Degree Contract Job Trends in England

Academic Degree
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,147 1,878 3,126
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.27% 7.73% 8.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.33% 24.59% 27.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,261 1,116 1,651
10th Percentile £246 £250 £213
25th Percentile £382 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £512
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.54% -6.40%
75th Percentile £613 £664 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £503
% change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 139 374
10th Percentile £20.53 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.58 £27.20 £24.12
Median hourly rate £65.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.50% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.93
UK median hourly rate £56.50 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +5.61% +33.75% -11.11%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 13,151 7,637 11,442
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.27% 31.43% 31.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,841 4,850 7,059
10th Percentile £340 £290 £313
25th Percentile £425 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £626 £650
90th Percentile £725 £717 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 964 442 981
10th Percentile £17.09 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £40.72 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.76% +1.79% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.32 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £39.32 £40.00
% change year-on-year +20.91% -1.70% -25.93%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Degree job vacancy trend in England

Degree
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in England over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in England

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in England over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in England

Degree
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Degree within the England region over the 6 months to 9 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
London -17 906 £502 -8.82% 986
South East -4 367 £496 -0.20% 707
North of England -11 319 £417 -8.45% 437
Midlands -21 212 £500 +61.29% 314
North West -9 167 £400 -14.12% 230
West Midlands -24 148 £500 +66.67% 200
South West -11 140 £575 +18.80% 238
East of England -8 139 £450 -10.00% 203
Yorkshire -13 138 £474 +14.43% 148
East Midlands -11 62 £525 +47.47% 113
North East -26 14 £450 - 66
Degree
UK

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 144 (6.71%) Confluence
2 108 (5.03%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.58%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.28%) SAS
9 5 (0.23%) IIS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) Appian
12 2 (0.093%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 285 (13.27%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (9.87%) Microsoft Excel
3 174 (8.10%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.70%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.42%) Adobe After Effects
7 9 (0.42%) Simulink
7 9 (0.42%) Trello
8 8 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.28%) Sketch
10 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.093%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
11 2 (0.093%) InVision
Business Applications
1 50 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.70%) Primavera
4 14 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 443 (20.63%) Azure
2 256 (11.92%) AWS
3 184 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 172 (8.01%) Power Platform
5 102 (4.75%) Entra ID
6 92 (4.29%) SaaS
7 85 (3.96%) GCP
8 73 (3.40%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.42%) GitHub
10 34 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.54%) Google Workspace
11 33 (1.54%) PaaS
11 33 (1.54%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.49%) IaaS
13 28 (1.30%) Figma
14 27 (1.26%) Serverless
15 26 (1.21%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
17 23 (1.07%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.38%) Firewall
2 52 (2.42%) LAN
2 52 (2.42%) WAN
3 47 (2.19%) TCP/IP
4 44 (2.05%) DNS
5 42 (1.96%) Network Security
6 35 (1.63%) VPN
7 27 (1.26%) Wireless
8 24 (1.12%) BGP
9 21 (0.98%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.98%) OSPF
10 18 (0.84%) Skype
11 17 (0.79%) DHCP
12 16 (0.75%) HTTP
13 14 (0.65%) SAN
13 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) IPsec
15 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.47%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.71%) Power BI
2 87 (4.05%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
3 51 (2.38%) Relational Database
4 49 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.58%) Tableau
6 30 (1.40%) NoSQL
7 29 (1.35%) Big Data
7 29 (1.35%) Metadata
8 27 (1.26%) MySQL
9 19 (0.88%) MongoDB
10 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
10 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
12 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
12 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (0.56%) Power Query
14 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
15 10 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 240 (11.18%) JIRA
2 98 (4.56%) Git
3 40 (1.86%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.82%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.88%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.56%) Gradle
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.47%) Postman
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) JUnit
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.33%) Maven
14 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
General
1 1,007 (46.90%) Social Skills
2 655 (30.51%) Finance
3 464 (21.61%) Analytical Skills
4 200 (9.32%) Banking
5 176 (8.20%) Public Sector
6 116 (5.40%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.17%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.05%) Marketing
9 80 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
10 73 (3.40%) Legal
11 70 (3.26%) Aerospace
12 66 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
13 59 (2.75%) Manufacturing
14 55 (2.56%) Military
15 54 (2.52%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.42%) Law
17 47 (2.19%) Retail
18 37 (1.72%) Front Office
19 35 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 31 (1.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 296 (13.79%) Analyst
2 229 (10.67%) Senior
3 184 (8.57%) Architect
4 167 (7.78%) Lead
5 159 (7.41%) Project Manager
6 151 (7.03%) Developer
7 146 (6.80%) Business Analyst
8 63 (2.93%) Consultant
8 63 (2.93%) Delivery Manager
9 59 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
10 58 (2.70%) Technical Support
11 55 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.24%) Product Manager
12 48 (2.24%) Software Engineer
13 44 (2.05%) Designer
14 42 (1.96%) Senior Manager
15 41 (1.91%) Data Scientist
16 38 (1.77%) Data Engineer
16 38 (1.77%) Systems Engineer
17 37 (1.72%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.15%) REST
2 67 (3.12%) .NET
3 52 (2.42%) Middleware
4 50 (2.33%) React
5 43 (2.00%) Kafka
6 41 (1.91%) HTML
6 41 (1.91%) RESTful
7 39 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
8 35 (1.63%) XML
9 34 (1.58%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.54%) SOAP
11 31 (1.44%) Spring
12 29 (1.35%) CSS
13 27 (1.26%) JSON
13 27 (1.26%) OAuth
13 27 (1.26%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.21%) .NET Framework
14 26 (1.21%) Pandas
15 22 (1.02%) AngularJS
16 21 (0.98%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 159 (7.41%) Management Information System
2 156 (7.27%) Product Ownership
3 122 (5.68%) Onboarding
4 72 (3.35%) Cloud Native
5 66 (3.07%) Self-Motivation
6 59 (2.75%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.70%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.33%) Data Structures
8 50 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 50 (2.33%) PMI
9 47 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
10 45 (2.10%) Algorithms
11 39 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
12 38 (1.77%) Robotics
13 33 (1.54%) Operational Technology
14 30 (1.40%) Derivative
14 30 (1.40%) Security Posture
15 28 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
15 28 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
16 25 (1.16%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 252 (11.74%) Windows
2 162 (7.55%) Linux
3 68 (3.17%) Unix
4 65 (3.03%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.61%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.16%) Android
7 22 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (0.84%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 740 (34.47%) Computer Science
2 652 (30.37%) Agile
3 547 (25.48%) Problem-Solving
4 354 (16.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 313 (14.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 309 (14.39%) AI
7 303 (14.11%) Project Management
8 289 (13.46%) DevOps
9 238 (11.09%) CI/CD
10 225 (10.48%) Analytics
11 224 (10.43%) Decision-Making
12 220 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 206 (9.59%) Change Management
14 204 (9.50%) Migration
15 201 (9.36%) ITIL
16 199 (9.27%) Cybersecurity
17 192 (8.94%) Risk Management
18 185 (8.62%) PRINCE2
18 185 (8.62%) Roadmaps
19 182 (8.48%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 339 (15.79%) Python
2 321 (14.95%) SQL
3 149 (6.94%) Java
4 106 (4.94%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.96%) C#
6 73 (3.40%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.61%) C++
8 39 (1.82%) Bash
9 33 (1.54%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.35%) R
11 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 16 (0.75%) C
12 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.70%) Perl
14 14 (0.65%) Go
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 14 (0.65%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.42%) Scala
Qualifications
1 478 (22.26%) Computer Science Degree
2 421 (19.61%) Security Cleared
3 301 (14.02%) SC Cleared
4 237 (11.04%) Master's Degree
5 139 (6.47%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.68%) PMP
7 96 (4.47%) CISSP
8 78 (3.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.31%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.65%) TOGAF Certification
11 55 (2.56%) CISM
12 50 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
13 49 (2.28%) DV Cleared
14 45 (2.10%) PhD
15 44 (2.05%) Azure Certification
16 40 (1.86%) CCNP
17 35 (1.63%) MBA
18 32 (1.49%) CBAP
18 32 (1.49%) CCNA
19 26 (1.21%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.80%) QA
2 106 (4.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 105 (4.89%) PMO
4 100 (4.66%) NIST
5 98 (4.56%) GDPR
6 85 (3.96%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.33%) SLA
8 40 (1.86%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.82%) PCI DSS
10 26 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.02%) GRC
12 20 (0.93%) NCSC
13 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.65%) IFRS
15 13 (0.61%) Basel III
16 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.47%) COBIT
18 9 (0.42%) HIPAA
18 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 139 (6.47%) Active Directory
2 120 (5.59%) Docker
3 36 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.33%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.093%) HDFS
11 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.047%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.047%) Squid
12 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 131 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.45%) Terraform
3 60 (2.79%) Ansible
4 55 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.72%) SCCM
6 36 (1.68%) Grafana
7 30 (1.40%) OPNET
8 27 (1.26%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (0.79%) Puppet
11 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.56%) Kibana
13 11 (0.51%) Nmap
14 10 (0.47%) WSUS
15 9 (0.42%) Kiali
15 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
16 8 (0.37%) Nessus
17 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
18 6 (0.28%) Control-M
18 6 (0.28%) SCOM
Vendors
1 487 (22.68%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.89%) Oracle
3 120 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.50%) SAP
5 73 (3.40%) Google
6 68 (3.17%) Cisco
7 51 (2.38%) Splunk
8 49 (2.28%) Remedy
9 48 (2.24%) Databricks
10 42 (1.96%) VMware
11 41 (1.91%) Atlassian
11 41 (1.91%) Citrix
12 38 (1.77%) Salesforce
13 36 (1.68%) IBM
14 33 (1.54%) Adobe
15 32 (1.49%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.35%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.07%) Aruba
18 21 (0.98%) CyberArk
19 20 (0.93%) Siemens