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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,244 1,966 2,552
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.87% 7.08% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.22% 22.48% 26.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,158 1,124 1,455
10th Percentile £204 £263 £263
25th Percentile £356 £398 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -1.38% -4.34%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £625
90th Percentile £728 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 261 158 187
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.19 £34.50
Median hourly rate £38.72 £37.98 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +1.95% -33.78% +19.13%
75th Percentile £69.50 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £79.50
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £38.50 £54.00
% change year-on-year +0.57% -28.70% +9.89%

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 14,745 8,745 9,726
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.98% 31.50% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,874 5,557 6,003
10th Percentile £350 £304 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,192 684 574
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.20
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.52 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.82% -53.43% -0.81%
75th Percentile £74.68 £47.22 £69.94
90th Percentile £89.08 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £49.50
% change year-on-year +90.85% -49.19% -9.08%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -20 976 £525 -4.55% 7,657
South East +10 458 £525 +15.07% 1,864
North of England -15 329 £475 +5.91% 1,231
North West -7 206 £475 +3.83% 704
Midlands -29 176 £450 -1.37% 881
East of England -11 137 £350 -28.21% 940
West Midlands -33 130 £450 -5.26% 546
South West -25 126 £400 -15.79% 783
Yorkshire -12 107 £507 +20.60% 363
East Midlands -20 45 £475 +9.57% 335
North East -37 16 £455 +30.65% 188
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
1 156 (6.95%) SharePoint
2 99 (4.41%) Confluence
3 59 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.80%) Apache
7 17 (0.76%) IIS
8 13 (0.58%) Camunda
8 13 (0.58%) SharePoint Server
9 12 (0.53%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Appian
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 229 (10.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 215 (9.58%) Microsoft Office
3 113 (5.04%) Microsoft Project
4 110 (4.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 42 (1.87%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
10 9 (0.40%) Windchill
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
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 40 (1.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) Primavera
4 8 (0.36%) Magento
4 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 524 (23.35%) Azure
2 281 (12.52%) AWS
3 218 (9.71%) Microsoft 365
4 212 (9.45%) Power Platform
5 136 (6.06%) GCP
6 130 (5.79%) Entra ID
7 114 (5.08%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.39%) SaaS
9 62 (2.76%) GitHub
10 54 (2.41%) Power Automate
11 51 (2.27%) Serverless
12 49 (2.18%) PowerApps
13 48 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
14 46 (2.05%) OneDrive
15 42 (1.87%) Microsoft Copilot
16 33 (1.47%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.43%) Figma
18 26 (1.16%) OpenShift
19 25 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
19 25 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.32%) Firewall
2 74 (3.30%) DNS
3 62 (2.76%) Network Security
4 59 (2.63%) TCP/IP
5 58 (2.58%) VPN
6 45 (2.01%) DHCP
7 33 (1.47%) WAN
8 32 (1.43%) LAN
9 24 (1.07%) Wireless
10 23 (1.02%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.89%) 5G
12 19 (0.85%) Internet
12 19 (0.85%) SSH
13 18 (0.80%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.76%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.76%) SSL
15 16 (0.71%) BGP
16 15 (0.67%) VLAN
16 15 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
17 14 (0.62%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.95%) Power BI
2 108 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.32%) Metadata
4 51 (2.27%) Relational Database
5 50 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
6 40 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
7 33 (1.47%) MySQL
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.34%) Tableau
10 24 (1.07%) MongoDB
10 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.02%) Big Data
11 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.67%) GIS
14 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
15 11 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 10 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 167 (7.44%) JIRA
2 127 (5.66%) Git
3 57 (2.54%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.27%) GitLab
5 22 (0.98%) JUnit
5 22 (0.98%) Maven
6 21 (0.94%) SonarQube
7 20 (0.89%) Selenium
8 19 (0.85%) Gradle
9 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
10 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.58%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.58%) Mockito
11 13 (0.58%) REST Assured
12 11 (0.49%) Subversion
13 9 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.36%) Postman
15 7 (0.31%) MLflow
General
1 1,015 (45.23%) Social Skills
2 664 (29.59%) Finance
3 511 (22.77%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.56%) Banking
5 177 (7.89%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.68%) Organisational Skills
7 116 (5.17%) Manufacturing
8 103 (4.59%) Aerospace
9 92 (4.10%) Influencing Skills
10 89 (3.97%) Marketing
11 82 (3.65%) Legal
12 81 (3.61%) Telecoms
13 75 (3.34%) Presentation Skills
14 66 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
15 58 (2.58%) Retail
16 56 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 50 (2.23%) Law
18 46 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
19 43 (1.92%) Military
20 40 (1.78%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 306 (13.64%) Analyst
2 260 (11.59%) Senior
3 187 (8.33%) Lead
4 185 (8.24%) Developer
5 154 (6.86%) Architect
6 140 (6.24%) Business Analyst
7 114 (5.08%) Project Manager
8 73 (3.25%) Support Engineer
9 67 (2.99%) Senior Manager
10 65 (2.90%) IT Support
11 54 (2.41%) Consultant
11 54 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
12 53 (2.36%) IT Analyst
13 50 (2.23%) IT Manager
14 45 (2.01%) Technical Support
15 44 (1.96%) Designer
15 44 (1.96%) Software Engineer
16 43 (1.92%) Security Engineer
17 40 (1.78%) Administrator
17 40 (1.78%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.50%) Terraform
2 96 (4.28%) REST
3 93 (4.14%) .NET
4 65 (2.90%) HTML
5 62 (2.76%) React
6 57 (2.54%) Kafka
7 53 (2.36%) CSS
8 43 (1.92%) RESTful
9 41 (1.83%) XML
10 40 (1.78%) OAuth
11 37 (1.65%) Spring Boot
11 37 (1.65%) Web Services
12 36 (1.60%) Middleware
13 34 (1.52%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
14 32 (1.43%) Spring
15 30 (1.34%) JSON
15 30 (1.34%) SAML
16 29 (1.29%) OAuth2
16 29 (1.29%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 205 (9.14%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.84%) Onboarding
3 109 (4.86%) Product Ownership
4 90 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 55 (2.45%) Algorithms
7 54 (2.41%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.36%) Data Centre
9 46 (2.05%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
11 42 (1.87%) Operational Technology
12 41 (1.83%) Virtual Team
13 39 (1.74%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.74%) Life Science
14 37 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
15 36 (1.60%) AI Agents
16 35 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
17 30 (1.34%) SCADA
18 29 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
18 29 (1.29%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 285 (12.70%) Windows
2 178 (7.93%) Linux
3 79 (3.52%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.81%) Unix
5 42 (1.87%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.34%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
9 22 (0.98%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 727 (32.40%) Computer Science
2 624 (27.81%) Agile
3 596 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
4 461 (20.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 398 (17.74%) Continuous Improvement
6 364 (16.22%) AI
7 325 (14.48%) DevOps
8 288 (12.83%) Analytics
8 288 (12.83%) Project Management
9 283 (12.61%) CI/CD
10 255 (11.36%) ITIL
11 237 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 235 (10.47%) Decision-Making
13 220 (9.80%) Scrum
14 217 (9.67%) Cybersecurity
15 216 (9.63%) Change Management
15 216 (9.63%) Roadmaps
16 214 (9.54%) Software Engineering
17 194 (8.65%) PRINCE2
18 188 (8.38%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 378 (16.84%) Python
2 330 (14.71%) SQL
3 170 (7.58%) PowerShell
4 155 (6.91%) Java
5 122 (5.44%) JavaScript
6 108 (4.81%) C#
7 59 (2.63%) Bash
8 42 (1.87%) C++
9 39 (1.74%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.25%) Bicep
11 27 (1.20%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.11%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.07%) C
13 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.98%) R
15 14 (0.62%) Scala
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
18 9 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 439 (19.56%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (18.94%) Security Cleared
3 302 (13.46%) SC Cleared
4 182 (8.11%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.11%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.39%) Microsoft Certification
7 119 (5.30%) PMP
8 101 (4.50%) CISSP
9 83 (3.70%) DV Cleared
10 81 (3.61%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
12 66 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.50%) PhD
14 47 (2.09%) CISM
15 46 (2.05%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 41 (1.83%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.60%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.47%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.47%) CCNA
18 33 (1.47%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.93%) QA
2 124 (5.53%) Data Quality
3 87 (3.88%) NIST
4 85 (3.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.61%) PMO
6 65 (2.90%) GDPR
7 40 (1.78%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.52%) SLA
9 26 (1.16%) GRC
10 23 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.71%) NCSC
12 15 (0.67%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.62%) IFRS
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) P3O
15 8 (0.36%) COBIT
15 8 (0.36%) IEC 61508
15 8 (0.36%) ISO 31000
15 8 (0.36%) NIST 800
System Software
1 183 (8.16%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.21%) Docker
3 53 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.16%) Firmware
5 22 (0.98%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 114 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.63%) Ansible
4 31 (1.38%) SCCM
5 27 (1.20%) Grafana
6 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 8 (0.36%) CASB
12 8 (0.36%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) Control-M
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 581 (25.89%) Microsoft
2 158 (7.04%) Oracle
3 134 (5.97%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.53%) SAP
5 90 (4.01%) Google
6 70 (3.12%) VMware
7 62 (2.76%) Cisco
8 56 (2.50%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.36%) Adobe
10 43 (1.92%) Databricks
11 40 (1.78%) Splunk
12 38 (1.69%) IBM
13 32 (1.43%) Red Hat
14 30 (1.34%) CyberArk
15 24 (1.07%) Citrix
16 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) OpenAI
17 20 (0.89%) Palo Alto
18 19 (0.85%) Apple
19 18 (0.80%) Ariba