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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,137 2,072 3,193
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.59% 7.77% 8.48%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.23% 25.54% 27.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,264 1,148 1,807
10th Percentile £291 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £401 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £645
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £504 £508
% change year-on-year -0.79% -0.69% -7.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 124 293
10th Percentile £14.93 £20.73 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.75 £30.16 £22.75
Median hourly rate £36.75 £42.50 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -13.53% +5.59% -6.40%
75th Percentile £57.88 £72.19 £61.25
90th Percentile £83.58 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -

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 11,114 8,112 11,669
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.29% 30.43% 31.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,386 4,903 7,289
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 £519 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.14% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 864 391 819
10th Percentile £15.78 £19.30 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -2.78% +5.56%
75th Percentile £63.18 £67.50 £65.38
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.59 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%

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 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 25 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 25 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 -4 996 £525 -4.55% 803
North of England -8 323 £447 -6.39% 639
South East 0 274 £475 -5.00% 1,252
Midlands -12 212 £505 +23.40% 507
North West -5 176 £397 -16.45% 291
South West +3 169 £650 +18.18% 471
West Midlands -17 149 £520 +22.07% 223
Yorkshire -12 137 £516 +5.36% 247
East of England -14 114 £550 +22.22% 553
East Midlands -6 63 £499 +40.03% 278
North East -15 11 £364 -27.20% 106
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
1 189 (8.84%) Confluence
2 110 (5.15%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.54%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.66%) nginx
8 11 (0.51%) Apache
9 8 (0.37%) CMS
9 8 (0.37%) IIS
10 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.28%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 273 (12.77%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (10.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 173 (8.10%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.65%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.89%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
8 10 (0.47%) FrameMaker
8 10 (0.47%) Trello
9 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.37%) 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 32 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (1.03%) Primavera
4 18 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
10 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
11 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
13 5 (0.23%) Workday HCM
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 427 (19.98%) Azure
2 260 (12.17%) AWS
3 192 (8.98%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (7.11%) Power Platform
5 136 (6.36%) GCP
6 100 (4.68%) SaaS
7 83 (3.88%) GitHub
8 78 (3.65%) Entra ID
9 69 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
10 60 (2.81%) Serverless
11 44 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.82%) Power Automate
13 33 (1.54%) OCI
14 31 (1.45%) IaaS
15 30 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.40%) PowerApps
16 29 (1.36%) Cloud Computing
17 28 (1.31%) PaaS
18 25 (1.17%) Amazon S3
19 24 (1.12%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.54%) Firewall
2 60 (2.81%) DNS
3 50 (2.34%) LAN
4 45 (2.11%) WAN
5 41 (1.92%) Network Security
6 39 (1.82%) VPN
7 30 (1.40%) HTTP
8 29 (1.36%) DHCP
9 27 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.22%) Internet
11 25 (1.17%) Skype
11 25 (1.17%) Wireless
12 22 (1.03%) SSH
13 21 (0.98%) BGP
14 20 (0.94%) Unified Communications
15 18 (0.84%) OSPF
16 16 (0.75%) VLAN
17 15 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
18 14 (0.66%) VoIP
19 13 (0.61%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (5.62%) Power BI
2 76 (3.56%) SQL Server
3 74 (3.46%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.48%) NoSQL
5 49 (2.29%) Relational Database
6 45 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
7 40 (1.87%) Tableau
8 38 (1.78%) MySQL
9 26 (1.22%) Big Data
10 19 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.75%) Metadata
13 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.66%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.56%) GIS
16 12 (0.56%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
18 10 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 265 (12.40%) JIRA
2 102 (4.77%) Git
3 74 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.43%) GitLab
5 24 (1.12%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.98%) Liquibase
7 20 (0.94%) Postman
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) JUnit
11 10 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.47%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.42%) CircleCI
12 9 (0.42%) Vagrant
13 8 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.33%) Gradle
14 7 (0.33%) MLflow
15 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,116 (52.22%) Social Skills
2 697 (32.62%) Finance
3 519 (24.29%) Analytical Skills
4 245 (11.46%) Banking
5 157 (7.35%) Public Sector
6 102 (4.77%) Presentation Skills
7 85 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (3.93%) Manufacturing
9 75 (3.51%) Marketing
10 68 (3.18%) Influencing Skills
11 67 (3.14%) Legal
12 64 (2.99%) Military
13 60 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
14 57 (2.67%) Financial Institution
15 48 (2.25%) Front Office
16 45 (2.11%) Telecoms
17 44 (2.06%) Investment Banking
18 38 (1.78%) Law
18 38 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
19 32 (1.50%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 309 (14.46%) Analyst
2 225 (10.53%) Senior
3 214 (10.01%) Developer
4 170 (7.96%) Lead
5 157 (7.35%) Architect
6 147 (6.88%) Business Analyst
7 142 (6.64%) Project Manager
8 83 (3.88%) Software Engineer
9 80 (3.74%) Consultant
10 62 (2.90%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (2.39%) IT Support
13 50 (2.34%) Support Analyst
14 44 (2.06%) Security Engineer
15 43 (2.01%) Senior Software Engineer
16 37 (1.73%) Senior Developer
17 35 (1.64%) Technical Analyst
18 34 (1.59%) Senior Analyst
18 34 (1.59%) Support Engineer
19 33 (1.54%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (5.15%) REST
2 77 (3.60%) RESTful
3 70 (3.28%) .NET
4 63 (2.95%) HTML
5 50 (2.34%) XML
6 44 (2.06%) CSS
6 44 (2.06%) Elastic Stack
7 43 (2.01%) Middleware
8 40 (1.87%) JSON
8 40 (1.87%) OAuth
8 40 (1.87%) React
9 35 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
9 35 (1.64%) SOAP
10 31 (1.45%) Kafka
11 28 (1.31%) AngularJS
12 25 (1.17%) Node.js
12 25 (1.17%) Spring
13 24 (1.12%) Pandas
13 24 (1.12%) TensorFlow
14 23 (1.08%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.84%) Management Information System
2 114 (5.33%) Product Ownership
3 100 (4.68%) Cloud Native
4 77 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 63 (2.95%) Distributed Systems
6 60 (2.81%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.67%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
9 51 (2.39%) Virtual Team
10 49 (2.29%) PMI
10 49 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
11 42 (1.97%) Derivative
11 42 (1.97%) Security Posture
12 37 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
12 37 (1.73%) Public Cloud
13 33 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
13 33 (1.54%) Life Science
14 29 (1.36%) Equities
14 29 (1.36%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 259 (12.12%) Windows
2 186 (8.70%) Linux
3 85 (3.98%) Unix
4 63 (2.95%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.53%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.08%) Android
7 21 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (0.80%) Ubuntu
10 15 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
11 14 (0.66%) VMS
12 12 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
15 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.14%) CentOS
17 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 799 (37.39%) Computer Science
2 719 (33.65%) Agile
3 629 (29.43%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (17.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 334 (15.63%) DevOps
6 322 (15.07%) Project Management
7 273 (12.77%) Change Management
8 254 (11.89%) AI
9 242 (11.32%) CI/CD
10 234 (10.95%) Continuous Improvement
11 226 (10.58%) ITIL
12 224 (10.48%) Cybersecurity
13 220 (10.29%) Analytics
14 218 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 210 (9.83%) Risk Management
16 208 (9.73%) Software Engineering
17 207 (9.69%) Migration
18 206 (9.64%) Decision-Making
19 193 (9.03%) Project Delivery
20 173 (8.10%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 393 (18.39%) Python
2 335 (15.68%) SQL
3 153 (7.16%) Java
4 120 (5.62%) PowerShell
5 113 (5.29%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.88%) C#
6 83 (3.88%) C++
7 52 (2.43%) TypeScript
8 44 (2.06%) Go
9 42 (1.97%) Bash
10 24 (1.12%) Perl
10 24 (1.12%) PL/SQL
10 24 (1.12%) R
11 20 (0.94%) C
11 20 (0.94%) T-SQL
12 18 (0.84%) Kotlin
13 16 (0.75%) MATLAB
14 14 (0.66%) Rust
15 13 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
16 12 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 554 (25.92%) Computer Science Degree
2 378 (17.69%) Security Cleared
3 328 (15.35%) Master's Degree
4 295 (13.80%) SC Cleared
5 146 (6.83%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.99%) PMP
7 110 (5.15%) CISSP
8 88 (4.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.42%) CISM
10 63 (2.95%) Azure Certification
11 62 (2.90%) PhD
12 58 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
13 56 (2.62%) Cisco Certification
14 50 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
15 48 (2.25%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.97%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.78%) CCNP
18 35 (1.64%) CBAP
18 35 (1.64%) HND
19 33 (1.54%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (6.64%) QA
2 113 (5.29%) GDPR
3 91 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (3.93%) PMO
5 63 (2.95%) NIST
6 59 (2.76%) Data Quality
7 42 (1.97%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.59%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.59%) SLA
9 31 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.31%) GRC
11 15 (0.70%) WCAG
12 14 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
12 14 (0.66%) HIPAA
13 13 (0.61%) Basel III
14 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.56%) NCSC
15 11 (0.51%) IFRS
15 11 (0.51%) P3O
16 10 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 166 (7.77%) Docker
2 138 (6.46%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.80%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.75%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) DFS Replication
6 8 (0.37%) Dovecot
6 8 (0.37%) Postfix
6 8 (0.37%) Squid
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) 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%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.094%) KVM
Systems Management
1 155 (7.25%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.29%) Terraform
3 73 (3.42%) Ansible
4 62 (2.90%) Microsoft Intune
5 55 (2.57%) Grafana
6 49 (2.29%) SCCM
7 46 (2.15%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.40%) OPNET
9 24 (1.12%) Puppet
10 15 (0.70%) Kibana
11 14 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.61%) SCOM
13 12 (0.56%) Nmap
14 11 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 10 (0.47%) Nessus
16 9 (0.42%) WSUS
17 8 (0.37%) Kiali
17 8 (0.37%) Proxmox
17 8 (0.37%) QRadar
18 7 (0.33%) Argo
Vendors
1 456 (21.34%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.53%) Oracle
3 117 (5.47%) SAP
4 112 (5.24%) ServiceNow
5 96 (4.49%) Google
6 94 (4.40%) Splunk
7 64 (2.99%) Cisco
8 51 (2.39%) Atlassian
8 51 (2.39%) Remedy
8 51 (2.39%) Salesforce
9 45 (2.11%) VMware
10 37 (1.73%) Databricks
11 34 (1.59%) Citrix
12 27 (1.26%) Palo Alto
13 26 (1.22%) IBM
14 21 (0.98%) MuleSoft
15 20 (0.94%) Adobe
16 18 (0.84%) CheckPoint
16 18 (0.84%) Informatica
16 18 (0.84%) Red Hat