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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,237 2,011 2,813
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.99% 7.37% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.81% 23.82% 25.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,198 1,203 1,619
10th Percentile £204 £250 £251
25th Percentile £363 £379 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -4.23%
75th Percentile £600 £643 £638
90th Percentile £713 £752 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 156 289
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.12 £18.31
25th Percentile £27.45 £27.25 £26.88
Median hourly rate £49.25 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.88% -19.05% -3.55%
75th Percentile £83.56 £70.04 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.50 £44.51 £47.50
% change year-on-year +2.23% -6.30% -12.84%

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 14,150 8,443 10,837
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.54% 30.93% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,548 5,329 6,840
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £719 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,053 615 885
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.30 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.44% -41.16% -23.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -25.00%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 -21 943 £525 -4.55% 1,530
South East +3 466 £500 +4.71% 628
North of England -15 323 £449 +0.45% 383
Midlands -25 195 £500 +18.34% 249
North West -13 181 £447 -3.35% 186
East of England -4 147 £450 - 224
West Midlands -33 145 £492 +9.33% 141
Yorkshire -9 125 £475 +12.43% 130
South West -26 119 £415 -7.78% 205
East Midlands -14 48 £515 +43.85% 108
North East -37 17 £450 +130.77% 70
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
1 130 (5.81%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.87%) Confluence
3 57 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.30%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.80%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 253 (11.31%) Microsoft Office
2 214 (9.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 127 (5.68%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.41%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.089%) Sketch
12 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 57 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.63%) Primavera
3 11 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
11 2 (0.089%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 516 (23.07%) Azure
2 285 (12.74%) AWS
3 196 (8.76%) Power Platform
4 194 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
5 145 (6.48%) Entra ID
6 116 (5.19%) GCP
7 95 (4.25%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.26%) SaaS
9 54 (2.41%) GitHub
10 39 (1.74%) Snowflake
11 38 (1.70%) Serverless
12 37 (1.65%) Figma
13 36 (1.61%) PowerApps
14 34 (1.52%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.48%) OneDrive
16 31 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
17 27 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
18 25 (1.12%) IaaS
18 25 (1.12%) PaaS
19 22 (0.98%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.51%) Firewall
2 71 (3.17%) TCP/IP
3 67 (3.00%) DNS
4 62 (2.77%) Network Security
5 56 (2.50%) VPN
6 41 (1.83%) WAN
7 39 (1.74%) LAN
8 37 (1.65%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.89%) BGP
12 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
13 17 (0.76%) OSPF
14 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.63%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) SSH
14 14 (0.63%) VLAN
15 13 (0.58%) SSL
16 12 (0.54%) MPLS
16 12 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (7.38%) Power BI
2 105 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.10%) Relational Database
5 43 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.61%) Metadata
6 36 (1.61%) Tableau
7 31 (1.39%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.25%) Big Data
9 25 (1.12%) MongoDB
10 23 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.98%) MySQL
12 19 (0.85%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.58%) Power Query
15 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
15 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 10 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 187 (8.36%) JIRA
2 108 (4.83%) Git
3 46 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.70%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.80%) MLflow
7 16 (0.72%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.63%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 8 (0.36%) Postman
13 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
15 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 977 (43.67%) Social Skills
2 665 (29.73%) Finance
3 485 (21.68%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 174 (7.78%) Banking
6 141 (6.30%) Organisational Skills
7 96 (4.29%) Marketing
8 91 (4.07%) Legal
8 91 (4.07%) Presentation Skills
9 89 (3.98%) Aerospace
10 85 (3.80%) Manufacturing
11 79 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
12 77 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
13 67 (3.00%) Telecoms
14 62 (2.77%) Retail
15 55 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.32%) Law
17 37 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
18 33 (1.48%) Front Office
19 32 (1.43%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 313 (13.99%) Analyst
2 251 (11.22%) Senior
3 172 (7.69%) Lead
4 170 (7.60%) Architect
5 150 (6.71%) Developer
6 142 (6.35%) Project Manager
7 135 (6.03%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.17%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.68%) Consultant
10 58 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
11 55 (2.46%) Designer
12 54 (2.41%) IT Manager
13 53 (2.37%) IT Support
14 51 (2.28%) Software Engineer
15 50 (2.24%) Product Manager
16 49 (2.19%) Technical Support
17 48 (2.15%) IT Analyst
17 48 (2.15%) Support Engineer
18 43 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
18 43 (1.92%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.89%) REST
2 85 (3.80%) .NET
3 57 (2.55%) React
4 43 (1.92%) Kafka
5 36 (1.61%) OAuth
6 33 (1.48%) .NET Framework
6 33 (1.48%) Middleware
6 33 (1.48%) RESTful
7 32 (1.43%) HTML
8 31 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.34%) Web Services
10 28 (1.25%) SAML
10 28 (1.25%) Spring
11 27 (1.21%) AngularJS
11 27 (1.21%) LDAP
12 26 (1.16%) JSON
12 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
13 25 (1.12%) CSS
13 25 (1.12%) XML
14 24 (1.07%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 177 (7.91%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.48%) Onboarding
3 135 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 96 (4.29%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.93%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.68%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.37%) Data Structures
8 52 (2.32%) Virtual Team
9 51 (2.28%) Algorithms
10 49 (2.19%) Security Posture
11 46 (2.06%) Operational Technology
12 37 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
13 36 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
14 35 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
15 34 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.52%) Life Science
15 34 (1.52%) Robotics
16 32 (1.43%) PMI
17 31 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.34%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 297 (13.28%) Windows
2 168 (7.51%) Linux
3 72 (3.22%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.86%) Unix
5 47 (2.10%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 24 (1.07%) Android
10 12 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.13%) Rocky
15 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (33.39%) Computer Science
2 633 (28.30%) Agile
3 589 (26.33%) Problem-Solving
4 392 (17.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 367 (16.41%) AI
7 298 (13.32%) DevOps
8 280 (12.52%) Project Management
9 276 (12.34%) Analytics
10 256 (11.44%) CI/CD
11 248 (11.09%) ITIL
12 243 (10.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 236 (10.55%) Decision-Making
14 228 (10.19%) Cybersecurity
15 201 (8.99%) Change Management
16 200 (8.94%) Roadmaps
17 190 (8.49%) Software Engineering
18 186 (8.31%) PRINCE2
18 186 (8.31%) Scrum
19 182 (8.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 375 (16.76%) Python
2 321 (14.35%) SQL
3 146 (6.53%) Java
4 139 (6.21%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.07%) C#
6 79 (3.53%) JavaScript
7 46 (2.06%) Bash
8 39 (1.74%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.21%) R
11 23 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.94%) Bicep
13 21 (0.94%) C
14 19 (0.85%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.40%) Perl
18 8 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 425 (19.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 405 (18.10%) Security Cleared
3 264 (11.80%) SC Cleared
4 208 (9.30%) Master's Degree
5 132 (5.90%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.14%) PMP
7 114 (5.10%) CISSP
8 102 (4.56%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.58%) Cisco Certification
10 68 (3.04%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.91%) Azure Certification
12 58 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.37%) CISM
14 49 (2.19%) PhD
15 39 (1.74%) CCNA
16 38 (1.70%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.61%) CCNP
17 36 (1.61%) CISA
18 34 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 29 (1.30%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.01%) QA
2 111 (4.96%) NIST
3 110 (4.92%) Data Quality
4 105 (4.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (4.29%) PMO
6 74 (3.31%) GDPR
7 46 (2.06%) SLA
8 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.07%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.03%) GRC
12 22 (0.98%) NCSC
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.40%) P3O
17 8 (0.36%) HIPAA
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 188 (8.40%) Active Directory
2 112 (5.01%) Docker
3 45 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 122 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.89%) Terraform
3 70 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.64%) Ansible
5 35 (1.56%) SCCM
6 29 (1.30%) Grafana
7 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.63%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 558 (24.94%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.53%) Oracle
3 130 (5.81%) SAP
4 129 (5.77%) ServiceNow
5 94 (4.20%) Google
6 64 (2.86%) Cisco
7 59 (2.64%) VMware
8 52 (2.32%) Databricks
9 48 (2.15%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.06%) Adobe
11 45 (2.01%) IBM
12 33 (1.48%) Citrix
12 33 (1.48%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.39%) Splunk
14 28 (1.25%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.21%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.94%) Siemens
17 20 (0.89%) Ariba
17 20 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
18 18 (0.80%) HP