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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -14 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,256 1,992 3,041
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.37% 8.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.92% 23.88% 26.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,212 1,198 1,689
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £630
90th Percentile £713 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 146 351
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.12 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.53 £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.75 £45.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.10% +6.24% -14.26%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.25 £64.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.58 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £46.25 £40.33
% change year-on-year -9.82% +14.69% -19.35%

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 14,173 8,341 11,350
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.62% 30.86% 30.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,556 5,267 7,064
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £716 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.05% -0.05% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,059 580 997
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.25 £19.87 £20.75
Median hourly rate £53.90 £27.85 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.54% -34.47% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.62 £76.34 £75.65
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £27.38 £40.94
% change year-on-year +82.65% -33.13% -25.56%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 10 July 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 -19 963 £515 -6.36% 1,358
South East -1 438 £500 +4.71% 604
North of England -12 333 £450 -0.11% 379
Midlands -23 203 £500 +23.08% 252
North West -9 187 £447 -2.67% 197
East of England -6 152 £450 -10.00% 215
West Midlands -34 150 £494 +16.12% 125
Yorkshire -7 130 £500 +14.68% 123
South West -22 121 £435 -8.42% 332
East Midlands -12 51 £550 +54.49% 127
North East -40 16 £450 +130.77% 62
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
1 129 (5.72%) SharePoint
2 114 (5.05%) Confluence
3 59 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 257 (11.39%) Microsoft Office
2 208 (9.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 124 (5.50%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.70%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.62%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.089%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.089%) Windchill
15 1 (0.044%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 55 (2.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.62%) Primavera
3 10 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.31%) Magento
6 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.22%) HFM
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.13%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 511 (22.65%) Azure
2 292 (12.94%) AWS
3 197 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
4 191 (8.47%) Power Platform
5 135 (5.98%) Entra ID
6 114 (5.05%) GCP
7 90 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.15%) SaaS
9 57 (2.53%) GitHub
10 38 (1.68%) Serverless
11 37 (1.64%) Figma
11 37 (1.64%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 32 (1.42%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.42%) Power Automate
14 29 (1.29%) PaaS
15 28 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
16 25 (1.11%) IaaS
16 25 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.34%) Firewall
2 71 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 69 (3.06%) DNS
4 63 (2.79%) Network Security
5 52 (2.30%) VPN
6 50 (2.22%) WAN
7 49 (2.17%) LAN
8 34 (1.51%) DHCP
9 26 (1.15%) Wireless
10 23 (1.02%) BGP
11 21 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.89%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.89%) OSPF
13 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
13 14 (0.62%) Internet
14 13 (0.58%) SSL
14 13 (0.58%) VLAN
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) Skype
15 12 (0.53%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.23%) Power BI
2 106 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 45 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.64%) Tableau
7 36 (1.60%) Metadata
8 35 (1.55%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.33%) Big Data
10 27 (1.20%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.11%) MySQL
12 22 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Hadoop
16 13 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.58%) Power Query
17 12 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 192 (8.51%) JIRA
2 109 (4.83%) Git
3 45 (1.99%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.77%) GitLab
5 32 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) MLflow
7 15 (0.66%) Selenium
7 15 (0.66%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Postman
10 10 (0.44%) Gradle
10 10 (0.44%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.40%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.35%) Maven
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
14 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 1,006 (44.59%) Social Skills
2 677 (30.01%) Finance
3 484 (21.45%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.89%) Banking
6 140 (6.21%) Organisational Skills
7 100 (4.43%) Marketing
7 100 (4.43%) Presentation Skills
8 88 (3.90%) Aerospace
8 88 (3.90%) Legal
9 86 (3.81%) Manufacturing
10 80 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
11 75 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
12 62 (2.75%) Retail
12 62 (2.75%) Telecoms
13 54 (2.39%) Law
14 50 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 38 (1.68%) Front Office
16 36 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
17 32 (1.42%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 319 (14.14%) Analyst
2 248 (10.99%) Senior
3 176 (7.80%) Architect
4 171 (7.58%) Lead
5 158 (7.00%) Developer
6 143 (6.34%) Business Analyst
6 143 (6.34%) Project Manager
7 70 (3.10%) Senior Manager
8 62 (2.75%) Consultant
8 62 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
9 58 (2.57%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.44%) Designer
11 52 (2.30%) IT Manager
11 52 (2.30%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.22%) IT Support
12 50 (2.22%) Product Manager
13 48 (2.13%) IT Analyst
14 46 (2.04%) Support Engineer
15 44 (1.95%) Senior Analyst
16 43 (1.91%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.90%) .NET
1 88 (3.90%) REST
2 58 (2.57%) React
3 44 (1.95%) Kafka
4 38 (1.68%) RESTful
5 36 (1.60%) Middleware
5 36 (1.60%) OAuth
6 35 (1.55%) HTML
7 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
8 33 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
9 29 (1.29%) Spring
9 29 (1.29%) Web Services
10 27 (1.20%) SAML
10 27 (1.20%) Spring Boot
10 27 (1.20%) XML
11 25 (1.11%) AngularJS
11 25 (1.11%) CSS
11 25 (1.11%) PySpark
12 24 (1.06%) LDAP
12 24 (1.06%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.67%) Management Information System
2 141 (6.25%) Onboarding
3 132 (5.85%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.17%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.26%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.22%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.13%) Algorithms
10 46 (2.04%) Operational Technology
10 46 (2.04%) Security Posture
11 39 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
12 38 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 34 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.51%) Robotics
15 33 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
16 32 (1.42%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.37%) PMI
18 28 (1.24%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 299 (13.25%) Windows
2 163 (7.23%) Linux
3 70 (3.10%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.06%) Unix
5 52 (2.30%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.29%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.06%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) AIX
13 7 (0.31%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Solaris
15 5 (0.22%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (33.24%) Computer Science
2 645 (28.59%) Agile
3 594 (26.33%) Problem-Solving
4 389 (17.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 374 (16.58%) AI
6 360 (15.96%) Continuous Improvement
7 301 (13.34%) DevOps
8 278 (12.32%) Project Management
9 271 (12.01%) Analytics
10 259 (11.48%) CI/CD
11 244 (10.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 242 (10.73%) ITIL
13 237 (10.51%) Decision-Making
14 223 (9.88%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.04%) Roadmaps
16 196 (8.69%) Change Management
17 188 (8.33%) Software Engineering
18 181 (8.02%) Risk Management
19 180 (7.98%) Migration
20 179 (7.93%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 381 (16.89%) Python
2 336 (14.89%) SQL
3 152 (6.74%) Java
4 128 (5.67%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.03%) C#
6 82 (3.63%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.77%) Bash
8 38 (1.68%) C++
9 31 (1.37%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) R
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.80%) C
15 12 (0.53%) Bicep
15 12 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.53%) Go
15 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) Perl
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 455 (20.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 395 (17.51%) Security Cleared
3 262 (11.61%) SC Cleared
4 226 (10.02%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.63%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.36%) CISSP
7 112 (4.96%) PMP
8 95 (4.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.63%) Cisco Certification
10 59 (2.62%) Azure Certification
10 59 (2.62%) DV Cleared
11 58 (2.57%) CISM
12 56 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (2.13%) PhD
14 40 (1.77%) CCNP
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.55%) CISA
18 32 (1.42%) MBA
19 29 (1.29%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.01%) QA
2 110 (4.88%) NIST
3 106 (4.70%) Data Quality
3 106 (4.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 97 (4.30%) PMO
5 82 (3.63%) GDPR
6 49 (2.17%) SLA
7 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.37%) PCI DSS
9 27 (1.20%) GRC
9 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (0.98%) NCSC
11 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 15 (0.66%) IFRS
12 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.49%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.40%) P3O
15 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 185 (8.20%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.23%) Docker
3 43 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.93%) Firmware
4 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
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%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.81%) Terraform
3 71 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.62%) Ansible
5 32 (1.42%) SCCM
6 30 (1.33%) Grafana
7 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.66%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.53%) Puppet
13 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.40%) WSUS
15 8 (0.35%) Nessus
16 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.22%) SCOM
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 546 (24.20%) Microsoft
2 153 (6.78%) Oracle
3 129 (5.72%) SAP
4 128 (5.67%) ServiceNow
5 95 (4.21%) Google
6 66 (2.93%) Cisco
7 55 (2.44%) Databricks
8 53 (2.35%) VMware
9 49 (2.17%) Salesforce
10 45 (1.99%) Adobe
11 41 (1.82%) IBM
12 35 (1.55%) Citrix
12 35 (1.55%) Splunk
13 31 (1.37%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.37%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.06%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.93%) CheckPoint
15 21 (0.93%) Siemens
16 20 (0.89%) Ariba
17 19 (0.84%) HP