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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,267 2,057 2,595
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.39% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.70% 23.61% 25.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,207 1,214 1,521
10th Percentile £205 £259 £275
25th Percentile £365 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.03%
75th Percentile £613 £641 £638
90th Percentile £725 £760 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 163 238
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.24 £20.21
25th Percentile £27.23 £26.74 £30.38
Median hourly rate £51.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -25.89% +14.70%
75th Percentile £83.94 £69.46 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.65 £75.75
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +4.71% -19.05% +5.00%

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 14,439 8,712 10,137
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.30% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,726 5,478 6,479
10th Percentile £350 £300 £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 £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,121 661 761
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.79 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -20 962 £525 -4.55% 5,358
South East +3 481 £500 +5.26% 1,280
North of England -10 332 £453 +0.67% 941
North West -13 192 £452 -4.95% 522
Midlands -33 179 £450 +0.67% 565
East of England -7 144 £425 -5.56% 714
West Midlands -36 136 £450 - 338
Yorkshire -8 125 £500 +20.12% 270
South West -23 124 £415 +10.67% 514
East Midlands -21 41 £475 +32.68% 227
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 167
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
1 135 (5.96%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.76%) Confluence
3 61 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.79%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.088%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 245 (10.81%) Microsoft Office
2 228 (10.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 130 (5.73%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.29%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.35%) Revit
9 8 (0.35%) Simulink
10 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
11 4 (0.18%) Trello
11 4 (0.18%) Windchill
12 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.088%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 54 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.26%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 516 (22.76%) Azure
2 286 (12.62%) AWS
3 203 (8.95%) Power Platform
4 202 (8.91%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (6.26%) Entra ID
6 119 (5.25%) GCP
7 99 (4.37%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.22%) SaaS
9 59 (2.60%) GitHub
10 46 (2.03%) PowerApps
11 45 (1.99%) Power Automate
12 40 (1.76%) OneDrive
12 40 (1.76%) Snowflake
13 39 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
14 38 (1.68%) Serverless
15 36 (1.59%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.54%) Figma
17 25 (1.10%) IaaS
18 23 (1.01%) PaaS
19 22 (0.97%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.54%) Firewall
2 76 (3.35%) TCP/IP
3 71 (3.13%) DNS
4 65 (2.87%) Network Security
5 58 (2.56%) VPN
6 40 (1.76%) DHCP
7 38 (1.68%) WAN
8 35 (1.54%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.79%) BGP
12 17 (0.75%) Internet
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 15 (0.66%) OSPF
14 15 (0.66%) SSH
14 15 (0.66%) SSL
15 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.57%) 5G
17 12 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.19%) Power BI
2 98 (4.32%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.16%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.72%) Metadata
7 33 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 31 (1.37%) Tableau
9 26 (1.15%) Big Data
10 24 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 23 (1.01%) MySQL
12 22 (0.97%) MongoDB
12 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Power Query
15 13 (0.57%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 10 (0.44%) GIS
18 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 175 (7.72%) JIRA
2 113 (4.98%) Git
3 51 (2.25%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.03%) GitLab
5 36 (1.59%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.75%) Selenium
6 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.62%) MLflow
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) Gradle
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.40%) Maven
11 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 6 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
14 6 (0.26%) Zephyr
General
1 1,002 (44.20%) Social Skills
2 659 (29.07%) Finance
3 517 (22.81%) Analytical Skills
4 181 (7.98%) Public Sector
5 170 (7.50%) Banking
6 148 (6.53%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.68%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.15%) Presentation Skills
9 93 (4.10%) Legal
10 92 (4.06%) Marketing
11 88 (3.88%) Manufacturing
12 80 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.35%) Telecoms
14 65 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.78%) Retail
16 60 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 52 (2.29%) Law
18 44 (1.94%) Pharmaceutical
19 38 (1.68%) Front Office
20 35 (1.54%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 312 (13.76%) Analyst
2 254 (11.20%) Senior
3 177 (7.81%) Lead
4 161 (7.10%) Developer
5 155 (6.84%) Architect
6 143 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 133 (5.87%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.18%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.65%) Consultant
10 57 (2.51%) IT Support
11 56 (2.47%) Support Engineer
12 53 (2.34%) Product Manager
13 52 (2.29%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.29%) IT Manager
14 51 (2.25%) Designer
14 51 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
15 46 (2.03%) Delivery Manager
15 46 (2.03%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.99%) Systems Engineer
17 41 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.10%) REST
2 88 (3.88%) .NET
3 51 (2.25%) React
4 41 (1.81%) Kafka
5 39 (1.72%) HTML
6 38 (1.68%) OAuth
7 36 (1.59%) RESTful
8 33 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
9 32 (1.41%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.41%) Middleware
10 30 (1.32%) CSS
10 30 (1.32%) SAML
10 30 (1.32%) Web Services
11 27 (1.19%) LDAP
12 26 (1.15%) JSON
12 26 (1.15%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.10%) AngularJS
13 25 (1.10%) OpenID
13 25 (1.10%) SailPoint
14 24 (1.06%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.16%) Management Information System
2 140 (6.18%) Onboarding
3 139 (6.13%) Product Ownership
4 95 (4.19%) Self-Motivation
5 86 (3.79%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.87%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.56%) Data Centre
8 56 (2.47%) Algorithms
9 53 (2.34%) Security Posture
10 45 (1.99%) Virtual Team
11 43 (1.90%) Operational Technology
12 41 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
13 38 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.50%) Life Science
16 32 (1.41%) AI Agents
16 32 (1.41%) PMI
16 32 (1.41%) Robotics
17 30 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 283 (12.48%) Windows
2 166 (7.32%) Linux
3 70 (3.09%) Windows Server
4 56 (2.47%) Unix
5 46 (2.03%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 27 (1.19%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.15%) Mac OS
9 22 (0.97%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.26%) AIX
12 6 (0.26%) Solaris
12 6 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (33.57%) Computer Science
2 630 (27.79%) Agile
3 601 (26.51%) Problem-Solving
4 415 (18.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 398 (17.56%) Continuous Improvement
6 363 (16.01%) AI
7 303 (13.37%) DevOps
8 290 (12.79%) Project Management
9 277 (12.22%) Analytics
10 263 (11.60%) CI/CD
11 259 (11.42%) ITIL
12 241 (10.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (10.50%) Decision-Making
14 232 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.00%) PRINCE2
16 200 (8.82%) Change Management
17 199 (8.78%) Roadmaps
18 197 (8.69%) Software Engineering
19 191 (8.43%) Scrum
20 187 (8.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 381 (16.81%) Python
2 317 (13.98%) SQL
3 153 (6.75%) PowerShell
4 143 (6.31%) Java
5 96 (4.23%) C#
6 86 (3.79%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.34%) Bash
8 40 (1.76%) C++
9 31 (1.37%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) R
11 25 (1.10%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.01%) Bicep
13 22 (0.97%) C
13 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
14 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) Scala
17 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 445 (19.63%) Computer Science Degree
2 414 (18.26%) Security Cleared
3 268 (11.82%) SC Cleared
4 190 (8.38%) Master's Degree
5 138 (6.09%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.34%) PMP
7 117 (5.16%) CISSP
8 114 (5.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (3.18%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.91%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.34%) CISM
14 49 (2.16%) PhD
15 39 (1.72%) CCNA
15 39 (1.72%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.63%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.59%) CCNP
18 35 (1.54%) CISA
19 30 (1.32%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.21%) QA
2 112 (4.94%) Data Quality
3 110 (4.85%) NIST
4 102 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (4.23%) PMO
6 68 (3.00%) GDPR
7 45 (1.99%) SLA
8 39 (1.72%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.01%) GRC
10 23 (1.01%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.97%) NCSC
12 13 (0.57%) IFRS
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) COBIT
14 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 186 (8.20%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.85%) Docker
3 49 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.01%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
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 (0.088%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 116 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 91 (4.01%) Terraform
3 71 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.82%) Ansible
5 35 (1.54%) SCCM
6 27 (1.19%) Grafana
7 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.57%) Puppet
11 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.35%) Nessus
14 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.31%) SCOM
15 6 (0.26%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.22%) CASB
16 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 583 (25.72%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.44%) Oracle
3 137 (6.04%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.43%) SAP
5 82 (3.62%) Google
6 65 (2.87%) VMware
7 60 (2.65%) Cisco
8 54 (2.38%) Salesforce
9 50 (2.21%) Databricks
10 47 (2.07%) Adobe
11 46 (2.03%) IBM
12 32 (1.41%) Splunk
13 31 (1.37%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.28%) Citrix
15 27 (1.19%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.19%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 20 (0.88%) Ariba
17 20 (0.88%) BeyondTrust
18 19 (0.84%) Apple