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 28 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,153 2,258 2,974
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.82% 7.94% 8.09%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.04% 26.03% 26.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,265 1,279 1,799
10th Percentile £310 £250 £233
25th Percentile £404 £407 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -4.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 142 209
10th Percentile £14.41 £20.58 £16.23
25th Percentile £22.50 £30.36 £26.00
Median hourly rate £38.04 £42.69 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -10.89% -7.56% +2.62%
75th Percentile £61.84 £73.13 £68.63
90th Percentile £89.96 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £41.46 £46.18
% change year-on-year -15.57% -10.23% +6.77%

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 10,744 8,673 11,237
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.02% 30.50% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,043 5,341 7,108
10th Percentile £313 £304 £300
25th Percentile £419 £420 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £734 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 901 417 690
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £24.50 £25.10
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -11.00% +15.31%
75th Percentile £56.69 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.30 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £51.90
% change year-on-year -37.13% -22.92% +15.32%

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025. 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 -4 1,003 £527 -4.18% 1,772
North of England -4 311 £447 -10.60% 1,259
South East 0 287 £475 -5.00% 1,586
Midlands -15 218 £492 +12.46% 875
North West -4 168 £402 -19.60% 657
South West +6 164 £649 +19.85% 589
West Midlands -14 161 £500 - 454
Yorkshire -6 133 £475 - 490
East of England -11 121 £500 +14.29% 737
East Midlands -9 57 £450 +26.40% 382
North East -10 11 £331 -33.76% 117
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
1 182 (8.45%) Confluence
2 108 (5.02%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.53%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.74%) nginx
7 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.60%) Apache
9 12 (0.56%) IIS
10 11 (0.51%) CMS
11 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.33%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
14 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 271 (12.59%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 174 (8.08%) Microsoft Project
4 112 (5.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (3.39%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Trello
8 11 (0.51%) FrameMaker
8 11 (0.51%) Simulink
9 10 (0.46%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 8 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.093%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 37 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.84%) Primavera
4 17 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
7 11 (0.51%) SAP ERP
8 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.33%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
13 5 (0.23%) Veritas eDiscovery
14 4 (0.19%) SAP PM
14 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 423 (19.65%) Azure
2 280 (13.01%) AWS
3 179 (8.31%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (6.97%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.73%) GCP
6 89 (4.13%) GitHub
6 89 (4.13%) SaaS
7 77 (3.58%) Entra ID
8 70 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
9 65 (3.02%) Serverless
10 44 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
11 38 (1.76%) Power Automate
12 31 (1.44%) Amazon S3
12 31 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
13 30 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
14 29 (1.35%) OCI
14 29 (1.35%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.11%) Azure Logic Apps
15 24 (1.11%) IaaS
16 22 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.64%) Firewall
2 64 (2.97%) DNS
3 44 (2.04%) VPN
4 42 (1.95%) LAN
5 39 (1.81%) Network Security
6 34 (1.58%) WAN
7 32 (1.49%) HTTP
8 31 (1.44%) DHCP
9 29 (1.35%) TCP/IP
10 27 (1.25%) Wireless
11 26 (1.21%) Internet
11 26 (1.21%) SSH
12 23 (1.07%) Skype
13 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
14 18 (0.84%) BGP
15 15 (0.70%) OSPF
15 15 (0.70%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) SMTP
16 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.60%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (5.48%) Power BI
2 86 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (3.44%) SQL Server
4 56 (2.60%) NoSQL
5 53 (2.46%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
7 45 (2.09%) Tableau
8 33 (1.53%) MySQL
9 26 (1.21%) Big Data
10 25 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.79%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.79%) Metadata
11 17 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
13 12 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
13 12 (0.56%) GIS
13 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
14 11 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 276 (12.82%) JIRA
2 109 (5.06%) Git
3 91 (4.23%) Jenkins
4 67 (3.11%) GitLab
5 26 (1.21%) Liquibase
6 22 (1.02%) Postman
7 18 (0.84%) Selenium
7 18 (0.84%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.56%) JUnit
9 11 (0.51%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.51%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.51%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.46%) Burp Suite
11 8 (0.37%) Artifactory
11 8 (0.37%) CircleCI
11 8 (0.37%) Metasploit
12 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,124 (52.21%) Social Skills
2 695 (32.28%) Finance
3 521 (24.20%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (11.84%) Banking
5 144 (6.69%) Public Sector
6 95 (4.41%) Presentation Skills
7 91 (4.23%) Manufacturing
8 84 (3.90%) Organisational Skills
9 76 (3.53%) Marketing
10 74 (3.44%) Legal
11 72 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (3.16%) Military
13 62 (2.88%) Financial Institution
14 58 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
15 49 (2.28%) Investment Banking
16 48 (2.23%) Front Office
16 48 (2.23%) Telecoms
17 44 (2.04%) Aerospace
18 42 (1.95%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.81%) Law
Job Titles
1 315 (14.63%) Analyst
2 221 (10.26%) Senior
3 209 (9.71%) Developer
4 166 (7.71%) Architect
5 162 (7.52%) Lead
6 152 (7.06%) Business Analyst
7 147 (6.83%) Project Manager
8 83 (3.86%) Consultant
9 79 (3.67%) Software Engineer
10 52 (2.42%) Technical Support
11 48 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
11 48 (2.23%) Support Analyst
12 46 (2.14%) IT Support
13 45 (2.09%) Security Engineer
14 42 (1.95%) Data Scientist
15 41 (1.90%) Senior Developer
16 40 (1.86%) Senior Software Engineer
17 39 (1.81%) Support Engineer
18 34 (1.58%) IT Manager
19 33 (1.53%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (5.67%) REST
2 82 (3.81%) RESTful
3 70 (3.25%) .NET
4 62 (2.88%) HTML
5 57 (2.65%) XML
6 49 (2.28%) Middleware
7 46 (2.14%) Elastic Stack
7 46 (2.14%) JSON
8 45 (2.09%) CSS
9 41 (1.90%) React
9 41 (1.90%) SOAP
10 40 (1.86%) Kafka
11 38 (1.76%) OAuth
12 30 (1.39%) AngularJS
13 28 (1.30%) Spring
14 27 (1.25%) Node.js
14 27 (1.25%) TensorFlow
15 26 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
15 26 (1.21%) Pandas
15 26 (1.21%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.59%) Management Information System
2 113 (5.25%) Product Ownership
3 101 (4.69%) Cloud Native
4 69 (3.20%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.02%) Algorithms
6 62 (2.88%) Distributed Systems
7 59 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
8 53 (2.46%) Data Centre
9 52 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
10 51 (2.37%) Virtual Team
11 46 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
12 44 (2.04%) Derivative
13 41 (1.90%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.86%) Public Cloud
15 38 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
15 38 (1.76%) PMI
16 36 (1.67%) Life Science
17 34 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
18 30 (1.39%) Equities
18 30 (1.39%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 250 (11.61%) Windows
2 186 (8.64%) Linux
3 77 (3.58%) Unix
4 59 (2.74%) Windows Server
5 45 (2.09%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.02%) Android
8 20 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.84%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.79%) VMS
11 16 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 10 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.093%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 826 (38.37%) Computer Science
2 720 (33.44%) Agile
3 653 (30.33%) Problem-Solving
4 350 (16.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 337 (15.65%) DevOps
6 329 (15.28%) Project Management
7 268 (12.45%) Change Management
8 243 (11.29%) CI/CD
9 239 (11.10%) ITIL
10 226 (10.50%) Continuous Improvement
11 224 (10.40%) AI
12 223 (10.36%) Decision-Making
13 221 (10.26%) Cybersecurity
14 217 (10.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 216 (10.03%) Analytics
15 216 (10.03%) Software Engineering
16 211 (9.80%) Migration
17 190 (8.82%) Risk Management
18 185 (8.59%) Project Delivery
19 168 (7.80%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 405 (18.81%) Python
2 324 (15.05%) SQL
3 158 (7.34%) Java
4 125 (5.81%) PowerShell
5 110 (5.11%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.81%) C#
7 79 (3.67%) C++
8 53 (2.46%) TypeScript
9 49 (2.28%) Go
10 47 (2.18%) Bash
11 28 (1.30%) R
12 23 (1.07%) Perl
13 20 (0.93%) C
13 20 (0.93%) PL/SQL
14 19 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.79%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.70%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
17 14 (0.65%) Ruby
18 13 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 568 (26.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 371 (17.23%) Security Cleared
3 323 (15.00%) Master's Degree
4 292 (13.56%) SC Cleared
5 138 (6.41%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.95%) PMP
7 109 (5.06%) CISSP
8 91 (4.23%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.30%) CISM
10 65 (3.02%) Azure Certification
11 64 (2.97%) PhD
12 56 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
12 56 (2.60%) TOGAF Certification
13 53 (2.46%) AWS Certification
14 47 (2.18%) DV Cleared
15 41 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
15 41 (1.90%) HND
16 37 (1.72%) CCNP
17 35 (1.63%) HNC
18 33 (1.53%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (6.41%) QA
2 116 (5.39%) GDPR
3 91 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 77 (3.58%) Data Quality
5 74 (3.44%) PMO
6 67 (3.11%) NIST
7 35 (1.63%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.63%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.58%) SLA
9 28 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.11%) GRC
11 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
11 15 (0.70%) NCSC
11 15 (0.70%) WCAG
12 13 (0.60%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.51%) Basel III
13 11 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.51%) P3O
14 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 9 (0.42%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 161 (7.48%) Docker
2 130 (6.04%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.93%) Firmware
5 13 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.46%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.46%) Postfix
6 10 (0.46%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (0.14%) XenApp
12 2 (0.093%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.046%) HDFS
13 1 (0.046%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 147 (6.83%) Kubernetes
2 126 (5.85%) Terraform
3 80 (3.72%) Ansible
4 60 (2.79%) Grafana
5 51 (2.37%) Microsoft Intune
6 50 (2.32%) Prometheus
7 46 (2.14%) SCCM
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 21 (0.98%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.46%) Nmap
13 10 (0.46%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.42%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.33%) Argo
15 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 449 (20.85%) Microsoft
2 144 (6.69%) Oracle
3 124 (5.76%) SAP
4 117 (5.43%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.55%) Splunk
6 96 (4.46%) Google
7 61 (2.83%) Cisco
8 60 (2.79%) Salesforce
9 50 (2.32%) Atlassian
10 49 (2.28%) Remedy
11 48 (2.23%) VMware
12 38 (1.76%) Databricks
13 35 (1.63%) IBM
14 34 (1.58%) Citrix
15 28 (1.30%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.98%) Adobe
16 21 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.88%) CheckPoint
17 19 (0.88%) MuleSoft
17 19 (0.88%) Workday