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 28 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 21 11
Rank change year-on-year +4 -10 -2
Contract jobs citing Degree 71 66 62
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 9.16% 9.88% 11.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 31.84% 28.45% 48.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 45 39
10th Percentile £351 £282 £356
25th Percentile £425 £356 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £423 £538
Median % change year-on-year +23.79% -21.47% +7.60%
75th Percentile £599 £488 £572
90th Percentile £630 £638 £601
North West median daily rate £483 £458 £538
% change year-on-year +5.57% -14.96% +13.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 0
10th Percentile - £14.60 -
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.50 -
Median hourly rate £17.50 £16.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% - -
75th Percentile £64.25 £34.69 -
90th Percentile £72.75 £53.48 -
North West median hourly rate £39.50 £42.75 £47.37
% change year-on-year -7.60% -9.75% +16.83%

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 223 232 127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 28.77% 34.73% 23.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 173 80
10th Percentile £263 £304 £350
25th Percentile £417 £358 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -11.71% +2.48%
75th Percentile £577 £638 £577
90th Percentile £630 £716 £638
North West median daily rate £524 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +4.75% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 13 0
10th Percentile £17.25 - -
25th Percentile £17.87 £15.50 -
Median hourly rate £32.23 £25.15 -
Median % change year-on-year +28.13% - -
75th Percentile £72.75 £67.25 -
90th Percentile £83.75 £87.45 -
North West median hourly rate £43.96 £27.38 £46.18
% change year-on-year +60.58% -40.72% +0.65%

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 28 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in Cheshire over the 6 months to 28 September 2026.

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 28 September 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 +20 33 £503 +16.30% 3
Warrington -1 16 £463 +54.17% 40
Chester -14 10 £525 -16.00% 17
Crewe -9 3 £525 +47.89% 4
Northwich - 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 13 (18.31%) Confluence
2 5 (7.04%) Camunda
3 4 (5.63%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.41%) JBoss
4 1 (1.41%) Mule
4 1 (1.41%) Mule ESB
4 1 (1.41%) Skype for Business
4 1 (1.41%) WebLogic
Applications
1 19 (26.76%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (5.63%) MS Visio
3 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 20 (28.17%) Azure
2 18 (25.35%) AWS
3 13 (18.31%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (15.49%) GCP
5 10 (14.08%) Entra ID
6 9 (12.68%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (9.86%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 7 (9.86%) Power Platform
8 6 (8.45%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (7.04%) OpenShift
10 4 (5.63%) AWS KMS
10 4 (5.63%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (5.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 3 (4.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 3 (4.23%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (4.23%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (4.23%) AWS CloudTrail
11 3 (4.23%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (4.23%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (4.23%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 14 (19.72%) Firewall
2 12 (16.90%) VPN
3 6 (8.45%) Network Security
3 6 (8.45%) Wireless
4 5 (7.04%) DNS
4 5 (7.04%) WAN
5 4 (5.63%) BGP
5 4 (5.63%) MPLS
5 4 (5.63%) OSPF
5 4 (5.63%) SSL
5 4 (5.63%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (4.23%) FTP
6 3 (4.23%) SSH
7 2 (2.82%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (2.82%) DMZ
7 2 (2.82%) IPsec
7 2 (2.82%) L2TP
7 2 (2.82%) LAN
7 2 (2.82%) VLAN
7 2 (2.82%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (7.04%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.82%) Power BI
3 1 (1.41%) Apache Cassandra
3 1 (1.41%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.41%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.41%) RDBMS
3 1 (1.41%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (21.13%) JIRA
2 6 (8.45%) GitLab
3 5 (7.04%) Jenkins
3 5 (7.04%) JUnit
3 5 (7.04%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (5.63%) Bitbucket Server
4 4 (5.63%) Gradle
4 4 (5.63%) Maven
4 4 (5.63%) Mockito
4 4 (5.63%) REST Assured
4 4 (5.63%) SonarQube
5 2 (2.82%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.41%) Bitbucket
6 1 (1.41%) Eclipse
6 1 (1.41%) Git
6 1 (1.41%) Postman
6 1 (1.41%) Robot Framework
6 1 (1.41%) Selenium
General
1 26 (36.62%) Finance
2 20 (28.17%) Social Skills
3 11 (15.49%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (14.08%) Banking
5 4 (5.63%) Pharmaceutical
6 3 (4.23%) Automotive
6 3 (4.23%) Legal
7 2 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.82%) Manufacturing
7 2 (2.82%) Marketing
8 1 (1.41%) German Language
8 1 (1.41%) Local Government
8 1 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.41%) Publishing
8 1 (1.41%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 15 (21.13%) Security Engineer
2 12 (16.90%) Analyst
2 12 (16.90%) Cloud Engineer
3 7 (9.86%) Cloud Security Engineer
3 7 (9.86%) Senior
4 6 (8.45%) IT Analyst
4 6 (8.45%) IT Operations Analyst
4 6 (8.45%) Operations Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Business Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Developer
5 5 (7.04%) IT Support
5 5 (7.04%) IT Support Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Network Engineer
5 5 (7.04%) Operational Support Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Operations Support Analyst
5 5 (7.04%) Support Analyst
6 4 (5.63%) Consultant
6 4 (5.63%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 4 (5.63%) Support Engineer
7 3 (4.23%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (15.49%) Terraform
2 4 (5.63%) 802.1X
2 4 (5.63%) CSS
2 4 (5.63%) Hibernate
2 4 (5.63%) HTML
2 4 (5.63%) JPA
2 4 (5.63%) Kafka
2 4 (5.63%) React
2 4 (5.63%) Redux
2 4 (5.63%) Spring Boot
3 3 (4.23%) ARM Templates
3 3 (4.23%) Azure Blueprints
4 2 (2.82%) LangChain
4 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (2.82%) PyTorch
4 2 (2.82%) scikit-learn
5 1 (1.41%) Gherkin
5 1 (1.41%) JSON
5 1 (1.41%) Playwright
5 1 (1.41%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 15 (21.13%) Management Information System
2 11 (15.49%) Security Posture
3 10 (14.08%) Cloud Native
4 8 (11.27%) PKI
5 6 (8.45%) Data Structures
6 5 (7.04%) Onboarding
7 4 (5.63%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (4.23%) Cloud Security Posture
8 3 (4.23%) Enterprise Cloud
8 3 (4.23%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (4.23%) Tandem
9 2 (2.82%) Life Science
9 2 (2.82%) Taxonomies
10 1 (1.41%) Client/Server
10 1 (1.41%) Cyber Security Posture
10 1 (1.41%) Driving Licence
10 1 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (1.41%) Freedom of Information
10 1 (1.41%) Operational Technology
10 1 (1.41%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 20 (28.17%) Linux
1 20 (28.17%) Windows
2 11 (15.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (8.45%) Unix
4 3 (4.23%) AIX
5 1 (1.41%) Android
5 1 (1.41%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.41%) CentOS
5 1 (1.41%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.41%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (39.44%) Agile
2 25 (35.21%) Computer Science
3 22 (30.99%) Change Management
4 20 (28.17%) DevOps
5 19 (26.76%) Problem-Solving
5 19 (26.76%) Scrum
6 17 (23.94%) CI/CD
7 16 (22.54%) ITIL
8 14 (19.72%) AI
8 14 (19.72%) Incident Management
9 13 (18.31%) Cloud Security
9 13 (18.31%) Cybersecurity
9 13 (18.31%) SIEM
10 12 (16.90%) Roadmaps
10 12 (16.90%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (15.49%) Incident Response
12 10 (14.08%) Cryptography
12 10 (14.08%) Project Delivery
12 10 (14.08%) User Stories
13 9 (12.68%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 25 (35.21%) Python
2 23 (32.39%) PowerShell
3 15 (21.13%) Java
4 13 (18.31%) Bash
5 11 (15.49%) SQL
6 6 (8.45%) Bicep
7 5 (7.04%) JavaScript
8 2 (2.82%) Perl
8 2 (2.82%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (2.82%) Shell Script
9 1 (1.41%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (1.41%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 17 (23.94%) Computer Science Degree
2 15 (21.13%) CISSP
3 9 (12.68%) AWS Certification
4 8 (11.27%) Azure Certification
5 7 (9.86%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (7.04%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (7.04%) Security Cleared
7 4 (5.63%) CCNP
7 4 (5.63%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (4.23%) CISM
9 2 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (2.82%) CEH
9 2 (2.82%) Chartered Engineer
9 2 (2.82%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (2.82%) DBS Check
9 2 (2.82%) HNC
9 2 (2.82%) HND
9 2 (2.82%) IIBA
9 2 (2.82%) OSCP
9 2 (2.82%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (9.86%) NIST
2 5 (7.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (5.63%) GDPR
4 3 (4.23%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (4.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 2 (2.82%) IEC 61508
5 2 (2.82%) PCI DSS
5 2 (2.82%) SLA
6 1 (1.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (1.41%) Data Quality
6 1 (1.41%) HIPAA
6 1 (1.41%) QA
6 1 (1.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 8 (11.27%) Active Directory
1 8 (11.27%) Docker
2 3 (4.23%) NFS
2 3 (4.23%) Veritas Volume Manager
3 2 (2.82%) Firmware
3 2 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (15.49%) Kubernetes
1 11 (15.49%) Progress Chef
2 4 (5.63%) Ansible
3 3 (4.23%) PowerBroker
3 3 (4.23%) Tivoli
3 3 (4.23%) Tivoli Storage Manager
4 2 (2.82%) Functional Safety
4 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.41%) CASB
5 1 (1.41%) QRadar
Vendors
1 16 (22.54%) Microsoft
2 10 (14.08%) Google
2 10 (14.08%) Red Hat
3 9 (12.68%) IBM
3 9 (12.68%) Splunk
4 8 (11.27%) Cisco
5 6 (8.45%) Bomgar
6 5 (7.04%) Oracle
6 5 (7.04%) Veracode
7 4 (5.63%) Fortinet
7 4 (5.63%) ServiceNow
7 4 (5.63%) Thales
8 3 (4.23%) Gemalto
8 3 (4.23%) Veritas
9 2 (2.82%) Forcepoint
9 2 (2.82%) HP
9 2 (2.82%) Juniper
9 2 (2.82%) McAfee
9 2 (2.82%) Remedy
9 2 (2.82%) Salesforce