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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,164 1,903 3,140
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.32% 7.80% 8.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.47% 24.91% 27.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,277 1,135 1,658
10th Percentile £248 £250 £213
25th Percentile £382 £399 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £511
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.76% -6.22%
75th Percentile £613 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £777 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £503
% change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 142 372
10th Percentile £20.75 £17.53 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.58 £27.53 £24.08
Median hourly rate £65.00 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.64% +32.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +4.76% +31.25% -11.11%

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 13,142 7,638 11,520
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.34% 31.31% 31.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,822 4,857 7,101
10th Percentile £340 £290 £308
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 975 440 984
10th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.10
Median hourly rate £47.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% +10.00% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.25 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.46 £81.42 £76.47
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%

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 6 May 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 6 May 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 6 May 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 -14 917 £500 -9.09% 1,298
South East -1 370 £478 -3.92% 859
North of England -8 323 £417 -8.35% 710
Midlands -24 212 £500 +66.67% 368
North West -10 168 £400 -12.90% 455
West Midlands -26 149 £500 +66.67% 211
East of England -6 142 £463 -7.50% 317
South West -14 140 £598 +19.55% 291
Yorkshire -16 139 £475 +14.73% 190
East Midlands -13 61 £525 +55.33% 156
North East -25 16 £407 -12.00% 70
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
1 144 (6.65%) Confluence
2 106 (4.90%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) IIS
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
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
1 288 (13.31%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 178 (8.23%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 59 (2.73%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.42%) Simulink
7 9 (0.42%) Trello
8 8 (0.37%) Adobe After Effects
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.28%) Photoshop
9 6 (0.28%) Sketch
10 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
11 2 (0.092%) InVision
Business Applications
1 49 (2.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.74%) Primavera
4 14 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 449 (20.75%) Azure
2 252 (11.65%) AWS
3 187 (8.64%) Microsoft 365
4 175 (8.09%) Power Platform
5 103 (4.76%) Entra ID
6 97 (4.48%) SaaS
7 89 (4.11%) GCP
8 74 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.36%) GitHub
10 34 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.52%) Google Workspace
11 33 (1.52%) IaaS
11 33 (1.52%) PaaS
11 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
12 26 (1.20%) Figma
12 26 (1.20%) PowerApps
12 26 (1.20%) Serverless
13 24 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
14 22 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
14 22 (1.02%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.39%) Firewall
2 52 (2.40%) LAN
2 52 (2.40%) WAN
3 46 (2.13%) TCP/IP
4 45 (2.08%) DNS
5 43 (1.99%) Network Security
6 36 (1.66%) VPN
7 26 (1.20%) Wireless
8 23 (1.06%) BGP
9 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.92%) OSPF
11 19 (0.88%) Skype
12 18 (0.83%) DHCP
13 16 (0.74%) HTTP
14 14 (0.65%) SAN
14 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.51%) IPsec
16 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
17 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (6.70%) Power BI
2 88 (4.07%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.36%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (1.57%) Tableau
7 30 (1.39%) Metadata
7 30 (1.39%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.34%) Big Data
9 27 (1.25%) MySQL
10 19 (0.88%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
11 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) Power Query
15 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.51%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 240 (11.09%) JIRA
2 97 (4.48%) Git
3 40 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) Gradle
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Postman
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) JUnit
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.28%) Cucumber
14 6 (0.28%) Maven
General
1 1,018 (47.04%) Social Skills
2 657 (30.36%) Finance
3 473 (21.86%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (9.38%) Banking
5 176 (8.13%) Public Sector
6 118 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (5.18%) Presentation Skills
8 84 (3.88%) Marketing
9 82 (3.79%) Documentation Skills
10 72 (3.33%) Legal
11 71 (3.28%) Aerospace
12 67 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
13 61 (2.82%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.50%) Military
15 53 (2.45%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.36%) Law
17 49 (2.26%) Retail
18 37 (1.71%) Front Office
19 35 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 32 (1.48%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 293 (13.54%) Analyst
2 226 (10.44%) Senior
3 184 (8.50%) Architect
4 170 (7.86%) Lead
5 158 (7.30%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.84%) Developer
7 146 (6.75%) Business Analyst
8 63 (2.91%) Consultant
8 63 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
9 60 (2.77%) Senior Analyst
9 60 (2.77%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
11 49 (2.26%) Software Engineer
12 47 (2.17%) Product Manager
13 46 (2.13%) Data Scientist
14 42 (1.94%) Designer
15 41 (1.89%) Senior Manager
16 38 (1.76%) Data Engineer
16 38 (1.76%) Security Engineer
16 38 (1.76%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.07%) REST
2 66 (3.05%) .NET
3 51 (2.36%) Middleware
4 49 (2.26%) React
5 42 (1.94%) Kafka
6 41 (1.89%) HTML
6 41 (1.89%) RESTful
7 38 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
8 35 (1.62%) XML
9 33 (1.52%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.48%) SOAP
11 30 (1.39%) Spring
12 29 (1.34%) JSON
13 28 (1.29%) CSS
14 27 (1.25%) .NET Framework
14 27 (1.25%) OAuth
14 27 (1.25%) PyTorch
15 26 (1.20%) Pandas
16 21 (0.97%) AngularJS
16 21 (0.97%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 162 (7.49%) Management Information System
2 155 (7.16%) Product Ownership
3 121 (5.59%) Onboarding
4 76 (3.51%) Cloud Native
5 64 (2.96%) Self-Motivation
6 60 (2.77%) Data Centre
6 60 (2.77%) Virtual Team
7 51 (2.36%) Data Structures
8 50 (2.31%) PMI
9 48 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
9 48 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (2.17%) Algorithms
11 41 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
12 38 (1.76%) Robotics
13 34 (1.57%) Operational Technology
14 31 (1.43%) Derivative
14 31 (1.43%) Security Posture
15 28 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
16 25 (1.16%) AI Agents
16 25 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 252 (11.65%) Windows
2 164 (7.58%) Linux
3 68 (3.14%) Windows Server
4 65 (3.00%) Unix
5 54 (2.50%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Android
7 21 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (0.83%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 748 (34.57%) Computer Science
2 661 (30.55%) Agile
3 552 (25.51%) Problem-Solving
4 358 (16.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 316 (14.60%) AI
6 315 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 306 (14.14%) Project Management
8 291 (13.45%) DevOps
9 238 (11.00%) CI/CD
10 230 (10.63%) Analytics
11 225 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 222 (10.26%) Decision-Making
13 212 (9.80%) Change Management
14 205 (9.47%) Cybersecurity
14 205 (9.47%) ITIL
15 204 (9.43%) Migration
16 194 (8.96%) Risk Management
17 190 (8.78%) PRINCE2
18 186 (8.60%) Project Delivery
18 186 (8.60%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 343 (15.85%) Python
2 319 (14.74%) SQL
3 145 (6.70%) Java
4 108 (4.99%) PowerShell
5 83 (3.84%) C#
6 74 (3.42%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.54%) C++
8 39 (1.80%) Bash
9 34 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.34%) R
11 24 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.79%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
13 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 14 (0.65%) Go
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 14 (0.65%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 484 (22.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (19.41%) Security Cleared
3 300 (13.86%) SC Cleared
4 240 (11.09%) Master's Degree
5 139 (6.42%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.64%) PMP
7 97 (4.48%) CISSP
8 83 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (3.19%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
11 56 (2.59%) CISM
12 50 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (2.22%) DV Cleared
14 47 (2.17%) PhD
15 44 (2.03%) Azure Certification
16 38 (1.76%) CCNP
17 35 (1.62%) MBA
18 32 (1.48%) CBAP
18 32 (1.48%) CCNA
19 25 (1.16%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.93%) QA
2 107 (4.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 105 (4.85%) PMO
4 101 (4.67%) NIST
5 99 (4.57%) GDPR
6 83 (3.84%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.31%) SLA
8 41 (1.89%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.85%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.02%) GRC
12 20 (0.92%) NCSC
13 15 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.65%) IFRS
15 13 (0.60%) Basel III
16 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
17 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
18 10 (0.46%) COBIT
18 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 142 (6.56%) Active Directory
2 120 (5.55%) Docker
3 37 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.20%) Hyper-V
5 22 (1.02%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.092%) HDFS
11 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.046%) GPFS
12 1 (0.046%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.046%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 130 (6.01%) Kubernetes
2 76 (3.51%) Terraform
3 61 (2.82%) Ansible
4 56 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (1.76%) SCCM
6 36 (1.66%) Grafana
7 30 (1.39%) OPNET
8 26 (1.20%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.83%) Puppet
9 18 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.51%) Kibana
11 11 (0.51%) Nmap
11 11 (0.51%) WSUS
12 9 (0.42%) Kiali
12 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) SCOM
15 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 494 (22.83%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.75%) Oracle
3 122 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.50%) SAP
5 77 (3.56%) Google
6 67 (3.10%) Cisco
7 50 (2.31%) Splunk
8 49 (2.26%) Remedy
9 48 (2.22%) Databricks
10 43 (1.99%) VMware
11 42 (1.94%) Atlassian
11 42 (1.94%) Citrix
12 37 (1.71%) Salesforce
13 34 (1.57%) IBM
14 32 (1.48%) Adobe
14 32 (1.48%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.34%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.06%) Aruba
17 22 (1.02%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.92%) Siemens