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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,236 1,930 3,225
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.05% 7.88% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.80% 25.37% 27.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,309 1,136 1,775
10th Percentile £300 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £795 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £507
% change year-on-year - -1.38% -4.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 146 335
10th Percentile £15.61 £21.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.16 £30.70 £22.63
Median hourly rate £45.46 £52.50 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% +34.79% -13.44%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £71.60
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +1.02% +20.00% -16.67%

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 12,563 7,606 11,822
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.01% 31.04% 31.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,330 4,815 7,311
10th Percentile £330 £288 £300
25th Percentile £422 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 977 417 926
10th Percentile £16.25 £18.58 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.64 £25.26 £18.32
Median hourly rate £28.50 £50.00 £38.85
Median % change year-on-year -43.00% +28.70% -22.30%
75th Percentile £67.84 £68.00 £62.88
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.50 £76.39
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £42.50 £38.16
% change year-on-year -30.33% +11.39% -23.69%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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 -13 977 £513 -6.82% 890
South East -3 363 £475 -5.00% 667
North of England -6 343 £445 -8.38% 495
Midlands -18 209 £500 +40.06% 306
North West -4 177 £400 -17.70% 251
South West -2 155 £688 +25.00% 224
West Midlands -21 152 £500 +29.03% 175
Yorkshire -12 151 £508 +10.09% 176
East of England -6 133 £500 +1.21% 227
East Midlands -19 56 £525 +47.47% 131
North East -13 16 £364 -23.37% 76
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
1 183 (8.18%) Confluence
2 104 (4.65%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 39 (1.74%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.63%) Apache
7 9 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) SAS
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
11 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 283 (12.66%) Microsoft Office
2 211 (9.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 188 (8.41%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (3.18%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 7 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.13%) InVision
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.089%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.045%) Revit
14 1 (0.045%) Weka
Business Applications
1 39 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 23 (1.03%) Primavera
3 20 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
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%) Teamcenter
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 465 (20.80%) Azure
2 273 (12.21%) AWS
3 184 (8.23%) Microsoft 365
4 164 (7.33%) Power Platform
5 133 (5.95%) GCP
6 108 (4.83%) Entra ID
7 103 (4.61%) SaaS
8 78 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
9 77 (3.44%) GitHub
10 47 (2.10%) Serverless
11 39 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.57%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.43%) IaaS
13 32 (1.43%) PaaS
14 31 (1.39%) Cloud Computing
15 28 (1.25%) Google Workspace
15 28 (1.25%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.21%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (1.21%) OCI
17 26 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.43%) Firewall
2 56 (2.50%) LAN
3 54 (2.42%) WAN
4 46 (2.06%) DNS
5 43 (1.92%) Network Security
6 41 (1.83%) TCP/IP
7 37 (1.65%) VPN
8 28 (1.25%) Wireless
9 24 (1.07%) BGP
10 22 (0.98%) HTTP
11 21 (0.94%) DHCP
11 21 (0.94%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.89%) Internet
13 19 (0.85%) OSPF
14 17 (0.76%) Skype
14 17 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.67%) Unified Communications
15 15 (0.67%) VLAN
16 14 (0.63%) SSH
16 14 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (5.86%) Power BI
2 81 (3.62%) PostgreSQL
3 77 (3.44%) SQL Server
4 55 (2.46%) NoSQL
5 49 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.97%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.79%) Tableau
8 34 (1.52%) MySQL
9 31 (1.39%) Big Data
10 21 (0.94%) Metadata
10 21 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 18 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
13 16 (0.72%) Hadoop
14 15 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
17 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
18 9 (0.40%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 265 (11.85%) JIRA
2 109 (4.87%) Git
3 66 (2.95%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.37%) GitLab
5 29 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.76%) MLflow
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 15 (0.67%) Postman
10 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 10 (0.45%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.31%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.31%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,086 (48.57%) Social Skills
2 693 (30.99%) Finance
3 516 (23.08%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (10.15%) Banking
5 181 (8.09%) Public Sector
6 109 (4.87%) Presentation Skills
7 86 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.67%) Marketing
9 80 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
10 78 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.22%) Manufacturing
12 71 (3.18%) Legal
13 64 (2.86%) Aerospace
14 56 (2.50%) Military
15 50 (2.24%) Front Office
16 48 (2.15%) Financial Institution
17 47 (2.10%) Telecoms
18 44 (1.97%) Law
18 44 (1.97%) Retail
19 40 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 318 (14.22%) Analyst
2 227 (10.15%) Senior
3 188 (8.41%) Lead
4 178 (7.96%) Developer
5 175 (7.83%) Architect
6 163 (7.29%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.80%) Business Analyst
8 79 (3.53%) Consultant
9 65 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
10 63 (2.82%) Software Engineer
11 60 (2.68%) Technical Support
12 55 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (2.28%) Senior Analyst
14 50 (2.24%) Security Engineer
15 48 (2.15%) Data Scientist
16 46 (2.06%) Product Manager
17 38 (1.70%) Technical Analyst
18 36 (1.61%) IT Support
19 35 (1.57%) Senior Business Analyst
20 34 (1.52%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.43%) REST
2 60 (2.68%) .NET
3 58 (2.59%) RESTful
4 53 (2.37%) React
5 48 (2.15%) HTML
6 46 (2.06%) Middleware
7 42 (1.88%) Kafka
8 37 (1.65%) CSS
8 37 (1.65%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.65%) XML
9 36 (1.61%) OAuth
10 35 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
11 34 (1.52%) JSON
11 34 (1.52%) Spring
12 33 (1.48%) SOAP
13 31 (1.39%) Pandas
14 30 (1.34%) PyTorch
14 30 (1.34%) Spring Boot
14 30 (1.34%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.21%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.27%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.75%) Product Ownership
3 107 (4.79%) Onboarding
4 99 (4.43%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.26%) Virtual Team
6 70 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.91%) Distributed Systems
8 64 (2.86%) Algorithms
9 59 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
10 50 (2.24%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.24%) Data Structures
11 48 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (2.15%) PMI
12 44 (1.97%) Derivative
13 36 (1.61%) Security Posture
14 34 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.43%) Equities
16 31 (1.39%) Life Science
17 29 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.25%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 256 (11.45%) Windows
2 164 (7.33%) Linux
3 70 (3.13%) Unix
4 65 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.46%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.81%) Android
8 15 (0.67%) Mac OS
9 14 (0.63%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.54%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
17 3 (0.13%) CentOS
17 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 832 (37.21%) Computer Science
2 732 (32.74%) Agile
3 608 (27.19%) Problem-Solving
4 385 (17.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 336 (15.03%) DevOps
6 329 (14.71%) AI
7 310 (13.86%) Project Management
8 296 (13.24%) Continuous Improvement
9 263 (11.76%) CI/CD
10 256 (11.45%) Change Management
11 247 (11.05%) Analytics
12 239 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 235 (10.51%) Cybersecurity
13 235 (10.51%) Decision-Making
14 233 (10.42%) ITIL
15 218 (9.75%) Migration
16 217 (9.70%) Risk Management
17 207 (9.26%) PRINCE2
18 202 (9.03%) Project Delivery
19 199 (8.90%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 397 (17.75%) Python
2 332 (14.85%) SQL
3 154 (6.89%) Java
4 121 (5.41%) PowerShell
5 88 (3.94%) JavaScript
6 69 (3.09%) C#
7 64 (2.86%) C++
8 48 (2.15%) TypeScript
9 41 (1.83%) Bash
10 36 (1.61%) Go
11 26 (1.16%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.16%) R
12 18 (0.81%) Perl
13 16 (0.72%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.67%) Rust
14 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
15 13 (0.58%) C
16 12 (0.54%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 534 (23.88%) Computer Science Degree
2 434 (19.41%) Security Cleared
3 321 (14.36%) Master's Degree
4 312 (13.95%) SC Cleared
5 138 (6.17%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.55%) PMP
7 122 (5.46%) CISSP
8 86 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.31%) CISM
10 72 (3.22%) PhD
11 59 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
11 59 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
12 54 (2.42%) Azure Certification
13 49 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
14 48 (2.15%) DV Cleared
15 38 (1.70%) CCNP
16 35 (1.57%) MBA
17 33 (1.48%) CBAP
18 29 (1.30%) AWS Certification
18 29 (1.30%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.71%) QA
2 122 (5.46%) GDPR
3 102 (4.56%) PMO
4 99 (4.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 91 (4.07%) NIST
6 76 (3.40%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.24%) PCI DSS
8 42 (1.88%) SLA
9 37 (1.65%) Accessibility
10 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (1.03%) NCSC
12 20 (0.89%) GRC
13 15 (0.67%) WCAG
14 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.63%) IFRS
15 13 (0.58%) Basel III
16 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
16 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
17 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
System Software
1 152 (6.80%) Docker
2 143 (6.40%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.63%) Firmware
6 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.089%) HDFS
11 2 (0.089%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.045%) Lustre
12 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 162 (7.25%) Kubernetes
2 100 (4.47%) Terraform
3 70 (3.13%) Ansible
4 64 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
5 46 (2.06%) Grafana
6 38 (1.70%) Prometheus
7 37 (1.65%) SCCM
8 30 (1.34%) OPNET
9 19 (0.85%) Puppet
9 19 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.63%) Kibana
12 13 (0.58%) Nmap
13 11 (0.49%) SCOM
14 9 (0.40%) Kiali
15 8 (0.36%) Argo
16 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
17 6 (0.27%) WSUS
18 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 474 (21.20%) Microsoft
2 145 (6.48%) Oracle
3 116 (5.19%) ServiceNow
4 113 (5.05%) SAP
5 104 (4.65%) Google
6 71 (3.18%) Cisco
7 67 (3.00%) Splunk
8 54 (2.42%) Remedy
9 52 (2.33%) Atlassian
10 49 (2.19%) Databricks
11 45 (2.01%) VMware
12 44 (1.97%) IBM
13 42 (1.88%) Citrix
14 41 (1.83%) Salesforce
15 37 (1.65%) Palo Alto
16 27 (1.21%) CheckPoint
17 24 (1.07%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.98%) Adobe
18 22 (0.98%) Informatica
19 21 (0.94%) Aruba