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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,279 1,949 2,539
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.06% 7.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.25% 22.35% 26.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,181 1,103 1,451
10th Percentile £204 £263 £270
25th Percentile £356 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -0.99% -4.54%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £730 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 157 178
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.19 £27.16 £33.95
Median hourly rate £39.75 £38.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +3.25% -32.87% +14.70%
75th Percentile £69.63 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £39.32 £52.50
% change year-on-year +0.46% -25.10% +5.00%

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 14,943 8,720 9,547
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.11% 31.59% 29.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,993 5,545 5,856
10th Percentile £350 £304 £325
25th Percentile £445 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £714 £738
UK median daily rate £529 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,235 696 549
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.99 £18.03
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -54.27% +1.85%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.81 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.48 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -7.41%

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 23 September 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 23 September 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 23 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
London -21 980 £525 -4.55% 6,244
South East +6 465 £525 +10.53% 1,810
North of England -15 339 £475 +6.26% 1,182
North West -4 212 £475 +3.83% 651
Midlands -31 187 £450 -3.23% 838
West Midlands -26 139 £450 -5.26% 516
East of England -13 137 £350 -28.21% 862
South West -22 128 £400 -13.51% 735
Yorkshire -11 112 £500 +19.05% 361
East Midlands -24 47 £475 +6.26% 322
North East -35 15 £455 +30.65% 179
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
1 156 (6.85%) SharePoint
2 101 (4.43%) Confluence
3 62 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.18%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.83%) IIS
7 17 (0.75%) Apache
8 14 (0.61%) Camunda
8 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
9 11 (0.48%) CMS
10 8 (0.35%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Appian
14 3 (0.13%) nginx
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 218 (9.57%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 111 (4.87%) Microsoft Project
5 42 (1.84%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.39%) Revit
10 9 (0.39%) Windchill
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 39 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 525 (23.04%) Azure
2 288 (12.64%) AWS
3 217 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
4 212 (9.30%) Power Platform
5 147 (6.45%) GCP
6 135 (5.92%) Entra ID
7 116 (5.09%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.16%) SaaS
9 62 (2.72%) GitHub
10 56 (2.46%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.33%) Serverless
12 50 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
12 50 (2.19%) PowerApps
13 47 (2.06%) OneDrive
14 45 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
15 33 (1.45%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.40%) Figma
17 26 (1.14%) Azure AI
18 25 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.10%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.17%) Firewall
2 75 (3.29%) DNS
3 63 (2.76%) Network Security
4 58 (2.54%) TCP/IP
5 56 (2.46%) VPN
6 45 (1.97%) DHCP
7 33 (1.45%) WAN
8 32 (1.40%) LAN
9 25 (1.10%) Wireless
10 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.88%) 5G
12 19 (0.83%) Internet
12 19 (0.83%) SSH
13 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.75%) SSL
15 16 (0.70%) VLAN
15 16 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.66%) BGP
17 13 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (6.76%) Power BI
2 106 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.37%) Metadata
4 52 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 52 (2.28%) Relational Database
5 39 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.54%) MySQL
7 32 (1.40%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.32%) Tableau
9 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
9 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
10 22 (0.97%) Big Data
11 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.70%) GIS
14 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.61%) Data Mining
16 11 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
17 10 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 164 (7.20%) JIRA
2 133 (5.84%) Git
3 59 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.28%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) JUnit
6 23 (1.01%) Maven
7 22 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.92%) Gradle
9 20 (0.88%) Selenium
10 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.66%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.66%) Mockito
12 14 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.57%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.44%) Subversion
15 9 (0.39%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
16 8 (0.35%) MLflow
16 8 (0.35%) Postman
16 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,032 (45.28%) Social Skills
2 668 (29.31%) Finance
3 530 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (8.51%) Banking
5 179 (7.85%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.58%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.31%) Manufacturing
8 108 (4.74%) Aerospace
9 101 (4.43%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (3.95%) Marketing
11 80 (3.51%) Legal
11 80 (3.51%) Telecoms
12 75 (3.29%) Presentation Skills
13 68 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
14 59 (2.59%) Retail
15 58 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.24%) Law
17 48 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 45 (1.97%) Military
19 41 (1.80%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 306 (13.43%) Analyst
2 259 (11.36%) Senior
3 190 (8.34%) Developer
4 188 (8.25%) Lead
5 157 (6.89%) Architect
6 144 (6.32%) Business Analyst
7 110 (4.83%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.16%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.85%) IT Support
9 65 (2.85%) Senior Manager
10 54 (2.37%) Consultant
11 52 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (2.24%) IT Analyst
12 51 (2.24%) IT Manager
13 46 (2.02%) Security Engineer
14 44 (1.93%) Software Engineer
15 43 (1.89%) Designer
16 42 (1.84%) Technical Support
17 41 (1.80%) Administrator
18 40 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.65%) Terraform
2 101 (4.43%) REST
3 94 (4.12%) .NET
4 68 (2.98%) HTML
5 67 (2.94%) React
6 58 (2.54%) Kafka
7 56 (2.46%) CSS
8 49 (2.15%) RESTful
9 44 (1.93%) OAuth
10 43 (1.89%) XML
11 42 (1.84%) Middleware
11 42 (1.84%) Web Services
12 37 (1.62%) Spring Boot
13 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
14 35 (1.54%) .NET Framework
15 34 (1.49%) SAML
16 33 (1.45%) OAuth2
16 33 (1.45%) SOAP
17 32 (1.40%) OpenID
17 32 (1.40%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 209 (9.17%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.75%) Onboarding
3 110 (4.83%) Product Ownership
4 95 (4.17%) Cloud Native
5 90 (3.95%) Self-Motivation
6 57 (2.50%) Data Centre
7 56 (2.46%) Algorithms
8 52 (2.28%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.11%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
11 44 (1.93%) Operational Technology
12 41 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
13 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
13 40 (1.76%) Life Science
14 37 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
14 37 (1.62%) Virtual Team
15 36 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
16 31 (1.36%) SCADA
17 29 (1.27%) PMI
18 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 288 (12.64%) Windows
2 175 (7.68%) Linux
3 81 (3.55%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.85%) Unix
5 43 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
7 30 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 23 (1.01%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.26%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Solaris
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) zOS
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 734 (32.21%) Computer Science
2 634 (27.82%) Agile
3 607 (26.63%) Problem-Solving
4 487 (21.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 404 (17.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 372 (16.32%) AI
7 335 (14.70%) DevOps
8 295 (12.94%) Project Management
9 292 (12.81%) CI/CD
10 288 (12.64%) Analytics
11 263 (11.54%) ITIL
12 244 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (10.49%) Decision-Making
14 227 (9.96%) Roadmaps
15 225 (9.87%) Change Management
15 225 (9.87%) Scrum
16 221 (9.70%) Cybersecurity
17 217 (9.52%) Software Engineering
18 202 (8.86%) PRINCE2
19 198 (8.69%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 384 (16.85%) Python
2 332 (14.57%) SQL
3 169 (7.42%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.63%) Java
5 123 (5.40%) JavaScript
6 110 (4.83%) C#
7 59 (2.59%) Bash
8 41 (1.80%) C++
9 39 (1.71%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.23%) Bicep
11 27 (1.18%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.14%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.05%) C
13 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.05%) R
14 16 (0.70%) Scala
15 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.48%) X++
16 9 (0.39%) Go
16 9 (0.39%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 441 (19.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 432 (18.96%) Security Cleared
3 310 (13.60%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.47%) Master's Degree
5 143 (6.27%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.53%) PMP
7 119 (5.22%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.65%) CISSP
9 87 (3.82%) DV Cleared
10 82 (3.60%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (3.51%) Azure Certification
12 69 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.59%) PhD
14 52 (2.28%) CISM
15 48 (2.11%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 45 (1.97%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.58%) ISTQB
18 35 (1.54%) DBS Check
19 33 (1.45%) CCNA
19 33 (1.45%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.97%) QA
2 129 (5.66%) Data Quality
3 90 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (3.86%) NIST
5 81 (3.55%) PMO
6 71 (3.12%) GDPR
7 40 (1.76%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.49%) SLA
9 28 (1.23%) GRC
10 22 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
12 16 (0.70%) NCSC
13 14 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.48%) P3O
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 31000
16 9 (0.39%) IEC 61508
16 9 (0.39%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 184 (8.07%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.22%) Docker
3 57 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.18%) Firmware
5 24 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
8 9 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) NFS
12 4 (0.18%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) RACF
13 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 118 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.59%) Ansible
4 29 (1.27%) SCCM
5 27 (1.18%) Grafana
6 25 (1.10%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 9 (0.39%) CASB
13 8 (0.35%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
14 6 (0.26%) WSUS
15 5 (0.22%) Control-M
15 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 581 (25.49%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.11%) Oracle
3 139 (6.10%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.44%) SAP
5 101 (4.43%) Google
6 73 (3.20%) VMware
7 64 (2.81%) Cisco
8 58 (2.54%) Salesforce
9 52 (2.28%) Adobe
10 46 (2.02%) Databricks
11 40 (1.76%) IBM
11 40 (1.76%) Splunk
12 30 (1.32%) CyberArk
12 30 (1.32%) Red Hat
13 24 (1.05%) OpenAI
14 22 (0.97%) Citrix
15 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
16 20 (0.88%) Apple
16 20 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 18 (0.79%) Ariba