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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,129 2,109 2,990
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.70% 7.82% 8.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.50% 25.62% 26.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,256 1,163 1,733
10th Percentile £300 £250 £225
25th Percentile £400 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.71% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £646 £663 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £515
% change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -6.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 172 127 230
10th Percentile £14.26 £20.95 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.44 £30.23 £24.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -7.97% +6.16%
75th Percentile £61.02 £73.13 £67.88
90th Percentile £89.96 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £34.25 £40.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -14.38% -13.38% +15.45%

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 10,917 8,232 11,085
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.37% 30.53% 30.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,220 5,021 6,969
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £415 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 866 392 692
10th Percentile £15.93 £19.84 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.44 £23.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.16% -6.58% +11.11%
75th Percentile £58.19 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £82.48 £78.36
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% -20.00% +11.11%

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 15 January 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 15 January 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 15 January 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 1,001 £525 -4.55% 773
North of England -4 310 £442 -11.55% 628
South East -1 277 £475 -5.00% 1,182
Midlands -14 205 £503 +18.24% 468
South West +1 171 £650 +22.87% 407
North West +1 167 £393 -21.40% 293
West Midlands -14 145 £523 +4.50% 195
Yorkshire -9 133 £525 +9.38% 241
East of England -12 116 £500 +11.11% 517
East Midlands -9 60 £471 +32.30% 267
North East -13 11 £364 -27.20% 104
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
1 184 (8.64%) Confluence
2 109 (5.12%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.69%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.70%) nginx
6 14 (0.66%) Apache
6 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.52%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) CMS
8 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 7 (0.33%) SAS
9 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
10 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.19%) Luigi
10 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
10 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 271 (12.73%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (10.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 170 (7.98%) Microsoft Project
4 111 (5.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 77 (3.62%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.89%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Simulink
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 9 (0.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.38%) Sketch
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.19%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.094%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.094%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.094%) Revit
14 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.94%) Primavera
4 18 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
9 9 (0.42%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 424 (19.92%) Azure
2 266 (12.49%) AWS
3 187 (8.78%) Microsoft 365
4 151 (7.09%) Power Platform
5 136 (6.39%) GCP
6 96 (4.51%) SaaS
7 84 (3.95%) GitHub
8 77 (3.62%) Entra ID
9 68 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (2.87%) Serverless
11 44 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.78%) Power Automate
13 33 (1.55%) OCI
14 31 (1.46%) IaaS
15 29 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.36%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.27%) Amazon S3
16 27 (1.27%) PaaS
17 26 (1.22%) Amazon ECS
18 24 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.56%) Firewall
2 57 (2.68%) DNS
3 43 (2.02%) LAN
4 41 (1.93%) VPN
5 38 (1.78%) WAN
6 37 (1.74%) Network Security
7 31 (1.46%) HTTP
8 29 (1.36%) DHCP
9 28 (1.32%) Wireless
10 25 (1.17%) Internet
10 25 (1.17%) TCP/IP
11 24 (1.13%) Skype
11 24 (1.13%) SSH
12 20 (0.94%) BGP
12 20 (0.94%) Unified Communications
13 17 (0.80%) OSPF
14 15 (0.70%) VLAN
15 13 (0.61%) VoIP
15 13 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
16 12 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (5.59%) Power BI
2 77 (3.62%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.57%) SQL Server
4 54 (2.54%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.44%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.97%) Tableau
8 36 (1.69%) MySQL
9 30 (1.41%) Big Data
10 19 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 14 (0.66%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.66%) Metadata
13 14 (0.66%) MongoDB
14 13 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
15 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.52%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.52%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 266 (12.49%) JIRA
2 106 (4.98%) Git
3 77 (3.62%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.54%) GitLab
5 23 (1.08%) Visual Studio
6 22 (1.03%) Liquibase
7 19 (0.89%) Postman
8 17 (0.80%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.52%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.52%) JUnit
11 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.47%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.47%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.42%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.38%) Artifactory
13 8 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.33%) Gradle
14 7 (0.33%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,109 (52.09%) Social Skills
2 693 (32.55%) Finance
3 519 (24.38%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (12.07%) Banking
5 151 (7.09%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.60%) Presentation Skills
7 90 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
8 87 (4.09%) Manufacturing
9 76 (3.57%) Marketing
10 72 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
11 68 (3.19%) Legal
12 65 (3.05%) Military
13 57 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
13 57 (2.68%) Financial Institution
14 50 (2.35%) Front Office
15 47 (2.21%) Investment Banking
16 45 (2.11%) Telecoms
17 39 (1.83%) Aerospace
17 39 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.74%) Law
Job Titles
1 311 (14.61%) Analyst
2 225 (10.57%) Senior
3 210 (9.86%) Developer
4 164 (7.70%) Lead
5 158 (7.42%) Architect
6 151 (7.09%) Business Analyst
7 141 (6.62%) Project Manager
8 82 (3.85%) Software Engineer
9 81 (3.80%) Consultant
10 56 (2.63%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
12 49 (2.30%) IT Support
12 49 (2.30%) Support Analyst
13 44 (2.07%) Security Engineer
14 41 (1.93%) Senior Software Engineer
15 39 (1.83%) Senior Developer
16 37 (1.74%) Data Scientist
16 37 (1.74%) Support Engineer
17 35 (1.64%) Senior Analyst
18 33 (1.55%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.31%) REST
2 75 (3.52%) RESTful
3 72 (3.38%) .NET
4 62 (2.91%) HTML
5 55 (2.58%) XML
6 47 (2.21%) CSS
6 47 (2.21%) Middleware
7 44 (2.07%) Elastic Stack
8 41 (1.93%) JSON
9 40 (1.88%) OAuth
9 40 (1.88%) React
10 36 (1.69%) Kafka
11 35 (1.64%) SOAP
12 32 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
13 29 (1.36%) AngularJS
14 27 (1.27%) Spring
15 26 (1.22%) Node.js
16 25 (1.17%) TensorFlow
17 24 (1.13%) Pandas
18 23 (1.08%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.88%) Management Information System
2 113 (5.31%) Product Ownership
3 98 (4.60%) Cloud Native
4 72 (3.38%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.05%) Algorithms
6 61 (2.87%) Distributed Systems
7 57 (2.68%) Data Centre
8 52 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
9 51 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
9 51 (2.40%) Virtual Team
10 46 (2.16%) PMI
11 44 (2.07%) Derivative
12 41 (1.93%) Security Posture
13 39 (1.83%) Public Cloud
14 37 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.60%) Life Science
16 30 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
16 30 (1.41%) PKI
17 29 (1.36%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 252 (11.84%) Windows
2 186 (8.74%) Linux
3 80 (3.76%) Unix
4 59 (2.77%) Windows Server
5 48 (2.25%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.08%) Android
7 20 (0.94%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.89%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 14 (0.66%) VMS
12 13 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 13 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
13 9 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
14 8 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.094%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (37.72%) Computer Science
2 716 (33.63%) Agile
3 635 (29.83%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 330 (15.50%) DevOps
6 315 (14.80%) Project Management
7 271 (12.73%) Change Management
8 242 (11.37%) CI/CD
9 236 (11.09%) AI
10 229 (10.76%) ITIL
11 226 (10.62%) Continuous Improvement
12 218 (10.24%) Analytics
13 215 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
14 213 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 210 (9.86%) Decision-Making
16 209 (9.82%) Software Engineering
17 201 (9.44%) Migration
17 201 (9.44%) Risk Management
18 185 (8.69%) Project Delivery
19 171 (8.03%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 395 (18.55%) Python
2 327 (15.36%) SQL
3 157 (7.37%) Java
4 124 (5.82%) PowerShell
5 116 (5.45%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.95%) C#
7 82 (3.85%) C++
8 52 (2.44%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.97%) Bash
9 42 (1.97%) Go
10 26 (1.22%) R
11 24 (1.13%) Perl
12 23 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 20 (0.94%) C
13 20 (0.94%) T-SQL
14 18 (0.85%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.70%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
17 13 (0.61%) Rust
18 12 (0.56%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 551 (25.88%) Computer Science Degree
2 374 (17.57%) Security Cleared
3 327 (15.36%) Master's Degree
4 292 (13.72%) SC Cleared
5 143 (6.72%) PMI Certification
6 128 (6.01%) PMP
7 104 (4.88%) CISSP
8 88 (4.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (3.19%) CISM
10 62 (2.91%) PhD
11 61 (2.87%) Azure Certification
12 56 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
13 55 (2.58%) Cisco Certification
14 48 (2.25%) DV Cleared
15 46 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
16 43 (2.02%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.74%) HND
18 36 (1.69%) CCNP
19 33 (1.55%) MCSE
20 30 (1.41%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (6.81%) QA
2 114 (5.35%) GDPR
3 91 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (3.71%) PMO
5 64 (3.01%) Data Quality
5 64 (3.01%) NIST
6 39 (1.83%) PCI DSS
7 36 (1.69%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.50%) SLA
9 31 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.13%) GRC
11 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
11 15 (0.70%) WCAG
12 13 (0.61%) Basel III
12 13 (0.61%) Def Stans
12 13 (0.61%) NCSC
13 12 (0.56%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.56%) P3O
14 11 (0.52%) IFRS
15 10 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 162 (7.61%) Docker
2 129 (6.06%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.85%) Firmware
5 17 (0.80%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.42%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.42%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.42%) Postfix
6 9 (0.42%) Squid
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.094%) KVM
12 1 (0.047%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 153 (7.19%) Kubernetes
2 116 (5.45%) Terraform
3 74 (3.48%) Ansible
4 57 (2.68%) Grafana
5 55 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
6 47 (2.21%) Prometheus
7 46 (2.16%) SCCM
8 30 (1.41%) OPNET
9 23 (1.08%) Puppet
10 14 (0.66%) Kibana
11 13 (0.61%) SCOM
11 13 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
12 12 (0.56%) Nmap
13 11 (0.52%) Nessus
14 10 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 9 (0.42%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.42%) QRadar
15 9 (0.42%) WSUS
16 7 (0.33%) Argo
16 7 (0.33%) Kiali
Vendors
1 440 (20.67%) Microsoft
2 155 (7.28%) Oracle
3 113 (5.31%) SAP
3 113 (5.31%) ServiceNow
4 93 (4.37%) Splunk
5 90 (4.23%) Google
6 64 (3.01%) Cisco
7 52 (2.44%) Salesforce
8 51 (2.40%) Atlassian
8 51 (2.40%) Remedy
9 43 (2.02%) VMware
10 38 (1.78%) Databricks
11 34 (1.60%) Citrix
12 28 (1.32%) Palo Alto
13 27 (1.27%) IBM
14 21 (0.99%) MuleSoft
14 21 (0.99%) Red Hat
15 20 (0.94%) Adobe
16 19 (0.89%) CheckPoint
17 17 (0.80%) Informatica