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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 12 10
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 71 55 58
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 10.25% 11.43% 11.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 29.46% 40.74% 47.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 42 42
10th Percentile £331 £273 £158
25th Percentile £359 £328 £259
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £443 £472 £519
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% -9.01% +17.23%
75th Percentile £519 £569 £619
90th Percentile £621 £599 £689
North West median daily rate £402 £469 £505
% change year-on-year -14.29% -7.13% +7.73%
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 £30.00 £26.52
% change year-on-year +92.68% +13.12% -34.59%

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 241 135 121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 34.78% 28.07% 23.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 98 83
10th Percentile £331 £230 £158
25th Percentile £387 £325 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £422 £450
Median % change year-on-year +11.02% -6.22% -13.13%
75th Percentile £589 £520 £563
90th Percentile £650 £580 £680
North West median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 6 5
10th Percentile £29.99 £28.20 -
25th Percentile £35.59 £31.25 -
Median hourly rate £82.50 £32.50 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +153.85% +132.14% -65.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £72.38 £26.66
90th Percentile £111.15 £85.63 -
North West median hourly rate £46.80 £29.64 £16.06
% change year-on-year +57.92% +84.53% -60.43%

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 27 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 27 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 +7 46 £418 -9.62% 3
Chester -5 14 £650 +100.00% 3
Warrington 0 8 £425 +126.67% 9
Macclesfield +2 1 £600 +3.45% 2
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 23 (32.39%) Confluence
2 13 (18.31%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.82%) Camunda
4 1 (1.41%) JBoss
4 1 (1.41%) Mule
4 1 (1.41%) Mule ESB
4 1 (1.41%) WebLogic
Applications
1 24 (33.80%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (7.04%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (5.63%) MS Visio
4 3 (4.23%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (12.68%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (5.63%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (1.41%) SAP PM
3 1 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 13 (18.31%) AWS
2 11 (15.49%) Microsoft 365
3 10 (14.08%) Azure
4 5 (7.04%) Entra ID
4 5 (7.04%) Power Platform
5 4 (5.63%) GCP
6 3 (4.23%) Apigee
6 3 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (4.23%) Kong
6 3 (4.23%) OpenShift
6 3 (4.23%) SaaS
7 1 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.41%) AWS Step Functions
7 1 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (1.41%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.41%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.41%) IaaS
7 1 (1.41%) PaaS
7 1 (1.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (15.49%) VPN
2 9 (12.68%) Skype
3 6 (8.45%) Firewall
4 5 (7.04%) Network Security
4 5 (7.04%) Wireless
5 4 (5.63%) DNS
6 3 (4.23%) Cisco ISE
7 2 (2.82%) FTP
7 2 (2.82%) Internet
7 2 (2.82%) SSH
8 1 (1.41%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (7.04%) Power BI
2 3 (4.23%) Relational Database
2 3 (4.23%) SQL Server
3 2 (2.82%) Apache Cassandra
3 2 (2.82%) MongoDB
3 2 (2.82%) NoSQL
3 2 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (2.82%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 31 (43.66%) JIRA
2 5 (7.04%) Postman
3 3 (4.23%) Git
4 2 (2.82%) Cucumber
4 2 (2.82%) GitLab
4 2 (2.82%) JUnit
5 1 (1.41%) Bitbucket
5 1 (1.41%) Eclipse
5 1 (1.41%) IntelliJ
5 1 (1.41%) MLflow
5 1 (1.41%) Selenium
5 1 (1.41%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 44 (61.97%) Finance
2 36 (50.70%) Social Skills
3 28 (39.44%) Banking
4 14 (19.72%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (14.08%) Organisational Skills
6 7 (9.86%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (9.86%) Public Sector
7 4 (5.63%) Corporate Banking
7 4 (5.63%) Retail
8 2 (2.82%) Legal
8 2 (2.82%) Retail Banking
9 1 (1.41%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (1.41%) Investment Banking
9 1 (1.41%) Manufacturing
9 1 (1.41%) Military
9 1 (1.41%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (1.41%) Publishing
9 1 (1.41%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 17 (23.94%) Analyst
2 16 (22.54%) Business Analyst
3 9 (12.68%) 1st Line Support
4 6 (8.45%) Consultant
4 6 (8.45%) Project Manager
5 5 (7.04%) Architect
5 5 (7.04%) Banking Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Banking Business Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Security Consultant
6 4 (5.63%) Payments Analyst
6 4 (5.63%) Payments Business Analyst
6 4 (5.63%) Security Engineer
6 4 (5.63%) Solutions Architect
7 3 (4.23%) Technical Analyst
7 3 (4.23%) Technical Business Analyst
8 2 (2.82%) Financial Analyst
8 2 (2.82%) Incident Analyst
8 2 (2.82%) Linux Engineer
8 2 (2.82%) Problem Management Analyst
8 2 (2.82%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (12.68%) JSON
2 8 (11.27%) REST
2 8 (11.27%) XML
3 7 (9.86%) SOAP
3 7 (9.86%) Swagger
4 3 (4.23%) JWT
4 3 (4.23%) Middleware
4 3 (4.23%) OAuth
4 3 (4.23%) OpenAPI
5 2 (2.82%) .NET
5 2 (2.82%) 802.1X
5 2 (2.82%) AngularJS
5 2 (2.82%) React
6 1 (1.41%) ARM Templates
6 1 (1.41%) Jest
6 1 (1.41%) LangChain
6 1 (1.41%) Microsoft Graph
6 1 (1.41%) Playwright
6 1 (1.41%) PyTorch
6 1 (1.41%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 11 (15.49%) Management Information System
2 4 (5.63%) Cloud Native
2 4 (5.63%) Digital Wallet
2 4 (5.63%) Onboarding
2 4 (5.63%) PKI
2 4 (5.63%) Product Ownership
3 3 (4.23%) Security Posture
4 2 (2.82%) Cloud Security Posture
4 2 (2.82%) Data Structures
4 2 (2.82%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (2.82%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (2.82%) PMI
4 2 (2.82%) Tandem
5 1 (1.41%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (1.41%) e-Learning
5 1 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.41%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.41%) SCADA
5 1 (1.41%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 19 (26.76%) Windows
2 11 (15.49%) Linux
3 9 (12.68%) Windows 10
4 5 (7.04%) Unix
5 3 (4.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (2.82%) AIX
7 1 (1.41%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (52.11%) Agile
2 22 (30.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 18 (25.35%) Problem-Solving
4 17 (23.94%) Computer Science
4 17 (23.94%) DevOps
4 17 (23.94%) ITSM
5 16 (22.54%) Change Management
6 15 (21.13%) ITIL
7 14 (19.72%) AI
7 14 (19.72%) Project Management
8 11 (15.49%) CI/CD
8 11 (15.49%) Generative AI
9 10 (14.08%) Continuous Improvement
10 9 (12.68%) Customer Service
10 9 (12.68%) Performance Metrics
10 9 (12.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 9 (12.68%) User Acceptance Testing
11 8 (11.27%) Microservices
11 8 (11.27%) Roadmaps
11 8 (11.27%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 12 (16.90%) SQL
2 9 (12.68%) Python
3 7 (9.86%) PowerShell
4 6 (8.45%) Java
5 4 (5.63%) Bash
6 2 (2.82%) JavaScript
6 2 (2.82%) Shell Script
6 2 (2.82%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.41%) C#
7 1 (1.41%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (1.41%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (19.72%) Computer Science Degree
2 10 (14.08%) Master's Degree
3 8 (11.27%) CISSP
3 8 (11.27%) MBA
3 8 (11.27%) Security Cleared
4 6 (8.45%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (8.45%) PMI Certification
4 6 (8.45%) PMP
5 5 (7.04%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (5.63%) Azure Certification
7 3 (4.23%) AWS Certification
7 3 (4.23%) CCNA
7 3 (4.23%) CCNP
7 3 (4.23%) CEH
7 3 (4.23%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (4.23%) CompTIA Security+
7 3 (4.23%) SC Cleared
8 2 (2.82%) CISM
8 2 (2.82%) OSCP
8 2 (2.82%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (12.68%) NIST
2 6 (8.45%) GRC
2 6 (8.45%) PCI DSS
2 6 (8.45%) PSD2
3 5 (7.04%) GDPR
4 4 (5.63%) SLA
5 3 (4.23%) ISO 8583
5 3 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (4.23%) QA
6 2 (2.82%) Basel III
6 2 (2.82%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (2.82%) HIPAA
6 2 (2.82%) ISO 20022
6 2 (2.82%) P3O
6 2 (2.82%) PMO
7 1 (1.41%) NEBOSH
7 1 (1.41%) SEPA
System Software
1 6 (8.45%) Docker
2 2 (2.82%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.82%) NFS
2 2 (2.82%) Veritas Volume Manager
3 1 (1.41%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (8.45%) Kubernetes
2 5 (7.04%) Ansible
3 3 (4.23%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (4.23%) Progress Chef
3 3 (4.23%) Terraform
4 2 (2.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (2.82%) PowerBroker
4 2 (2.82%) Tivoli
4 2 (2.82%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 1 (1.41%) CA Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (26.76%) Microsoft
2 17 (23.94%) Cisco
3 10 (14.08%) Remedy
3 10 (14.08%) ServiceNow
4 9 (12.68%) Citrix
5 6 (8.45%) ForeScout
5 6 (8.45%) Splunk
6 5 (7.04%) CyberArk
7 4 (5.63%) Oracle
8 3 (4.23%) Broadcom
8 3 (4.23%) IBM
8 3 (4.23%) MuleSoft
8 3 (4.23%) Red Hat
9 2 (2.82%) Aruba
9 2 (2.82%) Databricks
9 2 (2.82%) Fortinet
9 2 (2.82%) Gemalto
9 2 (2.82%) Google
9 2 (2.82%) Thales
9 2 (2.82%) Zscaler