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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,158 2,062 3,254
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.56% 7.78% 8.53%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.23% 25.61% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,270 1,142 1,835
10th Percentile £286 £250 £210
25th Percentile £400 £402 £388
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 £508 £510
% change year-on-year -1.48% -0.49% -5.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 121 309
10th Percentile £14.98 £21.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.78 £22.33
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £57.50 £71.25 £61.25
90th Percentile £84.15 £85.00 £74.20
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.77% +0.63% -

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 11,222 8,053 11,917
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.12% 30.40% 31.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,459 4,858 7,434
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -1.52% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 870 386 865
10th Percentile £15.62 £19.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% - +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.75 £67.44 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.08 £81.42 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -35.51% -15.55% +2.62%

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 1 February 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 1 February 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 1 February 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% 998
North of England -6 333 £429 -10.21% 435
South East +1 279 £475 -5.00% 769
Midlands -14 213 £525 +25.37% 354
North West -3 175 £393 -17.26% 242
South West +1 171 £650 +21.95% 251
West Midlands -17 147 £525 +10.53% 216
Yorkshire -8 145 £508 +1.50% 137
East of England -14 114 £503 +5.79% 267
East Midlands -4 66 £523 +46.77% 137
North East -14 14 £364 -27.20% 58
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 (8.76%) Confluence
2 112 (5.19%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.62%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.60%) nginx
8 11 (0.51%) Apache
9 8 (0.37%) CMS
10 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.28%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) IIS
13 4 (0.19%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 271 (12.56%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (10.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 175 (8.11%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.61%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
8 10 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.46%) Trello
9 8 (0.37%) FrameMaker
9 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 7 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.093%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 31 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (1.02%) Primavera
4 20 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
8 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
11 5 (0.23%) Workday HCM
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 438 (20.30%) Azure
2 261 (12.09%) AWS
3 197 (9.13%) Microsoft 365
4 158 (7.32%) Power Platform
5 135 (6.26%) GCP
6 107 (4.96%) SaaS
7 82 (3.80%) Entra ID
8 81 (3.75%) GitHub
9 72 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (2.83%) Serverless
11 46 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.81%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.58%) OCI
14 32 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.48%) IaaS
14 32 (1.48%) PaaS
15 31 (1.44%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (1.16%) Google Workspace
18 24 (1.11%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.54%) Firewall
2 61 (2.83%) DNS
3 53 (2.46%) LAN
4 50 (2.32%) WAN
5 42 (1.95%) Network Security
6 40 (1.85%) VPN
7 30 (1.39%) DHCP
8 28 (1.30%) HTTP
9 27 (1.25%) Skype
10 26 (1.20%) Internet
10 26 (1.20%) TCP/IP
11 25 (1.16%) Wireless
12 24 (1.11%) Unified Communications
13 22 (1.02%) BGP
14 19 (0.88%) OSPF
15 18 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
16 17 (0.79%) SSH
17 16 (0.74%) VLAN
18 14 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
18 14 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (5.79%) Power BI
2 76 (3.52%) SQL Server
3 75 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
4 52 (2.41%) NoSQL
5 50 (2.32%) Relational Database
6 44 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.95%) Tableau
8 37 (1.71%) MySQL
9 27 (1.25%) Big Data
10 20 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
11 17 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.79%) Metadata
12 16 (0.74%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.56%) GIS
14 12 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
16 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
17 9 (0.42%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 269 (12.47%) JIRA
2 100 (4.63%) Git
3 71 (3.29%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.41%) GitLab
5 25 (1.16%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.97%) Liquibase
7 20 (0.93%) Postman
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.46%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
11 9 (0.42%) MLflow
12 8 (0.37%) CircleCI
12 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.32%) Gradle
13 7 (0.32%) Vagrant
14 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,123 (52.04%) Social Skills
2 708 (32.81%) Finance
3 523 (24.24%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (11.54%) Banking
5 161 (7.46%) Public Sector
6 102 (4.73%) Presentation Skills
7 89 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.80%) Manufacturing
9 79 (3.66%) Marketing
10 69 (3.20%) Legal
11 68 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
12 67 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
13 61 (2.83%) Military
14 59 (2.73%) Financial Institution
15 49 (2.27%) Front Office
16 45 (2.09%) Telecoms
17 44 (2.04%) Investment Banking
18 38 (1.76%) Law
19 35 (1.62%) Retail
20 34 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 317 (14.69%) Analyst
2 229 (10.61%) Senior
3 210 (9.73%) Developer
4 173 (8.02%) Lead
5 161 (7.46%) Architect
6 155 (7.18%) Business Analyst
7 143 (6.63%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.75%) Consultant
9 80 (3.71%) Software Engineer
10 63 (2.92%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (2.36%) IT Support
13 47 (2.18%) Support Analyst
14 44 (2.04%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.99%) Senior Software Engineer
16 37 (1.71%) Senior Analyst
17 36 (1.67%) Data Scientist
17 36 (1.67%) Senior Developer
18 35 (1.62%) Technical Analyst
19 34 (1.58%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.24%) REST
2 75 (3.48%) RESTful
3 71 (3.29%) .NET
4 61 (2.83%) HTML
5 49 (2.27%) XML
6 47 (2.18%) Middleware
7 45 (2.09%) Elastic Stack
8 42 (1.95%) CSS
9 41 (1.90%) JSON
9 41 (1.90%) OAuth
10 39 (1.81%) React
11 38 (1.76%) SOAP
12 37 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
13 34 (1.58%) Kafka
14 27 (1.25%) AngularJS
15 25 (1.16%) Node.js
15 25 (1.16%) Pandas
15 25 (1.16%) TensorFlow
16 24 (1.11%) PyTorch
17 23 (1.07%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.57%) Management Information System
2 115 (5.33%) Product Ownership
3 99 (4.59%) Cloud Native
4 83 (3.85%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
6 61 (2.83%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.64%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.50%) Virtual Team
9 51 (2.36%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
11 48 (2.22%) PMI
12 42 (1.95%) Derivative
12 42 (1.95%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
14 37 (1.71%) Public Cloud
15 32 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
16 31 (1.44%) Life Science
17 29 (1.34%) Equities
18 25 (1.16%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 263 (12.19%) Windows
2 183 (8.48%) Linux
3 82 (3.80%) Unix
4 63 (2.92%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.59%) Windows 10
6 18 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
7 16 (0.74%) Android
7 16 (0.74%) Ubuntu
8 15 (0.70%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
9 14 (0.65%) Apple iOS
9 14 (0.65%) VMS
10 12 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 801 (37.12%) Computer Science
2 720 (33.36%) Agile
3 636 (29.47%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (17.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 340 (15.76%) DevOps
6 319 (14.78%) Project Management
7 273 (12.65%) Change Management
8 269 (12.47%) AI
9 242 (11.21%) CI/CD
10 232 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
11 228 (10.57%) Analytics
12 226 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 222 (10.29%) Cybersecurity
14 218 (10.10%) ITIL
15 216 (10.01%) Migration
16 214 (9.92%) Risk Management
17 212 (9.82%) Decision-Making
18 206 (9.55%) Software Engineering
19 193 (8.94%) Project Delivery
20 179 (8.29%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 399 (18.49%) Python
2 343 (15.89%) SQL
3 147 (6.81%) Java
4 120 (5.56%) PowerShell
5 110 (5.10%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.89%) C#
7 80 (3.71%) C++
8 51 (2.36%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.09%) Go
10 42 (1.95%) Bash
11 25 (1.16%) R
12 24 (1.11%) Perl
13 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.97%) T-SQL
15 20 (0.93%) C
16 16 (0.74%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.70%) Rust
18 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
18 12 (0.56%) Shell Script
19 11 (0.51%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 554 (25.67%) Computer Science Degree
2 381 (17.66%) Security Cleared
3 337 (15.62%) Master's Degree
4 300 (13.90%) SC Cleared
5 141 (6.53%) PMI Certification
6 123 (5.70%) PMP
7 107 (4.96%) CISSP
8 86 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.24%) CISM
10 66 (3.06%) Azure Certification
11 65 (3.01%) PhD
12 59 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
13 55 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
14 51 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
15 47 (2.18%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.95%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.81%) CCNP
18 37 (1.71%) CBAP
19 33 (1.53%) MBA
20 31 (1.44%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.77%) QA
2 116 (5.38%) GDPR
3 89 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.94%) PMO
5 64 (2.97%) Data Quality
6 60 (2.78%) NIST
7 42 (1.95%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.58%) SLA
9 33 (1.53%) Accessibility
10 30 (1.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.30%) GRC
12 15 (0.70%) WCAG
13 14 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 13 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.60%) NCSC
15 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.56%) IFRS
16 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 167 (7.74%) Docker
2 142 (6.58%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.74%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) DFS Replication
6 7 (0.32%) Dovecot
6 7 (0.32%) Postfix
6 7 (0.32%) Squid
6 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.093%) KVM
Systems Management
1 154 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.24%) Terraform
3 74 (3.43%) Ansible
4 66 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
5 55 (2.55%) Grafana
6 50 (2.32%) SCCM
7 46 (2.13%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 24 (1.11%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Kibana
10 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 14 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.60%) SCOM
13 12 (0.56%) Nmap
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Nessus
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 7 (0.32%) Proxmox
17 6 (0.28%) QRadar
Vendors
1 460 (21.32%) Microsoft
2 158 (7.32%) Oracle
3 119 (5.51%) SAP
4 111 (5.14%) ServiceNow
5 97 (4.49%) Google
6 91 (4.22%) Splunk
7 67 (3.10%) Cisco
8 53 (2.46%) Remedy
9 51 (2.36%) Atlassian
9 51 (2.36%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.13%) VMware
11 40 (1.85%) Databricks
12 36 (1.67%) Citrix
13 28 (1.30%) Palo Alto
14 22 (1.02%) IBM
15 21 (0.97%) Informatica
15 21 (0.97%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.93%) Adobe
17 19 (0.88%) CheckPoint
18 18 (0.83%) Red Hat