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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 16
Rank change year-on-year -8 -8 +12
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,174 1,912 3,115
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.51% 7.81% 8.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.71% 24.79% 26.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,281 1,138 1,668
10th Percentile £260 £250 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -1.05% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £674 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £772
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 146 348
10th Percentile £20.28 £17.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.56 £23.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £51.54 £53.75 £38.95
% change year-on-year -4.11% +38.00% -13.44%

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 13,011 7,714 11,668
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.00% 31.50% 31.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,729 4,938 7,202
10th Percentile £340 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £417 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £621 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 979 429 952
10th Percentile £17.00 £18.19 £13.99
25th Percentile £21.25 £24.66 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.00 £50.00 £39.96
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +25.13% -20.08%
75th Percentile £71.04 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £42.75 £39.92
% change year-on-year +6.34% +7.09% -23.96%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -13 942 £506 -8.05% 1,138
South East -6 361 £500 - 779
North of England -8 326 £417 -8.35% 635
Midlands -25 207 £500 +61.29% 367
North West -8 179 £400 -13.51% 399
West Midlands -26 149 £494 +64.50% 212
South West -5 144 £650 +23.81% 246
East of England -6 140 £495 -2.85% 325
Yorkshire -19 130 £474 +9.03% 180
East Midlands -16 57 £525 +47.47% 154
North East -15 18 £407 -4.24% 63
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
1 147 (6.76%) Confluence
2 106 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 286 (13.16%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.28%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.90%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 7 (0.32%) Sketch
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
10 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
11 3 (0.14%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.14%) Revit
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 47 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.78%) Primavera
3 17 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
9 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 450 (20.70%) Azure
2 253 (11.64%) AWS
3 187 (8.60%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.77%) Power Platform
5 102 (4.69%) Entra ID
6 101 (4.65%) GCP
6 101 (4.65%) SaaS
7 78 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
8 56 (2.58%) GitHub
9 33 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
9 33 (1.52%) Google Workspace
9 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
10 31 (1.43%) PaaS
11 29 (1.33%) IaaS
12 27 (1.24%) PowerApps
12 27 (1.24%) Serverless
13 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
13 24 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
13 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
14 23 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.92%) Firewall
2 58 (2.67%) LAN
3 57 (2.62%) WAN
4 47 (2.16%) DNS
5 46 (2.12%) TCP/IP
6 43 (1.98%) Network Security
7 39 (1.79%) VPN
8 29 (1.33%) Wireless
9 28 (1.29%) BGP
10 22 (1.01%) OSPF
11 21 (0.97%) DHCP
11 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.92%) HTTP
13 18 (0.83%) Skype
14 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
14 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.64%) VLAN
16 13 (0.60%) Internet
16 13 (0.60%) SAN
16 13 (0.60%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.53%) Power BI
2 87 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (2.21%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.66%) Tableau
7 34 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Big Data
9 27 (1.24%) MySQL
10 24 (1.10%) Metadata
11 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 244 (11.22%) JIRA
2 96 (4.42%) Git
3 45 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.61%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.78%) MLflow
7 17 (0.78%) Selenium
8 14 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.60%) Postman
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
General
1 1,037 (47.70%) Social Skills
2 661 (30.40%) Finance
3 483 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (9.75%) Banking
5 171 (7.87%) Public Sector
6 111 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
7 107 (4.92%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
8 82 (3.77%) Marketing
9 75 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
10 70 (3.22%) Aerospace
10 70 (3.22%) Legal
11 64 (2.94%) Manufacturing
12 54 (2.48%) Military
13 46 (2.12%) Law
13 46 (2.12%) Retail
13 46 (2.12%) Telecoms
14 45 (2.07%) Front Office
15 38 (1.75%) Investment Banking
16 35 (1.61%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 293 (13.48%) Analyst
2 218 (10.03%) Senior
3 178 (8.19%) Lead
4 175 (8.05%) Architect
5 162 (7.45%) Developer
6 159 (7.31%) Project Manager
7 142 (6.53%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.50%) Consultant
9 63 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
10 57 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
11 54 (2.48%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
13 50 (2.30%) Software Engineer
14 49 (2.25%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 42 (1.93%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.75%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.75%) Designer
17 38 (1.75%) Senior Manager
18 37 (1.70%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.14%) REST
2 65 (2.99%) .NET
3 48 (2.21%) Middleware
4 46 (2.12%) React
5 44 (2.02%) HTML
6 43 (1.98%) RESTful
7 42 (1.93%) Kafka
8 36 (1.66%) XML
9 34 (1.56%) JSON
9 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.52%) SOAP
11 31 (1.43%) Spring
12 29 (1.33%) OAuth
12 29 (1.33%) Pandas
13 28 (1.29%) CSS
13 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.20%) .NET Framework
15 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 22 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.91%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.85%) Product Ownership
3 116 (5.34%) Onboarding
4 78 (3.59%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.08%) Data Centre
7 60 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
8 53 (2.44%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (2.30%) PMI
11 49 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
11 49 (2.25%) Data Structures
12 40 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.61%) Derivative
14 33 (1.52%) Robotics
14 33 (1.52%) Security Posture
15 31 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
16 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
17 26 (1.20%) AI Agents
18 25 (1.15%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 254 (11.68%) Windows
2 161 (7.41%) Linux
3 72 (3.31%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.76%) Unix
5 56 (2.58%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.97%) Mac OS
6 21 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (0.87%) Android
8 13 (0.60%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.51%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 774 (35.60%) Computer Science
2 681 (31.32%) Agile
3 566 (26.03%) Problem-Solving
4 353 (16.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 317 (14.58%) Continuous Improvement
5 317 (14.58%) Project Management
6 316 (14.54%) AI
7 306 (14.08%) DevOps
8 239 (10.99%) CI/CD
9 234 (10.76%) Change Management
10 233 (10.72%) Analytics
10 233 (10.72%) ITIL
10 233 (10.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 217 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
12 216 (9.94%) Decision-Making
13 209 (9.61%) Migration
14 202 (9.29%) PRINCE2
15 198 (9.11%) Project Delivery
16 194 (8.92%) Risk Management
17 191 (8.79%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 353 (16.24%) Python
2 320 (14.72%) SQL
3 145 (6.67%) Java
4 115 (5.29%) PowerShell
5 78 (3.59%) C#
6 75 (3.45%) JavaScript
7 59 (2.71%) C++
8 41 (1.89%) Bash
9 36 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 27 (1.24%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.74%) Perl
14 15 (0.69%) C
14 15 (0.69%) Go
15 14 (0.64%) Rust
16 13 (0.60%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 491 (22.59%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (19.32%) Security Cleared
3 306 (14.08%) SC Cleared
4 257 (11.82%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.16%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.52%) PMP
7 98 (4.51%) CISSP
8 85 (3.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 62 (2.85%) Cisco Certification
10 52 (2.39%) CISM
10 52 (2.39%) PhD
11 51 (2.35%) Azure Certification
11 51 (2.35%) TOGAF Certification
12 48 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
12 48 (2.21%) DV Cleared
13 42 (1.93%) CCNP
14 33 (1.52%) MBA
15 32 (1.47%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 31 (1.43%) CCNA
17 30 (1.38%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.81%) QA
2 105 (4.83%) PMO
3 103 (4.74%) GDPR
4 97 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (4.32%) NIST
6 78 (3.59%) Data Quality
7 46 (2.12%) SLA
8 44 (2.02%) PCI DSS
9 37 (1.70%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.97%) GRC
12 18 (0.83%) NCSC
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 148 (6.81%) Active Directory
2 125 (5.75%) Docker
3 45 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.97%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.41%) vSphere
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) Squid
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 131 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.73%) Terraform
3 61 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.76%) Ansible
5 39 (1.79%) SCCM
6 37 (1.70%) Grafana
7 30 (1.38%) OPNET
8 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.78%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.60%) Nmap
13 11 (0.51%) Kibana
14 10 (0.46%) SCOM
14 10 (0.46%) WSUS
15 9 (0.41%) Kiali
16 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
17 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
17 7 (0.32%) Nessus
18 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 489 (22.49%) Microsoft
2 140 (6.44%) Oracle
3 127 (5.84%) ServiceNow
4 116 (5.34%) SAP
5 83 (3.82%) Google
6 72 (3.31%) Cisco
7 51 (2.35%) Remedy
7 51 (2.35%) VMware
8 50 (2.30%) Splunk
9 47 (2.16%) Citrix
10 45 (2.07%) Databricks
11 44 (2.02%) Atlassian
12 36 (1.66%) IBM
12 36 (1.66%) Palo Alto
12 36 (1.66%) Salesforce
13 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
14 25 (1.15%) Adobe
15 23 (1.06%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.97%) Aruba
17 20 (0.92%) Siemens