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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -17 -3 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,257 2,015 2,555
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.93% 7.31% 7.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.56% 23.21% 25.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,180 1,183 1,480
10th Percentile £204 £260 £288
25th Percentile £363 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.17% -4.47%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £734 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 160 218
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.22 £19.02
25th Percentile £26.41 £27.25 £27.00
Median hourly rate £40.86 £42.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -26.77% +18.79%
75th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.43 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% -19.05% +7.95%

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 14,504 8,680 10,054
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.51% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,747 5,462 6,346
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,125 677 675
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.13 £14.29
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +93.72% -44.11% -18.18%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -20 985 £525 -4.55% 5,177
South East +6 471 £521 +9.74% 1,265
North of England -20 324 £459 +3.79% 899
North West -12 193 £453 -0.98% 501
Midlands -30 180 £463 +2.78% 582
West Midlands -31 134 £466 +3.44% 329
East of England -13 133 £350 -30.00% 676
South West -17 121 £408 -9.44% 680
Yorkshire -5 117 £500 +26.90% 257
East Midlands -25 44 £475 +9.57% 253
North East -41 14 £450 +130.77% 161
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
1 145 (6.42%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.61%) Confluence
3 55 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) Camunda
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 9 (0.40%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 6 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 239 (10.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 224 (9.92%) Microsoft Office
3 124 (5.49%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 48 (2.13%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 8 (0.35%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 520 (23.04%) Azure
2 291 (12.89%) AWS
3 211 (9.35%) Power Platform
4 209 (9.26%) Microsoft 365
5 135 (5.98%) Entra ID
6 129 (5.72%) GCP
7 106 (4.70%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.15%) SaaS
9 58 (2.57%) GitHub
10 45 (1.99%) Power Automate
10 45 (1.99%) PowerApps
10 45 (1.99%) Serverless
11 44 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
12 40 (1.77%) OneDrive
13 38 (1.68%) Snowflake
14 35 (1.55%) Figma
15 34 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
16 26 (1.15%) OpenShift
17 24 (1.06%) IaaS
18 22 (0.97%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.47%) Firewall
2 75 (3.32%) DNS
3 65 (2.88%) Network Security
4 60 (2.66%) VPN
5 59 (2.61%) TCP/IP
6 45 (1.99%) DHCP
7 35 (1.55%) WAN
8 32 (1.42%) LAN
9 24 (1.06%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) 3GPP
10 19 (0.84%) BGP
10 19 (0.84%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) SSH
12 16 (0.71%) 5G
12 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.66%) OSPF
13 15 (0.66%) VLAN
14 14 (0.62%) Radio Access Network
15 13 (0.58%) MPLS
15 13 (0.58%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (7.31%) Power BI
2 103 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.26%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.04%) Metadata
5 43 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
5 43 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
6 34 (1.51%) Tableau
7 32 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.15%) Big Data
8 26 (1.15%) Oracle Database
9 23 (1.02%) MySQL
10 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.58%) Power Query
13 13 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (0.53%) GIS
Development Applications
1 178 (7.89%) JIRA
2 121 (5.36%) Git
3 56 (2.48%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.17%) GitLab
5 30 (1.33%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) Selenium
7 18 (0.80%) JUnit
7 18 (0.80%) SonarQube
8 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.66%) Maven
10 13 (0.58%) Gradle
10 13 (0.58%) REST Assured
10 13 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (0.49%) MLflow
11 11 (0.49%) Subversion
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Mockito
12 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket Server
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 994 (44.04%) Social Skills
2 668 (29.60%) Finance
3 520 (23.04%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.33%) Banking
5 173 (7.67%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.34%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.83%) Aerospace
8 102 (4.52%) Manufacturing
9 95 (4.21%) Marketing
10 89 (3.94%) Legal
11 82 (3.63%) Telecoms
12 81 (3.59%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
14 64 (2.84%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.75%) Retail
16 51 (2.26%) Law
17 49 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.86%) Front Office
20 41 (1.82%) Military
Job Titles
1 314 (13.91%) Analyst
2 245 (10.86%) Senior
3 186 (8.24%) Lead
4 174 (7.71%) Developer
5 156 (6.91%) Architect
6 146 (6.47%) Business Analyst
7 116 (5.14%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.92%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.88%) Senior Manager
10 62 (2.75%) IT Support
11 57 (2.53%) Consultant
12 52 (2.30%) Designer
12 52 (2.30%) IT Analyst
12 52 (2.30%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.17%) Product Manager
14 48 (2.13%) IT Manager
15 44 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
16 41 (1.82%) Data Analyst
16 41 (1.82%) Technical Support
17 40 (1.77%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.30%) Terraform
2 93 (4.12%) .NET
3 91 (4.03%) REST
4 59 (2.61%) HTML
5 58 (2.57%) React
6 52 (2.30%) Kafka
7 48 (2.13%) CSS
8 40 (1.77%) RESTful
9 37 (1.64%) OAuth
10 35 (1.55%) .NET Framework
11 34 (1.51%) Middleware
12 33 (1.46%) Web Services
13 32 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
14 30 (1.33%) XML
15 29 (1.28%) Spring Boot
16 28 (1.24%) SAML
17 27 (1.20%) LDAP
17 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
17 27 (1.20%) OpenID
17 27 (1.20%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 190 (8.42%) Management Information System
2 130 (5.76%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.58%) Product Ownership
4 89 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.77%) Cloud Native
6 73 (3.23%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.57%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.44%) Algorithms
9 45 (1.99%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.95%) Operational Technology
11 41 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
12 40 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
12 40 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 34 (1.51%) Virtual Team
15 33 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
16 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
16 32 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.37%) PMI
18 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 279 (12.36%) Windows
2 173 (7.67%) Linux
3 69 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.61%) Unix
5 45 (1.99%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.97%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 771 (34.16%) Computer Science
2 637 (28.22%) Agile
3 597 (26.45%) Problem-Solving
4 437 (19.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 417 (18.48%) Continuous Improvement
6 362 (16.04%) AI
7 312 (13.82%) DevOps
8 290 (12.85%) Project Management
9 285 (12.63%) Analytics
10 275 (12.18%) CI/CD
11 255 (11.30%) ITIL
12 241 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 221 (9.79%) Cybersecurity
14 220 (9.75%) Decision-Making
15 209 (9.26%) Change Management
16 206 (9.13%) Software Engineering
17 205 (9.08%) Scrum
18 203 (8.99%) PRINCE2
19 199 (8.82%) Roadmaps
20 184 (8.15%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 387 (17.15%) Python
2 331 (14.67%) SQL
3 159 (7.04%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.69%) Java
5 107 (4.74%) JavaScript
6 102 (4.52%) C#
7 56 (2.48%) Bash
8 45 (1.99%) C++
9 38 (1.68%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.20%) Bicep
11 24 (1.06%) C
11 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) R
13 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
14 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 452 (20.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (18.83%) Security Cleared
3 275 (12.18%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
7 114 (5.05%) PMP
8 105 (4.65%) CISSP
9 75 (3.32%) DV Cleared
10 73 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
11 69 (3.06%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
13 51 (2.26%) PhD
14 48 (2.13%) CISM
15 41 (1.82%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 34 (1.51%) CCNA
18 33 (1.46%) CCNP
19 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
19 32 (1.42%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (5.45%) QA
2 120 (5.32%) Data Quality
3 99 (4.39%) NIST
4 93 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 84 (3.72%) PMO
6 62 (2.75%) GDPR
7 42 (1.86%) Accessibility
7 42 (1.86%) SLA
8 26 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 21 (0.93%) GRC
9 21 (0.93%) NCSC
10 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
11 13 (0.58%) IFRS
12 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.44%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
15 9 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 184 (8.15%) Active Directory
2 114 (5.05%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.06%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) Squid
Systems Management
1 117 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 63 (2.79%) Ansible
4 33 (1.46%) SCCM
5 29 (1.28%) Grafana
6 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.75%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.35%) WSUS
11 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.31%) Control-M
11 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
11 7 (0.31%) SCOM
12 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.27%) Nessus
12 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 584 (25.88%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.87%) Oracle
3 135 (5.98%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.54%) SAP
5 87 (3.85%) Google
6 69 (3.06%) VMware
7 61 (2.70%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.61%) Cisco
9 56 (2.48%) IBM
10 54 (2.39%) Adobe
11 48 (2.13%) Databricks
12 37 (1.64%) Splunk
13 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.28%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 22 (0.97%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.89%) Apple
19 19 (0.84%) Ariba
20 17 (0.75%) HP