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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,219 1,900 3,173
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.91% 7.83% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.48% 25.06% 26.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,302 1,126 1,729
10th Percentile £293 £250 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% +1.37% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £788 £752
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £507
% change year-on-year - -1.28% -4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 150 332
10th Percentile £16.60 £19.81 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.66 £30.36 £22.69
Median hourly rate £46.98 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.51% +31.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.15
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £45.65 £37.50
% change year-on-year -0.42% +21.73% -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 12,698 7,583 11,794
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.81% 31.25% 31.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,429 4,847 7,323
10th Percentile £336 £296 £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 £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 978 427 918
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.35 £25.26 £17.85
Median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £38.85
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +28.70% -22.30%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £85.00 £82.16 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £38.45
% change year-on-year -17.65% +10.53% -25.70%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -11 968 £513 -6.82% 866
South East -2 355 £500 - 660
North of England -7 347 £435 -8.42% 472
Midlands -19 210 £500 +40.45% 318
North West -7 182 £400 -15.79% 244
West Midlands -21 157 £494 +41.00% 181
South West -6 148 £700 +31.33% 220
Yorkshire -7 148 £516 +3.25% 164
East of England -6 136 £500 - 213
East Midlands -19 52 £537 +50.84% 136
North East -16 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
1 171 (7.71%) Confluence
2 101 (4.55%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.67%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.63%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.090%) Appian
13 2 (0.090%) Camunda
Applications
1 284 (12.80%) Microsoft Office
2 214 (9.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 188 (8.47%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 70 (3.15%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.72%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 9 (0.41%) Simulink
10 7 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) InDesign
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 41 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.95%) Primavera
4 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) 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%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 464 (20.91%) Azure
2 267 (12.03%) AWS
3 181 (8.16%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.35%) Power Platform
5 124 (5.59%) GCP
6 104 (4.69%) SaaS
7 102 (4.60%) Entra ID
8 80 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.79%) GitHub
10 46 (2.07%) Serverless
11 38 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.58%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.44%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.40%) IaaS
14 31 (1.40%) PaaS
15 30 (1.35%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.22%) PowerApps
17 24 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
17 24 (1.08%) OCI
18 23 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.64%) Firewall
2 55 (2.48%) LAN
3 54 (2.43%) WAN
4 45 (2.03%) DNS
5 44 (1.98%) TCP/IP
6 43 (1.94%) Network Security
7 39 (1.76%) VPN
8 29 (1.31%) Wireless
9 26 (1.17%) BGP
10 21 (0.95%) Ethernet
10 21 (0.95%) Internet
11 20 (0.90%) HTTP
11 20 (0.90%) OSPF
12 19 (0.86%) DHCP
13 16 (0.72%) Skype
13 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.68%) VLAN
15 14 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
16 13 (0.59%) SAN
16 13 (0.59%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (5.90%) Power BI
2 79 (3.56%) SQL Server
3 73 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.30%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.98%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.85%) Tableau
8 33 (1.49%) MySQL
9 30 (1.35%) Big Data
10 24 (1.08%) Metadata
11 20 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.77%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.77%) Hadoop
12 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 267 (12.03%) JIRA
2 100 (4.51%) Git
3 65 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.25%) GitLab
5 30 (1.35%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.99%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.77%) MLflow
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 15 (0.68%) Postman
10 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.45%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.41%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.32%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,066 (48.04%) Social Skills
2 689 (31.05%) Finance
3 502 (22.62%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (10.55%) Banking
5 176 (7.93%) Public Sector
6 107 (4.82%) Presentation Skills
7 93 (4.19%) Organisational Skills
8 81 (3.65%) Marketing
9 80 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (3.11%) Aerospace
11 69 (3.11%) Legal
12 68 (3.06%) Manufacturing
13 52 (2.34%) Military
14 51 (2.30%) Front Office
15 49 (2.21%) Financial Institution
16 47 (2.12%) Telecoms
17 44 (1.98%) Retail
18 42 (1.89%) Investment Banking
19 41 (1.85%) Law
Job Titles
1 319 (14.38%) Analyst
2 224 (10.09%) Senior
3 186 (8.38%) Lead
4 176 (7.93%) Architect
5 165 (7.44%) Developer
5 165 (7.44%) Project Manager
6 149 (6.71%) Business Analyst
7 76 (3.42%) Consultant
8 64 (2.88%) Delivery Manager
9 58 (2.61%) Solutions Architect
9 58 (2.61%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.48%) Software Engineer
11 51 (2.30%) Senior Analyst
12 47 (2.12%) Data Scientist
13 46 (2.07%) Product Manager
14 44 (1.98%) Security Engineer
15 36 (1.62%) Systems Engineer
16 35 (1.58%) Senior Business Analyst
16 35 (1.58%) Senior Manager
17 34 (1.53%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.46%) REST
2 63 (2.84%) .NET
3 58 (2.61%) RESTful
4 46 (2.07%) Middleware
5 44 (1.98%) React
6 43 (1.94%) HTML
7 42 (1.89%) Kafka
8 37 (1.67%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.67%) XML
9 34 (1.53%) JSON
9 34 (1.53%) OAuth
9 34 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
10 33 (1.49%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.44%) SOAP
12 30 (1.35%) Pandas
12 30 (1.35%) Spring
13 29 (1.31%) CSS
14 28 (1.26%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.26%) TensorFlow
15 26 (1.17%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 179 (8.07%) Management Information System
2 147 (6.62%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.91%) Onboarding
4 90 (4.06%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.29%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.02%) Data Centre
6 67 (3.02%) Distributed Systems
7 65 (2.93%) Algorithms
8 59 (2.66%) Self-Motivation
9 51 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
10 50 (2.25%) Data Structures
11 48 (2.16%) PMI
12 46 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
13 42 (1.89%) Derivative
14 33 (1.49%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
16 30 (1.35%) Equities
17 29 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.26%) Robotics
19 27 (1.22%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 253 (11.40%) Windows
2 170 (7.66%) Linux
3 65 (2.93%) Unix
3 65 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 55 (2.48%) Windows 10
5 20 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 19 (0.86%) Android
7 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.63%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
12 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
17 3 (0.14%) CentOS
17 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 811 (36.55%) Computer Science
2 722 (32.54%) Agile
3 595 (26.81%) Problem-Solving
4 376 (16.94%) Stakeholder Management
5 327 (14.74%) AI
5 327 (14.74%) DevOps
6 309 (13.93%) Project Management
7 299 (13.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 256 (11.54%) CI/CD
9 251 (11.31%) Change Management
10 242 (10.91%) Analytics
11 236 (10.64%) ITIL
12 234 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 233 (10.50%) Decision-Making
14 231 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
15 218 (9.82%) Migration
16 208 (9.37%) Risk Management
17 204 (9.19%) Project Delivery
18 203 (9.15%) PRINCE2
19 195 (8.79%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 383 (17.26%) Python
2 323 (14.56%) SQL
3 152 (6.85%) Java
4 117 (5.27%) PowerShell
5 80 (3.61%) JavaScript
6 72 (3.24%) C#
7 65 (2.93%) C++
8 40 (1.80%) Bash
9 39 (1.76%) TypeScript
10 34 (1.53%) Go
11 27 (1.22%) R
12 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.81%) Perl
14 16 (0.72%) C
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 15 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 12 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 12 (0.54%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 515 (23.21%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (19.20%) Security Cleared
3 312 (14.06%) Master's Degree
4 302 (13.61%) SC Cleared
5 134 (6.04%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.41%) PMP
7 110 (4.96%) CISSP
8 88 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (3.06%) PhD
10 63 (2.84%) CISM
11 60 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
13 53 (2.39%) Azure Certification
14 50 (2.25%) DV Cleared
15 49 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
16 39 (1.76%) CCNP
17 34 (1.53%) MBA
18 33 (1.49%) CBAP
19 30 (1.35%) CCNA
20 29 (1.31%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (6.53%) QA
2 113 (5.09%) GDPR
3 98 (4.42%) PMO
4 91 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 84 (3.79%) NIST
6 76 (3.42%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.16%) PCI DSS
8 43 (1.94%) SLA
9 36 (1.62%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.99%) GRC
12 21 (0.95%) NCSC
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 14 (0.63%) WCAG
14 13 (0.59%) Basel III
14 13 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
System Software
1 141 (6.35%) Docker
2 138 (6.22%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.68%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) 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 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 100 (4.51%) Terraform
3 74 (3.33%) Ansible
4 64 (2.88%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (2.25%) Grafana
6 41 (1.85%) Prometheus
7 37 (1.67%) 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 (0.59%) Kibana
12 13 (0.59%) Nmap
13 12 (0.54%) SCOM
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
15 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.32%) WSUS
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.23%) Control-M
17 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 484 (21.81%) Microsoft
2 143 (6.44%) Oracle
3 121 (5.45%) ServiceNow
4 114 (5.14%) SAP
5 99 (4.46%) Google
6 74 (3.33%) Cisco
7 69 (3.11%) Splunk
8 55 (2.48%) Remedy
9 50 (2.25%) Atlassian
10 46 (2.07%) VMware
11 45 (2.03%) Citrix
11 45 (2.03%) Databricks
12 41 (1.85%) IBM
13 39 (1.76%) Salesforce
14 36 (1.62%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.22%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.04%) Adobe
17 21 (0.95%) Aruba
17 21 (0.95%) Informatica
18 20 (0.90%) CyberArk