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

6 months to
8 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 22 20
Rank change year-on-year -20 -2 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 121 133 245
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.53% 7.57% 7.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.27% 13.93% 13.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 100 121
10th Percentile £150 £145 £160
25th Percentile £305 £235 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £688
90th Percentile £650 £677 £713
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 19 62
10th Percentile £14.00 £52.00 £36.25
25th Percentile £16.72 £55.63 £40.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £65.00 £57.39
Median % change year-on-year -46.15% +13.27% -14.78%
75th Percentile £49.42 £71.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £75.09 £78.55 £74.90
England median hourly rate £55.00 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +10.00% +25.00% -18.83%

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 1,464 955 1,774
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 42.76% 54.38% 54.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 891 591 1,135
10th Percentile £340 £220 £363
25th Percentile £431 £414 £471
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.10%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £664
90th Percentile £705 £700 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £537
% change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 103 191
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.51 £21.00
25th Percentile £23.08 £18.87 £40.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.23% -50.00% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £40.13
% change year-on-year +53.85% -19.00% -27.05%

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 8 June 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 8 June 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 8 June 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 27 £553 -5.96% 27
Somerset -5 26 £249 -60.59% 34
Bristol -23 26 £418 +12.84% 70
Devon -17 20 £314 +96.41% 17
Gloucestershire -3 11 £575 +35.29% 63
Dorset -11 8 £550 - 19
Cornwall - 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 18 (14.88%) SharePoint
2 10 (8.26%) Apache
3 6 (4.96%) Confluence
4 4 (3.31%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (2.48%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 22 (18.18%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (16.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (12.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (4.13%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (1.65%) MS Visio
5 2 (1.65%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (3.31%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.65%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.83%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 23 (19.01%) Power Platform
2 20 (16.53%) Azure
3 16 (13.22%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (10.74%) AWS
5 5 (4.13%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (4.13%) GitHub
6 3 (2.48%) GCP
7 2 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (1.65%) Entra ID
7 2 (1.65%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.83%) Asana
8 1 (0.83%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.83%) Cloud Composer
8 1 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.83%) Google Compute Engine
8 1 (0.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 1 (0.83%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 5 (4.13%) Network Security
2 4 (3.31%) DHCP
2 4 (3.31%) DNS
3 2 (1.65%) 2G
3 2 (1.65%) 3G
3 2 (1.65%) 4G
3 2 (1.65%) 5G
3 2 (1.65%) BGP
3 2 (1.65%) Cisco IOS
3 2 (1.65%) Firewall
3 2 (1.65%) LTE
3 2 (1.65%) OSPF
3 2 (1.65%) Radio Access Network
3 2 (1.65%) VPN
4 1 (0.83%) Cisco Nexus
4 1 (0.83%) DMVPN
4 1 (0.83%) Software-Defined Networking
4 1 (0.83%) Unified Communications
4 1 (0.83%) VSAN
4 1 (0.83%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (19.01%) Power BI
2 5 (4.13%) Relational Database
3 4 (3.31%) Oracle Database
4 3 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (2.48%) SQL Server
5 2 (1.65%) Big Data
5 2 (1.65%) BigQuery
5 2 (1.65%) Electronic Patient Records
5 2 (1.65%) GIS
5 2 (1.65%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.83%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.83%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.83%) HBase
6 1 (0.83%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.83%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.83%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.83%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.83%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 10 (8.26%) JIRA
2 9 (7.44%) GitLab
3 6 (4.96%) Git
4 4 (3.31%) Cucumber
4 4 (3.31%) Jenkins
4 4 (3.31%) Postman
4 4 (3.31%) REST Assured
5 3 (2.48%) 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 (44.63%) Social Skills
2 28 (23.14%) Finance
3 19 (15.70%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (14.88%) Organisational Skills
5 14 (11.57%) Public Sector
6 13 (10.74%) Military
7 11 (9.09%) Aerospace
8 6 (4.96%) Automotive
9 4 (3.31%) Legal
9 4 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (2.48%) Back Office
10 3 (2.48%) Electronics
10 3 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (2.48%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.65%) Aviation
11 2 (1.65%) Banking
11 2 (1.65%) General Ledger
11 2 (1.65%) Police
12 1 (0.83%) Digital Healthcare
12 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (10.74%) Analyst
2 10 (8.26%) Administrator
2 10 (8.26%) Project Officer
2 10 (8.26%) Project Support Officer
2 10 (8.26%) Support Officer
3 9 (7.44%) Software Engineer
4 8 (6.61%) Support Engineer
5 7 (5.79%) Lead
5 7 (5.79%) Project Manager
5 7 (5.79%) Technical Engineer
5 7 (5.79%) Technical Support
5 7 (5.79%) Technical Support Engineer
6 6 (4.96%) Data Engineer
6 6 (4.96%) Developer
6 6 (4.96%) Digital Product Manager
6 6 (4.96%) Product Manager
7 5 (4.13%) Business Analyst
7 5 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
7 5 (4.13%) Network Engineer
8 4 (3.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.26%) REST
2 7 (5.79%) JDO
3 5 (4.13%) React
4 4 (3.31%) Playwright
5 3 (2.48%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (2.48%) Kafka
5 3 (2.48%) Web Services
6 2 (1.65%) .NET
6 2 (1.65%) ASP.NET
6 2 (1.65%) FHIR
6 2 (1.65%) SOAP
6 2 (1.65%) Spring
6 2 (1.65%) Spring Boot
7 1 (0.83%) ASP.NET Core
7 1 (0.83%) Dapper ORM
7 1 (0.83%) Entity Framework
7 1 (0.83%) IDoc
7 1 (0.83%) JSON
7 1 (0.83%) PySpark
7 1 (0.83%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 12 (9.92%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (6.61%) Management Information System
3 6 (4.96%) Legacy Systems
3 6 (4.96%) Product Ownership
4 4 (3.31%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (3.31%) Freedom of Information
4 4 (3.31%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.48%) Cyber Defence
5 3 (2.48%) PMI
6 2 (1.65%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.65%) Clustering
6 2 (1.65%) CSOC
6 2 (1.65%) Cyber Security Posture
6 2 (1.65%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (1.65%) PKI
6 2 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
6 2 (1.65%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.83%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.83%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 13 (10.74%) Windows
2 10 (8.26%) Linux
3 7 (5.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (4.13%) Ubuntu
4 5 (4.13%) Windows Server
5 4 (3.31%) Debian
5 4 (3.31%) Rocky
6 3 (2.48%) Windows 10
7 2 (1.65%) Solaris
7 2 (1.65%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.83%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (35.54%) Agile
2 39 (32.23%) Computer Science
3 28 (23.14%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (22.31%) Continuous Improvement
5 20 (16.53%) Project Management
6 18 (14.88%) CI/CD
6 18 (14.88%) Software Engineering
7 16 (13.22%) Stakeholder Management
8 15 (12.40%) Analytics
8 15 (12.40%) DevOps
8 15 (12.40%) PRINCE2
9 14 (11.57%) Change Control
10 13 (10.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 12 (9.92%) Waterfall
12 11 (9.09%) Collaborative Working
13 10 (8.26%) Decision-Making
13 10 (8.26%) Mentoring
13 10 (8.26%) Project Planning
13 10 (8.26%) Risk Management
13 10 (8.26%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 18 (14.88%) Python
2 15 (12.40%) SQL
3 10 (8.26%) JavaScript
4 6 (4.96%) Ada
4 6 (4.96%) Java
5 5 (4.13%) PowerShell
6 4 (3.31%) Apex Code
6 4 (3.31%) Go
7 3 (2.48%) PHP
8 2 (1.65%) Bash
8 2 (1.65%) C#
9 1 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.83%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.83%) Scala
9 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 54 (44.63%) Security Cleared
2 38 (31.40%) SC Cleared
3 26 (21.49%) Computer Science Degree
4 15 (12.40%) DV Cleared
5 10 (8.26%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 8 (6.61%) Chartered Engineer
6 8 (6.61%) PMI Certification
6 8 (6.61%) PMP
7 6 (4.96%) Master's Degree
8 5 (4.13%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (4.13%) SANS
9 4 (3.31%) CCNP
9 4 (3.31%) ISTQB
9 4 (3.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (2.48%) APMP
10 3 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (2.48%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (1.65%) CBAP
12 1 (0.83%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.83%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (9.09%) QA
2 8 (6.61%) GDPR
3 6 (4.96%) Data Quality
4 4 (3.31%) Accessibility
5 3 (2.48%) Def Stans
5 3 (2.48%) IEC 61508
6 2 (1.65%) HL7
6 2 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.65%) PMO
6 2 (1.65%) SNOMED CT
7 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.83%) GMP
7 1 (0.83%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.83%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.83%) NIST
System Software
1 8 (6.61%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.96%) Docker
3 5 (4.13%) Active Directory
3 5 (4.13%) Hyper-V
4 4 (3.31%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (2.48%) VMware Workstation
6 2 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.83%) KVM
7 1 (0.83%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 10 (8.26%) Kubernetes
2 6 (4.96%) Ansible
3 5 (4.13%) Terraform
4 3 (2.48%) Functional Safety
5 2 (1.65%) Computer Incident Response Team
5 2 (1.65%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.83%) Data Guard
6 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
6 1 (0.83%) Grafana
6 1 (0.83%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 1 (0.83%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (0.83%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.83%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.83%) Puppet
Vendors
1 34 (28.10%) Microsoft
2 11 (9.09%) ServiceNow
3 8 (6.61%) VMware
4 7 (5.79%) Oracle
5 5 (4.13%) Cisco
6 4 (3.31%) ArcSight
6 4 (3.31%) Conga
6 4 (3.31%) Databricks
6 4 (3.31%) GoCardless
6 4 (3.31%) Salesforce
7 3 (2.48%) Google
7 3 (2.48%) Red Hat
8 2 (1.65%) Alteryx
8 2 (1.65%) Automation Anywhere
8 2 (1.65%) Blue Prism
8 2 (1.65%) Huawei
8 2 (1.65%) Intel
8 2 (1.65%) UiPath
9 1 (0.83%) Cloudera
9 1 (0.83%) EMC