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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,242 2,010 2,794
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.00% 7.35% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.82% 23.78% 25.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,203 1,610
10th Percentile £204 £259 £256
25th Percentile £363 £379 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -3.76%
75th Percentile £600 £643 £638
90th Percentile £712 £750 £751
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 157 279
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.15 £18.31
25th Percentile £27.10 £27.28 £27.00
Median hourly rate £45.50 £42.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.06% -22.73% +1.04%
75th Percentile £83.38 £71.45 £66.88
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.43 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £45.02 £47.75
% change year-on-year -1.14% -5.73% -12.39%

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 14,175 8,454 10,787
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.59% 30.92% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,559 5,333 6,811
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,059 617 872
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.30 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.44% -41.16% -23.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +107.75% -41.51% -25.00%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -21 943 £525 -4.55% 1,511
South East +1 469 £500 +3.90% 595
North of England -15 326 £449 +0.11% 367
Midlands -27 194 £498 +17.06% 254
North West -13 180 £447 -5.89% 177
East of England -4 147 £450 - 227
West Midlands -33 145 £492 +9.33% 142
Yorkshire -10 129 £450 +6.51% 124
South West -24 119 £415 -7.78% 196
East Midlands -18 47 £503 +40.36% 112
North East -40 17 £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
1 132 (5.89%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.95%) Confluence
3 58 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.34%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.80%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 254 (11.33%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (9.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 131 (5.84%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.41%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 57 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Primavera
3 13 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 514 (22.93%) Azure
2 285 (12.71%) AWS
3 198 (8.83%) Power Platform
4 194 (8.65%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (6.51%) Entra ID
6 118 (5.26%) GCP
7 95 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.30%) SaaS
9 55 (2.45%) GitHub
10 39 (1.74%) Snowflake
11 38 (1.69%) Serverless
12 36 (1.61%) Figma
12 36 (1.61%) PowerApps
13 35 (1.56%) Power Automate
14 34 (1.52%) OneDrive
15 32 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
16 27 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
17 25 (1.12%) IaaS
17 25 (1.12%) PaaS
18 22 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.50%) Firewall
2 70 (3.12%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.94%) DNS
4 62 (2.77%) Network Security
5 56 (2.50%) VPN
6 41 (1.83%) WAN
7 39 (1.74%) LAN
8 37 (1.65%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.89%) BGP
12 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
13 17 (0.76%) OSPF
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) SSH
14 14 (0.62%) VLAN
15 13 (0.58%) SSL
16 12 (0.54%) MPLS
16 12 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (7.40%) Power BI
2 105 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.14%) Relational Database
5 43 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.65%) Tableau
7 36 (1.61%) Metadata
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.25%) Big Data
10 25 (1.12%) MongoDB
11 23 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (0.98%) MySQL
13 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 10 (0.45%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 189 (8.43%) JIRA
2 108 (4.82%) Git
3 47 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.69%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.80%) MLflow
7 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.62%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 8 (0.36%) Postman
13 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
15 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 981 (43.76%) Social Skills
2 665 (29.66%) Finance
3 489 (21.81%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 175 (7.81%) Banking
6 142 (6.33%) Organisational Skills
7 94 (4.19%) Marketing
8 92 (4.10%) Presentation Skills
9 91 (4.06%) Legal
10 90 (4.01%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.84%) Manufacturing
12 82 (3.66%) Influencing Skills
13 77 (3.43%) Documentation Skills
14 66 (2.94%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.77%) Retail
16 55 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 52 (2.32%) Law
18 37 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
19 33 (1.47%) Automotive
19 33 (1.47%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 312 (13.92%) Analyst
2 251 (11.20%) Senior
3 174 (7.76%) Lead
4 171 (7.63%) Architect
5 148 (6.60%) Developer
6 142 (6.33%) Project Manager
7 136 (6.07%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.17%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.68%) Consultant
10 57 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
11 54 (2.41%) Designer
11 54 (2.41%) IT Manager
12 53 (2.36%) IT Support
13 50 (2.23%) Product Manager
14 49 (2.19%) Software Engineer
15 48 (2.14%) Support Engineer
15 48 (2.14%) Technical Support
16 47 (2.10%) IT Analyst
17 43 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
17 43 (1.92%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.88%) REST
2 85 (3.79%) .NET
3 57 (2.54%) React
4 43 (1.92%) Kafka
5 36 (1.61%) OAuth
6 33 (1.47%) .NET Framework
6 33 (1.47%) Middleware
6 33 (1.47%) RESTful
7 32 (1.43%) HTML
8 30 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
8 30 (1.34%) Web Services
9 28 (1.25%) SAML
9 28 (1.25%) Spring
10 27 (1.20%) AngularJS
10 27 (1.20%) LDAP
11 26 (1.16%) JSON
11 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
12 25 (1.12%) CSS
12 25 (1.12%) XML
13 24 (1.07%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 176 (7.85%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.38%) Onboarding
3 136 (6.07%) Product Ownership
4 97 (4.33%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.68%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.41%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.27%) Algorithms
8 51 (2.27%) Virtual Team
9 49 (2.19%) Security Posture
10 45 (2.01%) Operational Technology
11 38 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
12 36 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
13 35 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.52%) Life Science
15 33 (1.47%) Robotics
16 32 (1.43%) PMI
17 31 (1.38%) AI Agents
17 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 295 (13.16%) Windows
2 164 (7.31%) Linux
3 72 (3.21%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.72%) Unix
5 46 (2.05%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 24 (1.07%) Android
10 12 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.13%) Rocky
15 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (33.45%) Computer Science
2 635 (28.32%) Agile
3 588 (26.23%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (17.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 376 (16.77%) Continuous Improvement
6 368 (16.41%) AI
7 299 (13.34%) DevOps
8 283 (12.62%) Project Management
9 279 (12.44%) Analytics
10 257 (11.46%) CI/CD
11 247 (11.02%) ITIL
12 241 (10.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (10.70%) Decision-Making
14 227 (10.12%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.10%) Roadmaps
16 201 (8.97%) Change Management
17 189 (8.43%) Software Engineering
18 188 (8.39%) PRINCE2
19 187 (8.34%) Scrum
20 185 (8.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 379 (16.90%) Python
2 323 (14.41%) SQL
3 146 (6.51%) Java
4 140 (6.24%) PowerShell
5 90 (4.01%) C#
6 79 (3.52%) JavaScript
7 46 (2.05%) Bash
8 36 (1.61%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.16%) R
11 23 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.94%) Bicep
13 21 (0.94%) C
14 18 (0.80%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.40%) Perl
18 8 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 427 (19.05%) Computer Science Degree
2 405 (18.06%) Security Cleared
3 265 (11.82%) SC Cleared
4 206 (9.19%) Master's Degree
5 132 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.13%) PMP
7 114 (5.08%) CISSP
8 100 (4.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
10 68 (3.03%) DV Cleared
11 64 (2.85%) Azure Certification
12 58 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
13 52 (2.32%) CISM
13 52 (2.32%) PhD
14 39 (1.74%) CCNA
15 38 (1.69%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.61%) CCNP
17 35 (1.56%) CISA
18 34 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 28 (1.25%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.00%) Data Quality
1 112 (5.00%) QA
2 110 (4.91%) NIST
3 104 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.28%) PMO
5 74 (3.30%) GDPR
6 46 (2.05%) SLA
7 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 24 (1.07%) PCI DSS
10 23 (1.03%) GRC
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.54%) IFRS
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.40%) P3O
15 8 (0.36%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 8 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 187 (8.34%) Active Directory
2 112 (5.00%) Docker
3 45 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 123 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.88%) Terraform
3 69 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.63%) Ansible
5 35 (1.56%) SCCM
6 29 (1.29%) Grafana
7 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.27%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 558 (24.89%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.56%) Oracle
3 131 (5.84%) SAP
4 130 (5.80%) ServiceNow
5 92 (4.10%) Google
6 64 (2.85%) Cisco
7 59 (2.63%) VMware
8 52 (2.32%) Databricks
9 48 (2.14%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.05%) Adobe
11 45 (2.01%) IBM
12 33 (1.47%) Citrix
12 33 (1.47%) CyberArk
13 30 (1.34%) Splunk
14 28 (1.25%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.94%) Siemens
17 20 (0.89%) Ariba
17 20 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
18 18 (0.80%) HP