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

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,155 2,000 3,271
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.47% 7.69% 8.55%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.02% 25.47% 27.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,266 1,101 1,829
10th Percentile £286 £250 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -5.45%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £645
90th Percentile £741 £790 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 120 323
10th Percentile £15.15 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £31.13 £23.04
Median hourly rate £35.00 £46.18 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.21% +15.45% -11.11%
75th Percentile £60.61 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.40 £85.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -21.18% +6.25% -1.45%

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 11,330 7,853 11,909
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.04% 30.19% 31.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,529 4,752 7,394
10th Percentile £313 £300 £298
25th Percentile £419 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.87% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 884 380 885
10th Percentile £15.75 £20.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.31
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% +8.27% +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.75 £67.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.34 £82.28 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -37.13% -13.38% +2.62%

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 9 February 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 9 February 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 9 February 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 -5 992 £517 -6.07% 858
North of England -6 330 £419 -12.71% 412
South East -3 282 £475 -5.00% 757
Midlands -13 210 £520 +22.35% 333
South West +8 176 £650 +21.95% 229
North West -1 172 £388 -18.42% 243
West Midlands -19 146 £520 +6.67% 206
Yorkshire -12 144 £508 +1.50% 119
East of England -16 117 £550 +18.92% 267
East Midlands -5 64 £523 +46.77% 126
North East -12 15 £364 -27.20% 51
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
1 189 (8.77%) Confluence
2 113 (5.24%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.67%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.51%) Apache
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
9 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.28%) nginx
10 6 (0.28%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.14%) IIS
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 272 (12.62%) Microsoft Office
2 222 (10.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 176 (8.17%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.62%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.51%) Simulink
7 11 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.46%) Trello
9 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.28%) FrameMaker
10 6 (0.28%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 4 (0.19%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.093%) Revit
14 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 24 (1.11%) Primavera
3 21 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
9 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 443 (20.56%) Azure
2 255 (11.83%) AWS
3 200 (9.28%) Microsoft 365
4 155 (7.19%) Power Platform
5 138 (6.40%) GCP
6 107 (4.97%) SaaS
7 82 (3.81%) Entra ID
8 73 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
9 72 (3.34%) GitHub
10 56 (2.60%) Serverless
11 43 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.67%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.58%) OCI
14 32 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
15 31 (1.44%) PaaS
16 30 (1.39%) IaaS
17 27 (1.25%) Google Workspace
17 27 (1.25%) PowerApps
18 24 (1.11%) Azure Logic Apps
18 24 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.50%) Firewall
2 61 (2.83%) DNS
3 54 (2.51%) LAN
4 51 (2.37%) WAN
5 41 (1.90%) VPN
6 38 (1.76%) Network Security
7 30 (1.39%) DHCP
8 28 (1.30%) Skype
9 27 (1.25%) HTTP
9 27 (1.25%) TCP/IP
10 25 (1.16%) Wireless
11 24 (1.11%) Internet
11 24 (1.11%) Unified Communications
12 22 (1.02%) BGP
13 20 (0.93%) OSPF
14 18 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
15 17 (0.79%) SSH
16 16 (0.74%) VLAN
17 15 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
18 14 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.75%) Power BI
2 79 (3.67%) PostgreSQL
3 70 (3.25%) SQL Server
4 53 (2.46%) NoSQL
5 46 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
6 45 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 45 (2.09%) Tableau
7 38 (1.76%) MySQL
8 28 (1.30%) Big Data
9 20 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
10 19 (0.88%) Metadata
11 16 (0.74%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.70%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
14 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
15 11 (0.51%) Hadoop
16 10 (0.46%) GIS
16 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
16 10 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 265 (12.30%) JIRA
2 99 (4.59%) Git
3 70 (3.25%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.41%) GitLab
5 25 (1.16%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.97%) Liquibase
7 19 (0.88%) Postman
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.46%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.46%) MLflow
11 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 8 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.28%) Appium
14 6 (0.28%) Gradle
14 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
14 6 (0.28%) Vagrant
14 6 (0.28%) XCUITest
General
1 1,116 (51.79%) Social Skills
2 706 (32.76%) Finance
3 520 (24.13%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (11.60%) Banking
5 161 (7.47%) Public Sector
6 103 (4.78%) Presentation Skills
7 90 (4.18%) Organisational Skills
8 86 (3.99%) Manufacturing
9 81 (3.76%) Marketing
10 68 (3.16%) Influencing Skills
11 67 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
12 61 (2.83%) Legal
13 59 (2.74%) Military
14 57 (2.65%) Financial Institution
15 47 (2.18%) Front Office
16 44 (2.04%) Telecoms
17 40 (1.86%) Investment Banking
18 36 (1.67%) Retail
19 35 (1.62%) Law
19 35 (1.62%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 321 (14.90%) Analyst
2 226 (10.49%) Senior
3 196 (9.10%) Developer
4 179 (8.31%) Lead
5 167 (7.75%) Architect
6 155 (7.19%) Business Analyst
7 151 (7.01%) Project Manager
8 80 (3.71%) Consultant
8 80 (3.71%) Software Engineer
9 65 (3.02%) Technical Support
10 61 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (2.32%) IT Support
12 45 (2.09%) Support Analyst
13 43 (2.00%) Security Engineer
14 42 (1.95%) Senior Software Engineer
15 39 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
16 36 (1.67%) Technical Analyst
17 35 (1.62%) Data Scientist
17 35 (1.62%) Delivery Manager
18 34 (1.58%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.97%) REST
2 69 (3.20%) RESTful
3 64 (2.97%) .NET
4 54 (2.51%) HTML
5 46 (2.13%) Elastic Stack
5 46 (2.13%) Middleware
6 45 (2.09%) React
7 42 (1.95%) XML
8 41 (1.90%) CSS
9 37 (1.72%) OAuth
9 37 (1.72%) Oracle Fusion
10 36 (1.67%) Kafka
11 35 (1.62%) JSON
12 34 (1.58%) SOAP
13 28 (1.30%) Spring
14 27 (1.25%) Node.js
14 27 (1.25%) Spring Boot
15 26 (1.21%) AngularJS
15 26 (1.21%) PyTorch
15 26 (1.21%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 182 (8.45%) Management Information System
2 111 (5.15%) Product Ownership
3 98 (4.55%) Cloud Native
4 86 (3.99%) Onboarding
5 66 (3.06%) Distributed Systems
6 61 (2.83%) Algorithms
7 58 (2.69%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.51%) Virtual Team
9 53 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
10 47 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
10 47 (2.18%) PMI
11 42 (1.95%) Derivative
12 41 (1.90%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
14 36 (1.67%) Public Cloud
15 34 (1.58%) Life Science
16 30 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
17 28 (1.30%) Equities
18 26 (1.21%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 264 (12.25%) Windows
2 175 (8.12%) Linux
3 79 (3.67%) Unix
4 63 (2.92%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.69%) Windows 10
6 18 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
7 17 (0.79%) Android
8 16 (0.74%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.70%) Apple iOS
9 15 (0.70%) Ubuntu
9 15 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
10 14 (0.65%) VMS
11 12 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 795 (36.89%) Computer Science
2 714 (33.13%) Agile
3 637 (29.56%) Problem-Solving
4 374 (17.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 333 (15.45%) DevOps
6 323 (14.99%) Project Management
7 274 (12.71%) AI
8 269 (12.48%) Change Management
9 242 (11.23%) CI/CD
10 239 (11.09%) Analytics
11 230 (10.67%) Continuous Improvement
12 226 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 218 (10.12%) Cybersecurity
14 217 (10.07%) Migration
15 215 (9.98%) Decision-Making
16 213 (9.88%) ITIL
17 212 (9.84%) Risk Management
18 203 (9.42%) Software Engineering
19 195 (9.05%) Project Delivery
20 179 (8.31%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 391 (18.14%) Python
2 342 (15.87%) SQL
3 148 (6.87%) Java
4 117 (5.43%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.97%) JavaScript
6 77 (3.57%) C++
7 75 (3.48%) C#
8 51 (2.37%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.09%) Go
10 39 (1.81%) Bash
11 25 (1.16%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.16%) R
12 23 (1.07%) Perl
13 20 (0.93%) C
14 19 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.70%) Rust
16 13 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.51%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.51%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 549 (25.48%) Computer Science Degree
2 386 (17.91%) Security Cleared
3 346 (16.06%) Master's Degree
4 306 (14.20%) SC Cleared
5 137 (6.36%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.57%) PMP
7 104 (4.83%) CISSP
8 85 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (3.20%) CISM
10 65 (3.02%) PhD
11 62 (2.88%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.74%) TOGAF Certification
13 55 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
14 54 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
15 46 (2.13%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.95%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.81%) CCNP
18 37 (1.72%) CBAP
19 35 (1.62%) MBA
20 31 (1.44%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.91%) QA
2 114 (5.29%) GDPR
3 85 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (3.90%) PMO
5 68 (3.16%) Data Quality
6 55 (2.55%) NIST
7 41 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.58%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.44%) SLA
10 29 (1.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.21%) GRC
12 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.65%) Basel III
13 14 (0.65%) WCAG
14 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.56%) IFRS
14 12 (0.56%) NCSC
15 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 163 (7.56%) Docker
2 144 (6.68%) Active Directory
3 43 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.84%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.65%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.28%) DFS Replication
7 6 (0.28%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.28%) Postfix
7 6 (0.28%) Squid
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 160 (7.42%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.24%) Terraform
3 73 (3.39%) Ansible
4 68 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
5 54 (2.51%) Grafana
6 51 (2.37%) SCCM
7 47 (2.18%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 22 (1.02%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Kibana
10 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.60%) SCOM
13 12 (0.56%) Nmap
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) Argo
15 7 (0.32%) Nessus
16 6 (0.28%) Proxmox
17 4 (0.19%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 459 (21.30%) Microsoft
2 157 (7.29%) Oracle
3 123 (5.71%) SAP
4 110 (5.10%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.55%) Google
6 88 (4.08%) Splunk
7 67 (3.11%) Cisco
8 55 (2.55%) Remedy
9 53 (2.46%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.37%) Salesforce
11 47 (2.18%) VMware
12 41 (1.90%) Databricks
13 37 (1.72%) Citrix
14 27 (1.25%) Palo Alto
15 22 (1.02%) IBM
15 22 (1.02%) Informatica
15 22 (1.02%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.93%) Adobe
17 18 (0.84%) CheckPoint
17 18 (0.84%) Red Hat