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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,221 1,959 3,247
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.17% 7.87% 8.53%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.08% 25.55% 27.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,292 1,136 1,784
10th Percentile £300 £250 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £626 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £508
% change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -5.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 143 342
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £30.73 £22.50
Median hourly rate £44.48 £52.50 £38.13
Median % change year-on-year -15.28% +37.70% -15.28%
75th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.98
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £45.59 £36.50
% change year-on-year -6.78% +24.90% -18.89%

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 12,285 7,668 11,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.12% 30.79% 31.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,153 4,839 7,332
10th Percentile £325 £285 £295
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 957 409 945
10th Percentile £16.22 £19.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.64 £25.26 £18.35
Median hourly rate £25.77 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.91% +31.25% -19.80%
75th Percentile £65.88 £68.18 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £83.20 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £42.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -34.50% +6.88% -20.00%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 -13 972 £513 -6.82% 806
North of England -5 344 £445 -10.95% 528
South East -4 337 £480 -4.00% 792
Midlands -19 207 £500 +37.93% 368
North West -1 177 £400 -20.00% 270
South West 0 171 £681 +23.86% 306
Yorkshire -9 150 £516 +1.98% 205
West Midlands -19 150 £500 +21.21% 203
East of England -10 134 £525 +7.91% 309
East Midlands -15 56 £525 +47.47% 160
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 60
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
1 182 (8.19%) Confluence
2 105 (4.73%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.67%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.23%) SAS
9 5 (0.23%) Skype for Business
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 279 (12.56%) Microsoft Office
2 207 (9.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.10%) Microsoft Project
4 110 (4.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (3.29%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 10 (0.45%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.045%) Revit
14 1 (0.045%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 34 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.04%) Primavera
3 22 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 452 (20.35%) Azure
2 263 (11.84%) AWS
3 181 (8.15%) Microsoft 365
4 160 (7.20%) Power Platform
5 132 (5.94%) GCP
6 107 (4.82%) SaaS
7 104 (4.68%) Entra ID
8 75 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
9 74 (3.33%) GitHub
10 48 (2.16%) Serverless
11 40 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.53%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
13 31 (1.40%) IaaS
13 31 (1.40%) PaaS
14 30 (1.35%) OCI
15 28 (1.26%) Google Workspace
16 26 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.17%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (1.17%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.41%) Firewall
2 56 (2.52%) LAN
3 53 (2.39%) WAN
4 46 (2.07%) DNS
5 42 (1.89%) Network Security
6 41 (1.85%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.62%) VPN
8 28 (1.26%) Wireless
9 24 (1.08%) BGP
10 23 (1.04%) Ethernet
11 22 (0.99%) Internet
12 21 (0.95%) DHCP
12 21 (0.95%) HTTP
13 20 (0.90%) OSPF
14 19 (0.86%) Skype
14 19 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
15 17 (0.77%) Unified Communications
15 17 (0.77%) VLAN
16 15 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
17 14 (0.63%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (5.76%) Power BI
2 83 (3.74%) PostgreSQL
3 79 (3.56%) SQL Server
4 54 (2.43%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
6 45 (2.03%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.80%) Tableau
8 36 (1.62%) MySQL
9 26 (1.17%) Big Data
10 21 (0.95%) MongoDB
11 19 (0.86%) Elasticsearch
11 19 (0.86%) Metadata
12 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.63%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.50%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
16 10 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.45%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 260 (11.71%) JIRA
2 101 (4.55%) Git
3 65 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.30%) GitLab
5 22 (0.99%) Rational DOORS
5 22 (0.99%) Visual Studio
6 17 (0.77%) Postman
7 15 (0.68%) Selenium
8 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.54%) Liquibase
9 12 (0.54%) MLflow
10 11 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) JUnit
15 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,105 (49.75%) Social Skills
2 696 (31.34%) Finance
3 510 (22.96%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (10.49%) Banking
5 177 (7.97%) Public Sector
6 107 (4.82%) Presentation Skills
7 93 (4.19%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.69%) Marketing
9 77 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
10 75 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
10 75 (3.38%) Manufacturing
11 68 (3.06%) Legal
12 60 (2.70%) Aerospace
13 56 (2.52%) Military
14 51 (2.30%) Financial Institution
15 46 (2.07%) Front Office
16 45 (2.03%) Law
17 42 (1.89%) Retail
18 41 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 38 (1.71%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 314 (14.14%) Analyst
2 224 (10.09%) Senior
3 185 (8.33%) Lead
4 181 (8.15%) Developer
5 172 (7.74%) Architect
6 158 (7.11%) Project Manager
7 156 (7.02%) Business Analyst
8 80 (3.60%) Consultant
9 71 (3.20%) Software Engineer
10 63 (2.84%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.61%) Solutions Architect
12 57 (2.57%) Delivery Manager
13 50 (2.25%) Security Engineer
14 46 (2.07%) Senior Analyst
15 43 (1.94%) Data Scientist
16 38 (1.71%) IT Support
16 38 (1.71%) Technical Analyst
17 37 (1.67%) Product Manager
18 34 (1.53%) Senior Business Analyst
19 33 (1.49%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.68%) REST
2 62 (2.79%) .NET
2 62 (2.79%) RESTful
3 53 (2.39%) React
4 50 (2.25%) HTML
5 45 (2.03%) Middleware
6 41 (1.85%) Kafka
7 39 (1.76%) CSS
8 37 (1.67%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
8 37 (1.67%) XML
9 36 (1.62%) OAuth
10 35 (1.58%) JSON
11 34 (1.53%) SOAP
12 30 (1.35%) PyTorch
12 30 (1.35%) Spring
12 30 (1.35%) TensorFlow
13 28 (1.26%) Pandas
13 28 (1.26%) Spring Boot
14 27 (1.22%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.42%) Management Information System
2 142 (6.39%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.68%) Onboarding
4 100 (4.50%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.20%) Virtual Team
6 65 (2.93%) Data Centre
6 65 (2.93%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.79%) Algorithms
7 62 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
8 52 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
10 46 (2.07%) PMI
11 45 (2.03%) Security Posture
12 43 (1.94%) Derivative
13 42 (1.89%) Data Structures
14 34 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
15 31 (1.40%) Equities
16 30 (1.35%) Life Science
17 28 (1.26%) NHS
17 28 (1.26%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 254 (11.44%) Windows
2 166 (7.47%) Linux
3 75 (3.38%) Unix
4 64 (2.88%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.48%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (0.86%) Android
8 14 (0.63%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.59%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.32%) VMS
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Debian
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 812 (36.56%) Computer Science
2 725 (32.64%) Agile
3 612 (27.56%) Problem-Solving
4 382 (17.20%) Stakeholder Management
5 337 (15.17%) DevOps
6 322 (14.50%) AI
7 299 (13.46%) Project Management
8 274 (12.34%) Continuous Improvement
9 256 (11.53%) Change Management
10 255 (11.48%) CI/CD
11 244 (10.99%) Analytics
12 241 (10.85%) Decision-Making
13 236 (10.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 232 (10.45%) Cybersecurity
15 226 (10.18%) Risk Management
16 225 (10.13%) ITIL
17 215 (9.68%) Migration
18 203 (9.14%) Project Delivery
19 200 (9.00%) Software Engineering
20 193 (8.69%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 395 (17.78%) Python
2 328 (14.77%) SQL
3 152 (6.84%) Java
4 121 (5.45%) PowerShell
5 95 (4.28%) JavaScript
6 71 (3.20%) C#
7 68 (3.06%) C++
8 49 (2.21%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.89%) Bash
10 37 (1.67%) Go
11 26 (1.17%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.08%) R
13 19 (0.86%) Perl
14 16 (0.72%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.68%) C
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 15 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 528 (23.77%) Computer Science Degree
2 424 (19.09%) Security Cleared
3 330 (14.86%) Master's Degree
4 313 (14.09%) SC Cleared
5 133 (5.99%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.36%) PMP
7 117 (5.27%) CISSP
8 85 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
9 76 (3.42%) CISM
10 71 (3.20%) PhD
11 61 (2.75%) TOGAF Certification
12 60 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
13 57 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
14 54 (2.43%) Azure Certification
15 47 (2.12%) DV Cleared
16 39 (1.76%) CCNP
17 34 (1.53%) MBA
18 32 (1.44%) CBAP
19 29 (1.31%) AWS Certification
19 29 (1.31%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (6.80%) QA
2 117 (5.27%) GDPR
3 102 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 100 (4.50%) PMO
5 83 (3.74%) NIST
6 71 (3.20%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.16%) PCI DSS
8 38 (1.71%) SLA
9 35 (1.58%) Accessibility
10 30 (1.35%) GRC
11 27 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.95%) NCSC
13 15 (0.68%) WCAG
14 14 (0.63%) Basel III
14 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.63%) IFRS
15 13 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
16 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 152 (6.84%) Docker
2 144 (6.48%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.68%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) HDFS
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.045%) NDS
12 1 (0.045%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 162 (7.29%) Kubernetes
2 101 (4.55%) Terraform
3 70 (3.15%) Ansible
4 66 (2.97%) Microsoft Intune
5 43 (1.94%) Grafana
6 39 (1.76%) SCCM
7 35 (1.58%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 20 (0.90%) Puppet
10 17 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.68%) Kibana
13 13 (0.59%) Nmap
14 11 (0.50%) SCOM
15 9 (0.41%) Kiali
16 8 (0.36%) Argo
17 7 (0.32%) WSUS
18 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
19 5 (0.23%) HP ALM
19 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 466 (20.98%) Microsoft
2 152 (6.84%) Oracle
3 111 (5.00%) ServiceNow
4 110 (4.95%) SAP
5 99 (4.46%) Google
6 72 (3.24%) Cisco
7 71 (3.20%) Splunk
8 54 (2.43%) Remedy
9 53 (2.39%) Atlassian
10 47 (2.12%) Databricks
11 45 (2.03%) VMware
12 44 (1.98%) Salesforce
13 40 (1.80%) Citrix
14 37 (1.67%) IBM
15 36 (1.62%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.13%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.99%) Informatica
19 21 (0.95%) Aruba
20 20 (0.90%) Siemens