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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,185 1,910 3,140
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.48% 7.77% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.74% 24.79% 26.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,291 1,133 1,668
10th Percentile £250 £250 £210
25th Percentile £387 £400 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -5.09%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 144 356
10th Percentile £20.68 £17.90 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £28.18 £23.94
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 £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.87% +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 13,054 7,704 11,696
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.74% 31.33% 31.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,770 4,896 7,210
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 982 439 972
10th Percentile £17.09 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.86 £17.97
Median hourly rate £47.50 £47.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +18.75% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.44 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.35 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £41.91 £40.00
% change year-on-year +13.34% +4.78% -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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -13 931 £502 -8.82% 609
South East -7 367 £500 - 583
North of England -7 336 £417 -8.55% 603
Midlands -19 209 £500 +66.67% 340
North West -4 183 £400 -13.51% 376
West Midlands -23 148 £500 +66.67% 194
South West -12 144 £650 +25.00% 194
East of England -7 140 £475 -5.00% 200
Yorkshire -17 136 £474 +10.05% 173
East Midlands -17 59 £525 +55.33% 145
North East -23 17 £364 -21.30% 59
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
1 143 (6.54%) Confluence
2 110 (5.03%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.51%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.27%) 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%) Camunda
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 290 (13.27%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.24%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.65%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 7 (0.32%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.32%) Revit
9 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.27%) Sketch
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 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.27%) 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 (20.41%) Azure
2 247 (11.30%) AWS
3 187 (8.56%) Microsoft 365
4 179 (8.19%) Power Platform
5 107 (4.90%) Entra ID
6 103 (4.71%) SaaS
7 94 (4.30%) GCP
8 76 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.52%) GitHub
10 38 (1.74%) Power Automate
11 36 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.46%) Google Workspace
13 30 (1.37%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.33%) PaaS
15 28 (1.28%) IaaS
15 28 (1.28%) Serverless
16 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
16 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.01%) Cloud Computing
17 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.39%) Firewall
2 53 (2.43%) LAN
3 52 (2.38%) WAN
4 45 (2.06%) TCP/IP
5 43 (1.97%) DNS
5 43 (1.97%) Network Security
6 36 (1.65%) VPN
7 26 (1.19%) Wireless
8 22 (1.01%) BGP
9 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.87%) HTTP
10 19 (0.87%) OSPF
11 18 (0.82%) DHCP
11 18 (0.82%) Skype
12 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.59%) SAN
14 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.50%) Internet
15 11 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.46%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (6.77%) Power BI
2 87 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.33%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.69%) Tableau
7 33 (1.51%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.28%) Metadata
8 28 (1.28%) MySQL
9 27 (1.24%) Big Data
10 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
13 13 (0.59%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) Power Query
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.50%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 242 (11.08%) JIRA
2 96 (4.39%) Git
3 44 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.87%) MLflow
8 18 (0.82%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Postman
10 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.46%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.41%) JUnit
14 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.37%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,031 (47.19%) Social Skills
2 661 (30.25%) Finance
3 482 (22.06%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (9.84%) Banking
5 178 (8.15%) Public Sector
6 111 (5.08%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.03%) Presentation Skills
8 84 (3.84%) Marketing
9 82 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
10 75 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (3.25%) Aerospace
12 66 (3.02%) Legal
13 62 (2.84%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.47%) Military
15 52 (2.38%) Telecoms
16 47 (2.15%) Law
17 44 (2.01%) Retail
18 42 (1.92%) Front Office
19 37 (1.69%) Investment Banking
20 35 (1.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 293 (13.41%) Analyst
2 217 (9.93%) Senior
3 181 (8.28%) Lead
4 177 (8.10%) Architect
5 162 (7.41%) Developer
6 155 (7.09%) Project Manager
7 144 (6.59%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.39%) Consultant
9 62 (2.84%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.70%) Technical Support
11 58 (2.65%) Senior Analyst
12 50 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.24%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.20%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.01%) Product Manager
16 41 (1.88%) Security Engineer
17 39 (1.78%) Data Engineer
17 39 (1.78%) IT Analyst
18 37 (1.69%) Designer
18 37 (1.69%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.07%) REST
2 67 (3.07%) .NET
3 51 (2.33%) Middleware
4 47 (2.15%) React
5 44 (2.01%) HTML
5 44 (2.01%) RESTful
6 41 (1.88%) Kafka
7 36 (1.65%) XML
8 34 (1.56%) OAuth
8 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.56%) SOAP
8 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.51%) JSON
10 31 (1.42%) Spring
11 30 (1.37%) Pandas
12 29 (1.33%) CSS
13 28 (1.28%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
15 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 23 (1.05%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.92%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 120 (5.49%) Onboarding
4 77 (3.52%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.25%) Virtual Team
6 62 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.65%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.33%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.33%) PMI
9 50 (2.29%) Algorithms
9 50 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
11 41 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.51%) Derivative
12 33 (1.51%) Robotics
12 33 (1.51%) Security Posture
13 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
14 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
15 25 (1.14%) AI Agents
15 25 (1.14%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 245 (11.21%) Windows
2 154 (7.05%) Linux
3 67 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.75%) Unix
5 57 (2.61%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.92%) Android
6 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
7 19 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.23%) AIX
11 5 (0.23%) VMS
11 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 3 (0.14%) CentOS
13 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
13 3 (0.14%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 776 (35.51%) Computer Science
2 679 (31.08%) Agile
3 563 (25.77%) Problem-Solving
4 358 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 322 (14.74%) AI
6 318 (14.55%) Continuous Improvement
7 314 (14.37%) Project Management
8 306 (14.00%) DevOps
9 241 (11.03%) Analytics
10 239 (10.94%) CI/CD
11 234 (10.71%) ITIL
12 231 (10.57%) Change Management
12 231 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 218 (9.98%) Decision-Making
14 212 (9.70%) Cybersecurity
15 208 (9.52%) Migration
16 204 (9.34%) PRINCE2
17 195 (8.92%) Project Delivery
17 195 (8.92%) Risk Management
18 189 (8.65%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 349 (15.97%) Python
2 323 (14.78%) SQL
3 146 (6.68%) Java
4 114 (5.22%) PowerShell
5 81 (3.71%) C#
6 78 (3.57%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.61%) C++
8 37 (1.69%) Bash
9 36 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.28%) R
11 25 (1.14%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
14 14 (0.64%) Go
14 14 (0.64%) Perl
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 496 (22.70%) Computer Science Degree
2 419 (19.18%) Security Cleared
3 302 (13.82%) SC Cleared
4 258 (11.81%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.27%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.49%) PMP
7 91 (4.16%) CISSP
8 89 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 58 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
10 55 (2.52%) TOGAF Certification
11 52 (2.38%) PhD
12 51 (2.33%) CISM
13 49 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 47 (2.15%) Azure Certification
15 46 (2.11%) DV Cleared
16 36 (1.65%) CCNP
17 35 (1.60%) MBA
18 34 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 31 (1.42%) CCNA
20 30 (1.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.82%) QA
2 105 (4.81%) PMO
3 100 (4.58%) GDPR
3 100 (4.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 97 (4.44%) NIST
5 81 (3.71%) Data Quality
6 50 (2.29%) SLA
7 40 (1.83%) Accessibility
7 40 (1.83%) PCI DSS
8 23 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 21 (0.96%) GRC
10 19 (0.87%) NCSC
11 13 (0.59%) Basel III
11 13 (0.59%) IFRS
12 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.50%) IFRS 17
14 10 (0.46%) COBIT
14 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 149 (6.82%) Active Directory
2 126 (5.77%) Docker
3 37 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.05%) 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%) IAG
13 1 (0.046%) UAG
13 1 (0.046%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 133 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.52%) Terraform
3 59 (2.70%) Ansible
3 59 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (1.69%) Grafana
5 36 (1.65%) SCCM
6 30 (1.37%) OPNET
7 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.78%) Puppet
8 17 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 11 (0.50%) Kibana
10 11 (0.50%) 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 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
15 6 (0.27%) Nessus
Vendors
1 501 (22.93%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.45%) Oracle
3 125 (5.72%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.45%) SAP
5 79 (3.62%) Google
6 66 (3.02%) Cisco
7 51 (2.33%) Remedy
7 51 (2.33%) Splunk
8 48 (2.20%) Databricks
9 44 (2.01%) Citrix
10 43 (1.97%) Atlassian
10 43 (1.97%) VMware
11 34 (1.56%) IBM
11 34 (1.56%) Salesforce
12 32 (1.46%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
14 26 (1.19%) Adobe
15 23 (1.05%) Aruba
15 23 (1.05%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.92%) Siemens