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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,170 1,913 3,108
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.54% 7.84% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.68% 24.98% 26.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,272 1,135 1,669
10th Percentile £263 £250 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £788 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 145 343
10th Percentile £17.38 £17.93 £14.00
25th Percentile £27.60 £29.00 £22.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £51.49 £54.00 £39.92
% change year-on-year -4.65% +35.27% -11.29%

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 13,009 7,659 11,607
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.19% 31.40% 31.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,718 4,898 7,167
10th Percentile £341 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £745
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 995 424 932
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.15 £13.88
25th Percentile £20.82 £24.24 £17.72
Median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £38.45
Median % change year-on-year -9.08% +30.03% -26.07%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £76.82
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £38.16
% change year-on-year -2.91% +17.94% -29.34%

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 15 April 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 15 April 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 15 April 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 -14 939 £513 -6.82% 930
South East -7 359 £500 - 644
North of England -6 328 £408 -11.89% 478
Midlands -24 200 £500 +61.29% 335
North West -7 182 £400 -14.12% 262
South West -5 147 £688 +30.95% 201
West Midlands -30 144 £498 +65.83% 210
East of England -8 138 £498 -2.36% 223
Yorkshire -16 129 £475 -5.00% 149
East Midlands -16 55 £525 +47.47% 124
North East -20 18 £407 -4.24% 73
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
1 149 (6.87%) Confluence
2 108 (4.98%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.61%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.60%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Camunda
13 2 (0.092%) Drupal
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) IIS
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 291 (13.41%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 185 (8.53%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.90%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.46%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 7 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Navisworks
12 3 (0.14%) Revit
13 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.046%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.046%) Weka
Business Applications
1 46 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.88%) Primavera
3 17 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
9 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 446 (20.55%) Azure
2 248 (11.43%) AWS
3 189 (8.71%) Microsoft 365
4 168 (7.74%) Power Platform
5 104 (4.79%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.61%) GCP
6 100 (4.61%) SaaS
7 79 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
8 56 (2.58%) GitHub
9 33 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
9 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
10 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
11 31 (1.43%) PaaS
12 29 (1.34%) IaaS
13 26 (1.20%) PowerApps
13 26 (1.20%) Serverless
14 24 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
14 24 (1.11%) Snowflake
15 23 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
15 23 (1.06%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.84%) Firewall
2 58 (2.67%) LAN
3 57 (2.63%) WAN
4 45 (2.07%) TCP/IP
5 44 (2.03%) DNS
6 42 (1.94%) Network Security
7 36 (1.66%) VPN
8 29 (1.34%) Wireless
9 28 (1.29%) BGP
10 22 (1.01%) OSPF
11 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.92%) HTTP
13 19 (0.88%) DHCP
14 17 (0.78%) Skype
15 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.65%) Internet
16 14 (0.65%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.60%) SAN
17 13 (0.60%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.54%) Power BI
2 85 (3.92%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 46 (2.12%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.66%) Tableau
7 34 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.24%) Big Data
8 27 (1.24%) MySQL
9 24 (1.11%) Metadata
10 17 (0.78%) MongoDB
10 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
12 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
13 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
14 10 (0.46%) Power Query
15 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 246 (11.34%) JIRA
2 94 (4.33%) Git
3 45 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.61%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.97%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 17 (0.78%) MLflow
9 14 (0.65%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.60%) Postman
11 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.46%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.41%) JUnit
14 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.32%) TeamCity
16 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
General
1 1,042 (48.02%) Social Skills
2 660 (30.41%) Finance
3 493 (22.72%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (9.95%) Banking
5 172 (7.93%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.07%) Presentation Skills
7 107 (4.93%) Organisational Skills
8 81 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
9 79 (3.64%) Marketing
10 76 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.36%) Aerospace
12 71 (3.27%) Legal
13 65 (3.00%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.44%) Military
15 47 (2.17%) Retail
16 46 (2.12%) Telecoms
17 45 (2.07%) Front Office
17 45 (2.07%) Law
18 39 (1.80%) Investment Banking
19 37 (1.71%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 298 (13.73%) Analyst
2 220 (10.14%) Senior
3 179 (8.25%) Lead
4 171 (7.88%) Architect
5 162 (7.47%) Developer
6 159 (7.33%) Project Manager
7 144 (6.64%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.50%) Consultant
9 64 (2.95%) Delivery Manager
10 57 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
11 55 (2.53%) Technical Support
12 51 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.26%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.21%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.03%) Product Manager
16 40 (1.84%) Security Engineer
17 39 (1.80%) Systems Engineer
18 38 (1.75%) Senior Manager
19 37 (1.71%) Data Engineer
20 35 (1.61%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.19%) REST
2 61 (2.81%) .NET
3 48 (2.21%) Middleware
4 45 (2.07%) React
5 44 (2.03%) RESTful
6 42 (1.94%) HTML
6 42 (1.94%) Kafka
7 37 (1.71%) XML
8 34 (1.57%) JSON
8 34 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.57%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.52%) SOAP
10 31 (1.43%) Spring
11 29 (1.34%) Pandas
12 28 (1.29%) CSS
12 28 (1.29%) OAuth
12 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
13 24 (1.11%) .NET Framework
13 24 (1.11%) TensorFlow
14 23 (1.06%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 170 (7.83%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.87%) Product Ownership
3 115 (5.30%) Onboarding
4 75 (3.46%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 65 (3.00%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
8 55 (2.53%) Algorithms
9 52 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (2.26%) Data Structures
10 49 (2.26%) PMI
11 48 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
12 41 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
13 37 (1.71%) Derivative
14 32 (1.47%) Robotics
14 32 (1.47%) Security Posture
15 31 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
16 28 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 27 (1.24%) Equities
18 26 (1.20%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 252 (11.61%) Windows
2 159 (7.33%) Linux
3 70 (3.23%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.72%) Unix
5 57 (2.63%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.88%) Android
9 14 (0.65%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.51%) Apple iOS
11 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
12 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.18%) CentOS
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 774 (35.67%) Computer Science
2 683 (31.47%) Agile
3 572 (26.36%) Problem-Solving
4 361 (16.64%) Stakeholder Management
5 317 (14.61%) Project Management
6 313 (14.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 311 (14.33%) AI
8 302 (13.92%) DevOps
9 236 (10.88%) Change Management
9 236 (10.88%) ITIL
10 234 (10.78%) CI/CD
11 233 (10.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 231 (10.65%) Analytics
13 221 (10.18%) Decision-Making
14 220 (10.14%) Cybersecurity
15 208 (9.59%) Migration
16 206 (9.49%) PRINCE2
17 202 (9.31%) Project Delivery
18 196 (9.03%) Risk Management
19 189 (8.71%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 353 (16.27%) Python
2 318 (14.65%) SQL
3 145 (6.68%) Java
4 116 (5.35%) PowerShell
5 76 (3.50%) JavaScript
6 73 (3.36%) C#
7 60 (2.76%) C++
8 38 (1.75%) Bash
9 36 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 26 (1.20%) PL/SQL
12 16 (0.74%) C
12 16 (0.74%) Go
12 16 (0.74%) Perl
12 16 (0.74%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.55%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 488 (22.49%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (19.59%) Security Cleared
3 307 (14.15%) SC Cleared
4 259 (11.94%) Master's Degree
5 133 (6.13%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.48%) PMP
7 97 (4.47%) CISSP
8 83 (3.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 60 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (2.44%) CISM
11 52 (2.40%) PhD
12 51 (2.35%) TOGAF Certification
13 49 (2.26%) Azure Certification
14 48 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
15 46 (2.12%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.94%) CCNP
17 34 (1.57%) MBA
18 31 (1.43%) AWS Certification
18 31 (1.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 30 (1.38%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.73%) QA
2 104 (4.79%) PMO
3 103 (4.75%) GDPR
4 100 (4.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 92 (4.24%) NIST
6 79 (3.64%) Data Quality
7 44 (2.03%) PCI DSS
7 44 (2.03%) SLA
8 34 (1.57%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.97%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) NCSC
12 14 (0.65%) IFRS
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 12 (0.55%) IFRS 17
15 11 (0.51%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
16 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 146 (6.73%) Active Directory
2 122 (5.62%) Docker
3 42 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 19 (0.88%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) RACF
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 129 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.69%) Terraform
3 63 (2.90%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.67%) Ansible
5 37 (1.71%) Grafana
6 35 (1.61%) SCCM
7 30 (1.38%) OPNET
8 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.78%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.60%) Nmap
12 11 (0.51%) Kibana
12 11 (0.51%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 8 (0.37%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
16 6 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 487 (22.44%) Microsoft
2 142 (6.54%) Oracle
3 125 (5.76%) ServiceNow
4 120 (5.53%) SAP
5 86 (3.96%) Google
6 70 (3.23%) Cisco
7 51 (2.35%) Remedy
7 51 (2.35%) Splunk
8 48 (2.21%) VMware
9 45 (2.07%) Citrix
10 44 (2.03%) Atlassian
10 44 (2.03%) Databricks
11 38 (1.75%) Salesforce
12 37 (1.71%) IBM
13 35 (1.61%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.34%) CheckPoint
15 24 (1.11%) Adobe
16 21 (0.97%) Aruba
16 21 (0.97%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.92%) Red Hat