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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,131 2,066 3,094
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.67% 7.80% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.40% 25.70% 27.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,253 1,135 1,772
10th Percentile £293 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £640 £665 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £511 £513
% change year-on-year -2.20% -0.24% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 173 126 257
10th Percentile £14.40 £20.88 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.50 £30.36 £22.33
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -7.97% +10.61%
75th Percentile £60.61 £71.19 £65.00
90th Percentile £89.75 £85.00 £77.84
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -12.50% -11.11% +12.50%

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 10,985 8,040 11,415
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.39% 30.36% 31.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,280 4,871 7,153
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 867 394 752
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.98 £14.29
25th Percentile £19.00 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £49.81
Median % change year-on-year -46.91% -4.88% +10.68%
75th Percentile £61.18 £67.94 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.32 £82.25 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £49.94
% change year-on-year -37.13% -19.90% +10.98%

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 20 January 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 20 January 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 20 January 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 -4 999 £525 -4.55% 815
North of England -10 314 £435 -13.00% 626
South East +1 275 £475 -5.00% 1,269
Midlands -14 207 £513 +22.39% 479
South West +6 170 £650 +21.95% 435
North West 0 169 £392 -21.70% 293
West Midlands -17 149 £525 +13.51% 197
Yorkshire -9 135 £525 +5.00% 241
East of England -10 118 £528 +17.22% 548
East Midlands -10 58 £492 +38.20% 273
North East -14 11 £364 -27.20% 100
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
1 185 (8.68%) Confluence
2 109 (5.11%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.55%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.70%) nginx
5 15 (0.70%) Skype for Business
6 13 (0.61%) Apache
7 10 (0.47%) IIS
8 8 (0.38%) CMS
9 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.33%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.19%) Luigi
11 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 271 (12.72%) Microsoft Office
2 218 (10.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 172 (8.07%) Microsoft Project
4 112 (5.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.75%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.89%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) FrameMaker
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
8 11 (0.52%) Trello
9 9 (0.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.38%) Sketch
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.094%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.094%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.094%) Revit
15 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 31 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.99%) Primavera
4 18 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.70%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 10 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.47%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.38%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.38%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 424 (19.90%) Azure
2 260 (12.20%) AWS
3 186 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (7.13%) Power Platform
5 134 (6.29%) GCP
6 99 (4.65%) SaaS
7 84 (3.94%) GitHub
8 77 (3.61%) Entra ID
9 69 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (2.86%) Serverless
11 43 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.78%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.60%) OCI
14 31 (1.45%) IaaS
15 30 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
16 29 (1.36%) PowerApps
17 28 (1.31%) PaaS
18 26 (1.22%) Amazon ECS
18 26 (1.22%) Amazon S3
19 24 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.50%) Firewall
2 59 (2.77%) DNS
3 46 (2.16%) LAN
4 41 (1.92%) Network Security
4 41 (1.92%) WAN
5 40 (1.88%) VPN
6 31 (1.45%) HTTP
7 28 (1.31%) DHCP
8 26 (1.22%) Internet
9 25 (1.17%) Skype
9 25 (1.17%) TCP/IP
9 25 (1.17%) Wireless
10 22 (1.03%) SSH
11 20 (0.94%) BGP
11 20 (0.94%) Unified Communications
12 17 (0.80%) OSPF
13 16 (0.75%) VLAN
14 14 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.61%) VoIP
16 12 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (5.63%) Power BI
2 76 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
3 75 (3.52%) SQL Server
4 53 (2.49%) NoSQL
5 49 (2.30%) Relational Database
6 43 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.97%) Tableau
8 37 (1.74%) MySQL
9 26 (1.22%) Big Data
10 19 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
11 18 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
12 16 (0.75%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.66%) Metadata
13 14 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
15 12 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 11 (0.52%) Amazon Aurora
16 11 (0.52%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 265 (12.44%) JIRA
2 103 (4.83%) Git
3 75 (3.52%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.49%) GitLab
5 23 (1.08%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.99%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.84%) Postman
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.52%) JUnit
11 10 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.47%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.47%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.42%) CircleCI
12 9 (0.42%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.38%) Artifactory
13 8 (0.38%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.38%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.33%) Gradle
14 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,111 (52.14%) Social Skills
2 689 (32.33%) Finance
3 515 (24.17%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (11.78%) Banking
5 154 (7.23%) Public Sector
6 101 (4.74%) Presentation Skills
7 87 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
8 85 (3.99%) Manufacturing
9 75 (3.52%) Marketing
10 73 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (3.33%) Legal
12 65 (3.05%) Military
13 58 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
13 58 (2.72%) Financial Institution
14 48 (2.25%) Front Office
15 46 (2.16%) Investment Banking
16 43 (2.02%) Telecoms
17 39 (1.83%) Law
17 39 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.69%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 306 (14.36%) Analyst
2 222 (10.42%) Senior
3 210 (9.85%) Developer
4 167 (7.84%) Lead
5 154 (7.23%) Architect
6 149 (6.99%) Business Analyst
7 144 (6.76%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.80%) Software Engineer
9 79 (3.71%) Consultant
10 58 (2.72%) Technical Support
11 53 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.35%) IT Support
13 49 (2.30%) Support Analyst
14 45 (2.11%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.92%) Senior Software Engineer
16 37 (1.74%) Senior Developer
17 35 (1.64%) Data Scientist
18 34 (1.60%) Support Engineer
18 34 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
19 33 (1.55%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (5.21%) REST
2 77 (3.61%) RESTful
3 70 (3.28%) .NET
4 64 (3.00%) HTML
5 55 (2.58%) XML
6 47 (2.21%) CSS
7 44 (2.06%) Elastic Stack
8 43 (2.02%) Middleware
9 42 (1.97%) React
10 41 (1.92%) JSON
11 40 (1.88%) OAuth
12 33 (1.55%) Kafka
12 33 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
12 33 (1.55%) SOAP
13 29 (1.36%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.22%) Spring
15 25 (1.17%) Node.js
16 24 (1.13%) Pandas
16 24 (1.13%) TensorFlow
17 23 (1.08%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 188 (8.82%) Management Information System
2 112 (5.26%) Product Ownership
3 97 (4.55%) Cloud Native
4 76 (3.57%) Onboarding
5 61 (2.86%) Algorithms
5 61 (2.86%) Distributed Systems
6 56 (2.63%) Data Centre
6 56 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
7 52 (2.44%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
9 49 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
10 48 (2.25%) PMI
11 43 (2.02%) Derivative
12 41 (1.92%) Security Posture
13 37 (1.74%) Public Cloud
14 36 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.60%) Life Science
16 32 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
17 29 (1.36%) PKI
18 28 (1.31%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 251 (11.78%) Windows
2 184 (8.63%) Linux
3 81 (3.80%) Unix
4 60 (2.82%) Windows Server
5 50 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.08%) Android
7 20 (0.94%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.84%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.80%) Mac OS
9 17 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
10 14 (0.66%) VMS
10 14 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 9 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.14%) CentOS
14 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
15 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
15 2 (0.094%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 801 (37.59%) Computer Science
2 713 (33.46%) Agile
3 630 (29.56%) Problem-Solving
4 357 (16.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 331 (15.53%) DevOps
6 318 (14.92%) Project Management
7 269 (12.62%) Change Management
8 242 (11.36%) AI
9 240 (11.26%) CI/CD
10 232 (10.89%) Continuous Improvement
11 223 (10.46%) ITIL
12 221 (10.37%) Cybersecurity
13 216 (10.14%) Analytics
13 216 (10.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 207 (9.71%) Software Engineering
15 206 (9.67%) Risk Management
16 204 (9.57%) Decision-Making
17 203 (9.53%) Migration
18 189 (8.87%) Project Delivery
19 173 (8.12%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 393 (18.44%) Python
2 327 (15.34%) SQL
3 150 (7.04%) Java
4 123 (5.77%) PowerShell
5 116 (5.44%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.85%) C#
7 80 (3.75%) C++
8 52 (2.44%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.97%) Bash
9 42 (1.97%) Go
10 26 (1.22%) R
11 24 (1.13%) Perl
12 23 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 20 (0.94%) C
14 19 (0.89%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.84%) Kotlin
16 16 (0.75%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
17 14 (0.66%) Rust
18 12 (0.56%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 554 (26.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 376 (17.64%) Security Cleared
3 321 (15.06%) Master's Degree
4 293 (13.75%) SC Cleared
5 147 (6.90%) PMI Certification
6 130 (6.10%) PMP
7 108 (5.07%) CISSP
8 85 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.33%) CISM
10 63 (2.96%) PhD
11 62 (2.91%) Azure Certification
12 57 (2.67%) TOGAF Certification
13 54 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
14 49 (2.30%) DV Cleared
15 46 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
16 42 (1.97%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.74%) CCNP
17 37 (1.74%) HND
18 33 (1.55%) MCSE
19 32 (1.50%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.76%) QA
2 109 (5.11%) GDPR
3 89 (4.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (3.85%) PMO
5 64 (3.00%) NIST
6 62 (2.91%) Data Quality
7 39 (1.83%) PCI DSS
8 36 (1.69%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.50%) SLA
10 31 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.22%) GRC
12 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.70%) WCAG
13 13 (0.61%) Basel III
13 13 (0.61%) NCSC
14 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.56%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.56%) P3O
15 11 (0.52%) IFRS
16 10 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 165 (7.74%) Docker
2 132 (6.19%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.84%) Firmware
5 17 (0.80%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.42%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.42%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.42%) Postfix
6 9 (0.42%) Squid
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.094%) KVM
Systems Management
1 153 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 116 (5.44%) Terraform
3 75 (3.52%) Ansible
4 58 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.63%) Grafana
6 47 (2.21%) Prometheus
6 47 (2.21%) SCCM
7 30 (1.41%) OPNET
8 24 (1.13%) Puppet
9 15 (0.70%) Kibana
10 14 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.61%) SCOM
12 12 (0.56%) Nmap
13 11 (0.52%) Nessus
14 10 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 9 (0.42%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.42%) QRadar
15 9 (0.42%) WSUS
16 8 (0.38%) Kiali
17 7 (0.33%) Argo
Vendors
1 440 (20.65%) Microsoft
2 159 (7.46%) Oracle
3 112 (5.26%) SAP
4 110 (5.16%) ServiceNow
5 94 (4.41%) Splunk
6 89 (4.18%) Google
7 62 (2.91%) Cisco
8 51 (2.39%) Atlassian
8 51 (2.39%) Remedy
9 50 (2.35%) Salesforce
10 43 (2.02%) VMware
11 36 (1.69%) Databricks
12 34 (1.60%) Citrix
13 26 (1.22%) IBM
14 25 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.99%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.99%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.94%) Adobe
17 17 (0.80%) Informatica
18 16 (0.75%) CheckPoint