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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,143 2,090 3,088
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.62% 7.79% 8.43%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.25% 25.59% 27.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,263 1,153 1,760
10th Percentile £296 £250 £215
25th Percentile £400 £401 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £640 £663 £649
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £504 £513
% change year-on-year -0.79% -1.66% -6.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 127 269
10th Percentile £14.48 £20.95 £14.04
25th Percentile £21.75 £30.23 £22.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +1.19% +3.70%
75th Percentile £59.96 £71.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £89.63 £85.00 £75.40
UK median hourly rate £34.25 £40.00 £40.59
% change year-on-year -14.38% -1.45% +1.48%

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 11,130 8,166 11,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.37% 30.43% 31.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,385 4,958 7,104
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.24% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 875 400 768
10th Percentile £15.92 £19.96 £14.22
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £48.40
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -4.59% +7.56%
75th Percentile £62.38 £67.56 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.47 £82.25 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.04 £48.40
% change year-on-year -35.58% -19.34% +7.56%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -4 1,003 £525 -4.55% 793
North of England -5 321 £450 -10.00% 606
South East -2 273 £475 -5.00% 1,203
Midlands -13 209 £500 +19.40% 469
North West +1 175 £400 -20.00% 282
South West +4 169 £650 +21.95% 436
West Midlands -16 150 £520 +12.43% 199
Yorkshire -15 136 £525 +5.00% 228
East of England -12 118 £528 +17.22% 519
East Midlands -9 59 £450 +26.40% 262
North East -15 11 £364 -27.20% 103
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
1 190 (8.87%) Confluence
2 110 (5.13%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) nginx
6 15 (0.70%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.56%) Apache
8 10 (0.47%) IIS
9 8 (0.37%) CMS
10 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.33%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.19%) Luigi
12 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 271 (12.65%) Microsoft Office
2 218 (10.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 173 (8.07%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.64%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.89%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) FrameMaker
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
8 10 (0.47%) Trello
9 9 (0.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.093%) Revit
15 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 31 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.98%) Primavera
4 18 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.70%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 10 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.47%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
12 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
12 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 429 (20.02%) Azure
2 265 (12.37%) AWS
3 189 (8.82%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (7.09%) Power Platform
5 137 (6.39%) GCP
6 100 (4.67%) SaaS
7 85 (3.97%) GitHub
8 79 (3.69%) Entra ID
9 69 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 62 (2.89%) Serverless
11 44 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 33 (1.54%) OCI
14 31 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
14 31 (1.45%) IaaS
15 29 (1.35%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.31%) PaaS
17 27 (1.26%) Amazon S3
18 26 (1.21%) Amazon ECS
19 24 (1.12%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.53%) Firewall
2 60 (2.80%) DNS
3 50 (2.33%) LAN
4 45 (2.10%) WAN
5 41 (1.91%) Network Security
6 40 (1.87%) VPN
7 31 (1.45%) HTTP
8 28 (1.31%) DHCP
9 26 (1.21%) Internet
9 26 (1.21%) TCP/IP
10 25 (1.17%) Skype
10 25 (1.17%) Wireless
11 23 (1.07%) SSH
12 21 (0.98%) BGP
13 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
14 18 (0.84%) OSPF
15 16 (0.75%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) VoIP
16 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.61%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (5.60%) Power BI
2 77 (3.59%) PostgreSQL
2 77 (3.59%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.52%) NoSQL
4 50 (2.33%) Relational Database
5 47 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.91%) Tableau
7 38 (1.77%) MySQL
8 26 (1.21%) Big Data
9 19 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
10 16 (0.75%) Metadata
10 16 (0.75%) MongoDB
11 15 (0.70%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 14 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (0.56%) GIS
13 12 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 11 (0.51%) Amazon Aurora
14 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 266 (12.41%) JIRA
2 105 (4.90%) Git
3 75 (3.50%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.47%) GitLab
5 24 (1.12%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.98%) Liquibase
7 20 (0.93%) Postman
8 17 (0.79%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) JUnit
11 10 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.47%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.47%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.42%) CircleCI
12 9 (0.42%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.33%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.33%) Gradle
14 7 (0.33%) MLflow
General
1 1,119 (52.22%) Social Skills
2 697 (32.52%) Finance
3 518 (24.17%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (11.67%) Banking
5 157 (7.33%) Public Sector
6 103 (4.81%) Presentation Skills
7 85 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (3.92%) Manufacturing
9 74 (3.45%) Marketing
10 71 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (3.22%) Legal
12 65 (3.03%) Military
13 59 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
14 57 (2.66%) Financial Institution
15 48 (2.24%) Front Office
16 46 (2.15%) Investment Banking
17 43 (2.01%) Telecoms
18 39 (1.82%) Law
19 38 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
20 35 (1.63%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 309 (14.42%) Analyst
2 228 (10.64%) Senior
3 216 (10.08%) Developer
4 171 (7.98%) Lead
5 156 (7.28%) Architect
6 149 (6.95%) Business Analyst
7 144 (6.72%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.78%) Software Engineer
9 79 (3.69%) Consultant
10 60 (2.80%) Technical Support
11 54 (2.52%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.33%) IT Support
12 50 (2.33%) Support Analyst
13 45 (2.10%) Security Engineer
14 41 (1.91%) Senior Software Engineer
15 37 (1.73%) Senior Developer
16 35 (1.63%) Senior Analyst
16 35 (1.63%) Support Engineer
16 35 (1.63%) Technical Analyst
17 34 (1.59%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (5.23%) REST
2 79 (3.69%) RESTful
3 71 (3.31%) .NET
4 65 (3.03%) HTML
5 54 (2.52%) XML
6 46 (2.15%) CSS
7 44 (2.05%) Elastic Stack
7 44 (2.05%) Middleware
8 43 (2.01%) JSON
9 42 (1.96%) React
10 41 (1.91%) OAuth
11 35 (1.63%) SOAP
12 34 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
13 33 (1.54%) Kafka
14 29 (1.35%) AngularJS
15 26 (1.21%) Node.js
15 26 (1.21%) Spring
16 25 (1.17%) Pandas
17 24 (1.12%) TensorFlow
18 23 (1.07%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 191 (8.91%) Management Information System
2 115 (5.37%) Product Ownership
3 100 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 76 (3.55%) Onboarding
5 63 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
6 60 (2.80%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.66%) Data Centre
8 56 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
9 51 (2.38%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.33%) PMI
11 43 (2.01%) Derivative
12 42 (1.96%) Security Posture
13 37 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
13 37 (1.73%) Public Cloud
14 33 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
14 33 (1.54%) Life Science
15 29 (1.35%) Equities
15 29 (1.35%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 256 (11.95%) Windows
2 184 (8.59%) Linux
3 82 (3.83%) Unix
4 63 (2.94%) Windows Server
5 52 (2.43%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.07%) Android
7 21 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 19 (0.89%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.84%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
10 15 (0.70%) VMS
10 15 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 10 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
15 3 (0.14%) Windows 7
16 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 807 (37.66%) Computer Science
2 726 (33.88%) Agile
3 631 (29.44%) Problem-Solving
4 366 (17.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 338 (15.77%) DevOps
6 323 (15.07%) Project Management
7 268 (12.51%) Change Management
8 251 (11.71%) AI
9 245 (11.43%) CI/CD
10 236 (11.01%) Continuous Improvement
11 226 (10.55%) ITIL
12 223 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
13 218 (10.17%) Analytics
14 217 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 209 (9.75%) Software Engineering
16 206 (9.61%) Migration
16 206 (9.61%) Risk Management
17 204 (9.52%) Decision-Making
18 194 (9.05%) Project Delivery
19 175 (8.17%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 399 (18.62%) Python
2 332 (15.49%) SQL
3 154 (7.19%) Java
4 124 (5.79%) PowerShell
5 116 (5.41%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.87%) C#
7 81 (3.78%) C++
8 52 (2.43%) TypeScript
9 44 (2.05%) Go
10 42 (1.96%) Bash
11 25 (1.17%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.17%) R
12 24 (1.12%) Perl
13 20 (0.93%) C
13 20 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 18 (0.84%) Kotlin
15 16 (0.75%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.65%) Rust
17 13 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
18 12 (0.56%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 560 (26.13%) Computer Science Degree
2 381 (17.78%) Security Cleared
3 325 (15.17%) Master's Degree
4 298 (13.91%) SC Cleared
5 148 (6.91%) PMI Certification
6 130 (6.07%) PMP
7 110 (5.13%) CISSP
8 86 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.41%) CISM
10 63 (2.94%) Azure Certification
10 63 (2.94%) PhD
11 57 (2.66%) TOGAF Certification
12 55 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
13 51 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
14 49 (2.29%) DV Cleared
15 43 (2.01%) AWS Certification
16 38 (1.77%) CCNP
17 37 (1.73%) HND
18 35 (1.63%) CBAP
19 33 (1.54%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.72%) QA
2 113 (5.27%) GDPR
3 91 (4.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (3.92%) PMO
5 64 (2.99%) NIST
6 60 (2.80%) Data Quality
7 42 (1.96%) PCI DSS
8 35 (1.63%) Accessibility
9 33 (1.54%) SLA
10 31 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.31%) GRC
12 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.70%) WCAG
13 14 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.61%) Basel III
14 13 (0.61%) NCSC
15 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.56%) P3O
16 11 (0.51%) IFRS
17 10 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 168 (7.84%) Docker
2 136 (6.35%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.79%) Firmware
4 17 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.42%) DFS Replication
5 9 (0.42%) Dovecot
5 9 (0.42%) Postfix
5 9 (0.42%) Squid
6 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.093%) KVM
Systems Management
1 157 (7.33%) Kubernetes
2 116 (5.41%) Terraform
3 74 (3.45%) Ansible
4 60 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.61%) Grafana
6 48 (2.24%) SCCM
7 47 (2.19%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.40%) OPNET
9 24 (1.12%) Puppet
10 15 (0.70%) Kibana
11 14 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.61%) SCOM
13 12 (0.56%) Nmap
14 11 (0.51%) Nessus
15 10 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 9 (0.42%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.42%) QRadar
16 9 (0.42%) WSUS
17 8 (0.37%) Kiali
18 7 (0.33%) Argo
Vendors
1 450 (21.00%) Microsoft
2 163 (7.61%) Oracle
3 115 (5.37%) SAP
4 114 (5.32%) ServiceNow
5 94 (4.39%) Splunk
6 91 (4.25%) Google
7 63 (2.94%) Cisco
8 51 (2.38%) Atlassian
8 51 (2.38%) Remedy
8 51 (2.38%) Salesforce
9 44 (2.05%) VMware
10 37 (1.73%) Databricks
11 34 (1.59%) Citrix
12 26 (1.21%) IBM
12 26 (1.21%) Palo Alto
13 21 (0.98%) MuleSoft
14 20 (0.93%) Adobe
14 20 (0.93%) Red Hat
15 18 (0.84%) CheckPoint
16 17 (0.79%) Informatica