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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,270 1,998 2,573
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.89% 7.18% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.31% 22.81% 26.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,176 1,155 1,471
10th Percentile £204 £261 £275
25th Percentile £356 £389 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £635
90th Percentile £729 £750 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 153 197
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.16 £36.25
Median hourly rate £39.11 £40.46 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -3.34% -29.45% +24.19%
75th Percentile £70.13 £68.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £86.89 £86.25 £79.50
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £40.73 £57.35
% change year-on-year -4.93% -28.98% +24.19%

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 14,823 8,759 9,850
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.95% 31.48% 29.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,961 5,535 6,109
10th Percentile £350 £304 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,163 680 593
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.02
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -54.27% +0.40%
75th Percentile £74.00 £50.00 £69.69
90th Percentile £88.75 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -8.73%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -20 983 £525 -4.55% 2,352
South East +4 467 £525 +13.51% 966
North of England -15 334 £475 +9.83% 568
North West -9 207 £475 +5.56% 302
Midlands -33 179 £450 - 400
East of England -12 137 £300 -36.84% 418
West Midlands -36 131 £450 -5.26% 231
South West -24 127 £404 -12.70% 434
Yorkshire -10 111 £500 +20.12% 172
East Midlands -21 47 £475 +6.26% 169
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 104
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 (6.87%) SharePoint
2 102 (4.49%) Confluence
3 62 (2.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.23%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 16 (0.70%) IIS
8 13 (0.57%) Camunda
8 13 (0.57%) SharePoint Server
9 12 (0.53%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 6 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 226 (9.96%) Microsoft Office
3 116 (5.11%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (1.98%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.35%) Windchill
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%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 42 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 530 (23.35%) Azure
2 287 (12.64%) AWS
3 220 (9.69%) Microsoft 365
4 214 (9.43%) Power Platform
5 136 (5.99%) GCP
6 130 (5.73%) Entra ID
7 111 (4.89%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.26%) SaaS
9 64 (2.82%) GitHub
10 53 (2.33%) Power Automate
11 51 (2.25%) PowerApps
12 50 (2.20%) Serverless
13 47 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.07%) OneDrive
14 43 (1.89%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.50%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.41%) Figma
17 26 (1.15%) OpenShift
18 25 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.10%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.36%) Firewall
2 76 (3.35%) DNS
3 63 (2.78%) Network Security
4 59 (2.60%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.60%) VPN
5 47 (2.07%) DHCP
6 33 (1.45%) WAN
7 32 (1.41%) LAN
8 24 (1.06%) 3GPP
8 24 (1.06%) Wireless
9 20 (0.88%) 5G
10 19 (0.84%) Internet
11 18 (0.79%) Radio Access Network
11 18 (0.79%) SSH
12 17 (0.75%) BGP
12 17 (0.75%) SSL
12 17 (0.75%) Wireshark
13 15 (0.66%) OSPF
13 15 (0.66%) VLAN
13 15 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (7.05%) Power BI
2 108 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.29%) Metadata
4 50 (2.20%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (1.50%) Tableau
8 31 (1.37%) MySQL
9 30 (1.32%) NoSQL
10 25 (1.10%) Big Data
10 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
11 24 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 23 (1.01%) MongoDB
13 16 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
14 15 (0.66%) GIS
15 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
15 14 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 11 (0.48%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 170 (7.49%) JIRA
2 124 (5.46%) Git
3 58 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.33%) GitLab
5 22 (0.97%) JUnit
6 20 (0.88%) SonarQube
7 19 (0.84%) Maven
7 19 (0.84%) Selenium
8 17 (0.75%) Gradle
8 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
9 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
10 13 (0.57%) Mockito
10 13 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
11 12 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.48%) MLflow
12 11 (0.48%) Subversion
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
15 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 1,016 (44.76%) Social Skills
2 661 (29.12%) Finance
3 524 (23.08%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (8.41%) Banking
5 177 (7.80%) Public Sector
6 148 (6.52%) Organisational Skills
7 115 (5.07%) Manufacturing
8 104 (4.58%) Aerospace
9 92 (4.05%) Marketing
10 85 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
10 85 (3.74%) Legal
11 84 (3.70%) Telecoms
12 75 (3.30%) Presentation Skills
13 67 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.69%) Retail
15 55 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 49 (2.16%) Law
17 47 (2.07%) Pharmaceutical
18 44 (1.94%) Military
19 39 (1.72%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 316 (13.92%) Analyst
2 261 (11.50%) Senior
3 189 (8.33%) Lead
4 180 (7.93%) Developer
5 153 (6.74%) Architect
6 145 (6.39%) Business Analyst
7 112 (4.93%) Project Manager
8 73 (3.22%) Support Engineer
9 67 (2.95%) Senior Manager
10 65 (2.86%) IT Support
11 55 (2.42%) IT Analyst
12 54 (2.38%) Consultant
13 52 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.11%) IT Manager
15 45 (1.98%) Technical Support
16 44 (1.94%) Designer
17 43 (1.89%) Software Engineer
18 42 (1.85%) Data Engineer
18 42 (1.85%) Security Engineer
18 42 (1.85%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.54%) Terraform
2 93 (4.10%) .NET
3 91 (4.01%) REST
4 63 (2.78%) HTML
5 61 (2.69%) React
6 57 (2.51%) Kafka
7 51 (2.25%) CSS
8 42 (1.85%) RESTful
9 38 (1.67%) OAuth
9 38 (1.67%) XML
10 34 (1.50%) Middleware
10 34 (1.50%) Spring Boot
10 34 (1.50%) Web Services
11 33 (1.45%) .NET Framework
11 33 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
12 29 (1.28%) SAML
12 29 (1.28%) Spring
13 28 (1.23%) JSON
13 28 (1.23%) OAuth2
14 27 (1.19%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 205 (9.03%) Management Information System
2 134 (5.90%) Onboarding
3 106 (4.67%) Product Ownership
4 93 (4.10%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.88%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.60%) Algorithms
7 58 (2.56%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.33%) Data Centre
9 45 (1.98%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
11 42 (1.85%) Operational Technology
12 41 (1.81%) Life Science
12 41 (1.81%) Virtual Team
13 37 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
13 37 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.59%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
16 30 (1.32%) SCADA
17 29 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 288 (12.69%) Windows
2 176 (7.75%) Linux
3 78 (3.44%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.60%) Unix
5 42 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.97%) Android
9 11 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) VMS
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (33.00%) Computer Science
2 623 (27.44%) Agile
3 608 (26.78%) Problem-Solving
4 456 (20.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 409 (18.02%) Continuous Improvement
6 367 (16.17%) AI
7 322 (14.19%) DevOps
8 290 (12.78%) Project Management
9 284 (12.51%) Analytics
10 281 (12.38%) CI/CD
11 260 (11.45%) ITIL
12 237 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 230 (10.13%) Decision-Making
14 217 (9.56%) Scrum
15 216 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
16 214 (9.43%) Change Management
17 210 (9.25%) Roadmaps
17 210 (9.25%) Software Engineering
18 196 (8.63%) PRINCE2
19 183 (8.06%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 387 (17.05%) Python
2 335 (14.76%) SQL
3 171 (7.53%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.65%) Java
5 118 (5.20%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.71%) C#
7 58 (2.56%) Bash
8 43 (1.89%) C++
9 38 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.23%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.10%) R
13 24 (1.06%) C
13 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.62%) Scala
16 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.48%) X++
17 10 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.44%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 448 (19.74%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (18.72%) Security Cleared
3 299 (13.17%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.41%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.86%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 119 (5.24%) PMP
8 102 (4.49%) CISSP
9 80 (3.52%) DV Cleared
10 77 (3.39%) Azure Certification
11 76 (3.35%) Cisco Certification
12 66 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.47%) PhD
14 47 (2.07%) CISM
15 44 (1.94%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 38 (1.67%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.59%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.45%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.45%) CCNA
18 33 (1.45%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (5.77%) QA
2 125 (5.51%) Data Quality
3 91 (4.01%) NIST
4 87 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.57%) PMO
6 65 (2.86%) GDPR
7 39 (1.72%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.67%) SLA
9 25 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.06%) GRC
11 16 (0.70%) NCSC
11 16 (0.70%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.62%) IFRS
13 13 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
15 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
16 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 185 (8.15%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.15%) Docker
3 53 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.10%) Firmware
5 23 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.088%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 115 (5.07%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.64%) Ansible
4 31 (1.37%) SCCM
5 26 (1.15%) Grafana
6 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 8 (0.35%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) CASB
13 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
13 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.26%) Control-M
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
14 6 (0.26%) vCenter Server
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 589 (25.95%) Microsoft
2 158 (6.96%) Oracle
3 137 (6.04%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.51%) SAP
5 92 (4.05%) Google
6 70 (3.08%) VMware
7 61 (2.69%) Cisco
8 59 (2.60%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.38%) Adobe
10 47 (2.07%) Databricks
11 42 (1.85%) IBM
12 38 (1.67%) Splunk
13 33 (1.45%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.28%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.88%) Palo Alto
18 19 (0.84%) Apple
18 19 (0.84%) OpenAI
19 18 (0.79%) Ariba