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

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,197 1,963 3,274
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.46% 7.61% 8.61%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.96% 25.26% 27.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,283 1,088 1,825
10th Percentile £294 £250 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -6.36%
75th Percentile £638 £658 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £504 £500
% change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 112 323
10th Percentile £15.20 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.75 £23.04
Median hourly rate £33.50 £42.69 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.53% +6.73% -11.11%
75th Percentile £60.61 £75.00 £60.13
90th Percentile £82.20 £85.00 £73.55
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £41.21 £40.00
% change year-on-year -18.70% +3.01% -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 11,590 7,771 11,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.08% 30.12% 31.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,698 4,738 7,305
10th Percentile £320 £295 £300
25th Percentile £419 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 896 364 877
10th Percentile £15.81 £19.98 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -46.91% +3.25% +1.96%
75th Percentile £63.75 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £82.43 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -35.51% -15.00% -0.26%

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 16 February 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 16 February 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 16 February 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 -6 988 £519 -5.64% 702
North of England -5 340 £425 -15.00% 429
South East -6 296 £475 -5.00% 714
Midlands -15 214 £525 +27.27% 319
South West +6 180 £649 +18.00% 209
North West -1 180 £389 -18.16% 249
West Midlands -18 152 £525 +5.00% 194
Yorkshire -9 144 £525 +5.00% 132
East of England -12 127 £550 +15.79% 254
East Midlands -4 62 £525 +47.47% 125
North East -7 17 £364 -27.20% 52
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
1 188 (8.56%) Confluence
2 111 (5.05%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.68%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.68%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.50%) Apache
8 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
10 6 (0.27%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.23%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) IIS
13 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 290 (13.20%) Microsoft Office
2 228 (10.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 183 (8.33%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 81 (3.69%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.86%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 9 (0.41%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) FrameMaker
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
12 4 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.091%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.091%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 35 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 24 (1.09%) Primavera
3 23 (1.05%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.59%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.55%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS R12
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 444 (20.21%) Azure
2 262 (11.93%) AWS
3 194 (8.83%) Microsoft 365
4 157 (7.15%) Power Platform
5 142 (6.46%) GCP
6 106 (4.82%) SaaS
7 83 (3.78%) Entra ID
8 79 (3.60%) GitHub
9 73 (3.32%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (2.55%) Serverless
11 44 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.59%) OCI
13 34 (1.55%) Power Automate
14 33 (1.50%) Cloud Computing
15 32 (1.46%) PaaS
16 30 (1.37%) IaaS
17 29 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
18 26 (1.18%) Google Workspace
18 26 (1.18%) PowerApps
19 22 (1.00%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.42%) Firewall
2 58 (2.64%) DNS
3 56 (2.55%) LAN
4 53 (2.41%) WAN
5 42 (1.91%) VPN
6 38 (1.73%) Network Security
7 37 (1.68%) TCP/IP
8 29 (1.32%) DHCP
8 29 (1.32%) Skype
9 26 (1.18%) Wireless
10 24 (1.09%) BGP
10 24 (1.09%) HTTP
10 24 (1.09%) Internet
10 24 (1.09%) Unified Communications
11 21 (0.96%) OSPF
12 18 (0.82%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.82%) SSH
12 18 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.73%) Structured Cabling
13 16 (0.73%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.64%) Power BI
2 80 (3.64%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (3.37%) SQL Server
4 58 (2.64%) NoSQL
5 44 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (2.00%) Tableau
6 42 (1.91%) Relational Database
7 37 (1.68%) MySQL
8 29 (1.32%) Big Data
9 20 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
10 19 (0.86%) Metadata
11 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.55%) Hadoop
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
16 10 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 264 (12.02%) JIRA
2 101 (4.60%) Git
3 72 (3.28%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.41%) GitLab
5 25 (1.14%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.96%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.82%) Postman
8 16 (0.73%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.55%) MLflow
11 11 (0.50%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.46%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) CircleCI
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.32%) JUnit
16 5 (0.23%) Appium
16 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,143 (52.03%) Social Skills
2 715 (32.54%) Finance
3 525 (23.90%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (11.38%) Banking
5 167 (7.60%) Public Sector
6 113 (5.14%) Presentation Skills
7 95 (4.32%) Organisational Skills
8 86 (3.91%) Manufacturing
9 81 (3.69%) Marketing
10 74 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
11 69 (3.14%) Influencing Skills
12 61 (2.78%) Legal
13 58 (2.64%) Military
14 55 (2.50%) Financial Institution
15 48 (2.18%) Front Office
16 42 (1.91%) Telecoms
17 41 (1.87%) Investment Banking
18 39 (1.78%) Retail
19 37 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 37 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 322 (14.66%) Analyst
2 229 (10.42%) Senior
3 195 (8.88%) Developer
4 184 (8.38%) Lead
5 171 (7.78%) Architect
6 158 (7.19%) Project Manager
7 155 (7.06%) Business Analyst
8 83 (3.78%) Consultant
9 81 (3.69%) Software Engineer
10 67 (3.05%) Technical Support
11 60 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (2.14%) IT Support
13 43 (1.96%) Security Engineer
13 43 (1.96%) Support Analyst
14 42 (1.91%) Senior Analyst
15 41 (1.87%) Senior Software Engineer
16 39 (1.78%) Data Scientist
17 36 (1.64%) Technical Analyst
18 35 (1.59%) Delivery Manager
18 35 (1.59%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.96%) REST
2 68 (3.10%) RESTful
3 66 (3.00%) .NET
4 54 (2.46%) HTML
5 51 (2.32%) React
6 47 (2.14%) Middleware
7 46 (2.09%) Elastic Stack
8 42 (1.91%) XML
9 41 (1.87%) CSS
10 39 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.64%) Kafka
11 36 (1.64%) OAuth
12 35 (1.59%) JSON
12 35 (1.59%) SOAP
13 29 (1.32%) PyTorch
13 29 (1.32%) Spring
13 29 (1.32%) TensorFlow
14 28 (1.27%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.27%) Node.js
15 26 (1.18%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 181 (8.24%) Management Information System
2 111 (5.05%) Product Ownership
3 100 (4.55%) Cloud Native
4 97 (4.42%) Onboarding
5 68 (3.10%) Distributed Systems
6 61 (2.78%) Algorithms
7 59 (2.69%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.69%) Virtual Team
8 55 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
9 50 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
10 48 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
11 44 (2.00%) PMI
12 41 (1.87%) Derivative
13 39 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
14 38 (1.73%) Security Posture
15 36 (1.64%) Public Cloud
16 32 (1.46%) Life Science
17 29 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.27%) Equities
19 26 (1.18%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 270 (12.29%) Windows
2 179 (8.15%) Linux
3 81 (3.69%) Unix
4 69 (3.14%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.64%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.96%) Android
7 18 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
8 17 (0.77%) Apple iOS
9 16 (0.73%) Mac OS
9 16 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 15 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 15 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
11 12 (0.55%) VMS
11 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.18%) Amazon Linux
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.14%) CentOS
14 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
15 2 (0.091%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 789 (35.91%) Computer Science
2 715 (32.54%) Agile
3 649 (29.54%) Problem-Solving
4 383 (17.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 336 (15.29%) DevOps
6 316 (14.38%) Project Management
7 288 (13.11%) AI
8 271 (12.34%) Change Management
9 249 (11.33%) CI/CD
10 246 (11.20%) Analytics
11 229 (10.42%) Decision-Making
12 228 (10.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 227 (10.33%) Cybersecurity
14 222 (10.10%) Migration
14 222 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 215 (9.79%) Risk Management
16 213 (9.70%) ITIL
17 206 (9.38%) Software Engineering
18 196 (8.92%) Project Delivery
19 179 (8.15%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 396 (18.02%) Python
2 342 (15.57%) SQL
3 151 (6.87%) Java
4 117 (5.33%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.82%) JavaScript
6 79 (3.60%) C#
7 73 (3.32%) C++
8 51 (2.32%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.05%) Go
10 40 (1.82%) Bash
11 25 (1.14%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.09%) R
13 21 (0.96%) Perl
14 19 (0.86%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.82%) C
16 15 (0.68%) Rust
17 14 (0.64%) Kotlin
17 14 (0.64%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.55%) Shell Script
19 11 (0.50%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 539 (24.53%) Computer Science Degree
2 392 (17.84%) Security Cleared
3 349 (15.89%) Master's Degree
4 313 (14.25%) SC Cleared
5 135 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.51%) PMP
7 106 (4.82%) CISSP
8 83 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.19%) CISM
10 68 (3.10%) PhD
11 60 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
12 58 (2.64%) Azure Certification
13 57 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
14 55 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
15 45 (2.05%) DV Cleared
16 39 (1.78%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.78%) CCNP
17 34 (1.55%) CBAP
17 34 (1.55%) MBA
18 31 (1.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.83%) QA
2 113 (5.14%) GDPR
3 92 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 92 (4.19%) PMO
4 68 (3.10%) Data Quality
5 64 (2.91%) NIST
6 44 (2.00%) PCI DSS
7 35 (1.59%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.50%) SLA
9 29 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.27%) GRC
11 17 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.68%) NCSC
12 15 (0.68%) WCAG
13 14 (0.64%) Basel III
13 14 (0.64%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.55%) IFRS 17
15 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
System Software
1 163 (7.42%) Docker
2 145 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.64%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
7 6 (0.27%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) DFS Replication
9 4 (0.18%) Dovecot
9 4 (0.18%) Postfix
9 4 (0.18%) Squid
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.14%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 163 (7.42%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.14%) Terraform
3 73 (3.32%) Ansible
4 68 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 52 (2.37%) Grafana
6 50 (2.28%) SCCM
7 45 (2.05%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.37%) OPNET
9 22 (1.00%) Puppet
10 16 (0.73%) Kibana
10 16 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 13 (0.59%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 7 (0.32%) Argo
14 7 (0.32%) Nessus
15 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
16 4 (0.18%) Control-M
Vendors
1 461 (20.98%) Microsoft
2 160 (7.28%) Oracle
3 127 (5.78%) SAP
4 106 (4.82%) ServiceNow
5 99 (4.51%) Google
6 85 (3.87%) Splunk
7 71 (3.23%) Cisco
8 57 (2.59%) Remedy
9 53 (2.41%) Atlassian
10 50 (2.28%) Salesforce
11 46 (2.09%) VMware
12 43 (1.96%) Databricks
13 39 (1.78%) Citrix
14 29 (1.32%) Palo Alto
15 22 (1.00%) IBM
15 22 (1.00%) MuleSoft
16 21 (0.96%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.96%) Informatica
17 20 (0.91%) Adobe
18 19 (0.86%) Red Hat