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 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 15 13 9
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 75 55 61
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 11.03% 12.01% 12.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 31.25% 42.97% 51.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 40 42
10th Percentile £323 £260 -
25th Percentile £350 £325 £158
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £472 £475
Median % change year-on-year -14.83% -0.68% +6.80%
75th Percentile £492 £576 £626
90th Percentile £620 £604 £689
North West median daily rate £400 £466 £500
% change year-on-year -14.12% -6.85% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 3
10th Percentile - - £16.53
25th Percentile - £31.25 £20.33
Median hourly rate - £32.50 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year - +21.91% -49.46%
75th Percentile - £33.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £57.81 £32.50 £26.39
% change year-on-year +77.86% +23.15% -34.51%

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 240 128 118
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 35.29% 27.95% 23.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 90 80
10th Percentile £330 £230 £158
25th Percentile £359 £325 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £424 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.26% -5.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £520 £550
90th Percentile £650 £580 £680
North West median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 7 5
10th Percentile £29.99 £28.81 -
25th Percentile £34.49 £31.25 -
Median hourly rate £64.00 £32.50 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +96.92% +132.14% -65.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £85.63 £26.66
90th Percentile £111.15 £86.00 -
North West median hourly rate £52.78 £32.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year +62.38% +102.37% -60.42%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

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

Degree job vacancy trend 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 11 May 2026.

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
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 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
Knutsford +4 50 £401 -13.30% 1
Chester -3 14 £650 +100.00% 6
Warrington +1 9 £375 +100.00% 18
Macclesfield +2 1 £600 +3.45% 1
Degree
North West

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire 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 (26.67%) Confluence
2 14 (18.67%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.33%) Camunda
3 1 (1.33%) JBoss
3 1 (1.33%) Mule
3 1 (1.33%) Mule ESB
3 1 (1.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 22 (29.33%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (8.00%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (5.33%) MS Visio
4 3 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (1.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 10 (13.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (5.33%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (1.33%) SAP PM
3 1 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 16 (21.33%) AWS
2 11 (14.67%) Microsoft 365
3 10 (13.33%) Azure
4 7 (9.33%) Apigee
5 6 (8.00%) GCP
6 5 (6.67%) Kong
6 5 (6.67%) Power Platform
7 4 (5.33%) Entra ID
8 3 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (4.00%) GitHub
8 3 (4.00%) GitHub Copilot
8 3 (4.00%) OpenShift
8 3 (4.00%) SaaS
9 1 (1.33%) AWS Step Functions
9 1 (1.33%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (1.33%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (1.33%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (1.33%) IaaS
9 1 (1.33%) LangSmith
9 1 (1.33%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (16.00%) VPN
2 10 (13.33%) Skype
3 6 (8.00%) Firewall
4 5 (6.67%) Network Security
4 5 (6.67%) Wireless
5 3 (4.00%) Cisco ISE
5 3 (4.00%) DNS
6 2 (2.67%) HTTP
6 2 (2.67%) HTTPS
6 2 (2.67%) Internet
6 2 (2.67%) SSH
7 1 (1.33%) DHCP
7 1 (1.33%) FTP
7 1 (1.33%) SSL
7 1 (1.33%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.00%) Relational Database
2 5 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
2 5 (6.67%) Power BI
3 3 (4.00%) MySQL
3 3 (4.00%) SQL Server
4 2 (2.67%) Apache Cassandra
4 2 (2.67%) MongoDB
4 2 (2.67%) NoSQL
4 2 (2.67%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 28 (37.33%) JIRA
2 8 (10.67%) Git
3 6 (8.00%) Postman
4 4 (5.33%) GitLab
5 2 (2.67%) Jenkins
5 2 (2.67%) JUnit
6 1 (1.33%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.33%) Eclipse
6 1 (1.33%) IntelliJ
6 1 (1.33%) MLflow
General
1 46 (61.33%) Finance
2 37 (49.33%) Social Skills
3 29 (38.67%) Banking
4 14 (18.67%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (16.00%) Organisational Skills
6 10 (13.33%) Public Sector
7 7 (9.33%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (6.67%) Corporate Banking
9 4 (5.33%) Retail
10 3 (4.00%) Legal
10 3 (4.00%) Retail Banking
11 1 (1.33%) Financial Institution
11 1 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (1.33%) Investment Banking
11 1 (1.33%) Manufacturing
11 1 (1.33%) Military
11 1 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (1.33%) Publishing
11 1 (1.33%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 19 (25.33%) Analyst
2 18 (24.00%) Business Analyst
3 10 (13.33%) 1st Line Support
4 7 (9.33%) Developer
4 7 (9.33%) Java Developer
4 7 (9.33%) Project Manager
5 5 (6.67%) Architect
5 5 (6.67%) Banking Analyst
5 5 (6.67%) Banking Business Analyst
5 5 (6.67%) Technical Analyst
5 5 (6.67%) Technical Business Analyst
6 4 (5.33%) Payments Analyst
6 4 (5.33%) Payments Business Analyst
6 4 (5.33%) Security Engineer
6 4 (5.33%) Solutions Architect
7 3 (4.00%) Consultant
8 2 (2.67%) Applications Architect
8 2 (2.67%) Security Consultant
8 2 (2.67%) Service Manager
8 2 (2.67%) Service Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (17.33%) JSON
2 12 (16.00%) XML
3 10 (13.33%) REST
4 9 (12.00%) SOAP
4 9 (12.00%) Swagger
5 7 (9.33%) JWT
5 7 (9.33%) OAuth
6 6 (8.00%) Spring
6 6 (8.00%) Spring Boot
7 5 (6.67%) Hibernate
7 5 (6.67%) OpenAPI
7 5 (6.67%) RESTful
8 3 (4.00%) Middleware
8 3 (4.00%) Spring MVC
8 3 (4.00%) Spring Security
9 2 (2.67%) .NET
9 2 (2.67%) AngularJS
9 2 (2.67%) JAX-RS
9 2 (2.67%) OAuth2
9 2 (2.67%) React
Miscellaneous
1 11 (14.67%) Management Information System
2 5 (6.67%) PKI
2 5 (6.67%) Product Ownership
3 4 (5.33%) Cloud Native
3 4 (5.33%) Digital Wallet
3 4 (5.33%) Onboarding
4 3 (4.00%) PMI
4 3 (4.00%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.67%) Cloud Security Posture
5 2 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.67%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (2.67%) Tandem
6 1 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
6 1 (1.33%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.33%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (1.33%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.33%) Private Cloud
6 1 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.33%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 18 (24.00%) Windows
2 10 (13.33%) Windows 10
3 8 (10.67%) Linux
4 4 (5.33%) Unix
5 3 (4.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (1.33%) AIX
6 1 (1.33%) Solaris
6 1 (1.33%) VMS
6 1 (1.33%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (56.00%) Agile
2 24 (32.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 23 (30.67%) Computer Science
4 20 (26.67%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (24.00%) CI/CD
5 18 (24.00%) DevOps
5 18 (24.00%) ITSM
6 17 (22.67%) AI
7 16 (21.33%) Change Management
7 16 (21.33%) ITIL
8 15 (20.00%) Microservices
9 14 (18.67%) Project Management
10 11 (14.67%) API Design
10 11 (14.67%) Continuous Improvement
10 11 (14.67%) Generative AI
11 10 (13.33%) Customer Service
11 10 (13.33%) Performance Metrics
11 10 (13.33%) Requirements Gathering
11 10 (13.33%) Validation
11 10 (13.33%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 13 (17.33%) SQL
2 10 (13.33%) Java
3 8 (10.67%) Python
4 6 (8.00%) PowerShell
5 4 (5.33%) Bash
6 2 (2.67%) Shell Script
6 2 (2.67%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.33%) C#
7 1 (1.33%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.33%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (1.33%) Perl
7 1 (1.33%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (26.67%) Computer Science Degree
2 11 (14.67%) Master's Degree
2 11 (14.67%) Security Cleared
3 9 (12.00%) MBA
4 7 (9.33%) PMI Certification
4 7 (9.33%) PMP
5 6 (8.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (6.67%) CISSP
6 5 (6.67%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (5.33%) Azure Certification
8 3 (4.00%) AWS Certification
8 3 (4.00%) CCNA
8 3 (4.00%) CCNP
8 3 (4.00%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (4.00%) SAFe Agilist
8 3 (4.00%) SC Cleared
9 1 (1.33%) CEH
9 1 (1.33%) CRISC
9 1 (1.33%) GIAC
9 1 (1.33%) IBM Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (10.67%) NIST
2 6 (8.00%) GDPR
2 6 (8.00%) GRC
2 6 (8.00%) PSD2
3 5 (6.67%) PCI DSS
4 4 (5.33%) QA
4 4 (5.33%) SLA
5 3 (4.00%) Basel III
5 3 (4.00%) ISO 8583
6 2 (2.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (2.67%) HIPAA
6 2 (2.67%) ISO 20022
6 2 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (2.67%) P3O
6 2 (2.67%) PMO
7 1 (1.33%) NEBOSH
7 1 (1.33%) SEPA
System Software
1 11 (14.67%) Docker
2 2 (2.67%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.33%) NFS
3 1 (1.33%) Veritas Volume Manager
3 1 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 11 (14.67%) Kubernetes
2 6 (8.00%) Ansible
3 3 (4.00%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (4.00%) Terraform
4 2 (2.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (2.67%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.33%) CA Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.33%) PowerBroker
5 1 (1.33%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (1.33%) SCCM
5 1 (1.33%) SCOM
5 1 (1.33%) SCOrch
5 1 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.33%) Tivoli
5 1 (1.33%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 1 (1.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 21 (28.00%) Microsoft
2 17 (22.67%) Cisco
3 10 (13.33%) Citrix
3 10 (13.33%) Remedy
4 9 (12.00%) ServiceNow
5 7 (9.33%) Splunk
6 6 (8.00%) ForeScout
7 5 (6.67%) CyberArk
7 5 (6.67%) MuleSoft
7 5 (6.67%) Oracle
8 3 (4.00%) Broadcom
8 3 (4.00%) IBM
8 3 (4.00%) Red Hat
9 2 (2.67%) Aruba
9 2 (2.67%) Databricks
9 2 (2.67%) Fortinet
9 2 (2.67%) Gemalto
9 2 (2.67%) Google
9 2 (2.67%) Thales
9 2 (2.67%) Zscaler