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 24 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,279 1,972 2,570
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.89% 7.09% 7.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.25% 22.40% 26.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,188 1,119 1,464
10th Percentile £204 £263 £270
25th Percentile £357 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -1.19% -3.62%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £728 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 159 178
10th Percentile £16.46 £19.71 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.00 £26.71 £33.95
Median hourly rate £39.75 £38.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +3.25% -32.87% +14.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £38.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +2.60% -26.67% +5.00%

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 14,940 8,803 9,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.07% 31.63% 29.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,000 5,599 5,904
10th Percentile £350 £304 £325
25th Percentile £445 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £529 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,236 708 549
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.88 £18.03
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -53.43% +0.24%
75th Percentile £74.08 £43.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.88 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -7.41%

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 24 September 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 24 September 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 24 September 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 -20 982 £525 -4.55% 6,217
South East +4 465 £525 +16.67% 1,806
North of England -10 339 £475 +6.26% 1,188
North West -7 212 £475 +3.83% 657
Midlands -32 184 £450 -3.23% 830
East of England -12 139 £400 -15.79% 856
West Midlands -28 137 £450 -5.26% 513
South West -21 128 £400 -15.79% 724
Yorkshire -1 112 £500 +19.05% 357
East Midlands -23 46 £475 +6.26% 317
North East -41 15 £460 +32.09% 184
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
1 156 (6.85%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.56%) Confluence
3 61 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.83%) IIS
7 17 (0.75%) Apache
8 14 (0.61%) Camunda
8 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
9 11 (0.48%) CMS
10 8 (0.35%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Appian
13 3 (0.13%) nginx
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 232 (10.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 216 (9.48%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 109 (4.78%) Microsoft Project
5 43 (1.89%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.39%) Revit
10 9 (0.39%) Windchill
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
12 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
14 3 (0.13%) Trello
15 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 39 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.92%) 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%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
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 Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 528 (23.17%) Azure
2 288 (12.64%) AWS
3 216 (9.48%) Microsoft 365
4 213 (9.35%) Power Platform
5 147 (6.45%) GCP
6 135 (5.92%) Entra ID
7 117 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.16%) SaaS
9 61 (2.68%) GitHub
10 57 (2.50%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.33%) Serverless
12 50 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
12 50 (2.19%) PowerApps
13 47 (2.06%) OneDrive
14 45 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.49%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.40%) Figma
17 26 (1.14%) Azure AI
18 25 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.12%) Firewall
2 73 (3.20%) DNS
3 63 (2.76%) Network Security
4 57 (2.50%) TCP/IP
5 56 (2.46%) VPN
6 45 (1.97%) DHCP
7 33 (1.45%) WAN
8 32 (1.40%) LAN
9 25 (1.10%) Wireless
10 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.88%) 5G
12 19 (0.83%) SSH
13 18 (0.79%) Internet
13 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.75%) SSL
15 16 (0.70%) VLAN
15 16 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.66%) BGP
17 13 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (6.80%) Power BI
2 106 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.37%) Metadata
4 52 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
5 51 (2.24%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.54%) MySQL
8 32 (1.40%) NoSQL
9 31 (1.36%) Tableau
10 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
11 21 (0.92%) Big Data
11 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.70%) GIS
14 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.61%) Data Mining
16 10 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
16 10 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 165 (7.24%) JIRA
2 132 (5.79%) Git
3 58 (2.54%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.24%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) JUnit
6 23 (1.01%) Maven
7 22 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.92%) Gradle
9 20 (0.88%) Selenium
10 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.66%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.66%) Mockito
12 14 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.57%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.39%) Subversion
14 9 (0.39%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (0.35%) MLflow
15 8 (0.35%) Postman
15 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,028 (45.11%) Social Skills
2 669 (29.35%) Finance
3 530 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (8.51%) Banking
5 179 (7.85%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.54%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.40%) Manufacturing
8 108 (4.74%) Aerospace
9 102 (4.48%) Influencing Skills
10 91 (3.99%) Marketing
11 80 (3.51%) Telecoms
12 78 (3.42%) Legal
13 77 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
14 69 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
15 60 (2.63%) Retail
16 58 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 50 (2.19%) Law
18 48 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
19 45 (1.97%) Military
20 41 (1.80%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 307 (13.47%) Analyst
2 261 (11.45%) Senior
3 190 (8.34%) Developer
4 188 (8.25%) Lead
5 157 (6.89%) Architect
6 147 (6.45%) Business Analyst
7 109 (4.78%) Project Manager
8 71 (3.12%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.85%) IT Support
10 64 (2.81%) Senior Manager
11 54 (2.37%) Consultant
12 52 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (2.24%) IT Analyst
13 51 (2.24%) IT Manager
14 46 (2.02%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.93%) Software Engineer
16 42 (1.84%) Administrator
16 42 (1.84%) Designer
16 42 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
16 42 (1.84%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.61%) Terraform
2 99 (4.34%) REST
3 94 (4.12%) .NET
4 67 (2.94%) HTML
4 67 (2.94%) React
5 57 (2.50%) Kafka
6 56 (2.46%) CSS
7 49 (2.15%) RESTful
8 43 (1.89%) OAuth
8 43 (1.89%) XML
9 42 (1.84%) Middleware
9 42 (1.84%) Web Services
10 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
10 36 (1.58%) Spring Boot
11 35 (1.54%) .NET Framework
12 34 (1.49%) SAML
12 34 (1.49%) SOAP
13 32 (1.40%) OAuth2
13 32 (1.40%) OpenID
14 31 (1.36%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 209 (9.17%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.66%) Onboarding
3 112 (4.91%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.12%) Cloud Native
5 89 (3.91%) Self-Motivation
6 56 (2.46%) Algorithms
6 56 (2.46%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.28%) Data Structures
8 48 (2.11%) Security Posture
9 46 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
10 44 (1.93%) Operational Technology
11 41 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
12 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
12 40 (1.76%) Life Science
13 37 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
14 36 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.58%) Virtual Team
15 31 (1.36%) SCADA
16 30 (1.32%) PMI
17 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 288 (12.64%) Windows
2 176 (7.72%) Linux
3 81 (3.55%) Windows Server
4 66 (2.90%) Unix
5 43 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.97%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.26%) 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%) CentOS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 734 (32.21%) Computer Science
2 636 (27.91%) Agile
3 605 (26.55%) Problem-Solving
4 492 (21.59%) Stakeholder Management
5 407 (17.86%) Continuous Improvement
6 372 (16.32%) AI
7 337 (14.79%) DevOps
8 292 (12.81%) CI/CD
8 292 (12.81%) Project Management
9 291 (12.77%) Analytics
10 263 (11.54%) ITIL
11 243 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 240 (10.53%) Decision-Making
13 230 (10.09%) Roadmaps
14 229 (10.05%) Change Management
15 226 (9.92%) Scrum
16 222 (9.74%) Cybersecurity
17 218 (9.57%) Software Engineering
18 203 (8.91%) PRINCE2
19 200 (8.78%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 382 (16.76%) Python
2 333 (14.61%) SQL
3 168 (7.37%) PowerShell
4 150 (6.58%) Java
5 122 (5.35%) JavaScript
6 110 (4.83%) C#
7 60 (2.63%) Bash
8 39 (1.71%) C++
8 39 (1.71%) TypeScript
9 28 (1.23%) Bicep
10 27 (1.18%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.14%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.05%) R
13 22 (0.97%) C
14 16 (0.70%) Scala
15 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.48%) X++
16 9 (0.39%) MATLAB
16 9 (0.39%) Perl
Qualifications
1 441 (19.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 435 (19.09%) Security Cleared
3 313 (13.73%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.38%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.36%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.57%) PMP
7 118 (5.18%) Microsoft Certification
8 105 (4.61%) CISSP
9 87 (3.82%) DV Cleared
10 81 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (3.51%) Azure Certification
12 69 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.63%) PhD
14 52 (2.28%) CISM
15 48 (2.11%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 45 (1.97%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.58%) ISTQB
18 35 (1.54%) DBS Check
19 33 (1.45%) A+ Certification
19 33 (1.45%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.97%) QA
2 131 (5.75%) Data Quality
3 90 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 89 (3.91%) NIST
5 79 (3.47%) PMO
6 73 (3.20%) GDPR
7 40 (1.76%) Accessibility
8 35 (1.54%) SLA
9 28 (1.23%) GRC
10 22 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
12 16 (0.70%) NCSC
13 14 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.48%) P3O
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 31000
16 9 (0.39%) IEC 61508
16 9 (0.39%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 185 (8.12%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.18%) Docker
3 57 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.18%) Firmware
5 24 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
8 9 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) NFS
12 4 (0.18%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) RACF
13 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 117 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.54%) Ansible
4 29 (1.27%) SCCM
5 26 (1.14%) Grafana
6 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 9 (0.39%) CASB
13 8 (0.35%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.26%) Control-M
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
14 6 (0.26%) WSUS
15 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 578 (25.36%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.06%) Oracle
3 138 (6.06%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.48%) SAP
5 99 (4.34%) Google
6 73 (3.20%) VMware
7 64 (2.81%) Cisco
8 58 (2.54%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.33%) Adobe
10 47 (2.06%) Databricks
11 42 (1.84%) IBM
12 40 (1.76%) Splunk
13 30 (1.32%) CyberArk
13 30 (1.32%) Red Hat
14 24 (1.05%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.97%) Citrix
16 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.88%) Apple
17 20 (0.88%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.79%) Ariba