Degree Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Academic Degree
North West > Cheshire

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Cheshire with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 19 13 9
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 66 58 47
As % of all contract jobs advertised in Cheshire 10.00% 11.18% 12.50%
As % of the Qualifications category 30.14% 49.57% 44.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 37 19
10th Percentile £269 £356 £436
25th Percentile £330 £475 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £538 £500
Median % change year-on-year -21.93% +7.60% -20.63%
75th Percentile £488 £575 £558
90th Percentile £638 £605 £628
North West median daily rate £458 £550 £481
% change year-on-year -16.82% +14.46% -3.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 4
10th Percentile £14.30 - £19.73
25th Percentile £15.50 - £23.44
Median hourly rate £16.00 - £33.00
75th Percentile £35.38 - £48.75
90th Percentile £59.05 - £64.50
North West median hourly rate £42.75 £48.56 £40.55
% change year-on-year -11.96% +19.77% +55.94%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Cheshire

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 Cheshire.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 219 117 106
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 33.18% 22.54% 28.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 73 52
10th Percentile £305 £349 £402
25th Percentile £356 £390 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -12.52% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £627 £575 £588
90th Percentile £716 £638 £675
North West median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 0 6
10th Percentile - - £21.38
25th Percentile £15.50 - £29.13
Median hourly rate £28.58 - £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - - +52.38%
75th Percentile £67.25 - £60.25
90th Percentile £89.98 - £71.00
North West median hourly rate £27.19 £46.18 £45.88
% change year-on-year -41.13% +0.65% +20.74%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in Cheshire.

Job vacancy trend for Degree in Cheshire

Degree
Daily Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in Cheshire over the 6 months to 18 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in Cheshire

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in Cheshire over the 6 months to 18 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in Cheshire

Degree
Contract Job Locations in Cheshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Degree within the Cheshire region over the 6 months to 18 September 2025. 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
Knutsford -21 24 £427 -20.59% 8
Chester +8 19 £475 - 22
Warrington -3 6 £300 - 35
Crewe -2 3 £355 -35.45% 11
Macclesfield -5 2 £375 -31.82% 3
Degree
North West

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Cheshire by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 9 (13.64%) SharePoint
2 7 (10.61%) Exchange Server 2013
2 7 (10.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (10.61%) Skype for Business
3 5 (7.58%) Confluence
4 2 (3.03%) Mule
4 2 (3.03%) Mule ESB
5 1 (1.52%) Anypoint
5 1 (1.52%) JBoss
5 1 (1.52%) Tomcat
5 1 (1.52%) WebLogic
Applications
1 15 (22.73%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (16.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 11 (16.67%) MS Visio
3 10 (15.15%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (4.55%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (1.52%) IBM Planning Analytics
Cloud Services
1 17 (25.76%) Azure
2 15 (22.73%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (10.61%) OneDrive
3 7 (10.61%) SaaS
4 5 (7.58%) AWS
4 5 (7.58%) GCP
5 4 (6.06%) Power Platform
6 3 (4.55%) Smartsheet
7 2 (3.03%) Azure Logic Apps
7 2 (3.03%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (3.03%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (3.03%) Entra ID
7 2 (3.03%) OpenShift
8 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 9 (13.64%) Firewall
2 8 (12.12%) Network Security
3 7 (10.61%) Skype
4 6 (9.09%) Wi-Fi
5 5 (7.58%) DNS
6 4 (6.06%) BGP
6 4 (6.06%) Internet
6 4 (6.06%) MPLS
6 4 (6.06%) OSPF
6 4 (6.06%) VLAN
6 4 (6.06%) VPN
7 3 (4.55%) Intrusion Detection
7 3 (4.55%) LAN
7 3 (4.55%) Unified Communications
7 3 (4.55%) WAN
7 3 (4.55%) Wireless
7 3 (4.55%) WLAN
8 2 (3.03%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.52%) Metadata
1 1 (1.52%) MongoDB
1 1 (1.52%) MySQL
1 1 (1.52%) NoSQL
1 1 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (1.52%) Power BI
1 1 (1.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 11 (16.67%) JIRA
2 2 (3.03%) TestRail
3 1 (1.52%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.52%) Cucumber
3 1 (1.52%) Git
3 1 (1.52%) JUnit
General
1 40 (60.61%) Social Skills
2 27 (40.91%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (27.27%) Finance
4 11 (16.67%) Banking
5 5 (7.58%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (6.06%) Influencing Skills
6 4 (6.06%) Legal
6 4 (6.06%) Public Sector
6 4 (6.06%) Publishing
7 3 (4.55%) Investment Banking
8 2 (3.03%) Automotive
8 2 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (3.03%) Military
9 1 (1.52%) Corporate Banking
9 1 (1.52%) Marketing
9 1 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 20 (30.30%) Analyst
2 9 (13.64%) Business Analyst
3 8 (12.12%) Senior
4 7 (10.61%) Operational Support Analyst
4 7 (10.61%) Operations Analyst
4 7 (10.61%) Operations Support Analyst
4 7 (10.61%) Support Analyst
5 6 (9.09%) Architect
6 5 (7.58%) Network Engineer
6 5 (7.58%) ServiceNow Business Analyst
7 4 (6.06%) Cybersecurity Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) Designer
7 4 (6.06%) Network Designer
7 4 (6.06%) Security Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) Solutions Designer
7 4 (6.06%) Tester
8 3 (4.55%) IT Support
8 3 (4.55%) IT Technician
8 3 (4.55%) Service Desk Technician
8 3 (4.55%) Service Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (7.58%) Web Services
2 4 (6.06%) AngularJS
2 4 (6.06%) CSS
2 4 (6.06%) HTML
2 4 (6.06%) JSON
2 4 (6.06%) REST
3 3 (4.55%) LDAP
3 3 (4.55%) SOAP
3 3 (4.55%) XML
4 2 (3.03%) J2EE
4 2 (3.03%) Spring
4 2 (3.03%) Spring Boot
5 1 (1.52%) CSS3
5 1 (1.52%) GraphQL
5 1 (1.52%) HTML5
5 1 (1.52%) Kafka
5 1 (1.52%) Node.js
5 1 (1.52%) React
5 1 (1.52%) RESTful
5 1 (1.52%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 16 (24.24%) Management Information System
2 7 (10.61%) CMDB
3 6 (9.09%) Hybrid Cloud
3 6 (9.09%) Video Conferencing
4 5 (7.58%) Enterprise Software
5 4 (6.06%) Onboarding
5 4 (6.06%) Product Ownership
5 4 (6.06%) Virtual Team
6 3 (4.55%) Low-Code
6 3 (4.55%) PMI
7 2 (3.03%) Cyberattack
7 2 (3.03%) Tandem
8 1 (1.52%) Cloud Native
8 1 (1.52%) Data Fabric
8 1 (1.52%) Data Structures
8 1 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (1.52%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.52%) SCADA
8 1 (1.52%) Security Posture
8 1 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (13.64%) Windows
2 2 (3.03%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (45.45%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (36.36%) ITIL
3 21 (31.82%) Agile
3 21 (31.82%) Computer Science
4 19 (28.79%) ITSM
5 17 (25.76%) Stakeholder Management
6 16 (24.24%) Project Management
7 13 (19.70%) Problem Management
7 13 (19.70%) Service Management
8 12 (18.18%) Migration
9 11 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
10 10 (15.15%) Change Management
10 10 (15.15%) Continuous Improvement
10 10 (15.15%) Validation
11 9 (13.64%) Business Analysis
11 9 (13.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 9 (13.64%) Use Case
12 8 (12.12%) Project Delivery
12 8 (12.12%) Six Sigma
12 8 (12.12%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 6 (9.09%) Java
2 5 (7.58%) JavaScript
2 5 (7.58%) SQL
3 4 (6.06%) PowerShell
4 2 (3.03%) Kusto Query Language
4 2 (3.03%) PL/SQL
4 2 (3.03%) Python
5 1 (1.52%) Bash
5 1 (1.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 15 (22.73%) Computer Science Degree
2 8 (12.12%) Cisco Certification
3 7 (10.61%) Security Cleared
4 5 (7.58%) Master's Degree
5 4 (6.06%) CCIE
5 4 (6.06%) CCNP
5 4 (6.06%) ITIL Certification
5 4 (6.06%) JNCIE
5 4 (6.06%) PMI Certification
5 4 (6.06%) PMP
6 3 (4.55%) Azure Certification
6 3 (4.55%) CCNA
6 3 (4.55%) CISSP
6 3 (4.55%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (3.03%) A+ Certification
7 2 (3.03%) CBAP
7 2 (3.03%) CISM
7 2 (3.03%) SC Cleared
8 1 (1.52%) CISA
8 1 (1.52%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.55%) NIST
1 3 (4.55%) P3O
1 3 (4.55%) PMO
2 2 (3.03%) GDPR
2 2 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.52%) Basel III
3 1 (1.52%) COBIT
3 1 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.52%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.52%) GRC
3 1 (1.52%) HIPAA
3 1 (1.52%) NCSC
3 1 (1.52%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.52%) PMBOK
3 1 (1.52%) PSD2
3 1 (1.52%) QA
3 1 (1.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 14 (21.21%) Active Directory
2 2 (3.03%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (18.18%) SCCM
2 10 (15.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 4 (6.06%) Kubernetes
4 3 (4.55%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (3.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (3.03%) HP ALM
5 2 (3.03%) QRadar
Vendors
1 23 (34.85%) Microsoft
2 15 (22.73%) ServiceNow
3 10 (15.15%) Cisco
4 4 (6.06%) F5
4 4 (6.06%) Fortinet
4 4 (6.06%) Splunk
5 3 (4.55%) Oracle
5 3 (4.55%) Palo Alto
5 3 (4.55%) Planview
5 3 (4.55%) Zscaler
6 2 (3.03%) AppDynamics
6 2 (3.03%) ArcSight
6 2 (3.03%) Dynatrace
6 2 (3.03%) HP
6 2 (3.03%) IBM
6 2 (3.03%) LogRhythm
7 1 (1.52%) CheckPoint
7 1 (1.52%) Cognos
7 1 (1.52%) MuleSoft
7 1 (1.52%) Salesforce