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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -12 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,185 1,882 3,062
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.45% 8.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.95% 23.97% 26.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,123 1,643
10th Percentile £204 £243 £235
25th Percentile £366 £377 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £635
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 140 363
10th Percentile £17.93 £20.22 £16.25
25th Percentile £27.20 £27.80 £25.50
Median hourly rate £50.72 £47.81 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.10% +13.82% -12.04%
75th Percentile £83.19 £69.06 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.08 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £47.00 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.51% +15.75% -19.31%

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 13,702 7,852 11,375
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.52% 31.07% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,254 4,938 7,003
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £715 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,030 511 1,006
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £24.21 £20.19 £20.56
Median hourly rate £53.00 £29.27 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +81.07% -31.13% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £64.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.74 £28.55 £40.94
% change year-on-year +77.73% -30.26% -26.23%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -19 932 £515 -6.36% 943
South East -2 418 £500 +5.26% 547
North of England -11 327 £449 -0.72% 364
Midlands -25 194 £505 +34.67% 266
North West -9 181 £447 -1.87% 207
East of England -5 146 £450 -10.00% 193
West Midlands -29 146 £487 +16.18% 143
Yorkshire -5 132 £500 +11.86% 110
South West -25 121 £435 -8.42% 204
East Midlands -14 46 £550 +54.49% 123
North East -39 14 £450 +130.77% 54
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
1 121 (5.54%) SharePoint
2 107 (4.90%) Confluence
3 59 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.73%) Apache
7 12 (0.55%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.092%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.092%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 250 (11.44%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (9.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.63%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.61%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 7 (0.32%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.23%) Trello
13 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.092%) Windchill
15 1 (0.046%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 51 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.64%) Primavera
3 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Magento
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.14%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 487 (22.29%) Azure
2 287 (13.14%) AWS
3 189 (8.65%) Microsoft 365
4 178 (8.15%) Power Platform
5 133 (6.09%) Entra ID
6 110 (5.03%) GCP
7 81 (3.71%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.39%) SaaS
9 53 (2.43%) GitHub
10 35 (1.60%) Figma
10 35 (1.60%) Serverless
11 34 (1.56%) Snowflake
12 32 (1.46%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 31 (1.42%) OneDrive
14 30 (1.37%) PaaS
15 28 (1.28%) Dynamics 365
16 26 (1.19%) Google Workspace
16 26 (1.19%) IaaS
17 23 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.49%) Firewall
2 67 (3.07%) TCP/IP
3 66 (3.02%) DNS
4 59 (2.70%) Network Security
5 47 (2.15%) VPN
5 47 (2.15%) WAN
6 45 (2.06%) LAN
7 33 (1.51%) DHCP
8 25 (1.14%) Wireless
9 24 (1.10%) BGP
10 21 (0.96%) OSPF
11 20 (0.92%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (0.64%) 3GPP
13 13 (0.59%) Internet
13 13 (0.59%) Skype
14 12 (0.55%) MPLS
14 12 (0.55%) SSH
15 11 (0.50%) IPsec
15 11 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (6.91%) Power BI
2 104 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.20%) Relational Database
5 43 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.69%) Tableau
7 34 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.46%) Metadata
9 29 (1.33%) Big Data
10 26 (1.19%) MongoDB
11 24 (1.10%) MySQL
12 19 (0.87%) Oracle Database
12 19 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 17 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
15 15 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.59%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.55%) Power Query
18 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 189 (8.65%) JIRA
2 101 (4.62%) Git
3 42 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.83%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.87%) MLflow
6 19 (0.87%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.73%) Selenium
8 11 (0.50%) JUnit
8 11 (0.50%) Postman
9 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.46%) Gradle
9 10 (0.46%) TeamCity
10 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
11 8 (0.37%) Maven
11 8 (0.37%) Subversion
12 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 988 (45.22%) Social Skills
2 667 (30.53%) Finance
3 458 (20.96%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.47%) Banking
5 183 (8.38%) Public Sector
6 131 (6.00%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.85%) Presentation Skills
8 95 (4.35%) Marketing
9 86 (3.94%) Aerospace
10 84 (3.84%) Legal
11 81 (3.71%) Manufacturing
12 77 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
13 75 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
14 61 (2.79%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.56%) Retail
16 51 (2.33%) Law
17 45 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.78%) Front Office
19 32 (1.46%) Automotive
19 32 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 313 (14.32%) Analyst
2 243 (11.12%) Senior
3 173 (7.92%) Architect
4 163 (7.46%) Lead
5 153 (7.00%) Developer
6 140 (6.41%) Business Analyst
7 138 (6.32%) Project Manager
8 64 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
9 62 (2.84%) Consultant
9 62 (2.84%) Senior Manager
10 57 (2.61%) Technical Support
11 53 (2.43%) Designer
12 52 (2.38%) Senior Analyst
13 50 (2.29%) Software Engineer
14 49 (2.24%) Product Manager
15 46 (2.11%) Delivery Manager
15 46 (2.11%) IT Support
16 45 (2.06%) IT Manager
17 42 (1.92%) IT Analyst
17 42 (1.92%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.07%) REST
2 88 (4.03%) .NET
3 58 (2.65%) React
4 44 (2.01%) Kafka
5 41 (1.88%) Middleware
6 37 (1.69%) .NET Framework
6 37 (1.69%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.65%) OAuth
8 35 (1.60%) RESTful
9 34 (1.56%) HTML
10 29 (1.33%) Web Services
11 27 (1.24%) SAML
11 27 (1.24%) Spring
11 27 (1.24%) Spring Boot
12 24 (1.10%) CSS
12 24 (1.10%) JSON
12 24 (1.10%) XML
13 23 (1.05%) AngularJS
13 23 (1.05%) LDAP
13 23 (1.05%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 175 (8.01%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.18%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.77%) Product Ownership
4 89 (4.07%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.89%) Cloud Native
6 67 (3.07%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.38%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 47 (2.15%) Security Posture
10 45 (2.06%) Algorithms
11 43 (1.97%) Operational Technology
12 42 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
13 37 (1.69%) PMI
14 35 (1.60%) Robotics
15 34 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
16 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
17 30 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
18 29 (1.33%) Life Science
19 27 (1.24%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 298 (13.64%) Windows
2 170 (7.78%) Linux
3 73 (3.34%) Unix
4 69 (3.16%) Windows Server
5 53 (2.43%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.10%) Android
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.46%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.32%) AIX
14 6 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.23%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Solaris
17 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (33.00%) Computer Science
2 633 (28.97%) Agile
3 562 (25.72%) Problem-Solving
4 362 (16.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 355 (16.25%) AI
6 347 (15.88%) Continuous Improvement
7 297 (13.59%) DevOps
8 265 (12.13%) Project Management
9 257 (11.76%) Analytics
10 254 (11.62%) CI/CD
11 231 (10.57%) Decision-Making
12 228 (10.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 222 (10.16%) ITIL
14 219 (10.02%) Cybersecurity
15 200 (9.15%) Roadmaps
16 198 (9.06%) Change Management
17 182 (8.33%) Risk Management
18 181 (8.28%) Migration
19 177 (8.10%) Project Delivery
20 173 (7.92%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 365 (16.70%) Python
2 329 (15.06%) SQL
3 146 (6.68%) Java
4 126 (5.77%) PowerShell
5 95 (4.35%) C#
6 85 (3.89%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.83%) Bash
8 36 (1.65%) C++
9 29 (1.33%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.14%) PL/SQL
11 22 (1.01%) R
12 21 (0.96%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.78%) C
15 12 (0.55%) Go
15 12 (0.55%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.55%) Perl
16 11 (0.50%) Bicep
16 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 440 (20.14%) Computer Science Degree
2 386 (17.67%) Security Cleared
3 261 (11.95%) SC Cleared
4 214 (9.79%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.45%) CISSP
7 109 (4.99%) PMP
8 87 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.71%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (2.61%) CISM
12 55 (2.52%) DV Cleared
13 53 (2.43%) Azure Certification
14 44 (2.01%) PhD
15 40 (1.83%) CCNP
16 38 (1.74%) CCNA
17 35 (1.60%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.51%) CISA
19 31 (1.42%) MBA
20 28 (1.28%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (5.35%) QA
2 112 (5.13%) NIST
3 110 (5.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 99 (4.53%) Data Quality
5 93 (4.26%) PMO
6 84 (3.84%) GDPR
7 47 (2.15%) SLA
8 39 (1.78%) Accessibility
9 34 (1.56%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.28%) GRC
10 28 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.01%) NCSC
12 17 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.73%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.41%) COBIT
17 8 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 174 (7.96%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.45%) Docker
3 39 (1.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.14%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.92%) Firmware
6 12 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.14%) XenApp
11 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 130 (5.95%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.84%) Terraform
3 68 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.84%) Ansible
5 33 (1.51%) SCCM
6 32 (1.46%) Grafana
7 30 (1.37%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.64%) Puppet
11 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.41%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.41%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) Kibana
15 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Control-M
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 518 (23.71%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.05%) Oracle
3 123 (5.63%) SAP
4 120 (5.49%) ServiceNow
5 89 (4.07%) Google
6 64 (2.93%) Cisco
7 49 (2.24%) Databricks
8 47 (2.15%) VMware
9 42 (1.92%) Citrix
9 42 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 40 (1.83%) Adobe
11 39 (1.78%) IBM
12 37 (1.69%) Splunk
13 31 (1.42%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.33%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.05%) Red Hat
16 22 (1.01%) CheckPoint
17 21 (0.96%) Siemens
18 19 (0.87%) Ariba
18 19 (0.87%) HP