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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -9 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,130 1,893 3,069
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.20% 7.74% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.23% 24.58% 27.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,230 1,139 1,621
10th Percentile £225 £250 £225
25th Percentile £380 £386 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -8.42%
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 190 141 377
10th Percentile £20.48 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.81 £27.39 £23.75
Median hourly rate £62.06 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.99% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%

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 13,125 7,700 11,256
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.03% 31.47% 30.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,829 4,907 6,959
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £533
% change year-on-year - -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 956 438 971
10th Percentile £17.03 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.94
Median hourly rate £50.50 £39.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.33% -0.85% -23.81%
75th Percentile £73.40 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.35 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £37.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year +34.23% -6.88% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -17 895 £505 -8.18% 1,021
South East -2 375 £500 +2.04% 679
North of England -11 315 £424 -8.30% 462
Midlands -22 211 £505 +43.06% 289
North West -11 161 £402 -13.79% 233
West Midlands -26 148 £498 +42.14% 180
East of England -4 139 £450 -10.00% 243
Yorkshire -17 138 £450 +4.53% 167
South West -13 135 £550 +15.79% 275
East Midlands -13 61 £531 +49.16% 109
North East -24 16 £450 -5.26% 70
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
1 132 (6.20%) Confluence
2 114 (5.35%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.60%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.85%) Apache
5 18 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.33%) CMS
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 6 (0.28%) SAS
8 5 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.23%) IIS
8 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.14%) Moodle
9 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
10 2 (0.094%) Appian
10 2 (0.094%) Camunda
10 2 (0.094%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.094%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.094%) WinCC
Applications
1 276 (12.96%) Microsoft Office
2 211 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 159 (7.46%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.72%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.52%) Adobe Illustrator
7 11 (0.52%) Photoshop
7 11 (0.52%) Simulink
8 10 (0.47%) Adobe After Effects
9 8 (0.38%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.38%) 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%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.094%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.094%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.094%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 51 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.66%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.38%) 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%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 443 (20.80%) Azure
2 259 (12.16%) AWS
3 186 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
4 170 (7.98%) Power Platform
5 103 (4.84%) Entra ID
6 87 (4.08%) SaaS
7 83 (3.90%) GCP
8 71 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
9 48 (2.25%) GitHub
10 34 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.55%) Google Workspace
12 32 (1.50%) PaaS
13 31 (1.46%) Power Automate
14 30 (1.41%) Figma
14 30 (1.41%) IaaS
15 25 (1.17%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.17%) Serverless
15 25 (1.17%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.08%) OneDrive
17 22 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 90 (4.23%) Firewall
2 52 (2.44%) LAN
2 52 (2.44%) WAN
3 51 (2.39%) TCP/IP
4 46 (2.16%) DNS
5 43 (2.02%) Network Security
6 34 (1.60%) VPN
7 27 (1.27%) Wireless
8 24 (1.13%) BGP
9 21 (0.99%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.99%) OSPF
10 19 (0.89%) DHCP
11 18 (0.85%) Skype
12 14 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.61%) HTTP
13 13 (0.61%) SAN
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.52%) IPsec
15 11 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.47%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (6.62%) Power BI
2 87 (4.08%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
4 48 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 47 (2.21%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.69%) Tableau
7 31 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.36%) Metadata
9 28 (1.31%) Big Data
10 23 (1.08%) MySQL
11 21 (0.99%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
12 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.66%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.56%) Power Query
17 11 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
18 9 (0.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 224 (10.52%) JIRA
2 92 (4.32%) Git
3 38 (1.78%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.69%) GitLab
5 31 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.99%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.85%) MLflow
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) Gradle
9 13 (0.61%) Postman
10 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.52%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.42%) JUnit
13 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.33%) Maven
General
1 1,003 (47.09%) Social Skills
2 652 (30.61%) Finance
3 452 (21.22%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (9.15%) Banking
5 173 (8.12%) Public Sector
6 119 (5.59%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (5.12%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.08%) Marketing
9 81 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
10 72 (3.38%) Legal
11 71 (3.33%) Aerospace
12 66 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
13 63 (2.96%) Manufacturing
14 51 (2.39%) Law
14 51 (2.39%) Telecoms
15 48 (2.25%) Retail
16 47 (2.21%) Military
17 40 (1.88%) Front Office
18 34 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 32 (1.50%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 307 (14.41%) Analyst
2 240 (11.27%) Senior
3 172 (8.08%) Architect
4 159 (7.46%) Lead
5 157 (7.37%) Project Manager
6 151 (7.09%) Business Analyst
7 146 (6.85%) Developer
8 62 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
8 62 (2.91%) Senior Analyst
9 57 (2.68%) Consultant
9 57 (2.68%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.58%) Solutions Architect
11 51 (2.39%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.35%) Product Manager
13 46 (2.16%) Senior Manager
14 45 (2.11%) Designer
15 41 (1.92%) Data Scientist
16 40 (1.88%) Data Engineer
17 39 (1.83%) Support Engineer
18 38 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.18%) REST
2 68 (3.19%) .NET
3 54 (2.54%) React
4 52 (2.44%) Middleware
5 42 (1.97%) HTML
5 42 (1.97%) Kafka
6 41 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
7 37 (1.74%) RESTful
8 31 (1.46%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.46%) XML
9 30 (1.41%) CSS
9 30 (1.41%) SOAP
10 28 (1.31%) Spring
11 26 (1.22%) Pandas
12 25 (1.17%) .NET Framework
12 25 (1.17%) PyTorch
13 24 (1.13%) AngularJS
13 24 (1.13%) JSON
13 24 (1.13%) OAuth
13 24 (1.13%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 156 (7.32%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.81%) Product Ownership
3 122 (5.73%) Onboarding
4 70 (3.29%) Cloud Native
5 69 (3.24%) Self-Motivation
6 60 (2.82%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.72%) Virtual Team
8 52 (2.44%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
10 48 (2.25%) PMI
11 47 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
12 45 (2.11%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.78%) Robotics
14 33 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.55%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.50%) Derivative
16 30 (1.41%) Security Posture
17 29 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
19 25 (1.17%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 259 (12.16%) Windows
2 160 (7.51%) Linux
3 70 (3.29%) Unix
4 62 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.58%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.22%) Android
7 22 (1.03%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 21 (0.99%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.47%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
14 2 (0.094%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 725 (34.04%) Computer Science
2 636 (29.86%) Agile
3 546 (25.63%) Problem-Solving
4 346 (16.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 316 (14.84%) Continuous Improvement
6 308 (14.46%) AI
7 300 (14.08%) Project Management
8 285 (13.38%) DevOps
9 233 (10.94%) CI/CD
10 225 (10.56%) Analytics
10 225 (10.56%) Decision-Making
11 217 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 203 (9.53%) Migration
13 201 (9.44%) Change Management
14 199 (9.34%) ITIL
15 193 (9.06%) Cybersecurity
16 191 (8.97%) Risk Management
17 185 (8.69%) PRINCE2
18 183 (8.59%) Roadmaps
19 173 (8.12%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 341 (16.01%) Python
2 321 (15.07%) SQL
3 151 (7.09%) Java
4 102 (4.79%) PowerShell
5 84 (3.94%) C#
6 80 (3.76%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.58%) C++
8 37 (1.74%) Bash
9 31 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.27%) R
11 22 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.80%) C
13 15 (0.70%) Perl
13 15 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.66%) Rust
14 14 (0.66%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.61%) Go
16 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.52%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 459 (21.55%) Computer Science Degree
2 406 (19.06%) Security Cleared
3 289 (13.57%) SC Cleared
4 232 (10.89%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.43%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.59%) PMP
7 94 (4.41%) CISSP
8 74 (3.47%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (2.49%) CISM
11 51 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
12 48 (2.25%) DV Cleared
13 47 (2.21%) TOGAF Certification
14 45 (2.11%) PhD
15 43 (2.02%) Azure Certification
16 40 (1.88%) CCNP
17 34 (1.60%) MBA
18 33 (1.55%) CBAP
19 32 (1.50%) CCNA
20 27 (1.27%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (6.71%) QA
2 110 (5.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.84%) PMO
4 102 (4.79%) NIST
5 98 (4.60%) GDPR
6 89 (4.18%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.30%) SLA
8 41 (1.92%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.88%) PCI DSS
10 26 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (1.08%) GRC
12 20 (0.94%) NCSC
13 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.70%) IFRS
14 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.47%) Basel III
15 10 (0.47%) COBIT
15 10 (0.47%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 139 (6.53%) Active Directory
2 114 (5.35%) Docker
3 34 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.99%) Firmware
6 8 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.33%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.094%) HDFS
11 2 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.047%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
12 1 (0.047%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 128 (6.01%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.29%) Terraform
3 60 (2.82%) Microsoft Intune
4 57 (2.68%) Ansible
5 34 (1.60%) Grafana
5 34 (1.60%) SCCM
6 27 (1.27%) Prometheus
7 21 (0.99%) OPNET
8 19 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 12 (0.56%) Kibana
11 11 (0.52%) Nmap
12 9 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.42%) Kiali
12 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.38%) Nessus
14 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 489 (22.96%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.90%) Oracle
3 118 (5.54%) SAP
4 113 (5.31%) ServiceNow
5 71 (3.33%) Google
6 68 (3.19%) Cisco
7 49 (2.30%) Splunk
8 48 (2.25%) Databricks
9 41 (1.92%) Citrix
9 41 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 40 (1.88%) VMware
11 39 (1.83%) Remedy
12 36 (1.69%) Adobe
12 36 (1.69%) IBM
13 32 (1.50%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.46%) Atlassian
15 29 (1.36%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.08%) Aruba
17 21 (0.99%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.99%) Siemens