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 12 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,259 1,990 2,585
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.87% 7.15% 7.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.26% 22.69% 26.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,172 1,145 1,479
10th Percentile £204 £263 £275
25th Percentile £362 £390 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% -2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £634
90th Percentile £730 £750 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 257 154 197
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.00 £27.19 £36.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £40.46 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -4.30% -29.45% +20.10%
75th Percentile £69.50 £68.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.74 £86.25 £79.50
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year -5.46% -29.45% +20.10%

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 14,807 8,771 9,849
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.95% 31.53% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,953 5,557 6,105
10th Percentile £350 £305 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £633 £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 1,163 681 589
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.06
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -54.27% -
75th Percentile £74.00 £50.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -9.09%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 September 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 -20 984 £525 -4.55% 3,785
South East +7 462 £525 +12.00% 1,246
North of England -16 332 £483 +11.03% 708
North West -9 206 £475 +4.86% 369
Midlands -34 177 £450 -1.37% 536
East of England -13 135 £300 -38.46% 541
West Midlands -35 130 £450 -5.26% 297
South West -22 127 £404 -12.70% 520
Yorkshire -11 110 £507 +21.68% 223
East Midlands -24 46 £463 +3.47% 238
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 129
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
1 156 (6.91%) SharePoint
2 102 (4.52%) Confluence
3 62 (2.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
6 17 (0.75%) IIS
7 13 (0.58%) Camunda
7 13 (0.58%) SharePoint Server
8 12 (0.53%) CMS
9 9 (0.40%) SAS
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 232 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 222 (9.83%) Microsoft Office
3 116 (5.14%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (1.99%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.35%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 41 (1.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 529 (23.42%) Azure
2 288 (12.75%) AWS
3 220 (9.74%) Microsoft 365
4 213 (9.43%) Power Platform
5 135 (5.98%) GCP
6 129 (5.71%) Entra ID
7 111 (4.91%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.23%) SaaS
9 64 (2.83%) GitHub
10 53 (2.35%) Power Automate
11 51 (2.26%) PowerApps
12 50 (2.21%) Serverless
13 47 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.08%) OneDrive
14 43 (1.90%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.51%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.42%) Figma
17 26 (1.15%) OpenShift
18 25 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.38%) Firewall
2 75 (3.32%) DNS
3 63 (2.79%) Network Security
4 59 (2.61%) VPN
5 58 (2.57%) TCP/IP
6 47 (2.08%) DHCP
7 33 (1.46%) WAN
8 32 (1.42%) LAN
9 24 (1.06%) 3GPP
9 24 (1.06%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) 5G
11 19 (0.84%) Internet
12 18 (0.80%) Radio Access Network
12 18 (0.80%) SSH
13 17 (0.75%) BGP
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
13 17 (0.75%) Wireshark
14 15 (0.66%) OSPF
14 15 (0.66%) VLAN
14 15 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (7.04%) Power BI
2 108 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.30%) Metadata
4 51 (2.26%) Relational Database
5 47 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
7 33 (1.46%) Tableau
8 31 (1.37%) MySQL
9 30 (1.33%) NoSQL
10 25 (1.11%) Oracle Database
11 24 (1.06%) Big Data
11 24 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 23 (1.02%) MongoDB
13 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
14 15 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.66%) GIS
15 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 11 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 170 (7.53%) JIRA
2 125 (5.53%) Git
3 58 (2.57%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.35%) GitLab
5 22 (0.97%) JUnit
6 20 (0.89%) Maven
6 20 (0.89%) SonarQube
7 19 (0.84%) Selenium
8 18 (0.80%) Gradle
9 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
10 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
10 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.58%) Mockito
12 12 (0.53%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.49%) MLflow
13 11 (0.49%) Rational DOORS
13 11 (0.49%) Subversion
14 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
16 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 1,013 (44.84%) Social Skills
2 664 (29.39%) Finance
3 522 (23.11%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (8.46%) Banking
5 179 (7.92%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.60%) Organisational Skills
7 115 (5.09%) Manufacturing
8 100 (4.43%) Aerospace
9 92 (4.07%) Marketing
10 88 (3.90%) Influencing Skills
11 84 (3.72%) Legal
12 83 (3.67%) Telecoms
13 75 (3.32%) Presentation Skills
14 65 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
15 60 (2.66%) Retail
16 55 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 49 (2.17%) Law
18 46 (2.04%) Pharmaceutical
19 43 (1.90%) Military
20 39 (1.73%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 313 (13.86%) Analyst
2 260 (11.51%) Senior
3 189 (8.37%) Lead
4 181 (8.01%) Developer
5 157 (6.95%) Architect
6 144 (6.37%) Business Analyst
7 112 (4.96%) Project Manager
8 73 (3.23%) Support Engineer
9 67 (2.97%) Senior Manager
10 65 (2.88%) IT Support
11 55 (2.43%) Consultant
12 54 (2.39%) IT Analyst
13 53 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.12%) IT Manager
15 45 (1.99%) Technical Support
16 44 (1.95%) Designer
17 43 (1.90%) Software Engineer
18 42 (1.86%) Data Engineer
18 42 (1.86%) Security Engineer
18 42 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.60%) Terraform
2 94 (4.16%) .NET
3 92 (4.07%) REST
4 63 (2.79%) HTML
5 62 (2.74%) React
6 57 (2.52%) Kafka
7 51 (2.26%) CSS
8 42 (1.86%) RESTful
9 38 (1.68%) OAuth
9 38 (1.68%) XML
10 35 (1.55%) Spring Boot
11 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
11 34 (1.51%) Middleware
11 34 (1.51%) Web Services
12 33 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
13 30 (1.33%) Spring
14 29 (1.28%) SAML
15 28 (1.24%) JSON
15 28 (1.24%) OAuth2
16 27 (1.20%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 205 (9.07%) Management Information System
2 132 (5.84%) Onboarding
3 106 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 92 (4.07%) Self-Motivation
5 90 (3.98%) Cloud Native
6 55 (2.43%) Algorithms
6 55 (2.43%) Data Centre
6 55 (2.43%) Data Structures
7 45 (1.99%) Security Posture
8 42 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
8 42 (1.86%) Operational Technology
9 40 (1.77%) Virtual Team
10 39 (1.73%) Life Science
11 38 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
12 37 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
12 37 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.59%) AI Agents
14 31 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
15 30 (1.33%) SCADA
16 29 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 287 (12.70%) Windows
2 177 (7.84%) Linux
3 79 (3.50%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.66%) Unix
5 42 (1.86%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.97%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) VMS
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 737 (32.63%) Computer Science
2 622 (27.53%) Agile
3 606 (26.83%) Problem-Solving
4 459 (20.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 407 (18.02%) Continuous Improvement
6 367 (16.25%) AI
7 322 (14.25%) DevOps
8 289 (12.79%) Project Management
9 285 (12.62%) Analytics
10 282 (12.48%) CI/CD
11 261 (11.55%) ITIL
12 237 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 229 (10.14%) Decision-Making
14 216 (9.56%) Scrum
15 215 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
16 214 (9.47%) Change Management
17 211 (9.34%) Roadmaps
17 211 (9.34%) Software Engineering
18 195 (8.63%) PRINCE2
19 182 (8.06%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 384 (17.00%) Python
2 334 (14.79%) SQL
3 171 (7.57%) PowerShell
4 152 (6.73%) Java
5 119 (5.27%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.74%) C#
7 58 (2.57%) Bash
8 42 (1.86%) C++
9 39 (1.73%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.24%) Bicep
11 27 (1.20%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.06%) C
12 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.06%) R
13 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.62%) Scala
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.44%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 445 (19.70%) Computer Science Degree
2 423 (18.73%) Security Cleared
3 298 (13.19%) SC Cleared
4 189 (8.37%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.40%) Microsoft Certification
7 119 (5.27%) PMP
8 103 (4.56%) CISSP
9 80 (3.54%) DV Cleared
10 78 (3.45%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.41%) Cisco Certification
12 66 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.48%) PhD
14 48 (2.12%) CISM
15 44 (1.95%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 39 (1.73%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.59%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.46%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.46%) CCNA
18 33 (1.46%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.84%) QA
2 124 (5.49%) Data Quality
3 91 (4.03%) NIST
4 87 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.59%) PMO
6 66 (2.92%) GDPR
7 39 (1.73%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.68%) SLA
9 25 (1.11%) GRC
9 25 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.71%) NCSC
12 14 (0.62%) IFRS
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
16 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
16 8 (0.35%) ISO 31000
16 8 (0.35%) NIST 800
System Software
1 185 (8.19%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.27%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.15%) Firmware
5 23 (1.02%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) Embedded Firmware
8 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 5 (0.22%) vSphere
12 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) ISA Server
13 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 115 (5.09%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.66%) Ansible
4 31 (1.37%) SCCM
5 26 (1.15%) Grafana
6 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 8 (0.35%) CASB
12 8 (0.35%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
13 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) Control-M
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 586 (25.94%) Microsoft
2 159 (7.04%) Oracle
3 137 (6.06%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.49%) SAP
5 93 (4.12%) Google
6 70 (3.10%) VMware
7 62 (2.74%) Cisco
8 58 (2.57%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.39%) Adobe
10 47 (2.08%) Databricks
11 40 (1.77%) IBM
12 38 (1.68%) Splunk
13 33 (1.46%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.28%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) OpenAI
17 20 (0.89%) Palo Alto
18 19 (0.84%) Apple
19 18 (0.80%) Ariba