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 5 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,167 2,457 3,063
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.95% 8.00% 8.03%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.71% 26.69% 26.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,264 1,388 1,853
10th Percentile £309 £257 £250
25th Percentile £406 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.13% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £642 £650
90th Percentile £750 £777 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 139 201
10th Percentile £15.13 £22.05 £17.25
25th Percentile £22.70 £30.78 £26.88
Median hourly rate £36.23 £42.88 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.51% -14.24% +11.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £71.13 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.19 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £41.25 £50.00
% change year-on-year -18.79% -17.50% +13.64%

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 10,463 9,205 11,470
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.58% 29.99% 30.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,839 5,639 7,247
10th Percentile £306 £313 £305
25th Percentile £415 £425 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £531 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -3.55% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 898 426 697
10th Percentile £17.26 £20.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.52 £26.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £48.78 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.44% -7.09% +16.67%
75th Percentile £52.45 £68.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £53.50
% change year-on-year -39.40% -22.43% +18.89%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 -4 1,043 £530 -3.64% 752
North of England -10 299 £450 -12.37% 589
South East -2 283 £475 -2.06% 974
Midlands -15 209 £491 +0.72% 440
South West +6 164 £600 - 320
North West -6 164 £425 -20.04% 314
West Midlands -13 161 £500 - 258
East of England -10 132 £505 +18.82% 410
Yorkshire -7 126 £475 -5.00% 212
East Midlands -10 48 £447 +17.94% 170
North East -12 10 £298 -40.31% 71
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
1 179 (8.26%) Confluence
2 111 (5.12%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.66%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.74%) nginx
7 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.60%) CMS
9 11 (0.51%) IIS
10 10 (0.46%) Apache
11 8 (0.37%) SAS
12 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.23%) Luigi
14 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.18%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.14%) Alfresco
15 3 (0.14%) Ethereum
15 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 277 (12.78%) Microsoft Office
2 210 (9.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.35%) Microsoft Project
4 106 (4.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (3.28%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.55%) Simulink
7 12 (0.55%) Trello
8 11 (0.51%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.46%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
12 4 (0.18%) Sketch
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.14%) Maya
14 2 (0.092%) InDesign
14 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.092%) Revit
14 2 (0.092%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 36 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.97%) Primavera
4 13 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.55%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.51%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.23%) Maximo
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.18%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 414 (19.10%) Azure
2 281 (12.97%) AWS
3 170 (7.84%) Microsoft 365
4 151 (6.97%) GCP
5 144 (6.65%) Power Platform
6 91 (4.20%) SaaS
7 87 (4.01%) GitHub
8 79 (3.65%) Entra ID
9 67 (3.09%) Azure DevOps
10 66 (3.05%) Serverless
11 40 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.71%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.48%) Amazon S3
14 30 (1.38%) Amazon ECS
14 30 (1.38%) PowerApps
15 28 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (1.15%) Azure Sentinel
17 24 (1.11%) Azure Logic Apps
18 23 (1.06%) OCI
19 22 (1.02%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 91 (4.20%) Firewall
2 72 (3.32%) DNS
3 39 (1.80%) DHCP
3 39 (1.80%) Network Security
4 38 (1.75%) VPN
5 36 (1.66%) LAN
6 31 (1.43%) HTTP
6 31 (1.43%) WAN
7 29 (1.34%) TCP/IP
8 27 (1.25%) Wireless
9 26 (1.20%) Internet
10 25 (1.15%) SSH
11 19 (0.88%) Skype
11 19 (0.88%) Unified Communications
12 16 (0.74%) BGP
12 16 (0.74%) VoIP
12 16 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
13 14 (0.65%) SMTP
13 14 (0.65%) VLAN
14 13 (0.60%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (5.26%) Power BI
2 93 (4.29%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (3.09%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.72%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.40%) Relational Database
5 52 (2.40%) Tableau
6 48 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
7 31 (1.43%) MySQL
8 27 (1.25%) Big Data
9 26 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (0.83%) Metadata
11 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.69%) MongoDB
14 13 (0.60%) Oracle Database
15 12 (0.55%) Amazon Aurora
15 12 (0.55%) GIS
15 12 (0.55%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.55%) RDBMS
16 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 281 (12.97%) JIRA
2 111 (5.12%) Git
3 94 (4.34%) Jenkins
4 67 (3.09%) GitLab
5 26 (1.20%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.06%) Postman
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 14 (0.65%) Visual Studio
9 12 (0.55%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.51%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.46%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.42%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) SpecFlow
14 7 (0.32%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.32%) MLflow
15 6 (0.28%) Appium
15 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
16 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
General
1 1,128 (52.05%) Social Skills
2 704 (32.49%) Finance
3 539 (24.87%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (11.40%) Banking
5 130 (6.00%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.52%) Presentation Skills
7 96 (4.43%) Manufacturing
8 87 (4.01%) Organisational Skills
9 80 (3.69%) Marketing
10 79 (3.65%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.37%) Legal
12 71 (3.28%) Military
13 59 (2.72%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.68%) Financial Institution
15 54 (2.49%) Front Office
16 53 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
17 50 (2.31%) Investment Banking
18 47 (2.17%) Aerospace
19 46 (2.12%) Pharmaceutical
20 36 (1.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 316 (14.58%) Analyst
2 215 (9.92%) Senior
3 213 (9.83%) Developer
4 167 (7.71%) Architect
5 162 (7.48%) Lead
6 148 (6.83%) Project Manager
7 146 (6.74%) Business Analyst
8 91 (4.20%) Consultant
9 75 (3.46%) Software Engineer
10 51 (2.35%) Support Analyst
11 49 (2.26%) Security Engineer
11 49 (2.26%) Technical Support
12 48 (2.22%) IT Support
13 47 (2.17%) Data Scientist
13 47 (2.17%) Solutions Architect
14 43 (1.98%) IT Manager
15 42 (1.94%) Senior Developer
15 42 (1.94%) Support Engineer
16 34 (1.57%) Senior Software Engineer
17 31 (1.43%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (5.26%) REST
2 79 (3.65%) RESTful
3 72 (3.32%) .NET
4 63 (2.91%) HTML
5 50 (2.31%) XML
6 45 (2.08%) CSS
7 41 (1.89%) Elastic Stack
7 41 (1.89%) JSON
8 40 (1.85%) Middleware
8 40 (1.85%) SOAP
9 39 (1.80%) Kafka
10 36 (1.66%) OAuth
10 36 (1.66%) Web Services
11 34 (1.57%) React
12 30 (1.38%) AngularJS
13 29 (1.34%) Node.js
13 29 (1.34%) Spring
13 29 (1.34%) TensorFlow
14 28 (1.29%) Pandas
15 24 (1.11%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.49%) Management Information System
2 117 (5.40%) Product Ownership
3 98 (4.52%) Cloud Native
4 74 (3.41%) Onboarding
5 70 (3.23%) Algorithms
6 57 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
6 57 (2.63%) Virtual Team
7 56 (2.58%) Analytical Mindset
8 53 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (2.31%) Data Centre
9 50 (2.31%) Derivative
10 47 (2.17%) Self-Motivation
11 42 (1.94%) Public Cloud
12 40 (1.85%) Security Posture
13 35 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
14 34 (1.57%) Life Science
15 31 (1.43%) Data Structures
16 29 (1.34%) PMI
17 28 (1.29%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 228 (10.52%) Windows
2 171 (7.89%) Linux
3 70 (3.23%) Unix
4 54 (2.49%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.62%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.02%) Apple iOS
7 21 (0.97%) Mac OS
8 20 (0.92%) Android
9 19 (0.88%) Ubuntu
10 18 (0.83%) VMS
11 14 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.18%) CentOS
17 2 (0.092%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.092%) Solaris
18 1 (0.046%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 840 (38.76%) Computer Science
2 733 (33.83%) Agile
3 673 (31.06%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (16.11%) Project Management
4 349 (16.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 315 (14.54%) DevOps
6 273 (12.60%) Change Management
7 256 (11.81%) ITIL
8 230 (10.61%) CI/CD
9 227 (10.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 226 (10.43%) Analytics
11 224 (10.34%) AI
12 220 (10.15%) Cybersecurity
13 219 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 208 (9.60%) Decision-Making
15 203 (9.37%) Software Engineering
16 201 (9.28%) Migration
17 189 (8.72%) Project Delivery
18 179 (8.26%) Risk Management
19 173 (7.98%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 421 (19.43%) Python
2 312 (14.40%) SQL
3 167 (7.71%) Java
4 115 (5.31%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.94%) JavaScript
6 74 (3.41%) C#
6 74 (3.41%) C++
7 52 (2.40%) Go
8 47 (2.17%) TypeScript
9 44 (2.03%) Bash
10 34 (1.57%) R
11 21 (0.97%) Perl
12 19 (0.88%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.83%) C
13 18 (0.83%) Ruby
14 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.74%) Kusto Query Language
15 16 (0.74%) MATLAB
16 13 (0.60%) Apex Code
16 13 (0.60%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 563 (25.98%) Computer Science Degree
2 345 (15.92%) Security Cleared
3 320 (14.77%) Master's Degree
4 278 (12.83%) SC Cleared
5 136 (6.28%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.95%) PMP
7 107 (4.94%) CISSP
8 85 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.28%) PhD
10 69 (3.18%) CISM
11 57 (2.63%) Azure Certification
12 55 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
13 54 (2.49%) AWS Certification
14 52 (2.40%) TOGAF Certification
15 42 (1.94%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.89%) HND
17 36 (1.66%) CCNA
18 35 (1.62%) HNC
19 34 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
19 34 (1.57%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (5.68%) QA
2 107 (4.94%) GDPR
3 87 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (3.78%) Data Quality
5 77 (3.55%) NIST
6 67 (3.09%) PMO
7 35 (1.62%) SLA
8 33 (1.52%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.43%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.15%) GRC
10 25 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.88%) NCSC
12 16 (0.74%) COBIT
12 16 (0.74%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.69%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.69%) NIST 800
14 14 (0.65%) WCAG
15 13 (0.60%) P3O
16 11 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.51%) JSP 440
System Software
1 152 (7.01%) Docker
2 135 (6.23%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.97%) Firmware
5 12 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.46%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.46%) Postfix
6 10 (0.46%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.32%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.092%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.092%) XenApp
12 1 (0.046%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.046%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 132 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 115 (5.31%) Terraform
3 77 (3.55%) Ansible
4 55 (2.54%) Grafana
5 49 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.08%) Prometheus
6 45 (2.08%) SCCM
7 30 (1.38%) OPNET
8 19 (0.88%) Puppet
9 14 (0.65%) SCOM
10 12 (0.55%) Nessus
11 11 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.46%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.46%) QRadar
13 9 (0.42%) Kibana
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 7 (0.32%) Argo
14 7 (0.32%) CSIRT
14 7 (0.32%) Nmap
15 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 455 (21.00%) Microsoft
2 134 (6.18%) ServiceNow
3 130 (6.00%) Oracle
4 122 (5.63%) SAP
5 90 (4.15%) Google
6 88 (4.06%) Splunk
7 64 (2.95%) Salesforce
8 63 (2.91%) Cisco
9 51 (2.35%) Atlassian
10 49 (2.26%) VMware
11 48 (2.22%) Remedy
12 35 (1.62%) IBM
13 34 (1.57%) Databricks
14 26 (1.20%) Adobe
14 26 (1.20%) Citrix
15 23 (1.06%) Palo Alto
15 23 (1.06%) Workday
16 18 (0.83%) Red Hat
17 15 (0.69%) CyberArk
18 14 (0.65%) Apple