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 18 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,253 2,041 2,582
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.93% 7.39% 7.79%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.53% 23.48% 25.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,204 1,198 1,509
10th Percentile £204 £250 £281
25th Percentile £366 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.80%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 169 230
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.19 £20.24
25th Percentile £27.23 £27.28 £30.38
Median hourly rate £45.25 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +6.47% -25.89% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.60 £79.25
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -1.86% -19.05% +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 14,505 8,692 10,104
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.71% 31.48% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,788 5,433 6,445
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £433 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,131 676 728
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.03
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.56
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.65
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 -21 970 £525 -4.55% 3,693
South East -2 478 £500 +5.26% 1,084
North of England -17 330 £475 +5.80% 843
North West -15 194 £466 +0.05% 459
Midlands -32 176 £450 +0.67% 512
East of England -12 133 £425 -5.56% 598
West Midlands -35 131 £450 - 279
Yorkshire -12 123 £500 +23.84% 254
South West -24 123 £415 +11.41% 481
East Midlands -25 43 £475 +33.80% 233
North East -45 13 £450 +130.77% 152
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
1 141 (6.26%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.70%) Confluence
3 64 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.29%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 224 (9.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 221 (9.81%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.42%) Microsoft Project
4 110 (4.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.04%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
11 7 (0.31%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (2.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 524 (23.26%) Azure
2 287 (12.74%) AWS
3 211 (9.37%) Microsoft 365
4 208 (9.23%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.44%) Entra ID
6 129 (5.73%) GCP
7 100 (4.44%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (3.42%) SaaS
9 56 (2.49%) GitHub
10 48 (2.13%) PowerApps
11 47 (2.09%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.91%) OneDrive
13 42 (1.86%) Serverless
14 40 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
15 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
16 37 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
17 35 (1.55%) Figma
18 25 (1.11%) IaaS
19 24 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
20 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.66%) Firewall
2 72 (3.20%) DNS
3 68 (3.02%) Network Security
4 60 (2.66%) TCP/IP
5 59 (2.62%) VPN
6 42 (1.86%) DHCP
7 38 (1.69%) WAN
8 35 (1.55%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
11 18 (0.80%) Internet
12 17 (0.75%) VLAN
13 15 (0.67%) 3GPP
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) SSH
13 15 (0.67%) SSL
14 13 (0.58%) 5G
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (7.32%) Power BI
2 98 (4.35%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.31%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 45 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
6 42 (1.86%) Metadata
7 32 (1.42%) Tableau
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.15%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.98%) MySQL
13 21 (0.93%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Power Query
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 173 (7.68%) JIRA
2 115 (5.10%) Git
3 50 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.00%) GitLab
5 37 (1.64%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.80%) Selenium
7 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
8 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 11 (0.49%) MLflow
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.36%) Maven
11 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Gradle
12 7 (0.31%) Postman
13 6 (0.27%) Artifactory
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 983 (43.63%) Social Skills
2 656 (29.12%) Finance
3 524 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
4 177 (7.86%) Banking
5 173 (7.68%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.35%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (5.06%) Aerospace
8 92 (4.08%) Manufacturing
9 91 (4.04%) Marketing
10 90 (3.99%) Legal
11 78 (3.46%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
12 77 (3.42%) Presentation Skills
13 63 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.75%) Retail
15 48 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (2.13%) Law
16 42 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
17 40 (1.78%) Front Office
18 36 (1.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 311 (13.80%) Analyst
2 245 (10.87%) Senior
3 185 (8.21%) Lead
4 162 (7.19%) Developer
5 151 (6.70%) Architect
6 142 (6.30%) Business Analyst
7 119 (5.28%) Project Manager
8 68 (3.02%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.75%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.71%) IT Support
11 56 (2.49%) Product Manager
12 55 (2.44%) Consultant
13 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.26%) Designer
14 51 (2.26%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
16 49 (2.17%) Solutions Architect
17 44 (1.95%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.82%) Security Engineer
19 40 (1.78%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.13%) REST
2 90 (3.99%) .NET
3 50 (2.22%) React
4 46 (2.04%) Kafka
5 42 (1.86%) HTML
6 39 (1.73%) OAuth
6 39 (1.73%) RESTful
7 32 (1.42%) Middleware
7 32 (1.42%) Web Services
8 31 (1.38%) .NET Framework
8 31 (1.38%) CSS
8 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
10 28 (1.24%) OpenID
11 27 (1.20%) LDAP
11 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
11 27 (1.20%) XML
12 26 (1.15%) SailPoint
13 24 (1.07%) AngularJS
14 23 (1.02%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 192 (8.52%) Management Information System
2 136 (6.04%) Onboarding
3 135 (5.99%) Product Ownership
4 92 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.91%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.06%) Data Structures
7 59 (2.62%) Data Centre
8 57 (2.53%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.26%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
11 42 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
12 41 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
13 40 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
14 38 (1.69%) Virtual Team
15 35 (1.55%) Life Science
16 32 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.38%) AI Agents
17 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.38%) PMI
18 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 283 (12.56%) Windows
2 171 (7.59%) Linux
3 66 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.62%) Unix
5 46 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.93%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Debian
11 4 (0.18%) Rocky
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) VMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 777 (34.49%) Computer Science
2 634 (28.14%) Agile
3 594 (26.36%) Problem-Solving
4 424 (18.82%) Stakeholder Management
5 413 (18.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 354 (15.71%) AI
7 306 (13.58%) DevOps
8 290 (12.87%) Project Management
9 282 (12.52%) Analytics
10 268 (11.90%) ITIL
11 264 (11.72%) CI/CD
12 242 (10.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 226 (10.03%) Cybersecurity
14 221 (9.81%) Decision-Making
15 207 (9.19%) Change Management
16 205 (9.10%) Roadmaps
17 201 (8.92%) PRINCE2
18 200 (8.88%) Scrum
18 200 (8.88%) Software Engineering
19 186 (8.26%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 385 (17.09%) Python
2 322 (14.29%) SQL
3 161 (7.15%) PowerShell
4 150 (6.66%) Java
5 98 (4.35%) C#
6 92 (4.08%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.35%) Bash
8 44 (1.95%) C++
9 31 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 24 (1.07%) Bicep
12 23 (1.02%) C
12 23 (1.02%) R
13 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
16 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 445 (19.75%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (18.86%) Security Cleared
3 276 (12.25%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.48%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.95%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.24%) Microsoft Certification
7 117 (5.19%) PMP
8 111 (4.93%) CISSP
9 80 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.24%) DV Cleared
11 67 (2.97%) Azure Certification
12 58 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
13 50 (2.22%) CISM
14 49 (2.17%) PhD
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.60%) CCNP
18 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
19 31 (1.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (5.37%) QA
2 118 (5.24%) Data Quality
3 104 (4.62%) NIST
4 96 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.86%) PMO
6 66 (2.93%) GDPR
7 43 (1.91%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 20 (0.89%) GRC
11 19 (0.84%) NCSC
11 19 (0.84%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.53%) IFRS
13 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 10 (0.44%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
15 9 (0.40%) IEC 61508
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 193 (8.57%) Active Directory
2 112 (4.97%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.07%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.044%) ACF2
Systems Management
1 118 (5.24%) Kubernetes
2 93 (4.13%) Terraform
3 75 (3.33%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.89%) Ansible
5 37 (1.64%) SCCM
6 27 (1.20%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Progress Chef
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.31%) Control-M
14 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.31%) SCOM
15 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.27%) Nessus
16 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 586 (26.01%) Microsoft
2 152 (6.75%) Oracle
3 142 (6.30%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.50%) SAP
5 87 (3.86%) Google
6 69 (3.06%) VMware
7 62 (2.75%) Cisco
8 58 (2.57%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
10 50 (2.22%) Databricks
11 37 (1.64%) Splunk
12 31 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 20 (0.89%) Apple
16 20 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
17 19 (0.84%) Ariba
18 17 (0.75%) HP