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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,257 2,041 2,588
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.40% 7.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.55% 23.52% 25.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 1,197 1,507
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 £618 £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 262 169 230
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.19 £20.24
25th Percentile £26.98 £27.28 £30.38
Median hourly rate £43.50 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +2.35% -25.89% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.60 £79.25
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £42.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year -7.60% -18.57% +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 14,513 8,676 10,136
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.45% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,794 5,431 6,440
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £435 £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 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,120 679 724
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.94
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.62 £67.81
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.16 £77.85
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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -20 974 £525 -4.55% 3,711
South East -1 473 £500 +5.26% 1,112
North of England -19 331 £475 +6.15% 829
North West -14 196 £466 +0.70% 451
Midlands -30 178 £450 - 517
East of England -13 133 £425 -5.56% 611
West Midlands -38 133 £450 - 285
South West -24 123 £415 +11.41% 494
Yorkshire -6 122 £500 +26.58% 242
East Midlands -24 43 £475 +32.68% 232
North East -44 13 £450 +130.77% 155
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 (6.25%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.70%) Confluence
3 64 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) 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%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 225 (9.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 224 (9.92%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.41%) Microsoft Project
4 111 (4.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.04%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
12 7 (0.31%) Windchill
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
14 4 (0.18%) Trello
15 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 48 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) 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
1 525 (23.26%) Azure
2 288 (12.76%) AWS
3 211 (9.35%) Microsoft 365
4 207 (9.17%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.42%) Entra ID
6 128 (5.67%) GCP
7 101 (4.47%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.37%) SaaS
9 56 (2.48%) GitHub
10 48 (2.13%) PowerApps
11 47 (2.08%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.91%) OneDrive
12 43 (1.91%) Serverless
13 41 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
14 38 (1.68%) Snowflake
15 37 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.55%) Figma
17 25 (1.11%) IaaS
18 24 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
19 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.65%) Firewall
2 72 (3.19%) DNS
3 68 (3.01%) Network Security
4 60 (2.66%) TCP/IP
5 59 (2.61%) VPN
6 42 (1.86%) DHCP
7 38 (1.68%) 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 16 (0.71%) 3GPP
14 15 (0.66%) OSPF
14 15 (0.66%) SSH
14 15 (0.66%) SSL
15 13 (0.58%) 5G
16 12 (0.53%) MPLS
16 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.27%) Power BI
2 98 (4.34%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
4 45 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
5 43 (1.91%) Metadata
6 31 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 30 (1.33%) Tableau
8 25 (1.11%) Big Data
8 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 24 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 22 (0.97%) MySQL
11 21 (0.93%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.62%) Power Query
14 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
14 12 (0.53%) GIS
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 10 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 173 (7.67%) JIRA
2 117 (5.18%) Git
3 50 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.91%) 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 (0.35%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.35%) Maven
11 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Gradle
12 7 (0.31%) Postman
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 988 (43.77%) Social Skills
2 660 (29.24%) Finance
3 526 (23.31%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (7.89%) Banking
5 172 (7.62%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.34%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (4.92%) Aerospace
8 92 (4.08%) Legal
9 91 (4.03%) Manufacturing
9 91 (4.03%) Marketing
10 78 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
10 78 (3.46%) Telecoms
11 76 (3.37%) Presentation Skills
12 63 (2.79%) Retail
13 62 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
14 49 (2.17%) Law
15 48 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
17 40 (1.77%) Front Office
18 37 (1.64%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 309 (13.69%) Analyst
2 247 (10.94%) Senior
3 186 (8.24%) Lead
4 165 (7.31%) Developer
5 151 (6.69%) Architect
6 141 (6.25%) Business Analyst
7 119 (5.27%) Project Manager
8 68 (3.01%) Senior Manager
9 64 (2.84%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.70%) IT Support
11 56 (2.48%) Consultant
12 55 (2.44%) Product Manager
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 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.82%) Data Engineer
18 41 (1.82%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.12%) REST
2 91 (4.03%) .NET
3 52 (2.30%) React
4 46 (2.04%) Kafka
5 44 (1.95%) HTML
6 40 (1.77%) RESTful
7 39 (1.73%) OAuth
8 33 (1.46%) CSS
9 32 (1.42%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.42%) Middleware
9 32 (1.42%) Web Services
10 31 (1.37%) Oracle Fusion
11 30 (1.33%) SAML
12 28 (1.24%) OpenID
13 27 (1.20%) LDAP
13 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
13 27 (1.20%) XML
14 26 (1.15%) SailPoint
15 24 (1.06%) AngularJS
15 24 (1.06%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 192 (8.51%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.98%) Onboarding
2 135 (5.98%) Product Ownership
3 92 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
4 89 (3.94%) Cloud Native
5 70 (3.10%) Data Structures
6 57 (2.53%) Data Centre
7 56 (2.48%) Algorithms
8 51 (2.26%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
11 41 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
12 37 (1.64%) Virtual Team
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.37%) PMI
16 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 282 (12.49%) Windows
2 171 (7.58%) Linux
3 66 (2.92%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.61%) Unix
5 46 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.93%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) VMS
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 778 (34.47%) Computer Science
2 631 (27.96%) Agile
3 600 (26.58%) Problem-Solving
4 425 (18.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 410 (18.17%) Continuous Improvement
6 356 (15.77%) AI
7 306 (13.56%) DevOps
8 290 (12.85%) Project Management
9 279 (12.36%) Analytics
10 271 (12.01%) ITIL
11 266 (11.79%) CI/CD
12 241 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 225 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
14 218 (9.66%) Decision-Making
15 208 (9.22%) Change Management
16 204 (9.04%) PRINCE2
17 202 (8.95%) Roadmaps
18 201 (8.91%) Scrum
19 200 (8.86%) Software Engineering
20 186 (8.24%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 384 (17.01%) Python
2 325 (14.40%) SQL
3 162 (7.18%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.69%) Java
5 99 (4.39%) C#
6 93 (4.12%) JavaScript
7 54 (2.39%) Bash
8 44 (1.95%) C++
9 33 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) Bicep
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.02%) C
12 22 (0.97%) R
12 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
12 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
16 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 449 (19.89%) Computer Science Degree
2 423 (18.74%) Security Cleared
3 275 (12.18%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.23%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (5.14%) PMP
8 111 (4.92%) CISSP
9 80 (3.54%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.23%) 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 (1.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.27%) QA
2 118 (5.23%) Data Quality
3 104 (4.61%) NIST
4 96 (4.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.81%) PMO
6 66 (2.92%) GDPR
7 43 (1.91%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) 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 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 194 (8.60%) Active Directory
2 112 (4.96%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.06%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) 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
1 117 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 94 (4.16%) Terraform
3 75 (3.32%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.84%) Ansible
5 37 (1.64%) SCCM
6 28 (1.24%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Progress Chef
9 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.62%) Puppet
11 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.31%) Control-M
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.27%) Nessus
17 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 589 (26.10%) Microsoft
2 152 (6.73%) Oracle
3 141 (6.25%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.45%) SAP
5 87 (3.85%) Google
6 69 (3.06%) VMware
7 62 (2.75%) Cisco
8 59 (2.61%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) Databricks
9 51 (2.26%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
11 38 (1.68%) Splunk
12 32 (1.42%) CyberArk
13 28 (1.24%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) Apple
18 19 (0.84%) Ariba
19 17 (0.75%) HP