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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 23 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,184 1,915 3,116
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.52% 7.81% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.78% 24.85% 26.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,287 1,140 1,666
10th Percentile £262 £250 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £520
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £739 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 146 350
10th Percentile £20.50 £17.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.56 £23.44
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £51.49 £53.75 £39.92
% change year-on-year -4.20% +34.64% -11.29%

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 13,013 7,706 11,642
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.90% 31.44% 31.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,730 4,933 7,174
10th Percentile £340 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £629 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £536
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.05% -2.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 430 960
10th Percentile £17.02 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £24.54 £17.86
Median hourly rate £47.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +25.00% -23.81%
75th Percentile £71.50 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £75.42
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +6.96% +6.25% -25.93%

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 21 April 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 21 April 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 21 April 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 -13 944 £505 -8.18% 1,108
South East -9 363 £500 - 763
North of England -7 326 £418 -8.24% 714
Midlands -21 208 £500 +61.29% 369
North West -6 178 £401 -13.30% 481
West Midlands -26 148 £500 +66.67% 210
South West -7 144 £650 +23.81% 244
East of England -7 140 £495 -1.00% 331
Yorkshire -21 131 £474 +9.03% 173
East Midlands -15 58 £525 +47.47% 158
North East -16 18 £407 -4.24% 66
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
1 147 (6.73%) Confluence
2 108 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 291 (13.32%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (10.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.24%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.84%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.27%) Sketch
9 4 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.18%) Navisworks
9 4 (0.18%) Revit
10 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.092%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
10 2 (0.092%) InVision
10 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 48 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.78%) Primavera
4 16 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 451 (20.65%) Azure
2 254 (11.63%) AWS
3 189 (8.65%) Microsoft 365
4 173 (7.92%) Power Platform
5 104 (4.76%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.58%) GCP
7 98 (4.49%) SaaS
8 76 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 56 (2.56%) GitHub
10 35 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
10 35 (1.60%) Power Automate
11 33 (1.51%) Google Workspace
12 30 (1.37%) PaaS
13 29 (1.33%) IaaS
13 29 (1.33%) PowerApps
14 28 (1.28%) Serverless
15 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
15 24 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
15 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.85%) Firewall
2 58 (2.66%) LAN
3 57 (2.61%) WAN
4 46 (2.11%) DNS
4 46 (2.11%) TCP/IP
5 45 (2.06%) Network Security
6 39 (1.79%) VPN
7 29 (1.33%) Wireless
8 28 (1.28%) BGP
9 22 (1.01%) OSPF
10 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.92%) DHCP
11 20 (0.92%) HTTP
12 18 (0.82%) Skype
13 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
13 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.64%) VLAN
15 13 (0.60%) Internet
15 13 (0.60%) SAN
16 12 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.59%) Power BI
2 87 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.65%) Tableau
7 34 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.28%) Big Data
9 26 (1.19%) MySQL
10 25 (1.14%) Metadata
11 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.50%) Power Query
16 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 243 (11.13%) JIRA
2 95 (4.35%) Git
3 45 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.78%) MLflow
7 17 (0.78%) Selenium
8 13 (0.60%) Burp Suite
8 13 (0.60%) Postman
9 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.46%) Gradle
11 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
11 9 (0.41%) JUnit
12 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.27%) Artifactory
General
1 1,041 (47.66%) Social Skills
2 663 (30.36%) Finance
3 486 (22.25%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (9.75%) Banking
5 172 (7.88%) Public Sector
6 111 (5.08%) Presentation Skills
7 109 (4.99%) Organisational Skills
8 83 (3.80%) Marketing
9 80 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (3.25%) Aerospace
12 70 (3.21%) Legal
13 64 (2.93%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.43%) Military
15 48 (2.20%) Telecoms
16 45 (2.06%) Front Office
16 45 (2.06%) Retail
17 44 (2.01%) Law
18 38 (1.74%) Investment Banking
19 35 (1.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 296 (13.55%) Analyst
2 218 (9.98%) Senior
3 182 (8.33%) Lead
4 180 (8.24%) Architect
5 162 (7.42%) Developer
6 158 (7.23%) Project Manager
7 141 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.48%) Consultant
9 63 (2.88%) Delivery Manager
10 58 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
11 55 (2.52%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.24%) Data Scientist
13 49 (2.24%) Software Engineer
14 44 (2.01%) Product Manager
15 42 (1.92%) Security Engineer
16 39 (1.79%) IT Analyst
17 38 (1.74%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.74%) Senior Manager
18 37 (1.69%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.08%) REST
2 66 (3.02%) .NET
3 48 (2.20%) Middleware
4 46 (2.11%) React
5 44 (2.01%) HTML
6 43 (1.97%) RESTful
7 42 (1.92%) Kafka
8 36 (1.65%) XML
9 34 (1.56%) JSON
9 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.47%) SOAP
11 31 (1.42%) Spring
12 29 (1.33%) OAuth
12 29 (1.33%) Pandas
13 28 (1.28%) CSS
13 28 (1.28%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
15 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 22 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.88%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 117 (5.36%) Onboarding
4 78 (3.57%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.25%) Virtual Team
6 65 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
8 53 (2.43%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
9 51 (2.34%) PMI
10 49 (2.24%) Data Structures
11 48 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.60%) Derivative
14 34 (1.56%) Security Posture
15 33 (1.51%) Robotics
16 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
17 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
18 25 (1.14%) AI Agents
18 25 (1.14%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 253 (11.58%) Windows
2 160 (7.33%) Linux
3 71 (3.25%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.70%) Unix
5 56 (2.56%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (0.96%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.87%) Android
9 13 (0.60%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
11 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 779 (35.67%) Computer Science
2 681 (31.18%) Agile
3 569 (26.05%) Problem-Solving
4 358 (16.39%) Stakeholder Management
5 320 (14.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 319 (14.61%) AI
7 318 (14.56%) Project Management
8 306 (14.01%) DevOps
9 238 (10.90%) CI/CD
9 238 (10.90%) ITIL
10 237 (10.85%) Change Management
11 234 (10.71%) Analytics
11 234 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 219 (10.03%) Cybersecurity
13 217 (9.94%) Decision-Making
14 208 (9.52%) Migration
15 203 (9.29%) PRINCE2
16 198 (9.07%) Project Delivery
17 196 (8.97%) Risk Management
18 193 (8.84%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 351 (16.07%) Python
2 319 (14.61%) SQL
3 144 (6.59%) Java
4 114 (5.22%) PowerShell
5 79 (3.62%) C#
6 74 (3.39%) JavaScript
7 58 (2.66%) C++
8 41 (1.88%) Bash
9 36 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.28%) R
11 26 (1.19%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
13 15 (0.69%) Go
13 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
15 13 (0.60%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 495 (22.66%) Computer Science Degree
2 419 (19.18%) Security Cleared
3 305 (13.97%) SC Cleared
4 259 (11.86%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.45%) PMP
7 98 (4.49%) CISSP
8 86 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
9 63 (2.88%) Cisco Certification
10 52 (2.38%) CISM
10 52 (2.38%) PhD
10 52 (2.38%) TOGAF Certification
11 51 (2.34%) Azure Certification
12 48 (2.20%) DV Cleared
13 46 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
14 42 (1.92%) CCNP
15 35 (1.60%) MBA
16 33 (1.51%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 31 (1.42%) CCNA
18 30 (1.37%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.73%) QA
2 105 (4.81%) PMO
3 103 (4.72%) GDPR
4 99 (4.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (4.30%) NIST
6 78 (3.57%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.29%) SLA
8 44 (2.01%) PCI DSS
9 38 (1.74%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.96%) GRC
12 18 (0.82%) NCSC
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.50%) IFRS 17
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 148 (6.78%) Active Directory
2 125 (5.72%) Docker
3 46 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.41%) vSphere
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) Squid
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 132 (6.04%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.71%) Terraform
3 61 (2.79%) Ansible
3 61 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (1.69%) Grafana
4 37 (1.69%) SCCM
5 30 (1.37%) OPNET
6 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.78%) Puppet
8 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.55%) Nmap
11 11 (0.50%) Kibana
12 10 (0.46%) WSUS
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) Nessus
15 6 (0.27%) Control-M
Vendors
1 495 (22.66%) Microsoft
2 138 (6.32%) Oracle
3 126 (5.77%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.40%) SAP
5 82 (3.75%) Google
6 71 (3.25%) Cisco
7 52 (2.38%) VMware
8 51 (2.34%) Remedy
9 50 (2.29%) Splunk
10 47 (2.15%) Citrix
11 45 (2.06%) Databricks
12 44 (2.01%) Atlassian
13 36 (1.65%) IBM
13 36 (1.65%) Palo Alto
14 35 (1.60%) Salesforce
15 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
16 24 (1.10%) Adobe
17 23 (1.05%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.96%) Aruba
19 20 (0.92%) Siemens