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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,179 1,836 2,994
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.21% 7.57% 8.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.36% 24.07% 26.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,224 1,098 1,624
10th Percentile £213 £237 £232
25th Percentile £390 £382 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% +1.53% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £737 £775 £766
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 134 375
10th Percentile £20.06 £17.90 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.50 £27.53 £23.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £51.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.32% +28.13% -15.79%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.25
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £51.80 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.36% +29.49% -20.00%

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 13,322 7,629 11,268
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.85% 31.47% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,938 4,831 6,988
10th Percentile £350 £281 £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 £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £723 £713 £745
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,007 447 1,001
10th Percentile £17.11 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.35
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.25%
75th Percentile £73.00 £66.63 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £81.01 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.61 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.57% -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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 -16 918 £515 -6.36% 1,293
South East 0 384 £500 +5.26% 626
North of England -11 334 £444 -2.58% 421
Midlands -19 214 £505 +41.06% 236
North West -6 180 £416 -10.68% 227
West Midlands -24 154 £478 +19.50% 156
East of England -5 141 £450 -10.00% 212
Yorkshire -16 139 £475 +8.94% 132
South West -16 132 £500 +4.28% 243
East Midlands -15 58 £537 +50.84% 80
North East -29 15 £450 +130.77% 70
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
1 118 (5.42%) SharePoint
2 114 (5.23%) Confluence
3 62 (2.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.61%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.83%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) IIS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.28%) Camunda
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.28%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 258 (11.84%) Microsoft Office
2 206 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (6.29%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.52%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.55%) Adobe After Effects
7 12 (0.55%) Simulink
7 12 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 7 (0.32%) Trello
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.28%) Sketch
11 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 51 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.60%) Primavera
3 12 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) HFM
10 4 (0.18%) Magento
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 465 (21.34%) Azure
2 276 (12.67%) AWS
3 186 (8.54%) Microsoft 365
4 166 (7.62%) Power Platform
5 115 (5.28%) Entra ID
6 93 (4.27%) GCP
7 79 (3.63%) SaaS
8 68 (3.12%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.39%) GitHub
10 36 (1.65%) Figma
11 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.42%) PaaS
13 29 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
14 28 (1.28%) IaaS
14 28 (1.28%) Power Automate
14 28 (1.28%) Snowflake
15 27 (1.24%) OneDrive
15 27 (1.24%) PowerApps
16 26 (1.19%) Serverless
17 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.31%) Firewall
2 56 (2.57%) DNS
3 55 (2.52%) TCP/IP
4 53 (2.43%) Network Security
5 51 (2.34%) WAN
6 50 (2.29%) LAN
7 36 (1.65%) VPN
8 26 (1.19%) DHCP
9 25 (1.15%) Wireless
10 22 (1.01%) BGP
11 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.87%) OSPF
13 17 (0.78%) Skype
14 16 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.64%) SAN
15 14 (0.64%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.50%) 3GPP
16 11 (0.50%) SSH
17 10 (0.46%) Unified Communications
17 10 (0.46%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (6.20%) Power BI
2 96 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.20%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.61%) Tableau
7 32 (1.47%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.38%) Metadata
9 26 (1.19%) Big Data
10 22 (1.01%) MongoDB
10 22 (1.01%) MySQL
11 18 (0.83%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 10 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 204 (9.36%) JIRA
2 96 (4.41%) Git
3 40 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.79%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
8 15 (0.69%) Selenium
9 14 (0.64%) Gradle
10 13 (0.60%) JUnit
11 12 (0.55%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.55%) Postman
12 10 (0.46%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.46%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.37%) Burp Suite
14 8 (0.37%) Maven
15 7 (0.32%) Metasploit
15 7 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 1,012 (46.44%) Social Skills
2 677 (31.07%) Finance
3 426 (19.55%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (9.04%) Banking
5 177 (8.12%) Public Sector
6 122 (5.60%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 88 (4.04%) Marketing
9 80 (3.67%) Aerospace
10 79 (3.63%) Legal
11 74 (3.40%) Manufacturing
12 73 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
13 68 (3.12%) Influencing Skills
14 54 (2.48%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.43%) Law
16 50 (2.29%) Retail
17 39 (1.79%) Front Office
17 39 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 37 (1.70%) Investment Banking
19 30 (1.38%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 311 (14.27%) Analyst
2 252 (11.56%) Senior
3 167 (7.66%) Architect
4 164 (7.53%) Lead
5 152 (6.98%) Developer
6 151 (6.93%) Project Manager
7 144 (6.61%) Business Analyst
8 62 (2.85%) Delivery Manager
9 59 (2.71%) Senior Analyst
9 59 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
10 57 (2.62%) Software Engineer
10 57 (2.62%) Technical Support
11 55 (2.52%) Consultant
11 55 (2.52%) Senior Manager
12 51 (2.34%) Designer
13 48 (2.20%) Product Manager
14 43 (1.97%) IT Manager
15 42 (1.93%) Security Engineer
16 41 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
17 40 (1.84%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.45%) REST
2 74 (3.40%) .NET
3 57 (2.62%) React
4 53 (2.43%) Oracle Fusion
5 51 (2.34%) Middleware
6 48 (2.20%) Kafka
7 42 (1.93%) HTML
8 38 (1.74%) RESTful
9 32 (1.47%) CSS
9 32 (1.47%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.42%) .NET Framework
11 29 (1.33%) XML
12 28 (1.28%) OAuth
13 27 (1.24%) Spring
14 26 (1.19%) AngularJS
15 25 (1.15%) SOAP
16 24 (1.10%) Pandas
16 24 (1.10%) Web Services
17 23 (1.06%) JSON
17 23 (1.06%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 156 (7.16%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.92%) Product Ownership
3 123 (5.64%) Onboarding
4 84 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
5 82 (3.76%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.94%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.62%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (2.29%) Data Structures
10 45 (2.07%) Algorithms
11 44 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.02%) PMI
12 38 (1.74%) Robotics
13 37 (1.70%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.61%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.51%) Derivative
15 33 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
16 32 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
17 29 (1.33%) Life Science
18 27 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 283 (12.99%) Windows
2 172 (7.89%) Linux
3 72 (3.30%) Unix
4 65 (2.98%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.28%) Android
8 25 (1.15%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.15%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
15 2 (0.092%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 743 (34.10%) Computer Science
2 621 (28.50%) Agile
3 554 (25.42%) Problem-Solving
4 343 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 332 (15.24%) Continuous Improvement
6 326 (14.96%) AI
7 294 (13.49%) DevOps
8 283 (12.99%) Project Management
9 249 (11.43%) CI/CD
10 239 (10.97%) Analytics
11 232 (10.65%) Decision-Making
12 226 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 206 (9.45%) Change Management
14 203 (9.32%) Cybersecurity
15 202 (9.27%) Migration
16 194 (8.90%) Roadmaps
17 188 (8.63%) ITIL
18 187 (8.58%) Risk Management
19 185 (8.49%) PRINCE2
19 185 (8.49%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 355 (16.29%) Python
2 326 (14.96%) SQL
3 161 (7.39%) Java
4 115 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 87 (3.99%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.95%) C#
7 53 (2.43%) C++
8 43 (1.97%) Bash
9 29 (1.33%) TypeScript
10 22 (1.01%) PL/SQL
10 22 (1.01%) R
11 19 (0.87%) C
12 16 (0.73%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.73%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Perl
15 13 (0.60%) Go
16 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.50%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 465 (21.34%) Computer Science Degree
2 397 (18.22%) Security Cleared
3 272 (12.48%) SC Cleared
4 221 (10.14%) Master's Degree
5 132 (6.06%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.28%) PMP
7 108 (4.96%) CISSP
8 77 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
8 77 (3.53%) Microsoft Certification
9 57 (2.62%) CISM
10 54 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
10 54 (2.48%) DV Cleared
11 52 (2.39%) Azure Certification
12 43 (1.97%) PhD
13 42 (1.93%) CCNP
14 34 (1.56%) CCNA
15 32 (1.47%) CBAP
15 32 (1.47%) MBA
16 30 (1.38%) AWS Certification
17 29 (1.33%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (5.78%) QA
2 106 (4.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.73%) NIST
4 101 (4.64%) PMO
5 91 (4.18%) GDPR
6 88 (4.04%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.25%) SLA
8 43 (1.97%) Accessibility
9 38 (1.74%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.01%) GRC
12 20 (0.92%) NCSC
13 16 (0.73%) IFRS
14 15 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.46%) COBIT
18 9 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.41%) HIPAA
18 9 (0.41%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 149 (6.84%) Active Directory
2 121 (5.55%) Docker
3 36 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.18%) XenApp
10 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 141 (6.47%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.67%) Terraform
3 67 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.71%) Ansible
5 37 (1.70%) Grafana
6 35 (1.61%) SCCM
7 32 (1.47%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.64%) Puppet
11 13 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
12 11 (0.50%) Kibana
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) Nmap
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 498 (22.85%) Microsoft
2 167 (7.66%) Oracle
3 121 (5.55%) SAP
4 101 (4.64%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.63%) Google
6 69 (3.17%) Cisco
7 50 (2.29%) Databricks
8 46 (2.11%) Splunk
9 44 (2.02%) Citrix
10 41 (1.88%) Salesforce
10 41 (1.88%) VMware
11 38 (1.74%) Adobe
12 35 (1.61%) IBM
13 32 (1.47%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
15 24 (1.10%) Red Hat
16 22 (1.01%) Aruba
17 21 (0.96%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.96%) Siemens
18 20 (0.92%) Remedy