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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 23 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,228 1,927 3,251
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.14% 7.81% 8.53%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.02% 25.34% 27.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,300 1,124 1,786
10th Percentile £304 £250 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £508
% change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -5.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 142 342
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.46 £30.70 £22.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £51.25 £38.13
Median % change year-on-year -11.30% +34.43% -15.28%
75th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.98
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +1.02% +23.29% -18.89%

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 12,366 7,604 11,899
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.06% 30.81% 31.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,203 4,806 7,339
10th Percentile £330 £284 £297
25th Percentile £424 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.58% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 974 407 943
10th Percentile £16.27 £19.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.54 £25.26 £18.34
Median hourly rate £26.22 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.06% +31.25% -20.00%
75th Percentile £67.50 £68.09 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.75 £82.78 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £28.36 £43.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -34.05% +7.50% -20.00%

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 11 March 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 March 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 March 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 -12 974 £513 -6.82% 664
North of England -5 346 £445 -10.95% 451
South East -4 345 £488 -2.50% 660
Midlands -21 211 £500 +37.93% 311
North West -2 180 £400 -19.76% 236
South West +6 164 £688 +25.00% 238
West Midlands -20 154 £500 +21.21% 180
Yorkshire -16 149 £508 -0.98% 159
East of England -9 132 £525 +7.91% 237
East Midlands -19 56 £525 +47.47% 131
North East -12 18 £364 -27.20% 63
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
1 181 (8.12%) Confluence
2 104 (4.67%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.58%) Apache
7 9 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) SAS
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.18%) Skype for Business
10 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 280 (12.57%) Microsoft Office
2 209 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 183 (8.21%) Microsoft Project
4 109 (4.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 70 (3.14%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.45%) Simulink
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 8 (0.36%) Sketch
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.18%) InVision
12 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.090%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
13 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
13 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.045%) Revit
Business Applications
1 37 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.12%) Primavera
3 22 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 457 (20.51%) Azure
2 267 (11.98%) AWS
3 180 (8.08%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.32%) Power Platform
5 135 (6.06%) GCP
6 106 (4.76%) SaaS
7 105 (4.71%) Entra ID
8 78 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 76 (3.41%) GitHub
10 47 (2.11%) Serverless
11 40 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.53%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.39%) Cloud Computing
13 31 (1.39%) IaaS
13 31 (1.39%) PaaS
14 29 (1.30%) OCI
15 28 (1.26%) Google Workspace
16 26 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.17%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (1.17%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.49%) Firewall
2 57 (2.56%) LAN
3 55 (2.47%) WAN
4 46 (2.06%) DNS
5 42 (1.89%) Network Security
6 41 (1.84%) TCP/IP
7 37 (1.66%) VPN
8 29 (1.30%) Wireless
9 25 (1.12%) BGP
10 23 (1.03%) Ethernet
11 22 (0.99%) Internet
12 21 (0.94%) DHCP
12 21 (0.94%) HTTP
12 21 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.90%) OSPF
14 18 (0.81%) Skype
15 17 (0.76%) Unified Communications
15 17 (0.76%) VLAN
16 15 (0.67%) Structured Cabling
17 14 (0.63%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (5.83%) Power BI
2 83 (3.73%) PostgreSQL
3 77 (3.46%) SQL Server
4 56 (2.51%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (1.93%) Relational Database
7 39 (1.75%) Tableau
8 35 (1.57%) MySQL
9 29 (1.30%) Big Data
10 21 (0.94%) Metadata
10 21 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 19 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.67%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
16 10 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.45%) BigQuery
16 10 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
17 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 261 (11.71%) JIRA
2 104 (4.67%) Git
3 66 (2.96%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.29%) GitLab
5 25 (1.12%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.99%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.72%) Postman
8 15 (0.67%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.58%) MLflow
10 12 (0.54%) Liquibase
11 11 (0.49%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.31%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.31%) JUnit
16 5 (0.22%) TeamCity
General
1 1,104 (49.55%) Social Skills
2 696 (31.24%) Finance
3 512 (22.98%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (10.41%) Banking
5 177 (7.94%) Public Sector
6 109 (4.89%) Presentation Skills
7 92 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
8 79 (3.55%) Marketing
9 77 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.41%) Influencing Skills
11 74 (3.32%) Manufacturing
12 70 (3.14%) Legal
13 59 (2.65%) Aerospace
14 56 (2.51%) Military
15 51 (2.29%) Financial Institution
16 48 (2.15%) Front Office
17 44 (1.97%) Law
17 44 (1.97%) Retail
18 41 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 40 (1.80%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 314 (14.09%) Analyst
2 222 (9.96%) Senior
3 187 (8.39%) Lead
4 183 (8.21%) Developer
5 175 (7.85%) Architect
6 160 (7.18%) Project Manager
7 155 (6.96%) Business Analyst
8 82 (3.68%) Consultant
9 66 (2.96%) Software Engineer
10 62 (2.78%) Technical Support
11 61 (2.74%) Delivery Manager
12 58 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.20%) Security Engineer
14 48 (2.15%) Senior Analyst
15 43 (1.93%) Data Scientist
16 42 (1.89%) Product Manager
17 38 (1.71%) IT Support
17 38 (1.71%) Technical Analyst
18 34 (1.53%) Senior Business Analyst
19 32 (1.44%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.67%) REST
2 62 (2.78%) .NET
2 62 (2.78%) RESTful
3 53 (2.38%) React
4 51 (2.29%) HTML
5 47 (2.11%) Middleware
6 42 (1.89%) Kafka
7 40 (1.80%) CSS
8 39 (1.75%) Elastic Stack
9 37 (1.66%) XML
10 36 (1.62%) OAuth
11 35 (1.57%) JSON
11 35 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
11 35 (1.57%) SOAP
12 32 (1.44%) Spring
13 30 (1.35%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.35%) TensorFlow
14 28 (1.26%) Spring Boot
15 27 (1.21%) Node.js
15 27 (1.21%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 188 (8.44%) Management Information System
2 146 (6.55%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.67%) Onboarding
4 102 (4.58%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.19%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.01%) Data Centre
6 67 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.78%) Algorithms
8 59 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
9 49 (2.20%) Analytical Mindset
9 49 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
10 48 (2.15%) PMI
11 47 (2.11%) Data Structures
12 45 (2.02%) Derivative
13 43 (1.93%) Security Posture
14 34 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
15 31 (1.39%) Equities
16 30 (1.35%) Life Science
17 28 (1.26%) NHS
17 28 (1.26%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 257 (11.54%) Windows
2 165 (7.41%) Linux
3 72 (3.23%) Unix
4 66 (2.96%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.51%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.81%) Android
8 15 (0.67%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 3 (0.13%) CentOS
16 3 (0.13%) Debian
16 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 822 (36.89%) Computer Science
2 730 (32.76%) Agile
3 611 (27.42%) Problem-Solving
4 382 (17.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 339 (15.22%) DevOps
6 324 (14.54%) AI
7 301 (13.51%) Project Management
8 283 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
9 260 (11.67%) CI/CD
10 256 (11.49%) Change Management
11 248 (11.13%) Analytics
12 239 (10.73%) Decision-Making
13 237 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 234 (10.50%) Cybersecurity
15 228 (10.23%) ITIL
16 224 (10.05%) Risk Management
17 218 (9.78%) Migration
18 203 (9.11%) Project Delivery
19 200 (8.98%) Software Engineering
20 199 (8.93%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 394 (17.68%) Python
2 326 (14.63%) SQL
3 156 (7.00%) Java
4 121 (5.43%) PowerShell
5 93 (4.17%) JavaScript
6 70 (3.14%) C#
7 66 (2.96%) C++
8 49 (2.20%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.89%) Bash
10 37 (1.66%) Go
11 26 (1.17%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.03%) R
13 18 (0.81%) Perl
14 16 (0.72%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.67%) Rust
15 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.63%) C
17 12 (0.54%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 535 (24.01%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (19.34%) Security Cleared
3 328 (14.72%) Master's Degree
4 316 (14.18%) SC Cleared
5 135 (6.06%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.39%) CISSP
7 119 (5.34%) PMP
8 86 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.37%) CISM
10 72 (3.23%) PhD
11 62 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
12 61 (2.74%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
14 56 (2.51%) Azure Certification
15 47 (2.11%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.84%) CCNP
17 34 (1.53%) MBA
18 32 (1.44%) CBAP
19 31 (1.39%) AWS Certification
20 30 (1.35%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.73%) QA
2 121 (5.43%) GDPR
3 103 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 102 (4.58%) PMO
5 86 (3.86%) NIST
6 72 (3.23%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.15%) PCI DSS
8 39 (1.75%) SLA
9 37 (1.66%) Accessibility
10 27 (1.21%) GRC
11 26 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.94%) NCSC
13 15 (0.67%) WCAG
14 14 (0.63%) Basel III
14 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.63%) IFRS
15 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 155 (6.96%) Docker
2 144 (6.46%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.76%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.67%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.090%) HDFS
11 2 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.045%) GPFS
12 1 (0.045%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 167 (7.50%) Kubernetes
2 102 (4.58%) Terraform
3 71 (3.19%) Ansible
4 65 (2.92%) Microsoft Intune
5 46 (2.06%) Grafana
6 39 (1.75%) SCCM
7 38 (1.71%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 20 (0.90%) Puppet
10 18 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.67%) Kibana
13 13 (0.58%) Nmap
14 11 (0.49%) SCOM
15 9 (0.40%) Kiali
16 8 (0.36%) Argo
17 7 (0.31%) WSUS
18 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
19 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
19 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 469 (21.05%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.55%) Oracle
3 115 (5.16%) SAP
4 113 (5.07%) ServiceNow
5 102 (4.58%) Google
6 75 (3.37%) Cisco
7 70 (3.14%) Splunk
8 54 (2.42%) Remedy
9 53 (2.38%) Atlassian
10 48 (2.15%) Databricks
11 44 (1.97%) VMware
12 42 (1.89%) Salesforce
13 41 (1.84%) IBM
14 40 (1.80%) Citrix
15 38 (1.71%) Palo Alto
16 26 (1.17%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.03%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.99%) Aruba
18 22 (0.99%) Informatica
19 21 (0.94%) Adobe