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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,281 1,988 2,560
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.11% 7.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.22% 22.29% 26.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,177 1,115 1,458
10th Percentile £204 £268 £260
25th Percentile £363 £401 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.03% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £724 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 168 167
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.74 £26.19 £31.25
Median hourly rate £39.75 £34.49 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.25% -34.30% +9.38%
75th Percentile £66.92 £62.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £82.00
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £33.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +19.94% -29.47% -1.33%

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 14,990 8,920 9,579
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.20% 31.92% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,001 5,662 5,807
10th Percentile £350 £291 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £712 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,285 738 519
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.97
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.83
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -52.10% -2.17%
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.19 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £44.48 £25.15 £48.18
% change year-on-year +76.86% -47.80% -10.25%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 -19 988 £525 -4.55% 6,388
South East +8 471 £525 +16.67% 1,895
North of England -10 340 £475 +5.56% 1,219
North West -5 216 £475 +3.83% 655
Midlands -27 186 £450 -3.23% 884
West Midlands -31 137 £450 -5.26% 543
East of England -13 135 £425 -15.00% 918
South West -26 128 £408 -22.38% 696
Yorkshire -17 107 £500 +17.65% 374
East Midlands -21 48 £481 +7.37% 342
North East -30 17 £460 +2.22% 193
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
1 148 (6.49%) SharePoint
2 113 (4.95%) Confluence
3 56 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.32%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.92%) Apache
6 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.88%) IIS
7 16 (0.70%) CMS
8 14 (0.61%) Camunda
8 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 8 (0.35%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 232 (10.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 213 (9.34%) Microsoft Office
3 110 (4.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 103 (4.52%) Microsoft Project
5 48 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.39%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
12 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) MicroStation
14 2 (0.088%) CATIA
14 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 33 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 532 (23.32%) Azure
2 283 (12.41%) AWS
3 203 (8.90%) Microsoft 365
4 202 (8.86%) Power Platform
5 147 (6.44%) GCP
6 133 (5.83%) Entra ID
7 124 (5.44%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.11%) SaaS
9 60 (2.63%) GitHub
10 56 (2.46%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.32%) Serverless
12 49 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.06%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.06%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.93%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.49%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.45%) Figma
17 29 (1.27%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.27%) OpenShift
18 28 (1.23%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.95%) Firewall
2 73 (3.20%) DNS
3 62 (2.72%) Network Security
4 56 (2.46%) TCP/IP
5 55 (2.41%) VPN
6 44 (1.93%) DHCP
7 29 (1.27%) LAN
7 29 (1.27%) WAN
8 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.96%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
10 20 (0.88%) SSH
11 18 (0.79%) SSL
11 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
12 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 16 (0.70%) Internet
13 16 (0.70%) VLAN
13 16 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.57%) BGP
15 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (6.36%) Power BI
2 107 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.41%) Metadata
4 51 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (1.97%) Relational Database
6 44 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
7 36 (1.58%) MySQL
8 34 (1.49%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.32%) Tableau
10 28 (1.23%) Big Data
11 27 (1.18%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
13 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.70%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
17 11 (0.48%) Redis
18 9 (0.39%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 162 (7.10%) JIRA
2 137 (6.01%) Git
3 58 (2.54%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.41%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) JUnit
5 24 (1.05%) Maven
6 23 (1.01%) SonarQube
7 22 (0.96%) Gradle
8 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
9 18 (0.79%) Selenium
10 17 (0.75%) Cucumber
10 17 (0.75%) Mockito
11 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.61%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
14 9 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.39%) Postman
14 9 (0.39%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.35%) MLflow
15 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,027 (45.02%) Social Skills
2 662 (29.02%) Finance
3 538 (23.59%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.59%) Banking
5 185 (8.11%) Public Sector
6 153 (6.71%) Organisational Skills
7 134 (5.87%) Manufacturing
8 113 (4.95%) Aerospace
9 110 (4.82%) Influencing Skills
10 96 (4.21%) Marketing
11 78 (3.42%) Legal
11 78 (3.42%) Telecoms
12 75 (3.29%) Presentation Skills
13 70 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.72%) Retail
15 60 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 54 (2.37%) Pharmaceutical
17 49 (2.15%) Law
18 45 (1.97%) Military
19 42 (1.84%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 308 (13.50%) Analyst
2 257 (11.27%) Senior
3 192 (8.42%) Developer
4 185 (8.11%) Lead
5 155 (6.80%) Architect
6 152 (6.66%) Business Analyst
7 105 (4.60%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.94%) Support Engineer
9 61 (2.67%) IT Support
10 60 (2.63%) Senior Manager
11 55 (2.41%) Consultant
12 52 (2.28%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
14 46 (2.02%) Administrator
14 46 (2.02%) IT Analyst
14 46 (2.02%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
15 43 (1.89%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.80%) Data Engineer
16 41 (1.80%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.87%) Terraform
2 100 (4.38%) REST
3 94 (4.12%) .NET
4 69 (3.02%) HTML
5 68 (2.98%) React
6 60 (2.63%) CSS
6 60 (2.63%) Kafka
7 50 (2.19%) RESTful
8 43 (1.89%) OAuth
8 43 (1.89%) XML
9 41 (1.80%) Middleware
9 41 (1.80%) Web Services
10 37 (1.62%) Spring Boot
11 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
12 34 (1.49%) SAML
12 34 (1.49%) SOAP
13 33 (1.45%) .NET Framework
14 32 (1.40%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.40%) OpenID
15 31 (1.36%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 215 (9.43%) Management Information System
2 130 (5.70%) Onboarding
3 115 (5.04%) Product Ownership
4 96 (4.21%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (4.08%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.59%) Algorithms
7 55 (2.41%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.37%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.19%) Operational Technology
10 49 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
11 48 (2.10%) Security Posture
12 46 (2.02%) Life Science
13 40 (1.75%) AI Agents
14 38 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
15 36 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
16 35 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
16 35 (1.53%) Virtual Team
17 32 (1.40%) SCADA
18 29 (1.27%) PMI
19 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 281 (12.32%) Windows
2 181 (7.94%) Linux
3 83 (3.64%) Windows Server
4 70 (3.07%) Unix
5 37 (1.62%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.23%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.79%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) zOS
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Mac OS X
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 737 (32.31%) Computer Science
2 646 (28.32%) Agile
3 620 (27.18%) Problem-Solving
4 516 (22.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 409 (17.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (16.88%) AI
7 348 (15.26%) DevOps
8 308 (13.50%) CI/CD
9 300 (13.15%) Analytics
10 284 (12.45%) Project Management
11 254 (11.14%) ITIL
12 242 (10.61%) Decision-Making
13 239 (10.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 237 (10.39%) Roadmaps
15 231 (10.13%) Scrum
16 226 (9.91%) Change Management
17 224 (9.82%) Software Engineering
18 219 (9.60%) Cybersecurity
19 209 (9.16%) Validation
20 203 (8.90%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 371 (16.26%) Python
2 339 (14.86%) SQL
3 170 (7.45%) PowerShell
4 146 (6.40%) Java
5 123 (5.39%) JavaScript
6 109 (4.78%) C#
7 63 (2.76%) Bash
8 37 (1.62%) C++
8 37 (1.62%) TypeScript
9 30 (1.32%) Bicep
10 27 (1.18%) Shell Script
11 26 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.96%) R
14 21 (0.92%) C
15 16 (0.70%) Scala
16 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 456 (19.99%) Security Cleared
2 448 (19.64%) Computer Science Degree
3 332 (14.56%) SC Cleared
4 194 (8.51%) Master's Degree
5 144 (6.31%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.57%) PMP
7 113 (4.95%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.65%) CISSP
9 94 (4.12%) DV Cleared
10 85 (3.73%) Azure Certification
11 78 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
12 74 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.59%) PhD
14 50 (2.19%) CISM
15 45 (1.97%) AWS Certification
15 45 (1.97%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 39 (1.71%) DBS Check
17 37 (1.62%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 31 (1.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (6.05%) QA
2 132 (5.79%) Data Quality
3 90 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.77%) NIST
5 78 (3.42%) GDPR
6 71 (3.11%) PMO
7 40 (1.75%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.45%) SLA
9 31 (1.36%) GRC
10 19 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.79%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.70%) IFRS
14 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.48%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
16 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 177 (7.76%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.17%) Docker
3 57 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 23 (1.01%) Firmware
6 21 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.39%) vSphere
8 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.26%) BitLocker
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 124 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 68 (2.98%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.54%) Ansible
4 28 (1.23%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.83%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 11 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.44%) CASB
11 10 (0.44%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.35%) Control-M
13 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.26%) Nessus
13 6 (0.26%) WSUS
14 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 566 (24.81%) Microsoft
2 163 (7.15%) Oracle
3 132 (5.79%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.22%) SAP
5 108 (4.73%) Google
6 71 (3.11%) VMware
7 63 (2.76%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.67%) Cisco
9 56 (2.46%) Adobe
10 50 (2.19%) Databricks
11 43 (1.89%) IBM
12 39 (1.71%) Splunk
13 31 (1.36%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.14%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.10%) OpenAI
16 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.92%) Citrix
17 20 (0.88%) Apple
18 19 (0.83%) Ariba
18 19 (0.83%) Palo Alto