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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -13 -6 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,231 1,998 2,961
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.99% 7.36% 8.07%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.79% 23.86% 26.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,199 1,203 1,674
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £381 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.54%
75th Percentile £600 £648 £630
90th Percentile £713 £761 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 151 335
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £17.88
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.67 £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.75 £42.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% - -14.26%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.63 £64.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.41 £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 14,126 8,374 11,204
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.57% 30.86% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,529 5,279 6,996
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.16% -2.44%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,056 595 976
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.21
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £20.98
Median hourly rate £54.25 £27.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +97.27% -36.05% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.26 £61.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.56 £76.07 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £26.81 £41.50
% change year-on-year +95.80% -35.39% -24.93%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -20 946 £525 -4.55% 1,315
South East -2 444 £500 +4.71% 841
North of England -12 330 £450 +0.62% 630
Midlands -22 199 £500 +19.05% 420
North West -11 187 £447 -1.87% 294
East of England -4 149 £450 -10.00% 402
West Midlands -32 149 £492 +9.33% 198
Yorkshire -12 127 £475 +11.76% 235
South West -23 116 £425 -10.53% 314
East Midlands -11 48 £515 +43.85% 222
North East -42 16 £450 +130.77% 107
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
1 130 (5.83%) SharePoint
2 115 (5.15%) Confluence
3 59 (2.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.39%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.81%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.45%) SAS
10 8 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.31%) Camunda
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.090%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.090%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.090%) WinCC
Applications
1 259 (11.61%) Microsoft Office
2 210 (9.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 125 (5.60%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.55%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.63%) Photoshop
7 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
7 11 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.090%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.090%) Windchill
15 1 (0.045%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 57 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.58%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 7 (0.31%) 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%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 505 (22.64%) Azure
2 284 (12.73%) AWS
3 194 (8.70%) Microsoft 365
4 191 (8.56%) Power Platform
5 136 (6.10%) Entra ID
6 111 (4.98%) GCP
7 91 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.23%) SaaS
9 55 (2.47%) GitHub
10 37 (1.66%) Serverless
11 35 (1.57%) Figma
11 35 (1.57%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.48%) OneDrive
12 33 (1.48%) PowerApps
13 31 (1.39%) Power Automate
14 28 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
15 25 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (1.12%) PaaS
16 23 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (0.99%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.30%) Firewall
2 71 (3.18%) TCP/IP
3 68 (3.05%) DNS
4 62 (2.78%) Network Security
5 53 (2.38%) VPN
6 47 (2.11%) WAN
7 46 (2.06%) LAN
8 34 (1.52%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) BGP
10 21 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.90%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.81%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
15 13 (0.58%) VLAN
16 12 (0.54%) MPLS
16 12 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
16 12 (0.54%) SSH
16 12 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.31%) Power BI
2 104 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.20%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.61%) Tableau
7 35 (1.57%) Metadata
8 31 (1.39%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.26%) Big Data
10 27 (1.21%) MongoDB
11 24 (1.08%) MySQL
12 22 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.85%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.58%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.58%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 192 (8.61%) JIRA
2 107 (4.80%) Git
3 45 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.75%) GitLab
5 33 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.90%) MLflow
7 15 (0.67%) Selenium
7 15 (0.67%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.54%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Postman
10 10 (0.45%) Gradle
10 10 (0.45%) Subversion
10 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.40%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 8 (0.36%) Maven
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 992 (44.46%) Social Skills
2 670 (30.03%) Finance
3 481 (21.56%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.98%) Banking
6 137 (6.14%) Organisational Skills
7 97 (4.35%) Marketing
8 95 (4.26%) Presentation Skills
9 91 (4.08%) Legal
10 88 (3.94%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.90%) Manufacturing
12 79 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.82%) Telecoms
15 61 (2.73%) Retail
16 53 (2.38%) Law
17 52 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 36 (1.61%) Front Office
19 35 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
20 32 (1.43%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 320 (14.34%) Analyst
2 248 (11.12%) Senior
3 173 (7.75%) Architect
4 172 (7.71%) Lead
5 155 (6.95%) Developer
6 143 (6.41%) Project Manager
7 140 (6.28%) Business Analyst
8 70 (3.14%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.69%) Consultant
9 60 (2.69%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (2.42%) Designer
10 54 (2.42%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.33%) IT Support
12 51 (2.29%) IT Manager
13 50 (2.24%) Product Manager
13 50 (2.24%) Software Engineer
14 49 (2.20%) IT Analyst
15 48 (2.15%) Support Engineer
16 44 (1.97%) Senior Analyst
17 43 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.94%) REST
2 87 (3.90%) .NET
3 58 (2.60%) React
4 43 (1.93%) Kafka
5 37 (1.66%) RESTful
6 35 (1.57%) Middleware
6 35 (1.57%) OAuth
7 34 (1.52%) .NET Framework
8 33 (1.48%) HTML
9 32 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
10 29 (1.30%) Web Services
11 28 (1.26%) Spring
12 27 (1.21%) XML
13 26 (1.17%) SAML
13 26 (1.17%) Spring Boot
14 25 (1.12%) AngularJS
15 24 (1.08%) JSON
15 24 (1.08%) LDAP
15 24 (1.08%) PySpark
15 24 (1.08%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.75%) Management Information System
2 139 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 132 (5.92%) Product Ownership
4 92 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.73%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.42%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.24%) Data Structures
9 47 (2.11%) Algorithms
9 47 (2.11%) Operational Technology
10 46 (2.06%) Security Posture
11 39 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
11 39 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
12 34 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
12 34 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
12 34 (1.52%) Life Science
12 34 (1.52%) Robotics
13 31 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
14 30 (1.34%) PMI
15 28 (1.26%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 297 (13.31%) Windows
2 163 (7.31%) Linux
3 71 (3.18%) Windows Server
4 68 (3.05%) Unix
5 51 (2.29%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.34%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
9 24 (1.08%) 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%) Debian
17 3 (0.13%) Rocky
17 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 745 (33.39%) Computer Science
2 641 (28.73%) Agile
3 589 (26.40%) Problem-Solving
4 390 (17.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 366 (16.41%) AI
5 366 (16.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 296 (13.27%) DevOps
7 280 (12.55%) Project Management
8 266 (11.92%) Analytics
9 249 (11.16%) CI/CD
10 246 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 241 (10.80%) ITIL
12 239 (10.71%) Decision-Making
13 225 (10.09%) Cybersecurity
14 206 (9.23%) Roadmaps
15 196 (8.79%) Change Management
16 186 (8.34%) Software Engineering
17 181 (8.11%) Scrum
18 179 (8.02%) PRINCE2
18 179 (8.02%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 374 (16.76%) Python
2 327 (14.66%) SQL
3 149 (6.68%) Java
4 129 (5.78%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.08%) C#
6 78 (3.50%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.84%) Bash
8 37 (1.66%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.17%) R
11 25 (1.12%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.99%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.85%) C
13 19 (0.85%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.58%) Bicep
15 12 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.45%) Go
16 10 (0.45%) Perl
17 9 (0.40%) VB
Qualifications
1 441 (19.77%) Computer Science Degree
2 390 (17.48%) Security Cleared
3 257 (11.52%) SC Cleared
4 217 (9.73%) Master's Degree
5 129 (5.78%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.42%) CISSP
7 115 (5.15%) PMP
8 96 (4.30%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.54%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (2.78%) Azure Certification
11 60 (2.69%) CISM
11 60 (2.69%) DV Cleared
12 56 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
13 47 (2.11%) PhD
14 39 (1.75%) CCNA
15 38 (1.70%) AWS Certification
15 38 (1.70%) CCNP
16 35 (1.57%) CISA
17 31 (1.39%) MBA
18 29 (1.30%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.02%) QA
2 109 (4.89%) NIST
3 106 (4.75%) Data Quality
4 104 (4.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 99 (4.44%) PMO
6 78 (3.50%) GDPR
7 48 (2.15%) SLA
8 39 (1.75%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.26%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.21%) GRC
10 27 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.99%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.58%) IFRS
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.40%) P3O
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 184 (8.25%) Active Directory
2 114 (5.11%) Docker
3 45 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
4 21 (0.94%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.63%) 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 (0.090%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 124 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.72%) Terraform
3 69 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.60%) Ansible
5 32 (1.43%) SCCM
6 30 (1.34%) Grafana
7 27 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 12 (0.54%) Puppet
12 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 549 (24.61%) Microsoft
2 152 (6.81%) Oracle
3 132 (5.92%) SAP
4 129 (5.78%) ServiceNow
5 91 (4.08%) Google
6 64 (2.87%) Cisco
7 56 (2.51%) VMware
8 53 (2.38%) Databricks
9 49 (2.20%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.97%) Adobe
11 43 (1.93%) IBM
12 35 (1.57%) Citrix
13 34 (1.52%) Splunk
14 32 (1.43%) CyberArk
15 29 (1.30%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.12%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.94%) Siemens
18 20 (0.90%) Ariba
19 19 (0.85%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.85%) HP