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 4 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,257 2,046 2,630
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.00% 7.41% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.73% 23.68% 25.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 1,206 1,529
10th Percentile £205 £250 £270
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -3.56%
75th Percentile £605 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £758 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 165 238
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.68 £21.25
25th Percentile £27.59 £27.16 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +22.35% -25.89% +9.24%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.73 £75.75
UK median hourly rate £44.75 £43.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +4.07% -18.10% -

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 14,347 8,639 10,227
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.79% 31.29% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,665 5,432 6,499
10th Percentile £350 £293 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,105 647 765
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.97
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.26 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.32 £78.45
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%

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 4 August 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 4 August 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 4 August 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 -21 958 £525 -4.55% 2,514
South East +3 478 £500 +5.26% 830
North of England -11 328 £450 - 594
North West -8 189 £450 -5.26% 318
Midlands -34 181 £463 +8.82% 396
East of England -7 145 £450 - 385
West Midlands -37 139 £466 +3.44% 216
Yorkshire -9 124 £500 +19.05% 181
South West -25 123 £415 -7.78% 320
East Midlands -19 40 £475 +32.68% 180
North East -44 15 £450 +130.77% 102
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
1 133 (5.89%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.79%) Confluence
3 61 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 23 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.71%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 246 (10.90%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (9.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 125 (5.54%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (2.26%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 7 (0.31%) Simulink
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
14 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 53 (2.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.66%) Primavera
3 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 520 (23.04%) Azure
2 285 (12.63%) AWS
3 209 (9.26%) Power Platform
4 198 (8.77%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (6.38%) Entra ID
6 120 (5.32%) GCP
7 97 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.15%) SaaS
9 60 (2.66%) GitHub
10 45 (1.99%) Power Automate
10 45 (1.99%) PowerApps
11 40 (1.77%) OneDrive
11 40 (1.77%) Snowflake
12 39 (1.73%) Serverless
13 38 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
14 36 (1.60%) Figma
14 36 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (1.11%) IaaS
16 23 (1.02%) PaaS
17 22 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.61%) Firewall
2 72 (3.19%) TCP/IP
3 68 (3.01%) DNS
4 64 (2.84%) Network Security
5 59 (2.61%) VPN
6 40 (1.77%) WAN
7 39 (1.73%) DHCP
8 37 (1.64%) LAN
9 27 (1.20%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) BGP
11 18 (0.80%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.75%) OSPF
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 15 (0.66%) Internet
14 15 (0.66%) SSH
14 15 (0.66%) SSL
15 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.58%) MPLS
17 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (7.40%) Power BI
2 102 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 46 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
3 46 (2.04%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
5 38 (1.68%) Metadata
6 35 (1.55%) Tableau
7 33 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.15%) Big Data
9 23 (1.02%) MongoDB
9 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
11 20 (0.89%) MySQL
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.62%) Power Query
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 175 (7.75%) JIRA
2 106 (4.70%) Git
3 48 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.77%) GitLab
5 35 (1.55%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
7 15 (0.66%) MLflow
8 13 (0.58%) JUnit
8 13 (0.58%) Selenium
9 11 (0.49%) Gradle
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.40%) Maven
12 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 6 (0.27%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 992 (43.95%) Social Skills
2 657 (29.11%) Finance
3 499 (22.11%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.20%) Public Sector
5 172 (7.62%) Banking
6 148 (6.56%) Organisational Skills
7 101 (4.47%) Aerospace
8 93 (4.12%) Marketing
8 93 (4.12%) Presentation Skills
9 91 (4.03%) Legal
10 86 (3.81%) Manufacturing
11 82 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (3.10%) Telecoms
13 68 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
14 60 (2.66%) Retail
15 58 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.26%) Law
17 41 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.64%) Front Office
19 35 (1.55%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 308 (13.65%) Analyst
2 255 (11.30%) Senior
3 183 (8.11%) Lead
4 163 (7.22%) Architect
5 159 (7.04%) Developer
6 140 (6.20%) Business Analyst
7 131 (5.80%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.19%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.75%) Consultant
10 55 (2.44%) Support Engineer
11 54 (2.39%) IT Support
12 53 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.30%) Product Manager
14 51 (2.26%) Designer
14 51 (2.26%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.26%) IT Manager
15 47 (2.08%) Systems Engineer
16 46 (2.04%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.91%) Delivery Manager
17 43 (1.91%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.99%) .NET
2 89 (3.94%) REST
3 53 (2.35%) React
4 39 (1.73%) Kafka
5 36 (1.60%) OAuth
6 34 (1.51%) HTML
7 33 (1.46%) .NET Framework
7 33 (1.46%) Middleware
7 33 (1.46%) RESTful
8 32 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
9 30 (1.33%) Web Services
10 28 (1.24%) AngularJS
10 28 (1.24%) LDAP
11 27 (1.20%) Spring
12 26 (1.15%) CSS
12 26 (1.15%) JSON
13 25 (1.11%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
14 24 (1.06%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 181 (8.02%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.34%) Onboarding
3 139 (6.16%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.16%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.75%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.66%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.35%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.26%) Security Posture
10 48 (2.13%) Virtual Team
11 45 (1.99%) Operational Technology
12 40 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
15 33 (1.46%) AI Agents
15 33 (1.46%) Life Science
15 33 (1.46%) PMI
15 33 (1.46%) Robotics
16 30 (1.33%) SCADA
17 29 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 290 (12.85%) Windows
2 170 (7.53%) Linux
3 74 (3.28%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.66%) Unix
5 45 (1.99%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.15%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
13 4 (0.18%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.13%) Debian
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (33.72%) Computer Science
2 627 (27.78%) Agile
3 591 (26.19%) Problem-Solving
4 405 (17.94%) Stakeholder Management
5 383 (16.97%) Continuous Improvement
6 368 (16.30%) AI
7 298 (13.20%) DevOps
8 286 (12.67%) Project Management
9 278 (12.32%) Analytics
10 259 (11.48%) CI/CD
11 258 (11.43%) ITIL
12 235 (10.41%) Decision-Making
13 233 (10.32%) Cybersecurity
13 233 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 199 (8.82%) PRINCE2
14 199 (8.82%) Roadmaps
15 198 (8.77%) Change Management
16 190 (8.42%) Software Engineering
17 189 (8.37%) Scrum
18 185 (8.20%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 382 (16.93%) Python
2 313 (13.87%) SQL
3 152 (6.73%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.42%) Java
5 95 (4.21%) C#
6 84 (3.72%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.22%) Bash
8 39 (1.73%) C++
9 32 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) R
11 23 (1.02%) Bicep
11 23 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.93%) C
14 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) X++
18 9 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 439 (19.45%) Computer Science Degree
2 415 (18.39%) Security Cleared
3 269 (11.92%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.55%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 116 (5.14%) PMP
7 115 (5.10%) CISSP
8 112 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.68%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.23%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.92%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.39%) CISM
14 52 (2.30%) PhD
15 40 (1.77%) CCNA
16 38 (1.68%) CCNP
16 38 (1.68%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.55%) CISA
19 30 (1.33%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.01%) NIST
2 111 (4.92%) Data Quality
3 108 (4.79%) QA
4 106 (4.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (4.16%) PMO
6 68 (3.01%) GDPR
7 46 (2.04%) SLA
8 40 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
10 23 (1.02%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.97%) NCSC
12 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) IFRS
15 10 (0.44%) COBIT
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 189 (8.37%) Active Directory
2 106 (4.70%) Docker
3 50 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.93%) Firmware
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 121 (5.36%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.90%) Terraform
3 70 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.75%) Ansible
5 35 (1.55%) SCCM
6 26 (1.15%) Grafana
7 23 (1.02%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.71%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.35%) Nessus
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
17 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 576 (25.52%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.56%) Oracle
3 138 (6.11%) ServiceNow
4 121 (5.36%) SAP
5 84 (3.72%) Google
6 65 (2.88%) VMware
7 64 (2.84%) Cisco
8 54 (2.39%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) Databricks
10 47 (2.08%) IBM
11 46 (2.04%) Adobe
12 34 (1.51%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.37%) Citrix
14 29 (1.28%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.28%) Splunk
15 28 (1.24%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.97%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.93%) Siemens
18 20 (0.89%) Ariba
19 18 (0.80%) CheckPoint