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 23 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,177 1,910 3,141
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.48% 7.77% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.69% 24.75% 26.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,285 1,134 1,680
10th Percentile £250 £250 £210
25th Percentile £388 £400 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £514
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% +1.12% -5.39%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 146 353
10th Percentile £20.06 £17.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.24 £23.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% +35.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -2.34% +33.75% -11.11%

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 13,046 7,717 11,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.86% 31.40% 31.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,750 4,910 7,220
10th Percentile £341 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 995 437 964
10th Percentile £17.02 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £24.18 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.00 £47.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% +18.75% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.29 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.32 £82.16 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £41.38 £40.00
% change year-on-year +9.87% +3.44% -25.93%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 -14 938 £502 -8.82% 725
South East -4 360 £500 - 594
North of England -6 331 £417 -8.35% 675
Midlands -25 205 £500 +61.29% 341
North West -3 181 £400 -12.90% 457
West Midlands -26 144 £500 +66.67% 199
South West -6 143 £650 +23.81% 207
East of England -4 141 £481 -3.75% 202
Yorkshire -11 133 £474 +12.26% 163
East Midlands -14 59 £525 +47.47% 141
North East -21 18 £407 -4.24% 60
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
1 144 (6.61%) Confluence
2 109 (5.01%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 288 (13.23%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.27%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.28%) Sketch
9 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.23%) Navisworks
9 5 (0.23%) Revit
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.092%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
11 2 (0.092%) InVision
11 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 48 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.78%) Primavera
4 16 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 446 (20.49%) Azure
2 247 (11.35%) AWS
3 187 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 176 (8.08%) Power Platform
5 106 (4.87%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.59%) SaaS
7 94 (4.32%) GCP
8 75 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.53%) GitHub
10 37 (1.70%) Power Automate
11 36 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.52%) Google Workspace
13 30 (1.38%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.33%) PaaS
15 28 (1.29%) IaaS
15 28 (1.29%) Serverless
16 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
16 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
17 23 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
18 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.59%) Firewall
2 54 (2.48%) LAN
3 53 (2.43%) WAN
4 46 (2.11%) TCP/IP
5 44 (2.02%) DNS
6 43 (1.98%) Network Security
7 34 (1.56%) VPN
8 25 (1.15%) BGP
8 25 (1.15%) Wireless
9 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.92%) HTTP
11 19 (0.87%) OSPF
12 18 (0.83%) DHCP
12 18 (0.83%) Skype
13 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.60%) SAN
15 12 (0.55%) Internet
15 12 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
15 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.51%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.71%) Power BI
2 87 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (2.25%) Relational Database
5 37 (1.70%) Tableau
6 33 (1.52%) NoSQL
7 28 (1.29%) MySQL
8 27 (1.24%) Big Data
9 26 (1.19%) Metadata
10 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.51%) Power Query
15 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
16 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 241 (11.07%) JIRA
2 95 (4.36%) Git
3 44 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 13 (0.60%) Postman
9 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
General
1 1,035 (47.54%) Social Skills
2 660 (30.32%) Finance
3 482 (22.14%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (9.88%) Banking
5 176 (8.08%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.05%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.96%) Presentation Skills
8 83 (3.81%) Marketing
9 82 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
10 72 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (3.26%) Aerospace
12 69 (3.17%) Legal
13 62 (2.85%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.43%) Military
15 51 (2.34%) Telecoms
16 45 (2.07%) Front Office
16 45 (2.07%) Law
17 44 (2.02%) Retail
18 38 (1.75%) Investment Banking
19 35 (1.61%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 293 (13.46%) Analyst
2 216 (9.92%) Senior
3 182 (8.36%) Lead
4 177 (8.13%) Architect
5 161 (7.40%) Developer
6 153 (7.03%) Project Manager
7 140 (6.43%) Business Analyst
8 73 (3.35%) Consultant
9 62 (2.85%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.71%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
12 51 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.25%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.20%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 41 (1.88%) Security Engineer
17 40 (1.84%) IT Analyst
18 39 (1.79%) Data Engineer
19 38 (1.75%) Designer
20 37 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.09%) REST
2 66 (3.03%) .NET
3 48 (2.20%) Middleware
4 47 (2.16%) React
5 44 (2.02%) HTML
5 44 (2.02%) RESTful
6 41 (1.88%) Kafka
7 36 (1.65%) XML
8 34 (1.56%) JSON
8 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.52%) OAuth
9 33 (1.52%) SOAP
10 31 (1.42%) Spring
11 30 (1.38%) Pandas
12 29 (1.33%) CSS
13 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
15 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 23 (1.06%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.90%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.94%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.47%) Onboarding
4 78 (3.58%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.26%) Virtual Team
6 62 (2.85%) Data Centre
6 62 (2.85%) Self-Motivation
7 52 (2.39%) Algorithms
8 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (2.30%) PMI
10 47 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
11 41 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
12 34 (1.56%) Derivative
13 33 (1.52%) Robotics
13 33 (1.52%) Security Posture
14 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
15 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
16 24 (1.10%) AI Agents
16 24 (1.10%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 251 (11.53%) Windows
2 159 (7.30%) Linux
3 71 (3.26%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.80%) Unix
5 56 (2.57%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.92%) Android
7 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
8 12 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.51%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.23%) AIX
11 5 (0.23%) VMS
11 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.18%) Debian
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.14%) CentOS
13 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 780 (35.83%) Computer Science
2 675 (31.01%) Agile
3 565 (25.95%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 321 (14.75%) AI
6 317 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 313 (14.38%) Project Management
8 306 (14.06%) DevOps
9 240 (11.02%) Analytics
10 238 (10.93%) CI/CD
11 232 (10.66%) ITIL
12 231 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 230 (10.56%) Change Management
14 215 (9.88%) Decision-Making
15 212 (9.74%) Cybersecurity
16 206 (9.46%) Migration
17 203 (9.32%) PRINCE2
18 196 (9.00%) Risk Management
19 193 (8.87%) Project Delivery
20 189 (8.68%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 354 (16.26%) Python
2 322 (14.79%) SQL
3 146 (6.71%) Java
4 118 (5.42%) PowerShell
5 80 (3.67%) C#
6 77 (3.54%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.62%) C++
8 42 (1.93%) Bash
9 36 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 25 (1.15%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) Perl
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
14 14 (0.64%) Go
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 497 (22.83%) Computer Science Degree
2 419 (19.25%) Security Cleared
3 305 (14.01%) SC Cleared
4 257 (11.81%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.16%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.42%) PMP
7 92 (4.23%) CISSP
8 89 (4.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 61 (2.80%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (2.43%) PhD
10 53 (2.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 51 (2.34%) CISM
12 48 (2.20%) Azure Certification
12 48 (2.20%) DV Cleared
13 46 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
14 39 (1.79%) CCNP
15 34 (1.56%) CCNA
15 34 (1.56%) MBA
15 34 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 30 (1.38%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.84%) QA
2 104 (4.78%) PMO
3 99 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 98 (4.50%) GDPR
5 94 (4.32%) NIST
6 79 (3.63%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.30%) SLA
8 40 (1.84%) PCI DSS
9 39 (1.79%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.96%) GRC
12 18 (0.83%) NCSC
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 151 (6.94%) Active Directory
2 125 (5.74%) Docker
3 41 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) Squid
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 132 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.58%) Terraform
3 59 (2.71%) Ansible
3 59 (2.71%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (1.70%) Grafana
5 36 (1.65%) SCCM
6 30 (1.38%) OPNET
7 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.78%) Puppet
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.51%) Kibana
10 11 (0.51%) Nmap
11 10 (0.46%) WSUS
12 9 (0.41%) Kiali
12 9 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.37%) SCOM
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Control-M
15 6 (0.28%) Nessus
Vendors
1 497 (22.83%) Microsoft
2 140 (6.43%) Oracle
3 125 (5.74%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.47%) SAP
5 81 (3.72%) Google
6 66 (3.03%) Cisco
7 51 (2.34%) Remedy
7 51 (2.34%) Splunk
8 47 (2.16%) Citrix
8 47 (2.16%) Databricks
8 47 (2.16%) VMware
9 43 (1.98%) Atlassian
10 35 (1.61%) Salesforce
11 34 (1.56%) IBM
12 32 (1.47%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
14 26 (1.19%) Adobe
15 23 (1.06%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.96%) Aruba
16 21 (0.96%) Red Hat