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 10 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,274 1,982 2,563
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.92% 7.07% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.21% 22.12% 26.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,171 1,108 1,464
10th Percentile £205 £268 £263
25th Percentile £375 £402 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £773
UK median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 168 162
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £21.25
25th Percentile £23.38 £25.94 £31.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £34.75 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.42% -30.50% +4.17%
75th Percentile £65.31 £63.29 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £86.78 £84.50
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £33.50 £42.88
% change year-on-year +17.91% -21.88% -10.93%

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 14,948 8,962 9,608
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.31% 31.95% 29.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,941 5,688 5,822
10th Percentile £353 £293 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,301 747 514
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.07
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.29
Median hourly rate £49.50 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +96.82% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.20 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.55%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 -18 993 £528 -4.09% 6,573
South East +8 464 £525 +16.67% 1,767
North of England -15 336 £475 +5.56% 1,218
North West -8 217 £479 +4.70% 651
Midlands -30 183 £450 -5.26% 867
East of England -14 136 £425 -15.00% 910
West Midlands -32 136 £450 -5.26% 524
South West -28 127 £415 -20.95% 669
Yorkshire -18 102 £500 +11.11% 380
East Midlands -17 46 £478 +6.70% 343
North East -33 17 £460 +2.22% 192
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
1 145 (6.38%) SharePoint
2 118 (5.19%) Confluence
3 54 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.28%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.92%) Apache
6 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.88%) IIS
7 19 (0.84%) CMS
8 14 (0.62%) Camunda
8 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.31%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Appian
13 3 (0.13%) Umbraco
Applications
1 233 (10.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 210 (9.23%) Microsoft Office
3 108 (4.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 99 (4.35%) Microsoft Project
5 49 (2.15%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.40%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.088%) CATIA
13 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.088%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 30 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.44%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Aladdin
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
9 3 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 532 (23.39%) Azure
2 281 (12.36%) AWS
3 202 (8.88%) Microsoft 365
4 200 (8.80%) Power Platform
5 148 (6.51%) GCP
6 132 (5.80%) Entra ID
7 123 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.08%) SaaS
9 62 (2.73%) GitHub
10 56 (2.46%) Power Automate
11 54 (2.37%) Serverless
12 50 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.07%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.07%) PowerApps
14 45 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
15 36 (1.58%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.45%) Figma
17 29 (1.28%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.28%) OpenShift
18 28 (1.23%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (3.87%) Firewall
2 72 (3.17%) DNS
3 60 (2.64%) Network Security
4 57 (2.51%) TCP/IP
5 55 (2.42%) VPN
6 44 (1.93%) DHCP
7 27 (1.19%) LAN
7 27 (1.19%) WAN
8 22 (0.97%) Wireless
9 21 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
11 19 (0.84%) SSH
12 18 (0.79%) SSL
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
14 16 (0.70%) VLAN
14 16 (0.70%) Wireshark
15 15 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 14 (0.62%) Internet
17 13 (0.57%) VoIP
18 12 (0.53%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.24%) Power BI
2 101 (4.44%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.55%) Metadata
4 52 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.93%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.63%) MySQL
7 34 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.32%) Tableau
9 28 (1.23%) Big Data
9 28 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
11 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.70%) GIS
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
15 10 (0.44%) Delta Lake
15 10 (0.44%) Redis
Development Applications
1 163 (7.17%) JIRA
2 138 (6.07%) Git
3 59 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.42%) GitLab
5 26 (1.14%) Gradle
6 25 (1.10%) JUnit
6 25 (1.10%) Maven
7 24 (1.06%) SonarQube
8 19 (0.84%) Selenium
8 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
9 18 (0.79%) Mockito
10 17 (0.75%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.48%) Postman
14 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
15 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
16 8 (0.35%) MLflow
16 8 (0.35%) Subversion
17 7 (0.31%) TeamCity
General
1 1,020 (44.85%) Social Skills
2 654 (28.76%) Finance
3 536 (23.57%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (8.66%) Banking
5 180 (7.92%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.55%) Organisational Skills
7 138 (6.07%) Manufacturing
8 115 (5.06%) Aerospace
9 111 (4.88%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (4.13%) Marketing
11 79 (3.47%) Legal
11 79 (3.47%) Telecoms
12 75 (3.30%) Presentation Skills
13 68 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.73%) Retail
15 61 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 55 (2.42%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.11%) Law
18 44 (1.93%) Military
19 43 (1.89%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 308 (13.54%) Analyst
2 259 (11.39%) Senior
3 192 (8.44%) Developer
4 186 (8.18%) Lead
5 154 (6.77%) Architect
6 153 (6.73%) Business Analyst
7 103 (4.53%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.90%) Support Engineer
9 61 (2.68%) IT Support
10 59 (2.59%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.51%) Consultant
12 51 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
13 50 (2.20%) Administrator
13 50 (2.20%) IT Manager
14 47 (2.07%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
15 44 (1.93%) IT Analyst
16 42 (1.85%) Data Engineer
17 41 (1.80%) Data Analyst
17 41 (1.80%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (5.06%) Terraform
2 101 (4.44%) REST
3 94 (4.13%) .NET
4 68 (2.99%) HTML
5 67 (2.95%) React
6 60 (2.64%) CSS
6 60 (2.64%) Kafka
7 53 (2.33%) RESTful
8 44 (1.93%) OAuth
9 43 (1.89%) XML
10 41 (1.80%) Web Services
11 40 (1.76%) Middleware
12 39 (1.72%) Spring Boot
13 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
14 35 (1.54%) SAML
14 35 (1.54%) SOAP
15 33 (1.45%) Spring
16 32 (1.41%) .NET Framework
16 32 (1.41%) OAuth2
16 32 (1.41%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 212 (9.32%) Management Information System
2 123 (5.41%) Onboarding
3 117 (5.15%) Product Ownership
4 97 (4.27%) Cloud Native
5 96 (4.22%) Self-Motivation
6 58 (2.55%) Algorithms
7 53 (2.33%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.33%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
8 51 (2.24%) Operational Technology
9 49 (2.15%) Security Posture
10 48 (2.11%) Life Science
11 41 (1.80%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
12 37 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
12 37 (1.63%) Virtual Team
13 34 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (1.41%) SCADA
15 31 (1.36%) PMI
16 30 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 274 (12.05%) Windows
2 175 (7.70%) Linux
3 79 (3.47%) Windows Server
4 66 (2.90%) Unix
5 37 (1.63%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.88%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.13%) Mac OS X
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.088%) AIX
14 2 (0.088%) Debian
14 2 (0.088%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 728 (32.01%) Computer Science
2 642 (28.23%) Agile
3 621 (27.31%) Problem-Solving
4 516 (22.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 409 (17.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (16.93%) AI
7 345 (15.17%) DevOps
8 311 (13.68%) CI/CD
9 300 (13.19%) Analytics
10 279 (12.27%) Project Management
11 251 (11.04%) ITIL
12 237 (10.42%) Decision-Making
12 237 (10.42%) Roadmaps
12 237 (10.42%) Scrum
12 237 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 227 (9.98%) Software Engineering
14 222 (9.76%) Change Management
15 217 (9.54%) Cybersecurity
16 208 (9.15%) Validation
17 201 (8.84%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 365 (16.05%) Python
2 338 (14.86%) SQL
3 165 (7.26%) PowerShell
4 148 (6.51%) Java
5 124 (5.45%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.71%) C#
7 64 (2.81%) Bash
8 38 (1.67%) TypeScript
9 35 (1.54%) C++
10 31 (1.36%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.06%) T-SQL
13 23 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.97%) R
15 19 (0.84%) C
15 19 (0.84%) Scala
16 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 451 (19.83%) Security Cleared
2 447 (19.66%) Computer Science Degree
3 326 (14.34%) SC Cleared
4 194 (8.53%) Master's Degree
5 144 (6.33%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.50%) PMP
7 116 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.66%) CISSP
9 96 (4.22%) DV Cleared
10 86 (3.78%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.39%) Cisco Certification
12 73 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.55%) PhD
14 51 (2.24%) CISM
15 45 (1.98%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 39 (1.72%) DBS Check
18 38 (1.67%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
20 31 (1.36%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (6.29%) QA
2 135 (5.94%) Data Quality
3 82 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (3.52%) NIST
5 78 (3.43%) GDPR
6 69 (3.03%) PMO
7 44 (1.93%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.41%) SLA
9 31 (1.36%) GRC
10 18 (0.79%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.75%) NCSC
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
13 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.48%) IEC 61508
14 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 172 (7.56%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.19%) Docker
3 58 (2.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.97%) Firmware
6 20 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) vSphere
8 8 (0.35%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.18%) NFS
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.088%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 128 (5.63%) Kubernetes
2 67 (2.95%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.55%) Ansible
4 28 (1.23%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 11 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.44%) CASB
11 10 (0.44%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.35%) Control-M
13 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.26%) Nessus
13 6 (0.26%) WSUS
14 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 566 (24.89%) Microsoft
2 160 (7.04%) Oracle
3 128 (5.63%) ServiceNow
4 116 (5.10%) SAP
5 110 (4.84%) Google
6 71 (3.12%) VMware
7 64 (2.81%) Salesforce
8 60 (2.64%) Cisco
9 57 (2.51%) Adobe
10 55 (2.42%) Databricks
11 42 (1.85%) IBM
12 40 (1.76%) Splunk
13 30 (1.32%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.14%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.92%) Apple
15 21 (0.92%) Citrix
16 20 (0.88%) CyberArk
17 19 (0.84%) Ariba
18 18 (0.79%) Palo Alto
19 17 (0.75%) EMC