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 22 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 15 14
Rank change year-on-year -6 -1 -3
Contract jobs citing Degree 73 70 52
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 8.74% 11.01% 10.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 28.52% 37.63% 48.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 56 34
10th Percentile £304 £290 £383
25th Percentile £417 £333 £508
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £427 £550
Median % change year-on-year +11.06% -22.32% +15.79%
75th Percentile £600 £518 £576
90th Percentile £630 £638 £631
North West median daily rate £452 £464 £550
% change year-on-year -2.69% -15.64% +20.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 6 0
10th Percentile - £21.26 -
25th Percentile £17.25 £30.31 -
Median hourly rate £17.50 £32.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -46.15% - -
75th Percentile £17.75 £33.94 -
90th Percentile - £35.38 -
North West median hourly rate £34.75 £32.50 £52.19
% change year-on-year +6.92% -37.73% +29.66%

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 256 186 108
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 30.66% 29.25% 21.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 153 141 70
10th Percentile £270 £304 £350
25th Percentile £409 £348 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £447 £528
Median % change year-on-year +11.86% -15.26% +1.15%
75th Percentile £600 £537 £574
90th Percentile £638 £638 £642
North West median daily rate £513 £500 £506
% change year-on-year +2.50% -1.19% +1.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 11 0
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.87 -
25th Percentile £19.31 £27.58 -
Median hourly rate £34.02 £32.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +4.68% - -
75th Percentile £83.75 £52.00 -
90th Percentile £96.13 £67.25 -
North West median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £19.86
% change year-on-year +50.19% +47.38% -53.27%

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 22 August 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 22 August 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 +15 38 £453 +7.35% 1
Chester -17 12 £525 +13.51% 7
Warrington -5 10 £450 +210.34% 21
Crewe -3 3 £525 +47.89% 4
Northwich - 2 - - 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 11 (15.07%) Confluence
2 3 (4.11%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.74%) Camunda
4 1 (1.37%) JBoss
4 1 (1.37%) Mule
4 1 (1.37%) Mule ESB
4 1 (1.37%) Skype for Business
4 1 (1.37%) WebLogic
Applications
1 26 (35.62%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (4.11%) MS Visio
3 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 20 (27.40%) AWS
2 18 (24.66%) Azure
3 11 (15.07%) GCP
4 10 (13.70%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (9.59%) Azure Sentinel
6 6 (8.22%) Entra ID
6 6 (8.22%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 5 (6.85%) AWS CloudFormation
8 4 (5.48%) Power Platform
8 4 (5.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 3 (4.11%) AWS KMS
9 3 (4.11%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (4.11%) SaaS
10 2 (2.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (2.74%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (2.74%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (2.74%) AWS CloudTrail
10 2 (2.74%) OpenShift
10 2 (2.74%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (23.29%) Firewall
2 12 (16.44%) VPN
3 10 (13.70%) Network Security
4 9 (12.33%) Wireless
5 5 (6.85%) DNS
5 5 (6.85%) WAN
6 4 (5.48%) BGP
6 4 (5.48%) Internet
6 4 (5.48%) MPLS
6 4 (5.48%) OSPF
6 4 (5.48%) SSL
6 4 (5.48%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (4.11%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (4.11%) FTP
7 3 (4.11%) SSH
8 2 (2.74%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (2.74%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (2.74%) Multicast
8 2 (2.74%) VLAN
8 2 (2.74%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.74%) Power BI
1 2 (2.74%) Relational Database
1 2 (2.74%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.37%) Apache Cassandra
2 1 (1.37%) MongoDB
2 1 (1.37%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.37%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 18 (24.66%) JIRA
2 3 (4.11%) GitLab
3 2 (2.74%) Cucumber
3 2 (2.74%) Git
3 2 (2.74%) JUnit
4 1 (1.37%) Bitbucket
4 1 (1.37%) Eclipse
4 1 (1.37%) IntelliJ
4 1 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.37%) Postman
4 1 (1.37%) Robot Framework
4 1 (1.37%) Selenium
4 1 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 27 (36.99%) Finance
2 22 (30.14%) Social Skills
3 13 (17.81%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (12.33%) Banking
5 4 (5.48%) Legal
6 3 (4.11%) Automotive
6 3 (4.11%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.74%) Manufacturing
7 2 (2.74%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (2.74%) Public Sector
7 2 (2.74%) Publishing
8 1 (1.37%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.37%) German Language
8 1 (1.37%) Investment Banking
8 1 (1.37%) Local Government
8 1 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 15 (20.55%) Analyst
2 12 (16.44%) Security Engineer
3 9 (12.33%) Cloud Engineer
4 7 (9.59%) Business Analyst
5 6 (8.22%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 6 (8.22%) Consultant
5 6 (8.22%) IT Analyst
5 6 (8.22%) IT Operations Analyst
5 6 (8.22%) Network Engineer
5 6 (8.22%) Operations Analyst
6 5 (6.85%) IT Support
6 5 (6.85%) IT Support Analyst
6 5 (6.85%) Operational Support Analyst
6 5 (6.85%) Operations Support Analyst
6 5 (6.85%) Security Consultant
6 5 (6.85%) Senior
6 5 (6.85%) Support Analyst
6 5 (6.85%) Support Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Architect
7 3 (4.11%) Problem Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (13.70%) Terraform
2 4 (5.48%) 802.1X
3 2 (2.74%) ARM Templates
3 2 (2.74%) Azure Blueprints
3 2 (2.74%) LangChain
3 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Graph
3 2 (2.74%) Middleware
3 2 (2.74%) PyTorch
3 2 (2.74%) scikit-learn
4 1 (1.37%) .NET
4 1 (1.37%) HTML
4 1 (1.37%) HTML5
4 1 (1.37%) Jakarta EE
4 1 (1.37%) JPA
4 1 (1.37%) JSON
4 1 (1.37%) Playwright
4 1 (1.37%) REST
4 1 (1.37%) Spring
4 1 (1.37%) Web Services
4 1 (1.37%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (21.92%) Management Information System
2 9 (12.33%) Cloud Native
2 9 (12.33%) Security Posture
3 8 (10.96%) PKI
4 4 (5.48%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (4.11%) Enterprise Cloud
5 3 (4.11%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (4.11%) Onboarding
5 3 (4.11%) Product Ownership
5 3 (4.11%) Tandem
6 2 (2.74%) Cloud Security Posture
6 2 (2.74%) Data Structures
7 1 (1.37%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (1.37%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.37%) Freedom of Information
7 1 (1.37%) Infotainment
7 1 (1.37%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (1.37%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.37%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 21 (28.77%) Linux
1 21 (28.77%) Windows
2 10 (13.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (8.22%) Unix
4 3 (4.11%) AIX
5 1 (1.37%) Android
5 1 (1.37%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.37%) CentOS
5 1 (1.37%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (38.36%) Agile
2 27 (36.99%) Change Management
3 23 (31.51%) Computer Science
3 23 (31.51%) ITIL
4 20 (27.40%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (24.66%) DevOps
6 15 (20.55%) Incident Management
6 15 (20.55%) Scrum
7 14 (19.18%) AI
7 14 (19.18%) CI/CD
7 14 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
8 13 (17.81%) Roadmaps
8 13 (17.81%) SIEM
9 12 (16.44%) Cloud Security
9 12 (16.44%) Cryptography
10 11 (15.07%) Cybersecurity
10 11 (15.07%) Project Delivery
11 10 (13.70%) Generative AI
12 9 (12.33%) SDLC
12 9 (12.33%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 25 (34.25%) Python
2 21 (28.77%) PowerShell
3 12 (16.44%) Bash
3 12 (16.44%) Java
4 7 (9.59%) SQL
5 5 (6.85%) Bicep
6 2 (2.74%) Perl
6 2 (2.74%) Search Processing Language
6 2 (2.74%) Shell Script
7 1 (1.37%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.37%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (1.37%) PL/SQL
7 1 (1.37%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 16 (21.92%) CISSP
2 13 (17.81%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (10.96%) AWS Certification
3 8 (10.96%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (9.59%) Azure Certification
4 7 (9.59%) CCNP
5 6 (8.22%) ITIL Certification
6 5 (6.85%) Security Cleared
7 4 (5.48%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (4.11%) CCNA
8 3 (4.11%) CEH
8 3 (4.11%) CISM
8 3 (4.11%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (4.11%) SC Cleared
9 2 (2.74%) CCIE
9 2 (2.74%) GIAC
9 2 (2.74%) IIBA
9 2 (2.74%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 2 (2.74%) OSCP
9 2 (2.74%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (12.33%) NIST
2 6 (8.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (5.48%) GDPR
3 4 (5.48%) SLA
4 3 (4.11%) PCI DSS
5 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 2 (2.74%) GRC
5 2 (2.74%) QA
6 1 (1.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (1.37%) Data Quality
6 1 (1.37%) HIPAA
6 1 (1.37%) ISO 20022
6 1 (1.37%) PSD2
6 1 (1.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (1.37%) SEPA
System Software
1 9 (12.33%) Docker
2 5 (6.85%) Active Directory
3 3 (4.11%) NFS
3 3 (4.11%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 2 (2.74%) Firmware
4 2 (2.74%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (15.07%) Kubernetes
2 10 (13.70%) Progress Chef
3 7 (9.59%) Ansible
4 3 (4.11%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (4.11%) PowerBroker
4 3 (4.11%) Tivoli
4 3 (4.11%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 1 (1.37%) CASB
5 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.37%) QRadar
Vendors
1 14 (19.18%) Microsoft
1 14 (19.18%) Splunk
2 13 (17.81%) Cisco
3 10 (13.70%) ServiceNow
4 9 (12.33%) Google
4 9 (12.33%) Red Hat
5 6 (8.22%) Bomgar
5 6 (8.22%) ForeScout
5 6 (8.22%) Fortinet
6 5 (6.85%) IBM
6 5 (6.85%) Oracle
7 4 (5.48%) CyberArk
7 4 (5.48%) Thales
8 3 (4.11%) Broadcom
8 3 (4.11%) Gemalto
8 3 (4.11%) Veritas
9 2 (2.74%) Aruba
9 2 (2.74%) F5
9 2 (2.74%) Juniper
9 2 (2.74%) Salesforce