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 28 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 23 20
Rank change year-on-year -2 -3 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,133 2,464 3,076
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.94% 7.91% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.67% 26.49% 26.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,232 1,382 1,873
10th Percentile £304 £263 £250
25th Percentile £402 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.65% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £782 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 138 201
10th Percentile £15.25 £21.25 £17.50
25th Percentile £24.50 £30.78 £27.00
Median hourly rate £36.23 £42.69 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.13% -14.62% +11.11%
75th Percentile £57.44 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.68 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.33 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.92% -19.35% +13.64%

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 10,318 9,302 11,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.56% 29.88% 30.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,708 5,644 7,380
10th Percentile £306 £313 £306
25th Percentile £415 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £528 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% -4.09% -
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £736
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 889 449 709
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.09 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.00 £26.42 £26.99
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -6.54% +18.89%
75th Percentile £52.50 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.57 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £53.67
% change year-on-year -41.35% -20.10% +19.26%

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025. 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 -5 1,026 £536 -0.37% 986
North of England -8 301 £450 -14.29% 474
South East -3 273 £475 -5.00% 1,142
Midlands -10 211 £475 -4.62% 406
North West -5 171 £425 -20.04% 259
West Midlands -12 162 £500 - 248
South West +4 155 £600 - 304
East of England -8 132 £505 +18.82% 367
Yorkshire -15 121 £488 -4.36% 152
East Midlands -9 49 £448 +12.00% 152
North East -14 10 £298 -40.31% 69
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
1 169 (7.92%) Confluence
2 112 (5.25%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 40 (1.88%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) nginx
7 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.61%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 8 (0.38%) SAS
12 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.23%) Luigi
14 4 (0.19%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.19%) Moodle
14 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 269 (12.61%) Microsoft Office
2 205 (9.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 160 (7.50%) Microsoft Project
4 100 (4.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (3.23%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.98%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Trello
8 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 10 (0.47%) Simulink
10 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.19%) Maya
13 3 (0.14%) InDesign
13 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.14%) Sketch
14 2 (0.094%) Camtasia
14 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 37 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.94%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.23%) Maximo
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 410 (19.22%) Azure
2 285 (13.36%) AWS
3 171 (8.02%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (7.13%) GCP
5 142 (6.66%) Power Platform
6 94 (4.41%) SaaS
7 91 (4.27%) GitHub
8 79 (3.70%) Entra ID
9 65 (3.05%) Azure DevOps
9 65 (3.05%) Serverless
10 39 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
11 36 (1.69%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.55%) Amazon S3
13 30 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
14 29 (1.36%) PowerApps
15 28 (1.31%) Azure Sentinel
15 28 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.22%) Microsoft Purview
17 25 (1.17%) OneDrive
18 24 (1.13%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 91 (4.27%) Firewall
2 78 (3.66%) DNS
3 43 (2.02%) VPN
4 42 (1.97%) DHCP
4 42 (1.97%) Network Security
5 36 (1.69%) LAN
6 32 (1.50%) TCP/IP
7 31 (1.45%) HTTP
7 31 (1.45%) WAN
8 28 (1.31%) Wireless
9 27 (1.27%) Internet
10 25 (1.17%) SSH
11 23 (1.08%) Unified Communications
12 20 (0.94%) BGP
13 19 (0.89%) Skype
14 17 (0.80%) VoIP
15 16 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.70%) VLAN
17 14 (0.66%) Cisco IOS
17 14 (0.66%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.30%) Power BI
2 95 (4.45%) PostgreSQL
3 66 (3.09%) SQL Server
4 60 (2.81%) NoSQL
5 51 (2.39%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
6 49 (2.30%) Tableau
7 31 (1.45%) MySQL
8 28 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
9 27 (1.27%) Big Data
10 18 (0.84%) Data Lake
10 18 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
11 16 (0.75%) Metadata
12 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
14 12 (0.56%) GIS
14 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
15 10 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 259 (12.14%) JIRA
2 109 (5.11%) Git
3 94 (4.41%) Jenkins
4 70 (3.28%) GitLab
5 26 (1.22%) Liquibase
6 22 (1.03%) Postman
7 17 (0.80%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Bitbucket
8 12 (0.56%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.47%) JUnit
11 8 (0.38%) SpecFlow
12 7 (0.33%) MLflow
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
14 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
General
1 1,110 (52.04%) Social Skills
2 697 (32.68%) Finance
3 538 (25.22%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (11.39%) Banking
5 127 (5.95%) Public Sector
6 99 (4.64%) Manufacturing
6 99 (4.64%) Presentation Skills
7 82 (3.84%) Marketing
8 80 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
9 77 (3.61%) Influencing Skills
10 71 (3.33%) Legal
11 63 (2.95%) Military
12 59 (2.77%) Financial Institution
12 59 (2.77%) Telecoms
13 55 (2.58%) Front Office
14 54 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
15 51 (2.39%) Aerospace
16 50 (2.34%) Investment Banking
17 46 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.69%) Law
Job Titles
1 316 (14.81%) Analyst
2 222 (10.41%) Developer
3 212 (9.94%) Senior
4 164 (7.69%) Lead
5 154 (7.22%) Architect
6 146 (6.84%) Business Analyst
7 136 (6.38%) Project Manager
8 90 (4.22%) Consultant
9 75 (3.52%) Software Engineer
10 51 (2.39%) Security Engineer
10 51 (2.39%) Support Analyst
11 47 (2.20%) Technical Support
12 46 (2.16%) IT Support
13 45 (2.11%) Solutions Architect
13 45 (2.11%) Support Engineer
14 44 (2.06%) Data Scientist
15 43 (2.02%) Senior Developer
16 39 (1.83%) IT Manager
17 33 (1.55%) Senior Software Engineer
18 32 (1.50%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.30%) REST
2 78 (3.66%) RESTful
3 68 (3.19%) .NET
4 65 (3.05%) HTML
5 49 (2.30%) XML
6 48 (2.25%) CSS
7 41 (1.92%) JSON
7 41 (1.92%) Kafka
8 39 (1.83%) Elastic Stack
8 39 (1.83%) Middleware
9 37 (1.73%) SOAP
10 36 (1.69%) OAuth
10 36 (1.69%) Web Services
11 34 (1.59%) React
12 30 (1.41%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.41%) Node.js
12 30 (1.41%) Spring
13 28 (1.31%) TensorFlow
14 26 (1.22%) Pandas
15 22 (1.03%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.77%) Management Information System
2 106 (4.97%) Product Ownership
3 91 (4.27%) Cloud Native
4 73 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 72 (3.38%) Algorithms
6 59 (2.77%) Virtual Team
7 58 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
8 53 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
9 52 (2.44%) Analytical Mindset
10 49 (2.30%) Derivative
11 48 (2.25%) Data Centre
12 45 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
13 41 (1.92%) Public Cloud
14 37 (1.73%) Security Posture
15 36 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
16 34 (1.59%) Life Science
17 31 (1.45%) PKI
18 30 (1.41%) Data Structures
18 30 (1.41%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 225 (10.55%) Windows
2 167 (7.83%) Linux
3 68 (3.19%) Unix
4 51 (2.39%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.64%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 21 (0.98%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.89%) Android
9 18 (0.84%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.80%) VMS
11 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.19%) CentOS
17 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.094%) Mac OS X
17 2 (0.094%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 853 (39.99%) Computer Science
2 707 (33.15%) Agile
3 669 (31.36%) Problem-Solving
4 341 (15.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 334 (15.66%) Project Management
6 310 (14.53%) DevOps
7 271 (12.71%) Change Management
8 257 (12.05%) ITIL
9 225 (10.55%) CI/CD
10 219 (10.27%) Analytics
11 218 (10.22%) AI
12 217 (10.17%) Cybersecurity
13 211 (9.89%) Continuous Improvement
13 211 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 202 (9.47%) Software Engineering
15 199 (9.33%) Migration
16 196 (9.19%) Decision-Making
17 185 (8.67%) Project Delivery
18 168 (7.88%) Risk Management
19 155 (7.27%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 421 (19.74%) Python
2 313 (14.67%) SQL
3 173 (8.11%) Java
4 115 (5.39%) PowerShell
5 112 (5.25%) JavaScript
6 75 (3.52%) C++
7 70 (3.28%) C#
8 52 (2.44%) Go
9 45 (2.11%) TypeScript
10 41 (1.92%) Bash
11 31 (1.45%) R
12 20 (0.94%) Perl
13 19 (0.89%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.89%) Ruby
14 17 (0.80%) C
14 17 (0.80%) MATLAB
15 16 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
15 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.61%) Kotlin
16 13 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 572 (26.82%) Computer Science Degree
2 329 (15.42%) Security Cleared
3 317 (14.86%) Master's Degree
4 263 (12.33%) SC Cleared
5 129 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.67%) PMP
7 105 (4.92%) CISSP
8 87 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.33%) PhD
10 68 (3.19%) CISM
11 62 (2.91%) Cisco Certification
12 56 (2.63%) AWS Certification
12 56 (2.63%) Azure Certification
13 43 (2.02%) TOGAF Certification
14 42 (1.97%) HND
15 40 (1.88%) CCNP
16 39 (1.83%) DV Cleared
17 37 (1.73%) CCNA
18 36 (1.69%) HNC
19 33 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.58%) QA
2 107 (5.02%) GDPR
3 87 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.80%) NIST
5 77 (3.61%) Data Quality
6 60 (2.81%) PMO
7 35 (1.64%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.50%) SLA
9 29 (1.36%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.17%) GRC
10 25 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.89%) HIPAA
11 19 (0.89%) NCSC
12 16 (0.75%) COBIT
13 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.70%) NIST 800
14 13 (0.61%) P3O
14 13 (0.61%) WCAG
15 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 149 (6.99%) Docker
2 136 (6.38%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.08%) Firmware
5 12 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.33%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.094%) XenApp
11 1 (0.047%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
11 1 (0.047%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 129 (6.05%) Kubernetes
2 111 (5.20%) Terraform
3 79 (3.70%) Ansible
4 54 (2.53%) Grafana
5 47 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.11%) Prometheus
7 44 (2.06%) SCCM
8 22 (1.03%) OPNET
9 17 (0.80%) Puppet
10 13 (0.61%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.47%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.33%) Argo
15 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
15 7 (0.33%) Kibana
16 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 6 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 456 (21.38%) Microsoft
2 126 (5.91%) ServiceNow
3 123 (5.77%) Oracle
4 122 (5.72%) SAP
5 89 (4.17%) Google
6 85 (3.98%) Splunk
7 72 (3.38%) Cisco
8 64 (3.00%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.39%) VMware
10 47 (2.20%) Atlassian
11 41 (1.92%) Remedy
12 38 (1.78%) IBM
13 31 (1.45%) Databricks
14 28 (1.31%) Adobe
15 26 (1.22%) Citrix
16 25 (1.17%) Workday
17 23 (1.08%) Palo Alto
18 19 (0.89%) Red Hat
19 16 (0.75%) Apple
20 14 (0.66%) HP