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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -3 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,221 1,986 3,264
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.25% 7.73% 8.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.22% 25.45% 27.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,289 1,119 1,814
10th Percentile £300 £244 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.04% -6.45%
75th Percentile £634 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £507
% change year-on-year -2.44% +1.08% -4.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 126 328
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.86 £14.04
25th Percentile £21.25 £31.25 £23.94
Median hourly rate £37.50 £47.81 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.56% +19.51% -11.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.30
UK median hourly rate £36.75 £42.88 £40.00
% change year-on-year -14.30% +7.20% -11.11%

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 12,192 7,803 11,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.32% 30.38% 31.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,114 4,810 7,262
10th Percentile £325 £290 £290
25th Percentile £422 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £726 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.52% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 942 397 896
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.26 £20.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.67% +15.29% -10.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.19 £82.35 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.47 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -37.11% -4.71% -13.27%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 -11 971 £515 -6.36% 686
North of England -4 350 £447 -10.60% 408
South East -3 317 £475 -5.00% 690
Midlands -15 209 £520 +30.00% 294
South West +5 184 £650 +21.95% 215
North West -1 182 £400 -15.79% 223
West Midlands -17 153 £500 - 189
Yorkshire -15 151 £525 +5.00% 140
East of England -9 135 £550 +22.22% 225
East Midlands -9 56 £525 +47.47% 105
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 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
1 193 (8.69%) Confluence
2 110 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 11 (0.50%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.41%) CMS
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.27%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.14%) nginx
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 292 (13.15%) Microsoft Office
2 209 (9.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.15%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.51%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 10 (0.45%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.090%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.045%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 36 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.13%) Primavera
3 24 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.32%) SAP EWM
7 7 (0.32%) SAP WM
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 452 (20.35%) Azure
2 264 (11.89%) AWS
3 190 (8.55%) Microsoft 365
4 159 (7.16%) Power Platform
5 143 (6.44%) GCP
6 110 (4.95%) SaaS
7 98 (4.41%) Entra ID
8 76 (3.42%) GitHub
9 71 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
10 54 (2.43%) Serverless
11 41 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.58%) OCI
12 35 (1.58%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
13 31 (1.40%) PaaS
14 30 (1.35%) IaaS
15 28 (1.26%) Google Workspace
16 27 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.22%) PowerApps
17 25 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.55%) Firewall
2 59 (2.66%) LAN
3 55 (2.48%) WAN
4 54 (2.43%) DNS
5 45 (2.03%) TCP/IP
6 40 (1.80%) Network Security
6 40 (1.80%) VPN
7 29 (1.31%) Wireless
8 27 (1.22%) DHCP
9 25 (1.13%) Skype
10 23 (1.04%) BGP
10 23 (1.04%) Ethernet
10 23 (1.04%) HTTP
10 23 (1.04%) Internet
10 23 (1.04%) Unified Communications
11 22 (0.99%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.90%) OSPF
13 18 (0.81%) VLAN
14 17 (0.77%) SSH
15 15 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (5.54%) Power BI
2 82 (3.69%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.42%) SQL Server
4 58 (2.61%) NoSQL
5 46 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.89%) Relational Database
7 39 (1.76%) Tableau
8 38 (1.71%) MySQL
9 29 (1.31%) Big Data
10 21 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
11 20 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.81%) Metadata
13 17 (0.77%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.63%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.50%) BigQuery
17 10 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
17 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 262 (11.80%) JIRA
2 101 (4.55%) Git
3 71 (3.20%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.52%) GitLab
5 23 (1.04%) Visual Studio
6 20 (0.90%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.81%) Postman
8 14 (0.63%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.50%) MLflow
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
13 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) JUnit
15 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,134 (51.06%) Social Skills
2 703 (31.65%) Finance
3 523 (23.55%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (10.67%) Banking
5 175 (7.88%) Public Sector
6 113 (5.09%) Presentation Skills
7 96 (4.32%) Organisational Skills
8 83 (3.74%) Manufacturing
8 83 (3.74%) Marketing
9 76 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
11 63 (2.84%) Legal
12 55 (2.48%) Military
13 54 (2.43%) Financial Institution
14 44 (1.98%) Front Office
15 43 (1.94%) Aerospace
16 42 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 42 (1.89%) Retail
17 40 (1.80%) Law
18 39 (1.76%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 316 (14.23%) Analyst
2 229 (10.31%) Senior
3 186 (8.37%) Developer
4 184 (8.28%) Lead
5 173 (7.79%) Architect
6 158 (7.11%) Project Manager
7 150 (6.75%) Business Analyst
8 82 (3.69%) Consultant
9 80 (3.60%) Software Engineer
10 66 (2.97%) Technical Support
11 60 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
12 46 (2.07%) Security Engineer
13 45 (2.03%) Senior Analyst
14 44 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
15 43 (1.94%) IT Support
16 42 (1.89%) Data Scientist
17 38 (1.71%) Senior Software Engineer
18 37 (1.67%) Technical Analyst
19 36 (1.62%) Support Analyst
20 35 (1.58%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (5.00%) REST
2 68 (3.06%) RESTful
3 62 (2.79%) .NET
4 52 (2.34%) React
5 51 (2.30%) HTML
6 49 (2.21%) Middleware
7 46 (2.07%) Elastic Stack
8 41 (1.85%) Kafka
9 38 (1.71%) CSS
9 38 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
10 37 (1.67%) XML
11 36 (1.62%) OAuth
12 35 (1.58%) SOAP
13 34 (1.53%) JSON
14 29 (1.31%) PyTorch
14 29 (1.31%) Spring
14 29 (1.31%) TensorFlow
15 28 (1.26%) Spring Boot
16 27 (1.22%) Pandas
17 26 (1.17%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 186 (8.37%) Management Information System
2 123 (5.54%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.68%) Cloud Native
3 104 (4.68%) Onboarding
4 68 (3.06%) Distributed Systems
4 68 (3.06%) Virtual Team
5 63 (2.84%) Algorithms
6 62 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
7 61 (2.75%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
8 51 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
9 45 (2.03%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.94%) PMI
11 41 (1.85%) Derivative
12 36 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.58%) Public Cloud
14 32 (1.44%) Life Science
15 30 (1.35%) Data Structures
16 28 (1.26%) Equities
16 28 (1.26%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 266 (11.98%) Windows
2 180 (8.10%) Linux
3 79 (3.56%) Unix
4 66 (2.97%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.57%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Android
7 19 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 15 (0.68%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.68%) Ubuntu
8 15 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.45%) VMS
11 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
12 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.18%) AIX
14 3 (0.14%) CentOS
14 3 (0.14%) Debian
14 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 805 (36.24%) Computer Science
2 709 (31.92%) Agile
3 634 (28.55%) Problem-Solving
4 382 (17.20%) Stakeholder Management
5 342 (15.40%) DevOps
6 301 (13.55%) AI
7 300 (13.51%) Project Management
8 263 (11.84%) Change Management
9 255 (11.48%) CI/CD
10 248 (11.17%) Analytics
11 247 (11.12%) Continuous Improvement
12 239 (10.76%) Decision-Making
13 231 (10.40%) Cybersecurity
14 223 (10.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 222 (10.00%) ITIL
16 219 (9.86%) Risk Management
17 216 (9.73%) Migration
18 207 (9.32%) Software Engineering
19 201 (9.05%) Project Delivery
20 179 (8.06%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 402 (18.10%) Python
2 331 (14.90%) SQL
3 155 (6.98%) Java
4 125 (5.63%) PowerShell
5 100 (4.50%) JavaScript
6 74 (3.33%) C#
7 71 (3.20%) C++
8 47 (2.12%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.03%) Go
10 44 (1.98%) Bash
11 26 (1.17%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.13%) R
13 20 (0.90%) Perl
14 17 (0.77%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.72%) C
16 15 (0.68%) Rust
17 14 (0.63%) Kotlin
17 14 (0.63%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 539 (24.27%) Computer Science Degree
2 410 (18.46%) Security Cleared
3 342 (15.40%) Master's Degree
4 323 (14.54%) SC Cleared
5 129 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.36%) PMP
7 113 (5.09%) CISSP
8 87 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.33%) CISM
10 70 (3.15%) PhD
11 63 (2.84%) TOGAF Certification
12 62 (2.79%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (2.52%) Azure Certification
14 55 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
15 46 (2.07%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.89%) CCNP
17 37 (1.67%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.53%) MBA
19 32 (1.44%) CBAP
19 32 (1.44%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.66%) QA
2 116 (5.22%) GDPR
3 98 (4.41%) PMO
4 97 (4.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 75 (3.38%) NIST
6 73 (3.29%) Data Quality
7 47 (2.12%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.53%) Accessibility
9 33 (1.49%) SLA
10 31 (1.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (1.35%) GRC
12 15 (0.68%) NCSC
12 15 (0.68%) WCAG
13 14 (0.63%) Basel III
13 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
14 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
14 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 162 (7.29%) Docker
2 149 (6.71%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.72%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) HDFS
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 2 (0.090%) DFS Replication
11 2 (0.090%) Dovecot
11 2 (0.090%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 166 (7.47%) Kubernetes
2 111 (5.00%) Terraform
3 76 (3.42%) Ansible
4 70 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (2.30%) Grafana
6 46 (2.07%) SCCM
7 43 (1.94%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 22 (0.99%) Puppet
10 17 (0.77%) Kibana
11 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
12 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.59%) Nmap
14 11 (0.50%) SCOM
15 10 (0.45%) WSUS
16 9 (0.41%) Kiali
17 7 (0.32%) Argo
18 6 (0.27%) Nessus
19 5 (0.23%) Progress Chef
19 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 470 (21.16%) Microsoft
2 156 (7.02%) Oracle
3 120 (5.40%) SAP
4 114 (5.13%) ServiceNow
5 102 (4.59%) Google
6 84 (3.78%) Splunk
7 74 (3.33%) Cisco
8 54 (2.43%) Remedy
9 52 (2.34%) Atlassian
10 47 (2.12%) VMware
11 44 (1.98%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.94%) Databricks
13 40 (1.80%) Citrix
14 35 (1.58%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.17%) IBM
16 25 (1.13%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.99%) Informatica
19 21 (0.95%) Aruba
20 20 (0.90%) Siemens