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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -3 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,206 1,965 3,267
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.36% 7.66% 8.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.59% 25.36% 27.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,277 1,099 1,821
10th Percentile £300 £249 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £632 £660 £644
90th Percentile £738 £788 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £504
% change year-on-year - -0.70% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 120 320
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.69 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.78 £23.19
Median hourly rate £35.00 £46.84 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.28% +17.10% -11.11%
75th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £60.50
90th Percentile £85.50 £85.00 £73.78
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -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 11,868 7,749 11,759
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.21% 30.20% 31.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,882 4,750 7,256
10th Percentile £325 £294 £293
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 918 381 884
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.13 £25.26 £20.98
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% +12.36% -3.66%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £82.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.25 £44.50
% change year-on-year -37.52% -9.55% -6.32%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -8 977 £518 -5.85% 818
North of England -4 343 £441 -10.10% 445
South East -2 307 £475 -5.00% 688
Midlands -19 213 £525 +31.25% 298
North West +1 180 £393 -17.18% 262
South West +8 179 £650 +20.93% 205
West Midlands -21 153 £523 +10.00% 187
Yorkshire -15 146 £525 +5.00% 135
East of England -9 135 £528 +17.22% 233
East Midlands -9 60 £525 +47.47% 111
North East -12 18 £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
1 189 (8.57%) Confluence
2 108 (4.90%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.72%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) Skype for Business
8 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) nginx
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 293 (13.28%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.20%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.63%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 9 (0.41%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Mozilla Thunderbird
14 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.091%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.091%) Revit
15 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
Business Applications
1 36 (1.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (1.09%) Primavera
4 20 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
5 10 (0.45%) SAP EWM
5 10 (0.45%) SAP WM
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 7 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 444 (20.13%) Azure
2 266 (12.06%) AWS
3 188 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 155 (7.03%) Power Platform
5 144 (6.53%) GCP
6 107 (4.85%) SaaS
7 89 (4.03%) Entra ID
8 78 (3.54%) GitHub
9 72 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (2.58%) Serverless
11 42 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.59%) OCI
13 34 (1.54%) Power Automate
14 32 (1.45%) Cloud Computing
15 31 (1.41%) IaaS
15 31 (1.41%) PaaS
16 27 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.22%) Google Workspace
16 27 (1.22%) PowerApps
17 23 (1.04%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.44%) Firewall
2 58 (2.63%) LAN
3 57 (2.58%) DNS
4 54 (2.45%) WAN
5 43 (1.95%) TCP/IP
6 42 (1.90%) VPN
7 37 (1.68%) Network Security
8 29 (1.31%) DHCP
9 26 (1.18%) Skype
10 25 (1.13%) Wireless
11 24 (1.09%) Internet
12 23 (1.04%) BGP
12 23 (1.04%) Ethernet
12 23 (1.04%) Unified Communications
13 22 (1.00%) HTTP
14 20 (0.91%) OSPF
15 19 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
16 17 (0.77%) SSH
17 15 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
17 15 (0.68%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (5.44%) Power BI
2 79 (3.58%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.45%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.67%) NoSQL
5 43 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.86%) Tableau
7 40 (1.81%) Relational Database
8 37 (1.68%) MySQL
9 30 (1.36%) Big Data
10 21 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
11 20 (0.91%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.86%) Metadata
13 15 (0.68%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.59%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.50%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 10 (0.45%) RDBMS
18 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 260 (11.79%) JIRA
2 99 (4.49%) Git
3 70 (3.17%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.54%) GitLab
5 24 (1.09%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.95%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.82%) Postman
8 15 (0.68%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.59%) MLflow
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) JUnit
15 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
15 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,136 (51.50%) Social Skills
2 711 (32.23%) Finance
3 523 (23.71%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (11.02%) Banking
5 170 (7.71%) Public Sector
6 119 (5.39%) Presentation Skills
7 97 (4.40%) Organisational Skills
8 85 (3.85%) Manufacturing
9 83 (3.76%) Marketing
10 75 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
12 63 (2.86%) Legal
13 57 (2.58%) Military
14 55 (2.49%) Financial Institution
15 45 (2.04%) Front Office
16 41 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 41 (1.86%) Telecoms
17 40 (1.81%) Retail
18 39 (1.77%) Law
18 39 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 323 (14.64%) Analyst
2 228 (10.34%) Senior
3 185 (8.39%) Developer
4 183 (8.30%) Lead
5 174 (7.89%) Architect
6 160 (7.25%) Project Manager
7 158 (7.16%) Business Analyst
8 84 (3.81%) Consultant
9 82 (3.72%) Software Engineer
10 66 (2.99%) Technical Support
11 62 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (2.13%) IT Support
13 46 (2.09%) Security Engineer
14 44 (1.99%) Senior Analyst
15 41 (1.86%) Data Scientist
15 41 (1.86%) Senior Software Engineer
16 39 (1.77%) Support Analyst
17 37 (1.68%) Technical Analyst
18 36 (1.63%) Delivery Manager
19 34 (1.54%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.85%) REST
2 68 (3.08%) RESTful
3 65 (2.95%) .NET
4 52 (2.36%) React
5 51 (2.31%) HTML
6 48 (2.18%) Middleware
7 47 (2.13%) Elastic Stack
8 39 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.77%) XML
9 38 (1.72%) CSS
9 38 (1.72%) Kafka
10 35 (1.59%) JSON
10 35 (1.59%) OAuth
11 34 (1.54%) SOAP
12 30 (1.36%) PyTorch
12 30 (1.36%) TensorFlow
13 28 (1.27%) Spring
14 27 (1.22%) AngularJS
14 27 (1.22%) Node.js
14 27 (1.22%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.39%) Management Information System
2 115 (5.21%) Product Ownership
3 103 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 99 (4.49%) Onboarding
5 69 (3.13%) Distributed Systems
6 64 (2.90%) Virtual Team
7 62 (2.81%) Algorithms
8 60 (2.72%) Data Centre
9 56 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
10 53 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
11 50 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 45 (2.04%) PMI
13 44 (1.99%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.81%) Derivative
15 36 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (1.63%) Public Cloud
16 32 (1.45%) Life Science
17 28 (1.27%) Equities
17 28 (1.27%) NHS
18 27 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 269 (12.19%) Windows
2 181 (8.20%) Linux
3 80 (3.63%) Unix
4 69 (3.13%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.67%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.91%) Android
7 18 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
8 16 (0.73%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.73%) Ubuntu
8 16 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
9 15 (0.68%) Apple iOS
10 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 11 (0.50%) VMS
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Debian
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 793 (35.95%) Computer Science
2 717 (32.50%) Agile
3 639 (28.97%) Problem-Solving
4 382 (17.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 342 (15.50%) DevOps
6 303 (13.74%) Project Management
7 295 (13.37%) AI
8 272 (12.33%) Change Management
9 254 (11.51%) CI/CD
10 251 (11.38%) Analytics
11 238 (10.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 237 (10.74%) Decision-Making
13 231 (10.47%) Cybersecurity
14 221 (10.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 219 (9.93%) Risk Management
16 217 (9.84%) ITIL
17 213 (9.66%) Migration
18 207 (9.38%) Software Engineering
19 199 (9.02%) Project Delivery
20 175 (7.93%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 402 (18.22%) Python
2 335 (15.19%) SQL
3 152 (6.89%) Java
4 121 (5.49%) PowerShell
5 103 (4.67%) JavaScript
6 78 (3.54%) C#
7 71 (3.22%) C++
8 48 (2.18%) TypeScript
9 46 (2.09%) Go
10 43 (1.95%) Bash
11 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.13%) R
12 20 (0.91%) Perl
13 18 (0.82%) C
14 17 (0.77%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
16 14 (0.63%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
18 10 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 534 (24.21%) Computer Science Degree
2 397 (18.00%) Security Cleared
3 348 (15.78%) Master's Degree
4 317 (14.37%) SC Cleared
5 132 (5.98%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.35%) PMP
7 113 (5.12%) CISSP
8 85 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.31%) CISM
10 69 (3.13%) PhD
11 62 (2.81%) TOGAF Certification
12 58 (2.63%) Azure Certification
13 56 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
14 45 (2.04%) DV Cleared
15 39 (1.77%) AWS Certification
16 38 (1.72%) CCNP
17 36 (1.63%) CBAP
18 34 (1.54%) MBA
19 31 (1.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (6.57%) QA
2 112 (5.08%) GDPR
3 95 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 94 (4.26%) PMO
5 71 (3.22%) Data Quality
6 70 (3.17%) NIST
7 45 (2.04%) PCI DSS
8 33 (1.50%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.41%) SLA
10 30 (1.36%) GRC
10 30 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 15 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
11 15 (0.68%) NCSC
12 14 (0.63%) Basel III
12 14 (0.63%) IFRS
12 14 (0.63%) WCAG
13 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.54%) Def Stans
13 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 164 (7.43%) Docker
2 144 (6.53%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.59%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.14%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Postfix
10 3 (0.14%) Squid
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 168 (7.62%) Kubernetes
2 115 (5.21%) Terraform
3 74 (3.35%) Ansible
4 66 (2.99%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (2.31%) Grafana
6 47 (2.13%) SCCM
7 44 (1.99%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 21 (0.95%) Puppet
10 17 (0.77%) Kibana
11 16 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
12 14 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.59%) Nmap
14 11 (0.50%) SCOM
15 10 (0.45%) WSUS
16 9 (0.41%) Kiali
17 7 (0.32%) Argo
17 7 (0.32%) Nessus
18 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
19 4 (0.18%) Control-M
Vendors
1 457 (20.72%) Microsoft
2 155 (7.03%) Oracle
3 124 (5.62%) SAP
4 108 (4.90%) ServiceNow
5 101 (4.58%) Google
6 81 (3.67%) Splunk
7 71 (3.22%) Cisco
8 54 (2.45%) Remedy
9 51 (2.31%) Atlassian
10 46 (2.09%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.09%) VMware
11 45 (2.04%) Databricks
12 40 (1.81%) Citrix
13 30 (1.36%) Palo Alto
14 22 (1.00%) IBM
14 22 (1.00%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.95%) CheckPoint
15 21 (0.95%) Informatica
15 21 (0.95%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.91%) Siemens