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

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,214 1,986 3,263
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.47% 7.62% 8.58%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.99% 25.32% 27.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,297 1,103 1,824
10th Percentile £293 £250 £208
25th Percentile £400 £401 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £517
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.55% -6.00%
75th Percentile £638 £656 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £500
% change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -7.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 114 320
10th Percentile £15.23 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.78 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.25 £42.94 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.24% +7.35% -11.11%
75th Percentile £60.61 £75.00 £60.06
90th Percentile £82.10 £85.00 £73.78
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £42.21 £40.00
% change year-on-year -20.63% +5.51% -11.11%

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 11,661 7,843 11,844
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.07% 30.10% 31.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,746 4,792 7,329
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -3.31% -1.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 898 369 883
10th Percentile £15.83 £19.94 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.34
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.25 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -46.77% +2.98% +1.96%
75th Percentile £63.75 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £82.64 £77.90
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -35.51% -15.00% +1.96%

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 14 February 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 14 February 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 14 February 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 -3 1,000 £518 -5.85% 669
North of England -4 344 £424 -13.52% 441
South East -2 299 £475 -5.00% 692
Midlands -14 218 £525 +27.27% 316
North West 0 181 £389 -18.16% 250
South West +12 180 £649 +16.67% 210
West Midlands -19 155 £525 +5.00% 195
Yorkshire -9 147 £525 +5.00% 139
East of England -13 123 £550 +18.92% 245
East Midlands -6 63 £525 +47.47% 121
North East -8 17 £364 -27.20% 56
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 (8.58%) Confluence
2 111 (5.01%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.67%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.68%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.50%) Apache
8 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.32%) nginx
10 6 (0.27%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) IIS
13 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 286 (12.92%) Microsoft Office
2 229 (10.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 184 (8.31%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 81 (3.66%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.86%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 10 (0.45%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 4 (0.18%) FrameMaker
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.090%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.090%) Revit
15 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 35 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 24 (1.08%) Primavera
3 22 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.59%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.54%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS R12
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 453 (20.46%) Azure
2 265 (11.97%) AWS
3 199 (8.99%) Microsoft 365
4 159 (7.18%) Power Platform
5 142 (6.41%) GCP
6 106 (4.79%) SaaS
7 84 (3.79%) Entra ID
8 80 (3.61%) GitHub
9 74 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (2.53%) Serverless
11 44 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.58%) OCI
12 35 (1.58%) Power Automate
13 33 (1.49%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.45%) PaaS
15 31 (1.40%) IaaS
16 29 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.17%) Google Workspace
17 26 (1.17%) PowerApps
18 23 (1.04%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.47%) Firewall
2 62 (2.80%) DNS
3 57 (2.57%) LAN
4 54 (2.44%) WAN
5 42 (1.90%) VPN
6 39 (1.76%) Network Security
7 33 (1.49%) TCP/IP
8 30 (1.36%) DHCP
9 28 (1.26%) Skype
10 26 (1.17%) HTTP
10 26 (1.17%) Wireless
11 24 (1.08%) BGP
11 24 (1.08%) Internet
11 24 (1.08%) Unified Communications
12 21 (0.95%) OSPF
13 20 (0.90%) SSH
14 18 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
15 16 (0.72%) VLAN
16 14 (0.63%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (5.69%) Power BI
2 83 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.43%) SQL Server
4 58 (2.62%) NoSQL
5 44 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.99%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.99%) Tableau
6 38 (1.72%) MySQL
7 29 (1.31%) Big Data
8 20 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
9 19 (0.86%) Metadata
10 18 (0.81%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
13 13 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.54%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
15 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 267 (12.06%) JIRA
2 103 (4.65%) Git
3 74 (3.34%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.39%) GitLab
5 25 (1.13%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.95%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.81%) Postman
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.54%) MLflow
11 11 (0.50%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) CircleCI
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.32%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) Vagrant
17 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,147 (51.81%) Social Skills
2 720 (32.52%) Finance
3 529 (23.89%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (11.25%) Banking
5 172 (7.77%) Public Sector
6 110 (4.97%) Presentation Skills
7 96 (4.34%) Organisational Skills
8 87 (3.93%) Manufacturing
9 81 (3.66%) Marketing
10 74 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (3.16%) Influencing Skills
12 61 (2.76%) Legal
13 59 (2.66%) Military
14 55 (2.48%) Financial Institution
15 48 (2.17%) Front Office
16 42 (1.90%) Telecoms
17 41 (1.85%) Investment Banking
18 39 (1.76%) Retail
19 38 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
20 36 (1.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 327 (14.77%) Analyst
2 230 (10.39%) Senior
3 197 (8.90%) Developer
4 186 (8.40%) Lead
5 171 (7.72%) Architect
6 159 (7.18%) Project Manager
7 157 (7.09%) Business Analyst
8 83 (3.75%) Consultant
9 82 (3.70%) Software Engineer
10 68 (3.07%) Technical Support
11 60 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.26%) IT Support
13 44 (1.99%) Security Engineer
13 44 (1.99%) Support Analyst
14 42 (1.90%) Senior Analyst
15 41 (1.85%) Senior Software Engineer
16 40 (1.81%) Data Scientist
17 36 (1.63%) Technical Analyst
18 35 (1.58%) Delivery Manager
18 35 (1.58%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.92%) REST
2 69 (3.12%) RESTful
3 67 (3.03%) .NET
4 56 (2.53%) HTML
5 51 (2.30%) React
6 47 (2.12%) Middleware
7 46 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
8 42 (1.90%) CSS
8 42 (1.90%) XML
9 39 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
10 36 (1.63%) Kafka
10 36 (1.63%) OAuth
11 35 (1.58%) JSON
11 35 (1.58%) SOAP
12 30 (1.36%) Spring
13 29 (1.31%) PyTorch
13 29 (1.31%) TensorFlow
14 28 (1.26%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.26%) Node.js
15 27 (1.22%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 183 (8.27%) Management Information System
2 111 (5.01%) Product Ownership
3 100 (4.52%) Cloud Native
4 97 (4.38%) Onboarding
5 68 (3.07%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.80%) Algorithms
7 60 (2.71%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.66%) Virtual Team
9 55 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
10 52 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.99%) PMI
13 41 (1.85%) Derivative
14 40 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
14 40 (1.81%) Security Posture
15 36 (1.63%) Public Cloud
16 33 (1.49%) Life Science
17 30 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.26%) Equities
19 26 (1.17%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 276 (12.47%) Windows
2 183 (8.27%) Linux
3 82 (3.70%) Unix
4 70 (3.16%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.66%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.95%) Android
7 19 (0.86%) Windows Server 2016
8 18 (0.81%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.77%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
10 16 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
11 15 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 14 (0.63%) VMS
13 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
14 6 (0.27%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.090%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 799 (36.09%) Computer Science
2 721 (32.57%) Agile
3 649 (29.31%) Problem-Solving
4 387 (17.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 339 (15.31%) DevOps
6 322 (14.54%) Project Management
7 290 (13.10%) AI
8 275 (12.42%) Change Management
9 252 (11.38%) CI/CD
10 248 (11.20%) Analytics
11 230 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
11 230 (10.39%) Cybersecurity
12 226 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 225 (10.16%) Decision-Making
14 223 (10.07%) Migration
15 217 (9.80%) ITIL
16 216 (9.76%) Risk Management
17 208 (9.39%) Software Engineering
18 196 (8.85%) Project Delivery
19 180 (8.13%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 403 (18.20%) Python
2 349 (15.76%) SQL
3 154 (6.96%) Java
4 120 (5.42%) PowerShell
5 110 (4.97%) JavaScript
6 79 (3.57%) C#
7 76 (3.43%) C++
8 52 (2.35%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.03%) Go
10 40 (1.81%) Bash
11 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.13%) R
12 22 (0.99%) Perl
13 19 (0.86%) C
13 19 (0.86%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 14 (0.63%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
16 12 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 549 (24.80%) Computer Science Degree
2 397 (17.93%) Security Cleared
3 350 (15.81%) Master's Degree
4 316 (14.27%) SC Cleared
5 136 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.51%) PMP
7 106 (4.79%) CISSP
8 83 (3.75%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.16%) CISM
10 69 (3.12%) PhD
11 61 (2.76%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
14 55 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
15 45 (2.03%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.85%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.76%) CCNP
18 35 (1.58%) CBAP
19 34 (1.54%) MBA
20 31 (1.40%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.78%) QA
2 115 (5.19%) GDPR
3 92 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 92 (4.16%) PMO
4 69 (3.12%) Data Quality
5 64 (2.89%) NIST
6 44 (1.99%) PCI DSS
7 35 (1.58%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.54%) SLA
9 30 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.26%) GRC
11 17 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.68%) NCSC
12 15 (0.68%) WCAG
13 14 (0.63%) Basel III
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
14 12 (0.54%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
15 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
System Software
1 165 (7.45%) Docker
2 146 (6.59%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.63%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) DFS Replication
7 6 (0.27%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Postfix
7 6 (0.27%) Squid
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
7 6 (0.27%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
Systems Management
1 163 (7.36%) Kubernetes
2 115 (5.19%) Terraform
3 73 (3.30%) Ansible
4 71 (3.21%) Microsoft Intune
5 54 (2.44%) Grafana
6 52 (2.35%) SCCM
7 47 (2.12%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 22 (0.99%) Puppet
10 16 (0.72%) Kibana
10 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 13 (0.59%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) Nessus
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 7 (0.32%) Argo
15 6 (0.27%) Proxmox
16 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 466 (21.05%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.27%) Oracle
3 127 (5.74%) SAP
4 109 (4.92%) ServiceNow
5 99 (4.47%) Google
6 85 (3.84%) Splunk
7 70 (3.16%) Cisco
8 56 (2.53%) Remedy
9 53 (2.39%) Atlassian
10 50 (2.26%) Salesforce
11 48 (2.17%) VMware
12 45 (2.03%) Databricks
13 38 (1.72%) Citrix
14 29 (1.31%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.99%) IBM
15 22 (0.99%) Informatica
15 22 (0.99%) MuleSoft
16 21 (0.95%) CheckPoint
17 20 (0.90%) Adobe
18 19 (0.86%) Red Hat