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 16 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,166 1,911 3,124
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.52% 7.83% 8.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.65% 24.92% 26.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,273 1,132 1,679
10th Percentile £263 £250 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -6.36%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £777 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £512
% change year-on-year - -2.41% -2.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 145 344
10th Percentile £17.38 £17.93 £14.00
25th Percentile £27.60 £29.00 £22.94
Median hourly rate £54.50 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £50.72 £54.00 £39.92
% change year-on-year -6.07% +35.27% -11.29%

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 13,009 7,668 11,682
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.13% 31.42% 31.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,728 4,902 7,218
10th Percentile £341 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £635 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £746
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -1.23% -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 425 938
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.20 £13.95
25th Percentile £20.82 £24.50 £17.73
Median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £39.44
Median % change year-on-year -9.08% +26.79% -24.19%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £75.77
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £38.95
% change year-on-year +1.02% +15.53% -27.87%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -13 938 £513 -6.82% 1,162
South East -4 359 £500 - 770
North of England -7 324 £412 -9.59% 627
Midlands -24 204 £500 +61.29% 363
North West -6 180 £400 -14.12% 406
West Midlands -29 146 £494 +64.50% 211
South West -8 143 £669 +27.38% 221
East of England -8 140 £498 -4.14% 317
Yorkshire -19 127 £475 +6.26% 166
East Midlands -16 57 £525 +47.47% 151
North East -19 18 £407 -4.24% 61
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
1 148 (6.83%) Confluence
2 107 (4.94%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.65%) Apache
7 9 (0.42%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Drupal
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Moodle
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 288 (13.30%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (10.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 182 (8.40%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.91%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.42%) Simulink
7 9 (0.42%) Trello
8 7 (0.32%) Sketch
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
11 3 (0.14%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.14%) Revit
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.046%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.046%) Weka
Business Applications
1 46 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.83%) Primavera
4 17 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) 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 Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.23%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 450 (20.78%) Azure
2 250 (11.54%) AWS
3 187 (8.63%) Microsoft 365
4 170 (7.85%) Power Platform
5 104 (4.80%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.62%) SaaS
7 99 (4.57%) GCP
8 79 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
9 56 (2.59%) GitHub
10 34 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.48%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.43%) PaaS
14 29 (1.34%) IaaS
15 27 (1.25%) PowerApps
15 27 (1.25%) Serverless
16 24 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
16 24 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
16 24 (1.11%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.85%) Firewall
2 58 (2.68%) LAN
3 57 (2.63%) WAN
4 46 (2.12%) DNS
5 45 (2.08%) TCP/IP
6 43 (1.99%) Network Security
7 36 (1.66%) VPN
8 29 (1.34%) Wireless
9 28 (1.29%) BGP
10 22 (1.02%) OSPF
11 21 (0.97%) DHCP
11 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.92%) HTTP
13 16 (0.74%) Skype
14 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.65%) Internet
15 14 (0.65%) VLAN
15 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.60%) SAN
16 13 (0.60%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (6.60%) Power BI
2 85 (3.92%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 46 (2.12%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.71%) Tableau
7 33 (1.52%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Big Data
9 27 (1.25%) MySQL
10 25 (1.15%) Metadata
11 18 (0.83%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 245 (11.31%) JIRA
2 95 (4.39%) Git
3 44 (2.03%) Jenkins
4 34 (1.57%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.97%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 17 (0.78%) MLflow
9 14 (0.65%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.60%) Postman
11 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.46%) Gradle
13 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.42%) JUnit
14 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.32%) TeamCity
16 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
General
1 1,044 (48.20%) Social Skills
2 657 (30.33%) Finance
3 490 (22.62%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (9.79%) Banking
5 173 (7.99%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.08%) Presentation Skills
7 106 (4.89%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.79%) Documentation Skills
9 80 (3.69%) Marketing
10 76 (3.51%) Influencing Skills
11 70 (3.23%) Aerospace
11 70 (3.23%) Legal
12 65 (3.00%) Manufacturing
13 53 (2.45%) Military
14 47 (2.17%) Retail
14 47 (2.17%) Telecoms
15 45 (2.08%) Law
16 44 (2.03%) Front Office
17 37 (1.71%) Investment Banking
18 35 (1.62%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 294 (13.57%) Analyst
2 217 (10.02%) Senior
3 179 (8.26%) Lead
4 175 (8.08%) Architect
5 162 (7.48%) Developer
6 159 (7.34%) Project Manager
7 143 (6.60%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.51%) Consultant
9 64 (2.95%) Delivery Manager
10 57 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
11 56 (2.59%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.26%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.22%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.03%) Product Manager
16 41 (1.89%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.75%) Data Engineer
18 37 (1.71%) Senior Manager
18 37 (1.71%) Systems Engineer
19 36 (1.66%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.16%) REST
2 63 (2.91%) .NET
3 48 (2.22%) Middleware
4 46 (2.12%) React
5 43 (1.99%) HTML
5 43 (1.99%) RESTful
6 42 (1.94%) Kafka
7 36 (1.66%) XML
8 34 (1.57%) JSON
8 34 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.57%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.52%) SOAP
10 31 (1.43%) Spring
11 29 (1.34%) OAuth
11 29 (1.34%) Pandas
12 28 (1.29%) CSS
12 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
13 25 (1.15%) .NET Framework
14 24 (1.11%) TensorFlow
15 22 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 170 (7.85%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.88%) Product Ownership
3 113 (5.22%) Onboarding
4 75 (3.46%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.28%) Virtual Team
6 66 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.82%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.49%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (2.26%) Data Structures
10 49 (2.26%) PMI
11 48 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.62%) Derivative
14 33 (1.52%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.48%) Robotics
16 31 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
17 28 (1.29%) Operational Technology
18 26 (1.20%) AI Agents
19 25 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 253 (11.68%) Windows
2 158 (7.29%) Linux
3 70 (3.23%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.72%) Unix
5 56 (2.59%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
6 20 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (0.88%) Android
8 13 (0.60%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.51%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 4 (0.18%) VMS
14 3 (0.14%) CentOS
14 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 776 (35.83%) Computer Science
2 681 (31.44%) Agile
3 571 (26.36%) Problem-Solving
4 357 (16.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 315 (14.54%) Project Management
6 313 (14.45%) AI
7 312 (14.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 304 (14.04%) DevOps
9 236 (10.90%) CI/CD
9 236 (10.90%) ITIL
10 234 (10.80%) Change Management
11 233 (10.76%) Analytics
11 233 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 219 (10.11%) Cybersecurity
12 219 (10.11%) Decision-Making
13 209 (9.65%) Migration
14 203 (9.37%) PRINCE2
15 200 (9.23%) Project Delivery
16 193 (8.91%) Risk Management
17 190 (8.77%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 352 (16.25%) Python
2 318 (14.68%) SQL
3 144 (6.65%) Java
4 115 (5.31%) PowerShell
5 77 (3.55%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.51%) C#
7 59 (2.72%) C++
8 39 (1.80%) Bash
9 36 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 27 (1.25%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.74%) C
13 16 (0.74%) Perl
14 15 (0.69%) Go
15 14 (0.65%) Rust
16 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 12 (0.55%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 492 (22.71%) Computer Science Degree
2 423 (19.53%) Security Cleared
3 307 (14.17%) SC Cleared
4 258 (11.91%) Master's Degree
5 131 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.40%) PMP
7 98 (4.52%) CISSP
8 83 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
9 60 (2.77%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (2.45%) CISM
11 51 (2.35%) Azure Certification
11 51 (2.35%) PhD
11 51 (2.35%) TOGAF Certification
12 48 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
13 47 (2.17%) DV Cleared
14 42 (1.94%) CCNP
15 34 (1.57%) MBA
16 31 (1.43%) AWS Certification
16 31 (1.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 30 (1.39%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.74%) QA
2 105 (4.85%) PMO
3 102 (4.71%) GDPR
4 100 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 93 (4.29%) NIST
6 77 (3.55%) Data Quality
7 44 (2.03%) PCI DSS
7 44 (2.03%) SLA
8 35 (1.62%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.97%) GRC
11 19 (0.88%) NCSC
12 13 (0.60%) Basel III
12 13 (0.60%) IFRS
13 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
14 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 147 (6.79%) Active Directory
2 122 (5.63%) Docker
3 44 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 19 (0.88%) Firmware
6 9 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.37%) vSphere
8 7 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.23%) XenApp
10 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
11 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
12 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
13 2 (0.092%) HDFS
13 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.046%) Squid
14 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 128 (5.91%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.69%) Terraform
3 63 (2.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.68%) Ansible
5 36 (1.66%) Grafana
6 35 (1.62%) SCCM
7 30 (1.39%) OPNET
8 26 (1.20%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.78%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.60%) Nmap
12 11 (0.51%) Kibana
13 10 (0.46%) SCOM
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
15 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
16 7 (0.32%) WSUS
17 6 (0.28%) Control-M
17 6 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 489 (22.58%) Microsoft
2 140 (6.46%) Oracle
3 124 (5.72%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.45%) SAP
5 85 (3.92%) Google
6 71 (3.28%) Cisco
7 51 (2.35%) Remedy
8 50 (2.31%) Splunk
8 50 (2.31%) VMware
9 46 (2.12%) Citrix
10 45 (2.08%) Databricks
11 44 (2.03%) Atlassian
12 37 (1.71%) IBM
12 37 (1.71%) Salesforce
13 35 (1.62%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.34%) CheckPoint
15 24 (1.11%) Adobe
16 22 (1.02%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.97%) Aruba
18 19 (0.88%) Siemens