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 7 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,159 1,899 3,160
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.30% 7.79% 8.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.41% 24.90% 27.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,269 1,130 1,668
10th Percentile £245 £250 £211
25th Percentile £381 £395 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £510
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% +1.37% -6.76%
75th Percentile £613 £674 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £503
% change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 142 374
10th Percentile £20.37 £17.53 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.47 £27.53 £24.12
Median hourly rate £64.25 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.23% +32.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.38
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +4.76% +31.25% -11.11%

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 13,159 7,627 11,574
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.32% 31.29% 31.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,834 4,846 7,145
10th Percentile £340 £290 £308
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 975 440 987
10th Percentile £17.07 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.13
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% +6.88% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.46 £81.35 £77.19
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 -16 910 £500 -9.09% 997
South East -1 371 £485 -1.87% 703
North of England -12 324 £417 -8.35% 441
Midlands -24 212 £500 +66.67% 330
North West -8 168 £400 -13.51% 225
West Midlands -25 149 £500 +66.67% 207
South West -13 141 £598 +19.55% 256
East of England -8 140 £450 -10.00% 208
Yorkshire -9 140 £475 +23.06% 156
East Midlands -15 61 £525 +55.33% 122
North East -23 16 £407 -12.00% 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
1 143 (6.62%) Confluence
2 107 (4.96%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.28%) SAS
9 5 (0.23%) IIS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) Appian
12 2 (0.093%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 288 (13.34%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (10.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 178 (8.24%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 59 (2.73%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.42%) Simulink
7 9 (0.42%) Trello
8 8 (0.37%) Adobe After Effects
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 7 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.32%) Photoshop
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.28%) Sketch
11 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.093%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.093%) InVision
Business Applications
1 50 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.74%) Primavera
4 14 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 443 (20.52%) Azure
2 253 (11.72%) AWS
3 186 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
4 173 (8.01%) Power Platform
5 103 (4.77%) Entra ID
6 94 (4.35%) SaaS
7 85 (3.94%) GCP
8 73 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.36%) GitHub
10 34 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.53%) Google Workspace
11 33 (1.53%) IaaS
11 33 (1.53%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.48%) PaaS
13 27 (1.25%) Figma
14 26 (1.20%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.20%) Serverless
15 24 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
16 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (1.02%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.35%) Firewall
2 52 (2.41%) LAN
2 52 (2.41%) WAN
3 47 (2.18%) TCP/IP
4 45 (2.08%) DNS
5 43 (1.99%) Network Security
6 36 (1.67%) VPN
7 27 (1.25%) Wireless
8 23 (1.07%) BGP
9 22 (1.02%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.93%) OSPF
11 19 (0.88%) Skype
12 18 (0.83%) DHCP
13 16 (0.74%) HTTP
14 14 (0.65%) SAN
14 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.51%) IPsec
16 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
17 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (6.72%) Power BI
2 87 (4.03%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.36%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (1.57%) Tableau
7 30 (1.39%) Metadata
7 30 (1.39%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.34%) Big Data
9 27 (1.25%) MySQL
10 19 (0.88%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
11 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.56%) Power Query
15 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 240 (11.12%) JIRA
2 98 (4.54%) Git
3 40 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.81%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.88%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) Gradle
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Postman
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) JUnit
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.28%) Cucumber
General
1 1,009 (46.73%) Social Skills
2 657 (30.43%) Finance
3 467 (21.63%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (9.36%) Banking
5 175 (8.11%) Public Sector
6 118 (5.47%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.14%) Presentation Skills
8 84 (3.89%) Marketing
9 82 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
10 73 (3.38%) Legal
11 70 (3.24%) Aerospace
12 67 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
13 58 (2.69%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.50%) Military
15 53 (2.45%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.36%) Law
17 49 (2.27%) Retail
18 37 (1.71%) Front Office
19 35 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 32 (1.48%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 293 (13.57%) Analyst
2 227 (10.51%) Senior
3 183 (8.48%) Architect
4 171 (7.92%) Lead
5 157 (7.27%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.86%) Developer
7 146 (6.76%) Business Analyst
8 64 (2.96%) Consultant
9 63 (2.92%) Delivery Manager
10 60 (2.78%) Technical Support
11 59 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
12 56 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (2.22%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.18%) Product Manager
15 43 (1.99%) Designer
16 42 (1.95%) Data Scientist
16 42 (1.95%) Senior Manager
17 38 (1.76%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.76%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.76%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.08%) REST
2 66 (3.06%) .NET
3 52 (2.41%) Middleware
4 49 (2.27%) React
5 43 (1.99%) Kafka
6 41 (1.90%) HTML
6 41 (1.90%) RESTful
7 39 (1.81%) Oracle Fusion
8 36 (1.67%) XML
9 33 (1.53%) SOAP
9 33 (1.53%) Spring Boot
10 30 (1.39%) Spring
11 28 (1.30%) CSS
11 28 (1.30%) JSON
12 27 (1.25%) OAuth
12 27 (1.25%) PyTorch
13 26 (1.20%) .NET Framework
13 26 (1.20%) Pandas
14 21 (0.97%) Elastic Stack
14 21 (0.97%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 159 (7.36%) Management Information System
2 155 (7.18%) Product Ownership
3 122 (5.65%) Onboarding
4 75 (3.47%) Cloud Native
5 64 (2.96%) Self-Motivation
6 60 (2.78%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.73%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.36%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.32%) PMI
10 48 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
11 47 (2.18%) Algorithms
11 47 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
13 38 (1.76%) Robotics
14 34 (1.57%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.44%) Derivative
15 31 (1.44%) Security Posture
16 28 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
17 25 (1.16%) AI Agents
17 25 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 253 (11.72%) Windows
2 165 (7.64%) Linux
3 67 (3.10%) Windows Server
4 65 (3.01%) Unix
5 56 (2.59%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.07%) Android
7 22 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 19 (0.88%) Mac OS
9 14 (0.65%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.23%) AIX
14 5 (0.23%) Debian
14 5 (0.23%) VMS
15 4 (0.19%) Rocky
15 4 (0.19%) Solaris
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 744 (34.46%) Computer Science
2 659 (30.52%) Agile
3 550 (25.47%) Problem-Solving
4 353 (16.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 312 (14.45%) Continuous Improvement
6 310 (14.36%) AI
7 304 (14.08%) Project Management
8 290 (13.43%) DevOps
9 238 (11.02%) CI/CD
10 225 (10.42%) Analytics
11 222 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 221 (10.24%) Decision-Making
13 208 (9.63%) Change Management
14 205 (9.50%) ITIL
15 203 (9.40%) Cybersecurity
15 203 (9.40%) Migration
16 194 (8.99%) Risk Management
17 188 (8.71%) PRINCE2
18 184 (8.52%) Roadmaps
19 182 (8.43%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 337 (15.61%) Python
2 320 (14.82%) SQL
3 146 (6.76%) Java
4 108 (5.00%) PowerShell
5 83 (3.84%) C#
6 73 (3.38%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.55%) C++
8 40 (1.85%) Bash
9 34 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.30%) R
11 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 16 (0.74%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
13 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 14 (0.65%) Go
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 14 (0.65%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 480 (22.23%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (19.45%) Security Cleared
3 300 (13.90%) SC Cleared
4 241 (11.16%) Master's Degree
5 138 (6.39%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.60%) PMP
7 97 (4.49%) CISSP
8 83 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.69%) TOGAF Certification
11 56 (2.59%) CISM
12 51 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (2.22%) DV Cleared
14 47 (2.18%) PhD
15 44 (2.04%) Azure Certification
16 38 (1.76%) CCNP
17 35 (1.62%) MBA
18 32 (1.48%) CBAP
18 32 (1.48%) CCNA
19 25 (1.16%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.86%) QA
2 107 (4.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 106 (4.91%) PMO
4 101 (4.68%) NIST
5 99 (4.59%) GDPR
6 84 (3.89%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.32%) SLA
8 41 (1.90%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.85%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.02%) GRC
12 20 (0.93%) NCSC
13 15 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.65%) IFRS
15 13 (0.60%) Basel III
16 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
17 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
18 10 (0.46%) COBIT
19 9 (0.42%) HIPAA
System Software
1 142 (6.58%) Active Directory
2 120 (5.56%) Docker
3 36 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.20%) Hyper-V
5 22 (1.02%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.093%) HDFS
11 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.046%) Squid
12 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 130 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.47%) Terraform
3 61 (2.83%) Ansible
4 56 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (1.76%) SCCM
6 37 (1.71%) Grafana
7 30 (1.39%) OPNET
8 27 (1.25%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.83%) Puppet
9 18 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
12 11 (0.51%) Nmap
12 11 (0.51%) WSUS
13 9 (0.42%) Kiali
13 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) SCOM
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 495 (22.93%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.86%) Oracle
3 122 (5.65%) ServiceNow
4 120 (5.56%) SAP
5 74 (3.43%) Google
6 67 (3.10%) Cisco
7 50 (2.32%) Splunk
8 49 (2.27%) Remedy
9 48 (2.22%) Databricks
10 42 (1.95%) Atlassian
10 42 (1.95%) VMware
11 41 (1.90%) Citrix
12 36 (1.67%) Salesforce
13 34 (1.57%) IBM
14 32 (1.48%) Adobe
14 32 (1.48%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.34%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.07%) Aruba
17 22 (1.02%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.93%) Siemens