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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -11 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,206 1,929 3,079
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.02% 7.39% 8.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.91% 23.89% 26.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,199 1,157 1,663
10th Percentile £204 £250 £236
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £635
90th Percentile £714 £765 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -5.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 244 142 354
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.02 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.31 £25.40
Median hourly rate £47.00 £45.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.10% +8.80% -15.79%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.25 £62.20
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.84 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £46.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year -2.70% +15.63% -20.00%

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 13,869 8,073 11,407
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.58% 30.94% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,346 5,088 7,062
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £718 £717 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.43% -0.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,044 535 994
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.07 £20.50
Median hourly rate £53.00 £28.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +85.96% -32.94% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £63.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £27.94 £40.94
% change year-on-year +82.53% -31.75% -26.70%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 3 July 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 -19 946 £515 -6.36% 1,463
South East -3 421 £500 +3.09% 653
North of England -14 328 £448 -0.39% 451
Midlands -25 198 £503 +31.80% 304
North West -11 184 £447 -1.97% 249
West Midlands -28 149 £492 +17.49% 166
East of England -5 144 £450 -10.00% 237
Yorkshire -12 130 £500 +17.65% 138
South West -20 120 £425 -10.53% 256
East Midlands -12 47 £550 +54.49% 138
North East -42 14 £450 +130.77% 69
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
1 123 (5.58%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.94%) Confluence
3 58 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.45%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.77%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.41%) SAS
10 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.091%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 257 (11.65%) Microsoft Office
2 206 (9.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 121 (5.49%) Microsoft Project
5 61 (2.77%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.63%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.091%) Windchill
15 1 (0.045%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 52 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.59%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.27%) Magento
6 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 506 (22.94%) Azure
2 293 (13.28%) AWS
3 190 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (8.57%) Power Platform
5 132 (5.98%) Entra ID
6 111 (5.03%) GCP
7 87 (3.94%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.26%) SaaS
9 55 (2.49%) GitHub
10 38 (1.72%) Serverless
11 37 (1.68%) Snowflake
12 36 (1.63%) Figma
13 33 (1.50%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.45%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.36%) OneDrive
16 29 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
17 28 (1.27%) PaaS
18 25 (1.13%) Google Workspace
19 24 (1.09%) IaaS
20 22 (1.00%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.40%) Firewall
2 69 (3.13%) DNS
2 69 (3.13%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.81%) Network Security
4 49 (2.22%) VPN
4 49 (2.22%) WAN
5 47 (2.13%) LAN
6 34 (1.54%) DHCP
7 28 (1.27%) Wireless
8 23 (1.04%) BGP
9 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
9 20 (0.91%) OSPF
9 20 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
10 14 (0.63%) Internet
11 13 (0.59%) SSL
12 12 (0.54%) MPLS
12 12 (0.54%) Skype
12 12 (0.54%) SSH
13 11 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (7.25%) Power BI
2 105 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.63%) Tableau
7 35 (1.59%) Metadata
7 35 (1.59%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.31%) Big Data
9 27 (1.22%) MongoDB
10 26 (1.18%) MySQL
11 21 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (0.86%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.59%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 186 (8.43%) JIRA
2 105 (4.76%) Git
3 43 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.81%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.91%) MLflow
7 18 (0.82%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.63%) Selenium
9 11 (0.50%) JUnit
9 11 (0.50%) Postman
10 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.41%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.41%) Gradle
11 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.41%) Subversion
12 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.36%) Maven
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
14 5 (0.23%) Flyway
General
1 988 (44.79%) Social Skills
2 666 (30.19%) Finance
3 462 (20.94%) Analytical Skills
4 183 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 177 (8.02%) Banking
6 131 (5.94%) Organisational Skills
7 102 (4.62%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.44%) Marketing
9 87 (3.94%) Aerospace
10 84 (3.81%) Legal
11 81 (3.67%) Manufacturing
12 76 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
13 75 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.81%) Telecoms
15 59 (2.67%) Retail
16 51 (2.31%) Law
17 45 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.77%) Front Office
19 32 (1.45%) Automotive
19 32 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 320 (14.51%) Analyst
2 244 (11.06%) Senior
3 176 (7.98%) Architect
4 163 (7.39%) Lead
5 150 (6.80%) Developer
6 144 (6.53%) Business Analyst
7 141 (6.39%) Project Manager
8 67 (3.04%) Senior Manager
9 64 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (2.77%) Consultant
11 58 (2.63%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.45%) Designer
13 51 (2.31%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.27%) IT Manager
14 50 (2.27%) Senior Analyst
15 49 (2.22%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.18%) IT Support
17 45 (2.04%) IT Analyst
18 44 (1.99%) Support Engineer
19 43 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.99%) .NET
1 88 (3.99%) REST
2 57 (2.58%) React
3 44 (1.99%) Kafka
4 38 (1.72%) Middleware
5 36 (1.63%) OAuth
5 36 (1.63%) RESTful
6 35 (1.59%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.54%) HTML
8 32 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
9 29 (1.31%) Spring
9 29 (1.31%) Web Services
10 28 (1.27%) Spring Boot
11 27 (1.22%) SAML
12 25 (1.13%) XML
13 24 (1.09%) AngularJS
13 24 (1.09%) CSS
13 24 (1.09%) JSON
13 24 (1.09%) LDAP
13 24 (1.09%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.84%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.12%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.71%) Product Ownership
4 87 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.99%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.31%) Data Structures
8 50 (2.27%) Virtual Team
9 48 (2.18%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.09%) Algorithms
11 42 (1.90%) Operational Technology
12 41 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.54%) Robotics
15 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.45%) PMI
16 31 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.41%) Life Science
17 28 (1.27%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 298 (13.51%) Windows
2 166 (7.52%) Linux
3 71 (3.22%) Unix
4 69 (3.13%) Windows Server
5 53 (2.40%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 23 (1.04%) Android
10 10 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 7 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.23%) Solaris
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
15 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 729 (33.05%) Computer Science
2 635 (28.79%) Agile
3 571 (25.88%) Problem-Solving
4 376 (17.04%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (16.55%) AI
6 348 (15.78%) Continuous Improvement
7 301 (13.64%) DevOps
8 269 (12.19%) Project Management
9 265 (12.01%) Analytics
10 256 (11.60%) CI/CD
11 239 (10.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 236 (10.70%) Decision-Making
13 233 (10.56%) ITIL
14 222 (10.06%) Cybersecurity
15 201 (9.11%) Roadmaps
16 197 (8.93%) Change Management
17 180 (8.16%) Migration
17 180 (8.16%) Risk Management
18 178 (8.07%) Software Engineering
19 176 (7.98%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 371 (16.82%) Python
2 337 (15.28%) SQL
3 147 (6.66%) Java
4 125 (5.67%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.17%) C#
6 82 (3.72%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.81%) Bash
8 37 (1.68%) C++
9 30 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.13%) R
11 23 (1.04%) T-SQL
12 19 (0.86%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.73%) C
14 12 (0.54%) Bicep
14 12 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 12 (0.54%) Go
15 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.50%) Perl
16 10 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 444 (20.13%) Computer Science Degree
2 390 (17.68%) Security Cleared
3 262 (11.88%) SC Cleared
4 213 (9.66%) Master's Degree
5 125 (5.67%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.44%) CISSP
7 110 (4.99%) PMP
8 92 (4.17%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.72%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.63%) DV Cleared
11 57 (2.58%) Azure Certification
12 56 (2.54%) CISM
13 55 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
14 45 (2.04%) PhD
15 40 (1.81%) CCNP
16 39 (1.77%) CCNA
17 37 (1.68%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.59%) CISA
19 27 (1.22%) A+ Certification
19 27 (1.22%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.21%) QA
2 112 (5.08%) NIST
3 110 (4.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.76%) Data Quality
5 95 (4.31%) PMO
6 84 (3.81%) GDPR
7 48 (2.18%) SLA
8 39 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 34 (1.54%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.31%) GRC
11 27 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (1.00%) NCSC
13 16 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.68%) IFRS
15 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.41%) COBIT
19 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 180 (8.16%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.30%) Docker
3 41 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.95%) Firmware
6 14 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.14%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.091%) KVM
Systems Management
1 129 (5.85%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.94%) Terraform
3 69 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.77%) Ansible
5 32 (1.45%) Grafana
5 32 (1.45%) SCCM
6 29 (1.31%) Prometheus
7 20 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.63%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.59%) Puppet
11 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.41%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.41%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.23%) Kibana
14 5 (0.23%) SCOM
14 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
15 4 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 529 (23.98%) Microsoft
2 150 (6.80%) Oracle
3 124 (5.62%) SAP
3 124 (5.62%) ServiceNow
4 93 (4.22%) Google
5 65 (2.95%) Cisco
6 53 (2.40%) Databricks
7 49 (2.22%) VMware
8 44 (1.99%) Adobe
9 43 (1.95%) Salesforce
10 39 (1.77%) IBM
11 37 (1.68%) Citrix
11 37 (1.68%) Splunk
12 31 (1.41%) Palo Alto
13 30 (1.36%) CyberArk
14 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.95%) CheckPoint
15 21 (0.95%) Siemens
16 19 (0.86%) HP
17 18 (0.82%) Ariba