unified Communications
3 5 (2.78%) DHCP
3 5 (2.78%) DNS
4 3 (1.67%) BGP
4 3 (1.67%) OSPF
5 2 (1.11%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (1.11%) Firewall
5 2 (1.11%) Network Security
5 2 (1.11%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.56%) 4G
6 1 (0.56%) 5G
6 1 (0.56%) 5G NR
6 1 (0.56%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (0.56%) LTE
6 1 (0.56%) MIMO
6 1 (0.56%) Radio Access Network
6 1 (0.56%) Telepresence
6 1 (0.56%) VXLAN
6 1 (0.56%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (7.78%) Power BI
2 5 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (1.67%) SQL Server
4 2 (1.11%) Electronic Patient Records
4 2 (1.11%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.56%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.56%) Looker
5 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.56%) MySQL
5 1 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 51 (28.33%) JIRA
2 6 (3.33%) Git
3 4 (2.22%) GitLab
4 3 (1.67%) Bitbucket
4 3 (1.67%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.11%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.56%) Rational Team Concert
General
1 113 (62.78%) Social Skills
2 77 (42.78%) Analytical Skills
3 42 (23.33%) Military
4 27 (15.00%) Finance
5 26 (14.44%) Public Sector
6 16 (8.89%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (6.11%) Manufacturing
8 9 (5.00%) Aerospace
9 7 (3.89%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (3.33%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (2.78%) Legal
12 4 (2.22%) Back Office
13 3 (1.67%) Automotive
13 3 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.67%) Telecoms
14 2 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
14 2 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (1.11%) Police
15 1 (0.56%) Banking
15 1 (0.56%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 35 (19.44%) Architect
2 30 (16.67%) Service Architect
3 16 (8.89%) Analyst
4 11 (6.11%) Lead
5 10 (5.56%) Information Security Advisor
5 10 (5.56%) Security Advisor
5 10 (5.56%) Technical Manager
5 10 (5.56%) Technical Writer
6 9 (5.00%) Project Manager
7 8 (4.44%) Delivery Manager
7 8 (4.44%) Developer
7 8 (4.44%) Wintel Engineer
8 7 (3.89%) Consultant
8 7 (3.89%) Security Engineer
8 7 (3.89%) Senior
9 6 (3.33%) Business Analyst
9 6 (3.33%) Junior
9 6 (3.33%) Management Consultant
9 6 (3.33%) Security Analyst
9 6 (3.33%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.33%) CSS
1 6 (3.33%) HTML
2 5 (2.78%) REST
3 4 (2.22%) JDO
4 3 (1.67%) AngularJS
4 3 (1.67%) Node.js
4 3 (1.67%) React
4 3 (1.67%) Ruby on Rails
4 3 (1.67%) Spring
4 3 (1.67%) Vue
5 2 (1.11%) Apache NiFi
5 2 (1.11%) Oracle Fusion
5 2 (1.11%) SOAP
5 2 (1.11%) Web Services
6 1 (0.56%) EDI
6 1 (0.56%) EDIFACT
6 1 (0.56%) JFC
6 1 (0.56%) LDAP
6 1 (0.56%) OpenMP
6 1 (0.56%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 33 (18.33%) Management Information System
1 33 (18.33%) Product Ownership
2 10 (5.56%) PKI
2 10 (5.56%) Security Posture
3 6 (3.33%) Cyber Defence
3 6 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (2.22%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.22%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.67%) Low-Code
5 3 (1.67%) NHS
6 1 (0.56%) Clustering
6 1 (0.56%) Cyber Threat
6 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.56%) PMI
6 1 (0.56%) Private Cloud
6 1 (0.56%) Replication
6 1 (0.56%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 1 (0.56%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 14 (7.78%) Windows
2 10 (5.56%) Linux
3 8 (4.44%) Windows Server
4 5 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (2.78%) Ubuntu
4 5 (2.78%) Windows 10
5 3 (1.67%) CentOS
5 3 (1.67%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.56%) Debian
6 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.56%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (45.00%) Agile
2 56 (31.11%) Critical Thinking
3 55 (30.56%) Problem-Solving
4 53 (29.44%) Computer Science
5 48 (26.67%) Service Management
6 46 (25.56%) ITIL
7 35 (19.44%) Analytical Thinking
8 33 (18.33%) TOGAF
9 32 (17.78%) Knowledge Transfer
10 31 (17.22%) Acceptance Criteria
11 30 (16.67%) Business Continuity
11 30 (16.67%) Security Patching
11 30 (16.67%) Service Design
12 25 (13.89%) ERP
13 22 (12.22%) Project Management
14 21 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
15 19 (10.56%) Analytics
16 17 (9.44%) DevOps
17 16 (8.89%) PRINCE2
17 16 (8.89%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 20 (11.11%) SQL
2 14 (7.78%) PowerShell
2 14 (7.78%) Python
3 10 (5.56%) JavaScript
4 4 (2.22%) Ada
5 3 (1.67%) Java
5 3 (1.67%) PHP
5 3 (1.67%) Ruby
5 3 (1.67%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.11%) C
6 2 (1.11%) Fortran
6 2 (1.11%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.56%) C#
7 1 (0.56%) C++
7 1 (0.56%) Go
7 1 (0.56%) MATLAB
7 1 (0.56%) Scala
7 1 (0.56%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 113 (62.78%) Security Cleared
2 104 (57.78%) SC Cleared
3 32 (17.78%) TOGAF Certification
4 29 (16.11%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (11.67%) Master's Degree
6 19 (10.56%) DV Cleared
7 13 (7.22%) APMP
8 12 (6.67%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (5.56%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 10 (5.56%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (5.00%) MCSE
11 7 (3.89%) CCNP
11 7 (3.89%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (3.89%) CISSP
12 6 (3.33%) CompTIA CySA+
12 6 (3.33%) Network+ Certification
12 6 (3.33%) SANS
12 6 (3.33%) SAP Certification
13 5 (2.78%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (2.78%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (5.56%) Def Stans
2 10 (5.56%) GRC
2 10 (5.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 7 (3.89%) QA
4 4 (2.22%) Data Quality
4 4 (2.22%) GDPR
5 3 (1.67%) PMO
6 2 (1.11%) NIST
7 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.56%) GMP
7 1 (0.56%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.56%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.56%) NCSC
7 1 (0.56%) P3O
7 1 (0.56%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 9 (5.00%) Active Directory
1 9 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (2.78%) Docker
2 5 (2.78%) Microsoft Virtual Server
2 5 (2.78%) Virtual Servers
3 2 (1.11%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.56%) KVM
4 1 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 30 (16.67%) OPNET
2 10 (5.56%) Kubernetes
3 8 (4.44%) WSUS
4 7 (3.89%) Ansible
4 7 (3.89%) Terraform
5 6 (3.33%) SCCM
6 3 (1.67%) Argo
6 3 (1.67%) SCOM
7 1 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.56%) Packer
7 1 (0.56%) PowerCLI
7 1 (0.56%) Puppet
7 1 (0.56%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 39 (21.67%) Atlassian
2 36 (20.00%) Remedy
3 32 (17.78%) ServiceNow
4 27 (15.00%) Microsoft
5 19 (10.56%) Oracle
6 10 (5.56%) VMware
7 9 (5.00%) Cisco
8 8 (4.44%) Red Hat
8 8 (4.44%) SAP
9 6 (3.33%) SolarWinds
9 6 (3.33%) Veeam
10 5 (2.78%) Blue Prism
10 5 (2.78%) Splunk
11 4 (2.22%) Google
12 2 (1.11%) Automation Anywhere
12 2 (1.11%) Cerner
12 2 (1.11%) Databricks
12 2 (1.11%) Intel
12 2 (1.11%) NEC
12 2 (1.11%) Salesforce