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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,234 1,979 3,220
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.32% 7.68% 8.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.39% 25.38% 27.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,297 1,115 1,790
10th Percentile £300 £243 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.29% -6.68%
75th Percentile £631 £663 £644
90th Percentile £738 £789 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £507
% change year-on-year - -1.28% -4.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 121 320
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.78 £23.65
Median hourly rate £36.00 £46.18 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.04% +15.45% -11.11%
75th Percentile £69.10 £75.00 £60.50
90th Percentile £85.50 £85.00 £73.78
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -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 12,148 7,798 11,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.35% 30.27% 31.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,081 4,802 7,156
10th Percentile £325 £293 £290
25th Percentile £421 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.58% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 934 387 881
10th Percentile £16.09 £20.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.26 £20.51
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% +17.65% -8.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £82.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -5.88% -10.90%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -9 981 £517 -6.07% 777
North of England -3 352 £444 -9.49% 438
South East -5 314 £475 -5.00% 709
Midlands -15 215 £520 +30.00% 301
North West 0 185 £400 -15.79% 244
South West +8 183 £650 +21.95% 209
West Midlands -18 156 £500 - 196
Yorkshire -17 150 £525 +5.00% 147
East of England -9 136 £528 +17.22% 222
East Midlands -12 59 £525 +47.47% 105
North East -9 18 £364 -27.20% 53
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
1 196 (8.77%) Confluence
2 109 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.70%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.58%) Apache
7 11 (0.49%) Skype for Business
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.27%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 295 (13.21%) Microsoft Office
2 214 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.10%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.54%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.49%) Simulink
9 10 (0.45%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 3 (0.13%) Mozilla Thunderbird
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.090%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.090%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.090%) Revit
15 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 35 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (1.07%) Primavera
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.36%) SAP EWM
6 8 (0.36%) SAP WM
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 457 (20.46%) Azure
2 268 (12.00%) AWS
3 192 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.30%) Power Platform
5 144 (6.45%) GCP
6 109 (4.88%) SaaS
7 95 (4.25%) Entra ID
8 77 (3.45%) GitHub
9 73 (3.27%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (2.55%) Serverless
11 42 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.61%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.57%) OCI
14 32 (1.43%) Cloud Computing
15 31 (1.39%) PaaS
16 30 (1.34%) IaaS
17 29 (1.30%) PowerApps
18 28 (1.25%) Google Workspace
19 27 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
20 25 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.57%) Firewall
2 59 (2.64%) LAN
3 55 (2.46%) DNS
3 55 (2.46%) WAN
4 44 (1.97%) TCP/IP
5 41 (1.84%) VPN
6 39 (1.75%) Network Security
7 29 (1.30%) Wireless
8 27 (1.21%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Skype
10 24 (1.07%) HTTP
10 24 (1.07%) Internet
11 23 (1.03%) BGP
11 23 (1.03%) Ethernet
11 23 (1.03%) Unified Communications
12 22 (0.98%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.90%) OSPF
14 18 (0.81%) SSH
14 18 (0.81%) VLAN
15 15 (0.67%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (5.64%) Power BI
2 83 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
3 78 (3.49%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.64%) NoSQL
5 46 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.88%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.84%) Tableau
8 38 (1.70%) MySQL
9 30 (1.34%) Big Data
10 21 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
10 21 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 20 (0.90%) Metadata
12 18 (0.81%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.63%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.49%) BigQuery
16 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
16 10 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 266 (11.91%) JIRA
2 102 (4.57%) Git
3 73 (3.27%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.55%) GitLab
5 23 (1.03%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.94%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.81%) Postman
8 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
8 13 (0.58%) Selenium
9 12 (0.54%) MLflow
10 11 (0.49%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) 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%) Artifactory
15 5 (0.22%) TeamCity
General
1 1,150 (51.48%) Social Skills
2 712 (31.87%) Finance
3 529 (23.68%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (10.79%) Banking
5 175 (7.83%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.24%) Presentation Skills
7 97 (4.34%) Organisational Skills
8 85 (3.80%) Manufacturing
9 84 (3.76%) Marketing
10 75 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
12 64 (2.86%) Legal
13 57 (2.55%) Military
14 55 (2.46%) Financial Institution
15 45 (2.01%) Front Office
16 41 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 41 (1.84%) Retail
17 40 (1.79%) Law
17 40 (1.79%) Telecoms
18 39 (1.75%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 321 (14.37%) Analyst
2 236 (10.56%) Senior
3 188 (8.42%) Developer
4 184 (8.24%) Lead
5 176 (7.88%) Architect
6 157 (7.03%) Project Manager
7 154 (6.89%) Business Analyst
8 85 (3.80%) Consultant
9 84 (3.76%) Software Engineer
10 66 (2.95%) Technical Support
11 62 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (2.10%) Security Engineer
13 46 (2.06%) Senior Analyst
14 44 (1.97%) IT Support
15 43 (1.92%) Data Scientist
16 42 (1.88%) Senior Software Engineer
17 41 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
18 37 (1.66%) Support Analyst
18 37 (1.66%) Technical Analyst
19 35 (1.57%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (5.01%) REST
2 69 (3.09%) RESTful
3 65 (2.91%) .NET
4 54 (2.42%) React
5 53 (2.37%) HTML
6 48 (2.15%) Middleware
7 47 (2.10%) Elastic Stack
8 41 (1.84%) Kafka
9 40 (1.79%) CSS
10 39 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.75%) XML
11 35 (1.57%) OAuth
12 34 (1.52%) JSON
12 34 (1.52%) SOAP
13 30 (1.34%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.34%) TensorFlow
14 29 (1.30%) Spring
15 28 (1.25%) Spring Boot
16 27 (1.21%) AngularJS
16 27 (1.21%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 190 (8.50%) Management Information System
2 116 (5.19%) Product Ownership
3 106 (4.74%) Cloud Native
4 101 (4.52%) Onboarding
5 70 (3.13%) Distributed Systems
6 67 (3.00%) Virtual Team
7 64 (2.86%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.73%) Self-Motivation
9 60 (2.69%) Data Centre
10 53 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
11 52 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
12 46 (2.06%) PMI
12 46 (2.06%) Security Posture
13 41 (1.84%) Derivative
14 37 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (1.61%) Public Cloud
16 32 (1.43%) Life Science
17 29 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
18 28 (1.25%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 271 (12.13%) Windows
2 184 (8.24%) Linux
3 81 (3.63%) Unix
4 69 (3.09%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.60%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Android
7 19 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.72%) Ubuntu
8 16 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 15 (0.67%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
12 11 (0.49%) VMS
13 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
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
1 806 (36.08%) Computer Science
2 718 (32.14%) Agile
3 644 (28.83%) Problem-Solving
4 381 (17.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 347 (15.53%) DevOps
6 303 (13.56%) AI
7 301 (13.47%) Project Management
8 272 (12.18%) Change Management
9 259 (11.59%) CI/CD
10 255 (11.41%) Analytics
11 241 (10.79%) Decision-Making
12 240 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
13 235 (10.52%) Cybersecurity
14 222 (9.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 220 (9.85%) ITIL
15 220 (9.85%) Risk Management
16 219 (9.80%) Migration
17 211 (9.44%) Software Engineering
18 202 (9.04%) Project Delivery
19 182 (8.15%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 409 (18.31%) Python
2 341 (15.26%) SQL
3 159 (7.12%) Java
4 126 (5.64%) PowerShell
5 103 (4.61%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.40%) C#
7 73 (3.27%) C++
8 47 (2.10%) Go
8 47 (2.10%) TypeScript
9 44 (1.97%) Bash
10 26 (1.16%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.12%) R
12 20 (0.90%) Perl
13 17 (0.76%) C
13 17 (0.76%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.72%) Rust
15 14 (0.63%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.63%) Shell Script
16 13 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 543 (24.31%) Computer Science Degree
2 405 (18.13%) Security Cleared
3 348 (15.58%) Master's Degree
4 322 (14.41%) SC Cleared
5 132 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.28%) PMP
7 114 (5.10%) CISSP
8 89 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.36%) CISM
10 70 (3.13%) PhD
11 62 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
11 62 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
12 58 (2.60%) Azure Certification
13 57 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
14 45 (2.01%) DV Cleared
15 42 (1.88%) CCNP
16 39 (1.75%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.57%) CBAP
18 34 (1.52%) MBA
19 32 (1.43%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.58%) QA
2 114 (5.10%) GDPR
3 98 (4.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 98 (4.39%) PMO
4 73 (3.27%) NIST
5 72 (3.22%) Data Quality
6 47 (2.10%) PCI DSS
7 34 (1.52%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 32 (1.43%) SLA
9 30 (1.34%) GRC
10 15 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
10 15 (0.67%) NCSC
10 15 (0.67%) WCAG
11 14 (0.63%) Basel III
11 14 (0.63%) IFRS
12 13 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
13 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 165 (7.39%) Docker
2 150 (6.71%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.67%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.13%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.13%) HDFS
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 168 (7.52%) Kubernetes
2 116 (5.19%) Terraform
3 77 (3.45%) Ansible
4 69 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
5 53 (2.37%) Grafana
6 47 (2.10%) SCCM
7 45 (2.01%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.34%) OPNET
9 22 (0.98%) Puppet
10 17 (0.76%) Kibana
11 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
12 15 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.58%) Nmap
14 11 (0.49%) SCOM
15 10 (0.45%) WSUS
16 9 (0.40%) Kiali
17 7 (0.31%) Argo
17 7 (0.31%) Nessus
18 5 (0.22%) Progress Chef
18 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 473 (21.17%) Microsoft
2 158 (7.07%) Oracle
3 121 (5.42%) SAP
4 111 (4.97%) ServiceNow
5 103 (4.61%) Google
6 81 (3.63%) Splunk
7 73 (3.27%) Cisco
8 54 (2.42%) Remedy
9 52 (2.33%) Atlassian
10 48 (2.15%) VMware
11 45 (2.01%) Databricks
12 44 (1.97%) Salesforce
13 40 (1.79%) Citrix
14 35 (1.57%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.12%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.03%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.98%) IBM
17 22 (0.98%) Informatica
18 21 (0.94%) Aruba
19 20 (0.90%) Adobe