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 15 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 19 24
Rank change year-on-year -6 +5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 1,990 2,546 3,105
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.07% 7.93% 7.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.06% 26.61% 26.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,124 1,454 1,955
10th Percentile £268 £263 £275
25th Percentile £400 £394 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year +0.80% -6.10% -3.18%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £750 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 162 196
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.25 £16.45
25th Percentile £25.75 £31.25 £26.18
Median hourly rate £34.48 £50.00 £48.14
Median % change year-on-year -31.04% +3.86% +6.98%
75th Percentile £63.40 £72.50 £67.78
90th Percentile £88.15 £78.75 £81.70
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £42.88 £48.28
% change year-on-year -21.88% -11.18% +7.29%

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 9,019 9,567 11,816
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.04% 29.80% 29.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,750 5,811 7,638
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £733 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 751 499 696
10th Percentile £17.87 £19.97 £16.83
25th Percentile £18.87 £30.23 £24.94
Median hourly rate £25.15 £52.50 £53.67
Median % change year-on-year -52.10% -2.17% +19.26%
75th Percentile £43.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.27 £79.48
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £53.67
% change year-on-year -47.05% -11.49% +19.26%

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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 2025. 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 -5 1,004 £550 +4.76% 1,611
North of England -11 257 £458 -12.86% 822
South East -1 223 £450 - 1,409
Midlands -4 217 £475 +5.56% 507
West Midlands -6 162 £500 - 295
North West -6 146 £458 -14.96% 496
South West -3 132 £525 - 360
East of England -2 123 £500 +29.03% 374
Yorkshire -9 103 £450 -10.00% 225
East Midlands -5 55 £448 +12.00% 211
North East -21 8 £450 - 109
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
1 137 (6.88%) Confluence
2 101 (5.08%) SharePoint
3 69 (3.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (2.46%) Apache Spark
5 19 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.80%) nginx
7 14 (0.70%) CMS
7 14 (0.70%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.60%) IIS
9 10 (0.50%) Apache
10 8 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.35%) OpenStack
12 6 (0.30%) Luigi
13 5 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.20%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.20%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.20%) Moodle
14 4 (0.20%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.20%) Tomcat
Applications
1 233 (11.71%) Microsoft Office
2 174 (8.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 108 (5.43%) Microsoft Project
4 89 (4.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (3.27%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.95%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.75%) Simulink
8 11 (0.55%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.50%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 10 (0.50%) Trello
10 6 (0.30%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.30%) Maya
11 5 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.15%) InDesign
13 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
13 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.15%) Revit
13 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
13 3 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (2.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.70%) Primavera
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle EBS R12
4 13 (0.65%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.60%) SAP EWM
6 10 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.45%) FLEXCUBE
7 9 (0.45%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.45%) Oracle BPM
7 9 (0.45%) Oracle Financials
7 9 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.45%) Teamcenter
8 8 (0.40%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 8 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.35%) Endur
9 7 (0.35%) Workday HCM
10 6 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
10 6 (0.30%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 362 (18.19%) Azure
2 280 (14.07%) AWS
3 147 (7.39%) Microsoft 365
4 133 (6.68%) GCP
5 119 (5.98%) Power Platform
6 86 (4.32%) GitHub
7 77 (3.87%) SaaS
8 63 (3.17%) Serverless
9 61 (3.07%) Entra ID
10 51 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
11 37 (1.86%) Amazon S3
12 28 (1.41%) Cloud Computing
13 27 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
13 27 (1.36%) Dynamics 365
13 27 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
13 27 (1.36%) OneDrive
14 24 (1.21%) Amazon ECS
15 23 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
16 22 (1.11%) OpenShift
17 21 (1.06%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (4.42%) DNS
2 86 (4.32%) Firewall
3 63 (3.17%) VPN
4 44 (2.21%) Network Security
5 40 (2.01%) DHCP
6 35 (1.76%) TCP/IP
7 28 (1.41%) LAN
8 27 (1.36%) HTTP
9 26 (1.31%) Internet
9 26 (1.31%) WAN
10 25 (1.26%) SSH
10 25 (1.26%) Wireless
11 24 (1.21%) Unified Communications
12 18 (0.90%) BGP
13 17 (0.85%) MPLS
13 17 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (0.80%) Skype
14 16 (0.80%) SMTP
15 15 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
16 14 (0.70%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (4.82%) Power BI
2 91 (4.57%) PostgreSQL
3 73 (3.67%) SQL Server
4 63 (3.17%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.61%) Tableau
6 48 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
6 48 (2.41%) Relational Database
7 33 (1.66%) Big Data
8 29 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
9 24 (1.21%) Hadoop
10 22 (1.11%) MySQL
11 21 (1.06%) Data Lake
12 20 (1.01%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.80%) Metadata
13 16 (0.80%) MongoDB
14 15 (0.75%) Redis
14 15 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.65%) RDBMS
16 12 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 236 (11.86%) JIRA
2 97 (4.87%) Jenkins
3 96 (4.82%) Git
4 67 (3.37%) GitLab
5 25 (1.26%) Liquibase
6 18 (0.90%) Postman
7 16 (0.80%) JUnit
8 14 (0.70%) Selenium
9 11 (0.55%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.55%) SpecFlow
9 11 (0.55%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.50%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.50%) MLflow
10 10 (0.50%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.45%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.45%) Cypress.io
12 8 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
12 8 (0.40%) Subversion
13 7 (0.35%) Gradle
13 7 (0.35%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,038 (52.16%) Social Skills
2 671 (33.72%) Finance
3 478 (24.02%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (11.96%) Banking
5 106 (5.33%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.92%) Presentation Skills
7 87 (4.37%) Manufacturing
8 82 (4.12%) Marketing
9 77 (3.87%) Organisational Skills
10 70 (3.52%) Legal
11 68 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
12 59 (2.96%) Telecoms
13 53 (2.66%) Financial Institution
14 52 (2.61%) Front Office
14 52 (2.61%) Investment Banking
15 46 (2.31%) Pharmaceutical
16 43 (2.16%) Aerospace
17 41 (2.06%) Military
18 38 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 37 (1.86%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 294 (14.77%) Analyst
2 219 (11.01%) Developer
3 213 (10.70%) Senior
4 139 (6.98%) Business Analyst
5 134 (6.73%) Lead
6 128 (6.43%) Architect
7 114 (5.73%) Project Manager
8 80 (4.02%) Consultant
9 69 (3.47%) Software Engineer
10 62 (3.12%) Support Engineer
11 46 (2.31%) Security Engineer
12 44 (2.21%) Support Analyst
13 41 (2.06%) Senior Developer
14 40 (2.01%) Solutions Architect
15 39 (1.96%) Technical Support
16 37 (1.86%) Data Scientist
16 37 (1.86%) IT Manager
17 36 (1.81%) Data Engineer
17 36 (1.81%) IT Support
18 33 (1.66%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (5.23%) REST
2 72 (3.62%) HTML
3 70 (3.52%) RESTful
4 62 (3.12%) .NET
5 55 (2.76%) Kafka
6 53 (2.66%) CSS
7 43 (2.16%) Middleware
8 40 (2.01%) XML
9 38 (1.91%) React
10 37 (1.86%) Web Services
11 36 (1.81%) Elastic Stack
12 34 (1.71%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.51%) TensorFlow
14 29 (1.46%) SOAP
15 27 (1.36%) JSON
15 27 (1.36%) Pandas
16 25 (1.26%) Node.js
16 25 (1.26%) Spring
17 24 (1.21%) PyTorch
18 23 (1.16%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 179 (8.99%) Management Information System
2 85 (4.27%) Cloud Native
3 82 (4.12%) Product Ownership
4 64 (3.22%) Data Protection Act
5 63 (3.17%) Algorithms
6 58 (2.91%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (2.56%) Onboarding
8 49 (2.46%) Virtual Team
9 43 (2.16%) Data Centre
10 42 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (2.11%) Derivative
11 41 (2.06%) Public Cloud
11 41 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
12 33 (1.66%) Life Science
13 32 (1.61%) Security Posture
14 31 (1.56%) Mobile App
15 30 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
16 29 (1.46%) PKI
17 28 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
18 27 (1.36%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 189 (9.50%) Windows
2 156 (7.84%) Linux
3 64 (3.22%) Unix
4 35 (1.76%) Windows Server
5 30 (1.51%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.31%) Apple iOS
7 22 (1.11%) Android
8 20 (1.01%) Mac OS
9 17 (0.85%) VMS
10 15 (0.75%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.50%) Amazon Linux
12 8 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.20%) CentOS
14 3 (0.15%) AIX
14 3 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
15 2 (0.10%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.10%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 833 (41.86%) Computer Science
2 632 (31.76%) Problem-Solving
3 599 (30.10%) Agile
4 304 (15.28%) Project Management
5 285 (14.32%) DevOps
6 281 (14.12%) Stakeholder Management
7 224 (11.26%) Change Management
8 210 (10.55%) ITIL
9 208 (10.45%) CI/CD
10 198 (9.95%) Analytics
11 186 (9.35%) Software Engineering
12 185 (9.30%) Migration
13 183 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 176 (8.84%) Decision-Making
15 175 (8.79%) Cybersecurity
16 169 (8.49%) AI
17 167 (8.39%) Continuous Improvement
18 163 (8.19%) Risk Management
19 145 (7.29%) Scrum
20 142 (7.14%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 414 (20.80%) Python
2 316 (15.88%) SQL
3 186 (9.35%) Java
4 111 (5.58%) JavaScript
5 87 (4.37%) PowerShell
6 79 (3.97%) C++
7 62 (3.12%) C#
8 52 (2.61%) Go
9 43 (2.16%) TypeScript
10 35 (1.76%) Bash
11 34 (1.71%) R
12 21 (1.06%) MATLAB
12 21 (1.06%) Perl
13 19 (0.95%) C
13 19 (0.95%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.95%) Ruby
14 17 (0.85%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.75%) Apex Code
15 15 (0.75%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 555 (27.89%) Computer Science Degree
2 292 (14.67%) Master's Degree
3 261 (13.12%) Security Cleared
4 204 (10.25%) SC Cleared
5 122 (6.13%) PMI Certification
6 112 (5.63%) PMP
7 94 (4.72%) CISSP
8 76 (3.82%) PhD
9 64 (3.22%) Microsoft Certification
10 62 (3.12%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (3.02%) CISM
12 53 (2.66%) AWS Certification
13 51 (2.56%) Azure Certification
14 39 (1.96%) DV Cleared
15 38 (1.91%) CCNP
16 37 (1.86%) HND
17 36 (1.81%) CCNA
18 35 (1.76%) HNC
19 31 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
20 29 (1.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (4.67%) QA
2 88 (4.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 87 (4.37%) GDPR
4 82 (4.12%) Data Quality
5 73 (3.67%) NIST
6 46 (2.31%) PMO
7 37 (1.86%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.56%) SLA
9 25 (1.26%) GRC
9 25 (1.26%) PCI DSS
10 23 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.90%) COBIT
11 18 (0.90%) HIPAA
12 17 (0.85%) NCSC
12 17 (0.85%) WCAG
13 14 (0.70%) Def Stans
13 14 (0.70%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.60%) JSP 440
15 11 (0.55%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 10 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 140 (7.04%) Docker
2 125 (6.28%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.26%) Firmware
5 15 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.50%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.50%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.50%) Postfix
7 10 (0.50%) Squid
8 9 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.25%) BitLocker
9 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.20%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.20%) vSphere
11 3 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.15%) Terminal Services
12 2 (0.10%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.050%) OpenAM
Systems Management
1 126 (6.33%) Kubernetes
2 104 (5.23%) Terraform
3 87 (4.37%) Ansible
4 55 (2.76%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (2.51%) Grafana
6 43 (2.16%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.81%) SCCM
8 16 (0.80%) Puppet
9 13 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.60%) Nessus
11 11 (0.55%) QRadar
12 10 (0.50%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.45%) Argo
14 7 (0.35%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.30%) CSIRT
15 6 (0.30%) Kibana
15 6 (0.30%) RSA Archer
15 6 (0.30%) WSUS
16 5 (0.25%) Progress Chef
16 5 (0.25%) SCOM
Vendors
1 420 (21.11%) Microsoft
2 122 (6.13%) Oracle
3 112 (5.63%) ServiceNow
4 111 (5.58%) SAP
5 87 (4.37%) Google
6 78 (3.92%) Cisco
7 75 (3.77%) Splunk
8 62 (3.12%) Salesforce
9 43 (2.16%) VMware
10 38 (1.91%) IBM
11 31 (1.56%) Databricks
12 30 (1.51%) Citrix
13 28 (1.41%) Adobe
14 25 (1.26%) Atlassian
15 23 (1.16%) Workday
16 21 (1.06%) Apple
17 19 (0.95%) Palo Alto
18 15 (0.75%) Fortinet
18 15 (0.75%) Red Hat
19 14 (0.70%) Remedy