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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,174 1,906 3,124
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.53% 7.80% 8.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.70% 24.78% 26.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,132 1,674
10th Percentile £263 £250 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £520
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -0.10% -5.45%
75th Percentile £625 £672 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 145 346
10th Percentile £17.38 £17.93 £14.00
25th Percentile £27.60 £29.00 £23.08
Median hourly rate £54.50 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £50.72 £54.00 £38.95
% change year-on-year -6.07% +38.64% -13.44%

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 13,018 7,691 11,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.08% 31.47% 31.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,728 4,919 7,227
10th Percentile £340 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £621 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £745
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £536
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.05% -2.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 430 944
10th Percentile £16.41 £18.20 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.82 £24.54 £17.74
Median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £39.44
Median % change year-on-year -9.08% +26.79% -23.80%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £38.95
% change year-on-year +6.96% +9.11% -26.99%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -14 944 £506 -8.05% 1,149
South East -5 358 £500 - 781
North of England -10 325 £417 -8.35% 638
Midlands -26 207 £500 +61.29% 357
North West -5 181 £400 -12.90% 401
West Midlands -25 149 £494 +64.50% 210
South West -7 143 £669 +27.38% 240
East of England -4 142 £498 -4.14% 322
Yorkshire -20 127 £475 +9.32% 177
East Midlands -17 57 £525 +47.47% 146
North East -20 18 £407 -4.24% 67
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
1 149 (6.85%) Confluence
2 106 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) 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%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Moodle
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 288 (13.25%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 183 (8.42%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.94%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 7 (0.32%) Sketch
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
11 3 (0.14%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.14%) Revit
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.046%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.046%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 47 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.83%) Primavera
3 18 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
9 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 451 (20.75%) Azure
2 253 (11.64%) AWS
3 186 (8.56%) Microsoft 365
4 168 (7.73%) Power Platform
5 103 (4.74%) Entra ID
6 101 (4.65%) GCP
7 100 (4.60%) SaaS
8 79 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.53%) GitHub
10 33 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
10 33 (1.52%) Google Workspace
10 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
11 31 (1.43%) PaaS
12 29 (1.33%) IaaS
13 27 (1.24%) PowerApps
13 27 (1.24%) Serverless
14 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
14 24 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
14 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
15 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.92%) Firewall
2 58 (2.67%) LAN
3 57 (2.62%) WAN
4 46 (2.12%) DNS
4 46 (2.12%) TCP/IP
5 43 (1.98%) Network Security
6 38 (1.75%) VPN
7 29 (1.33%) Wireless
8 28 (1.29%) BGP
9 22 (1.01%) OSPF
10 21 (0.97%) DHCP
10 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.92%) HTTP
12 17 (0.78%) Skype
13 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.64%) Internet
14 14 (0.64%) VLAN
14 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.60%) SAN
15 13 (0.60%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.53%) Power BI
2 86 (3.96%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (2.16%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.70%) Tableau
7 34 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Big Data
9 27 (1.24%) MySQL
10 25 (1.15%) 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 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 246 (11.32%) JIRA
2 95 (4.37%) Git
3 44 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 34 (1.56%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.78%) MLflow
7 17 (0.78%) Selenium
8 14 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.60%) Postman
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
General
1 1,045 (48.07%) Social Skills
2 662 (30.45%) Finance
3 488 (22.45%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (9.80%) Banking
5 172 (7.91%) Public Sector
6 112 (5.15%) Presentation Skills
7 105 (4.83%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
9 81 (3.73%) Marketing
10 76 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
11 70 (3.22%) Legal
12 69 (3.17%) Aerospace
13 64 (2.94%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.44%) Military
15 47 (2.16%) Retail
15 47 (2.16%) Telecoms
16 45 (2.07%) Front Office
16 45 (2.07%) Law
17 38 (1.75%) Investment Banking
18 35 (1.61%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 298 (13.71%) Analyst
2 217 (9.98%) Senior
3 179 (8.23%) Lead
4 175 (8.05%) Architect
5 162 (7.45%) Developer
6 160 (7.36%) Project Manager
7 144 (6.62%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.50%) Consultant
9 63 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
10 57 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
11 56 (2.58%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.25%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.21%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 42 (1.93%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.75%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.75%) Senior Manager
18 37 (1.70%) Designer
18 37 (1.70%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.14%) REST
2 64 (2.94%) .NET
3 48 (2.21%) Middleware
4 46 (2.12%) React
5 43 (1.98%) HTML
5 43 (1.98%) RESTful
6 42 (1.93%) Kafka
7 36 (1.66%) XML
8 34 (1.56%) JSON
8 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.52%) SOAP
10 31 (1.43%) Spring
11 29 (1.33%) OAuth
11 29 (1.33%) Pandas
12 28 (1.29%) CSS
12 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
13 26 (1.20%) .NET Framework
14 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
15 22 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 171 (7.87%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.90%) Product Ownership
3 115 (5.29%) Onboarding
4 78 (3.59%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.08%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
8 53 (2.44%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (2.30%) Data Structures
10 50 (2.30%) PMI
11 49 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.61%) Derivative
14 33 (1.52%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.47%) Robotics
16 31 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
17 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
18 26 (1.20%) AI Agents
19 25 (1.15%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 254 (11.68%) Windows
2 158 (7.27%) Linux
3 72 (3.31%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.71%) Unix
5 55 (2.53%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
6 20 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (0.87%) Android
8 13 (0.60%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.51%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) VMS
12 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 3 (0.14%) CentOS
14 3 (0.14%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 774 (35.60%) Computer Science
2 684 (31.46%) Agile
3 571 (26.26%) Problem-Solving
4 356 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 316 (14.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 316 (14.54%) Project Management
6 315 (14.49%) AI
7 306 (14.08%) DevOps
8 238 (10.95%) CI/CD
9 236 (10.86%) ITIL
10 235 (10.81%) Analytics
11 234 (10.76%) Change Management
12 232 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 219 (10.07%) Decision-Making
14 217 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
15 210 (9.66%) Migration
16 204 (9.38%) PRINCE2
17 199 (9.15%) Project Delivery
18 193 (8.88%) Risk Management
19 192 (8.83%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 353 (16.24%) Python
2 319 (14.67%) SQL
3 144 (6.62%) Java
4 116 (5.34%) PowerShell
5 77 (3.54%) C#
6 76 (3.50%) JavaScript
7 59 (2.71%) C++
8 41 (1.89%) Bash
9 36 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 27 (1.24%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.74%) Perl
14 15 (0.69%) C
14 15 (0.69%) Go
15 14 (0.64%) Rust
16 13 (0.60%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 491 (22.59%) Computer Science Degree
2 421 (19.37%) Security Cleared
3 305 (14.03%) SC Cleared
4 258 (11.87%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.16%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.52%) PMP
7 98 (4.51%) CISSP
8 85 (3.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 62 (2.85%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (2.44%) CISM
11 52 (2.39%) PhD
12 51 (2.35%) Azure Certification
12 51 (2.35%) TOGAF Certification
13 48 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
14 47 (2.16%) DV Cleared
15 42 (1.93%) CCNP
16 34 (1.56%) MBA
17 32 (1.47%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 31 (1.43%) CCNA
19 30 (1.38%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.76%) QA
2 107 (4.92%) PMO
3 103 (4.74%) GDPR
4 98 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (4.32%) NIST
6 78 (3.59%) Data Quality
7 44 (2.02%) PCI DSS
7 44 (2.02%) SLA
8 35 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.97%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) NCSC
12 13 (0.60%) Basel III
12 13 (0.60%) IFRS
13 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
14 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
15 10 (0.46%) COBIT
15 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 148 (6.81%) Active Directory
2 123 (5.66%) Docker
3 45 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.06%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.92%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.41%) vSphere
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) 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%) GPFS
13 1 (0.046%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.046%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 129 (5.93%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.68%) Terraform
3 61 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.71%) Ansible
5 37 (1.70%) Grafana
5 37 (1.70%) SCCM
6 30 (1.38%) OPNET
7 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 17 (0.78%) Puppet
9 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.60%) Nmap
11 11 (0.51%) Kibana
12 10 (0.46%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
16 6 (0.28%) Nessus
Vendors
1 489 (22.49%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.49%) Oracle
3 125 (5.75%) ServiceNow
4 120 (5.52%) SAP
5 84 (3.86%) Google
6 71 (3.27%) Cisco
7 52 (2.39%) Remedy
8 51 (2.35%) VMware
9 49 (2.25%) Splunk
10 47 (2.16%) Citrix
11 45 (2.07%) Databricks
12 44 (2.02%) Atlassian
13 37 (1.70%) IBM
13 37 (1.70%) Salesforce
14 36 (1.66%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
16 24 (1.10%) Adobe
17 23 (1.06%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.97%) Aruba
19 19 (0.87%) Red Hat