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 22 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -9 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,136 1,846 3,009
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.17% 7.70% 8.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.21% 24.50% 26.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,217 1,115 1,623
10th Percentile £238 £243 £225
25th Percentile £390 £382 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 132 374
10th Percentile £20.39 £17.83 £14.11
25th Percentile £28.44 £28.12 £24.03
Median hourly rate £58.00 £55.13 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.22% +37.81% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.38
UK median hourly rate £54.75 £54.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.39% +35.00% -13.51%

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 13,176 7,535 11,156
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.90% 31.42% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,843 4,792 6,918
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 974 428 972
10th Percentile £17.06 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.45 £18.10
Median hourly rate £47.54 £37.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.62% -6.88% -25.02%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.35 £76.82
UK median hourly rate £48.05 £36.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year +32.55% -9.38% -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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -17 897 £514 -6.59% 1,137
South East 0 378 £500 +3.90% 665
North of England -13 319 £443 -4.83% 478
Midlands -23 210 £525 +47.47% 278
North West -7 162 £402 -14.83% 246
West Midlands -21 147 £498 +42.14% 178
Yorkshire -15 142 £463 +8.82% 168
East of England -5 136 £450 -10.00% 242
South West -13 135 £540 +13.58% 283
East Midlands -10 61 £531 +49.16% 100
North East -33 15 £450 -5.26% 74
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
1 128 (5.99%) Confluence
2 113 (5.29%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.64%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.80%) Apache
7 7 (0.33%) IIS
8 6 (0.28%) CMS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.28%) SAS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 3 (0.14%) Appian
10 3 (0.14%) Camunda
10 3 (0.14%) Moodle
10 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.094%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.094%) Skype for Business
11 2 (0.094%) WebSphere
Applications
1 268 (12.55%) Microsoft Office
2 207 (9.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 154 (7.21%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.57%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
6 12 (0.56%) Photoshop
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (0.47%) Simulink
9 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.37%) Revit
10 7 (0.33%) Trello
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) Sketch
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.14%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.094%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.094%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 48 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.61%) Primavera
4 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) Magento
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 449 (21.02%) Azure
2 257 (12.03%) AWS
3 184 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.91%) Power Platform
5 110 (5.15%) Entra ID
6 83 (3.89%) GCP
7 82 (3.84%) SaaS
8 70 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.39%) GitHub
10 32 (1.50%) Figma
10 32 (1.50%) Google Workspace
11 30 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
11 30 (1.40%) PaaS
12 28 (1.31%) IaaS
12 28 (1.31%) Power Automate
13 27 (1.26%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.17%) Serverless
15 24 (1.12%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.12%) PowerApps
16 22 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 90 (4.21%) Firewall
2 53 (2.48%) TCP/IP
2 53 (2.48%) WAN
3 52 (2.43%) LAN
4 50 (2.34%) DNS
5 48 (2.25%) Network Security
6 34 (1.59%) VPN
7 27 (1.26%) Wireless
8 24 (1.12%) BGP
9 23 (1.08%) DHCP
10 21 (0.98%) OSPF
11 20 (0.94%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.80%) Skype
13 14 (0.66%) SAN
13 14 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.56%) HTTP
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) IPsec
15 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.47%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (6.55%) Power BI
2 90 (4.21%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
4 48 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 46 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.73%) Tableau
7 32 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.36%) Big Data
8 29 (1.36%) Metadata
9 23 (1.08%) MySQL
10 21 (0.98%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
12 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
12 16 (0.75%) Oracle Database
12 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 14 (0.66%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.56%) Power Query
14 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
15 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 218 (10.21%) JIRA
2 95 (4.45%) Git
3 42 (1.97%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.73%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.03%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) Gradle
9 13 (0.61%) Postman
10 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.56%) JUnit
11 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 995 (46.58%) Social Skills
2 661 (30.95%) Finance
3 443 (20.74%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (9.13%) Banking
5 171 (8.01%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.48%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.15%) Presentation Skills
8 85 (3.98%) Marketing
9 77 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
10 74 (3.46%) Legal
11 71 (3.32%) Aerospace
12 67 (3.14%) Influencing Skills
13 65 (3.04%) Manufacturing
14 52 (2.43%) Law
14 52 (2.43%) Retail
15 51 (2.39%) Telecoms
16 43 (2.01%) Military
17 38 (1.78%) Front Office
18 34 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 34 (1.59%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 308 (14.42%) Analyst
2 247 (11.56%) Senior
3 172 (8.05%) Architect
4 163 (7.63%) Lead
5 156 (7.30%) Project Manager
6 149 (6.98%) Developer
7 148 (6.93%) Business Analyst
8 61 (2.86%) Delivery Manager
8 61 (2.86%) Senior Analyst
9 58 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
10 56 (2.62%) Consultant
10 56 (2.62%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.43%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.34%) Product Manager
12 50 (2.34%) Senior Manager
13 47 (2.20%) Designer
14 41 (1.92%) Data Scientist
15 40 (1.87%) Data Engineer
16 39 (1.83%) Systems Engineer
17 38 (1.78%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.26%) REST
2 71 (3.32%) .NET
3 53 (2.48%) React
4 52 (2.43%) Middleware
5 46 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
6 45 (2.11%) Kafka
7 41 (1.92%) HTML
8 38 (1.78%) RESTful
9 33 (1.54%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.45%) XML
11 30 (1.40%) CSS
11 30 (1.40%) Spring
12 28 (1.31%) .NET Framework
13 27 (1.26%) OAuth
14 26 (1.22%) SOAP
15 25 (1.17%) Pandas
15 25 (1.17%) PyTorch
16 24 (1.12%) AngularJS
16 24 (1.12%) JSON
16 24 (1.12%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 156 (7.30%) Management Information System
2 144 (6.74%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.57%) Onboarding
4 74 (3.46%) Self-Motivation
5 72 (3.37%) Cloud Native
6 64 (3.00%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.72%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.39%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
10 46 (2.15%) Algorithms
10 46 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.06%) PMI
12 38 (1.78%) Robotics
13 35 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.54%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.50%) Derivative
16 30 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
16 30 (1.40%) Security Posture
17 27 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
18 26 (1.22%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 266 (12.45%) Windows
2 161 (7.54%) Linux
3 71 (3.32%) Unix
4 64 (3.00%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.67%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.22%) Android
7 22 (1.03%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 4 (0.19%) Debian
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
15 2 (0.094%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (34.18%) Computer Science
2 631 (29.54%) Agile
3 541 (25.33%) Problem-Solving
4 345 (16.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 325 (15.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 312 (14.61%) AI
7 292 (13.67%) Project Management
8 286 (13.39%) DevOps
9 241 (11.28%) CI/CD
10 231 (10.81%) Decision-Making
11 229 (10.72%) Analytics
12 220 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 208 (9.74%) Migration
14 204 (9.55%) Cybersecurity
15 202 (9.46%) Change Management
16 193 (9.04%) ITIL
17 191 (8.94%) Risk Management
18 184 (8.61%) PRINCE2
18 184 (8.61%) Roadmaps
19 172 (8.05%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 341 (15.96%) Python
2 324 (15.17%) SQL
3 155 (7.26%) Java
4 103 (4.82%) PowerShell
5 84 (3.93%) C#
6 80 (3.75%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.57%) C++
8 35 (1.64%) Bash
9 31 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.17%) R
11 22 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.84%) C
13 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.70%) Rust
14 15 (0.70%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.66%) Perl
16 13 (0.61%) Go
17 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
18 10 (0.47%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 458 (21.44%) Computer Science Degree
2 404 (18.91%) Security Cleared
3 281 (13.16%) SC Cleared
4 225 (10.53%) Master's Degree
5 131 (6.13%) PMI Certification
6 114 (5.34%) PMP
7 99 (4.63%) CISSP
8 73 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
9 72 (3.37%) Microsoft Certification
10 57 (2.67%) CISM
11 54 (2.53%) DV Cleared
12 53 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
13 45 (2.11%) PhD
14 43 (2.01%) Azure Certification
14 43 (2.01%) TOGAF Certification
15 41 (1.92%) CCNP
16 34 (1.59%) MBA
17 33 (1.54%) CCNA
18 32 (1.50%) CBAP
19 27 (1.26%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (6.55%) QA
2 109 (5.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 102 (4.78%) NIST
4 101 (4.73%) PMO
5 96 (4.49%) GDPR
6 91 (4.26%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.29%) SLA
8 41 (1.92%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.87%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.03%) GRC
12 20 (0.94%) NCSC
13 17 (0.80%) IFRS
14 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.47%) COBIT
16 10 (0.47%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.42%) Basel III
17 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 144 (6.74%) Active Directory
2 114 (5.34%) Docker
3 36 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.22%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.94%) Firmware
6 7 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.33%) vSphere
7 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.19%) XenApp
8 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
9 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.094%) HDFS
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.047%) GPFS
11 1 (0.047%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 134 (6.27%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.32%) Terraform
3 61 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.72%) Ansible
5 36 (1.69%) Grafana
6 34 (1.59%) SCCM
7 30 (1.40%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.75%) OPNET
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
12 11 (0.51%) Nmap
13 9 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.42%) Kiali
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 489 (22.89%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.21%) Oracle
3 114 (5.34%) SAP
4 111 (5.20%) ServiceNow
5 70 (3.28%) Cisco
6 69 (3.23%) Google
7 50 (2.34%) Databricks
7 50 (2.34%) Splunk
8 42 (1.97%) VMware
9 41 (1.92%) Citrix
10 39 (1.83%) Salesforce
11 35 (1.64%) Adobe
11 35 (1.64%) IBM
12 34 (1.59%) Remedy
13 32 (1.50%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.36%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.08%) Aruba
15 23 (1.08%) Atlassian
16 21 (0.98%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.98%) Siemens