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 3 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,278 1,980 2,583
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.07% 7.96%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.23% 22.29% 26.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,180 1,113 1,473
10th Percentile £204 £268 £268
25th Percentile £363 £400 £399
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.48%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £767
UK median daily rate £501 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 167 170
10th Percentile £16.46 £16.76 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.81 £26.71 £31.34
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.50 £53.25
Median % change year-on-year +14.49% -35.21% +10.61%
75th Percentile £68.30 £63.33 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £34.48 £50.00
% change year-on-year +16.01% -31.04% +1.75%

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 14,960 8,884 9,649
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.16% 31.70% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,980 5,639 5,867
10th Percentile £350 £300 £318
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 733 532
10th Percentile £17.63 £17.87 £18.13
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +103.78% -52.10% -0.94%
75th Percentile £73.81 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £46.80 £25.15 £48.18
% change year-on-year +86.08% -47.80% -10.08%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 -20 980 £525 -4.55% 6,773
South East +6 466 £525 +16.67% 2,115
North of England -6 343 £478 +6.22% 1,400
North West -8 217 £479 +4.70% 745
Midlands -27 189 £450 -5.26% 984
West Midlands -26 141 £450 -8.16% 584
East of England -13 137 £425 -15.00% 1,053
South West -21 130 £400 -23.81% 843
Yorkshire -11 110 £500 +17.65% 429
East Midlands -21 47 £478 +6.94% 400
North East -37 16 £460 +2.22% 241
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
1 151 (6.63%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.87%) Confluence
3 57 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.32%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.92%) Apache
6 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.88%) IIS
7 15 (0.66%) CMS
8 14 (0.61%) Camunda
8 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 8 (0.35%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Appian
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 231 (10.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (9.39%) Microsoft Office
3 109 (4.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 101 (4.43%) Microsoft Project
5 46 (2.02%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.48%) Windchill
10 10 (0.44%) Revit
11 9 (0.40%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
13 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.13%) MicroStation
15 2 (0.088%) OrCAD
15 2 (0.088%) Trello
Business Applications
1 34 (1.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 525 (23.05%) Azure
2 279 (12.25%) AWS
3 209 (9.17%) Microsoft 365
4 205 (9.00%) Power Platform
5 146 (6.41%) GCP
6 134 (5.88%) Entra ID
7 120 (5.27%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.16%) SaaS
9 61 (2.68%) GitHub
10 56 (2.46%) Power Automate
11 54 (2.37%) Serverless
12 49 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
13 48 (2.11%) OneDrive
13 48 (2.11%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.93%) Microsoft Copilot
15 35 (1.54%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.40%) Figma
17 30 (1.32%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.27%) OpenShift
19 27 (1.19%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.95%) Firewall
2 72 (3.16%) DNS
3 61 (2.68%) Network Security
4 56 (2.46%) TCP/IP
5 54 (2.37%) VPN
6 43 (1.89%) DHCP
7 31 (1.36%) LAN
7 31 (1.36%) WAN
8 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.97%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
11 19 (0.83%) SSH
12 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
13 17 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (0.70%) Internet
14 16 (0.70%) VLAN
15 13 (0.57%) BGP
16 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (6.45%) Power BI
2 107 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.46%) Metadata
4 51 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (1.98%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.54%) MySQL
8 33 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.32%) Tableau
10 28 (1.23%) Big Data
11 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.70%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
17 11 (0.48%) Redis
18 10 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 162 (7.11%) JIRA
2 134 (5.88%) Git
3 59 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.46%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) JUnit
6 23 (1.01%) Maven
7 22 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.92%) Gradle
9 19 (0.83%) Selenium
9 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.70%) Cucumber
10 16 (0.70%) Mockito
11 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.61%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
14 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.35%) MLflow
15 8 (0.35%) Postman
15 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,028 (45.13%) Social Skills
2 661 (29.02%) Finance
3 536 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (8.47%) Banking
5 187 (8.21%) Public Sector
6 152 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
7 135 (5.93%) Manufacturing
8 111 (4.87%) Aerospace
9 105 (4.61%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (4.17%) Marketing
11 77 (3.38%) Legal
11 77 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
11 77 (3.38%) Telecoms
12 69 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.72%) Retail
14 60 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 51 (2.24%) Pharmaceutical
16 48 (2.11%) Law
17 47 (2.06%) Military
18 42 (1.84%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 305 (13.39%) Analyst
2 258 (11.33%) Senior
3 190 (8.34%) Developer
4 187 (8.21%) Lead
5 155 (6.80%) Architect
6 149 (6.54%) Business Analyst
7 106 (4.65%) Project Manager
8 68 (2.99%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.77%) IT Support
10 62 (2.72%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.46%) Consultant
12 52 (2.28%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.11%) IT Analyst
15 46 (2.02%) Administrator
15 46 (2.02%) Security Engineer
16 42 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
16 42 (1.84%) Software Engineer
17 41 (1.80%) Data Engineer
17 41 (1.80%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.83%) Terraform
2 99 (4.35%) REST
3 94 (4.13%) .NET
4 68 (2.99%) HTML
4 68 (2.99%) React
5 59 (2.59%) CSS
6 58 (2.55%) Kafka
7 49 (2.15%) RESTful
8 43 (1.89%) OAuth
8 43 (1.89%) XML
9 41 (1.80%) Middleware
10 40 (1.76%) Web Services
11 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.54%) Spring Boot
13 34 (1.49%) SAML
14 33 (1.45%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.45%) SOAP
15 32 (1.40%) OAuth2
15 32 (1.40%) OpenID
16 31 (1.36%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 213 (9.35%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.66%) Onboarding
3 113 (4.96%) Product Ownership
4 96 (4.21%) Self-Motivation
5 94 (4.13%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.59%) Algorithms
7 56 (2.46%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.11%) Operational Technology
9 48 (2.11%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
11 45 (1.98%) Life Science
12 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
13 38 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
14 37 (1.62%) Virtual Team
15 36 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
16 35 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
17 32 (1.40%) SCADA
18 29 (1.27%) PMI
19 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 284 (12.47%) Windows
2 176 (7.73%) Linux
3 81 (3.56%) Windows Server
4 68 (2.99%) Unix
5 40 (1.76%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.79%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) zOS
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) CentOS
15 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 731 (32.09%) Computer Science
2 645 (28.31%) Agile
3 619 (27.17%) Problem-Solving
4 509 (22.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 408 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 383 (16.81%) AI
7 342 (15.01%) DevOps
8 302 (13.26%) CI/CD
9 295 (12.95%) Analytics
10 283 (12.42%) Project Management
11 252 (11.06%) ITIL
12 241 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (10.45%) Decision-Making
14 234 (10.27%) Roadmaps
15 229 (10.05%) Scrum
16 227 (9.96%) Change Management
17 221 (9.70%) Software Engineering
18 217 (9.53%) Cybersecurity
19 205 (9.00%) Validation
20 204 (8.96%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 372 (16.33%) Python
2 339 (14.88%) SQL
3 171 (7.51%) PowerShell
4 146 (6.41%) Java
5 123 (5.40%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.70%) C#
7 62 (2.72%) Bash
8 37 (1.62%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.58%) C++
10 29 (1.27%) Bicep
11 26 (1.14%) Shell Script
11 26 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.97%) R
14 21 (0.92%) C
15 16 (0.70%) Scala
16 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 450 (19.75%) Security Cleared
2 442 (19.40%) Computer Science Degree
3 326 (14.31%) SC Cleared
4 194 (8.52%) Master's Degree
5 146 (6.41%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.66%) PMP
7 114 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
8 104 (4.57%) CISSP
9 91 (3.99%) DV Cleared
10 81 (3.56%) Azure Certification
11 79 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
12 73 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.55%) PhD
14 49 (2.15%) CISM
15 46 (2.02%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 42 (1.84%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.67%) DBS Check
18 36 (1.58%) ISTQB
19 32 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
20 31 (1.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.97%) QA
2 132 (5.79%) Data Quality
3 88 (3.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.78%) NIST
5 78 (3.42%) GDPR
6 72 (3.16%) PMO
7 42 (1.84%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.45%) SLA
9 30 (1.32%) GRC
10 20 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.79%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.70%) IFRS
14 14 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.48%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
16 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 178 (7.81%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.18%) Docker
3 57 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.05%) Firmware
4 24 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.40%) vSphere
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 123 (5.40%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
3 57 (2.50%) Ansible
4 28 (1.23%) SCCM
5 26 (1.14%) Grafana
6 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.83%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 12 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.48%) SCOM
12 10 (0.44%) CASB
12 10 (0.44%) Functional Safety
13 8 (0.35%) Control-M
14 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
14 6 (0.26%) WSUS
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 570 (25.02%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.11%) Oracle
3 131 (5.75%) ServiceNow
4 122 (5.36%) SAP
5 107 (4.70%) Google
6 72 (3.16%) VMware
7 63 (2.77%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.68%) Cisco
9 56 (2.46%) Adobe
10 49 (2.15%) Databricks
11 43 (1.89%) IBM
12 39 (1.71%) Splunk
13 31 (1.36%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.14%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.14%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.92%) Apple
15 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.92%) Citrix
16 19 (0.83%) Ariba
16 19 (0.83%) Palo Alto