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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,250 1,962 3,226
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.10% 7.88% 8.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.93% 25.52% 27.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,317 1,152 1,783
10th Percentile £300 £250 £212
25th Percentile £400 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £514
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.14% -6.55%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £508 £507
% change year-on-year -1.48% +0.10% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 146 335
10th Percentile £15.55 £21.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.00 £30.70 £22.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £52.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% +40.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £71.60
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £46.18 £36.50
% change year-on-year -1.56% +26.52% -18.89%

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 12,548 7,689 11,822
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.02% 30.89% 31.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,321 4,856 7,322
10th Percentile £330 £285 £300
25th Percentile £423 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £728 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.89% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 414 923
10th Percentile £16.30 £19.03 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.72 £25.26 £18.32
Median hourly rate £27.50 £52.00 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -47.12% +30.26% -20.16%
75th Percentile £67.84 £68.13 £62.50
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.50 £76.47
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £45.00 £38.85
% change year-on-year -35.56% +15.83% -22.30%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 15 March 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 -13 985 £513 -6.82% 910
South East -2 360 £475 -5.00% 671
North of England -6 347 £436 -12.75% 487
Midlands -21 207 £500 +37.93% 324
North West -3 178 £400 -19.76% 252
South West 0 160 £681 +23.86% 244
Yorkshire -9 153 £500 - 174
West Midlands -21 150 £498 +24.53% 190
East of England -9 133 £500 +2.77% 226
East Midlands -14 56 £525 +47.47% 134
North East -14 17 £364 -23.37% 65
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
1 185 (8.22%) Confluence
2 103 (4.58%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.40%) Microsoft Exchange
4 40 (1.78%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.58%) Apache
7 9 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) SAS
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.18%) Skype for Business
10 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 285 (12.67%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (9.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 185 (8.22%) Microsoft Project
4 111 (4.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (3.16%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.44%) Trello
9 7 (0.31%) Sketch
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.13%) InVision
12 2 (0.089%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.089%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.089%) PTC Creo
13 1 (0.044%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.044%) CPLEX
13 1 (0.044%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.044%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.044%) Revit
Business Applications
1 38 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.07%) Primavera
3 22 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.31%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
9 5 (0.22%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 467 (20.76%) Azure
2 275 (12.22%) AWS
3 180 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
4 165 (7.33%) Power Platform
5 139 (6.18%) GCP
6 107 (4.76%) Entra ID
7 106 (4.71%) SaaS
8 79 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
9 78 (3.47%) GitHub
10 48 (2.13%) Serverless
11 39 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.51%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.38%) Cloud Computing
13 31 (1.38%) IaaS
13 31 (1.38%) PaaS
14 29 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
14 29 (1.29%) OCI
15 28 (1.24%) Google Workspace
16 27 (1.20%) PowerApps
17 26 (1.16%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.53%) Firewall
2 58 (2.58%) LAN
3 56 (2.49%) WAN
4 49 (2.18%) DNS
5 42 (1.87%) Network Security
5 42 (1.87%) TCP/IP
6 37 (1.64%) VPN
7 29 (1.29%) Wireless
8 26 (1.16%) BGP
9 23 (1.02%) DHCP
9 23 (1.02%) Ethernet
10 22 (0.98%) HTTP
10 22 (0.98%) Internet
11 21 (0.93%) OSPF
12 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
13 18 (0.80%) Skype
14 17 (0.76%) Unified Communications
14 17 (0.76%) VLAN
15 14 (0.62%) SSH
15 14 (0.62%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (5.87%) Power BI
2 82 (3.64%) PostgreSQL
3 78 (3.47%) SQL Server
4 56 (2.49%) NoSQL
5 49 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (1.91%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.82%) Tableau
8 35 (1.56%) MySQL
9 31 (1.38%) Big Data
10 22 (0.98%) Metadata
11 21 (0.93%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
14 16 (0.71%) Hadoop
15 15 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 12 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
16 12 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
17 10 (0.44%) BigQuery
17 10 (0.44%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 266 (11.82%) JIRA
2 107 (4.76%) Git
3 66 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.31%) GitLab
5 29 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.71%) Postman
7 16 (0.71%) Selenium
8 15 (0.67%) MLflow
9 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.49%) Liquibase
10 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.44%) Gradle
12 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.31%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.31%) JUnit
15 5 (0.22%) TeamCity
General
1 1,099 (48.84%) Social Skills
2 697 (30.98%) Finance
3 521 (23.16%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (10.31%) Banking
5 181 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 111 (4.93%) Presentation Skills
7 88 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (3.56%) Marketing
9 79 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.24%) Manufacturing
12 72 (3.20%) Legal
13 65 (2.89%) Aerospace
14 57 (2.53%) Military
15 50 (2.22%) Financial Institution
16 49 (2.18%) Front Office
17 46 (2.04%) Retail
18 45 (2.00%) Telecoms
19 44 (1.96%) Law
20 41 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 317 (14.09%) Analyst
2 221 (9.82%) Senior
3 190 (8.44%) Lead
4 182 (8.09%) Developer
5 177 (7.87%) Architect
6 160 (7.11%) Project Manager
7 154 (6.84%) Business Analyst
8 83 (3.69%) Consultant
9 64 (2.84%) Delivery Manager
9 64 (2.84%) Software Engineer
10 61 (2.71%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.58%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.22%) Security Engineer
13 48 (2.13%) Data Scientist
13 48 (2.13%) Senior Analyst
14 46 (2.04%) Product Manager
15 39 (1.73%) Technical Analyst
16 38 (1.69%) IT Support
17 34 (1.51%) Senior Business Analyst
18 33 (1.47%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.58%) REST
2 63 (2.80%) .NET
3 62 (2.76%) RESTful
4 53 (2.36%) React
5 51 (2.27%) HTML
6 46 (2.04%) Middleware
7 41 (1.82%) Kafka
8 40 (1.78%) CSS
9 38 (1.69%) Elastic Stack
10 37 (1.64%) XML
11 36 (1.60%) OAuth
12 35 (1.56%) JSON
12 35 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
13 34 (1.51%) SOAP
14 32 (1.42%) PyTorch
14 32 (1.42%) Spring
14 32 (1.42%) TensorFlow
15 30 (1.33%) Pandas
16 28 (1.24%) Spring Boot
17 27 (1.20%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.22%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.67%) Product Ownership
3 107 (4.76%) Onboarding
4 103 (4.58%) Cloud Native
5 72 (3.20%) Virtual Team
6 71 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 66 (2.93%) Algorithms
7 66 (2.93%) Distributed Systems
8 59 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
9 51 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
9 51 (2.27%) Data Structures
10 49 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (2.13%) PMI
12 45 (2.00%) Derivative
13 38 (1.69%) Security Posture
14 34 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.42%) Equities
15 32 (1.42%) Life Science
16 29 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
17 28 (1.24%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 261 (11.60%) Windows
2 167 (7.42%) Linux
3 70 (3.11%) Unix
4 67 (2.98%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.44%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.80%) Android
8 15 (0.67%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.53%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 3 (0.13%) CentOS
16 3 (0.13%) Debian
16 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 843 (37.47%) Computer Science
2 736 (32.71%) Agile
3 612 (27.20%) Problem-Solving
4 384 (17.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 343 (15.24%) DevOps
6 326 (14.49%) AI
7 306 (13.60%) Project Management
8 291 (12.93%) Continuous Improvement
9 265 (11.78%) CI/CD
10 257 (11.42%) Change Management
11 250 (11.11%) Analytics
12 242 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (10.58%) Cybersecurity
13 238 (10.58%) Decision-Making
14 232 (10.31%) ITIL
15 224 (9.96%) Migration
16 218 (9.69%) Risk Management
17 204 (9.07%) PRINCE2
18 202 (8.98%) Project Delivery
19 200 (8.89%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 402 (17.87%) Python
2 334 (14.84%) SQL
3 156 (6.93%) Java
4 121 (5.38%) PowerShell
5 93 (4.13%) JavaScript
6 70 (3.11%) C#
7 66 (2.93%) C++
8 50 (2.22%) TypeScript
9 41 (1.82%) Bash
10 36 (1.60%) Go
11 26 (1.16%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.11%) R
13 18 (0.80%) Perl
14 16 (0.71%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.67%) Rust
15 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.62%) C
17 12 (0.53%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 539 (23.96%) Computer Science Degree
2 439 (19.51%) Security Cleared
3 328 (14.58%) Master's Degree
4 316 (14.04%) SC Cleared
5 138 (6.13%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.42%) PMP
7 121 (5.38%) CISSP
8 86 (3.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.29%) CISM
10 71 (3.16%) PhD
11 62 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
12 61 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
13 58 (2.58%) Azure Certification
14 52 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
15 49 (2.18%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.82%) CCNP
17 36 (1.60%) MBA
18 33 (1.47%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.47%) CBAP
19 30 (1.33%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 152 (6.76%) QA
2 123 (5.47%) GDPR
3 102 (4.53%) PMO
4 101 (4.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 89 (3.96%) NIST
6 75 (3.33%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.18%) PCI DSS
8 41 (1.82%) SLA
9 36 (1.60%) Accessibility
10 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.98%) GRC
12 21 (0.93%) NCSC
13 15 (0.67%) WCAG
14 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.62%) IFRS
15 13 (0.58%) Basel III
16 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.53%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.53%) IFRS 17
16 12 (0.53%) SOC 2
System Software
1 156 (6.93%) Docker
2 146 (6.49%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.84%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.67%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.089%) HDFS
11 2 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.044%) GPFS
12 1 (0.044%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 167 (7.42%) Kubernetes
2 103 (4.58%) Terraform
3 71 (3.16%) Ansible
4 65 (2.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 46 (2.04%) Grafana
6 39 (1.73%) SCCM
7 38 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.33%) OPNET
9 19 (0.84%) Puppet
9 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.62%) Kibana
12 13 (0.58%) Nmap
13 11 (0.49%) SCOM
14 9 (0.40%) Kiali
15 8 (0.36%) Argo
16 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.31%) WSUS
17 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
18 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 474 (21.07%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.53%) Oracle
3 116 (5.16%) ServiceNow
4 114 (5.07%) SAP
5 105 (4.67%) Google
6 75 (3.33%) Cisco
7 70 (3.11%) Splunk
8 54 (2.40%) Remedy
9 52 (2.31%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.27%) Databricks
11 46 (2.04%) VMware
12 44 (1.96%) IBM
13 42 (1.87%) Salesforce
14 41 (1.82%) Citrix
15 38 (1.69%) Palo Alto
16 26 (1.16%) CheckPoint
17 24 (1.07%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.98%) Aruba
18 22 (0.98%) Informatica
19 20 (0.89%) Siemens