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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 26 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,179 1,846 3,069
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.39% 8.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.94% 23.66% 26.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,210 1,106 1,641
10th Percentile £206 £235 £235
25th Percentile £366 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £630
90th Percentile £718 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 136 370
10th Percentile £18.06 £20.12 £15.73
25th Percentile £27.91 £28.12 £24.18
Median hourly rate £50.72 £50.00 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +1.44% +23.99% -15.11%
75th Percentile £83.56 £70.04 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £45.50 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -4.82% +19.51% -17.75%

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 13,671 7,801 11,398
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.55% 31.23% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,230 4,911 7,025
10th Percentile £350 £280 £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 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 511 1,016
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.88 £20.12 £20.22
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -27.71% -24.55%
75th Percentile £73.60 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.36 £78.70 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £29.26 £40.25
% change year-on-year +70.88% -27.30% -26.82%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -19 935 £505 -8.18% 865
South East -1 409 £500 +4.99% 583
North of England -12 332 £447 -0.67% 386
Midlands -25 192 £505 +41.06% 245
North West -7 183 £443 -2.74% 215
East of England -4 143 £450 -10.00% 182
West Midlands -27 143 £492 +23.00% 129
Yorkshire -7 134 £500 +14.68% 125
South West -22 120 £443 -6.84% 198
East Midlands -19 47 £550 +55.81% 116
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 52
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
1 121 (5.55%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.96%) Confluence
3 66 (3.03%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.47%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.73%) Apache
7 11 (0.50%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.092%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 255 (11.70%) Microsoft Office
2 206 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 126 (5.78%) Microsoft Project
4 58 (2.66%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
5 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.37%) Revit
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.28%) Trello
11 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.092%) Windchill
13 1 (0.046%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 51 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.69%) Primavera
3 9 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.28%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) Magento
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 479 (21.98%) Azure
2 287 (13.17%) AWS
3 193 (8.86%) Microsoft 365
4 180 (8.26%) Power Platform
5 127 (5.83%) Entra ID
6 107 (4.91%) GCP
7 77 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.49%) SaaS
9 51 (2.34%) GitHub
10 34 (1.56%) Figma
10 34 (1.56%) Serverless
11 33 (1.51%) OneDrive
11 33 (1.51%) Power Automate
11 33 (1.51%) Snowflake
12 32 (1.47%) PowerApps
13 29 (1.33%) PaaS
14 28 (1.28%) Dynamics 365
15 27 (1.24%) Google Workspace
16 25 (1.15%) IaaS
17 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.45%) Firewall
2 65 (2.98%) TCP/IP
3 63 (2.89%) DNS
4 57 (2.62%) Network Security
5 45 (2.07%) WAN
6 43 (1.97%) LAN
6 43 (1.97%) VPN
7 33 (1.51%) DHCP
8 26 (1.19%) Wireless
9 22 (1.01%) BGP
10 20 (0.92%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.87%) OSPF
11 19 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (0.64%) 3GPP
13 13 (0.60%) Skype
14 12 (0.55%) Internet
14 12 (0.55%) SAN
14 12 (0.55%) SSH
15 11 (0.50%) DMZ
16 10 (0.46%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (7.02%) Power BI
2 103 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.79%) Tableau
7 33 (1.51%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.47%) Metadata
9 29 (1.33%) Big Data
10 25 (1.15%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.96%) MySQL
12 19 (0.87%) Oracle Database
13 18 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
16 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.55%) Power Query
19 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 191 (8.77%) JIRA
2 100 (4.59%) Git
3 40 (1.84%) GitLab
3 40 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
5 21 (0.96%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.87%) MLflow
7 14 (0.64%) Selenium
8 11 (0.50%) Gradle
8 11 (0.50%) JUnit
8 11 (0.50%) Postman
9 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.41%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.37%) Maven
12 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.32%) Subversion
13 6 (0.28%) Burp Suite
13 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
General
1 995 (45.66%) Social Skills
2 667 (30.61%) Finance
3 447 (20.51%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (8.58%) Banking
5 185 (8.49%) Public Sector
6 127 (5.83%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (5.14%) Presentation Skills
8 92 (4.22%) Marketing
9 87 (3.99%) Aerospace
10 86 (3.95%) Legal
11 79 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
11 79 (3.63%) Manufacturing
12 69 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
13 59 (2.71%) Telecoms
14 55 (2.52%) Retail
15 51 (2.34%) Law
16 42 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.79%) Front Office
18 32 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
19 31 (1.42%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 323 (14.82%) Analyst
2 245 (11.24%) Senior
3 169 (7.76%) Architect
4 160 (7.34%) Lead
5 150 (6.88%) Developer
6 147 (6.75%) Business Analyst
7 141 (6.47%) Project Manager
8 64 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
9 60 (2.75%) Consultant
10 59 (2.71%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
11 57 (2.62%) Technical Support
12 52 (2.39%) Designer
13 51 (2.34%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.29%) Product Manager
15 47 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
16 45 (2.07%) IT Support
17 44 (2.02%) IT Manager
18 42 (1.93%) IT Analyst
18 42 (1.93%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.13%) REST
2 83 (3.81%) .NET
3 57 (2.62%) React
4 46 (2.11%) Kafka
5 43 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
6 42 (1.93%) Middleware
7 37 (1.70%) .NET Framework
8 35 (1.61%) HTML
8 35 (1.61%) OAuth
8 35 (1.61%) RESTful
9 28 (1.28%) Web Services
10 27 (1.24%) Spring Boot
10 27 (1.24%) XML
11 26 (1.19%) Spring
12 25 (1.15%) JSON
12 25 (1.15%) SAML
13 24 (1.10%) CSS
14 23 (1.06%) SOAP
15 22 (1.01%) AngularJS
15 22 (1.01%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 174 (7.99%) Management Information System
2 136 (6.24%) Onboarding
3 127 (5.83%) Product Ownership
4 89 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
5 80 (3.67%) Cloud Native
6 68 (3.12%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.39%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
9 46 (2.11%) Algorithms
10 45 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (2.07%) Security Posture
11 42 (1.93%) PMI
12 41 (1.88%) Operational Technology
13 39 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
14 36 (1.65%) Robotics
15 32 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
15 32 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
16 29 (1.33%) Derivative
16 29 (1.33%) Life Science
17 28 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 301 (13.81%) Windows
2 169 (7.76%) Linux
3 71 (3.26%) Windows Server
4 70 (3.21%) Unix
5 55 (2.52%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.15%) Android
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.32%) AIX
14 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.18%) Debian
15 4 (0.18%) Rocky
15 4 (0.18%) Solaris
15 4 (0.18%) VMS
16 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 719 (33.00%) Computer Science
2 625 (28.68%) Agile
3 560 (25.70%) Problem-Solving
4 358 (16.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 346 (15.88%) AI
6 342 (15.70%) Continuous Improvement
7 295 (13.54%) DevOps
8 269 (12.35%) Project Management
9 253 (11.61%) Analytics
10 250 (11.47%) CI/CD
11 228 (10.46%) Decision-Making
12 217 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 210 (9.64%) Cybersecurity
13 210 (9.64%) ITIL
14 202 (9.27%) Change Management
15 199 (9.13%) Roadmaps
16 190 (8.72%) Migration
17 178 (8.17%) Risk Management
18 174 (7.99%) Project Delivery
19 172 (7.89%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 362 (16.61%) Python
2 323 (14.82%) SQL
3 147 (6.75%) Java
4 127 (5.83%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.18%) C#
6 83 (3.81%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.88%) Bash
8 36 (1.65%) C++
9 27 (1.24%) TypeScript
10 24 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.06%) R
12 18 (0.83%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.73%) C
14 13 (0.60%) Rust
15 12 (0.55%) Go
15 12 (0.55%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.55%) Perl
16 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.41%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 440 (20.19%) Computer Science Degree
2 384 (17.62%) Security Cleared
3 261 (11.98%) SC Cleared
4 215 (9.87%) Master's Degree
5 133 (6.10%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.37%) CISSP
7 113 (5.19%) PMP
8 89 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
9 77 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
10 63 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.57%) CISM
12 53 (2.43%) DV Cleared
13 50 (2.29%) Azure Certification
14 44 (2.02%) PhD
15 37 (1.70%) CCNP
16 36 (1.65%) CCNA
17 35 (1.61%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.51%) MBA
19 32 (1.47%) CBAP
19 32 (1.47%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.46%) QA
2 111 (5.09%) NIST
3 110 (5.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 97 (4.45%) Data Quality
4 97 (4.45%) PMO
5 88 (4.04%) GDPR
6 47 (2.16%) SLA
7 38 (1.74%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.65%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.15%) GRC
11 19 (0.87%) NCSC
12 16 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.73%) IFRS
13 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.41%) COBIT
16 8 (0.37%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 175 (8.03%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.46%) Docker
3 41 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.28%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.18%) XenApp
11 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 3 (0.14%) NFS
12 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.97%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.72%) Terraform
3 73 (3.35%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.85%) Ansible
5 34 (1.56%) Grafana
5 34 (1.56%) SCCM
6 32 (1.47%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.69%) Puppet
10 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.41%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) Kibana
15 5 (0.23%) Kiali
15 5 (0.23%) Nmap
15 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 513 (23.54%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.07%) Oracle
3 119 (5.46%) SAP
4 112 (5.14%) ServiceNow
5 88 (4.04%) Google
6 59 (2.71%) Cisco
7 48 (2.20%) Databricks
8 46 (2.11%) VMware
9 45 (2.07%) Citrix
10 39 (1.79%) IBM
11 38 (1.74%) Salesforce
11 38 (1.74%) Splunk
12 37 (1.70%) Adobe
13 29 (1.33%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.24%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.06%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.06%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.92%) Siemens
17 19 (0.87%) Ariba
18 18 (0.83%) Aruba