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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -11 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,145 1,851 3,099
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.01% 7.50% 8.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.83% 24.00% 27.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,189 1,109 1,665
10th Percentile £212 £235 £235
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 138 372
10th Percentile £19.03 £18.03 £15.46
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.53 £24.16
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +24.22% -12.97%
75th Percentile £84.00 £71.92 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.23 £73.98
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.75%

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 13,554 7,711 11,445
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.22% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,107 4,840 7,054
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,029 489 1,011
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.00 £30.29 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +71.67% -26.60% -24.97%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.27 £80.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.69%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -18 920 £503 -8.64% 1,468
South East -1 396 £500 +5.26% 702
North of England -10 327 £447 -3.35% 473
Midlands -23 197 £523 +46.36% 290
North West -7 178 £418 -10.87% 272
West Midlands -28 143 £487 +17.94% 162
East of England -6 136 £450 -10.00% 264
Yorkshire -7 134 £500 +11.86% 145
South West -23 117 £469 -1.26% 293
East Midlands -16 52 £545 +55.71% 128
North East -36 15 £450 +130.77% 65
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
1 116 (5.41%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.90%) Confluence
3 63 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.45%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Apache
7 10 (0.47%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.28%) Camunda
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Appian
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.093%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 244 (11.38%) Microsoft Office
2 197 (9.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.73%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.42%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.047%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.047%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 51 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.65%) Primavera
3 11 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 466 (21.72%) Azure
2 276 (12.87%) AWS
3 186 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 171 (7.97%) Power Platform
5 124 (5.78%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.66%) GCP
7 78 (3.64%) SaaS
8 76 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (2.52%) GitHub
10 33 (1.54%) Figma
10 33 (1.54%) Serverless
11 32 (1.49%) Power Automate
12 31 (1.45%) OneDrive
12 31 (1.45%) PowerApps
12 31 (1.45%) Snowflake
13 30 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
13 30 (1.40%) Google Workspace
14 29 (1.35%) PaaS
15 25 (1.17%) IaaS
16 23 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 91 (4.24%) Firewall
2 61 (2.84%) DNS
2 61 (2.84%) TCP/IP
3 54 (2.52%) Network Security
4 45 (2.10%) LAN
4 45 (2.10%) WAN
5 38 (1.77%) VPN
6 32 (1.49%) DHCP
7 24 (1.12%) Wireless
8 20 (0.93%) BGP
8 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
9 18 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
10 17 (0.79%) OSPF
11 14 (0.65%) Skype
12 13 (0.61%) 3GPP
12 13 (0.61%) SSH
13 12 (0.56%) SAN
14 11 (0.51%) VoIP
14 11 (0.51%) VXLAN
15 10 (0.47%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.71%) Power BI
2 98 (4.57%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.19%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.77%) Tableau
7 31 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.40%) Metadata
9 29 (1.35%) Big Data
10 22 (1.03%) MongoDB
10 22 (1.03%) MySQL
11 19 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
12 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
13 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.51%) Power Query
17 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 183 (8.53%) JIRA
2 97 (4.52%) Git
3 39 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.77%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.89%) MLflow
6 19 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.65%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Gradle
8 12 (0.56%) JUnit
9 11 (0.51%) Postman
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.42%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.37%) Maven
13 7 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Subversion
14 6 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 985 (45.92%) Social Skills
2 671 (31.28%) Finance
3 433 (20.19%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.62%) Banking
5 181 (8.44%) Public Sector
6 121 (5.64%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.17%) Presentation Skills
8 96 (4.48%) Marketing
9 86 (4.01%) Legal
10 85 (3.96%) Aerospace
11 76 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
11 76 (3.54%) Manufacturing
12 69 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
13 56 (2.61%) Telecoms
14 53 (2.47%) Retail
15 50 (2.33%) Law
16 41 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 35 (1.63%) Front Office
18 31 (1.45%) Financial Institution
18 31 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 321 (14.97%) Analyst
2 246 (11.47%) Senior
3 165 (7.69%) Architect
4 160 (7.46%) Lead
5 147 (6.85%) Business Analyst
6 146 (6.81%) Developer
7 142 (6.62%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.03%) Solutions Architect
9 59 (2.75%) Consultant
10 58 (2.70%) Senior Analyst
10 58 (2.70%) Senior Manager
11 55 (2.56%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.47%) Designer
12 53 (2.47%) Software Engineer
13 52 (2.42%) Delivery Manager
14 49 (2.28%) Product Manager
15 44 (2.05%) IT Manager
16 41 (1.91%) IT Analyst
16 41 (1.91%) Security Engineer
17 40 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.34%) REST
2 77 (3.59%) .NET
3 55 (2.56%) React
4 46 (2.14%) Kafka
4 46 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.10%) Middleware
6 37 (1.72%) HTML
7 34 (1.59%) RESTful
8 33 (1.54%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.49%) OAuth
10 28 (1.31%) XML
11 27 (1.26%) Spring Boot
12 26 (1.21%) CSS
12 26 (1.21%) Web Services
13 25 (1.17%) JSON
13 25 (1.17%) Spring
14 23 (1.07%) AngularJS
14 23 (1.07%) SOAP
15 22 (1.03%) Pandas
15 22 (1.03%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 163 (7.60%) Management Information System
2 134 (6.25%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.87%) Product Ownership
4 87 (4.06%) Self-Motivation
5 77 (3.59%) Cloud Native
6 68 (3.17%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.47%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 46 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (2.05%) Algorithms
11 43 (2.00%) PMI
12 40 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
13 38 (1.77%) Security Posture
14 37 (1.72%) Operational Technology
14 37 (1.72%) Robotics
15 33 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
16 30 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
17 29 (1.35%) Derivative
18 27 (1.26%) Life Science
19 26 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 288 (13.43%) Windows
2 171 (7.97%) Linux
3 73 (3.40%) Unix
4 70 (3.26%) Windows Server
5 53 (2.47%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 27 (1.26%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.21%) Android
8 26 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.33%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.19%) Debian
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
14 4 (0.19%) VMS
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 715 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 604 (28.16%) Agile
3 548 (25.55%) Problem-Solving
4 351 (16.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 334 (15.57%) AI
5 334 (15.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 290 (13.52%) DevOps
7 262 (12.21%) Project Management
8 244 (11.38%) Analytics
8 244 (11.38%) CI/CD
9 227 (10.58%) Decision-Making
10 215 (10.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 206 (9.60%) Cybersecurity
12 199 (9.28%) Change Management
13 198 (9.23%) Roadmaps
14 196 (9.14%) ITIL
14 196 (9.14%) Migration
15 178 (8.30%) Risk Management
16 172 (8.02%) Project Delivery
17 170 (7.93%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 350 (16.32%) Python
2 323 (15.06%) SQL
3 147 (6.85%) Java
4 120 (5.59%) PowerShell
5 86 (4.01%) C#
6 84 (3.92%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.96%) Bash
8 41 (1.91%) C++
9 26 (1.21%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
10 23 (1.07%) R
11 18 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.79%) C
13 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
15 12 (0.56%) Go
15 12 (0.56%) Perl
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.47%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.47%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 440 (20.51%) Computer Science Degree
2 383 (17.86%) Security Cleared
3 261 (12.17%) SC Cleared
4 210 (9.79%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.25%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.36%) PMP
7 111 (5.17%) CISSP
8 83 (3.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (2.66%) CISM
12 51 (2.38%) DV Cleared
13 48 (2.24%) Azure Certification
14 40 (1.86%) PhD
15 37 (1.72%) CCNP
16 34 (1.59%) CBAP
17 33 (1.54%) CCNA
17 33 (1.54%) MBA
18 31 (1.45%) AWS Certification
19 30 (1.40%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (5.45%) QA
2 111 (5.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 111 (5.17%) NIST
3 96 (4.48%) PMO
4 92 (4.29%) GDPR
5 90 (4.20%) Data Quality
6 47 (2.19%) SLA
7 39 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.72%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.17%) GRC
11 18 (0.84%) NCSC
12 16 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.75%) IFRS
13 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
14 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.47%) COBIT
16 9 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
17 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 165 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 120 (5.59%) Docker
3 38 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.31%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 10 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.42%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.19%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.19%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.59%) Terraform
3 71 (3.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.89%) Ansible
5 34 (1.59%) Grafana
5 34 (1.59%) SCCM
6 32 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 16 (0.75%) Puppet
9 15 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.65%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.51%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Kibana
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Kiali
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
Vendors
1 497 (23.17%) Microsoft
2 156 (7.27%) Oracle
3 122 (5.69%) SAP
4 108 (5.03%) ServiceNow
5 85 (3.96%) Google
6 61 (2.84%) Cisco
7 47 (2.19%) Databricks
8 44 (2.05%) Citrix
9 43 (2.00%) VMware
10 42 (1.96%) Salesforce
11 41 (1.91%) Splunk
12 36 (1.68%) Adobe
13 35 (1.63%) IBM
14 29 (1.35%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.21%) CyberArk
16 23 (1.07%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.07%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.93%) Ariba
17 20 (0.93%) Siemens
18 19 (0.89%) Aruba