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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,212 1,992 3,242
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.48% 7.64% 8.57%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.03% 25.38% 27.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,297 1,104 1,811
10th Percentile £293 £250 £208
25th Percentile £400 £401 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £517
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.55% -6.00%
75th Percentile £638 £658 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 114 318
10th Percentile £15.20 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.78 £22.90
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.94 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.49% +7.35% -11.11%
75th Percentile £60.61 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £82.20 £85.00 £73.83
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £42.21 £40.00
% change year-on-year -20.63% +5.51% -9.60%

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 11,623 7,850 11,775
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.06% 30.12% 31.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,719 4,794 7,284
10th Percentile £319 £300 £298
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £541
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -3.00% -1.59%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.52% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 897 371 877
10th Percentile £15.82 £20.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% +3.53% +1.96%
75th Percentile £63.75 £67.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £82.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £45.55
% change year-on-year -36.36% -13.23% +1.21%

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 -4 1,006 £519 -5.64% 664
North of England -2 344 £424 -13.52% 437
South East -4 297 £475 -5.00% 694
Midlands -14 217 £525 +27.27% 322
North West +1 181 £389 -18.16% 252
South West +8 180 £649 +16.67% 206
West Midlands -17 153 £525 +5.00% 199
Yorkshire -12 147 £525 +5.00% 132
East of England -15 119 £550 +18.92% 247
East Midlands -8 64 £523 +46.77% 123
North East -8 17 £364 -27.20% 57
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
1 189 (8.54%) Confluence
2 112 (5.06%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.67%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.68%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.54%) Apache
8 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.32%) nginx
10 6 (0.27%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 281 (12.70%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (10.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 183 (8.27%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.62%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.86%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 10 (0.45%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 4 (0.18%) FrameMaker
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.090%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.090%) Revit
15 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 37 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 24 (1.08%) Primavera
3 22 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.59%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.54%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS R12
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 455 (20.57%) Azure
2 264 (11.93%) AWS
3 200 (9.04%) Microsoft 365
4 160 (7.23%) Power Platform
5 142 (6.42%) GCP
6 107 (4.84%) SaaS
7 86 (3.89%) Entra ID
8 81 (3.66%) GitHub
9 75 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (2.53%) Serverless
11 44 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.63%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.58%) OCI
14 33 (1.49%) Cloud Computing
15 32 (1.45%) PaaS
16 31 (1.40%) IaaS
17 29 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
18 27 (1.22%) PowerApps
19 26 (1.18%) Google Workspace
20 23 (1.04%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.57%) Firewall
2 61 (2.76%) DNS
3 56 (2.53%) LAN
4 53 (2.40%) WAN
5 42 (1.90%) VPN
6 40 (1.81%) Network Security
7 30 (1.36%) DHCP
8 28 (1.27%) Skype
9 27 (1.22%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.18%) HTTP
10 26 (1.18%) Wireless
11 24 (1.08%) BGP
11 24 (1.08%) Internet
11 24 (1.08%) Unified Communications
12 21 (0.95%) OSPF
13 20 (0.90%) SSH
14 18 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
15 16 (0.72%) VLAN
16 14 (0.63%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (5.74%) Power BI
2 83 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.44%) SQL Server
4 58 (2.62%) NoSQL
5 44 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.99%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.99%) Tableau
6 38 (1.72%) MySQL
7 29 (1.31%) Big Data
8 20 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
9 19 (0.86%) Metadata
10 18 (0.81%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
13 13 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.54%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
15 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 9 (0.41%) GIS
Development Applications
1 267 (12.07%) JIRA
2 103 (4.66%) Git
3 74 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.40%) GitLab
5 25 (1.13%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.95%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.81%) Postman
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.50%) MLflow
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) CircleCI
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) JUnit
15 6 (0.27%) Vagrant
16 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,138 (51.45%) Social Skills
2 723 (32.69%) Finance
3 529 (23.92%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (11.35%) Banking
5 170 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 105 (4.75%) Presentation Skills
7 95 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
8 89 (4.02%) Manufacturing
9 82 (3.71%) Marketing
10 74 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (3.16%) Influencing Skills
12 60 (2.71%) Legal
13 59 (2.67%) Military
14 55 (2.49%) Financial Institution
15 48 (2.17%) Front Office
16 44 (1.99%) Telecoms
17 41 (1.85%) Investment Banking
18 39 (1.76%) Retail
19 38 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
20 35 (1.58%) Law
Job Titles
1 323 (14.60%) Analyst
2 234 (10.58%) Senior
3 198 (8.95%) Developer
4 187 (8.45%) Lead
5 173 (7.82%) Architect
6 159 (7.19%) Project Manager
7 155 (7.01%) Business Analyst
8 83 (3.75%) Consultant
8 83 (3.75%) Software Engineer
9 66 (2.98%) Technical Support
10 60 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (2.26%) IT Support
12 46 (2.08%) Security Engineer
13 44 (1.99%) Support Analyst
14 42 (1.90%) Senior Analyst
14 42 (1.90%) Senior Software Engineer
15 39 (1.76%) Data Scientist
16 35 (1.58%) Delivery Manager
16 35 (1.58%) Senior Business Analyst
16 35 (1.58%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.93%) REST
2 69 (3.12%) RESTful
3 67 (3.03%) .NET
4 56 (2.53%) HTML
5 51 (2.31%) React
6 47 (2.12%) Middleware
7 46 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
8 42 (1.90%) CSS
9 41 (1.85%) XML
10 39 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.63%) Kafka
11 36 (1.63%) OAuth
12 35 (1.58%) SOAP
13 34 (1.54%) JSON
14 30 (1.36%) Spring
15 29 (1.31%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.31%) TensorFlow
16 28 (1.27%) AngularJS
16 28 (1.27%) Node.js
17 27 (1.22%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.32%) Management Information System
2 111 (5.02%) Product Ownership
3 100 (4.52%) Cloud Native
4 97 (4.39%) Onboarding
5 68 (3.07%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.80%) Algorithms
7 61 (2.76%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.67%) Virtual Team
9 55 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
10 53 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.99%) PMI
13 43 (1.94%) Security Posture
14 42 (1.90%) Derivative
15 40 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
16 36 (1.63%) Public Cloud
17 35 (1.58%) Life Science
18 30 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
19 28 (1.27%) Equities
20 26 (1.18%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 274 (12.39%) Windows
2 184 (8.32%) Linux
3 83 (3.75%) Unix
4 69 (3.12%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.95%) Android
7 19 (0.86%) Windows Server 2016
8 18 (0.81%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.77%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
10 16 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
11 15 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 14 (0.63%) VMS
13 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
14 6 (0.27%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.090%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 804 (36.35%) Computer Science
2 724 (32.73%) Agile
3 645 (29.16%) Problem-Solving
4 385 (17.41%) Stakeholder Management
5 340 (15.37%) DevOps
6 324 (14.65%) Project Management
7 289 (13.07%) AI
8 275 (12.43%) Change Management
9 253 (11.44%) CI/CD
10 247 (11.17%) Analytics
11 234 (10.58%) Continuous Improvement
12 231 (10.44%) Cybersecurity
13 226 (10.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 223 (10.08%) Migration
15 219 (9.90%) Decision-Making
16 218 (9.86%) Risk Management
17 217 (9.81%) ITIL
18 209 (9.45%) Software Engineering
19 195 (8.82%) Project Delivery
20 181 (8.18%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 405 (18.31%) Python
2 349 (15.78%) SQL
3 154 (6.96%) Java
4 122 (5.52%) PowerShell
5 110 (4.97%) JavaScript
6 79 (3.57%) C#
7 77 (3.48%) C++
8 52 (2.35%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.03%) Go
10 40 (1.81%) Bash
11 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.08%) R
13 22 (0.99%) Perl
14 19 (0.86%) C
14 19 (0.86%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
16 14 (0.63%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.63%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
17 12 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 555 (25.09%) Computer Science Degree
2 396 (17.90%) Security Cleared
3 350 (15.82%) Master's Degree
4 315 (14.24%) SC Cleared
5 137 (6.19%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.52%) PMP
7 107 (4.84%) CISSP
8 84 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.16%) CISM
10 69 (3.12%) PhD
11 61 (2.76%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
13 59 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
14 57 (2.58%) Cisco Certification
15 45 (2.03%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.85%) AWS Certification
16 41 (1.85%) CCNP
17 34 (1.54%) CBAP
17 34 (1.54%) MBA
18 31 (1.40%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.78%) QA
2 118 (5.33%) GDPR
3 93 (4.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 92 (4.16%) PMO
5 70 (3.16%) Data Quality
6 63 (2.85%) NIST
7 44 (1.99%) PCI DSS
8 35 (1.58%) Accessibility
9 33 (1.49%) SLA
10 30 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.27%) GRC
12 17 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.68%) WCAG
14 14 (0.63%) Basel III
14 14 (0.63%) IFRS
14 14 (0.63%) NCSC
15 12 (0.54%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
System Software
1 165 (7.46%) Docker
2 146 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.63%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) DFS Replication
7 6 (0.27%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Postfix
7 6 (0.27%) Squid
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
7 6 (0.27%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
Systems Management
1 163 (7.37%) Kubernetes
2 115 (5.20%) Terraform
3 73 (3.30%) Ansible
4 71 (3.21%) Microsoft Intune
5 54 (2.44%) Grafana
6 52 (2.35%) SCCM
7 47 (2.12%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 22 (0.99%) Puppet
10 16 (0.72%) Kibana
10 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 13 (0.59%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) Nessus
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 7 (0.32%) Argo
15 6 (0.27%) Proxmox
16 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 466 (21.07%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.28%) Oracle
3 129 (5.83%) SAP
4 109 (4.93%) ServiceNow
5 99 (4.48%) Google
6 85 (3.84%) Splunk
7 70 (3.16%) Cisco
8 56 (2.53%) Remedy
9 53 (2.40%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.31%) Salesforce
11 48 (2.17%) VMware
12 44 (1.99%) Databricks
13 38 (1.72%) Citrix
14 29 (1.31%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.99%) IBM
15 22 (0.99%) Informatica
15 22 (0.99%) MuleSoft
16 21 (0.95%) CheckPoint
17 20 (0.90%) Adobe
18 19 (0.86%) Red Hat