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

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,164 2,024 3,239
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.49% 7.75% 8.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.09% 25.65% 27.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,268 1,122 1,815
10th Percentile £286 £250 £209
25th Percentile £400 £401 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -5.45%
75th Percentile £638 £656 £645
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £504 £500
% change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 122 318
10th Percentile £15.00 £21.38 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.70 £22.33
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £57.75 £71.19 £60.19
90th Percentile £83.00 £85.00 £73.83
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -0.62%

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 11,337 7,891 11,841
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.01% 30.21% 31.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,528 4,780 7,378
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £544
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.40% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 877 386 873
10th Percentile £15.70 £19.90 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.31
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% - +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.75 £67.44 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £81.42 £77.90
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.02 £46.18
% change year-on-year -35.55% -15.50% +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 4 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 4 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 4 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 1,001 £525 -4.55% 829
North of England -8 334 £425 -11.46% 397
South East -3 282 £475 -5.00% 736
Midlands -15 211 £520 +22.35% 318
North West -3 175 £393 -17.26% 227
South West +4 174 £649 +21.76% 243
West Midlands -18 146 £520 +6.67% 194
Yorkshire -9 145 £508 +1.50% 123
East of England -14 113 £505 +9.19% 257
East Midlands -6 65 £523 +46.77% 124
North East -11 15 £364 -27.20% 49
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
1 188 (8.69%) Confluence
2 113 (5.22%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 19 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.55%) Apache
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) nginx
9 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.28%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) IIS
12 4 (0.18%) Luigi
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 274 (12.66%) Microsoft Office
2 225 (10.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 178 (8.23%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.65%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.55%) Simulink
8 10 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.46%) Trello
9 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 7 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.28%) FrameMaker
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.092%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.092%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.092%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.092%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 33 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (1.06%) Primavera
4 20 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.55%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.55%) SAP EWM
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
8 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 442 (20.43%) Azure
2 259 (11.97%) AWS
3 198 (9.15%) Microsoft 365
4 157 (7.26%) Power Platform
5 139 (6.42%) GCP
6 108 (4.99%) SaaS
7 82 (3.79%) Entra ID
8 76 (3.51%) GitHub
9 73 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (2.59%) Serverless
11 45 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.71%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.57%) OCI
14 32 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.48%) IaaS
14 32 (1.48%) PaaS
15 29 (1.34%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (1.16%) Google Workspace
18 24 (1.11%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.53%) Firewall
2 61 (2.82%) DNS
3 53 (2.45%) LAN
4 50 (2.31%) WAN
5 42 (1.94%) Network Security
6 40 (1.85%) VPN
7 30 (1.39%) DHCP
8 28 (1.29%) HTTP
9 27 (1.25%) Skype
10 26 (1.20%) TCP/IP
11 25 (1.16%) Internet
11 25 (1.16%) Wireless
12 24 (1.11%) Unified Communications
13 22 (1.02%) BGP
14 19 (0.88%) OSPF
15 18 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
16 17 (0.79%) SSH
17 16 (0.74%) VLAN
18 14 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
18 14 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (5.78%) Power BI
2 78 (3.60%) PostgreSQL
2 78 (3.60%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.45%) NoSQL
4 48 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (2.03%) Tableau
7 40 (1.85%) MySQL
8 29 (1.34%) Big Data
9 20 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
10 19 (0.88%) Metadata
11 16 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.74%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.69%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) Hadoop
14 12 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
15 11 (0.51%) GIS
16 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 266 (12.29%) JIRA
2 98 (4.53%) Git
3 69 (3.19%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.36%) GitLab
5 25 (1.16%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.97%) Liquibase
7 19 (0.88%) Postman
8 15 (0.69%) Selenium
9 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.46%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.46%) MLflow
11 9 (0.42%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
12 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.32%) Vagrant
13 6 (0.28%) Gradle
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
13 6 (0.28%) XCUITest
General
1 1,121 (51.80%) Social Skills
2 716 (33.09%) Finance
3 528 (24.40%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (11.55%) Banking
5 158 (7.30%) Public Sector
6 103 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
7 88 (4.07%) Organisational Skills
8 86 (3.97%) Manufacturing
9 78 (3.60%) Marketing
10 68 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (3.14%) Legal
11 67 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
12 61 (2.82%) Military
13 59 (2.73%) Financial Institution
14 49 (2.26%) Front Office
15 45 (2.08%) Telecoms
16 43 (1.99%) Investment Banking
17 38 (1.76%) Law
18 36 (1.66%) Retail
19 35 (1.62%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 322 (14.88%) Analyst
2 228 (10.54%) Senior
3 205 (9.47%) Developer
4 174 (8.04%) Lead
5 163 (7.53%) Architect
6 157 (7.26%) Business Analyst
7 149 (6.89%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.74%) Consultant
9 80 (3.70%) Software Engineer
10 64 (2.96%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
12 52 (2.40%) IT Support
13 47 (2.17%) Support Analyst
14 44 (2.03%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.99%) Senior Software Engineer
16 38 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
17 36 (1.66%) Data Scientist
18 35 (1.62%) IT Manager
18 35 (1.62%) Senior Developer
18 35 (1.62%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.99%) REST
2 71 (3.28%) RESTful
3 70 (3.23%) .NET
4 56 (2.59%) HTML
5 45 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
5 45 (2.08%) Middleware
6 43 (1.99%) XML
7 42 (1.94%) CSS
8 40 (1.85%) React
9 38 (1.76%) OAuth
10 37 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.66%) JSON
11 36 (1.66%) Kafka
12 34 (1.57%) SOAP
13 28 (1.29%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.20%) Node.js
14 26 (1.20%) TensorFlow
15 25 (1.16%) Pandas
15 25 (1.16%) PyTorch
16 24 (1.11%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 190 (8.78%) Management Information System
2 114 (5.27%) Product Ownership
3 97 (4.48%) Cloud Native
4 84 (3.88%) Onboarding
5 66 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
6 61 (2.82%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.63%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.50%) Virtual Team
9 53 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
10 51 (2.36%) Analytical Mindset
11 50 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
12 46 (2.13%) PMI
13 42 (1.94%) Derivative
14 41 (1.89%) Security Posture
15 40 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
16 37 (1.71%) Public Cloud
17 32 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
17 32 (1.48%) Life Science
18 28 (1.29%) Equities
19 25 (1.16%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 264 (12.20%) Windows
2 178 (8.23%) Linux
3 81 (3.74%) Unix
4 63 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.63%) Windows 10
6 18 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
7 16 (0.74%) Android
7 16 (0.74%) Ubuntu
8 15 (0.69%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
9 14 (0.65%) Apple iOS
9 14 (0.65%) VMS
10 12 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.092%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 798 (36.88%) Computer Science
2 714 (32.99%) Agile
3 640 (29.57%) Problem-Solving
4 381 (17.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 333 (15.39%) DevOps
6 321 (14.83%) Project Management
7 273 (12.62%) Change Management
8 272 (12.57%) AI
9 237 (10.95%) CI/CD
10 233 (10.77%) Analytics
11 232 (10.72%) Continuous Improvement
12 225 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 223 (10.30%) Cybersecurity
14 219 (10.12%) ITIL
14 219 (10.12%) Migration
15 216 (9.98%) Risk Management
16 214 (9.89%) Decision-Making
17 206 (9.52%) Software Engineering
18 195 (9.01%) Project Delivery
19 178 (8.23%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 398 (18.39%) Python
2 348 (16.08%) SQL
3 146 (6.75%) Java
4 119 (5.50%) PowerShell
5 108 (4.99%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.79%) C#
7 80 (3.70%) C++
8 51 (2.36%) TypeScript
9 44 (2.03%) Go
10 40 (1.85%) Bash
11 27 (1.25%) R
12 25 (1.16%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.11%) Perl
14 21 (0.97%) C
14 21 (0.97%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.74%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.69%) Rust
17 12 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.51%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.51%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 549 (25.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 384 (17.74%) Security Cleared
3 343 (15.85%) Master's Degree
4 304 (14.05%) SC Cleared
5 141 (6.52%) PMI Certification
6 123 (5.68%) PMP
7 107 (4.94%) CISSP
8 86 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.28%) CISM
10 66 (3.05%) PhD
11 65 (3.00%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
13 54 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
14 46 (2.13%) DV Cleared
15 43 (1.99%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.80%) CCNP
17 37 (1.71%) CBAP
18 34 (1.57%) MBA
19 31 (1.43%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.84%) QA
2 117 (5.41%) GDPR
3 88 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.93%) PMO
5 68 (3.14%) Data Quality
6 60 (2.77%) NIST
7 43 (1.99%) PCI DSS
8 36 (1.66%) SLA
9 33 (1.52%) Accessibility
10 30 (1.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.29%) GRC
12 15 (0.69%) WCAG
13 14 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 13 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.60%) NCSC
15 12 (0.55%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.55%) IFRS
16 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 162 (7.49%) Docker
2 142 (6.56%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.74%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) DFS Replication
6 7 (0.32%) Dovecot
6 7 (0.32%) Postfix
6 7 (0.32%) Squid
6 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
9 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.092%) KVM
Systems Management
1 155 (7.16%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.22%) Terraform
3 73 (3.37%) Ansible
4 67 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.59%) Grafana
6 51 (2.36%) SCCM
7 47 (2.17%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 23 (1.06%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Kibana
10 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.60%) SCOM
13 12 (0.55%) Nmap
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Nessus
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 7 (0.32%) Proxmox
17 6 (0.28%) QRadar
Vendors
1 465 (21.49%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.49%) Oracle
3 125 (5.78%) SAP
4 112 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.53%) Google
6 91 (4.21%) Splunk
7 66 (3.05%) Cisco
8 54 (2.50%) Remedy
9 52 (2.40%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.36%) Salesforce
11 47 (2.17%) VMware
12 41 (1.89%) Databricks
13 36 (1.66%) Citrix
14 27 (1.25%) Palo Alto
15 23 (1.06%) Informatica
16 22 (1.02%) IBM
17 21 (0.97%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.92%) Adobe
19 18 (0.83%) CheckPoint
19 18 (0.83%) Red Hat