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 25 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,228 1,898 3,182
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.94% 7.82% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.54% 25.08% 26.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,305 1,124 1,733
10th Percentile £294 £251 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £788 £762
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 149 334
10th Percentile £16.11 £19.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £30.25 £22.75
Median hourly rate £45.46 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% +31.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £71.78
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +1.02% +20.00% -16.67%

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 12,699 7,568 11,816
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.85% 31.17% 31.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,437 4,833 7,326
10th Percentile £331 £291 £300
25th Percentile £421 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 979 426 919
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £25.26 £17.90
Median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +29.03% -22.50%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £63.52
90th Percentile £85.00 £82.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £37.83
% change year-on-year -17.65% +12.35% -26.90%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 March 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 -12 971 £513 -6.82% 866
South East -3 357 £500 - 660
North of England -6 346 £441 -7.26% 472
Midlands -20 210 £500 +40.45% 318
North West -3 180 £400 -15.79% 244
West Midlands -18 155 £498 +42.14% 181
South West -5 151 £700 +30.78% 220
Yorkshire -10 149 £508 +1.50% 164
East of England -7 136 £500 - 213
East Midlands -19 54 £537 +50.84% 136
North East -14 18 £407 -9.56% 71
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
1 174 (7.81%) Confluence
2 104 (4.67%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.63%) Apache
7 9 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
12 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.090%) Appian
Applications
1 282 (12.66%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 188 (8.44%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 70 (3.14%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.76%) Chatbot
6 17 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.45%) Trello
8 9 (0.40%) Simulink
9 7 (0.31%) Sketch
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.13%) InVision
12 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
13 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
13 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.045%) Revit
Business Applications
1 40 (1.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.99%) Primavera
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.31%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
10 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 470 (21.10%) Azure
2 272 (12.21%) AWS
3 181 (8.12%) Microsoft 365
4 164 (7.36%) Power Platform
5 128 (5.75%) GCP
6 104 (4.67%) SaaS
7 103 (4.62%) Entra ID
8 80 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
9 70 (3.14%) GitHub
10 47 (2.11%) Serverless
11 38 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.57%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.44%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.39%) IaaS
14 31 (1.39%) PaaS
15 30 (1.35%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.21%) PowerApps
17 25 (1.12%) OCI
18 24 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
18 24 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.58%) Firewall
2 55 (2.47%) LAN
3 54 (2.42%) WAN
4 46 (2.06%) DNS
5 44 (1.97%) TCP/IP
6 40 (1.80%) Network Security
7 39 (1.75%) VPN
8 27 (1.21%) Wireless
9 26 (1.17%) BGP
10 21 (0.94%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.90%) DHCP
11 20 (0.90%) HTTP
11 20 (0.90%) Internet
11 20 (0.90%) OSPF
12 16 (0.72%) Skype
12 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.63%) SSH
14 14 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
15 13 (0.58%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (5.92%) Power BI
2 78 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
2 78 (3.50%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.29%) NoSQL
4 48 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.97%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.80%) Tableau
7 33 (1.48%) MySQL
8 32 (1.44%) Big Data
9 23 (1.03%) Metadata
10 20 (0.90%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
11 17 (0.76%) Hadoop
11 17 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
13 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 265 (11.89%) JIRA
2 105 (4.71%) Git
3 66 (2.96%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.29%) GitLab
5 30 (1.35%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.99%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.76%) MLflow
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 15 (0.67%) Postman
10 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.45%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.31%) CircleCI
16 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
16 6 (0.27%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,074 (48.20%) Social Skills
2 693 (31.10%) Finance
3 502 (22.53%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (10.46%) Banking
5 180 (8.08%) Public Sector
6 109 (4.89%) Presentation Skills
7 91 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.68%) Marketing
9 80 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
11 70 (3.14%) Legal
12 69 (3.10%) Manufacturing
13 68 (3.05%) Aerospace
14 52 (2.33%) Military
15 51 (2.29%) Front Office
16 49 (2.20%) Financial Institution
17 46 (2.06%) Telecoms
18 44 (1.97%) Retail
19 43 (1.93%) Law
20 41 (1.84%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 322 (14.45%) Analyst
2 227 (10.19%) Senior
3 185 (8.30%) Lead
4 177 (7.94%) Architect
5 170 (7.63%) Developer
6 164 (7.36%) Project Manager
7 150 (6.73%) Business Analyst
8 77 (3.46%) Consultant
9 64 (2.87%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.65%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
12 56 (2.51%) Software Engineer
13 51 (2.29%) Senior Analyst
14 48 (2.15%) Data Scientist
15 46 (2.06%) Product Manager
16 45 (2.02%) Security Engineer
17 35 (1.57%) Senior Business Analyst
17 35 (1.57%) Systems Engineer
17 35 (1.57%) Technical Analyst
18 34 (1.53%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (4.40%) REST
2 62 (2.78%) .NET
3 58 (2.60%) RESTful
4 49 (2.20%) React
5 47 (2.11%) HTML
6 45 (2.02%) Middleware
7 42 (1.89%) Kafka
8 37 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.66%) XML
9 35 (1.57%) CSS
9 35 (1.57%) JSON
9 35 (1.57%) Spring
10 34 (1.53%) OAuth
10 34 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
11 32 (1.44%) SOAP
11 32 (1.44%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.35%) Pandas
13 29 (1.30%) PyTorch
13 29 (1.30%) TensorFlow
14 26 (1.17%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 179 (8.03%) Management Information System
2 147 (6.60%) Product Ownership
3 111 (4.98%) Onboarding
4 97 (4.35%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.28%) Virtual Team
6 68 (3.05%) Data Centre
6 68 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.83%) Algorithms
8 58 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
9 51 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (2.20%) Data Structures
11 48 (2.15%) PMI
12 46 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
13 43 (1.93%) Derivative
14 33 (1.48%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
16 31 (1.39%) Equities
17 29 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.26%) NHS
18 28 (1.26%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 256 (11.49%) Windows
2 169 (7.59%) Linux
3 69 (3.10%) Unix
4 64 (2.87%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.42%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.81%) Android
8 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
9 14 (0.63%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.49%) Apple iOS
13 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.27%) VMS
16 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.18%) AIX
17 4 (0.18%) Debian
18 3 (0.13%) CentOS
18 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 826 (37.07%) Computer Science
2 727 (32.63%) Agile
3 601 (26.97%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (17.06%) Stakeholder Management
5 335 (15.04%) DevOps
6 328 (14.72%) AI
7 310 (13.91%) Project Management
8 298 (13.38%) Continuous Improvement
9 263 (11.80%) CI/CD
10 251 (11.27%) Change Management
11 247 (11.09%) Analytics
12 236 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 235 (10.55%) ITIL
14 234 (10.50%) Decision-Making
15 232 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
16 216 (9.69%) Migration
17 211 (9.47%) Risk Management
18 205 (9.20%) Project Delivery
19 203 (9.11%) PRINCE2
20 196 (8.80%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 393 (17.64%) Python
2 326 (14.63%) SQL
3 157 (7.05%) Java
4 118 (5.30%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.82%) JavaScript
6 70 (3.14%) C#
7 63 (2.83%) C++
8 45 (2.02%) TypeScript
9 40 (1.80%) Bash
10 34 (1.53%) Go
11 27 (1.21%) R
12 25 (1.12%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.81%) Perl
14 15 (0.67%) Rust
14 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
15 13 (0.58%) C
15 13 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.54%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 526 (23.61%) Computer Science Degree
2 434 (19.48%) Security Cleared
3 315 (14.14%) Master's Degree
4 309 (13.87%) SC Cleared
5 134 (6.01%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.39%) PMP
7 112 (5.03%) CISSP
8 87 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (3.10%) PhD
10 65 (2.92%) CISM
11 58 (2.60%) TOGAF Certification
12 57 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
13 54 (2.42%) Azure Certification
14 50 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 50 (2.24%) DV Cleared
15 36 (1.62%) CCNP
16 34 (1.53%) MBA
17 33 (1.48%) CBAP
18 28 (1.26%) MCSE
19 27 (1.21%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (6.51%) QA
2 115 (5.16%) GDPR
3 98 (4.40%) PMO
4 93 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 85 (3.82%) NIST
6 75 (3.37%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.15%) PCI DSS
8 43 (1.93%) SLA
9 36 (1.62%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.99%) GRC
12 21 (0.94%) NCSC
13 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 14 (0.63%) WCAG
14 13 (0.58%) Basel III
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
System Software
1 146 (6.55%) Docker
2 137 (6.15%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.63%) Firmware
6 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.090%) HDFS
11 2 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.045%) GPFS
12 1 (0.045%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 160 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 101 (4.53%) Terraform
3 71 (3.19%) Ansible
4 65 (2.92%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (2.24%) Grafana
6 41 (1.84%) Prometheus
7 37 (1.66%) SCCM
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 20 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 18 (0.81%) Puppet
11 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.58%) Kibana
12 13 (0.58%) Nmap
13 11 (0.49%) SCOM
14 9 (0.40%) Kiali
15 7 (0.31%) Argo
15 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.31%) WSUS
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 482 (21.63%) Microsoft
2 145 (6.51%) Oracle
3 117 (5.25%) ServiceNow
4 113 (5.07%) SAP
5 104 (4.67%) Google
6 70 (3.14%) Cisco
7 66 (2.96%) Splunk
8 55 (2.47%) Remedy
9 50 (2.24%) Atlassian
10 48 (2.15%) Databricks
11 45 (2.02%) VMware
12 44 (1.97%) Citrix
12 44 (1.97%) IBM
13 39 (1.75%) Salesforce
14 37 (1.66%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.26%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.12%) Red Hat
17 23 (1.03%) Adobe
18 21 (0.94%) Aruba
18 21 (0.94%) Informatica