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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,132 1,828 3,021
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.15% 7.62% 8.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.16% 24.20% 27.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 1,110 1,635
10th Percentile £225 £235 £230
25th Percentile £390 £381 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 125 375
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.62 £14.13
25th Percentile £28.40 £27.94 £23.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +37.50% -13.51%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.25
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £54.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -2.78% +35.00% -18.84%

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 13,197 7,554 11,159
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.88% 31.51% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,855 4,814 6,924
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £530
% change year-on-year +0.38% -1.32% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 989 430 981
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.13
Median hourly rate £47.50 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.71% -12.50% -25.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.10 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%

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 25 May 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 25 May 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 25 May 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 -19 893 £515 -6.36% 1,094
South East -2 382 £500 +5.26% 618
North of England -14 317 £443 -2.69% 468
Midlands -19 211 £525 +47.47% 262
North West -11 163 £402 -14.83% 246
West Midlands -25 148 £498 +42.14% 170
Yorkshire -19 139 £463 +11.71% 159
East of England -3 138 £450 -10.00% 202
South West -14 132 £505 +6.32% 280
East Midlands -10 61 £531 +49.16% 92
North East -28 15 £450 +130.77% 71
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
1 121 (5.68%) Confluence
2 116 (5.44%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.64%) Apache Spark
5 22 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.84%) Apache
7 8 (0.38%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) SAS
11 4 (0.19%) Appian
11 4 (0.19%) Camunda
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.094%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.094%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.094%) WinCC
Applications
1 264 (12.38%) Microsoft Office
2 205 (9.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 148 (6.94%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
6 13 (0.61%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.56%) Adobe After Effects
7 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.52%) Simulink
9 8 (0.38%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.38%) Revit
10 7 (0.33%) Trello
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) Sketch
12 3 (0.14%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.094%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.094%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.094%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 49 (2.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.61%) Primavera
4 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.38%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) Magento
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 453 (21.25%) Azure
2 262 (12.29%) AWS
3 183 (8.58%) Microsoft 365
4 166 (7.79%) Power Platform
5 113 (5.30%) Entra ID
6 83 (3.89%) GCP
7 81 (3.80%) SaaS
8 68 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.39%) GitHub
10 33 (1.55%) Figma
11 31 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
11 31 (1.45%) Google Workspace
11 31 (1.45%) PaaS
12 29 (1.36%) Power Automate
13 28 (1.31%) IaaS
14 27 (1.27%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.22%) OneDrive
16 25 (1.17%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.17%) Serverless
17 22 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 90 (4.22%) Firewall
2 54 (2.53%) TCP/IP
3 53 (2.49%) WAN
4 52 (2.44%) LAN
5 51 (2.39%) DNS
6 47 (2.20%) Network Security
7 34 (1.59%) VPN
8 27 (1.27%) Wireless
9 24 (1.13%) BGP
9 24 (1.13%) DHCP
10 21 (0.98%) OSPF
11 20 (0.94%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.80%) Skype
13 14 (0.66%) SAN
13 14 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.56%) HTTP
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.52%) IPsec
15 11 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.47%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (6.38%) Power BI
2 93 (4.36%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
5 46 (2.16%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.74%) Tableau
7 32 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.36%) Metadata
9 27 (1.27%) Big Data
10 23 (1.08%) MySQL
11 21 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 17 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
15 15 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
17 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
17 12 (0.56%) Power Query
17 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
18 11 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 210 (9.85%) JIRA
2 95 (4.46%) Git
3 41 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.69%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.03%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 15 (0.70%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) Gradle
9 13 (0.61%) Postman
10 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.56%) JUnit
11 11 (0.52%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.52%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 991 (46.48%) Social Skills
2 655 (30.72%) Finance
3 433 (20.31%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (9.10%) Banking
5 172 (8.07%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.49%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.08%) Marketing
9 76 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
10 75 (3.52%) Legal
11 71 (3.33%) Aerospace
12 67 (3.14%) Influencing Skills
12 67 (3.14%) Manufacturing
13 53 (2.49%) Telecoms
14 52 (2.44%) Law
15 50 (2.35%) Retail
16 39 (1.83%) Front Office
17 38 (1.78%) Military
18 34 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 34 (1.59%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 303 (14.21%) Analyst
2 246 (11.54%) Senior
3 168 (7.88%) Architect
4 163 (7.65%) Lead
5 152 (7.13%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.94%) Developer
7 144 (6.75%) Business Analyst
8 60 (2.81%) Delivery Manager
9 59 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (2.72%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
12 55 (2.58%) Consultant
13 54 (2.53%) Senior Manager
14 51 (2.39%) Product Manager
14 51 (2.39%) Software Engineer
15 47 (2.20%) Designer
16 41 (1.92%) Data Engineer
16 41 (1.92%) Data Scientist
17 39 (1.83%) IT Manager
17 39 (1.83%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.36%) REST
2 73 (3.42%) .NET
3 53 (2.49%) React
4 52 (2.44%) Middleware
5 49 (2.30%) Oracle Fusion
6 45 (2.11%) Kafka
7 41 (1.92%) HTML
8 37 (1.74%) RESTful
9 33 (1.55%) Spring Boot
10 30 (1.41%) .NET Framework
10 30 (1.41%) CSS
10 30 (1.41%) Spring
10 30 (1.41%) XML
11 28 (1.31%) OAuth
12 26 (1.22%) SOAP
13 25 (1.17%) Pandas
13 25 (1.17%) PyTorch
14 24 (1.13%) AngularJS
14 24 (1.13%) JSON
14 24 (1.13%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 154 (7.22%) Management Information System
2 137 (6.43%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 76 (3.56%) Self-Motivation
5 72 (3.38%) Cloud Native
6 65 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.67%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
9 49 (2.30%) Data Structures
10 46 (2.16%) Algorithms
11 45 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
12 44 (2.06%) PMI
13 38 (1.78%) Robotics
14 34 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
15 33 (1.55%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.50%) Derivative
17 31 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
17 31 (1.45%) Security Posture
18 27 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
19 26 (1.22%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 270 (12.66%) Windows
2 162 (7.60%) Linux
3 72 (3.38%) Unix
4 65 (3.05%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.67%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.22%) Android
7 23 (1.08%) Mac OS
8 22 (1.03%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.23%) AIX
14 5 (0.23%) VMS
15 4 (0.19%) Debian
15 4 (0.19%) Rocky
15 4 (0.19%) Solaris
16 2 (0.094%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 729 (34.19%) Computer Science
2 620 (29.08%) Agile
3 542 (25.42%) Problem-Solving
4 341 (15.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 326 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement
6 315 (14.77%) AI
7 286 (13.41%) Project Management
8 285 (13.37%) DevOps
9 239 (11.21%) CI/CD
10 229 (10.74%) Decision-Making
11 227 (10.65%) Analytics
12 217 (10.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 203 (9.52%) Migration
14 202 (9.47%) Cybersecurity
15 201 (9.43%) Change Management
16 190 (8.91%) Risk Management
17 188 (8.82%) ITIL
18 184 (8.63%) Roadmaps
19 182 (8.54%) PRINCE2
20 171 (8.02%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 341 (15.99%) Python
2 324 (15.20%) SQL
3 153 (7.18%) Java
4 106 (4.97%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.99%) C#
6 80 (3.75%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.58%) C++
8 35 (1.64%) Bash
9 31 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.17%) R
11 22 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.89%) C
13 17 (0.80%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.70%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.66%) Perl
15 14 (0.66%) Rust
16 13 (0.61%) Go
17 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.52%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 456 (21.39%) Computer Science Degree
2 402 (18.86%) Security Cleared
3 278 (13.04%) SC Cleared
4 222 (10.41%) Master's Degree
5 129 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 112 (5.25%) PMP
7 100 (4.69%) CISSP
8 76 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.52%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.67%) CISM
11 54 (2.53%) DV Cleared
12 52 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
13 45 (2.11%) PhD
14 44 (2.06%) Azure Certification
15 41 (1.92%) CCNP
16 38 (1.78%) TOGAF Certification
17 35 (1.64%) CCNA
18 34 (1.59%) MBA
19 32 (1.50%) CBAP
20 28 (1.31%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (6.47%) QA
2 110 (5.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.83%) NIST
4 100 (4.69%) PMO
5 96 (4.50%) GDPR
6 89 (4.17%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.25%) SLA
8 41 (1.92%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.88%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.03%) GRC
12 20 (0.94%) NCSC
13 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.70%) IFRS
14 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.47%) COBIT
15 10 (0.47%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.42%) Basel III
16 9 (0.42%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 146 (6.85%) Active Directory
2 113 (5.30%) Docker
3 36 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.22%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.94%) Firmware
6 7 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.33%) vSphere
7 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.19%) XenApp
8 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
9 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.094%) HDFS
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.047%) ACF2
11 1 (0.047%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 133 (6.24%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.38%) Terraform
3 63 (2.95%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.72%) Ansible
5 36 (1.69%) Grafana
6 34 (1.59%) SCCM
7 30 (1.41%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
12 11 (0.52%) Nmap
12 11 (0.52%) OPNET
13 10 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.38%) Nessus
15 8 (0.38%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 495 (23.22%) Microsoft
2 160 (7.50%) Oracle
3 117 (5.49%) SAP
4 107 (5.02%) ServiceNow
5 70 (3.28%) Cisco
6 69 (3.24%) Google
7 50 (2.35%) Splunk
8 49 (2.30%) Databricks
9 42 (1.97%) Citrix
9 42 (1.97%) VMware
10 38 (1.78%) Salesforce
11 35 (1.64%) Adobe
12 34 (1.59%) IBM
13 32 (1.50%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.36%) CheckPoint
14 29 (1.36%) Remedy
15 23 (1.08%) Aruba
16 22 (1.03%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.98%) Siemens
18 18 (0.84%) Atlassian