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 30 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -12 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,207 1,888 3,066
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.04% 7.40% 8.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.00% 23.83% 27.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,210 1,128 1,649
10th Percentile £204 £243 £235
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £494 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.20% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 141 362
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.39 £25.40
Median hourly rate £47.00 £46.30 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.51% +11.57% -14.04%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.90
UK median hourly rate £43.75 £46.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year -5.41% +15.63% -20.00%

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 13,791 7,922 11,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.51% 31.06% 30.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,306 4,981 6,993
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £716 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,030 525 1,003
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £23.88 £20.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.60 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.57% -32.71% -22.73%
75th Percentile £73.94 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.40
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £28.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +77.62% -31.24% -26.00%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -19 940 £515 -6.36% 900
South East -2 421 £500 +4.71% 530
North of England -11 333 £449 -1.32% 342
Midlands -22 199 £500 +34.77% 247
North West -7 187 £447 -1.97% 193
West Midlands -27 147 £487 +17.94% 140
East of England -4 145 £450 -10.00% 161
Yorkshire -8 133 £500 +11.86% 104
South West -22 121 £435 -8.42% 180
East Midlands -14 50 £550 +54.49% 107
North East -38 13 £450 +130.77% 52
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
1 122 (5.53%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.89%) Confluence
3 61 (2.76%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.50%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.77%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 9 (0.41%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.32%) Camunda
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 255 (11.55%) Microsoft Office
2 203 (9.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 122 (5.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 121 (5.48%) Microsoft Project
5 59 (2.67%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.63%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 7 (0.32%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.23%) Trello
13 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.091%) Windchill
15 1 (0.045%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 51 (2.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.63%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Magento
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.14%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 500 (22.66%) Azure
2 292 (13.23%) AWS
3 193 (8.74%) Microsoft 365
4 185 (8.38%) Power Platform
5 135 (6.12%) Entra ID
6 111 (5.03%) GCP
7 85 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (3.40%) SaaS
9 54 (2.45%) GitHub
10 37 (1.68%) Serverless
11 36 (1.63%) Snowflake
12 35 (1.59%) Figma
13 33 (1.50%) Power Automate
13 33 (1.50%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.45%) OneDrive
15 29 (1.31%) PaaS
16 28 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
17 26 (1.18%) Google Workspace
18 25 (1.13%) IaaS
19 23 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.53%) Firewall
2 70 (3.17%) TCP/IP
3 69 (3.13%) DNS
4 62 (2.81%) Network Security
5 51 (2.31%) VPN
6 50 (2.27%) WAN
7 48 (2.17%) LAN
8 34 (1.54%) DHCP
9 28 (1.27%) Wireless
10 24 (1.09%) BGP
11 21 (0.95%) OSPF
12 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
13 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
13 14 (0.63%) Internet
14 13 (0.59%) Skype
14 13 (0.59%) SSL
15 12 (0.54%) MPLS
15 12 (0.54%) SSH
16 11 (0.50%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (7.11%) Power BI
2 109 (4.94%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.68%) Tableau
7 36 (1.63%) NoSQL
8 33 (1.50%) Metadata
9 30 (1.36%) Big Data
10 27 (1.22%) MongoDB
11 26 (1.18%) MySQL
12 22 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.86%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
15 16 (0.72%) Hadoop
16 13 (0.59%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.54%) Power Query
18 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 187 (8.47%) JIRA
2 103 (4.67%) Git
3 42 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.81%) GitLab
5 31 (1.40%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.86%) MLflow
6 19 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.72%) Selenium
8 12 (0.54%) JUnit
9 11 (0.50%) Postman
10 10 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.45%) Gradle
10 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
12 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.36%) Maven
12 8 (0.36%) Subversion
13 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 996 (45.13%) Social Skills
2 669 (30.31%) Finance
3 463 (20.98%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.38%) Banking
5 184 (8.34%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.89%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (4.40%) Marketing
9 86 (3.90%) Aerospace
9 86 (3.90%) Legal
10 81 (3.67%) Manufacturing
11 78 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
12 75 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
13 62 (2.81%) Telecoms
14 57 (2.58%) Retail
15 52 (2.36%) Law
16 46 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.77%) Front Office
18 32 (1.45%) Automotive
18 32 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 314 (14.23%) Analyst
2 241 (10.92%) Senior
3 175 (7.93%) Architect
4 165 (7.48%) Lead
5 154 (6.98%) Developer
6 140 (6.34%) Business Analyst
6 140 (6.34%) Project Manager
7 64 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
8 62 (2.81%) Consultant
8 62 (2.81%) Senior Manager
9 57 (2.58%) Technical Support
10 53 (2.40%) Designer
11 50 (2.27%) Senior Analyst
12 49 (2.22%) Product Manager
12 49 (2.22%) Software Engineer
13 48 (2.17%) IT Support
14 46 (2.08%) Delivery Manager
14 46 (2.08%) IT Manager
15 44 (1.99%) IT Analyst
15 44 (1.99%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.08%) .NET
1 90 (4.08%) REST
2 58 (2.63%) React
3 45 (2.04%) Kafka
4 41 (1.86%) Middleware
5 37 (1.68%) .NET Framework
5 37 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
6 36 (1.63%) HTML
6 36 (1.63%) OAuth
6 36 (1.63%) RESTful
7 29 (1.31%) Spring
7 29 (1.31%) Spring Boot
7 29 (1.31%) Web Services
8 27 (1.22%) SAML
9 25 (1.13%) CSS
9 25 (1.13%) XML
10 24 (1.09%) AngularJS
10 24 (1.09%) JSON
10 24 (1.09%) LDAP
11 23 (1.04%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 177 (8.02%) Management Information System
2 136 (6.16%) Onboarding
3 127 (5.75%) Product Ownership
4 88 (3.99%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 67 (3.04%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.36%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.31%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.17%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.08%) Algorithms
11 42 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.90%) Operational Technology
12 38 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.63%) PMI
14 35 (1.59%) Robotics
15 34 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
16 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
17 30 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (1.36%) Life Science
18 27 (1.22%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 301 (13.64%) Windows
2 168 (7.61%) Linux
3 71 (3.22%) Unix
4 70 (3.17%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.45%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.09%) Android
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.45%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 7 (0.32%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.23%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Solaris
17 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 732 (33.17%) Computer Science
2 638 (28.91%) Agile
3 572 (25.92%) Problem-Solving
4 364 (16.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 361 (16.36%) AI
6 351 (15.90%) Continuous Improvement
7 303 (13.73%) DevOps
8 269 (12.19%) Project Management
9 263 (11.92%) Analytics
10 257 (11.64%) CI/CD
11 232 (10.51%) Decision-Making
11 232 (10.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 229 (10.38%) ITIL
13 220 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
14 202 (9.15%) Roadmaps
15 199 (9.02%) Change Management
16 183 (8.29%) Migration
17 180 (8.16%) Risk Management
18 179 (8.11%) Project Delivery
19 176 (7.97%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 367 (16.63%) Python
2 337 (15.27%) SQL
3 148 (6.71%) Java
4 129 (5.85%) PowerShell
5 97 (4.40%) C#
6 83 (3.76%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.86%) Bash
8 35 (1.59%) C++
9 30 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 24 (1.09%) R
11 24 (1.09%) T-SQL
12 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.72%) C
14 12 (0.54%) Go
15 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.50%) Perl
15 11 (0.50%) Rust
15 11 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 449 (20.34%) Computer Science Degree
2 391 (17.72%) Security Cleared
3 263 (11.92%) SC Cleared
4 215 (9.74%) Master's Degree
5 130 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.39%) CISSP
7 113 (5.12%) PMP
8 93 (4.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.76%) Cisco Certification
10 59 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.54%) Azure Certification
11 56 (2.54%) CISM
11 56 (2.54%) DV Cleared
12 44 (1.99%) PhD
13 41 (1.86%) CCNP
14 40 (1.81%) CCNA
15 36 (1.63%) AWS Certification
16 33 (1.50%) CISA
17 31 (1.40%) MBA
18 27 (1.22%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.39%) QA
2 113 (5.12%) NIST
3 111 (5.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 101 (4.58%) Data Quality
5 93 (4.21%) PMO
6 86 (3.90%) GDPR
7 47 (2.13%) SLA
8 39 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 34 (1.54%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.27%) GRC
10 28 (1.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.00%) NCSC
12 16 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.72%) IFRS
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.41%) COBIT
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 179 (8.11%) Active Directory
2 121 (5.48%) Docker
3 41 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.13%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.95%) Firmware
6 14 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.14%) XenApp
11 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 133 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.90%) Terraform
3 70 (3.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.81%) Ansible
5 33 (1.50%) SCCM
6 32 (1.45%) Grafana
7 30 (1.36%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.63%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.63%) Puppet
11 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.41%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.41%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) Kibana
15 5 (0.23%) SCOM
15 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 528 (23.92%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.98%) Oracle
3 123 (5.57%) SAP
3 123 (5.57%) ServiceNow
4 92 (4.17%) Google
5 66 (2.99%) Cisco
6 49 (2.22%) Databricks
6 49 (2.22%) VMware
7 43 (1.95%) Salesforce
8 42 (1.90%) Citrix
9 41 (1.86%) Adobe
10 39 (1.77%) IBM
11 38 (1.72%) Splunk
12 32 (1.45%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.31%) CyberArk
14 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
15 22 (1.00%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.95%) Siemens
17 19 (0.86%) HP
18 18 (0.82%) Ariba