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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -11 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,152 1,851 3,114
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.01% 7.46% 8.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.84% 23.91% 27.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,192 1,110 1,672
10th Percentile £210 £235 £241
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £502 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.30% +0.30% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 139 374
10th Percentile £19.03 £18.06 £15.53
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.67 £24.18
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +24.22% -10.56%
75th Percentile £84.00 £73.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.15 £73.93
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.15%

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 13,589 7,741 11,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.20% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,142 4,871 7,111
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 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,031 499 1,015
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.24 £20.06
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.32 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +73.15% -26.52% -24.97%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -17 919 £506 -8.05% 724
South East 0 405 £500 +5.26% 598
North of England -12 329 £447 -3.35% 391
Midlands -20 194 £523 +46.77% 238
North West -6 179 £424 -8.30% 230
West Midlands -25 141 £487 +25.55% 127
East of England -5 138 £450 -10.00% 197
Yorkshire -11 135 £500 +11.86% 118
South West -22 119 £450 -5.26% 199
East Midlands -14 51 £545 +55.71% 111
North East -38 15 £450 +130.77% 54
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 (5.48%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.88%) Confluence
3 64 (2.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.39%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.51%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.33%) Camunda
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.19%) Appian
11 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.093%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 250 (11.62%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (9.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 124 (5.76%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.60%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.60%) 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%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.046%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 51 (2.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.65%) Primavera
3 11 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.37%) 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 Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 467 (21.70%) Azure
2 275 (12.78%) AWS
3 189 (8.78%) Microsoft 365
4 173 (8.04%) Power Platform
5 128 (5.95%) Entra ID
6 102 (4.74%) GCP
7 77 (3.58%) SaaS
8 76 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.37%) GitHub
10 34 (1.58%) Figma
11 33 (1.53%) Serverless
12 32 (1.49%) OneDrive
12 32 (1.49%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.44%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.39%) Google Workspace
14 30 (1.39%) Snowflake
15 29 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
15 29 (1.35%) PaaS
16 25 (1.16%) IaaS
17 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.37%) Firewall
2 63 (2.93%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.88%) DNS
4 57 (2.65%) Network Security
5 46 (2.14%) WAN
6 43 (2.00%) LAN
7 39 (1.81%) VPN
8 33 (1.53%) DHCP
9 25 (1.16%) Wireless
10 21 (0.98%) BGP
11 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
13 18 (0.84%) OSPF
14 14 (0.65%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.65%) Skype
15 12 (0.56%) SAN
15 12 (0.56%) SSH
16 11 (0.51%) DMZ
16 11 (0.51%) Internet
17 10 (0.46%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.78%) Power BI
2 101 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.18%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.81%) Tableau
7 31 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.39%) Metadata
9 28 (1.30%) Big Data
10 23 (1.07%) MongoDB
11 22 (1.02%) MySQL
12 19 (0.88%) Oracle Database
13 18 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
16 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
18 11 (0.51%) Power Query
18 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 185 (8.60%) JIRA
2 97 (4.51%) Git
3 39 (1.81%) GitLab
3 39 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
5 19 (0.88%) MLflow
5 19 (0.88%) Visual Studio
6 14 (0.65%) Selenium
7 11 (0.51%) Gradle
7 11 (0.51%) JUnit
7 11 (0.51%) Postman
8 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
9 9 (0.42%) SonarQube
9 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.37%) Maven
11 7 (0.33%) Bitbucket
11 7 (0.33%) Subversion
12 6 (0.28%) Burp Suite
12 6 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 992 (46.10%) Social Skills
2 667 (30.99%) Finance
3 437 (20.31%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.60%) Banking
5 179 (8.32%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.81%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (5.07%) Presentation Skills
8 93 (4.32%) Marketing
9 87 (4.04%) Aerospace
10 85 (3.95%) Legal
11 79 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
12 75 (3.49%) Manufacturing
13 70 (3.25%) Influencing Skills
14 56 (2.60%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.51%) Retail
16 50 (2.32%) Law
17 41 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.81%) Front Office
19 32 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
20 31 (1.44%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 318 (14.78%) Analyst
2 245 (11.38%) Senior
3 164 (7.62%) Architect
4 158 (7.34%) Lead
5 147 (6.83%) Developer
6 144 (6.69%) Business Analyst
6 144 (6.69%) Project Manager
7 64 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
8 60 (2.79%) Consultant
9 58 (2.70%) Senior Analyst
9 58 (2.70%) Senior Manager
10 56 (2.60%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.42%) Designer
12 51 (2.37%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.32%) Delivery Manager
14 49 (2.28%) Product Manager
15 44 (2.04%) IT Manager
16 41 (1.91%) IT Analyst
17 40 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
18 39 (1.81%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.23%) REST
2 79 (3.67%) .NET
3 56 (2.60%) React
4 45 (2.09%) Kafka
5 44 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
6 43 (2.00%) Middleware
7 37 (1.72%) HTML
8 34 (1.58%) .NET Framework
8 34 (1.58%) OAuth
9 33 (1.53%) RESTful
10 27 (1.25%) Spring Boot
10 27 (1.25%) XML
11 26 (1.21%) CSS
11 26 (1.21%) Web Services
12 25 (1.16%) Spring
13 24 (1.12%) JSON
13 24 (1.12%) SAML
14 23 (1.07%) SOAP
15 22 (1.02%) AngularJS
15 22 (1.02%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 169 (7.85%) Management Information System
2 134 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 128 (5.95%) Product Ownership
4 88 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 77 (3.58%) Cloud Native
6 67 (3.11%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.42%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.37%) Data Structures
9 46 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (2.04%) Algorithms
11 43 (2.00%) PMI
12 40 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.86%) Security Posture
13 39 (1.81%) Operational Technology
14 36 (1.67%) Robotics
15 32 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
15 32 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
16 29 (1.35%) Derivative
17 28 (1.30%) Life Science
18 27 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 293 (13.62%) Windows
2 169 (7.85%) Linux
3 71 (3.30%) Unix
3 71 (3.30%) Windows Server
4 54 (2.51%) Windows 10
5 34 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 27 (1.25%) Apple iOS
6 27 (1.25%) Mac OS
7 25 (1.16%) Android
8 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.33%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
13 4 (0.19%) VMS
14 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 708 (32.90%) Computer Science
2 607 (28.21%) Agile
3 545 (25.33%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.50%) Stakeholder Management
5 341 (15.85%) Continuous Improvement
6 336 (15.61%) AI
7 288 (13.38%) DevOps
8 262 (12.17%) Project Management
9 244 (11.34%) Analytics
9 244 (11.34%) CI/CD
10 222 (10.32%) Decision-Making
11 217 (10.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 206 (9.57%) Cybersecurity
13 201 (9.34%) Change Management
14 199 (9.25%) ITIL
14 199 (9.25%) Roadmaps
15 192 (8.92%) Migration
16 180 (8.36%) Risk Management
17 173 (8.04%) Project Delivery
18 170 (7.90%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 348 (16.17%) Python
2 326 (15.15%) SQL
3 148 (6.88%) Java
4 122 (5.67%) PowerShell
5 86 (4.00%) C#
6 85 (3.95%) JavaScript
7 39 (1.81%) Bash
8 37 (1.72%) C++
9 26 (1.21%) TypeScript
10 24 (1.12%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.07%) R
12 18 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.84%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.79%) C
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
15 13 (0.60%) Perl
16 12 (0.56%) Go
17 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
19 9 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 433 (20.12%) Computer Science Degree
2 380 (17.66%) Security Cleared
3 257 (11.94%) SC Cleared
4 207 (9.62%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.23%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.34%) CISSP
6 115 (5.34%) PMP
7 84 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
8 73 (3.39%) Cisco Certification
9 61 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 58 (2.70%) CISM
11 51 (2.37%) DV Cleared
12 49 (2.28%) Azure Certification
13 40 (1.86%) PhD
14 35 (1.63%) CCNP
15 34 (1.58%) CCNA
16 33 (1.53%) MBA
17 32 (1.49%) AWS Certification
17 32 (1.49%) CBAP
18 30 (1.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.53%) QA
2 111 (5.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 111 (5.16%) NIST
3 95 (4.41%) PMO
4 92 (4.28%) Data Quality
4 92 (4.28%) GDPR
5 47 (2.18%) SLA
6 38 (1.77%) Accessibility
7 37 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 28 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 26 (1.21%) GRC
10 18 (0.84%) NCSC
11 16 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
11 16 (0.74%) IFRS
12 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
14 10 (0.46%) COBIT
15 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 169 (7.85%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.48%) Docker
3 38 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.30%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.42%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.19%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.19%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.95%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.62%) Terraform
3 72 (3.35%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.88%) Ansible
5 34 (1.58%) Grafana
5 34 (1.58%) SCCM
6 32 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.51%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.33%) Kibana
15 6 (0.28%) Kiali
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
Vendors
1 500 (23.23%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.16%) Oracle
3 121 (5.62%) SAP
4 109 (5.07%) ServiceNow
5 87 (4.04%) Google
6 59 (2.74%) Cisco
7 46 (2.14%) Citrix
7 46 (2.14%) Databricks
8 43 (2.00%) VMware
9 40 (1.86%) Splunk
10 39 (1.81%) Salesforce
11 37 (1.72%) Adobe
12 35 (1.63%) IBM
13 27 (1.25%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.21%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.07%) Red Hat
16 22 (1.02%) CheckPoint
17 20 (0.93%) Ariba
17 20 (0.93%) Siemens
18 19 (0.88%) Okta