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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,246 2,013 2,569
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.92% 7.31% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.56% 23.19% 25.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,183 1,181 1,489
10th Percentile £204 £259 £287
25th Percentile £363 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -3.96%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £733 £750 £768
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 166 223
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.12 £20.02
25th Percentile £26.58 £27.19 £30.39
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -25.89% +16.38%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £78.84
UK median hourly rate £39.11 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -7.98% -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 14,437 8,682 10,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.60% 31.52% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,707 5,461 6,389
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £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 1,126 679 688
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.20 £14.84
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.87
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.35
UK median hourly rate £48.84 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +94.19% -44.11% -18.18%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -21 976 £525 -4.55% 3,623
South East +5 471 £514 +8.16% 859
North of England -13 324 £470 +6.33% 723
North West -16 191 £453 -1.52% 412
Midlands -30 178 £475 +5.56% 450
West Midlands -34 132 £481 +6.89% 249
East of England -14 131 £350 -22.22% 541
South West -22 121 £411 -8.61% 618
Yorkshire -2 119 £500 +27.23% 212
East Midlands -25 44 £475 +22.11% 200
North East -42 14 £450 +130.77% 117
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
1 140 (6.23%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.63%) Confluence
3 57 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.45%) Camunda
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.27%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.089%) nginx
Applications
1 230 (10.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 219 (9.75%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.43%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (5.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.05%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) 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 47 (2.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 513 (22.84%) Azure
2 287 (12.78%) AWS
3 207 (9.22%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (8.95%) Power Platform
5 138 (6.14%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.65%) GCP
7 102 (4.54%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.25%) SaaS
9 55 (2.45%) GitHub
10 44 (1.96%) PowerApps
11 43 (1.91%) Power Automate
11 43 (1.91%) Serverless
12 42 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
13 40 (1.78%) OneDrive
14 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.56%) Figma
16 33 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.07%) IaaS
18 23 (1.02%) PaaS
19 22 (0.98%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.50%) Firewall
2 75 (3.34%) DNS
3 67 (2.98%) Network Security
4 60 (2.67%) VPN
5 59 (2.63%) TCP/IP
6 44 (1.96%) DHCP
7 35 (1.56%) WAN
8 32 (1.42%) LAN
9 25 (1.11%) Wireless
10 19 (0.85%) BGP
10 19 (0.85%) Internet
10 19 (0.85%) SSH
11 17 (0.76%) 3GPP
12 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) 5G
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.62%) SSL
15 13 (0.58%) MPLS
15 13 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (7.12%) Power BI
2 96 (4.27%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
4 43 (1.91%) Metadata
5 42 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
6 32 (1.42%) NoSQL
6 32 (1.42%) Tableau
7 26 (1.16%) Big Data
8 25 (1.11%) Oracle Database
9 22 (0.98%) MySQL
10 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (0.53%) GIS
14 12 (0.53%) Power Query
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 175 (7.79%) JIRA
2 117 (5.21%) Git
3 53 (2.36%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.05%) GitLab
5 35 (1.56%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.93%) Selenium
7 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.67%) JUnit
8 15 (0.67%) SonarQube
9 12 (0.53%) Maven
10 11 (0.49%) MLflow
10 11 (0.49%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.31%) Mockito
14 7 (0.31%) Postman
15 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 985 (43.86%) Social Skills
2 661 (29.43%) Finance
3 521 (23.20%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.24%) Banking
5 170 (7.57%) Public Sector
6 142 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (4.99%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.19%) Manufacturing
9 90 (4.01%) Marketing
10 89 (3.96%) Legal
11 81 (3.61%) Telecoms
12 80 (3.56%) Influencing Skills
13 75 (3.34%) Presentation Skills
14 62 (2.76%) Retail
15 61 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
16 49 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 49 (2.18%) Law
17 42 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
18 41 (1.83%) Front Office
19 37 (1.65%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 311 (13.85%) Analyst
2 246 (10.95%) Senior
3 186 (8.28%) Lead
4 168 (7.48%) Developer
5 152 (6.77%) Architect
6 146 (6.50%) Business Analyst
7 115 (5.12%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.98%) Senior Manager
9 65 (2.89%) Support Engineer
10 62 (2.76%) IT Support
11 56 (2.49%) Consultant
12 54 (2.40%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.36%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.27%) Designer
15 50 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
16 49 (2.18%) IT Manager
17 48 (2.14%) Delivery Manager
18 41 (1.83%) Software Engineer
19 39 (1.74%) Senior Analyst
19 39 (1.74%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.23%) Terraform
2 94 (4.19%) REST
3 92 (4.10%) .NET
4 55 (2.45%) React
5 50 (2.23%) HTML
6 48 (2.14%) Kafka
7 39 (1.74%) CSS
7 39 (1.74%) RESTful
8 38 (1.69%) OAuth
9 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
9 34 (1.51%) Middleware
10 32 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
10 32 (1.42%) Web Services
11 29 (1.29%) SAML
12 28 (1.25%) LDAP
13 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
13 27 (1.20%) OpenID
13 27 (1.20%) XML
14 26 (1.16%) SailPoint
15 25 (1.11%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.19%) Management Information System
2 134 (5.97%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.92%) Onboarding
4 90 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 83 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 74 (3.29%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.54%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.54%) Data Centre
8 45 (2.00%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
10 41 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
11 40 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
12 39 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.56%) Virtual Team
14 34 (1.51%) Life Science
15 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
16 31 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
17 30 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 30 (1.34%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 282 (12.56%) Windows
2 172 (7.66%) Linux
3 67 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.58%) Unix
5 46 (2.05%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.98%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 767 (34.15%) Computer Science
2 629 (28.01%) Agile
3 593 (26.40%) Problem-Solving
4 430 (19.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 417 (18.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 352 (15.67%) AI
7 306 (13.62%) DevOps
8 288 (12.82%) Project Management
9 277 (12.33%) Analytics
10 271 (12.07%) CI/CD
11 261 (11.62%) ITIL
12 246 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 221 (9.84%) Cybersecurity
14 218 (9.71%) Decision-Making
15 207 (9.22%) Software Engineering
16 205 (9.13%) Change Management
17 204 (9.08%) PRINCE2
18 203 (9.04%) Roadmaps
19 201 (8.95%) Scrum
20 181 (8.06%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 382 (17.01%) Python
2 330 (14.69%) SQL
3 158 (7.03%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.63%) Java
5 100 (4.45%) C#
6 96 (4.27%) JavaScript
7 54 (2.40%) Bash
8 47 (2.09%) C++
9 34 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.16%) Bicep
11 24 (1.07%) C
11 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) R
13 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 443 (19.72%) Computer Science Degree
2 423 (18.83%) Security Cleared
3 273 (12.15%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.50%) Master's Degree
5 129 (5.74%) PMI Certification
6 114 (5.08%) Microsoft Certification
7 112 (4.99%) PMP
8 104 (4.63%) CISSP
9 74 (3.29%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.25%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.94%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
13 50 (2.23%) PhD
14 47 (2.09%) CISM
15 40 (1.78%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.65%) AWS Certification
17 34 (1.51%) CCNA
17 34 (1.51%) CCNP
18 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
19 30 (1.34%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (5.52%) QA
2 118 (5.25%) Data Quality
3 100 (4.45%) NIST
4 92 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (3.65%) PMO
6 61 (2.72%) GDPR
7 44 (1.96%) SLA
8 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) NCSC
12 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
16 10 (0.45%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.40%) COBIT
18 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
18 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 187 (8.33%) Active Directory
2 112 (4.99%) Docker
3 50 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.27%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.27%) vSphere
9 5 (0.22%) 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 (0.089%) Squid
Systems Management
1 114 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.76%) Ansible
4 35 (1.56%) SCCM
5 29 (1.29%) Grafana
6 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.76%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.36%) WSUS
12 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.31%) Control-M
12 7 (0.31%) SCOM
13 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.27%) Nessus
13 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 575 (25.60%) Microsoft
2 153 (6.81%) Oracle
3 138 (6.14%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.52%) SAP
5 84 (3.74%) Google
6 66 (2.94%) VMware
7 64 (2.85%) Cisco
8 61 (2.72%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.40%) IBM
10 49 (2.18%) Adobe
10 49 (2.18%) Databricks
11 40 (1.78%) Splunk
12 31 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.16%) Citrix
15 24 (1.07%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) Apple
18 19 (0.85%) Ariba
19 17 (0.76%) HP