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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,260 1,989 2,579
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.88% 7.08% 7.96%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.19% 22.23% 26.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,166 1,115 1,471
10th Percentile £204 £268 £263
25th Percentile £363 £402 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £721 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £501 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 167 170
10th Percentile £16.46 £16.76 £21.25
25th Percentile £25.00 £26.71 £31.25
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.49% -34.29% +9.95%
75th Percentile £67.70 £62.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £40.09 £34.48 £50.00
% change year-on-year +16.27% -31.04% +3.86%

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 14,874 8,948 9,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.11% 31.87% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,921 5,677 5,862
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 739 533
10th Percentile £17.63 £17.87 £18.54
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £50.74 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +101.76% -52.10% -
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £45.20 £25.15 £48.18
% change year-on-year +79.72% -47.80% -10.08%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -20 977 £525 -4.55% 6,801
South East +7 462 £525 +16.67% 2,150
North of England -9 339 £475 +5.56% 1,413
North West -9 216 £479 +4.70% 756
Midlands -28 185 £450 -3.23% 1,004
East of England -14 136 £425 -15.00% 1,068
West Midlands -30 136 £450 -5.26% 587
South West -23 128 £404 -23.10% 864
Yorkshire -13 107 £500 +17.65% 442
East Midlands -16 48 £478 +6.94% 417
North East -31 16 £460 +2.22% 227
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 (6.55%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.82%) Confluence
3 56 (2.48%) 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%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 227 (10.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (9.47%) Microsoft Office
3 108 (4.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 101 (4.47%) Microsoft Project
5 46 (2.04%) 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%) OrCAD
14 2 (0.088%) Trello
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%) Aladdin
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 521 (23.05%) Azure
2 277 (12.26%) AWS
3 204 (9.03%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (8.89%) Power Platform
5 146 (6.46%) GCP
6 132 (5.84%) Entra ID
7 119 (5.27%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.10%) SaaS
9 60 (2.65%) GitHub
10 56 (2.48%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.35%) Serverless
12 49 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.08%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.08%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.95%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.50%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.42%) Figma
17 29 (1.28%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.28%) OpenShift
18 27 (1.19%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.94%) Firewall
2 72 (3.19%) DNS
3 61 (2.70%) Network Security
4 56 (2.48%) 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 (0.58%) BGP
16 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.37%) Power BI
2 106 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.39%) Metadata
4 51 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.95%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.55%) MySQL
8 33 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.33%) Tableau
10 28 (1.24%) Big Data
11 25 (1.11%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.11%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
13 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.71%) GIS
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 11 (0.49%) Redis
17 10 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 160 (7.08%) JIRA
2 134 (5.93%) Git
3 58 (2.57%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.48%) GitLab
5 24 (1.06%) JUnit
6 23 (1.02%) Maven
7 22 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.93%) Gradle
9 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.80%) Selenium
11 16 (0.71%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.71%) Mockito
12 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
14 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
15 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
15 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.35%) MLflow
16 8 (0.35%) Postman
16 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,016 (44.96%) Social Skills
2 654 (28.94%) Finance
3 534 (23.63%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.50%) Banking
5 185 (8.19%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.64%) Organisational Skills
7 134 (5.93%) Manufacturing
8 110 (4.87%) Aerospace
9 105 (4.65%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (4.20%) Marketing
11 77 (3.41%) Legal
11 77 (3.41%) Telecoms
12 76 (3.36%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.70%) Retail
15 60 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.30%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.12%) Law
18 45 (1.99%) Military
19 42 (1.86%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 304 (13.45%) Analyst
2 253 (11.19%) Senior
3 189 (8.36%) Developer
4 184 (8.14%) Lead
5 152 (6.73%) Architect
6 149 (6.59%) Business Analyst
7 103 (4.56%) Project Manager
8 68 (3.01%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.79%) IT Support
10 60 (2.65%) Senior Manager
11 55 (2.43%) Consultant
12 52 (2.30%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.26%) Solutions Architect
14 47 (2.08%) IT Analyst
15 46 (2.04%) Security Engineer
16 45 (1.99%) Administrator
17 42 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
17 42 (1.86%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.81%) Data Engineer
18 41 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.82%) Terraform
2 98 (4.34%) REST
3 93 (4.12%) .NET
4 68 (3.01%) HTML
5 67 (2.96%) React
6 59 (2.61%) CSS
7 58 (2.57%) Kafka
8 49 (2.17%) RESTful
9 43 (1.90%) OAuth
9 43 (1.90%) XML
10 41 (1.81%) Middleware
11 40 (1.77%) Web Services
12 36 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
13 35 (1.55%) Spring Boot
14 34 (1.50%) SAML
15 33 (1.46%) .NET Framework
15 33 (1.46%) SOAP
16 32 (1.42%) OAuth2
16 32 (1.42%) OpenID
17 31 (1.37%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 209 (9.25%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.71%) Onboarding
3 110 (4.87%) Product Ownership
4 95 (4.20%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (4.12%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.61%) Algorithms
7 55 (2.43%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.35%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.12%) Operational Technology
9 48 (2.12%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
11 44 (1.95%) Life Science
12 40 (1.77%) AI Agents
13 38 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
14 35 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
14 35 (1.55%) Virtual Team
15 32 (1.42%) SCADA
16 29 (1.28%) PMI
17 28 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 281 (12.43%) Windows
2 176 (7.79%) Linux
3 81 (3.58%) Windows Server
4 68 (3.01%) Unix
5 39 (1.73%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.80%) 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%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) CentOS
15 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 726 (32.12%) Computer Science
2 637 (28.19%) Agile
3 614 (27.17%) Problem-Solving
4 505 (22.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 402 (17.79%) Continuous Improvement
6 381 (16.86%) AI
7 339 (15.00%) DevOps
8 301 (13.32%) CI/CD
9 295 (13.05%) Analytics
10 279 (12.35%) Project Management
11 252 (11.15%) ITIL
12 239 (10.58%) Decision-Making
13 237 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 232 (10.27%) Roadmaps
15 228 (10.09%) Scrum
16 225 (9.96%) Change Management
17 220 (9.73%) Software Engineering
18 216 (9.56%) Cybersecurity
19 203 (8.98%) PRINCE2
19 203 (8.98%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 371 (16.42%) Python
2 337 (14.91%) SQL
3 168 (7.43%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.42%) Java
5 122 (5.40%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.73%) C#
7 62 (2.74%) Bash
8 37 (1.64%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.59%) C++
10 29 (1.28%) Bicep
11 26 (1.15%) Shell Script
11 26 (1.15%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.97%) R
14 21 (0.93%) C
15 16 (0.71%) Scala
16 13 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.49%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 447 (19.78%) Security Cleared
2 441 (19.51%) Computer Science Degree
3 325 (14.38%) SC Cleared
4 192 (8.50%) Master's Degree
5 144 (6.37%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.62%) PMP
7 114 (5.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 104 (4.60%) CISSP
9 90 (3.98%) DV Cleared
10 81 (3.58%) Azure Certification
11 78 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
12 73 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.61%) PhD
14 49 (2.17%) CISM
15 45 (1.99%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 42 (1.86%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.68%) DBS Check
18 36 (1.59%) ISTQB
19 31 (1.37%) A+ Certification
19 31 (1.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.97%) QA
2 130 (5.75%) Data Quality
3 87 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.76%) NIST
5 78 (3.45%) GDPR
6 72 (3.19%) PMO
7 40 (1.77%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.46%) SLA
9 30 (1.33%) GRC
10 19 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.80%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.71%) IFRS
14 14 (0.62%) 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 (7.83%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.22%) Docker
3 57 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.06%) Firmware
4 24 (1.06%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.40%) vSphere
7 8 (0.35%) 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%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 123 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 67 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
3 57 (2.52%) Ansible
4 27 (1.19%) SCCM
5 26 (1.15%) 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%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 563 (24.91%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.12%) Oracle
3 130 (5.75%) ServiceNow
4 120 (5.31%) SAP
5 107 (4.73%) Google
6 70 (3.10%) VMware
7 63 (2.79%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.70%) Cisco
9 56 (2.48%) Adobe
10 49 (2.17%) Databricks
11 43 (1.90%) IBM
12 39 (1.73%) Splunk
13 31 (1.37%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.15%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.15%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.93%) Apple
15 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.93%) Citrix
16 19 (0.84%) Ariba
16 19 (0.84%) Palo Alto