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

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,159 2,291 2,994
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.88% 8.00% 8.11%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.30% 26.33% 26.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,263 1,298 1,822
10th Percentile £309 £250 £233
25th Percentile £406 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 145 196
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.80 £17.19
25th Percentile £23.00 £30.25 £27.50
Median hourly rate £37.58 £43.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.60% -14.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £61.43 £73.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -17.65% -15.00% +11.11%

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 10,634 8,701 11,280
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.87% 30.37% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,955 5,361 7,146
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £419 £420 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 902 411 672
10th Percentile £16.39 £18.70 £17.52
25th Percentile £19.40 £24.88 £26.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +16.67%
75th Percentile £56.69 £67.88 £67.52
90th Percentile £76.58 £75.40 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%

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 December 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 22 December 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 22 December 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 -3 1,007 £527 -4.18% 1,385
North of England -7 306 £450 -10.00% 942
South East -1 285 £475 -5.00% 1,367
Midlands -12 222 £490 +3.16% 707
North West -4 166 £420 -16.00% 489
West Midlands -16 166 £500 - 354
South West +9 165 £637 +15.73% 490
Yorkshire -5 131 £475 - 363
East of England -10 126 £500 +14.29% 647
East Midlands -5 56 £450 +23.12% 328
North East -11 10 £298 -40.31% 95
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
1 181 (8.38%) Confluence
2 108 (5.00%) SharePoint
3 48 (2.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.67%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.74%) nginx
7 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.60%) Apache
8 13 (0.60%) CMS
9 12 (0.56%) IIS
10 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.32%) SAS
11 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.19%) Luigi
11 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.14%) Ethereum
12 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 268 (12.41%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 172 (7.97%) Microsoft Project
4 107 (4.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (3.29%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Trello
8 11 (0.51%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.46%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 8 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.093%) InDesign
13 2 (0.093%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.093%) Revit
Business Applications
1 37 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.83%) Primavera
4 17 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
7 11 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
7 11 (0.51%) SAP ERP
8 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.32%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.23%) Endur
13 5 (0.23%) Maximo
13 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
14 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 426 (19.73%) Azure
2 290 (13.43%) AWS
3 174 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (6.95%) Power Platform
5 149 (6.90%) GCP
6 92 (4.26%) GitHub
6 92 (4.26%) SaaS
7 75 (3.47%) Entra ID
8 70 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
9 66 (3.06%) Serverless
10 45 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 37 (1.71%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.48%) Amazon S3
13 30 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
13 30 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
13 30 (1.39%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.20%) Azure Logic Apps
14 26 (1.20%) OCI
15 24 (1.11%) Azure Sentinel
15 24 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.63%) Firewall
2 65 (3.01%) DNS
3 45 (2.08%) VPN
4 43 (1.99%) LAN
5 41 (1.90%) Network Security
6 35 (1.62%) WAN
7 33 (1.53%) DHCP
8 31 (1.44%) HTTP
9 29 (1.34%) TCP/IP
10 28 (1.30%) Wireless
11 26 (1.20%) Internet
11 26 (1.20%) SSH
12 23 (1.07%) Skype
13 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
14 19 (0.88%) BGP
15 16 (0.74%) OSPF
15 16 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.69%) VLAN
17 14 (0.65%) SMTP
17 14 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.42%) Power BI
2 88 (4.08%) PostgreSQL
3 72 (3.33%) SQL Server
4 57 (2.64%) Relational Database
5 56 (2.59%) NoSQL
6 51 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
7 50 (2.32%) Tableau
8 33 (1.53%) MySQL
9 29 (1.34%) Big Data
10 25 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.79%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.79%) Metadata
12 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.69%) MongoDB
13 15 (0.69%) Oracle Database
14 14 (0.65%) RDBMS
15 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
16 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 276 (12.78%) JIRA
2 112 (5.19%) Git
3 93 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.15%) GitLab
5 26 (1.20%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.07%) Postman
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 16 (0.74%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.51%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.51%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.51%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.51%) JUnit
9 11 (0.51%) Vagrant
10 8 (0.37%) Artifactory
10 8 (0.37%) Burp Suite
10 8 (0.37%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
11 7 (0.32%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
12 6 (0.28%) MLflow
General
1 1,130 (52.34%) Social Skills
2 688 (31.87%) Finance
3 533 (24.69%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (11.63%) Banking
5 138 (6.39%) Public Sector
6 95 (4.40%) Manufacturing
7 90 (4.17%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
9 78 (3.61%) Marketing
10 75 (3.47%) Legal
11 73 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (3.15%) Military
13 62 (2.87%) Financial Institution
14 57 (2.64%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
16 51 (2.36%) Front Office
16 51 (2.36%) Investment Banking
17 45 (2.08%) Pharmaceutical
18 44 (2.04%) Aerospace
19 41 (1.90%) Law
Job Titles
1 310 (14.36%) Analyst
2 214 (9.91%) Senior
3 213 (9.87%) Developer
4 168 (7.78%) Architect
5 159 (7.36%) Lead
6 147 (6.81%) Business Analyst
7 146 (6.76%) Project Manager
8 85 (3.94%) Consultant
9 78 (3.61%) Software Engineer
10 52 (2.41%) Technical Support
11 49 (2.27%) Support Analyst
12 48 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
13 47 (2.18%) Security Engineer
14 46 (2.13%) IT Support
15 43 (1.99%) Data Scientist
15 43 (1.99%) Senior Developer
16 42 (1.95%) Support Engineer
17 39 (1.81%) Senior Software Engineer
18 37 (1.71%) IT Manager
19 34 (1.57%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (5.42%) REST
2 83 (3.84%) RESTful
3 70 (3.24%) .NET
4 61 (2.83%) HTML
5 53 (2.45%) XML
6 47 (2.18%) Middleware
7 45 (2.08%) CSS
7 45 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
8 44 (2.04%) JSON
9 40 (1.85%) Kafka
9 40 (1.85%) React
10 39 (1.81%) SOAP
11 36 (1.67%) OAuth
12 32 (1.48%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.39%) TensorFlow
14 29 (1.34%) Spring
15 27 (1.25%) Node.js
15 27 (1.25%) Pandas
16 26 (1.20%) PyTorch
16 26 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 180 (8.34%) Management Information System
2 109 (5.05%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.82%) Cloud Native
4 72 (3.33%) Onboarding
5 68 (3.15%) Algorithms
6 60 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (2.69%) Analytical Mindset
8 56 (2.59%) Data Protection Act
9 54 (2.50%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.32%) Data Centre
11 45 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
12 44 (2.04%) Derivative
13 39 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
13 39 (1.81%) Public Cloud
13 39 (1.81%) Security Posture
14 37 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.67%) Life Science
16 32 (1.48%) PMI
17 30 (1.39%) Data Structures
17 30 (1.39%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 244 (11.30%) Windows
2 183 (8.48%) Linux
3 77 (3.57%) Unix
4 56 (2.59%) Windows Server
5 43 (1.99%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 21 (0.97%) Android
8 20 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.83%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.79%) VMS
11 15 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.093%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 836 (38.72%) Computer Science
2 715 (33.12%) Agile
3 666 (30.85%) Problem-Solving
4 350 (16.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 333 (15.42%) Project Management
6 332 (15.38%) DevOps
7 264 (12.23%) Change Management
8 244 (11.30%) CI/CD
8 244 (11.30%) ITIL
9 232 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
10 230 (10.65%) AI
11 222 (10.28%) Cybersecurity
12 221 (10.24%) Decision-Making
13 219 (10.14%) Analytics
14 218 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 214 (9.91%) Software Engineering
16 196 (9.08%) Migration
17 187 (8.66%) Risk Management
18 183 (8.48%) Project Delivery
19 167 (7.74%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 413 (19.13%) Python
2 324 (15.01%) SQL
3 162 (7.50%) Java
4 120 (5.56%) PowerShell
5 111 (5.14%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.84%) C#
7 80 (3.71%) C++
8 53 (2.45%) TypeScript
9 50 (2.32%) Go
10 46 (2.13%) Bash
11 29 (1.34%) R
12 23 (1.07%) Perl
13 18 (0.83%) C
13 18 (0.83%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.74%) Kotlin
14 16 (0.74%) Kusto Query Language
15 14 (0.65%) MATLAB
15 14 (0.65%) Ruby
16 13 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 577 (26.73%) Computer Science Degree
2 364 (16.86%) Security Cleared
3 322 (14.91%) Master's Degree
4 286 (13.25%) SC Cleared
5 129 (5.97%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.60%) PMP
7 110 (5.09%) CISSP
8 87 (4.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (3.33%) CISM
10 66 (3.06%) PhD
11 64 (2.96%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
14 54 (2.50%) AWS Certification
15 46 (2.13%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.90%) HND
17 40 (1.85%) CCNP
18 35 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
18 35 (1.62%) HNC
19 34 (1.57%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (6.11%) QA
2 111 (5.14%) GDPR
3 91 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (3.80%) Data Quality
5 70 (3.24%) NIST
5 70 (3.24%) PMO
6 35 (1.62%) Accessibility
6 35 (1.62%) SLA
7 33 (1.53%) PCI DSS
8 27 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 24 (1.11%) GRC
10 15 (0.69%) Def Stans
10 15 (0.69%) NCSC
10 15 (0.69%) WCAG
11 14 (0.65%) HIPAA
12 13 (0.60%) COBIT
13 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.46%) P3O
16 9 (0.42%) Basel III
System Software
1 161 (7.46%) Docker
2 126 (5.84%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.93%) Firmware
5 11 (0.51%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.46%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.46%) Postfix
6 10 (0.46%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.093%) XenApp
12 1 (0.046%) HDFS
12 1 (0.046%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.046%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 146 (6.76%) Kubernetes
2 125 (5.79%) Terraform
3 79 (3.66%) Ansible
4 58 (2.69%) Grafana
5 48 (2.22%) Prometheus
6 47 (2.18%) Microsoft Intune
7 45 (2.08%) SCCM
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 20 (0.93%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.51%) Kibana
13 10 (0.46%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
14 9 (0.42%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Nmap
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 7 (0.32%) CSIRT
17 6 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 449 (20.80%) Microsoft
2 137 (6.35%) Oracle
3 126 (5.84%) SAP
4 120 (5.56%) ServiceNow
5 95 (4.40%) Google
5 95 (4.40%) Splunk
6 66 (3.06%) Cisco
7 63 (2.92%) Salesforce
8 51 (2.36%) Atlassian
9 50 (2.32%) Remedy
10 47 (2.18%) VMware
11 38 (1.76%) Databricks
12 34 (1.57%) IBM
13 30 (1.39%) Citrix
14 28 (1.30%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.16%) Adobe
16 21 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.88%) CheckPoint
17 19 (0.88%) Workday
18 17 (0.79%) MuleSoft