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 28 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,161 2,061 3,201
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.59% 7.79% 8.53%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.21% 25.62% 27.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,139 1,807
10th Percentile £290 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £401 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £645
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £508
% change year-on-year -0.89% -0.59% -6.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 125 301
10th Percentile £14.77 £20.80 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.21 £22.33
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £58.00 £71.25 £61.50
90th Percentile £84.15 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -1.23%

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 11,248 8,046 11,687
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.29% 30.41% 31.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,481 4,849 7,293
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.24% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 865 389 833
10th Percentile £15.62 £19.72 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -2.78% +5.56%
75th Percentile £63.40 £67.50 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.92 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 28 January 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 -4 1,009 £525 -4.55% 772
North of England -6 329 £445 -6.75% 562
South East +2 277 £475 -5.00% 1,089
Midlands -13 217 £520 +26.06% 462
North West -1 178 £394 -17.11% 277
South West +5 169 £650 +20.04% 394
West Midlands -14 150 £520 +18.72% 226
Yorkshire -13 140 £525 +7.14% 205
East of England -15 112 £550 +18.92% 435
East Midlands -9 67 £520 +46.07% 233
North East -16 12 £364 -27.20% 83
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
1 190 (8.79%) Confluence
2 112 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.65%) nginx
8 11 (0.51%) Apache
9 8 (0.37%) CMS
9 8 (0.37%) IIS
10 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.28%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 277 (12.82%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (10.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 173 (8.01%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (5.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.61%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
8 10 (0.46%) Trello
9 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.37%) FrameMaker
10 8 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.093%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (1.02%) Primavera
4 19 (0.88%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.65%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
10 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
11 7 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
11 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
13 5 (0.23%) Workday HCM
14 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 432 (19.99%) Azure
2 262 (12.12%) AWS
3 193 (8.93%) Microsoft 365
4 156 (7.22%) Power Platform
5 137 (6.34%) GCP
6 102 (4.72%) SaaS
7 83 (3.84%) GitHub
8 79 (3.66%) Entra ID
9 70 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (2.82%) Serverless
11 45 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.80%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.57%) OCI
14 32 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.48%) IaaS
15 30 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.39%) PowerApps
16 29 (1.34%) PaaS
17 25 (1.16%) Amazon S3
17 25 (1.16%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.53%) Firewall
2 61 (2.82%) DNS
3 49 (2.27%) LAN
4 45 (2.08%) WAN
5 42 (1.94%) Network Security
6 40 (1.85%) VPN
7 30 (1.39%) DHCP
7 30 (1.39%) HTTP
8 26 (1.20%) Internet
8 26 (1.20%) Skype
8 26 (1.20%) TCP/IP
9 25 (1.16%) Wireless
10 22 (1.02%) SSH
11 21 (0.97%) BGP
12 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
13 18 (0.83%) OSPF
14 16 (0.74%) VLAN
15 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
16 14 (0.65%) VoIP
17 13 (0.60%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.74%) Power BI
2 76 (3.52%) SQL Server
3 75 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.45%) NoSQL
5 49 (2.27%) Relational Database
6 45 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.94%) Tableau
8 38 (1.76%) MySQL
9 26 (1.20%) Big Data
10 19 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.74%) Metadata
12 16 (0.74%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
15 12 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.51%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 268 (12.40%) JIRA
2 104 (4.81%) Git
3 74 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.41%) GitLab
5 25 (1.16%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.97%) Liquibase
7 20 (0.93%) Postman
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) JUnit
11 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.46%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.42%) CircleCI
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) Vagrant
13 8 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) Gradle
14 7 (0.32%) MLflow
15 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
General
1 1,129 (52.24%) Social Skills
2 715 (33.09%) Finance
3 522 (24.16%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (11.38%) Banking
5 157 (7.27%) Public Sector
6 102 (4.72%) Presentation Skills
7 86 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (3.89%) Manufacturing
9 76 (3.52%) Marketing
10 68 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
11 66 (3.05%) Legal
12 64 (2.96%) Military
13 62 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
14 59 (2.73%) Financial Institution
15 48 (2.22%) Front Office
16 45 (2.08%) Telecoms
17 43 (1.99%) Investment Banking
18 38 (1.76%) Law
18 38 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
19 33 (1.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 314 (14.53%) Analyst
2 228 (10.55%) Senior
3 216 (10.00%) Developer
4 173 (8.01%) Lead
5 159 (7.36%) Architect
6 150 (6.94%) Business Analyst
7 141 (6.52%) Project Manager
8 83 (3.84%) Software Engineer
9 80 (3.70%) Consultant
10 61 (2.82%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
12 52 (2.41%) IT Support
13 49 (2.27%) Support Analyst
14 44 (2.04%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.99%) Senior Software Engineer
16 37 (1.71%) Senior Developer
17 36 (1.67%) Senior Analyst
18 34 (1.57%) IT Manager
18 34 (1.57%) Support Engineer
18 34 (1.57%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (5.09%) REST
2 78 (3.61%) RESTful
3 71 (3.29%) .NET
4 63 (2.92%) HTML
5 49 (2.27%) XML
6 45 (2.08%) Middleware
7 44 (2.04%) CSS
7 44 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
8 41 (1.90%) OAuth
8 41 (1.90%) React
9 40 (1.85%) JSON
10 37 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
11 35 (1.62%) SOAP
12 33 (1.53%) Kafka
13 28 (1.30%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.20%) Node.js
15 25 (1.16%) Spring
16 24 (1.11%) Pandas
16 24 (1.11%) Spring Boot
16 24 (1.11%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 190 (8.79%) Management Information System
2 117 (5.41%) Product Ownership
3 101 (4.67%) Cloud Native
4 77 (3.56%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
6 61 (2.82%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
9 52 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
9 52 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 48 (2.22%) PMI
10 48 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
11 42 (1.94%) Derivative
12 41 (1.90%) Security Posture
13 37 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
13 37 (1.71%) Public Cloud
14 33 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
14 33 (1.53%) Life Science
15 29 (1.34%) Equities
15 29 (1.34%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 262 (12.12%) Windows
2 188 (8.70%) Linux
3 85 (3.93%) Unix
4 64 (2.96%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.55%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Android
7 21 (0.97%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.83%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (0.79%) Ubuntu
10 15 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 14 (0.65%) VMS
12 12 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
15 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.14%) CentOS
17 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.093%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 807 (37.34%) Computer Science
2 725 (33.55%) Agile
3 637 (29.48%) Problem-Solving
4 378 (17.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 340 (15.73%) DevOps
6 323 (14.95%) Project Management
7 279 (12.91%) Change Management
8 260 (12.03%) AI
9 244 (11.29%) CI/CD
10 236 (10.92%) Continuous Improvement
11 227 (10.50%) ITIL
12 226 (10.46%) Cybersecurity
13 225 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 222 (10.27%) Analytics
15 216 (10.00%) Risk Management
16 213 (9.86%) Migration
17 210 (9.72%) Decision-Making
17 210 (9.72%) Software Engineering
18 193 (8.93%) Project Delivery
19 176 (8.14%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 396 (18.32%) Python
2 343 (15.87%) SQL
3 156 (7.22%) Java
4 121 (5.60%) PowerShell
5 114 (5.28%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.89%) C#
7 83 (3.84%) C++
8 52 (2.41%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.08%) Go
10 42 (1.94%) Bash
11 25 (1.16%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.11%) Perl
12 24 (1.11%) R
13 21 (0.97%) T-SQL
14 20 (0.93%) C
15 18 (0.83%) Kotlin
16 16 (0.74%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.69%) Rust
18 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
18 12 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 558 (25.82%) Computer Science Degree
2 379 (17.54%) Security Cleared
3 332 (15.36%) Master's Degree
4 296 (13.70%) SC Cleared
5 144 (6.66%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.83%) PMP
7 111 (5.14%) CISSP
8 87 (4.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.42%) CISM
10 64 (2.96%) Azure Certification
11 63 (2.92%) PhD
12 59 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
13 56 (2.59%) Cisco Certification
14 52 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
15 48 (2.22%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.94%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.76%) CCNP
18 36 (1.67%) CBAP
19 33 (1.53%) MBA
20 32 (1.48%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (6.71%) QA
2 116 (5.37%) GDPR
3 92 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.98%) PMO
5 64 (2.96%) NIST
6 63 (2.92%) Data Quality
7 42 (1.94%) PCI DSS
8 35 (1.62%) SLA
9 34 (1.57%) Accessibility
10 31 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.30%) GRC
12 15 (0.69%) WCAG
13 14 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 13 (0.60%) NCSC
15 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.56%) IFRS
16 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 168 (7.77%) Docker
2 140 (6.48%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.74%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) DFS Replication
6 8 (0.37%) Dovecot
6 8 (0.37%) Postfix
6 8 (0.37%) Squid
7 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.093%) KVM
Systems Management
1 156 (7.22%) Kubernetes
2 114 (5.28%) Terraform
3 74 (3.42%) Ansible
4 62 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.59%) Grafana
6 50 (2.31%) SCCM
7 47 (2.17%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 24 (1.11%) Puppet
10 15 (0.69%) Kibana
10 15 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.60%) SCOM
12 12 (0.56%) Nmap
13 10 (0.46%) Nessus
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Proxmox
15 8 (0.37%) QRadar
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
Vendors
1 464 (21.47%) Microsoft
2 163 (7.54%) Oracle
3 118 (5.46%) SAP
4 112 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 100 (4.63%) Google
6 95 (4.40%) Splunk
7 65 (3.01%) Cisco
8 52 (2.41%) Remedy
9 51 (2.36%) Atlassian
9 51 (2.36%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.13%) VMware
11 37 (1.71%) Databricks
12 36 (1.67%) Citrix
13 27 (1.25%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.20%) IBM
15 21 (0.97%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.93%) Adobe
16 20 (0.93%) Informatica
17 18 (0.83%) CheckPoint
17 18 (0.83%) Red Hat