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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,180 1,903 3,149
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.39% 7.81% 8.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.59% 24.91% 27.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,285 1,124 1,659
10th Percentile £247 £250 £212
25th Percentile £383 £387 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.49% -5.09%
75th Percentile £613 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £509
% change year-on-year - -1.72% -3.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 142 372
10th Percentile £20.70 £17.53 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.50 £27.53 £24.08
Median hourly rate £60.61 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.36% +32.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +4.76% +31.25% -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 13,138 7,640 11,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.46% 31.34% 31.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,815 4,846 7,129
10th Percentile £340 £289 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -1.00% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 983 441 989
10th Percentile £17.09 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.13
Median hourly rate £47.50 £43.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.47% +7.50% -23.81%
75th Percentile £71.50 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.48 £81.35 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%

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 3 May 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 3 May 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 3 May 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 -16 919 £500 -9.09% 1,076
South East -6 377 £476 -4.75% 671
North of England -8 330 £417 -8.35% 492
Midlands -27 211 £500 +66.67% 331
North West -4 176 £400 -12.28% 263
West Midlands -25 149 £500 +66.67% 210
South West -15 142 £625 +25.00% 250
East of England -8 140 £475 -5.00% 216
Yorkshire -14 138 £474 +14.43% 172
East Midlands -18 60 £525 +55.33% 121
North East -25 16 £407 -12.00% 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
1 143 (6.56%) Confluence
2 107 (4.91%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Apache
7 7 (0.32%) CMS
7 7 (0.32%) SAS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.23%) IIS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.092%) Camunda
12 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 291 (13.35%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 179 (8.21%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe After Effects
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.28%) Sketch
10 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.18%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.092%) InVision
Business Applications
1 49 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.73%) Primavera
4 14 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 446 (20.46%) Azure
2 249 (11.42%) AWS
3 188 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
4 175 (8.03%) Power Platform
5 107 (4.91%) Entra ID
6 99 (4.54%) SaaS
7 90 (4.13%) GCP
8 75 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
9 53 (2.43%) GitHub
10 34 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.51%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.42%) IaaS
13 31 (1.42%) PaaS
14 26 (1.19%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.15%) Serverless
16 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
17 23 (1.06%) Figma
17 23 (1.06%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.31%) Firewall
2 52 (2.39%) LAN
2 52 (2.39%) WAN
3 46 (2.11%) TCP/IP
4 44 (2.02%) Network Security
5 42 (1.93%) DNS
6 36 (1.65%) VPN
7 26 (1.19%) Wireless
8 23 (1.06%) BGP
9 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.92%) OSPF
11 18 (0.83%) Skype
12 17 (0.78%) DHCP
12 17 (0.78%) HTTP
13 14 (0.64%) SAN
13 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.50%) IPsec
15 11 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.61%) Power BI
2 88 (4.04%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.34%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.61%) Tableau
7 31 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.38%) Metadata
9 28 (1.28%) Big Data
9 28 (1.28%) MySQL
10 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
11 16 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) Power Query
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.50%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 242 (11.10%) JIRA
2 98 (4.50%) Git
3 41 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
8 17 (0.78%) Selenium
9 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.55%) Postman
10 11 (0.50%) Gradle
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
11 9 (0.41%) JUnit
11 9 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
General
1 1,029 (47.20%) Social Skills
2 657 (30.14%) Finance
3 479 (21.97%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (9.45%) Banking
5 176 (8.07%) Public Sector
6 115 (5.28%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (5.14%) Presentation Skills
8 84 (3.85%) Marketing
9 82 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
10 71 (3.26%) Aerospace
10 71 (3.26%) Legal
11 70 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
12 61 (2.80%) Manufacturing
13 55 (2.52%) Telecoms
14 54 (2.48%) Military
15 51 (2.34%) Law
16 47 (2.16%) Retail
17 39 (1.79%) Front Office
18 35 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 33 (1.51%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 296 (13.58%) Analyst
2 222 (10.18%) Senior
3 184 (8.44%) Architect
4 179 (8.21%) Lead
5 158 (7.25%) Project Manager
6 150 (6.88%) Developer
7 149 (6.83%) Business Analyst
8 65 (2.98%) Consultant
9 62 (2.84%) Delivery Manager
10 61 (2.80%) Technical Support
11 60 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
12 55 (2.52%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (2.20%) Software Engineer
14 46 (2.11%) Data Scientist
14 46 (2.11%) Product Manager
15 41 (1.88%) Security Engineer
16 40 (1.83%) Designer
17 39 (1.79%) Data Engineer
17 39 (1.79%) Senior Manager
18 37 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.04%) REST
2 66 (3.03%) .NET
3 51 (2.34%) Middleware
4 48 (2.20%) React
5 42 (1.93%) Kafka
5 42 (1.93%) RESTful
6 40 (1.83%) HTML
7 36 (1.65%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.65%) XML
8 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.51%) SOAP
10 31 (1.42%) JSON
10 31 (1.42%) OAuth
10 31 (1.42%) Spring
11 27 (1.24%) CSS
11 27 (1.24%) Pandas
11 27 (1.24%) PyTorch
12 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
13 22 (1.01%) TensorFlow
14 21 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 168 (7.71%) Management Information System
2 152 (6.97%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.46%) Onboarding
4 74 (3.39%) Cloud Native
5 65 (2.98%) Virtual Team
6 63 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.71%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.34%) PMI
9 48 (2.20%) Algorithms
9 48 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
12 38 (1.74%) Robotics
13 34 (1.56%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.47%) Security Posture
15 30 (1.38%) Derivative
16 29 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
17 26 (1.19%) AI Agents
18 25 (1.15%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 251 (11.51%) Windows
2 162 (7.43%) Linux
3 67 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.94%) Unix
5 56 (2.57%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.01%) Android
7 20 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 19 (0.87%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
10 11 (0.50%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) Debian
12 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
14 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 756 (34.68%) Computer Science
2 670 (30.73%) Agile
3 560 (25.69%) Problem-Solving
4 359 (16.47%) Stakeholder Management
5 323 (14.82%) AI
6 315 (14.45%) Continuous Improvement
7 311 (14.27%) Project Management
8 297 (13.62%) DevOps
9 237 (10.87%) CI/CD
10 232 (10.64%) Analytics
11 229 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 219 (10.05%) Decision-Making
13 218 (10.00%) Change Management
14 216 (9.91%) ITIL
15 211 (9.68%) Cybersecurity
16 205 (9.40%) Migration
17 198 (9.08%) Risk Management
18 197 (9.04%) PRINCE2
19 189 (8.67%) Project Delivery
19 189 (8.67%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 343 (15.73%) Python
2 320 (14.68%) SQL
3 147 (6.74%) Java
4 111 (5.09%) PowerShell
5 82 (3.76%) C#
6 73 (3.35%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.52%) C++
8 39 (1.79%) Bash
9 34 (1.56%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.33%) R
11 24 (1.10%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
13 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 14 (0.64%) Go
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 488 (22.39%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (19.50%) Security Cleared
3 303 (13.90%) SC Cleared
4 242 (11.10%) Master's Degree
5 138 (6.33%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.55%) PMP
7 99 (4.54%) CISSP
8 87 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 67 (3.07%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
11 56 (2.57%) CISM
12 49 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (2.20%) DV Cleared
14 47 (2.16%) PhD
15 45 (2.06%) Azure Certification
16 37 (1.70%) CCNP
17 34 (1.56%) MBA
18 32 (1.47%) CBAP
18 32 (1.47%) CCNA
19 28 (1.28%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.83%) QA
2 106 (4.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 104 (4.77%) PMO
4 101 (4.63%) NIST
5 99 (4.54%) GDPR
6 82 (3.76%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.29%) SLA
8 40 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.83%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.01%) GRC
11 21 (0.96%) NCSC
12 14 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
12 14 (0.64%) IFRS
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.46%) IFRS 17
15 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 143 (6.56%) Active Directory
2 122 (5.60%) Docker
3 36 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 22 (1.01%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.092%) HDFS
11 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.046%) Squid
12 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 130 (5.96%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.44%) Terraform
3 60 (2.75%) Ansible
4 56 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.70%) SCCM
6 36 (1.65%) Grafana
7 30 (1.38%) OPNET
8 26 (1.19%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.83%) Puppet
9 18 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.50%) Kibana
11 11 (0.50%) Nmap
12 10 (0.46%) WSUS
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) SCOM
15 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 498 (22.84%) Microsoft
2 143 (6.56%) Oracle
3 123 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 117 (5.37%) SAP
5 76 (3.49%) Google
6 66 (3.03%) Cisco
7 51 (2.34%) Splunk
8 49 (2.25%) Remedy
9 47 (2.16%) Databricks
10 44 (2.02%) Citrix
11 43 (1.97%) Atlassian
12 42 (1.93%) VMware
13 37 (1.70%) Salesforce
14 34 (1.56%) IBM
15 32 (1.47%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.33%) Adobe
16 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.06%) Aruba
17 23 (1.06%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.92%) Siemens