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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,256 1,938 2,569
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.87% 7.03% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.15% 22.24% 26.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,170 1,094 1,463
10th Percentile £204 £263 £265
25th Percentile £358 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 161 171
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.60 £21.25
25th Percentile £25.29 £26.25 £32.38
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +14.49% -39.84% +18.79%
75th Percentile £69.50 £63.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £85.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £34.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year +13.67% -33.81% +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 14,890 8,715 9,595
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.14% 31.63% 29.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,961 5,549 5,834
10th Percentile £350 £300 £320
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £736
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 715 537
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £18.09
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -52.55% -1.24%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +86.88% -48.21% -9.54%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -19 970 £525 -4.55% 4,784
South East +5 462 £525 +16.67% 1,516
North of England -8 340 £475 +6.26% 1,099
North West -8 212 £479 +4.70% 615
Midlands -30 185 £456 -1.35% 761
West Midlands -30 137 £450 -5.26% 471
East of England -14 136 £425 -12.82% 718
South West -25 126 £400 -20.00% 644
Yorkshire -4 112 £477 +13.45% 318
East Midlands -18 47 £475 +6.26% 290
North East -33 16 £460 +2.22% 172
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
1 154 (6.83%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.83%) Confluence
3 60 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (1.11%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (0.89%) IIS
6 16 (0.71%) Apache
7 14 (0.62%) Camunda
7 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
8 13 (0.58%) CMS
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%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Appian
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (9.49%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (4.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 105 (4.65%) Microsoft Project
5 43 (1.91%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Navisworks
9 10 (0.44%) Revit
9 10 (0.44%) Simulink
9 10 (0.44%) Windchill
10 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.089%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 36 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) 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 (0.27%) 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%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 524 (23.23%) Azure
2 280 (12.41%) AWS
3 214 (9.49%) Microsoft 365
4 209 (9.26%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.43%) GCP
6 135 (5.98%) Entra ID
7 119 (5.27%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.19%) SaaS
9 62 (2.75%) GitHub
10 57 (2.53%) Power Automate
11 52 (2.30%) Serverless
12 50 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
13 49 (2.17%) PowerApps
14 48 (2.13%) OneDrive
15 44 (1.95%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.55%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.42%) Figma
18 26 (1.15%) Azure AI
18 26 (1.15%) IaaS
19 25 (1.11%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.99%) Firewall
2 73 (3.24%) DNS
3 61 (2.70%) Network Security
4 55 (2.44%) TCP/IP
5 54 (2.39%) VPN
6 44 (1.95%) DHCP
7 31 (1.37%) LAN
7 31 (1.37%) WAN
8 23 (1.02%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.98%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) 5G
11 19 (0.84%) SSH
12 18 (0.80%) Wireshark
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
14 16 (0.71%) Internet
14 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.58%) BGP
16 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (6.74%) Power BI
2 106 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.30%) Metadata
3 52 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
4 46 (2.04%) Relational Database
5 43 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.55%) MySQL
7 31 (1.37%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.33%) Tableau
9 25 (1.11%) MongoDB
9 25 (1.11%) Oracle Database
10 22 (0.98%) Big Data
11 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 18 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.71%) GIS
14 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 10 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
16 10 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 160 (7.09%) JIRA
2 133 (5.90%) Git
3 58 (2.57%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.26%) GitLab
5 24 (1.06%) JUnit
6 23 (1.02%) Maven
7 22 (0.98%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.93%) Gradle
9 20 (0.89%) Selenium
10 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
11 16 (0.71%) Mockito
12 15 (0.66%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
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%) Rational DOORS
15 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,019 (45.17%) Social Skills
2 662 (29.34%) Finance
3 533 (23.63%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (8.55%) Banking
5 183 (8.11%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.60%) Organisational Skills
7 128 (5.67%) Manufacturing
8 107 (4.74%) Aerospace
9 104 (4.61%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (3.99%) Marketing
11 79 (3.50%) Legal
11 79 (3.50%) Telecoms
12 76 (3.37%) Presentation Skills
13 71 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
14 60 (2.66%) Retail
15 58 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.30%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.13%) Law
18 46 (2.04%) Military
19 41 (1.82%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 304 (13.48%) Analyst
2 257 (11.39%) Senior
3 192 (8.51%) Developer
4 181 (8.02%) Lead
5 151 (6.69%) Architect
6 148 (6.56%) Business Analyst
7 106 (4.70%) Project Manager
8 69 (3.06%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.79%) IT Support
10 61 (2.70%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.48%) Consultant
12 52 (2.30%) IT Manager
13 50 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.13%) IT Analyst
14 48 (2.13%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.91%) Administrator
15 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
16 42 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
17 41 (1.82%) Designer
17 41 (1.82%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.61%) Terraform
2 94 (4.17%) REST
3 93 (4.12%) .NET
4 67 (2.97%) HTML
4 67 (2.97%) React
5 58 (2.57%) CSS
6 57 (2.53%) Kafka
7 48 (2.13%) RESTful
8 43 (1.91%) OAuth
8 43 (1.91%) XML
9 42 (1.86%) Middleware
10 39 (1.73%) Web Services
11 36 (1.60%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.55%) Spring Boot
13 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.51%) SAML
13 34 (1.51%) SOAP
14 32 (1.42%) JSON
14 32 (1.42%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.42%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 211 (9.35%) Management Information System
2 130 (5.76%) Onboarding
3 111 (4.92%) Product Ownership
4 93 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (4.03%) Cloud Native
6 56 (2.48%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.39%) Algorithms
8 53 (2.35%) Data Structures
9 49 (2.17%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (2.04%) Operational Technology
11 44 (1.95%) Life Science
12 39 (1.73%) AI Agents
12 39 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
13 36 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
13 36 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.60%) Virtual Team
14 31 (1.37%) SCADA
15 30 (1.33%) PMI
16 28 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 286 (12.68%) Windows
2 175 (7.76%) Linux
3 82 (3.63%) Windows Server
4 68 (3.01%) Unix
5 41 (1.82%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.80%) Android
10 9 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.27%) 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 (0.089%) CentOS
15 2 (0.089%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 724 (32.09%) Computer Science
2 638 (28.28%) Agile
3 609 (26.99%) Problem-Solving
4 497 (22.03%) Stakeholder Management
5 404 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 375 (16.62%) AI
7 333 (14.76%) DevOps
8 295 (13.08%) CI/CD
9 294 (13.03%) Analytics
10 285 (12.63%) Project Management
11 256 (11.35%) ITIL
12 240 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (10.55%) Decision-Making
14 228 (10.11%) Roadmaps
14 228 (10.11%) Scrum
15 224 (9.93%) Change Management
16 218 (9.66%) Cybersecurity
17 216 (9.57%) Software Engineering
18 202 (8.95%) PRINCE2
19 196 (8.69%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 370 (16.40%) Python
2 334 (14.80%) SQL
3 168 (7.45%) PowerShell
4 147 (6.52%) Java
5 123 (5.45%) JavaScript
6 108 (4.79%) C#
7 61 (2.70%) Bash
8 38 (1.68%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.60%) C++
10 29 (1.29%) Bicep
11 27 (1.20%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.15%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
14 23 (1.02%) R
15 20 (0.89%) C
16 16 (0.71%) Scala
17 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.49%) X++
18 9 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 437 (19.37%) Security Cleared
2 436 (19.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 317 (14.05%) SC Cleared
4 189 (8.38%) Master's Degree
5 144 (6.38%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.54%) PMP
7 115 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
8 103 (4.57%) CISSP
9 87 (3.86%) DV Cleared
10 79 (3.50%) Azure Certification
10 79 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
11 71 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (2.57%) PhD
13 50 (2.22%) CISM
14 48 (2.13%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 41 (1.82%) AWS Certification
16 37 (1.64%) DBS Check
17 36 (1.60%) ISTQB
18 31 (1.37%) A+ Certification
19 30 (1.33%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (6.07%) QA
2 132 (5.85%) Data Quality
3 87 (3.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (3.72%) NIST
5 75 (3.32%) PMO
6 74 (3.28%) GDPR
7 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.46%) SLA
9 29 (1.29%) GRC
10 20 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.71%) IFRS
12 16 (0.71%) NCSC
13 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.49%) ISO 31000
14 11 (0.49%) P3O
15 10 (0.44%) IEC 61508
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 182 (8.07%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.19%) Docker
3 57 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.11%) Hyper-V
5 24 (1.06%) Firmware
6 22 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
10 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
12 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.22%) NFS
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.13%) RACF
14 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 116 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
3 52 (2.30%) Ansible
4 30 (1.33%) SCCM
5 24 (1.06%) Grafana
6 23 (1.02%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 12 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.49%) SCOM
12 10 (0.44%) CASB
13 9 (0.40%) Functional Safety
14 7 (0.31%) Control-M
14 7 (0.31%) Nessus
14 7 (0.31%) WSUS
15 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 571 (25.31%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.18%) Oracle
3 133 (5.90%) ServiceNow
4 121 (5.36%) SAP
5 103 (4.57%) Google
6 72 (3.19%) VMware
7 60 (2.66%) Cisco
8 58 (2.57%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.39%) Adobe
10 47 (2.08%) Databricks
11 43 (1.91%) IBM
12 38 (1.68%) Splunk
13 30 (1.33%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.20%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.11%) OpenAI
16 21 (0.93%) Apple
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.93%) Citrix
17 19 (0.84%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.80%) Ariba