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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,236 1,978 2,557
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.22% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.42% 22.98% 25.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,168 1,152 1,471
10th Percentile £204 £260 £288
25th Percentile £363 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £512
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.08%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £638
90th Percentile £734 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 153 214
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £20.04
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.16 £31.78
Median hourly rate £39.11 £41.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -4.61% -28.51% +20.74%
75th Percentile £76.88 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £41.25 £52.50
% change year-on-year -7.27% -21.43% +9.95%

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 14,499 8,608 10,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.79% 31.43% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,763 5,423 6,299
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 676 648
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.17 £15.24
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.00 £52.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.38 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -13.64%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 -20 980 £525 -3.67% 5,857
South East +5 462 £518 +8.95% 1,402
North of England -14 327 £470 +9.68% 919
North West -14 200 £466 +2.81% 541
Midlands -32 173 £475 +5.56% 618
East of England -10 132 £350 -22.22% 705
West Midlands -35 128 £463 -2.63% 365
South West -22 120 £400 -11.11% 721
Yorkshire -8 112 £500 +23.84% 247
East Midlands -22 44 £475 +9.57% 252
North East -43 15 £450 +39.53% 149
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 (6.44%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.65%) Confluence
3 53 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.25%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 13 (0.58%) IIS
8 12 (0.54%) Camunda
8 12 (0.54%) CMS
9 9 (0.40%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 236 (10.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 222 (9.93%) Microsoft Office
3 120 (5.37%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.72%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 47 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.58%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 521 (23.30%) Azure
2 288 (12.88%) AWS
3 212 (9.48%) Power Platform
4 208 (9.30%) Microsoft 365
5 132 (5.90%) GCP
6 131 (5.86%) Entra ID
7 112 (5.01%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.22%) SaaS
9 62 (2.77%) GitHub
10 48 (2.15%) Serverless
11 45 (2.01%) Power Automate
11 45 (2.01%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
13 41 (1.83%) OneDrive
14 39 (1.74%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.57%) Figma
15 35 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
16 25 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
17 24 (1.07%) IaaS
18 23 (1.03%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.52%) Firewall
2 74 (3.31%) DNS
3 63 (2.82%) Network Security
4 59 (2.64%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.64%) VPN
5 46 (2.06%) DHCP
6 34 (1.52%) WAN
7 32 (1.43%) LAN
8 25 (1.12%) Wireless
9 20 (0.89%) 3GPP
10 18 (0.81%) BGP
10 18 (0.81%) Internet
10 18 (0.81%) SSH
11 17 (0.76%) 5G
11 17 (0.76%) SSL
12 16 (0.72%) VLAN
12 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) Radio Access Network
14 14 (0.63%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (7.42%) Power BI
2 105 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 49 (2.19%) Metadata
5 43 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
6 41 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (1.52%) Tableau
8 30 (1.34%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.25%) MySQL
10 26 (1.16%) Big Data
11 25 (1.12%) Oracle Database
11 25 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
13 17 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
14 14 (0.63%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.63%) Data Mining
15 13 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.49%) GIS
16 11 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 172 (7.69%) JIRA
2 123 (5.50%) Git
3 56 (2.50%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.24%) GitLab
5 23 (1.03%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.85%) JUnit
6 19 (0.85%) Selenium
7 18 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.72%) Maven
10 14 (0.63%) Gradle
11 13 (0.58%) REST Assured
11 13 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.54%) MLflow
13 11 (0.49%) Subversion
14 10 (0.45%) Cucumber
14 10 (0.45%) Mockito
15 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
16 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket Server
16 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 992 (44.36%) Social Skills
2 662 (29.61%) Finance
3 521 (23.30%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (8.36%) Banking
5 171 (7.65%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.40%) Organisational Skills
7 104 (4.65%) Manufacturing
8 103 (4.61%) Aerospace
9 94 (4.20%) Marketing
10 87 (3.89%) Legal
11 82 (3.67%) Telecoms
12 79 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
13 74 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
14 65 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.82%) Retail
16 50 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 48 (2.15%) Law
18 43 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.88%) Front Office
19 42 (1.88%) Military
Job Titles
1 320 (14.31%) Analyst
2 249 (11.14%) Senior
3 183 (8.18%) Lead
4 171 (7.65%) Developer
5 154 (6.89%) Architect
6 148 (6.62%) Business Analyst
7 114 (5.10%) Project Manager
8 68 (3.04%) Support Engineer
9 66 (2.95%) Senior Manager
10 63 (2.82%) IT Support
11 55 (2.46%) Consultant
12 53 (2.37%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.15%) Designer
14 48 (2.15%) IT Manager
15 44 (1.97%) Product Manager
16 43 (1.92%) Data Analyst
16 43 (1.92%) Senior Analyst
17 42 (1.88%) Technical Support
18 41 (1.83%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.47%) Terraform
2 90 (4.03%) .NET
2 90 (4.03%) REST
3 60 (2.68%) HTML
4 57 (2.55%) React
5 53 (2.37%) Kafka
6 49 (2.19%) CSS
7 39 (1.74%) RESTful
8 38 (1.70%) OAuth
9 34 (1.52%) Middleware
10 33 (1.48%) .NET Framework
10 33 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
10 33 (1.48%) Web Services
11 31 (1.39%) XML
12 30 (1.34%) Spring Boot
13 29 (1.30%) SAML
14 28 (1.25%) OAuth2
14 28 (1.25%) Spring
15 27 (1.21%) OpenID
16 26 (1.16%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 194 (8.68%) Management Information System
2 134 (5.99%) Onboarding
3 114 (5.10%) Product Ownership
4 91 (4.07%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.98%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.91%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.55%) Algorithms
8 55 (2.46%) Data Centre
9 45 (2.01%) Security Posture
10 41 (1.83%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
12 39 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
13 38 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.61%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
15 35 (1.57%) Life Science
16 34 (1.52%) Virtual Team
17 30 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 27 (1.21%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 283 (12.66%) Windows
2 172 (7.69%) Linux
3 75 (3.35%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.64%) Unix
5 43 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.30%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.98%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) VMS
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) Rocky
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 757 (33.86%) Computer Science
2 629 (28.13%) Agile
3 598 (26.74%) Problem-Solving
4 437 (19.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 410 (18.34%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (16.14%) AI
7 319 (14.27%) DevOps
8 288 (12.88%) Analytics
8 288 (12.88%) Project Management
9 281 (12.57%) CI/CD
10 253 (11.31%) ITIL
11 236 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 223 (9.97%) Decision-Making
13 217 (9.70%) Cybersecurity
14 210 (9.39%) Software Engineering
15 207 (9.26%) Scrum
16 205 (9.17%) Change Management
17 200 (8.94%) Roadmaps
18 195 (8.72%) PRINCE2
19 183 (8.18%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 384 (17.17%) Python
2 333 (14.89%) SQL
3 167 (7.47%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.66%) Java
5 109 (4.87%) JavaScript
6 102 (4.56%) C#
7 57 (2.55%) Bash
8 43 (1.92%) C++
9 38 (1.70%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.25%) Bicep
11 27 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.07%) C
12 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
13 23 (1.03%) R
14 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Scala
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 454 (20.30%) Computer Science Degree
2 417 (18.65%) Security Cleared
3 282 (12.61%) SC Cleared
4 187 (8.36%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.68%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.28%) Microsoft Certification
7 111 (4.96%) PMP
8 106 (4.74%) CISSP
9 75 (3.35%) Cisco Certification
10 74 (3.31%) Azure Certification
10 74 (3.31%) DV Cleared
11 63 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
12 53 (2.37%) PhD
13 49 (2.19%) CISM
14 42 (1.88%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 38 (1.70%) AWS Certification
16 35 (1.57%) CCNA
17 34 (1.52%) CCNP
18 33 (1.48%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.48%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (5.50%) Data Quality
2 121 (5.41%) QA
3 95 (4.25%) NIST
4 91 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.62%) PMO
6 61 (2.73%) GDPR
7 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.70%) SLA
9 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.07%) GRC
11 16 (0.72%) NCSC
11 16 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) P3O
16 9 (0.40%) COBIT
16 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
18 7 (0.31%) HIPAA
System Software
1 183 (8.18%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.23%) Docker
3 52 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.07%) Firmware
5 22 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 21 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) Squid
Systems Management
1 117 (5.23%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.64%) Ansible
4 32 (1.43%) SCCM
5 28 (1.25%) Grafana
6 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.81%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.54%) SCOM
12 8 (0.36%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Control-M
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) CASB
14 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 583 (26.07%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.93%) Oracle
3 139 (6.22%) ServiceNow
4 126 (5.64%) SAP
5 89 (3.98%) Google
6 69 (3.09%) VMware
7 61 (2.73%) Salesforce
8 60 (2.68%) Cisco
9 55 (2.46%) Adobe
10 49 (2.19%) Databricks
10 49 (2.19%) IBM
11 37 (1.65%) Splunk
12 30 (1.34%) Red Hat
13 29 (1.30%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.16%) Citrix
15 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.94%) Palo Alto
16 20 (0.89%) Apple
17 19 (0.85%) Ariba
17 19 (0.85%) OpenAI