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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -16 -3 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,252 2,040 2,569
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.93% 7.35% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.59% 23.31% 25.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,190 1,198 1,490
10th Percentile £204 £259 £287
25th Percentile £364 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year - -3.57% -3.08%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £750 £768
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 166 223
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.12 £20.02
25th Percentile £26.74 £27.19 £30.39
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -25.89% +14.70%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £78.84
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% -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 14,448 8,752 10,107
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.55% 30.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,716 5,505 6,397
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £437 £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 1,127 683 690
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.22 £14.95
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.46
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.12
UK median hourly rate £49.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +95.83% -41.51% -21.82%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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% 891
South East +4 470 £510 +7.37% 677
North of England -13 328 £453 +1.34% 515
North West -13 194 £450 -3.02% 265
Midlands -28 181 £450 - 369
West Midlands -31 135 £450 - 193
East of England -11 130 £350 -22.22% 315
South West -24 123 £415 -7.78% 357
Yorkshire -2 120 £500 +27.23% 164
East Midlands -21 44 £475 +22.11% 175
North East -42 14 £450 +130.77% 96
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 (6.22%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.62%) Confluence
3 58 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 230 (10.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 223 (9.90%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.42%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.04%) 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
12 7 (0.31%) Windchill
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
15 3 (0.13%) Trello
16 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
16 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
1 516 (22.91%) Azure
2 286 (12.70%) AWS
3 206 (9.15%) Microsoft 365
4 204 (9.06%) Power Platform
5 140 (6.22%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.64%) GCP
7 102 (4.53%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.29%) SaaS
9 55 (2.44%) GitHub
10 45 (2.00%) PowerApps
11 44 (1.95%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.91%) Serverless
13 42 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
14 41 (1.82%) OneDrive
15 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
16 35 (1.55%) Figma
17 34 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
18 24 (1.07%) IaaS
19 23 (1.02%) PaaS
20 22 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.57%) Firewall
2 73 (3.24%) DNS
3 67 (2.98%) Network Security
4 61 (2.71%) TCP/IP
5 60 (2.66%) VPN
6 44 (1.95%) DHCP
7 38 (1.69%) WAN
8 35 (1.55%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) BGP
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) VLAN
12 17 (0.75%) 3GPP
12 17 (0.75%) SSH
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
14 14 (0.62%) 5G
14 14 (0.62%) SSL
15 13 (0.58%) MPLS
15 13 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (7.19%) Power BI
2 95 (4.22%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 44 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
5 43 (1.91%) Metadata
5 43 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
6 32 (1.42%) Tableau
7 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
8 26 (1.15%) Oracle Database
9 25 (1.11%) Big Data
10 22 (0.98%) MySQL
11 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
13 15 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
14 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
15 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
15 12 (0.53%) GIS
15 12 (0.53%) Power Query
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 175 (7.77%) JIRA
2 117 (5.20%) Git
3 50 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.91%) GitLab
5 34 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) Selenium
7 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
8 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 11 (0.49%) MLflow
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 9 (0.40%) Maven
10 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Gradle
12 7 (0.31%) Postman
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 992 (44.05%) Social Skills
2 661 (29.35%) Finance
3 526 (23.36%) Analytical Skills
4 181 (8.04%) Banking
5 174 (7.73%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.35%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (4.88%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.17%) Manufacturing
9 91 (4.04%) Marketing
10 90 (4.00%) Legal
11 82 (3.64%) Influencing Skills
12 80 (3.55%) Telecoms
13 74 (3.29%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.75%) Retail
16 50 (2.22%) Law
17 49 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
19 41 (1.82%) Front Office
20 37 (1.64%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 309 (13.72%) Analyst
2 249 (11.06%) Senior
3 185 (8.21%) Lead
4 164 (7.28%) Developer
5 153 (6.79%) Architect
6 142 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 115 (5.11%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.98%) Senior Manager
9 65 (2.89%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.71%) IT Support
11 56 (2.49%) Consultant
12 54 (2.40%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.26%) Designer
15 50 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
16 49 (2.18%) IT Manager
17 47 (2.09%) Delivery Manager
18 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
19 41 (1.82%) Data Engineer
20 39 (1.73%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.22%) REST
1 95 (4.22%) Terraform
2 92 (4.09%) .NET
3 54 (2.40%) React
4 47 (2.09%) HTML
5 46 (2.04%) Kafka
6 40 (1.78%) RESTful
7 38 (1.69%) OAuth
8 36 (1.60%) CSS
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 27 (1.20%) LDAP
12 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
12 27 (1.20%) OpenID
12 27 (1.20%) XML
13 26 (1.15%) SailPoint
14 25 (1.11%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 186 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.99%) Onboarding
3 134 (5.95%) Product Ownership
4 92 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 83 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 71 (3.15%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.53%) Data Centre
8 46 (2.04%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
11 40 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
12 39 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
13 35 (1.55%) Virtual Team
14 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
16 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 30 (1.33%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 282 (12.52%) Windows
2 172 (7.64%) Linux
3 66 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.62%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.98%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) VMS
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 774 (34.37%) Computer Science
2 625 (27.75%) Agile
3 600 (26.64%) Problem-Solving
4 427 (18.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 416 (18.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 357 (15.85%) AI
7 303 (13.45%) DevOps
8 289 (12.83%) Project Management
9 278 (12.34%) Analytics
10 268 (11.90%) CI/CD
11 263 (11.68%) ITIL
12 245 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 222 (9.86%) Cybersecurity
14 219 (9.72%) Decision-Making
15 208 (9.24%) Software Engineering
16 204 (9.06%) Change Management
17 203 (9.01%) PRINCE2
18 201 (8.93%) Roadmaps
19 197 (8.75%) Scrum
20 181 (8.04%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 386 (17.14%) Python
2 326 (14.48%) SQL
3 159 (7.06%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.62%) Java
5 100 (4.44%) C#
6 95 (4.22%) JavaScript
7 54 (2.40%) Bash
8 47 (2.09%) C++
9 35 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) Bicep
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.07%) C
13 23 (1.02%) R
14 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.49%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 450 (19.98%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (18.92%) Security Cleared
3 275 (12.21%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.57%) Master's Degree
5 130 (5.77%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.11%) Microsoft Certification
7 113 (5.02%) PMP
8 104 (4.62%) CISSP
9 79 (3.51%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (3.20%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.89%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
13 50 (2.22%) PhD
14 47 (2.09%) CISM
15 40 (1.78%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 38 (1.69%) CCNA
17 37 (1.64%) CCNP
18 36 (1.60%) AWS Certification
19 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
20 30 (1.33%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (5.51%) QA
2 119 (5.28%) Data Quality
3 100 (4.44%) NIST
4 92 (4.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (3.64%) PMO
6 59 (2.62%) GDPR
7 44 (1.95%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) NCSC
12 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 9 (0.40%) COBIT
17 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 188 (8.35%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.88%) Docker
3 52 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.11%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
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 1 (0.044%) ACF2
Systems Management
1 114 (5.06%) Kubernetes
2 73 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
3 64 (2.84%) Ansible
4 35 (1.55%) SCCM
5 29 (1.29%) Grafana
6 26 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.67%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 9 (0.40%) 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%) Oracle RMAN
12 7 (0.31%) SCOM
13 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 5 (0.22%) CASB
14 5 (0.22%) Functional Safety
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 579 (25.71%) Microsoft
2 156 (6.93%) Oracle
3 137 (6.08%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.46%) SAP
5 86 (3.82%) Google
6 68 (3.02%) VMware
7 64 (2.84%) Cisco
8 61 (2.71%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
11 49 (2.18%) Databricks
12 40 (1.78%) Splunk
13 31 (1.38%) CyberArk
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) Apple
18 19 (0.84%) Ariba
19 17 (0.75%) HP