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 22 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,268 1,941 2,554
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.08% 7.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.27% 22.40% 26.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,177 1,099 1,459
10th Percentile £204 £263 £270
25th Percentile £356 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -0.99% -4.72%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £728 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 158 179
10th Percentile £16.46 £19.45 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.00 £26.48 £33.97
Median hourly rate £39.50 £38.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +2.60% -32.87% +16.71%
75th Percentile £69.50 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £79.34
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £38.91 £52.50
% change year-on-year -0.49% -25.89% +5.00%

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 14,853 8,665 9,648
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.09% 31.60% 29.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,936 5,511 5,922
10th Percentile £350 £301 £325
25th Percentile £443 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.86% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £528 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.52% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,225 689 557
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.95 £17.88
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -53.43% +0.12%
75th Percentile £74.00 £45.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.08 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -7.41%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 -19 977 £525 -4.55% 4,568
South East +9 460 £525 +12.00% 1,463
North of England -10 338 £475 +6.26% 966
North West -7 211 £475 +3.83% 528
Midlands -30 187 £450 -2.96% 697
West Midlands -30 139 £450 -5.26% 424
East of England -17 136 £350 -28.21% 642
South West -23 127 £400 -13.51% 598
Yorkshire -6 112 £500 +19.05% 288
East Midlands -21 47 £475 +6.26% 273
North East -32 15 £455 +30.65% 160
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
1 156 (6.88%) SharePoint
2 101 (4.45%) Confluence
3 61 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.79%) IIS
7 17 (0.75%) Apache
8 14 (0.62%) Camunda
8 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
9 11 (0.49%) CMS
10 8 (0.35%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Appian
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) nginx
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 218 (9.61%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 111 (4.89%) Microsoft Project
5 42 (1.85%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
10 9 (0.40%) Windchill
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 39 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 523 (23.06%) Azure
2 286 (12.61%) AWS
3 216 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
4 212 (9.35%) Power Platform
5 146 (6.44%) GCP
6 135 (5.95%) Entra ID
7 116 (5.11%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.17%) SaaS
9 62 (2.73%) GitHub
10 56 (2.47%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.34%) Serverless
12 50 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
12 50 (2.20%) PowerApps
13 47 (2.07%) OneDrive
14 45 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
15 33 (1.46%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.41%) Figma
17 26 (1.15%) Azure AI
18 25 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.10%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.19%) Firewall
2 74 (3.26%) DNS
3 63 (2.78%) Network Security
4 58 (2.56%) TCP/IP
5 56 (2.47%) VPN
6 45 (1.98%) DHCP
7 33 (1.46%) WAN
8 32 (1.41%) LAN
9 24 (1.06%) Wireless
10 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.88%) 5G
12 19 (0.84%) Internet
12 19 (0.84%) SSH
13 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.75%) SSL
15 16 (0.71%) VLAN
15 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.66%) BGP
17 13 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (6.79%) Power BI
2 106 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.38%) Metadata
4 52 (2.29%) Relational Database
5 51 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (1.50%) MySQL
8 32 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.32%) Tableau
10 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
11 24 (1.06%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.97%) Big Data
13 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.71%) GIS
16 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
17 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
18 11 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
19 10 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 164 (7.23%) JIRA
2 133 (5.86%) Git
3 59 (2.60%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.29%) GitLab
5 24 (1.06%) JUnit
6 23 (1.01%) Maven
7 22 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.93%) Gradle
9 20 (0.88%) Selenium
10 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.66%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.66%) Mockito
12 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.57%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.44%) Subversion
15 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
16 8 (0.35%) MLflow
16 8 (0.35%) Postman
16 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,028 (45.33%) Social Skills
2 665 (29.32%) Finance
3 530 (23.37%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (8.51%) Banking
5 178 (7.85%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.61%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.34%) Manufacturing
8 107 (4.72%) Aerospace
9 101 (4.45%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (3.97%) Marketing
11 80 (3.53%) Legal
11 80 (3.53%) Telecoms
12 75 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
13 67 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
14 59 (2.60%) Retail
15 58 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.25%) Law
17 47 (2.07%) Pharmaceutical
18 45 (1.98%) Military
19 41 (1.81%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 305 (13.45%) Analyst
2 258 (11.38%) Senior
3 189 (8.33%) Developer
4 188 (8.29%) Lead
5 157 (6.92%) Architect
6 144 (6.35%) Business Analyst
7 110 (4.85%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.17%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.87%) IT Support
9 65 (2.87%) Senior Manager
10 54 (2.38%) Consultant
11 52 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (2.25%) IT Analyst
12 51 (2.25%) IT Manager
13 46 (2.03%) Security Engineer
14 43 (1.90%) Designer
14 43 (1.90%) Software Engineer
15 42 (1.85%) Technical Support
16 41 (1.81%) Administrator
17 40 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.67%) Terraform
2 101 (4.45%) REST
3 93 (4.10%) .NET
4 67 (2.95%) HTML
4 67 (2.95%) React
5 58 (2.56%) Kafka
6 55 (2.43%) CSS
7 49 (2.16%) RESTful
8 44 (1.94%) OAuth
9 43 (1.90%) XML
10 42 (1.85%) Middleware
10 42 (1.85%) Web Services
11 37 (1.63%) Spring Boot
12 36 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
13 35 (1.54%) .NET Framework
14 34 (1.50%) SAML
15 33 (1.46%) OAuth2
15 33 (1.46%) SOAP
16 32 (1.41%) OpenID
16 32 (1.41%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 208 (9.17%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.78%) Onboarding
3 109 (4.81%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.14%) Cloud Native
5 90 (3.97%) Self-Motivation
6 56 (2.47%) Algorithms
6 56 (2.47%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.29%) Data Structures
8 48 (2.12%) Security Posture
9 44 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
9 44 (1.94%) Operational Technology
10 41 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
11 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
11 40 (1.76%) Life Science
12 37 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
12 37 (1.63%) Virtual Team
13 36 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
14 31 (1.37%) SCADA
15 29 (1.28%) PMI
16 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 286 (12.61%) Windows
2 174 (7.67%) Linux
3 81 (3.57%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.87%) Unix
5 42 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
9 23 (1.01%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.18%) zOS
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 729 (32.14%) Computer Science
2 629 (27.73%) Agile
3 604 (26.63%) Problem-Solving
4 482 (21.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 401 (17.68%) Continuous Improvement
6 370 (16.31%) AI
7 331 (14.59%) DevOps
8 294 (12.96%) Project Management
9 291 (12.83%) CI/CD
10 288 (12.70%) Analytics
11 258 (11.38%) ITIL
12 243 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (10.54%) Decision-Making
14 225 (9.92%) Roadmaps
15 223 (9.83%) Change Management
16 221 (9.74%) Scrum
17 218 (9.61%) Cybersecurity
18 215 (9.48%) Software Engineering
19 197 (8.69%) PRINCE2
19 197 (8.69%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 383 (16.89%) Python
2 331 (14.59%) SQL
3 169 (7.45%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.66%) Java
5 122 (5.38%) JavaScript
6 109 (4.81%) C#
7 59 (2.60%) Bash
8 41 (1.81%) C++
9 39 (1.72%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.23%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.15%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.06%) C
13 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.06%) R
14 16 (0.71%) Scala
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 9 (0.40%) Go
16 9 (0.40%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 439 (19.36%) Computer Science Degree
2 430 (18.96%) Security Cleared
3 309 (13.62%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.42%) Master's Degree
5 141 (6.22%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.47%) PMP
7 119 (5.25%) Microsoft Certification
8 104 (4.59%) CISSP
9 87 (3.84%) DV Cleared
10 81 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (3.53%) Azure Certification
12 68 (3.00%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.60%) PhD
14 51 (2.25%) CISM
15 47 (2.07%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 44 (1.94%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.54%) DBS Check
17 35 (1.54%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.46%) CCNA
18 33 (1.46%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.86%) QA
2 129 (5.69%) Data Quality
3 89 (3.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 87 (3.84%) NIST
5 81 (3.57%) PMO
6 70 (3.09%) GDPR
7 40 (1.76%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.50%) SLA
9 27 (1.19%) GRC
10 22 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.71%) IFRS
11 16 (0.71%) NCSC
11 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.49%) P3O
14 9 (0.40%) ISO 31000
15 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
15 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 183 (8.07%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.20%) Docker
3 56 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.19%) Firmware
5 24 (1.06%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) Embedded Firmware
7 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.40%) vSphere
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 117 (5.16%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.60%) Ansible
4 29 (1.28%) SCCM
5 27 (1.19%) Grafana
6 25 (1.10%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 9 (0.40%) CASB
13 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
14 6 (0.26%) WSUS
15 5 (0.22%) Control-M
15 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 580 (25.57%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.10%) Oracle
3 139 (6.13%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.47%) SAP
5 101 (4.45%) Google
6 72 (3.17%) VMware
7 63 (2.78%) Cisco
8 57 (2.51%) Salesforce
9 52 (2.29%) Adobe
10 45 (1.98%) Databricks
11 40 (1.76%) IBM
11 40 (1.76%) Splunk
12 30 (1.32%) CyberArk
12 30 (1.32%) Red Hat
13 24 (1.06%) OpenAI
14 22 (0.97%) Citrix
15 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 20 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.84%) Apple
18 18 (0.79%) Ariba