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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -14 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,253 2,013 2,999
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.02% 7.38% 8.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.88% 23.85% 26.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,213 1,211 1,672
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £630
90th Percentile £713 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 153 335
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £17.88
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.94 £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.75 £42.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% - -14.63%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.50 £64.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.33 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £45.02 £41.50
% change year-on-year -7.34% +8.47% -17.00%

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 14,186 8,442 11,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.64% 30.93% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,571 5,325 6,992
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £716 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,060 598 976
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.21
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.60 £20.98
Median hourly rate £54.00 £28.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +92.86% -34.88% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £86.33 £76.53 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £27.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year +90.00% -33.73% -24.72%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -18 958 £515 -6.36% 1,539
South East -4 444 £500 +4.71% 617
North of England -13 331 £448 +0.28% 399
Midlands -23 202 £500 +21.21% 261
North West -11 187 £447 -1.97% 204
East of England -5 152 £450 -10.00% 212
West Midlands -33 150 £494 +16.12% 135
Yorkshire -12 128 £488 +14.71% 141
South West -25 118 £425 -10.53% 353
East Midlands -10 50 £538 +50.98% 126
North East -37 16 £450 +130.77% 61
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
1 129 (5.73%) SharePoint
2 115 (5.10%) Confluence
3 59 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.80%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) 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%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 257 (11.41%) Microsoft Office
2 209 (9.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 124 (5.50%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.71%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.62%) Photoshop
7 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
7 11 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
8 9 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.40%) Simulink
9 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) Trello
13 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.089%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
14 1 (0.044%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 56 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.58%) Primavera
3 10 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Magento
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) HFM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) Fidessa
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 512 (22.73%) Azure
2 291 (12.92%) AWS
3 197 (8.74%) Microsoft 365
4 192 (8.52%) Power Platform
5 135 (5.99%) Entra ID
6 116 (5.15%) GCP
7 91 (4.04%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.24%) SaaS
9 57 (2.53%) GitHub
10 38 (1.69%) Serverless
11 37 (1.64%) Figma
11 37 (1.64%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 32 (1.42%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.42%) Power Automate
14 28 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
15 27 (1.20%) PaaS
16 25 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
17 23 (1.02%) Google Workspace
17 23 (1.02%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.31%) Firewall
2 71 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 69 (3.06%) DNS
4 62 (2.75%) Network Security
5 52 (2.31%) VPN
6 48 (2.13%) WAN
7 47 (2.09%) LAN
8 34 (1.51%) DHCP
9 26 (1.15%) Wireless
10 22 (0.98%) BGP
11 21 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.89%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.84%) OSPF
14 15 (0.67%) Internet
15 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.58%) VLAN
17 12 (0.53%) MPLS
17 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
17 12 (0.53%) SSH
17 12 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.28%) Power BI
2 107 (4.75%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.64%) Tableau
7 36 (1.60%) Metadata
8 33 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.33%) Big Data
10 27 (1.20%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.11%) MySQL
12 22 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Hadoop
16 13 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.58%) Power Query
17 12 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 193 (8.57%) JIRA
2 108 (4.79%) Git
3 45 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.73%) GitLab
5 33 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) MLflow
7 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.67%) Selenium
9 12 (0.53%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Postman
11 10 (0.44%) Gradle
11 10 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.36%) Maven
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 1,005 (44.61%) Social Skills
2 675 (29.96%) Finance
3 486 (21.57%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.34%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.90%) Banking
6 139 (6.17%) Organisational Skills
7 100 (4.44%) Marketing
8 99 (4.39%) Presentation Skills
9 89 (3.95%) Legal
10 88 (3.91%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.82%) Manufacturing
12 78 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
13 77 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.75%) Retail
14 62 (2.75%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.40%) Law
16 51 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 37 (1.64%) Front Office
18 36 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
19 32 (1.42%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 322 (14.29%) Analyst
2 249 (11.05%) Senior
3 176 (7.81%) Architect
4 171 (7.59%) Lead
5 156 (6.92%) Developer
6 143 (6.35%) Business Analyst
6 143 (6.35%) Project Manager
7 70 (3.11%) Senior Manager
8 62 (2.75%) Consultant
8 62 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
9 57 (2.53%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.44%) Designer
11 51 (2.26%) IT Manager
11 51 (2.26%) IT Support
11 51 (2.26%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.22%) Product Manager
13 49 (2.17%) IT Analyst
14 47 (2.09%) Support Engineer
15 44 (1.95%) Senior Analyst
16 42 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.99%) .NET
2 88 (3.91%) REST
3 58 (2.57%) React
4 44 (1.95%) Kafka
5 38 (1.69%) RESTful
6 36 (1.60%) Middleware
6 36 (1.60%) OAuth
7 35 (1.55%) .NET Framework
8 34 (1.51%) HTML
9 32 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
10 29 (1.29%) Spring
10 29 (1.29%) Web Services
11 27 (1.20%) SAML
11 27 (1.20%) Spring Boot
11 27 (1.20%) XML
12 25 (1.11%) AngularJS
12 25 (1.11%) PySpark
13 24 (1.07%) CSS
13 24 (1.07%) JSON
13 24 (1.07%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 174 (7.72%) Management Information System
2 142 (6.30%) Onboarding
3 130 (5.77%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.17%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.91%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.75%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.35%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.22%) Data Structures
9 47 (2.09%) Algorithms
9 47 (2.09%) Operational Technology
10 46 (2.04%) Security Posture
11 39 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
11 39 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
12 35 (1.55%) Life Science
13 34 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
13 34 (1.51%) Robotics
14 33 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
15 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.38%) PMI
16 28 (1.24%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 300 (13.32%) Windows
2 163 (7.23%) Linux
3 72 (3.20%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.06%) Unix
5 52 (2.31%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.29%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.07%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) AIX
13 7 (0.31%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Solaris
15 5 (0.22%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
17 3 (0.13%) Rocky
17 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (33.24%) Computer Science
2 645 (28.63%) Agile
3 595 (26.41%) Problem-Solving
4 391 (17.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 372 (16.51%) AI
6 361 (16.02%) Continuous Improvement
7 300 (13.32%) DevOps
8 277 (12.29%) Project Management
9 270 (11.98%) Analytics
10 256 (11.36%) CI/CD
11 246 (10.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 242 (10.74%) ITIL
13 239 (10.61%) Decision-Making
14 225 (9.99%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.05%) Roadmaps
16 195 (8.66%) Change Management
17 187 (8.30%) Software Engineering
18 180 (7.99%) Scrum
19 179 (7.94%) Project Delivery
19 179 (7.94%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 380 (16.87%) Python
2 336 (14.91%) SQL
3 153 (6.79%) Java
4 129 (5.73%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.08%) C#
6 79 (3.51%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.82%) Bash
8 38 (1.69%) C++
9 32 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.15%) R
11 23 (1.02%) T-SQL
12 19 (0.84%) C
12 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.53%) Bicep
13 12 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
14 11 (0.49%) Go
15 10 (0.44%) Perl
15 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 454 (20.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 393 (17.44%) Security Cleared
3 260 (11.54%) SC Cleared
4 224 (9.94%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.64%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.37%) CISSP
7 112 (4.97%) PMP
8 97 (4.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (2.75%) Azure Certification
11 60 (2.66%) DV Cleared
12 58 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (2.57%) CISM
13 47 (2.09%) PhD
14 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 38 (1.69%) AWS Certification
15 38 (1.69%) CCNP
16 34 (1.51%) CISA
17 32 (1.42%) MBA
18 29 (1.29%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.10%) QA
2 111 (4.93%) NIST
3 108 (4.79%) Data Quality
4 105 (4.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (4.35%) PMO
6 80 (3.55%) GDPR
7 48 (2.13%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.33%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.20%) GRC
10 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 15 (0.67%) IFRS
13 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.49%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.40%) P3O
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 186 (8.26%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.24%) Docker
3 44 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.93%) Firmware
4 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
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%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 128 (5.68%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.82%) Terraform
3 70 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.62%) Ansible
5 32 (1.42%) SCCM
6 30 (1.33%) Grafana
7 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.53%) Puppet
13 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.40%) WSUS
15 8 (0.36%) Nessus
16 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.22%) SCOM
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 548 (24.32%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.84%) Oracle
3 130 (5.77%) SAP
4 127 (5.64%) ServiceNow
5 96 (4.26%) Google
6 65 (2.89%) Cisco
7 55 (2.44%) VMware
8 54 (2.40%) Databricks
9 49 (2.17%) Salesforce
10 45 (2.00%) Adobe
11 43 (1.91%) IBM
12 36 (1.60%) Citrix
13 35 (1.55%) Splunk
14 32 (1.42%) CyberArk
15 29 (1.29%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.11%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.93%) Siemens
18 20 (0.89%) Ariba
19 19 (0.84%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.84%) HP