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 21 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 21
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,128 2,406 3,105
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.97% 7.75% 7.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.84% 25.96% 26.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,210 1,365 1,893
10th Percentile £299 £251 £256
25th Percentile £402 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 126 195
10th Percentile £15.25 £21.25 £17.60
25th Percentile £24.50 £31.25 £27.00
Median hourly rate £35.25 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.06% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.53 £77.55 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.16 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.59% -19.68% +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 10,210 9,268 11,688
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.43% 29.84% 29.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,617 5,670 7,418
10th Percentile £305 £313 £308
25th Percentile £416 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £526 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.24% -4.32% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £734 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 898 437 711
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.06 £27.00 £26.77
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -6.54% +18.89%
75th Percentile £52.00 £68.00 £69.81
90th Percentile £74.48 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.67
% change year-on-year -44.11% -16.15% +19.26%

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 21 November 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 21 November 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 21 November 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 -6 1,026 £550 +3.77% 2,276
North of England -7 301 £450 -14.29% 589
South East +1 267 £475 -2.06% 1,270
Midlands -10 221 £475 -2.56% 454
North West -6 177 £425 -20.04% 325
West Midlands -11 168 £500 - 272
South West +4 150 £579 -1.95% 360
East of England -7 129 £528 +24.12% 456
Yorkshire -13 116 £475 -5.05% 181
East Midlands -3 53 £448 +12.00% 175
North East -16 9 £331 -26.40% 88
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
1 160 (7.52%) Confluence
2 113 (5.31%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (2.07%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) nginx
7 15 (0.70%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.66%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.33%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) Alfresco
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Moodle
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 261 (12.27%) Microsoft Office
2 199 (9.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 146 (6.86%) Microsoft Project
4 98 (4.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (3.20%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.99%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
7 12 (0.56%) Trello
8 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.23%) Maya
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.14%) InDesign
13 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.14%) Sketch
14 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.094%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 41 (1.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.94%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle BPM
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
11 5 (0.23%) Maximo
11 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 401 (18.84%) Azure
2 281 (13.20%) AWS
3 166 (7.80%) Microsoft 365
4 149 (7.00%) GCP
5 132 (6.20%) Power Platform
6 95 (4.46%) SaaS
7 90 (4.23%) GitHub
8 78 (3.67%) Entra ID
9 64 (3.01%) Serverless
10 63 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
11 35 (1.64%) Amazon S3
12 34 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
13 31 (1.46%) Power Automate
14 29 (1.36%) Amazon ECS
14 29 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.27%) PowerApps
16 26 (1.22%) Microsoft Purview
17 25 (1.17%) OCI
17 25 (1.17%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 92 (4.32%) Firewall
2 84 (3.95%) DNS
3 47 (2.21%) VPN
4 44 (2.07%) Network Security
5 43 (2.02%) DHCP
6 33 (1.55%) LAN
7 32 (1.50%) TCP/IP
8 30 (1.41%) HTTP
8 30 (1.41%) WAN
9 28 (1.32%) Internet
10 27 (1.27%) Unified Communications
11 26 (1.22%) Wireless
12 25 (1.17%) SSH
13 20 (0.94%) BGP
13 20 (0.94%) Skype
14 17 (0.80%) VoIP
14 17 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.75%) MPLS
16 15 (0.70%) Cisco IOS
16 15 (0.70%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (4.89%) Power BI
2 95 (4.46%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (3.15%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.91%) NoSQL
5 53 (2.49%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
6 49 (2.30%) Tableau
7 30 (1.41%) MySQL
8 28 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
9 25 (1.17%) Big Data
10 18 (0.85%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.80%) Hadoop
12 16 (0.75%) Metadata
12 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.66%) Oracle Database
15 13 (0.61%) RDBMS
16 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.56%) GIS
17 11 (0.52%) Redis
Development Applications
1 253 (11.89%) JIRA
2 106 (4.98%) Git
3 96 (4.51%) Jenkins
4 67 (3.15%) GitLab
5 26 (1.22%) Liquibase
6 21 (0.99%) Postman
7 16 (0.75%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.47%) JUnit
10 10 (0.47%) Visual Studio
11 9 (0.42%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.42%) SpecFlow
12 8 (0.38%) MLflow
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
13 6 (0.28%) Subversion
General
1 1,108 (52.07%) Social Skills
2 693 (32.57%) Finance
3 534 (25.09%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (11.61%) Banking
5 118 (5.55%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.61%) Manufacturing
7 97 (4.56%) Presentation Skills
8 81 (3.81%) Marketing
8 81 (3.81%) Organisational Skills
9 76 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
10 70 (3.29%) Legal
11 59 (2.77%) Telecoms
12 58 (2.73%) Financial Institution
13 56 (2.63%) Investment Banking
13 56 (2.63%) Military
14 53 (2.49%) Front Office
15 51 (2.40%) Aerospace
16 50 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
17 48 (2.26%) Pharmaceutical
18 35 (1.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 310 (14.57%) Analyst
2 220 (10.34%) Developer
3 208 (9.77%) Senior
4 168 (7.89%) Lead
5 148 (6.95%) Architect
6 142 (6.67%) Business Analyst
7 130 (6.11%) Project Manager
8 90 (4.23%) Consultant
9 75 (3.52%) Software Engineer
10 51 (2.40%) Security Engineer
10 51 (2.40%) Support Analyst
11 46 (2.16%) IT Support
11 46 (2.16%) Technical Support
12 45 (2.11%) Solutions Architect
12 45 (2.11%) Support Engineer
13 44 (2.07%) Data Scientist
14 42 (1.97%) Senior Developer
15 37 (1.74%) IT Manager
16 35 (1.64%) Data Engineer
17 34 (1.60%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (5.40%) REST
2 77 (3.62%) RESTful
3 66 (3.10%) .NET
3 66 (3.10%) HTML
4 50 (2.35%) CSS
5 47 (2.21%) Kafka
6 46 (2.16%) XML
7 40 (1.88%) JSON
8 38 (1.79%) Elastic Stack
8 38 (1.79%) Middleware
9 36 (1.69%) SOAP
9 36 (1.69%) Web Services
10 35 (1.64%) React
11 34 (1.60%) OAuth
12 31 (1.46%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.41%) Node.js
14 28 (1.32%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.27%) Spring
16 25 (1.17%) Pandas
17 22 (1.03%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.88%) Management Information System
2 101 (4.75%) Product Ownership
3 92 (4.32%) Cloud Native
4 71 (3.34%) Algorithms
4 71 (3.34%) Onboarding
5 57 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
5 57 (2.68%) Virtual Team
6 55 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
8 47 (2.21%) Derivative
9 46 (2.16%) Data Centre
10 42 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
11 41 (1.93%) Public Cloud
12 36 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
13 35 (1.64%) Security Posture
14 34 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
14 34 (1.60%) Life Science
14 34 (1.60%) PKI
15 30 (1.41%) Mobile App
16 28 (1.32%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 222 (10.43%) Windows
2 167 (7.85%) Linux
3 67 (3.15%) Unix
4 49 (2.30%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.64%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 21 (0.99%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.89%) Android
9 17 (0.80%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.80%) VMS
10 11 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
11 10 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.19%) CentOS
15 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
15 2 (0.094%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.094%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 868 (40.79%) Computer Science
2 688 (32.33%) Agile
3 666 (31.30%) Problem-Solving
4 335 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 333 (15.65%) Project Management
6 306 (14.38%) DevOps
7 271 (12.73%) Change Management
8 256 (12.03%) ITIL
9 223 (10.48%) Analytics
9 223 (10.48%) CI/CD
10 217 (10.20%) Cybersecurity
11 212 (9.96%) AI
11 212 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 208 (9.77%) Continuous Improvement
13 205 (9.63%) Software Engineering
14 194 (9.12%) Migration
15 187 (8.79%) Decision-Making
16 180 (8.46%) Project Delivery
17 170 (7.99%) Risk Management
18 155 (7.28%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 421 (19.78%) Python
2 322 (15.13%) SQL
3 176 (8.27%) Java
4 116 (5.45%) PowerShell
5 114 (5.36%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.57%) C++
7 68 (3.20%) C#
8 53 (2.49%) Go
9 45 (2.11%) TypeScript
10 39 (1.83%) Bash
11 32 (1.50%) R
12 21 (0.99%) Perl
13 20 (0.94%) PL/SQL
14 19 (0.89%) Ruby
15 18 (0.85%) C
16 17 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
16 17 (0.80%) MATLAB
17 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
18 13 (0.61%) Apex Code
18 13 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 579 (27.21%) Computer Science Degree
2 316 (14.85%) Security Cleared
3 306 (14.38%) Master's Degree
4 250 (11.75%) SC Cleared
5 127 (5.97%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.59%) PMP
7 106 (4.98%) CISSP
8 89 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (3.38%) PhD
10 68 (3.20%) CISM
11 66 (3.10%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (2.68%) AWS Certification
13 56 (2.63%) Azure Certification
14 43 (2.02%) CCNP
14 43 (2.02%) HND
15 40 (1.88%) DV Cleared
16 39 (1.83%) HNC
17 38 (1.79%) CCNA
18 34 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
19 32 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.26%) QA
2 102 (4.79%) GDPR
3 83 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (3.85%) NIST
5 81 (3.81%) Data Quality
6 57 (2.68%) PMO
7 35 (1.64%) Accessibility
8 29 (1.36%) SLA
9 26 (1.22%) GRC
9 26 (1.22%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 20 (0.94%) NCSC
11 18 (0.85%) HIPAA
12 17 (0.80%) COBIT
13 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.70%) NIST 800
14 14 (0.66%) WCAG
15 13 (0.61%) P3O
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 145 (6.81%) Docker
2 136 (6.39%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.08%) Firmware
5 11 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
6 10 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.094%) XenApp
13 1 (0.047%) GPFS
13 1 (0.047%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 124 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 109 (5.12%) Terraform
3 80 (3.76%) Ansible
4 54 (2.54%) Grafana
5 49 (2.30%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.11%) Prometheus
7 43 (2.02%) SCCM
8 15 (0.70%) Puppet
9 14 (0.66%) SCOM
10 13 (0.61%) OPNET
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.52%) QRadar
12 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.33%) Argo
15 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
16 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 6 (0.28%) Kibana
16 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 455 (21.38%) Microsoft
2 125 (5.87%) Oracle
3 122 (5.73%) SAP
4 120 (5.64%) ServiceNow
5 91 (4.28%) Google
6 85 (3.99%) Splunk
7 77 (3.62%) Cisco
8 63 (2.96%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.40%) VMware
10 41 (1.93%) Atlassian
11 37 (1.74%) IBM
12 33 (1.55%) Remedy
13 28 (1.32%) Adobe
13 28 (1.32%) Databricks
14 25 (1.17%) Citrix
14 25 (1.17%) Workday
15 21 (0.99%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.89%) Apple
16 19 (0.89%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.66%) Fortinet