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 24 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,226 1,902 3,183
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.95% 7.82% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.55% 25.13% 26.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,308 1,126 1,735
10th Percentile £295 £250 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% +1.37% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £788 £762
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 149 333
10th Percentile £16.11 £19.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £30.21 £22.75
Median hourly rate £45.46 £47.81 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.91% +19.51% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £71.96
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £43.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +5.72% +14.67% -16.67%

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 12,682 7,568 11,810
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.87% 31.12% 31.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,427 4,837 7,321
10th Percentile £331 £288 £300
25th Percentile £422 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.32% -2.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 975 422 918
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.14 £25.26 £17.85
Median hourly rate £31.18 £50.00 £38.45
Median % change year-on-year -37.65% +30.03% -23.10%
75th Percentile £68.42 £68.00 £63.64
90th Percentile £85.00 £82.24 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £34.93 £42.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -17.82% +13.33% -27.88%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -13 969 £513 -6.82% 866
South East -3 359 £500 - 676
North of England -7 348 £444 -6.63% 469
Midlands -21 210 £500 +40.45% 321
North West -4 181 £400 -15.79% 249
West Midlands -21 154 £498 +65.83% 183
South West -8 151 £700 +28.74% 222
Yorkshire -14 150 £516 +11.98% 160
East of England -7 133 £500 - 213
East Midlands -15 55 £531 +49.16% 137
North East -18 18 £407 -14.32% 67
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
1 175 (7.86%) Confluence
2 104 (4.67%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.63%) Apache
7 9 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
12 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.090%) Appian
Applications
1 282 (12.67%) Microsoft Office
2 213 (9.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (8.40%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 70 (3.14%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 7 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.13%) InVision
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.045%) Revit
Business Applications
1 39 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.99%) Primavera
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.31%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
10 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 470 (21.11%) Azure
2 271 (12.17%) AWS
3 181 (8.13%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.32%) Power Platform
5 128 (5.75%) GCP
6 103 (4.63%) Entra ID
6 103 (4.63%) SaaS
7 80 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.19%) GitHub
9 47 (2.11%) Serverless
10 39 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
11 35 (1.57%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.44%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.39%) IaaS
13 31 (1.39%) PaaS
14 30 (1.35%) Cloud Computing
15 27 (1.21%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.12%) OCI
17 24 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
17 24 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.54%) Firewall
2 55 (2.47%) LAN
3 53 (2.38%) WAN
4 46 (2.07%) DNS
5 44 (1.98%) TCP/IP
6 42 (1.89%) Network Security
7 38 (1.71%) VPN
8 27 (1.21%) Wireless
9 25 (1.12%) BGP
10 22 (0.99%) HTTP
11 21 (0.94%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.90%) DHCP
12 20 (0.90%) Internet
12 20 (0.90%) OSPF
13 16 (0.72%) Skype
13 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.67%) VLAN
15 14 (0.63%) SSH
15 14 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
16 13 (0.58%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (5.88%) Power BI
2 79 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
3 78 (3.50%) SQL Server
4 51 (2.29%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.98%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.80%) Tableau
8 33 (1.48%) MySQL
9 32 (1.44%) Big Data
10 22 (0.99%) Metadata
11 20 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.76%) Hadoop
12 17 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 265 (11.90%) JIRA
2 106 (4.76%) Git
3 66 (2.96%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.29%) GitLab
5 30 (1.35%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.99%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.76%) MLflow
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 15 (0.67%) Postman
10 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.45%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.31%) CircleCI
16 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
16 6 (0.27%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,072 (48.16%) Social Skills
2 690 (31.00%) Finance
3 505 (22.69%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (10.47%) Banking
5 180 (8.09%) Public Sector
6 108 (4.85%) Presentation Skills
7 89 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.68%) Marketing
9 81 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
11 70 (3.14%) Legal
12 68 (3.05%) Aerospace
12 68 (3.05%) Manufacturing
13 52 (2.34%) Military
14 51 (2.29%) Front Office
15 49 (2.20%) Financial Institution
16 47 (2.11%) Telecoms
17 44 (1.98%) Retail
18 43 (1.93%) Law
19 41 (1.84%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 324 (14.56%) Analyst
2 225 (10.11%) Senior
3 186 (8.36%) Lead
4 178 (8.00%) Architect
5 172 (7.73%) Developer
6 164 (7.37%) Project Manager
7 151 (6.78%) Business Analyst
8 77 (3.46%) Consultant
9 64 (2.88%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.65%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.56%) Software Engineer
11 57 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (2.29%) Senior Analyst
13 48 (2.16%) Data Scientist
14 46 (2.07%) Product Manager
15 45 (2.02%) Security Engineer
16 35 (1.57%) Senior Business Analyst
16 35 (1.57%) Technical Analyst
17 34 (1.53%) IT Support
17 34 (1.53%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.45%) REST
2 62 (2.79%) .NET
3 58 (2.61%) RESTful
4 50 (2.25%) React
5 48 (2.16%) HTML
6 46 (2.07%) Middleware
7 42 (1.89%) Kafka
8 37 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.66%) XML
9 36 (1.62%) CSS
9 36 (1.62%) Spring
10 35 (1.57%) JSON
10 35 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
11 34 (1.53%) OAuth
12 33 (1.48%) SOAP
13 32 (1.44%) Spring Boot
14 30 (1.35%) Pandas
15 29 (1.30%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.30%) TensorFlow
16 26 (1.17%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 182 (8.18%) Management Information System
2 148 (6.65%) Product Ownership
3 111 (4.99%) Onboarding
4 97 (4.36%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.28%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.01%) Data Centre
6 67 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
7 64 (2.88%) Algorithms
8 59 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
9 50 (2.25%) Data Structures
10 49 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (2.16%) PMI
12 47 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
13 43 (1.93%) Derivative
14 33 (1.48%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
16 31 (1.39%) Equities
17 29 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.26%) NHS
18 28 (1.26%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 256 (11.50%) Windows
2 167 (7.50%) Linux
3 69 (3.10%) Unix
4 64 (2.88%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.43%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.72%) Android
7 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.63%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.49%) Apple iOS
12 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
17 3 (0.13%) CentOS
17 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 829 (37.24%) Computer Science
2 731 (32.84%) Agile
3 605 (27.18%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (17.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 336 (15.09%) DevOps
6 328 (14.73%) AI
7 312 (14.02%) Project Management
8 299 (13.43%) Continuous Improvement
9 264 (11.86%) CI/CD
10 252 (11.32%) Change Management
11 246 (11.05%) Analytics
12 236 (10.60%) ITIL
12 236 (10.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 234 (10.51%) Cybersecurity
14 233 (10.47%) Decision-Making
15 217 (9.75%) Migration
16 213 (9.57%) Risk Management
17 206 (9.25%) Project Delivery
18 203 (9.12%) PRINCE2
19 197 (8.85%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 389 (17.48%) Python
2 325 (14.60%) SQL
3 158 (7.10%) Java
4 118 (5.30%) PowerShell
5 86 (3.86%) JavaScript
6 70 (3.14%) C#
7 63 (2.83%) C++
8 47 (2.11%) TypeScript
9 40 (1.80%) Bash
10 34 (1.53%) Go
11 26 (1.17%) R
12 25 (1.12%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.81%) Perl
14 15 (0.67%) Rust
14 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
15 13 (0.58%) C
15 13 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.54%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 529 (23.76%) Computer Science Degree
2 434 (19.50%) Security Cleared
3 317 (14.24%) Master's Degree
4 310 (13.93%) SC Cleared
5 134 (6.02%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.39%) PMP
7 114 (5.12%) CISSP
8 87 (3.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.14%) PhD
10 67 (3.01%) CISM
11 58 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
12 57 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
13 54 (2.43%) Azure Certification
14 50 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
15 49 (2.20%) DV Cleared
16 36 (1.62%) CCNP
17 34 (1.53%) MBA
18 33 (1.48%) CBAP
19 28 (1.26%) MCSE
20 27 (1.21%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.60%) QA
2 118 (5.30%) GDPR
3 97 (4.36%) PMO
4 95 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.86%) NIST
6 76 (3.41%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.25%) PCI DSS
8 43 (1.93%) SLA
9 36 (1.62%) Accessibility
10 25 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.99%) GRC
12 21 (0.94%) NCSC
13 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 14 (0.63%) WCAG
14 13 (0.58%) Basel III
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
System Software
1 147 (6.60%) Docker
2 137 (6.15%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.58%) Firmware
6 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.090%) HDFS
11 2 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.045%) GPFS
12 1 (0.045%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 160 (7.19%) Kubernetes
2 100 (4.49%) Terraform
3 70 (3.14%) Ansible
4 65 (2.92%) Microsoft Intune
5 48 (2.16%) Grafana
6 40 (1.80%) Prometheus
7 37 (1.66%) SCCM
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 20 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 18 (0.81%) Puppet
11 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.58%) Kibana
12 13 (0.58%) Nmap
13 11 (0.49%) SCOM
14 9 (0.40%) Kiali
15 8 (0.36%) Argo
16 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.31%) WSUS
17 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
18 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 481 (21.61%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.56%) Oracle
3 117 (5.26%) ServiceNow
4 112 (5.03%) SAP
5 104 (4.67%) Google
6 69 (3.10%) Cisco
7 66 (2.96%) Splunk
8 55 (2.47%) Remedy
9 50 (2.25%) Atlassian
10 48 (2.16%) Databricks
11 45 (2.02%) VMware
12 44 (1.98%) Citrix
12 44 (1.98%) IBM
13 41 (1.84%) Salesforce
14 36 (1.62%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.26%) CheckPoint
16 26 (1.17%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.99%) Adobe
18 21 (0.94%) Aruba
18 21 (0.94%) Informatica