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 9 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -12 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,158 1,831 3,062
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.09% 7.51% 8.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.03% 23.99% 26.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,198 1,084 1,657
10th Percentile £213 £235 £234
25th Percentile £380 £378 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 138 373
10th Percentile £19.54 £18.03 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.19 £28.00 £24.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +25.00% -18.83%
75th Percentile £84.00 £71.92 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +5.00% +25.00% -20.00%

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 13,463 7,633 11,374
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.32% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,035 4,809 7,031
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,024 459 1,005
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.91 £22.61 £18.79
Median hourly rate £48.61 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.57% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.62 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £49.36 £32.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +54.25% -20.00% -27.27%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 -15 920 £514 -6.59% 790
South East -1 392 £500 +5.26% 621
North of England -13 331 £447 -2.67% 423
Midlands -22 207 £520 +45.25% 253
North West -6 179 £418 -10.36% 225
West Midlands -32 148 £478 +15.88% 142
East of England -6 138 £450 -10.00% 210
Yorkshire -11 137 £500 +11.86% 148
South West -21 118 £477 +0.42% 234
East Midlands -17 57 £541 +51.97% 111
North East -28 15 £450 +130.77% 60
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
1 118 (5.47%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.91%) Confluence
3 64 (2.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.58%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.83%) Apache
7 9 (0.42%) IIS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Camunda
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.19%) Appian
10 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 244 (11.31%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 121 (5.61%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.41%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.42%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.23%) Sketch
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 52 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.56%) Primavera
3 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.14%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 468 (21.69%) Azure
2 278 (12.88%) AWS
3 188 (8.71%) Microsoft 365
4 166 (7.69%) Power Platform
5 120 (5.56%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.54%) GCP
7 79 (3.66%) SaaS
8 71 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.41%) GitHub
10 37 (1.71%) Figma
11 32 (1.48%) Google Workspace
11 32 (1.48%) PaaS
12 30 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
12 30 (1.39%) Power Automate
12 30 (1.39%) Snowflake
13 29 (1.34%) OneDrive
13 29 (1.34%) PowerApps
13 29 (1.34%) Serverless
14 28 (1.30%) IaaS
15 22 (1.02%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.36%) Firewall
2 59 (2.73%) DNS
3 58 (2.69%) TCP/IP
4 53 (2.46%) Network Security
5 50 (2.32%) WAN
6 49 (2.27%) LAN
7 38 (1.76%) VPN
8 30 (1.39%) DHCP
9 23 (1.07%) Wireless
10 22 (1.02%) BGP
11 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.88%) OSPF
13 18 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.70%) Skype
15 14 (0.65%) SAN
16 13 (0.60%) VXLAN
17 12 (0.56%) 3GPP
17 12 (0.56%) SSH
18 11 (0.51%) VoIP
19 10 (0.46%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 138 (6.39%) Power BI
2 98 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
3 50 (2.32%) Relational Database
4 44 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (1.67%) Tableau
6 31 (1.44%) NoSQL
7 29 (1.34%) Big Data
8 28 (1.30%) Metadata
9 22 (1.02%) MySQL
10 21 (0.97%) MongoDB
11 20 (0.93%) Oracle Database
12 18 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
14 15 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
16 12 (0.56%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 10 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 182 (8.43%) JIRA
2 98 (4.54%) Git
3 41 (1.90%) GitLab
3 41 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
5 21 (0.97%) Visual Studio
6 18 (0.83%) MLflow
7 16 (0.74%) Selenium
8 14 (0.65%) Gradle
9 13 (0.60%) JUnit
10 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.56%) Postman
11 10 (0.46%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.46%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.37%) Maven
14 7 (0.32%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 997 (46.20%) Social Skills
2 671 (31.09%) Finance
3 431 (19.97%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.90%) Banking
5 181 (8.39%) Public Sector
6 121 (5.61%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (5.19%) Presentation Skills
8 90 (4.17%) Marketing
9 83 (3.85%) Legal
10 81 (3.75%) Aerospace
11 77 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (3.52%) Manufacturing
13 69 (3.20%) Influencing Skills
14 56 (2.59%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.50%) Law
16 52 (2.41%) Retail
17 41 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 35 (1.62%) Front Office
19 34 (1.58%) Investment Banking
20 32 (1.48%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 315 (14.60%) Analyst
2 253 (11.72%) Senior
3 165 (7.65%) Architect
4 163 (7.55%) Lead
5 150 (6.95%) Developer
6 147 (6.81%) Business Analyst
7 142 (6.58%) Project Manager
8 60 (2.78%) Senior Analyst
9 59 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (2.69%) Software Engineer
11 57 (2.64%) Senior Manager
12 56 (2.59%) Consultant
12 56 (2.59%) Technical Support
13 53 (2.46%) Delivery Manager
14 52 (2.41%) Designer
15 48 (2.22%) Product Manager
16 42 (1.95%) IT Manager
17 41 (1.90%) Security Engineer
17 41 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
18 40 (1.85%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.49%) REST
2 74 (3.43%) .NET
3 60 (2.78%) React
4 48 (2.22%) Kafka
4 48 (2.22%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.09%) Middleware
6 41 (1.90%) HTML
7 38 (1.76%) RESTful
8 33 (1.53%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.48%) CSS
9 32 (1.48%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.44%) OAuth
11 29 (1.34%) XML
12 28 (1.30%) AngularJS
13 27 (1.25%) Spring
13 27 (1.25%) Web Services
14 24 (1.11%) JSON
14 24 (1.11%) SOAP
15 22 (1.02%) Pandas
15 22 (1.02%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 157 (7.28%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.98%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.84%) Product Ownership
4 85 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
5 76 (3.52%) Cloud Native
6 66 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 55 (2.55%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (2.22%) Data Structures
10 46 (2.13%) Algorithms
11 42 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.95%) PMI
12 38 (1.76%) Robotics
13 37 (1.71%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.62%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
16 32 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
17 30 (1.39%) Derivative
18 29 (1.34%) Life Science
19 28 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 288 (13.35%) Windows
2 174 (8.06%) Linux
3 74 (3.43%) Unix
4 68 (3.15%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.59%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 27 (1.25%) Android
7 27 (1.25%) Mac OS
8 26 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
13 4 (0.19%) VMS
14 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 735 (34.06%) Computer Science
2 599 (27.76%) Agile
3 547 (25.35%) Problem-Solving
4 341 (15.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 329 (15.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 327 (15.15%) AI
7 292 (13.53%) DevOps
8 260 (12.05%) Project Management
9 247 (11.45%) CI/CD
10 235 (10.89%) Analytics
11 229 (10.61%) Decision-Making
12 215 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 205 (9.50%) Cybersecurity
14 200 (9.27%) Change Management
15 198 (9.18%) Migration
16 195 (9.04%) Roadmaps
17 189 (8.76%) ITIL
18 182 (8.43%) Risk Management
19 181 (8.39%) Software Engineering
20 173 (8.02%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 356 (16.50%) Python
2 328 (15.20%) SQL
3 160 (7.41%) Java
4 121 (5.61%) PowerShell
5 88 (4.08%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.99%) C#
7 48 (2.22%) C++
8 42 (1.95%) Bash
9 30 (1.39%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
10 23 (1.07%) R
11 17 (0.79%) C
11 17 (0.79%) Shell Script
12 15 (0.70%) Rust
12 15 (0.70%) T-SQL
13 13 (0.60%) Go
13 13 (0.60%) Perl
14 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 9 (0.42%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 456 (21.13%) Computer Science Degree
2 392 (18.16%) Security Cleared
3 263 (12.19%) SC Cleared
4 213 (9.87%) Master's Degree
5 125 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 110 (5.10%) CISSP
7 107 (4.96%) PMP
8 80 (3.71%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.66%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.59%) CISM
12 54 (2.50%) DV Cleared
13 50 (2.32%) Azure Certification
14 42 (1.95%) CCNP
15 40 (1.85%) PhD
16 35 (1.62%) CCNA
17 32 (1.48%) CBAP
18 31 (1.44%) MBA
19 30 (1.39%) AWS Certification
19 30 (1.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (5.84%) QA
2 109 (5.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 108 (5.00%) NIST
4 96 (4.45%) PMO
5 92 (4.26%) GDPR
6 89 (4.12%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.22%) SLA
8 43 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.71%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (1.07%) GRC
12 19 (0.88%) NCSC
13 16 (0.74%) IFRS
14 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.46%) COBIT
17 10 (0.46%) HIPAA
18 9 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
19 8 (0.37%) PSD2
System Software
1 159 (7.37%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.51%) Docker
3 37 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.30%) Hyper-V
5 23 (1.07%) Firmware
6 9 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.14%) NFS
10 3 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 135 (6.26%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.71%) Terraform
3 68 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.83%) Ansible
5 36 (1.67%) Grafana
6 34 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 34 (1.58%) SCCM
7 21 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 13 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.60%) Progress Chef
11 10 (0.46%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.42%) Kiali
12 9 (0.42%) Kibana
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Nmap
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 495 (22.94%) Microsoft
2 163 (7.55%) Oracle
3 121 (5.61%) SAP
4 99 (4.59%) ServiceNow
5 83 (3.85%) Google
6 66 (3.06%) Cisco
7 50 (2.32%) Databricks
8 45 (2.09%) Splunk
9 43 (1.99%) Citrix
10 42 (1.95%) VMware
11 40 (1.85%) Salesforce
12 38 (1.76%) Adobe
13 35 (1.62%) IBM
14 31 (1.44%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.30%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.16%) Red Hat
17 24 (1.11%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.97%) Aruba
18 21 (0.97%) Siemens
19 19 (0.88%) Ariba