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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,251 2,047 2,603
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.41% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.56% 23.61% 25.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,201 1,210 1,519
10th Percentile £205 £258 £275
25th Percentile £364 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -3.80%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £763 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 164 238
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.46 £20.21
25th Percentile £27.23 £26.24 £30.38
Median hourly rate £51.00 £42.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% -26.77% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.94 £69.10 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.48 £75.75
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +4.71% -19.05% +5.00%

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 14,465 8,669 10,179
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.37% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,755 5,449 6,476
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,122 662 762
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.71 £78.68
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +103.78% -41.51% -21.82%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 -22 957 £525 -4.55% 2,496
South East +1 477 £500 +5.26% 846
North of England -15 329 £465 +3.33% 583
North West -11 189 £453 -4.63% 311
Midlands -36 177 £450 +0.67% 395
East of England -8 141 £413 -8.33% 427
West Midlands -40 134 £450 - 222
Yorkshire -10 125 £500 +20.12% 166
South West -20 124 £415 +10.67% 318
East Midlands -23 41 £475 +32.68% 173
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 114
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
1 135 (6.00%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.80%) Confluence
3 61 (2.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 241 (10.71%) Microsoft Office
2 223 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 129 (5.73%) Microsoft Project
4 111 (4.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (2.27%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
12 4 (0.18%) Trello
12 4 (0.18%) Windchill
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 50 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 513 (22.79%) Azure
2 284 (12.62%) AWS
3 203 (9.02%) Microsoft 365
3 203 (9.02%) Power Platform
4 140 (6.22%) Entra ID
5 117 (5.20%) GCP
6 97 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (3.29%) SaaS
8 57 (2.53%) GitHub
9 46 (2.04%) PowerApps
10 45 (2.00%) Power Automate
11 40 (1.78%) OneDrive
11 40 (1.78%) Snowflake
12 39 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
13 38 (1.69%) Serverless
14 36 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.51%) Figma
16 25 (1.11%) IaaS
17 23 (1.02%) PaaS
18 22 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.58%) Firewall
2 76 (3.38%) TCP/IP
3 71 (3.15%) DNS
4 65 (2.89%) Network Security
5 58 (2.58%) VPN
6 40 (1.78%) DHCP
7 39 (1.73%) WAN
8 36 (1.60%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
12 17 (0.76%) Internet
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 15 (0.67%) OSPF
14 15 (0.67%) SSH
14 15 (0.67%) SSL
15 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.58%) 5G
17 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.24%) Power BI
2 97 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 44 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
4 44 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (1.73%) Metadata
6 32 (1.42%) NoSQL
7 31 (1.38%) Tableau
8 25 (1.11%) Big Data
9 24 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 22 (0.98%) MongoDB
10 22 (0.98%) MySQL
10 22 (0.98%) Oracle Database
11 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.62%) Power Query
13 13 (0.58%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 10 (0.44%) GIS
16 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 172 (7.64%) JIRA
2 113 (5.02%) Git
3 50 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.04%) GitLab
5 36 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.76%) Selenium
6 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.62%) MLflow
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.36%) Gradle
11 8 (0.36%) Maven
11 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Postman
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 1,000 (44.42%) Social Skills
2 650 (28.88%) Finance
3 517 (22.97%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (7.95%) Public Sector
5 170 (7.55%) Banking
6 147 (6.53%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.71%) Aerospace
8 93 (4.13%) Legal
8 93 (4.13%) Presentation Skills
9 91 (4.04%) Marketing
10 87 (3.86%) Manufacturing
11 79 (3.51%) Influencing Skills
12 76 (3.38%) Telecoms
13 64 (2.84%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.75%) Retail
15 60 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.31%) Law
17 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
18 38 (1.69%) Front Office
19 35 (1.55%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 306 (13.59%) Analyst
2 248 (11.02%) Senior
3 177 (7.86%) Lead
4 160 (7.11%) Developer
5 153 (6.80%) Architect
6 141 (6.26%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.69%) Project Manager
8 71 (3.15%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.67%) Consultant
10 57 (2.53%) IT Support
11 56 (2.49%) Support Engineer
12 53 (2.35%) Product Manager
13 52 (2.31%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.31%) IT Manager
14 51 (2.27%) Designer
14 51 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
15 46 (2.04%) Delivery Manager
15 46 (2.04%) Software Engineer
16 45 (2.00%) Systems Engineer
17 40 (1.78%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (4.09%) REST
2 88 (3.91%) .NET
3 50 (2.22%) React
4 41 (1.82%) Kafka
5 39 (1.73%) HTML
6 38 (1.69%) OAuth
7 36 (1.60%) RESTful
8 33 (1.47%) Oracle Fusion
9 32 (1.42%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.42%) Middleware
10 30 (1.33%) CSS
10 30 (1.33%) SAML
10 30 (1.33%) Web Services
11 27 (1.20%) LDAP
12 26 (1.16%) JSON
12 26 (1.16%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.11%) AngularJS
13 25 (1.11%) OpenID
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
14 24 (1.07%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.17%) Management Information System
2 138 (6.13%) Product Ownership
3 137 (6.09%) Onboarding
4 93 (4.13%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.86%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.89%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.58%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.44%) Algorithms
9 53 (2.35%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
11 42 (1.87%) Virtual Team
12 41 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
13 38 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.51%) Life Science
16 33 (1.47%) AI Agents
17 32 (1.42%) PMI
17 32 (1.42%) Robotics
18 31 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 281 (12.48%) Windows
2 164 (7.29%) Linux
3 68 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 56 (2.49%) Unix
5 46 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 26 (1.16%) Apple iOS
7 26 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.93%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.27%) AIX
10 6 (0.27%) Solaris
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Debian
11 4 (0.18%) Rocky
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) VMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 762 (33.85%) Computer Science
2 620 (27.54%) Agile
3 599 (26.61%) Problem-Solving
4 414 (18.39%) Stakeholder Management
5 396 (17.59%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (16.04%) AI
7 302 (13.42%) DevOps
8 288 (12.79%) Project Management
9 276 (12.26%) Analytics
10 261 (11.59%) CI/CD
11 260 (11.55%) ITIL
12 240 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 236 (10.48%) Decision-Making
14 230 (10.22%) Cybersecurity
15 200 (8.88%) Change Management
15 200 (8.88%) PRINCE2
16 198 (8.80%) Software Engineering
17 197 (8.75%) Roadmaps
18 189 (8.40%) Scrum
19 186 (8.26%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 381 (16.93%) Python
2 316 (14.04%) SQL
3 151 (6.71%) PowerShell
4 142 (6.31%) Java
5 97 (4.31%) C#
6 86 (3.82%) JavaScript
7 52 (2.31%) Bash
8 41 (1.82%) C++
9 31 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.11%) R
11 23 (1.02%) Bicep
12 22 (0.98%) C
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.44%) X++
17 9 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 444 (19.72%) Computer Science Degree
2 414 (18.39%) Security Cleared
3 268 (11.91%) SC Cleared
4 188 (8.35%) Master's Degree
5 135 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.24%) PMP
7 117 (5.20%) CISSP
8 115 (5.11%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.60%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (3.20%) DV Cleared
11 67 (2.98%) Azure Certification
12 58 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.35%) CISM
14 49 (2.18%) PhD
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.60%) CCNP
18 35 (1.55%) CISA
19 30 (1.33%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.24%) QA
2 111 (4.93%) Data Quality
3 109 (4.84%) NIST
4 101 (4.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (4.22%) PMO
6 69 (3.07%) GDPR
7 45 (2.00%) SLA
8 39 (1.73%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
10 23 (1.02%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) IFRS
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) COBIT
15 10 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
16 8 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 185 (8.22%) Active Directory
2 109 (4.84%) Docker
3 49 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.044%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 115 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 91 (4.04%) Terraform
3 71 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.84%) Ansible
5 35 (1.55%) SCCM
6 27 (1.20%) Grafana
7 24 (1.07%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.58%) Puppet
11 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.31%) Nessus
14 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.31%) SCOM
15 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.22%) CASB
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 577 (25.63%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.49%) Oracle
3 137 (6.09%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.24%) SAP
5 82 (3.64%) Google
6 65 (2.89%) VMware
7 60 (2.67%) Cisco
8 54 (2.40%) Salesforce
9 49 (2.18%) Databricks
10 47 (2.09%) Adobe
10 47 (2.09%) IBM
11 32 (1.42%) Splunk
12 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.29%) Citrix
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.93%) Siemens
16 19 (0.84%) Apple
16 19 (0.84%) Ariba
16 19 (0.84%) BeyondTrust