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

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,233 1,913 3,164
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.87% 7.82% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.40% 25.00% 26.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,313 1,141 1,719
10th Percentile £286 £256 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £639
90th Percentile £738 £800 £761
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 149 334
10th Percentile £16.70 £19.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.99 £30.25 £22.50
Median hourly rate £51.44 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.02% +31.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £37.50
% change year-on-year -1.81% +23.47% -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 12,830 7,651 11,795
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.72% 31.29% 31.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,524 4,905 7,326
10th Percentile £338 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £622 £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 988 432 914
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.35 £25.26 £17.80
Median hourly rate £35.28 £50.00 £37.83
Median % change year-on-year -29.45% +32.18% -24.35%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.03 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £42.50 £38.16
% change year-on-year -15.29% +11.39% -27.32%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -11 980 £513 -6.82% 866
South East -4 352 £500 - 660
North of England -6 349 £435 -8.42% 472
Midlands -20 209 £500 +40.45% 318
North West -4 183 £400 -15.79% 244
West Midlands -20 156 £495 +52.31% 181
South West -7 150 £694 +30.16% 220
Yorkshire -11 149 £516 +1.98% 164
East of England -9 138 £500 - 213
East Midlands -15 52 £537 +50.84% 136
North East -13 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
1 168 (7.52%) Confluence
2 103 (4.61%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.70%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.67%) 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
12 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.090%) Appian
13 2 (0.090%) Camunda
13 2 (0.090%) Drupal
13 2 (0.090%) IIS
Applications
1 286 (12.81%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (9.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (8.37%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 70 (3.13%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.58%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 7 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.13%) InVision
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Revit
14 1 (0.045%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.94%) 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 Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
10 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 460 (20.60%) Azure
2 270 (12.09%) AWS
3 182 (8.15%) Microsoft 365
4 164 (7.34%) Power Platform
5 124 (5.55%) GCP
6 102 (4.57%) SaaS
7 101 (4.52%) Entra ID
8 80 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.78%) GitHub
10 47 (2.10%) Serverless
11 38 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.57%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.43%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.39%) IaaS
14 31 (1.39%) PaaS
15 30 (1.34%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.21%) PowerApps
17 24 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
17 24 (1.07%) OCI
18 23 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.61%) Firewall
2 56 (2.51%) LAN
3 55 (2.46%) WAN
4 46 (2.06%) DNS
5 45 (2.02%) TCP/IP
6 42 (1.88%) Network Security
7 40 (1.79%) VPN
8 29 (1.30%) Wireless
9 27 (1.21%) BGP
10 21 (0.94%) Ethernet
10 21 (0.94%) HTTP
10 21 (0.94%) Internet
10 21 (0.94%) OSPF
11 20 (0.90%) DHCP
12 16 (0.72%) Skype
12 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
15 13 (0.58%) SAN
15 13 (0.58%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (5.87%) Power BI
2 79 (3.54%) SQL Server
3 73 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
4 52 (2.33%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
7 40 (1.79%) Tableau
8 33 (1.48%) MySQL
9 30 (1.34%) Big Data
10 22 (0.99%) Metadata
11 20 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.76%) Hadoop
12 17 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 265 (11.87%) JIRA
2 100 (4.48%) Git
3 66 (2.96%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.28%) GitLab
5 31 (1.39%) 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%) Gradle
12 10 (0.45%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.31%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.31%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,072 (48.01%) Social Skills
2 692 (30.99%) Finance
3 499 (22.35%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (10.66%) Banking
5 175 (7.84%) Public Sector
6 109 (4.88%) Presentation Skills
7 93 (4.16%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 80 (3.58%) Marketing
9 77 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
10 72 (3.22%) Aerospace
11 71 (3.18%) Legal
12 68 (3.05%) Manufacturing
13 51 (2.28%) Front Office
13 51 (2.28%) Military
14 49 (2.19%) Financial Institution
14 49 (2.19%) Telecoms
15 45 (2.02%) Retail
16 44 (1.97%) Law
17 42 (1.88%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 322 (14.42%) Analyst
2 227 (10.17%) Senior
3 190 (8.51%) Lead
4 176 (7.88%) Architect
5 167 (7.48%) Developer
6 165 (7.39%) Project Manager
7 150 (6.72%) Business Analyst
8 77 (3.45%) Consultant
9 64 (2.87%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.64%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
12 56 (2.51%) Software Engineer
13 52 (2.33%) Senior Analyst
14 47 (2.10%) Data Scientist
15 45 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 44 (1.97%) Security Engineer
17 37 (1.66%) Senior Manager
17 37 (1.66%) Systems Engineer
18 35 (1.57%) IT Support
18 35 (1.57%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.66%) REST
2 61 (2.73%) .NET
2 61 (2.73%) RESTful
3 46 (2.06%) Middleware
4 45 (2.02%) React
5 44 (1.97%) HTML
6 42 (1.88%) Kafka
7 37 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
7 37 (1.66%) XML
8 34 (1.52%) JSON
8 34 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.52%) Spring Boot
9 32 (1.43%) OAuth
9 32 (1.43%) SOAP
10 31 (1.39%) Spring
11 30 (1.34%) CSS
11 30 (1.34%) Pandas
11 30 (1.34%) PyTorch
12 28 (1.25%) TensorFlow
13 26 (1.16%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 178 (7.97%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.72%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.93%) Onboarding
4 91 (4.08%) Cloud Native
5 75 (3.36%) Virtual Team
6 68 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
7 66 (2.96%) Algorithms
7 66 (2.96%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
9 51 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
10 50 (2.24%) Data Structures
11 49 (2.19%) PMI
12 46 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
13 42 (1.88%) Derivative
14 33 (1.48%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
16 30 (1.34%) Equities
17 29 (1.30%) Robotics
18 27 (1.21%) Operational Technology
18 27 (1.21%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 255 (11.42%) Windows
2 172 (7.70%) Linux
3 65 (2.91%) Unix
3 65 (2.91%) Windows Server
4 56 (2.51%) Windows 10
5 21 (0.94%) Android
5 21 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.76%) Mac OS
7 15 (0.67%) Ubuntu
8 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
9 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.49%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 4 (0.18%) CentOS
15 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 821 (36.77%) Computer Science
2 717 (32.11%) Agile
3 593 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 327 (14.64%) DevOps
6 323 (14.46%) AI
7 315 (14.11%) Project Management
8 303 (13.57%) Continuous Improvement
9 256 (11.46%) CI/CD
10 253 (11.33%) Change Management
11 238 (10.66%) Cybersecurity
11 238 (10.66%) ITIL
12 236 (10.57%) Analytics
13 235 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 230 (10.30%) Decision-Making
15 211 (9.45%) Risk Management
16 210 (9.40%) Migration
17 205 (9.18%) Project Delivery
18 202 (9.05%) PRINCE2
18 202 (9.05%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 386 (17.29%) Python
2 324 (14.51%) SQL
3 153 (6.85%) Java
4 116 (5.19%) PowerShell
5 81 (3.63%) JavaScript
6 72 (3.22%) C#
7 65 (2.91%) C++
8 40 (1.79%) Bash
9 39 (1.75%) TypeScript
10 34 (1.52%) Go
11 27 (1.21%) R
12 25 (1.12%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.81%) Perl
14 16 (0.72%) C
15 15 (0.67%) Rust
15 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.54%) Shell Script
18 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 519 (23.24%) Computer Science Degree
2 430 (19.26%) Security Cleared
3 304 (13.61%) Master's Degree
3 304 (13.61%) SC Cleared
4 136 (6.09%) PMI Certification
5 122 (5.46%) PMP
6 113 (5.06%) CISSP
7 89 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
8 67 (3.00%) PhD
9 66 (2.96%) CISM
10 58 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (2.55%) TOGAF Certification
12 53 (2.37%) Azure Certification
13 51 (2.28%) DV Cleared
14 49 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
15 39 (1.75%) CCNP
16 37 (1.66%) MBA
17 33 (1.48%) CBAP
18 30 (1.34%) AWS Certification
18 30 (1.34%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (6.49%) QA
2 111 (4.97%) GDPR
3 101 (4.52%) PMO
4 93 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 89 (3.99%) NIST
6 71 (3.18%) Data Quality
7 47 (2.10%) PCI DSS
8 45 (2.02%) SLA
9 36 (1.61%) Accessibility
10 25 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.99%) GRC
12 21 (0.94%) NCSC
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 14 (0.63%) WCAG
14 13 (0.58%) Basel III
14 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.49%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.45%) NIST 800
System Software
1 141 (6.31%) Docker
2 140 (6.27%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.72%) 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
1 154 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 100 (4.48%) Terraform
3 75 (3.36%) Ansible
4 64 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (2.24%) Grafana
6 41 (1.84%) Prometheus
7 37 (1.66%) SCCM
8 30 (1.34%) OPNET
9 18 (0.81%) Puppet
9 18 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.58%) Kibana
11 13 (0.58%) Nmap
12 12 (0.54%) SCOM
13 9 (0.40%) Kiali
14 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.31%) WSUS
15 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.22%) Control-M
16 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 489 (21.90%) Microsoft
2 142 (6.36%) Oracle
3 123 (5.51%) ServiceNow
4 114 (5.11%) SAP
5 99 (4.43%) Google
6 75 (3.36%) Cisco
7 69 (3.09%) Splunk
8 55 (2.46%) Remedy
9 49 (2.19%) Atlassian
10 46 (2.06%) VMware
11 45 (2.02%) Citrix
11 45 (2.02%) Databricks
12 41 (1.84%) IBM
13 39 (1.75%) Salesforce
14 36 (1.61%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.21%) CheckPoint
16 22 (0.99%) Adobe
17 21 (0.94%) Aruba
18 20 (0.90%) Informatica
19 19 (0.85%) Siemens