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 19 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 10 10
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 77 63 60
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 11.11% 14.93% 11.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 31.05% 50.00% 50.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 40 44
10th Percentile £331 £260 £65
25th Percentile £353 £325 £158
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £397 £475 £410
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +15.85% -6.82%
75th Percentile £504 £580 £619
90th Percentile £620 £642 £689
North West median daily rate £400 £463 £450
% change year-on-year -13.51% +2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 3
10th Percentile - £26.31 £16.53
25th Percentile - £29.49 £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 £45.46 £32.50 £26.20
% change year-on-year +39.88% +24.07% -24.07%

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 248 126 119
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 35.79% 29.86% 23.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 87 81
10th Percentile £331 £230 £125
25th Percentile £361 £325 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £422 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.19% -6.22% -2.70%
75th Percentile £590 £538 £538
90th Percentile £652 £584 £680
North West median daily rate £478 £490 £513
% change year-on-year -2.55% -4.39% +0.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 7 6
10th Percentile £26.69 £28.43 -
25th Percentile £29.99 £31.25 £14.00
Median hourly rate £36.26 £32.50 £20.33
Median % change year-on-year +11.57% +59.86% -49.18%
75th Percentile £90.60 £85.63 £26.66
90th Percentile £111.15 £86.00 £35.83
North West median hourly rate £49.12 £32.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year +51.13% +102.37% -57.17%

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 19 April 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 19 April 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 0 49 £385 -17.83% 1
Chester -4 14 £650 +100.00% 5
Warrington 0 8 £375 +100.00% 16
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 18 (23.38%) Confluence
2 12 (15.58%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.30%) Camunda
3 1 (1.30%) JBoss
3 1 (1.30%) Mule
3 1 (1.30%) Mule ESB
3 1 (1.30%) WebLogic
Applications
1 22 (28.57%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (7.79%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (5.19%) MS Visio
4 3 (3.90%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (2.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 10 (12.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (5.19%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (1.30%) SAP PM
3 1 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 19 (24.68%) AWS
2 12 (15.58%) Microsoft 365
3 11 (14.29%) Azure
4 10 (12.99%) Apigee
5 8 (10.39%) GCP
6 6 (7.79%) Kong
7 5 (6.49%) Entra ID
7 5 (6.49%) Power Platform
8 4 (5.19%) GitHub
8 4 (5.19%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (5.19%) SaaS
9 3 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (3.90%) OpenShift
10 2 (2.60%) Azure Logic Apps
10 2 (2.60%) Azure Monitor
10 2 (2.60%) Azure Sentinel
11 1 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
11 1 (1.30%) AWS Step Functions
11 1 (1.30%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 1 (1.30%) LangSmith
Communications & Networking
1 10 (12.99%) Skype
1 10 (12.99%) VPN
2 7 (9.09%) Firewall
3 5 (6.49%) Network Security
4 4 (5.19%) DNS
4 4 (5.19%) HTTP
4 4 (5.19%) HTTPS
5 3 (3.90%) Wireless
6 2 (2.60%) Internet
7 1 (1.30%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (1.30%) DHCP
7 1 (1.30%) FTP
7 1 (1.30%) SSL
7 1 (1.30%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (9.09%) Relational Database
2 6 (7.79%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (6.49%) Power BI
4 4 (5.19%) MySQL
5 3 (3.90%) SQL Server
6 2 (2.60%) Apache Cassandra
6 2 (2.60%) MongoDB
6 2 (2.60%) NoSQL
6 2 (2.60%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 26 (33.77%) JIRA
2 11 (14.29%) Git
3 8 (10.39%) Postman
4 5 (6.49%) GitLab
5 4 (5.19%) Jenkins
6 2 (2.60%) JUnit
7 1 (1.30%) Cucumber
7 1 (1.30%) Eclipse
7 1 (1.30%) IntelliJ
7 1 (1.30%) MLflow
General
1 49 (63.64%) Finance
2 37 (48.05%) Social Skills
3 29 (37.66%) Banking
4 15 (19.48%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (16.88%) Public Sector
6 12 (15.58%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (10.39%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (6.49%) Corporate Banking
9 4 (5.19%) Retail
10 3 (3.90%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (3.90%) Legal
10 3 (3.90%) Retail Banking
11 2 (2.60%) Local Government
12 1 (1.30%) Financial Institution
12 1 (1.30%) Investment Banking
12 1 (1.30%) Manufacturing
12 1 (1.30%) Marketing
12 1 (1.30%) Military
12 1 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (1.30%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 19 (24.68%) Analyst
2 17 (22.08%) Business Analyst
3 10 (12.99%) 1st Line Support
3 10 (12.99%) Developer
3 10 (12.99%) Java Developer
4 7 (9.09%) Project Manager
5 6 (7.79%) Technical Analyst
5 6 (7.79%) Technical Business Analyst
6 5 (6.49%) Architect
6 5 (6.49%) Banking Analyst
6 5 (6.49%) Banking Business Analyst
6 5 (6.49%) Security Engineer
7 4 (5.19%) Apigee Developer
7 4 (5.19%) Payments Analyst
7 4 (5.19%) Payments Business Analyst
7 4 (5.19%) Solutions Architect
8 3 (3.90%) Azure Engineer
8 3 (3.90%) Consultant
8 3 (3.90%) Lead
9 2 (2.60%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (22.08%) JSON
2 15 (19.48%) XML
3 11 (14.29%) REST
4 10 (12.99%) JWT
4 10 (12.99%) OAuth
4 10 (12.99%) SOAP
4 10 (12.99%) Swagger
5 9 (11.69%) Spring
5 9 (11.69%) Spring Boot
6 8 (10.39%) Hibernate
6 8 (10.39%) RESTful
7 6 (7.79%) OpenAPI
8 4 (5.19%) JAX-RS
8 4 (5.19%) OAuth2
8 4 (5.19%) Spring MVC
8 4 (5.19%) Spring Security
9 3 (3.90%) Middleware
10 2 (2.60%) .NET
10 2 (2.60%) AngularJS
10 2 (2.60%) React
Miscellaneous
1 11 (14.29%) Management Information System
2 5 (6.49%) Product Ownership
3 4 (5.19%) Cloud Native
3 4 (5.19%) Digital Wallet
4 3 (3.90%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.90%) PMI
4 3 (3.90%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.60%) Cloud Security Posture
5 2 (2.60%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (1.30%) AI Agents
6 1 (1.30%) Cyber Threat
6 1 (1.30%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (1.30%) e-Learning
6 1 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.30%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.30%) Private Cloud
6 1 (1.30%) SCADA
6 1 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.30%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 1 (1.30%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 17 (22.08%) Windows
2 10 (12.99%) Windows 10
3 8 (10.39%) Linux
4 3 (3.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (2.60%) Unix
6 1 (1.30%) AIX
6 1 (1.30%) Solaris
6 1 (1.30%) VMS
6 1 (1.30%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (55.84%) Agile
2 27 (35.06%) Computer Science
3 22 (28.57%) CI/CD
3 22 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
3 22 (28.57%) Stakeholder Management
4 19 (24.68%) Microservices
5 18 (23.38%) AI
5 18 (23.38%) DevOps
6 17 (22.08%) ITSM
7 15 (19.48%) ITIL
8 14 (18.18%) API Design
8 14 (18.18%) Change Management
9 13 (16.88%) Project Management
10 12 (15.58%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (15.58%) Validation
11 11 (14.29%) Generative AI
11 11 (14.29%) Requirements Gathering
11 11 (14.29%) Workshop Facilitation
12 10 (12.99%) Customer Service
12 10 (12.99%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 15 (19.48%) SQL
2 13 (16.88%) Java
3 7 (9.09%) PowerShell
4 6 (7.79%) Python
5 4 (5.19%) Bash
6 2 (2.60%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (2.60%) Shell Script
6 2 (2.60%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.30%) C#
7 1 (1.30%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.30%) Perl
7 1 (1.30%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 24 (31.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 13 (16.88%) Security Cleared
3 11 (14.29%) Master's Degree
4 9 (11.69%) MBA
5 7 (9.09%) PMI Certification
5 7 (9.09%) PMP
6 6 (7.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (7.79%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (6.49%) Azure Certification
7 5 (6.49%) CISSP
8 4 (5.19%) SC Cleared
9 3 (3.90%) AWS Certification
9 3 (3.90%) CCNA
9 3 (3.90%) CCNP
9 3 (3.90%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (3.90%) SAFe Agilist
10 1 (1.30%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 1 (1.30%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 1 (1.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (1.30%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (9.09%) NIST
2 6 (7.79%) GDPR
2 6 (7.79%) GRC
2 6 (7.79%) PSD2
3 5 (6.49%) PCI DSS
4 4 (5.19%) QA
5 3 (3.90%) Basel III
5 3 (3.90%) ISO 8583
5 3 (3.90%) SLA
6 2 (2.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (2.60%) HIPAA
6 2 (2.60%) ISO 20022
6 2 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (2.60%) P3O
6 2 (2.60%) PMO
7 1 (1.30%) NEBOSH
7 1 (1.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 14 (18.18%) Docker
2 3 (3.90%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.30%) NFS
3 1 (1.30%) Veritas Volume Manager
3 1 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 14 (18.18%) Kubernetes
2 6 (7.79%) Ansible
3 3 (3.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (3.90%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (3.90%) Terraform
4 2 (2.60%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.30%) CA Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.30%) PowerBroker
5 1 (1.30%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (1.30%) SCCM
5 1 (1.30%) SCOM
5 1 (1.30%) SCOrch
5 1 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.30%) Tivoli
5 1 (1.30%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 1 (1.30%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 25 (32.47%) Microsoft
2 15 (19.48%) Cisco
3 12 (15.58%) Citrix
4 10 (12.99%) Remedy
5 9 (11.69%) ServiceNow
5 9 (11.69%) Splunk
6 6 (7.79%) MuleSoft
6 6 (7.79%) Oracle
7 5 (6.49%) CyberArk
8 4 (5.19%) ForeScout
9 3 (3.90%) Broadcom
9 3 (3.90%) Red Hat
10 2 (2.60%) Fortinet
10 2 (2.60%) Google
10 2 (2.60%) LogRhythm
10 2 (2.60%) Zscaler
11 1 (1.30%) Databricks
11 1 (1.30%) Infoblox
11 1 (1.30%) Varonis
11 1 (1.30%) Veeam