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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -12 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,143 1,838 3,082
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.02% 7.50% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.86% 24.00% 26.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,187 1,098 1,667
10th Percentile £213 £235 £234
25th Percentile £375 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% +1.53% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £723 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 216 137 372
10th Percentile £19.67 £18.00 £14.37
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.39 £24.08
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +24.61% -15.53%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.30 £73.63
UK median hourly rate £50.72 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.44% +25.00% -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 13,514 7,657 11,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.23% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,068 4,820 7,093
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.82% -0.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,032 473 1,010
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.30 £19.25
Median hourly rate £51.22 £32.00 £40.29
Median % change year-on-year +60.06% -20.57% -26.75%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.75 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.35 £81.01 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +63.93% -23.75% -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -18 920 £505 -8.18% 703
South East -1 394 £500 +5.26% 600
North of England -12 325 £447 -3.35% 425
Midlands -23 198 £523 +45.95% 236
North West -7 175 £418 -10.87% 238
West Midlands -29 143 £487 +17.94% 132
East of England -5 137 £450 -10.00% 194
Yorkshire -9 135 £500 +11.86% 144
South West -22 117 £469 -1.26% 259
East Midlands -18 53 £545 +55.71% 104
North East -36 15 £450 +130.77% 53
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
1 117 (5.46%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.90%) Confluence
3 62 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.49%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Apache
7 10 (0.47%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) CMS
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
8 7 (0.33%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Camunda
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.19%) Appian
10 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 241 (11.25%) Microsoft Office
2 195 (9.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 120 (5.60%) Microsoft Project
4 119 (5.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (2.38%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.42%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.047%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.047%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 51 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.56%) Primavera
3 10 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 466 (21.75%) Azure
2 276 (12.88%) AWS
3 184 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 166 (7.75%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.69%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.57%) GCP
7 78 (3.64%) SaaS
8 75 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 53 (2.47%) GitHub
10 33 (1.54%) Figma
11 32 (1.49%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.49%) Serverless
12 31 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.45%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.45%) OneDrive
12 31 (1.45%) PowerApps
13 30 (1.40%) Snowflake
14 28 (1.31%) PaaS
15 24 (1.12%) IaaS
16 22 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 92 (4.29%) Firewall
2 61 (2.85%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.80%) DNS
4 53 (2.47%) Network Security
5 48 (2.24%) LAN
5 48 (2.24%) WAN
6 37 (1.73%) VPN
7 31 (1.45%) DHCP
8 23 (1.07%) Wireless
9 22 (1.03%) BGP
10 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.89%) OSPF
12 18 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.70%) Skype
14 13 (0.61%) 3GPP
14 13 (0.61%) SSH
15 12 (0.56%) SAN
15 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.51%) VoIP
17 10 (0.47%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (6.49%) Power BI
2 99 (4.62%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.19%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.73%) Tableau
7 31 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.31%) Metadata
9 27 (1.26%) Big Data
10 22 (1.03%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.98%) MySQL
12 18 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
12 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
13 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
15 12 (0.56%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 10 (0.47%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 182 (8.49%) JIRA
2 97 (4.53%) Git
3 39 (1.82%) GitLab
3 39 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
5 20 (0.93%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.89%) MLflow
7 14 (0.65%) Selenium
8 13 (0.61%) JUnit
9 12 (0.56%) Gradle
9 12 (0.56%) Postman
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.42%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.37%) Maven
12 8 (0.37%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.33%) Subversion
General
1 991 (46.24%) Social Skills
2 666 (31.08%) Finance
3 426 (19.88%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.63%) Banking
5 180 (8.40%) Public Sector
6 122 (5.69%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.18%) Presentation Skills
8 94 (4.39%) Marketing
9 84 (3.92%) Aerospace
10 82 (3.83%) Legal
11 77 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (3.55%) Manufacturing
13 70 (3.27%) Influencing Skills
14 57 (2.66%) Telecoms
15 52 (2.43%) Retail
16 51 (2.38%) Law
17 42 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 35 (1.63%) Front Office
19 31 (1.45%) Investment Banking
20 30 (1.40%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 317 (14.79%) Analyst
2 247 (11.53%) Senior
3 165 (7.70%) Architect
4 162 (7.56%) Lead
5 150 (7.00%) Developer
6 146 (6.81%) Business Analyst
7 142 (6.63%) Project Manager
8 63 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
9 58 (2.71%) Consultant
9 58 (2.71%) Senior Analyst
10 57 (2.66%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.61%) Software Engineer
12 55 (2.57%) Technical Support
13 53 (2.47%) Delivery Manager
13 53 (2.47%) Designer
14 48 (2.24%) Product Manager
15 42 (1.96%) IT Manager
16 41 (1.91%) IT Analyst
16 41 (1.91%) Security Engineer
16 41 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (4.48%) REST
2 78 (3.64%) .NET
3 56 (2.61%) React
4 47 (2.19%) Kafka
4 47 (2.19%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.10%) Middleware
6 37 (1.73%) HTML
7 34 (1.59%) RESTful
8 33 (1.54%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.49%) OAuth
10 29 (1.35%) XML
11 28 (1.31%) Spring Boot
12 27 (1.26%) CSS
13 26 (1.21%) JSON
13 26 (1.21%) Web Services
14 25 (1.17%) Spring
15 24 (1.12%) AngularJS
15 24 (1.12%) SOAP
16 22 (1.03%) Pandas
16 22 (1.03%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 157 (7.33%) Management Information System
2 131 (6.11%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.79%) Product Ownership
4 86 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 76 (3.55%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.22%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.52%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 46 (2.15%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (2.05%) Algorithms
11 43 (2.01%) PMI
12 41 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
13 38 (1.77%) Robotics
14 37 (1.73%) Security Posture
15 36 (1.68%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
17 30 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
18 29 (1.35%) Derivative
19 28 (1.31%) Life Science
20 26 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 285 (13.30%) Windows
2 171 (7.98%) Linux
3 74 (3.45%) Unix
4 69 (3.22%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.52%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.31%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.26%) Android
8 27 (1.26%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.33%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.19%) Debian
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
14 4 (0.19%) VMS
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 720 (33.60%) Computer Science
2 601 (28.04%) Agile
3 544 (25.38%) Problem-Solving
4 348 (16.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 332 (15.49%) AI
5 332 (15.49%) Continuous Improvement
6 288 (13.44%) DevOps
7 260 (12.13%) Project Management
8 243 (11.34%) CI/CD
9 236 (11.01%) Analytics
10 222 (10.36%) Decision-Making
11 215 (10.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 204 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
13 200 (9.33%) Change Management
14 194 (9.05%) Roadmaps
15 193 (9.01%) Migration
16 192 (8.96%) ITIL
17 180 (8.40%) Risk Management
18 173 (8.07%) Software Engineering
19 171 (7.98%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 349 (16.29%) Python
2 320 (14.93%) SQL
3 149 (6.95%) Java
4 118 (5.51%) PowerShell
5 87 (4.06%) C#
6 84 (3.92%) JavaScript
7 44 (2.05%) C++
8 41 (1.91%) Bash
9 27 (1.26%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
10 23 (1.07%) R
11 18 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.79%) C
13 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.70%) Rust
15 12 (0.56%) Go
15 12 (0.56%) Perl
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.47%) Kotlin
18 9 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 442 (20.63%) Computer Science Degree
2 385 (17.97%) Security Cleared
3 262 (12.23%) SC Cleared
4 209 (9.75%) Master's Degree
5 131 (6.11%) PMI Certification
6 112 (5.23%) PMP
7 109 (5.09%) CISSP
8 80 (3.73%) Microsoft Certification
9 78 (3.64%) Cisco Certification
10 60 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (2.66%) CISM
12 50 (2.33%) DV Cleared
13 47 (2.19%) Azure Certification
14 41 (1.91%) PhD
15 40 (1.87%) CCNP
16 35 (1.63%) CCNA
17 34 (1.59%) CBAP
18 33 (1.54%) MBA
19 30 (1.40%) AWS Certification
20 29 (1.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.55%) QA
2 111 (5.18%) NIST
3 110 (5.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.48%) PMO
5 90 (4.20%) GDPR
6 88 (4.11%) Data Quality
7 47 (2.19%) SLA
8 39 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 38 (1.77%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (1.12%) GRC
12 18 (0.84%) NCSC
13 16 (0.75%) IFRS
14 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.47%) COBIT
18 9 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
19 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 162 (7.56%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.51%) Docker
3 37 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.26%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 9 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.14%) NFS
10 3 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.64%) Terraform
3 70 (3.27%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.89%) Ansible
5 35 (1.63%) Grafana
6 34 (1.59%) SCCM
7 33 (1.54%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 13 (0.61%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.47%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Kibana
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
15 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.33%) Kiali
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
Vendors
1 492 (22.96%) Microsoft
2 157 (7.33%) Oracle
3 119 (5.55%) SAP
4 105 (4.90%) ServiceNow
5 83 (3.87%) Google
6 66 (3.08%) Cisco
7 47 (2.19%) Databricks
8 44 (2.05%) Citrix
9 42 (1.96%) Salesforce
9 42 (1.96%) Splunk
9 42 (1.96%) VMware
10 35 (1.63%) Adobe
10 35 (1.63%) IBM
11 32 (1.49%) Palo Alto
12 27 (1.26%) CheckPoint
13 26 (1.21%) CyberArk
14 22 (1.03%) Aruba
14 22 (1.03%) Red Hat
15 20 (0.93%) Siemens
16 19 (0.89%) Ariba