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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -17 -3 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,245 2,023 2,559
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.91% 7.33% 7.71%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.54% 23.22% 25.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,178 1,186 1,481
10th Percentile £204 £260 £286
25th Percentile £363 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.21%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £732 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 165 220
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £19.21
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.28 £27.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -25.89% +17.06%
75th Percentile £78.88 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.05 £75.42
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% -19.05% +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 14,450 8,714 10,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.58% 30.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,709 5,477 6,357
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,123 684 680
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.15 £14.45
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £54.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.25
UK median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +90.85% -44.11% -18.18%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -21 978 £525 -4.55% 5,298
South East +4 467 £510 +7.37% 1,296
North of England -16 324 £467 +6.63% 922
North West -14 193 £453 -0.98% 523
Midlands -28 180 £463 +2.78% 578
West Midlands -30 134 £466 +3.44% 326
East of England -13 130 £350 -26.32% 689
South West -20 122 £408 -9.44% 697
Yorkshire -5 117 £500 +27.23% 258
East Midlands -26 44 £475 +22.11% 252
North East -43 14 £450 +130.77% 161
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
1 143 (6.37%) SharePoint
2 103 (4.59%) Confluence
3 55 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) Camunda
9 10 (0.45%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.27%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.089%) nginx
Applications
1 236 (10.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 221 (9.84%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.43%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.58%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 515 (22.94%) Azure
2 290 (12.92%) AWS
3 207 (9.22%) Microsoft 365
3 207 (9.22%) Power Platform
4 135 (6.01%) Entra ID
5 128 (5.70%) GCP
6 105 (4.68%) Azure DevOps
7 71 (3.16%) SaaS
8 58 (2.58%) GitHub
9 45 (2.00%) Power Automate
9 45 (2.00%) Serverless
10 44 (1.96%) PowerApps
11 43 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
12 40 (1.78%) OneDrive
13 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
14 35 (1.56%) Figma
15 34 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
16 24 (1.07%) OpenShift
17 23 (1.02%) IaaS
18 22 (0.98%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.45%) Firewall
2 74 (3.30%) DNS
3 66 (2.94%) Network Security
4 59 (2.63%) VPN
5 58 (2.58%) TCP/IP
6 44 (1.96%) DHCP
7 35 (1.56%) WAN
8 32 (1.43%) LAN
9 24 (1.07%) Wireless
10 19 (0.85%) 3GPP
10 19 (0.85%) BGP
10 19 (0.85%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) SSH
12 16 (0.71%) 5G
12 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.62%) Radio Access Network
15 13 (0.58%) MPLS
15 13 (0.58%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.26%) Power BI
2 101 (4.50%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 45 (2.00%) Metadata
5 43 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
5 43 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
6 33 (1.47%) Tableau
7 32 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.16%) Big Data
8 26 (1.16%) Oracle Database
9 23 (1.02%) MySQL
10 21 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (0.53%) GIS
14 12 (0.53%) Power Query
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 176 (7.84%) JIRA
2 121 (5.39%) Git
3 55 (2.45%) Jenkins
4 48 (2.14%) GitLab
5 31 (1.38%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) Selenium
7 17 (0.76%) JUnit
7 17 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.62%) Maven
9 12 (0.53%) Gradle
9 12 (0.53%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
10 11 (0.49%) MLflow
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.36%) Mockito
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 6 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 985 (43.88%) Social Skills
2 667 (29.71%) Finance
3 518 (23.07%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.29%) Banking
5 174 (7.75%) Public Sector
6 144 (6.41%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.72%) Aerospace
8 98 (4.37%) Manufacturing
9 90 (4.01%) Marketing
10 89 (3.96%) Legal
11 82 (3.65%) Telecoms
12 80 (3.56%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (3.25%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (2.81%) Retail
15 61 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
16 51 (2.27%) Law
17 50 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 43 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
19 41 (1.83%) Front Office
20 39 (1.74%) Military
Job Titles
1 315 (14.03%) Analyst
2 245 (10.91%) Senior
3 186 (8.29%) Lead
4 171 (7.62%) Developer
5 154 (6.86%) Architect
6 148 (6.59%) Business Analyst
7 115 (5.12%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.94%) Senior Manager
8 66 (2.94%) Support Engineer
9 62 (2.76%) IT Support
10 57 (2.54%) Consultant
11 53 (2.36%) IT Analyst
12 52 (2.32%) Designer
13 51 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
14 49 (2.18%) IT Manager
14 49 (2.18%) Product Manager
15 44 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
16 41 (1.83%) Technical Support
17 40 (1.78%) Senior Analyst
17 40 (1.78%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (4.28%) Terraform
2 92 (4.10%) .NET
2 92 (4.10%) REST
3 57 (2.54%) React
4 53 (2.36%) HTML
5 51 (2.27%) Kafka
6 42 (1.87%) CSS
7 40 (1.78%) RESTful
8 38 (1.69%) OAuth
9 35 (1.56%) Middleware
10 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
11 33 (1.47%) Web Services
12 32 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
13 29 (1.29%) SAML
13 29 (1.29%) XML
14 28 (1.25%) Spring Boot
15 27 (1.20%) LDAP
15 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
15 27 (1.20%) OpenID
16 26 (1.16%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.20%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.84%) Onboarding
3 128 (5.70%) Product Ownership
4 90 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 83 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 73 (3.25%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.54%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.45%) Algorithms
9 45 (2.00%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.96%) Operational Technology
11 41 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
12 40 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
12 40 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
13 35 (1.56%) Life Science
14 33 (1.47%) AI Agents
14 33 (1.47%) Virtual Team
15 32 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
16 31 (1.38%) PMI
17 30 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 277 (12.34%) Windows
2 171 (7.62%) Linux
3 68 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.63%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.98%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) 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
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (33.90%) Computer Science
2 630 (28.06%) Agile
3 593 (26.41%) Problem-Solving
4 433 (19.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 416 (18.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 359 (15.99%) AI
7 310 (13.81%) DevOps
8 290 (12.92%) Project Management
9 279 (12.43%) Analytics
10 273 (12.16%) CI/CD
11 256 (11.40%) ITIL
12 240 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 219 (9.76%) Cybersecurity
14 217 (9.67%) Decision-Making
15 206 (9.18%) Change Management
15 206 (9.18%) Software Engineering
16 203 (9.04%) Scrum
17 202 (9.00%) PRINCE2
18 198 (8.82%) Roadmaps
19 182 (8.11%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 384 (17.10%) Python
2 329 (14.65%) SQL
3 157 (6.99%) PowerShell
4 150 (6.68%) Java
5 102 (4.54%) JavaScript
6 101 (4.50%) C#
7 55 (2.45%) Bash
8 45 (2.00%) C++
9 37 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.16%) Bicep
11 24 (1.07%) C
11 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) R
13 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 445 (19.82%) Computer Science Degree
2 421 (18.75%) Security Cleared
3 272 (12.12%) SC Cleared
4 192 (8.55%) Master's Degree
5 131 (5.84%) PMI Certification
6 114 (5.08%) Microsoft Certification
7 112 (4.99%) PMP
8 104 (4.63%) CISSP
9 73 (3.25%) Cisco Certification
9 73 (3.25%) DV Cleared
10 68 (3.03%) Azure Certification
11 60 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
12 51 (2.27%) PhD
13 47 (2.09%) CISM
14 41 (1.83%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 37 (1.65%) AWS Certification
16 34 (1.51%) CCNA
17 33 (1.47%) CCNP
18 32 (1.43%) A+ Certification
19 31 (1.38%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (5.48%) QA
2 120 (5.35%) Data Quality
3 98 (4.37%) NIST
4 91 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 84 (3.74%) PMO
6 62 (2.76%) GDPR
7 43 (1.92%) SLA
8 42 (1.87%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.94%) GRC
11 19 (0.85%) NCSC
12 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
16 10 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.40%) COBIT
17 9 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 184 (8.20%) Active Directory
2 114 (5.08%) Docker
3 51 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.98%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.27%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.27%) vSphere
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.089%) Squid
Systems Management
1 116 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.76%) Ansible
4 33 (1.47%) SCCM
5 29 (1.29%) Grafana
6 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.76%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.36%) WSUS
11 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.31%) Control-M
11 7 (0.31%) SCOM
12 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
12 6 (0.27%) Nessus
12 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 578 (25.75%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.90%) Oracle
3 138 (6.15%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.52%) SAP
5 86 (3.83%) Google
6 67 (2.98%) VMware
7 61 (2.72%) Cisco
7 61 (2.72%) Salesforce
8 55 (2.45%) IBM
9 50 (2.23%) Adobe
10 48 (2.14%) Databricks
11 39 (1.74%) Splunk
12 30 (1.34%) CyberArk
13 28 (1.25%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.16%) Citrix
15 22 (0.98%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) Apple
18 19 (0.85%) Ariba
19 16 (0.71%) HP