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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 17 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Degree 73 65 56
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 8.78% 10.42% 11.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 30.17% 36.31% 50.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 51 37
10th Percentile £303 £270 £360
25th Percentile £417 £325 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £420 £550
Median % change year-on-year +13.10% -23.64% +6.28%
75th Percentile £588 £490 £576
90th Percentile £629 £638 £624
North West median daily rate £465 £457 £550
% change year-on-year +1.81% -16.95% +15.79%
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 £34.50 £48.56
% change year-on-year +0.72% -28.95% +21.40%

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 242 179 111
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 29.12% 28.69% 22.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 138 72
10th Percentile £263 £305 £351
25th Percentile £401 £338 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £431 £528
Median % change year-on-year +14.09% -18.25% -1.40%
75th Percentile £550 £519 £575
90th Percentile £630 £638 £638
North West median daily rate £515 £492 £505
% change year-on-year +4.67% -2.48% -3.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 10 0
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.23 -
25th Percentile £19.31 £26.36 -
Median hourly rate £34.02 £32.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +4.68% - -
75th Percentile £83.75 £36.06 -
90th Percentile £96.13 £67.25 -
North West median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £31.50
% change year-on-year +50.19% -7.08% -25.88%

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 1 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
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 1 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 +22 37 £459 +8.77% 4
Chester -15 12 £525 +61.54% 7
Warrington -6 11 £450 +50.00% 36
Crewe -6 3 £525 +47.89% 3
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 14 (19.18%) Confluence
2 5 (6.85%) Camunda
3 4 (5.48%) SharePoint
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 25 (34.25%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (5.48%) MS Visio
3 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 19 (26.03%) AWS
2 18 (24.66%) Azure
3 11 (15.07%) GCP
3 11 (15.07%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (9.59%) Azure Sentinel
4 7 (9.59%) Entra ID
5 6 (8.22%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 5 (6.85%) AWS CloudFormation
6 5 (6.85%) OpenShift
6 5 (6.85%) Power Platform
7 4 (5.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 3 (4.11%) AWS KMS
8 3 (4.11%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (2.74%) Amazon ECS
9 2 (2.74%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (2.74%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (2.74%) IBM Watson
9 2 (2.74%) Serverless
9 2 (2.74%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 16 (21.92%) Firewall
2 12 (16.44%) VPN
3 9 (12.33%) Wireless
4 8 (10.96%) Network Security
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 5 (6.85%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.74%) Power BI
2 2 (2.74%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.37%) Apache Cassandra
3 1 (1.37%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.37%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.37%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 20 (27.40%) JIRA
2 6 (8.22%) GitLab
3 5 (6.85%) JUnit
4 4 (5.48%) Jenkins
4 4 (5.48%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (4.11%) Bitbucket Server
5 3 (4.11%) Gradle
5 3 (4.11%) Maven
5 3 (4.11%) Mockito
5 3 (4.11%) REST Assured
5 3 (4.11%) SonarQube
6 2 (2.74%) Cucumber
6 2 (2.74%) Git
7 1 (1.37%) Bitbucket
7 1 (1.37%) Eclipse
7 1 (1.37%) IntelliJ
7 1 (1.37%) Postman
7 1 (1.37%) Robot Framework
7 1 (1.37%) Selenium
General
1 28 (38.36%) Finance
2 21 (28.77%) Social Skills
3 12 (16.44%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (15.07%) Banking
5 4 (5.48%) Legal
6 3 (4.11%) Automotive
7 2 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.74%) Manufacturing
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
8 1 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.37%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.37%) Publishing
8 1 (1.37%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 15 (20.55%) Analyst
2 12 (16.44%) Security Engineer
3 9 (12.33%) Cloud Engineer
4 6 (8.22%) Business Analyst
4 6 (8.22%) Cloud Security Engineer
4 6 (8.22%) Consultant
4 6 (8.22%) IT Analyst
4 6 (8.22%) IT Operations Analyst
4 6 (8.22%) Network Engineer
4 6 (8.22%) Operations Analyst
5 5 (6.85%) Developer
5 5 (6.85%) IT Support
5 5 (6.85%) IT Support Analyst
5 5 (6.85%) Operational Support Analyst
5 5 (6.85%) Operations Support Analyst
5 5 (6.85%) Security Consultant
5 5 (6.85%) Senior
5 5 (6.85%) Support Analyst
5 5 (6.85%) Support Engineer
6 4 (5.48%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (13.70%) Terraform
2 4 (5.48%) 802.1X
2 4 (5.48%) HTML
2 4 (5.48%) JPA
2 4 (5.48%) Kafka
2 4 (5.48%) React
2 4 (5.48%) Spring Boot
3 3 (4.11%) CSS
3 3 (4.11%) Hibernate
3 3 (4.11%) Redux
4 2 (2.74%) ARM Templates
4 2 (2.74%) Azure Blueprints
4 2 (2.74%) LangChain
4 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (2.74%) Middleware
4 2 (2.74%) PyTorch
4 2 (2.74%) scikit-learn
5 1 (1.37%) .NET
5 1 (1.37%) Web Services
5 1 (1.37%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (20.55%) Management Information System
2 9 (12.33%) Cloud Native
2 9 (12.33%) Security Posture
3 8 (10.96%) PKI
4 5 (6.85%) Data Structures
5 4 (5.48%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (4.11%) Enterprise Cloud
6 3 (4.11%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (4.11%) Onboarding
6 3 (4.11%) Tandem
7 2 (2.74%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (1.37%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (1.37%) Driving Licence
8 1 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (1.37%) Freedom of Information
8 1 (1.37%) Infotainment
8 1 (1.37%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (1.37%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.37%) Product Ownership
8 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 29 (39.73%) Agile
2 25 (34.25%) Change Management
2 25 (34.25%) Computer Science
3 20 (27.40%) DevOps
3 20 (27.40%) ITIL
3 20 (27.40%) Problem-Solving
4 17 (23.29%) Scrum
5 16 (21.92%) CI/CD
6 15 (20.55%) Incident Management
7 14 (19.18%) AI
8 13 (17.81%) Roadmaps
9 12 (16.44%) Cloud Security
9 12 (16.44%) Cryptography
9 12 (16.44%) SIEM
9 12 (16.44%) Stakeholder Management
10 11 (15.07%) Cybersecurity
11 10 (13.70%) Generative AI
11 10 (13.70%) Project Delivery
12 9 (12.33%) SDLC
12 9 (12.33%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 25 (34.25%) Python
2 21 (28.77%) PowerShell
3 15 (20.55%) Java
4 12 (16.44%) Bash
5 10 (13.70%) SQL
6 5 (6.85%) Bicep
7 4 (5.48%) JavaScript
8 2 (2.74%) Perl
8 2 (2.74%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (2.74%) Shell Script
9 1 (1.37%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (1.37%) PL/SQL
9 1 (1.37%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 17 (23.29%) Computer Science Degree
2 16 (21.92%) CISSP
3 8 (10.96%) AWS Certification
3 8 (10.96%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (9.59%) Azure Certification
4 7 (9.59%) CCNP
5 5 (6.85%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (5.48%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (5.48%) Security Cleared
7 3 (4.11%) CCNA
7 3 (4.11%) CEH
7 3 (4.11%) CISM
7 3 (4.11%) CompTIA Security+
7 3 (4.11%) SC Cleared
8 2 (2.74%) CCIE
8 2 (2.74%) GIAC
8 2 (2.74%) IIBA
8 2 (2.74%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 2 (2.74%) OSCP
9 1 (1.37%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (10.96%) NIST
2 6 (8.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (5.48%) GDPR
4 3 (4.11%) PCI DSS
4 3 (4.11%) SLA
5 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (1.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (1.37%) Data Quality
6 1 (1.37%) GRC
6 1 (1.37%) HIPAA
6 1 (1.37%) ISO 20022
6 1 (1.37%) PSD2
6 1 (1.37%) QA
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 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (1.37%) CASB
6 1 (1.37%) QRadar
Vendors
1 14 (19.18%) Microsoft
2 12 (16.44%) Splunk
3 11 (15.07%) Cisco
4 9 (12.33%) Google
4 9 (12.33%) Red Hat
5 8 (10.96%) IBM
6 7 (9.59%) ServiceNow
7 6 (8.22%) Bomgar
8 5 (6.85%) ForeScout
8 5 (6.85%) Oracle
9 4 (5.48%) CyberArk
9 4 (5.48%) Fortinet
9 4 (5.48%) Thales
9 4 (5.48%) Veracode
10 3 (4.11%) Broadcom
10 3 (4.11%) Gemalto
10 3 (4.11%) Veritas
11 2 (2.74%) HP
11 2 (2.74%) Juniper
11 2 (2.74%) Salesforce