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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,264 1,969 2,563
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.89% 7.09% 7.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.19% 22.25% 26.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,168 1,105 1,459
10th Percentile £204 £268 £260
25th Percentile £363 £402 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £723 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £503 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +0.62% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 168 169
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £21.25
25th Percentile £25.00 £26.19 £31.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £34.49 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.98% -34.30% +9.06%
75th Percentile £67.70 £62.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £81.00
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £33.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +19.94% -29.47% -1.62%

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 14,904 8,850 9,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.17% 31.88% 29.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,939 5,621 5,811
10th Percentile £350 £293 £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 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,283 737 527
10th Percentile £17.30 £17.87 £18.62
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £73.60 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -47.05% -11.69%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -20 983 £525 -4.55% 5,953
South East +5 460 £525 +16.67% 1,914
North of England -9 341 £475 +5.56% 1,347
North West -7 217 £479 +4.70% 713
Midlands -29 185 £450 -3.23% 957
West Midlands -28 137 £450 -5.26% 564
East of England -14 135 £425 -15.00% 922
South West -25 127 £400 -23.81% 753
Yorkshire -12 107 £500 +17.65% 412
East Midlands -12 47 £478 +6.70% 394
North East -28 17 £460 +2.22% 228
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 (6.54%) SharePoint
2 110 (4.86%) Confluence
3 56 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.33%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.93%) Apache
6 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.88%) IIS
7 15 (0.66%) CMS
8 14 (0.62%) Camunda
8 14 (0.62%) 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%) Appian
13 3 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 227 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (9.45%) Microsoft Office
3 108 (4.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 100 (4.42%) Microsoft Project
5 47 (2.08%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Windchill
10 9 (0.40%) 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 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) 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 (0.27%) 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
1 524 (23.14%) Azure
2 279 (12.32%) AWS
3 204 (9.01%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (8.88%) Power Platform
5 147 (6.49%) GCP
6 132 (5.83%) Entra ID
7 120 (5.30%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.14%) SaaS
9 60 (2.65%) GitHub
10 56 (2.47%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.34%) Serverless
12 49 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.08%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.08%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.94%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.50%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.41%) Figma
17 29 (1.28%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.28%) OpenShift
18 28 (1.24%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.93%) Firewall
2 72 (3.18%) DNS
3 61 (2.69%) Network Security
4 56 (2.47%) TCP/IP
5 54 (2.39%) VPN
6 43 (1.90%) DHCP
7 29 (1.28%) LAN
7 29 (1.28%) WAN
8 23 (1.02%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.97%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
11 19 (0.84%) SSH
12 18 (0.80%) Wireshark
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
14 16 (0.71%) Internet
14 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.57%) BGP
16 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.36%) Power BI
2 106 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.39%) Metadata
4 51 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 44 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
7 36 (1.59%) MySQL
8 34 (1.50%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.33%) Tableau
10 28 (1.24%) Big Data
11 27 (1.19%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
13 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.71%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
17 11 (0.49%) Redis
18 9 (0.40%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 159 (7.02%) JIRA
2 137 (6.05%) Git
3 58 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.43%) GitLab
5 24 (1.06%) JUnit
5 24 (1.06%) Maven
6 23 (1.02%) SonarQube
7 22 (0.97%) Gradle
8 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
9 17 (0.75%) Cucumber
9 17 (0.75%) Mockito
9 17 (0.75%) Selenium
10 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.35%) MLflow
14 8 (0.35%) Postman
14 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,020 (45.05%) Social Skills
2 655 (28.93%) Finance
3 536 (23.67%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (8.61%) Banking
5 185 (8.17%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.63%) Organisational Skills
7 134 (5.92%) Manufacturing
8 110 (4.86%) Aerospace
9 106 (4.68%) Influencing Skills
10 96 (4.24%) Marketing
11 77 (3.40%) Legal
11 77 (3.40%) Telecoms
12 76 (3.36%) Presentation Skills
13 70 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.74%) Retail
15 59 (2.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.34%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.12%) Law
18 45 (1.99%) Military
19 42 (1.86%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 307 (13.56%) Analyst
2 252 (11.13%) Senior
3 191 (8.44%) Developer
4 183 (8.08%) Lead
5 152 (6.71%) Architect
6 150 (6.63%) Business Analyst
7 102 (4.51%) Project Manager
8 69 (3.05%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.78%) IT Support
10 59 (2.61%) Senior Manager
11 55 (2.43%) Consultant
12 52 (2.30%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
14 47 (2.08%) IT Analyst
15 46 (2.03%) Security Engineer
16 45 (1.99%) Administrator
17 42 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
17 42 (1.86%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
18 41 (1.81%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.81%) Terraform
2 97 (4.28%) REST
3 94 (4.15%) .NET
4 69 (3.05%) HTML
5 68 (3.00%) React
6 60 (2.65%) CSS
7 59 (2.61%) Kafka
8 50 (2.21%) RESTful
9 43 (1.90%) OAuth
9 43 (1.90%) XML
10 41 (1.81%) Middleware
10 41 (1.81%) Web Services
11 36 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.59%) Spring Boot
12 34 (1.50%) SAML
12 34 (1.50%) SOAP
13 33 (1.46%) .NET Framework
14 32 (1.41%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.41%) OpenID
15 31 (1.37%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 211 (9.32%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.70%) Onboarding
3 111 (4.90%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.15%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.61%) Algorithms
7 55 (2.43%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.39%) Data Structures
9 49 (2.16%) Operational Technology
10 48 (2.12%) Security Posture
11 47 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
12 46 (2.03%) Life Science
13 40 (1.77%) AI Agents
14 38 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
15 35 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
15 35 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
15 35 (1.55%) Virtual Team
16 32 (1.41%) SCADA
17 29 (1.28%) PMI
18 28 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 281 (12.41%) Windows
2 178 (7.86%) Linux
3 81 (3.58%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.05%) Unix
5 39 (1.72%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.80%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.31%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Solaris
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) zOS
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) Mac OS X
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.088%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (32.24%) Computer Science
2 639 (28.22%) Agile
3 620 (27.39%) Problem-Solving
4 508 (22.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (17.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 380 (16.78%) AI
7 342 (15.11%) DevOps
8 303 (13.38%) CI/CD
9 295 (13.03%) Analytics
10 279 (12.32%) Project Management
11 253 (11.17%) ITIL
12 240 (10.60%) Decision-Making
13 238 (10.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 233 (10.29%) Roadmaps
15 228 (10.07%) Scrum
16 226 (9.98%) Change Management
17 221 (9.76%) Software Engineering
18 216 (9.54%) Cybersecurity
19 204 (9.01%) Validation
20 202 (8.92%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 371 (16.39%) Python
2 337 (14.89%) SQL
3 168 (7.42%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.40%) Java
5 123 (5.43%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.73%) C#
7 62 (2.74%) Bash
8 37 (1.63%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.59%) C++
10 29 (1.28%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) Shell Script
12 26 (1.15%) T-SQL
13 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.97%) R
15 21 (0.93%) C
16 16 (0.71%) Scala
17 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 11 (0.49%) X++
19 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 448 (19.79%) Security Cleared
2 445 (19.66%) Computer Science Degree
3 325 (14.36%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.52%) Master's Degree
5 144 (6.36%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.61%) PMP
7 114 (5.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 103 (4.55%) CISSP
9 91 (4.02%) DV Cleared
10 81 (3.58%) Azure Certification
11 78 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
12 74 (3.27%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.61%) PhD
14 49 (2.16%) CISM
15 45 (1.99%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 42 (1.86%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.72%) DBS Check
18 36 (1.59%) ISTQB
19 31 (1.37%) CISA
19 31 (1.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.96%) QA
2 131 (5.79%) Data Quality
3 89 (3.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.75%) NIST
5 78 (3.45%) GDPR
6 71 (3.14%) PMO
7 40 (1.77%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.46%) SLA
9 31 (1.37%) GRC
10 19 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.80%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.71%) IFRS
14 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.49%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.49%) ISO 31000
16 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 177 (7.82%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.21%) Docker
3 57 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.06%) Hyper-V
5 23 (1.02%) Firmware
6 21 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.40%) vSphere
8 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.27%) BitLocker
9 6 (0.27%) 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 (5.48%) Kubernetes
2 67 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
3 57 (2.52%) Ansible
4 27 (1.19%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.84%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 11 (0.49%) 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 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.27%) Nessus
13 6 (0.27%) WSUS
14 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 562 (24.82%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.11%) Oracle
3 131 (5.79%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.26%) SAP
5 108 (4.77%) Google
6 70 (3.09%) VMware
7 63 (2.78%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.69%) Cisco
9 56 (2.47%) Adobe
10 49 (2.16%) Databricks
11 43 (1.90%) IBM
12 39 (1.72%) Splunk
13 31 (1.37%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.15%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.10%) OpenAI
16 21 (0.93%) Apple
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.93%) Citrix
17 19 (0.84%) Ariba
17 19 (0.84%) Palo Alto