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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,322 1,990 2,546
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.96% 7.07% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.29% 22.10% 26.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,201 1,124 1,454
10th Percentile £204 £268 £263
25th Percentile £375 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.22% +0.80% -6.10%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 289 169 162
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £21.25
25th Percentile £23.11 £25.75 £31.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £34.48 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.30% -31.04% +3.86%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.40 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.39 £88.15 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £33.50 £42.88
% change year-on-year +17.91% -21.88% -11.18%

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 15,190 9,005 9,567
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.43% 31.99% 29.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,079 5,740 5,811
10th Percentile £351 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £733
UK median daily rate £532 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.24% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,339 751 499
10th Percentile £17.24 £17.87 £19.97
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.23
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -52.10% -2.17%
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £75.27
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.49%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 -18 1,012 £530 -3.64% 391
South East +7 481 £525 +16.67% 355
North of England -12 344 £477 +4.15% 244
North West -7 219 £475 +3.83% 127
Midlands -33 182 £450 -5.26% 168
East of England -13 138 £425 -15.00% 170
West Midlands -37 133 £450 -10.00% 114
South West -27 127 £415 -20.95% 183
Yorkshire -27 107 £500 +11.11% 74
East Midlands -15 48 £463 +3.24% 54
North East -26 18 £460 +2.22% 47
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
1 144 (6.20%) SharePoint
2 123 (5.30%) Confluence
3 54 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.25%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.90%) Apache
6 20 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.86%) CMS
6 20 (0.86%) IIS
7 14 (0.60%) Camunda
7 14 (0.60%) SharePoint Server
8 10 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.34%) SAS
10 6 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
11 5 (0.22%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.22%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.17%) Appian
12 4 (0.17%) nginx
12 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Umbraco
Applications
1 233 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 210 (9.04%) Microsoft Office
3 105 (4.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 101 (4.35%) Microsoft Project
5 51 (2.20%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.69%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.56%) Simulink
9 12 (0.52%) Windchill
10 11 (0.47%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 10 (0.43%) Adobe After Effects
12 8 (0.34%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.34%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.34%) Revit
13 7 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
14 6 (0.26%) AutoCAD
15 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
16 2 (0.086%) MicroStation
16 2 (0.086%) OrCAD
16 2 (0.086%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 30 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.47%) Primavera
4 8 (0.34%) Magento
4 8 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.30%) HFM
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
8 4 (0.17%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 544 (23.43%) Azure
2 282 (12.14%) AWS
3 201 (8.66%) Power Platform
4 200 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
5 145 (6.24%) GCP
6 133 (5.73%) Entra ID
7 131 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.01%) SaaS
9 66 (2.84%) GitHub
10 55 (2.37%) Power Automate
10 55 (2.37%) Serverless
11 52 (2.24%) Dynamics 365
12 48 (2.07%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.02%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.89%) Microsoft Copilot
15 36 (1.55%) Snowflake
16 30 (1.29%) Amazon S3
16 30 (1.29%) Figma
17 29 (1.25%) OpenShift
18 28 (1.21%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.83%) Firewall
2 72 (3.10%) DNS
3 59 (2.54%) Network Security
3 59 (2.54%) TCP/IP
4 56 (2.41%) VPN
5 44 (1.89%) DHCP
6 27 (1.16%) LAN
6 27 (1.16%) WAN
7 23 (0.99%) Wireless
8 22 (0.95%) 3GPP
9 20 (0.86%) 5G
10 19 (0.82%) SSH
11 18 (0.78%) SSL
11 18 (0.78%) VLAN
12 17 (0.73%) Radio Access Network
12 17 (0.73%) Wireshark
13 15 (0.65%) Internet
13 15 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.56%) BGP
14 13 (0.56%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (6.16%) Power BI
2 102 (4.39%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.50%) Metadata
4 52 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.89%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.59%) MySQL
7 34 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.29%) Tableau
9 28 (1.21%) Big Data
9 28 (1.21%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.08%) Oracle Database
11 21 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 18 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
12 18 (0.78%) Data Lake
13 17 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (0.73%) GIS
14 12 (0.52%) Data Mining
15 10 (0.43%) Delta Lake
15 10 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 169 (7.28%) JIRA
2 136 (5.86%) Git
3 60 (2.58%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.33%) GitLab
5 29 (1.25%) Gradle
6 27 (1.16%) JUnit
7 25 (1.08%) Maven
8 24 (1.03%) SonarQube
9 19 (0.82%) Selenium
9 19 (0.82%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.78%) Mockito
11 17 (0.73%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.60%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.47%) Postman
14 11 (0.47%) Rational DOORS
15 9 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
16 8 (0.34%) CircleCI
16 8 (0.34%) MLflow
16 8 (0.34%) Subversion
General
1 1,044 (44.96%) Social Skills
2 669 (28.81%) Finance
3 546 (23.51%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.83%) Banking
5 182 (7.84%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
7 147 (6.33%) Manufacturing
8 120 (5.17%) Aerospace
9 112 (4.82%) Influencing Skills
10 96 (4.13%) Marketing
11 81 (3.49%) Legal
11 81 (3.49%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.32%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.71%) Retail
15 62 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 56 (2.41%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.07%) Law
18 44 (1.89%) Military
19 42 (1.81%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 315 (13.57%) Analyst
2 260 (11.20%) Senior
3 194 (8.35%) Developer
4 189 (8.14%) Lead
5 160 (6.89%) Business Analyst
6 155 (6.68%) Architect
7 107 (4.61%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.89%) Support Engineer
9 61 (2.63%) IT Support
10 59 (2.54%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.41%) Consultant
12 51 (2.20%) Administrator
12 51 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.11%) IT Manager
14 47 (2.02%) Security Engineer
15 46 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
16 43 (1.85%) Data Analyst
16 43 (1.85%) IT Analyst
17 42 (1.81%) Data Engineer
17 42 (1.81%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.91%) Terraform
2 106 (4.57%) REST
3 95 (4.09%) .NET
4 70 (3.01%) HTML
5 65 (2.80%) React
6 62 (2.67%) CSS
7 61 (2.63%) Kafka
8 53 (2.28%) RESTful
9 45 (1.94%) OAuth
10 44 (1.89%) XML
11 43 (1.85%) Web Services
12 41 (1.77%) Middleware
13 39 (1.68%) Spring Boot
14 36 (1.55%) SAML
14 36 (1.55%) SOAP
15 35 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
15 35 (1.51%) Spring
16 32 (1.38%) .NET Framework
16 32 (1.38%) OAuth2
16 32 (1.38%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 216 (9.30%) Management Information System
2 125 (5.38%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.34%) Product Ownership
4 98 (4.22%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (4.18%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.63%) Algorithms
7 54 (2.33%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.33%) Operational Technology
8 53 (2.28%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
9 50 (2.15%) Life Science
10 49 (2.11%) Security Posture
11 41 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.77%) Virtual Team
12 40 (1.72%) AI Agents
13 37 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.59%) SCADA
14 34 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
16 32 (1.38%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 276 (11.89%) Windows
2 174 (7.49%) Linux
3 80 (3.45%) Windows Server
4 66 (2.84%) Unix
5 36 (1.55%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.46%) Apple iOS
7 33 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 32 (1.38%) macOS
9 23 (0.99%) Android
10 10 (0.43%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.30%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.086%) CentOS
14 2 (0.086%) Debian
14 2 (0.086%) Rocky
14 2 (0.086%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 748 (32.21%) Computer Science
2 651 (28.04%) Agile
3 638 (27.48%) Problem-Solving
4 540 (23.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 420 (18.09%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (16.58%) AI
7 350 (15.07%) DevOps
8 318 (13.70%) CI/CD
9 303 (13.05%) Analytics
10 282 (12.14%) Project Management
11 250 (10.77%) ITIL
12 247 (10.64%) Decision-Making
13 244 (10.51%) Roadmaps
14 242 (10.42%) Scrum
15 238 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 232 (9.99%) Software Engineering
17 226 (9.73%) Cybersecurity
18 223 (9.60%) Change Management
19 216 (9.30%) Validation
20 207 (8.91%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 366 (15.76%) Python
2 338 (14.56%) SQL
3 167 (7.19%) PowerShell
4 150 (6.46%) Java
5 123 (5.30%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.61%) C#
7 62 (2.67%) Bash
8 36 (1.55%) TypeScript
9 34 (1.46%) C++
10 31 (1.34%) Bicep
11 27 (1.16%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.03%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.99%) R
14 22 (0.95%) PL/SQL
15 19 (0.82%) C
15 19 (0.82%) Scala
16 14 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.56%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.47%) Apex Code
18 11 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 460 (19.81%) Security Cleared
2 459 (19.77%) Computer Science Degree
3 333 (14.34%) SC Cleared
4 198 (8.53%) Master's Degree
5 149 (6.42%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.56%) PMP
7 116 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.57%) CISSP
9 96 (4.13%) DV Cleared
10 90 (3.88%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.32%) BPSS Clearance
11 77 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (2.54%) PhD
13 52 (2.24%) CISM
14 46 (1.98%) AWS Certification
15 43 (1.85%) DBS Check
16 42 (1.81%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 38 (1.64%) ISTQB
18 34 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
19 30 (1.29%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.46%) QA
2 139 (5.99%) Data Quality
3 83 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.49%) NIST
5 78 (3.36%) GDPR
6 67 (2.89%) PMO
7 42 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.38%) SLA
9 31 (1.34%) GRC
10 18 (0.78%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.73%) IFRS
11 17 (0.73%) NCSC
12 15 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.52%) IEC 61508
14 11 (0.47%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.47%) ISO 31000
14 11 (0.47%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.39%) P3O
System Software
1 171 (7.36%) Active Directory
2 116 (5.00%) Docker
3 60 (2.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.90%) Firmware
6 20 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.39%) vSphere
8 8 (0.34%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.086%) Squid
Systems Management
1 128 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 68 (2.93%) Microsoft Intune
3 56 (2.41%) Ansible
4 28 (1.21%) SCCM
5 25 (1.08%) Grafana
6 24 (1.03%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.78%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.52%) Functional Safety
9 12 (0.52%) Puppet
10 11 (0.47%) SCOM
11 10 (0.43%) CASB
11 10 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.34%) Control-M
13 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.26%) Nessus
13 6 (0.26%) WSUS
14 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 573 (24.68%) Microsoft
2 161 (6.93%) Oracle
3 127 (5.47%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.08%) SAP
5 109 (4.69%) Google
6 73 (3.14%) VMware
7 64 (2.76%) Salesforce
8 60 (2.58%) Cisco
9 57 (2.45%) Databricks
10 56 (2.41%) Adobe
11 42 (1.81%) IBM
12 40 (1.72%) Splunk
13 30 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.95%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.90%) Apple
16 21 (0.90%) Citrix
17 19 (0.82%) Ariba
17 19 (0.82%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.78%) EMC