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

6 months to
24 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 21
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,109 2,437 3,095
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.97% 7.83% 7.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.82% 26.12% 26.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,208 1,370 1,888
10th Percentile £300 £257 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £783 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 135 201
10th Percentile £15.25 £21.25 £17.75
25th Percentile £24.25 £30.78 £27.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.53 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% -20.00% +13.64%

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 10,131 9,331 11,737
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.49% 29.97% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,569 5,686 7,466
10th Percentile £305 £313 £306
25th Percentile £416 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -3.59% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £738 £734
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 891 440 715
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.11 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.02 £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 £52.33 £68.32 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.47 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.58
% change year-on-year -44.11% -16.02% +19.07%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -4 1,012 £538 -0.23% 909
North of England -7 300 £450 -14.29% 460
South East -5 262 £475 -5.00% 1,093
Midlands -9 215 £475 -4.81% 390
North West -6 177 £425 -19.81% 253
West Midlands -12 164 £500 - 239
South West +6 153 £600 - 338
East of England -8 132 £505 +18.82% 380
Yorkshire -9 114 £476 -6.71% 144
East Midlands -7 51 £447 +11.75% 143
North East -15 10 £298 -40.31% 68
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
1 165 (7.82%) Confluence
2 111 (5.26%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 42 (1.99%) Apache Spark
5 21 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.76%) nginx
7 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.62%) 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 (0.24%) 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
1 263 (12.47%) Microsoft Office
2 196 (9.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 152 (7.21%) Microsoft Project
4 97 (4.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (3.22%) MS Visio
6 21 (1.00%) Chatbot
7 13 (0.62%) Simulink
8 12 (0.57%) Trello
9 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
10 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.19%) Maya
13 3 (0.14%) InDesign
13 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.14%) Sketch
14 2 (0.095%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.095%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 38 (1.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.95%) Primavera
4 13 (0.62%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.57%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.43%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.24%) Maximo
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.24%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 403 (19.11%) Azure
2 281 (13.32%) AWS
3 166 (7.87%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (7.11%) GCP
5 133 (6.31%) Power Platform
6 94 (4.46%) SaaS
7 90 (4.27%) GitHub
8 78 (3.70%) Entra ID
9 63 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
9 63 (2.99%) Serverless
10 36 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.61%) Amazon S3
12 32 (1.52%) Power Automate
13 30 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
14 29 (1.38%) Azure Sentinel
15 28 (1.33%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.23%) Microsoft Purview
18 25 (1.19%) OneDrive
19 24 (1.14%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 88 (4.17%) Firewall
2 82 (3.89%) DNS
3 46 (2.18%) VPN
4 43 (2.04%) DHCP
5 42 (1.99%) Network Security
6 34 (1.61%) LAN
7 32 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 30 (1.42%) HTTP
9 29 (1.38%) WAN
10 27 (1.28%) Internet
11 26 (1.23%) Unified Communications
11 26 (1.23%) Wireless
12 25 (1.19%) SSH
13 20 (0.95%) BGP
14 19 (0.90%) Skype
15 17 (0.81%) VoIP
15 17 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.71%) Cisco IOS
16 15 (0.71%) MPLS
16 15 (0.71%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (4.93%) Power BI
2 95 (4.50%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (3.18%) SQL Server
4 60 (2.84%) NoSQL
5 51 (2.42%) Relational Database
6 48 (2.28%) Tableau
7 47 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
8 31 (1.47%) MySQL
9 28 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
10 24 (1.14%) Big Data
11 19 (0.90%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.76%) Hadoop
14 15 (0.71%) Metadata
14 15 (0.71%) MongoDB
15 13 (0.62%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.57%) GIS
16 12 (0.57%) RDBMS
17 10 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 255 (12.09%) JIRA
2 107 (5.07%) Git
3 91 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.22%) GitLab
5 26 (1.23%) Liquibase
6 21 (1.00%) Postman
7 16 (0.76%) Selenium
8 12 (0.57%) 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 (0.43%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.38%) SpecFlow
13 7 (0.33%) MLflow
14 6 (0.28%) Appium
14 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
14 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
14 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
15 5 (0.24%) Subversion
General
1 1,095 (51.92%) Social Skills
2 684 (32.43%) Finance
3 529 (25.08%) Analytical Skills
4 240 (11.38%) Banking
5 122 (5.78%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.65%) Manufacturing
7 96 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
8 82 (3.89%) Marketing
9 80 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
10 77 (3.65%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (3.27%) Legal
12 59 (2.80%) Financial Institution
12 59 (2.80%) Telecoms
13 58 (2.75%) Military
14 54 (2.56%) Front Office
14 54 (2.56%) Investment Banking
15 50 (2.37%) Aerospace
15 50 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
16 46 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
17 35 (1.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 309 (14.65%) Analyst
2 216 (10.24%) Developer
3 204 (9.67%) Senior
4 162 (7.68%) Lead
5 152 (7.21%) Architect
6 139 (6.59%) Business Analyst
7 129 (6.12%) Project Manager
8 91 (4.31%) Consultant
9 74 (3.51%) Software Engineer
10 51 (2.42%) Security Engineer
10 51 (2.42%) Support Analyst
11 47 (2.23%) IT Support
11 47 (2.23%) Technical Support
12 45 (2.13%) Solutions Architect
12 45 (2.13%) Support Engineer
13 44 (2.09%) Data Scientist
14 42 (1.99%) Senior Developer
15 36 (1.71%) IT Manager
16 33 (1.56%) AWS Engineer
17 32 (1.52%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.36%) REST
2 77 (3.65%) RESTful
3 66 (3.13%) .NET
4 64 (3.03%) HTML
5 48 (2.28%) CSS
6 46 (2.18%) XML
7 42 (1.99%) Kafka
8 40 (1.90%) JSON
9 38 (1.80%) Elastic Stack
9 38 (1.80%) Middleware
10 37 (1.75%) SOAP
11 36 (1.71%) Web Services
12 34 (1.61%) OAuth
12 34 (1.61%) React
13 30 (1.42%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.42%) Node.js
14 28 (1.33%) Spring
15 27 (1.28%) TensorFlow
16 26 (1.23%) Pandas
17 21 (1.00%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.77%) Management Information System
2 103 (4.88%) Product Ownership
3 91 (4.31%) Cloud Native
4 73 (3.46%) Onboarding
5 71 (3.37%) Algorithms
6 58 (2.75%) Virtual Team
7 56 (2.66%) Data Protection Act
8 55 (2.61%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
10 48 (2.28%) Derivative
11 45 (2.13%) Data Centre
12 42 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
13 41 (1.94%) Public Cloud
14 36 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
15 35 (1.66%) Security Posture
16 34 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
16 34 (1.61%) Life Science
16 34 (1.61%) PKI
17 30 (1.42%) Mobile App
18 29 (1.38%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 224 (10.62%) Windows
2 166 (7.87%) Linux
3 67 (3.18%) Unix
4 51 (2.42%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.66%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.04%) Apple iOS
7 21 (1.00%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.90%) Android
9 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.81%) VMS
11 12 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.19%) CentOS
17 2 (0.095%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.095%) Mac OS X
17 2 (0.095%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 851 (40.35%) Computer Science
2 684 (32.43%) Agile
3 653 (30.96%) Problem-Solving
4 333 (15.79%) Stakeholder Management
5 329 (15.60%) Project Management
6 304 (14.41%) DevOps
7 264 (12.52%) Change Management
8 258 (12.23%) ITIL
9 222 (10.53%) Analytics
10 220 (10.43%) CI/CD
11 213 (10.10%) AI
11 213 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
12 208 (9.86%) Continuous Improvement
12 208 (9.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 200 (9.48%) Software Engineering
14 193 (9.15%) Migration
15 185 (8.77%) Decision-Making
16 178 (8.44%) Project Delivery
17 168 (7.97%) Risk Management
18 152 (7.21%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 420 (19.91%) Python
2 312 (14.79%) SQL
3 170 (8.06%) Java
4 116 (5.50%) PowerShell
5 113 (5.36%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.60%) C++
7 69 (3.27%) C#
8 52 (2.47%) Go
9 44 (2.09%) TypeScript
10 40 (1.90%) Bash
11 32 (1.52%) R
12 21 (1.00%) Perl
13 19 (0.90%) Ruby
14 18 (0.85%) C
14 18 (0.85%) MATLAB
14 18 (0.85%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.76%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.62%) Apex Code
17 13 (0.62%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 568 (26.93%) Computer Science Degree
2 319 (15.13%) Security Cleared
3 308 (14.60%) Master's Degree
4 253 (12.00%) SC Cleared
5 126 (5.97%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.60%) PMP
7 105 (4.98%) CISSP
8 89 (4.22%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (3.41%) PhD
10 67 (3.18%) CISM
11 64 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (2.75%) Azure Certification
13 56 (2.66%) AWS Certification
14 45 (2.13%) HND
15 41 (1.94%) CCNP
16 39 (1.85%) DV Cleared
16 39 (1.85%) HNC
16 39 (1.85%) TOGAF Certification
17 37 (1.75%) CCNA
18 32 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (5.26%) QA
2 103 (4.88%) GDPR
3 83 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.84%) NIST
5 77 (3.65%) Data Quality
6 56 (2.66%) PMO
7 34 (1.61%) Accessibility
8 30 (1.42%) SLA
9 26 (1.23%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.19%) GRC
10 25 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.90%) NCSC
12 18 (0.85%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.76%) COBIT
14 15 (0.71%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.71%) NIST 800
15 13 (0.62%) P3O
15 13 (0.62%) WCAG
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 145 (6.88%) Docker
2 136 (6.45%) Active Directory
3 47 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.14%) Firmware
5 12 (0.57%) 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 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.095%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.095%) XenApp
12 1 (0.047%) GPFS
12 1 (0.047%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 125 (5.93%) Kubernetes
2 109 (5.17%) Terraform
3 80 (3.79%) Ansible
4 54 (2.56%) Grafana
5 49 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.13%) Prometheus
7 44 (2.09%) SCCM
8 18 (0.85%) OPNET
9 15 (0.71%) Puppet
10 13 (0.62%) SCOM
11 12 (0.57%) Nessus
12 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.47%) QRadar
14 9 (0.43%) 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 (21.57%) Microsoft
2 124 (5.88%) ServiceNow
3 122 (5.78%) Oracle
4 120 (5.69%) SAP
5 93 (4.41%) Google
6 83 (3.94%) Splunk
7 75 (3.56%) Cisco
8 64 (3.03%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.51%) VMware
10 47 (2.23%) Atlassian
11 38 (1.80%) Remedy
12 35 (1.66%) IBM
13 29 (1.38%) Databricks
14 27 (1.28%) Adobe
15 25 (1.19%) Citrix
15 25 (1.19%) Workday
16 21 (1.00%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.90%) Red Hat
18 18 (0.85%) Apple
19 14 (0.66%) CyberArk