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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,278 2,046 2,630
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.02% 7.41% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.78% 23.68% 25.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,220 1,206 1,529
10th Percentile £205 £250 £270
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -3.56%
75th Percentile £603 £638 £638
90th Percentile £718 £758 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 165 238
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.68 £21.25
25th Percentile £27.20 £27.16 £27.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -25.89% +9.24%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.73 £75.75
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £43.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +1.16% -18.10% -

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 14,434 8,639 10,227
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.78% 31.29% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,729 5,432 6,499
10th Percentile £350 £293 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £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 1,110 647 765
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.97
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.26 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.32 £78.45
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -21 965 £525 -4.55% 2,491
South East +3 482 £500 +5.26% 817
North of England -11 333 £453 +0.67% 579
North West -8 193 £450 -5.26% 314
Midlands -34 181 £463 +8.82% 388
East of England -5 148 £450 - 387
West Midlands -35 139 £466 +3.44% 205
South West -21 125 £415 -7.78% 315
Yorkshire -10 124 £500 +19.05% 169
East Midlands -20 40 £475 +32.68% 183
North East -42 16 £450 +130.77% 102
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
1 135 (5.93%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.78%) Confluence
3 61 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.48%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.088%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 246 (10.80%) Microsoft Office
2 222 (9.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 128 (5.62%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.28%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 7 (0.31%) Simulink
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.088%) Sketch
14 2 (0.088%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 53 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.66%) Primavera
3 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 526 (23.09%) Azure
2 289 (12.69%) AWS
3 209 (9.17%) Power Platform
4 201 (8.82%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (6.41%) Entra ID
6 121 (5.31%) GCP
7 98 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.20%) SaaS
9 61 (2.68%) GitHub
10 45 (1.98%) Power Automate
10 45 (1.98%) PowerApps
11 41 (1.80%) Snowflake
12 40 (1.76%) OneDrive
13 39 (1.71%) Serverless
14 38 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
15 36 (1.58%) Figma
15 36 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
16 25 (1.10%) IaaS
17 23 (1.01%) PaaS
18 22 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.65%) Firewall
2 75 (3.29%) TCP/IP
3 71 (3.12%) DNS
4 66 (2.90%) Network Security
5 59 (2.59%) VPN
6 41 (1.80%) WAN
7 39 (1.71%) DHCP
8 38 (1.67%) LAN
9 27 (1.19%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) BGP
11 18 (0.79%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.79%) SSH
11 18 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.75%) OSPF
13 16 (0.70%) VLAN
14 15 (0.66%) Internet
14 15 (0.66%) SSL
15 14 (0.61%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.57%) 5G
16 13 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (7.33%) Power BI
2 102 (4.48%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.11%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.71%) Metadata
7 36 (1.58%) NoSQL
8 35 (1.54%) Tableau
9 26 (1.14%) Big Data
9 26 (1.14%) MongoDB
10 23 (1.01%) MySQL
10 23 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
12 16 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
13 14 (0.61%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.61%) Power Query
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 11 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 177 (7.77%) JIRA
2 112 (4.92%) Git
3 53 (2.33%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.02%) GitLab
5 35 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.70%) Visual Studio
7 15 (0.66%) MLflow
7 15 (0.66%) Selenium
8 13 (0.57%) JUnit
9 11 (0.48%) Gradle
9 11 (0.48%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.40%) Maven
12 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 6 (0.26%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,003 (44.03%) Social Skills
2 665 (29.19%) Finance
3 507 (22.26%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.17%) Public Sector
5 173 (7.59%) Banking
6 149 (6.54%) Organisational Skills
7 102 (4.48%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.13%) Presentation Skills
9 93 (4.08%) Legal
9 93 (4.08%) Marketing
10 88 (3.86%) Manufacturing
11 82 (3.60%) Influencing Skills
12 74 (3.25%) Telecoms
13 70 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.68%) Retail
15 58 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.24%) Law
17 42 (1.84%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.62%) Front Office
19 36 (1.58%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 310 (13.61%) Analyst
2 256 (11.24%) Senior
3 184 (8.08%) Lead
4 163 (7.16%) Architect
5 162 (7.11%) Developer
6 141 (6.19%) Business Analyst
7 133 (5.84%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.16%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.72%) Consultant
10 55 (2.41%) Support Engineer
11 54 (2.37%) IT Support
12 53 (2.33%) Product Manager
12 53 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (2.24%) Designer
13 51 (2.24%) IT Analyst
13 51 (2.24%) IT Manager
14 47 (2.06%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.06%) Systems Engineer
15 45 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
16 44 (1.93%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (4.04%) REST
2 90 (3.95%) .NET
3 53 (2.33%) React
4 41 (1.80%) Kafka
5 37 (1.62%) HTML
6 36 (1.58%) OAuth
6 36 (1.58%) RESTful
7 33 (1.45%) .NET Framework
7 33 (1.45%) Middleware
8 32 (1.40%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.32%) SAML
9 30 (1.32%) Web Services
10 29 (1.27%) CSS
11 28 (1.23%) AngularJS
11 28 (1.23%) LDAP
12 27 (1.19%) Spring
13 26 (1.14%) JSON
14 25 (1.10%) OAuth2
14 25 (1.10%) SailPoint
15 24 (1.05%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 182 (7.99%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.28%) Onboarding
3 140 (6.15%) Product Ownership
4 95 (4.17%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.86%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.81%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.63%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.33%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.24%) Security Posture
10 48 (2.11%) Virtual Team
11 46 (2.02%) Operational Technology
12 40 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
13 36 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
14 34 (1.49%) Life Science
15 33 (1.45%) AI Agents
15 33 (1.45%) PMI
15 33 (1.45%) Robotics
16 31 (1.36%) SCADA
17 30 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 291 (12.77%) Windows
2 174 (7.64%) Linux
3 74 (3.25%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.63%) Unix
5 46 (2.02%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.14%) Android
8 26 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.57%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.26%) AIX
11 6 (0.26%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Debian
12 4 (0.18%) Rocky
12 4 (0.18%) VMS
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 770 (33.80%) Computer Science
2 635 (27.88%) Agile
3 597 (26.21%) Problem-Solving
4 409 (17.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 389 (17.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 371 (16.29%) AI
7 305 (13.39%) DevOps
8 289 (12.69%) Project Management
9 285 (12.51%) Analytics
10 266 (11.68%) CI/CD
11 260 (11.41%) ITIL
12 237 (10.40%) Decision-Making
12 237 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 236 (10.36%) Cybersecurity
14 202 (8.87%) PRINCE2
15 200 (8.78%) Change Management
15 200 (8.78%) Roadmaps
16 194 (8.52%) Software Engineering
17 191 (8.38%) Scrum
18 188 (8.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 391 (17.16%) Python
2 322 (14.14%) SQL
3 154 (6.76%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.37%) Java
5 95 (4.17%) C#
6 84 (3.69%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.33%) Bash
8 39 (1.71%) C++
9 32 (1.40%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.14%) R
11 23 (1.01%) Bicep
11 23 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.92%) C
14 20 (0.88%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) X++
18 9 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 446 (19.58%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (18.44%) Security Cleared
3 272 (11.94%) SC Cleared
4 194 (8.52%) Master's Degree
5 135 (5.93%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.18%) PMP
7 117 (5.14%) CISSP
8 113 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.64%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.20%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.90%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.37%) CISM
14 52 (2.28%) PhD
15 40 (1.76%) CCNA
16 38 (1.67%) CCNP
16 38 (1.67%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 37 (1.62%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.54%) CISA
19 30 (1.32%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.05%) Data Quality
2 113 (4.96%) NIST
3 112 (4.92%) QA
4 106 (4.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (4.13%) PMO
6 70 (3.07%) GDPR
7 46 (2.02%) SLA
8 40 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.10%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.01%) GRC
12 22 (0.97%) NCSC
13 14 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) IFRS
16 10 (0.44%) COBIT
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
17 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
17 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 190 (8.34%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.83%) Docker
3 50 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.92%) Firmware
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
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 (0.088%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 122 (5.36%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.86%) Terraform
3 72 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.81%) Ansible
5 35 (1.54%) SCCM
6 28 (1.23%) Grafana
7 25 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.48%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.35%) Nessus
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.26%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) CASB
17 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 584 (25.64%) Microsoft
2 149 (6.54%) Oracle
3 138 (6.06%) ServiceNow
4 122 (5.36%) SAP
5 85 (3.73%) Google
6 65 (2.85%) VMware
7 64 (2.81%) Cisco
8 54 (2.37%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.33%) Databricks
10 47 (2.06%) IBM
11 46 (2.02%) Adobe
12 34 (1.49%) CyberArk
13 32 (1.40%) Splunk
14 31 (1.36%) Citrix
15 29 (1.27%) Palo Alto
16 28 (1.23%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.97%) BeyondTrust
17 22 (0.97%) Siemens
18 20 (0.88%) Ariba
19 18 (0.79%) Apple