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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,250 1,969 2,582
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.87% 7.08% 7.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.21% 22.48% 26.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,166 1,116 1,473
10th Percentile £204 £263 £268
25th Percentile £356 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £634
90th Percentile £725 £750 £774
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 161 185
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.25 £35.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £37.46 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +5.45% -34.68% +19.13%
75th Percentile £69.50 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £79.67
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £38.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +0.57% -26.67% +6.84%

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 14,790 8,759 9,798
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.03% 31.49% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,908 5,575 6,037
10th Percentile £350 £301 £325
25th Percentile £443 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £527 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,204 691 572
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.51
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -53.43% -
75th Percentile £74.37 £47.31 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.08 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £49.00
% change year-on-year +93.72% -48.67% -9.26%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 -20 972 £525 -4.55% 5,546
South East +9 459 £525 +13.51% 1,513
North of England -13 338 £475 +5.56% 986
North West -6 213 £475 +3.83% 541
Midlands -32 178 £450 -2.96% 720
East of England -14 135 £350 -30.00% 726
West Midlands -28 132 £450 -5.26% 432
South West -23 125 £400 -13.51% 633
Yorkshire -5 109 £500 +19.05% 283
East Midlands -22 45 £475 +13.10% 288
North East -43 16 £455 +30.65% 175
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
1 156 (6.93%) SharePoint
2 100 (4.44%) Confluence
3 59 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
6 17 (0.76%) IIS
7 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
8 13 (0.58%) Camunda
9 12 (0.53%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Appian
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 232 (10.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (9.51%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.98%) Microsoft Project
4 111 (4.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 42 (1.87%) 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%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
10 9 (0.40%) Windchill
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
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%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 40 (1.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) Primavera
4 8 (0.36%) Magento
4 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 519 (23.07%) Azure
2 281 (12.49%) AWS
3 217 (9.64%) Microsoft 365
4 214 (9.51%) Power Platform
5 139 (6.18%) GCP
6 132 (5.87%) Entra ID
7 113 (5.02%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.24%) SaaS
9 60 (2.67%) GitHub
10 56 (2.49%) Power Automate
11 51 (2.27%) Serverless
12 50 (2.22%) PowerApps
13 48 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
14 46 (2.04%) OneDrive
15 44 (1.96%) Microsoft Copilot
16 34 (1.51%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.42%) Figma
18 26 (1.16%) OpenShift
19 25 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
19 25 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.31%) Firewall
2 74 (3.29%) DNS
3 63 (2.80%) Network Security
4 59 (2.62%) TCP/IP
5 58 (2.58%) VPN
6 45 (2.00%) DHCP
7 33 (1.47%) WAN
8 32 (1.42%) LAN
9 24 (1.07%) Wireless
10 23 (1.02%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.89%) 5G
12 19 (0.84%) Internet
12 19 (0.84%) SSH
13 18 (0.80%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.76%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.76%) SSL
15 16 (0.71%) BGP
15 16 (0.71%) VLAN
16 15 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
17 14 (0.62%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.98%) Power BI
2 108 (4.80%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.31%) Metadata
4 51 (2.27%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
6 41 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
7 33 (1.47%) MySQL
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.33%) Tableau
10 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.02%) Big Data
11 23 (1.02%) MongoDB
11 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 17 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (0.67%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.67%) GIS
14 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
15 11 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 166 (7.38%) JIRA
2 126 (5.60%) Git
3 57 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.27%) GitLab
5 22 (0.98%) JUnit
6 21 (0.93%) Maven
6 21 (0.93%) SonarQube
7 20 (0.89%) Selenium
8 19 (0.84%) Gradle
9 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
10 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.58%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.58%) Mockito
11 13 (0.58%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.44%) Subversion
13 9 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.36%) MLflow
14 8 (0.36%) Postman
General
1 1,019 (45.29%) Social Skills
2 664 (29.51%) Finance
3 523 (23.24%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.53%) Banking
5 174 (7.73%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
7 118 (5.24%) Manufacturing
8 105 (4.67%) Aerospace
9 97 (4.31%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (4.00%) Marketing
11 81 (3.60%) Legal
12 79 (3.51%) Telecoms
13 73 (3.24%) Presentation Skills
14 65 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
15 58 (2.58%) Retail
16 56 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 50 (2.22%) Law
18 47 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
19 43 (1.91%) Military
20 41 (1.82%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 306 (13.60%) Analyst
2 258 (11.47%) Senior
3 185 (8.22%) Lead
4 184 (8.18%) Developer
5 155 (6.89%) Architect
6 142 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 109 (4.84%) Project Manager
8 73 (3.24%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.89%) IT Support
9 65 (2.89%) Senior Manager
10 55 (2.44%) Consultant
11 53 (2.36%) IT Analyst
12 52 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.18%) IT Manager
14 45 (2.00%) Technical Support
15 44 (1.96%) Security Engineer
16 43 (1.91%) Administrator
16 43 (1.91%) Designer
16 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
17 40 (1.78%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.58%) Terraform
2 100 (4.44%) REST
3 91 (4.04%) .NET
4 66 (2.93%) HTML
5 64 (2.84%) React
6 57 (2.53%) Kafka
7 54 (2.40%) CSS
8 44 (1.96%) RESTful
9 42 (1.87%) OAuth
9 42 (1.87%) XML
10 39 (1.73%) Web Services
11 38 (1.69%) Middleware
12 36 (1.60%) Oracle Fusion
13 35 (1.56%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.47%) .NET Framework
15 32 (1.42%) SAML
15 32 (1.42%) SOAP
16 31 (1.38%) JSON
16 31 (1.38%) OAuth2
17 30 (1.33%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 206 (9.16%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.00%) Onboarding
3 108 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 91 (4.04%) Cloud Native
5 90 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
6 55 (2.44%) Algorithms
7 54 (2.40%) Data Centre
8 52 (2.31%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.13%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
10 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.78%) Life Science
12 39 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
13 38 (1.69%) Virtual Team
14 37 (1.64%) AI Agents
14 37 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
15 35 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
16 30 (1.33%) SCADA
17 29 (1.29%) PMI
18 28 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 284 (12.62%) Windows
2 175 (7.78%) Linux
3 79 (3.51%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.80%) Unix
5 42 (1.87%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
9 23 (1.02%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) 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%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.13%) zOS
14 2 (0.089%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 726 (32.27%) Computer Science
2 623 (27.69%) Agile
3 597 (26.53%) Problem-Solving
4 469 (20.84%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 366 (16.27%) AI
7 325 (14.44%) DevOps
8 289 (12.84%) Project Management
9 288 (12.80%) Analytics
10 286 (12.71%) CI/CD
11 256 (11.38%) ITIL
12 240 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (10.58%) Decision-Making
14 221 (9.82%) Change Management
15 219 (9.73%) Roadmaps
16 217 (9.64%) Cybersecurity
16 217 (9.64%) Scrum
17 214 (9.51%) Software Engineering
18 194 (8.62%) Validation
19 192 (8.53%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 380 (16.89%) Python
2 332 (14.76%) SQL
3 171 (7.60%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.62%) Java
5 120 (5.33%) JavaScript
6 106 (4.71%) C#
7 59 (2.62%) Bash
8 41 (1.82%) C++
9 38 (1.69%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.24%) Bicep
11 27 (1.20%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.11%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.07%) C
13 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
14 23 (1.02%) R
15 15 (0.67%) Scala
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 9 (0.40%) MATLAB
17 9 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 441 (19.60%) Computer Science Degree
2 427 (18.98%) Security Cleared
3 306 (13.60%) SC Cleared
4 186 (8.27%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.09%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.33%) Microsoft Certification
7 119 (5.29%) PMP
8 102 (4.53%) CISSP
9 86 (3.82%) DV Cleared
10 80 (3.56%) Azure Certification
11 78 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
12 67 (2.98%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.53%) PhD
14 48 (2.13%) CISM
15 46 (2.04%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 42 (1.87%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.60%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.47%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.47%) CCNA
18 33 (1.47%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.87%) QA
2 129 (5.73%) Data Quality
3 87 (3.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 87 (3.87%) NIST
4 81 (3.60%) PMO
5 69 (3.07%) GDPR
6 39 (1.73%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.51%) SLA
8 26 (1.16%) GRC
9 23 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 16 (0.71%) IFRS
10 16 (0.71%) NCSC
11 15 (0.67%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.49%) P3O
14 9 (0.40%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.36%) COBIT
15 8 (0.36%) IEC 61508
15 8 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 183 (8.13%) Active Directory
2 116 (5.16%) Docker
3 54 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.20%) Firmware
5 22 (0.98%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) Embedded Firmware
6 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 8 (0.36%) vSphere
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 114 (5.07%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.62%) Ansible
4 31 (1.38%) SCCM
5 27 (1.20%) Grafana
6 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 8 (0.36%) CASB
12 8 (0.36%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) Control-M
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 579 (25.73%) Microsoft
2 159 (7.07%) Oracle
3 137 (6.09%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.56%) SAP
5 94 (4.18%) Google
6 70 (3.11%) VMware
7 62 (2.76%) Cisco
8 57 (2.53%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.36%) Adobe
10 45 (2.00%) Databricks
11 40 (1.78%) Splunk
12 38 (1.69%) IBM
13 32 (1.42%) Red Hat
14 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
15 24 (1.07%) Citrix
16 22 (0.98%) OpenAI
17 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.89%) Palo Alto
19 19 (0.84%) Apple
20 18 (0.80%) Ariba