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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 140 122 261
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.21% 7.13% 8.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 9.38% 12.96% 14.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 88 124
10th Percentile £191 £145 £160
25th Percentile £400 £250 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £480 £528
Median % change year-on-year +19.92% -9.10% -4.09%
75th Percentile £738 £589 £688
90th Percentile - £704 £709
England median daily rate £500 £515 £510
% change year-on-year -2.91% +0.98% -6.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 19 65
10th Percentile £14.00 £55.00 £36.25
25th Percentile £16.15 £59.38 £40.00
Median hourly rate £36.25 £65.00 £57.44
Median % change year-on-year -44.23% +13.16% -11.63%
75th Percentile £74.01 £75.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £80.03 £78.55 £76.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +21.50% +33.75% -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 1,492 941 1,787
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 44.82% 54.96% 56.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 939 593 1,136
10th Percentile £340 £235 £351
25th Percentile £431 £440 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.09% - -5.01%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £652
90th Percentile £715 £700 £725
England median daily rate £522 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.67% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 104 196
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.51 £22.31
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.48 £40.00
Median hourly rate £57.35 £60.00 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.42% -1.64% -6.15%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £47.54 £40.55 £40.00
% change year-on-year +17.25% +1.36% -23.81%

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 11 May 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 11 May 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 11 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
Wiltshire -1 53 £725 +23.40% 36
Bristol -24 32 £430 +16.22% 65
Somerset -4 18 £160 -69.16% 21
Devon -16 17 £310 +93.44% 23
Gloucestershire -3 10 £575 +35.29% 59
Dorset -8 7 £400 -27.27% 25
Cornwall - 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 40 (28.57%) Confluence
2 17 (12.14%) SharePoint
3 8 (5.71%) Apache
4 2 (1.43%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.71%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 62 (44.29%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (30.71%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (15.71%) Microsoft Excel
4 18 (12.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (2.14%) MS Visio
6 2 (1.43%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (1.43%) NEC Housing
1 2 (1.43%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.71%) Cerner Millennium
2 1 (0.71%) Primavera
2 1 (0.71%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 23 (16.43%) Power Platform
2 18 (12.86%) Azure
3 16 (11.43%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (5.71%) AWS
5 7 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (3.57%) GitHub
7 4 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.43%) Asana
8 2 (1.43%) Entra ID
8 2 (1.43%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.71%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 1 (0.71%) Cloud Composer
9 1 (0.71%) GCP
9 1 (0.71%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.71%) IaaS
9 1 (0.71%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.14%) 4G
1 3 (2.14%) 5G
1 3 (2.14%) LTE
1 3 (2.14%) Radio Access Network
2 2 (1.43%) 2G
2 2 (1.43%) 3G
2 2 (1.43%) BGP
2 2 (1.43%) Cisco IOS
2 2 (1.43%) Firewall
2 2 (1.43%) Network Security
2 2 (1.43%) OSPF
3 1 (0.71%) DHCP
3 1 (0.71%) EIGRP
3 1 (0.71%) ICMP
3 1 (0.71%) L2TP
3 1 (0.71%) MPLS
3 1 (0.71%) RIP
3 1 (0.71%) SNMP
3 1 (0.71%) TACACS
3 1 (0.71%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (16.43%) Power BI
2 4 (2.86%) Relational Database
3 3 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (2.14%) Electronic Patient Records
4 2 (1.43%) Oracle Database
4 2 (1.43%) Star Schema
5 1 (0.71%) Big Data
5 1 (0.71%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.71%) Geospatial Data
5 1 (0.71%) GIS
5 1 (0.71%) Metadata
5 1 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.71%) Power Query
5 1 (0.71%) Snowflake Schema
5 1 (0.71%) Spatial Data
5 1 (0.71%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 52 (37.14%) JIRA
2 8 (5.71%) GitLab
3 5 (3.57%) Git
4 3 (2.14%) Artifactory
5 2 (1.43%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.71%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 84 (60.00%) Social Skills
2 55 (39.29%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (31.43%) Military
4 29 (20.71%) Finance
5 21 (15.00%) Organisational Skills
6 18 (12.86%) Public Sector
7 5 (3.57%) Telecoms
8 4 (2.86%) Aerospace
8 4 (2.86%) Back Office
8 4 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (2.86%) Legal
8 4 (2.86%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (2.14%) Electronics
10 2 (1.43%) Aviation
10 2 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.43%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.43%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (1.43%) Police
11 1 (0.71%) Banking
11 1 (0.71%) Digital Healthcare
Job Titles
1 33 (23.57%) Architect
2 30 (21.43%) Service Architect
3 11 (7.86%) Project Manager
4 10 (7.14%) Lead
4 10 (7.14%) Project Officer
4 10 (7.14%) Project Support Officer
4 10 (7.14%) Support Officer
5 9 (6.43%) Delivery Manager
5 9 (6.43%) Technical Manager
6 8 (5.71%) Analyst
6 8 (5.71%) Support Engineer
7 7 (5.00%) Administrator
7 7 (5.00%) Technical Engineer
7 7 (5.00%) Technical Support
7 7 (5.00%) Technical Support Engineer
8 6 (4.29%) Business Analyst
8 6 (4.29%) Software Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) DevOps Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Network Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) SC Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.43%) REST
2 7 (5.00%) JDO
3 3 (2.14%) Apache NiFi
4 2 (1.43%) FHIR
4 2 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
4 2 (1.43%) SOAP
4 2 (1.43%) Web Services
5 1 (0.71%) .NET
5 1 (0.71%) ASP.NET
5 1 (0.71%) ASP.NET Core
5 1 (0.71%) EDI
5 1 (0.71%) EDIFACT
5 1 (0.71%) Entity Framework
5 1 (0.71%) Flash
5 1 (0.71%) IDoc
5 1 (0.71%) JSON
5 1 (0.71%) LDAP
5 1 (0.71%) PySpark
5 1 (0.71%) RESTful
5 1 (0.71%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 36 (25.71%) Product Ownership
2 9 (6.43%) Management Information System
3 6 (4.29%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (2.86%) Freedom of Information
4 4 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.14%) PMI
5 3 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.43%) CSOC
6 2 (1.43%) Cyber Defence
6 2 (1.43%) Cyber Security Posture
6 2 (1.43%) NHS
6 2 (1.43%) PKI
6 2 (1.43%) Security Operations Centre
6 2 (1.43%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.71%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.71%) Clustering
7 1 (0.71%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.71%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.71%) Fixed Income
7 1 (0.71%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.71%) Linux
1 8 (5.71%) Windows
2 6 (4.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (3.57%) Ubuntu
4 4 (2.86%) Debian
4 4 (2.86%) Rocky
5 2 (1.43%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.71%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.71%) Solaris
6 1 (0.71%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (56.43%) Agile
2 41 (29.29%) Critical Thinking
3 39 (27.86%) Knowledge Transfer
4 37 (26.43%) Service Management
5 35 (25.00%) Analytical Thinking
5 35 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
6 34 (24.29%) Computer Science
7 32 (22.86%) Acceptance Criteria
7 32 (22.86%) ITIL
7 32 (22.86%) TOGAF
8 30 (21.43%) Business Continuity
8 30 (21.43%) Project Management
8 30 (21.43%) Security Patching
8 30 (21.43%) Service Design
9 26 (18.57%) PRINCE2
10 23 (16.43%) Waterfall
11 22 (15.71%) Stakeholder Management
12 18 (12.86%) Continuous Improvement
13 16 (11.43%) Analytics
13 16 (11.43%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 17 (12.14%) Python
2 11 (7.86%) SQL
3 6 (4.29%) JavaScript
3 6 (4.29%) PowerShell
4 4 (2.86%) Go
5 3 (2.14%) PHP
6 2 (1.43%) C#
6 2 (1.43%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.71%) Bash
7 1 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.71%) Java
7 1 (0.71%) Scala
7 1 (0.71%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 84 (60.00%) Security Cleared
2 74 (52.86%) SC Cleared
3 32 (22.86%) TOGAF Certification
4 24 (17.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (9.29%) APMP
6 11 (7.86%) DV Cleared
7 10 (7.14%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 9 (6.43%) PMI Certification
8 9 (6.43%) PMP
9 5 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (3.57%) Master's Degree
10 4 (2.86%) CCNP
10 4 (2.86%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 3 (2.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.43%) CBAP
13 1 (0.71%) APMG
13 1 (0.71%) CompTIA Security+
13 1 (0.71%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.71%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.86%) QA
2 8 (5.71%) Data Quality
3 6 (4.29%) GDPR
4 4 (2.86%) Accessibility
5 3 (2.14%) PMO
6 2 (1.43%) Def Stans
6 2 (1.43%) HL7
6 2 (1.43%) SNOMED CT
7 1 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.71%) GMP
7 1 (0.71%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.71%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.71%) NIST
System Software
1 6 (4.29%) Docker
1 6 (4.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (1.43%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.43%) Hyper-V
2 2 (1.43%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.71%) KVM
3 1 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.71%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.71%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 30 (21.43%) OPNET
2 9 (6.43%) Kubernetes
3 6 (4.29%) Ansible
4 5 (3.57%) Terraform
5 2 (1.43%) Computer Incident Response Team
5 2 (1.43%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.71%) Grafana
6 1 (0.71%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.71%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.71%) Puppet
Vendors
1 42 (30.00%) ServiceNow
2 34 (24.29%) Atlassian
3 33 (23.57%) Microsoft
4 30 (21.43%) Remedy
5 7 (5.00%) Oracle
6 6 (4.29%) VMware
7 5 (3.57%) Cisco
8 4 (2.86%) Databricks
9 3 (2.14%) Red Hat
10 2 (1.43%) Automation Anywhere
10 2 (1.43%) Blue Prism
10 2 (1.43%) Google
10 2 (1.43%) Huawei
10 2 (1.43%) Intel
10 2 (1.43%) NEC
10 2 (1.43%) UiPath
11 1 (0.71%) Alteryx
11 1 (0.71%) Cerner
11 1 (0.71%) EMC
11 1 (0.71%) Mapinfo