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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -4 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,252 2,046 2,603
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.40% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.58% 23.53% 25.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,201 1,203 1,517
10th Percentile £204 £250 £275
25th Percentile £366 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.03%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £759
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 168 239
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.17 £20.22
25th Percentile £27.23 £27.25 £30.56
Median hourly rate £47.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +10.59% -25.89% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.56 £68.56 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.78 £77.75
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -1.86% -19.05% +5.00%

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 14,456 8,695 10,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.46% 30.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,754 5,449 6,485
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,120 671 758
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.65
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +103.78% -41.51% -21.82%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -21 966 £525 -4.55% 2,421
South East +1 477 £500 +5.26% 840
North of England -17 331 £474 +5.33% 578
North West -8 192 £465 -2.11% 309
Midlands -32 175 £450 +0.67% 399
East of England -9 137 £413 -8.33% 390
West Midlands -38 131 £450 - 219
Yorkshire -9 125 £500 +20.12% 164
South West -26 123 £415 +10.67% 327
East Midlands -29 42 £475 +33.80% 179
North East -48 14 £450 +130.77% 114
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
1 140 (6.22%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.71%) Confluence
3 64 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.29%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 234 (10.39%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (9.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 122 (5.42%) Microsoft Project
4 109 (4.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 48 (2.13%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 10 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
13 4 (0.18%) Windchill
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (2.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 522 (23.18%) Azure
2 287 (12.74%) AWS
3 208 (9.24%) Microsoft 365
4 207 (9.19%) Power Platform
5 144 (6.39%) Entra ID
6 126 (5.60%) GCP
7 99 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.51%) SaaS
9 55 (2.44%) GitHub
10 48 (2.13%) PowerApps
11 47 (2.09%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.91%) OneDrive
13 41 (1.82%) Serverless
14 40 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
15 39 (1.73%) Snowflake
16 37 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
17 35 (1.55%) Figma
18 25 (1.11%) IaaS
19 23 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
19 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.62%) Firewall
2 71 (3.15%) DNS
3 70 (3.11%) TCP/IP
4 66 (2.93%) Network Security
5 59 (2.62%) VPN
6 41 (1.82%) DHCP
7 38 (1.69%) WAN
8 35 (1.55%) LAN
9 27 (1.20%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
12 17 (0.75%) Internet
12 17 (0.75%) VLAN
13 15 (0.67%) 3GPP
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) SSH
13 15 (0.67%) SSL
14 14 (0.62%) Ethernet
15 13 (0.58%) 5G
16 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (7.37%) Power BI
2 98 (4.35%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 45 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
6 41 (1.82%) Metadata
7 33 (1.47%) Tableau
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.15%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 22 (0.98%) MySQL
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Power Query
15 13 (0.58%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 172 (7.64%) JIRA
2 114 (5.06%) Git
3 49 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.00%) GitLab
5 36 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.75%) Selenium
6 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
7 12 (0.53%) JUnit
7 12 (0.53%) MLflow
7 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
8 11 (0.49%) Subversion
9 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
10 8 (0.36%) Maven
10 8 (0.36%) Postman
10 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
10 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.31%) Gradle
12 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 992 (44.05%) Social Skills
2 654 (29.04%) Finance
3 518 (23.00%) Analytical Skills
4 176 (7.82%) Public Sector
5 173 (7.68%) Banking
6 145 (6.44%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.84%) Aerospace
8 93 (4.13%) Legal
8 93 (4.13%) Marketing
9 90 (4.00%) Manufacturing
10 88 (3.91%) Presentation Skills
11 79 (3.51%) Influencing Skills
11 79 (3.51%) Telecoms
12 63 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.75%) Retail
14 57 (2.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 49 (2.18%) Law
16 42 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
17 40 (1.78%) Front Office
18 36 (1.60%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 309 (13.72%) Analyst
2 249 (11.06%) Senior
3 179 (7.95%) Lead
4 161 (7.15%) Developer
5 155 (6.88%) Architect
6 144 (6.39%) Business Analyst
7 122 (5.42%) Project Manager
8 70 (3.11%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.66%) Consultant
10 59 (2.62%) IT Support
11 58 (2.58%) Support Engineer
12 54 (2.40%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
13 53 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
14 51 (2.26%) Designer
14 51 (2.26%) IT Manager
15 48 (2.13%) Delivery Manager
16 45 (2.00%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.87%) Data Engineer
18 41 (1.82%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.00%) .NET
1 90 (4.00%) REST
2 50 (2.22%) React
3 47 (2.09%) Kafka
4 41 (1.82%) HTML
5 38 (1.69%) OAuth
5 38 (1.69%) RESTful
6 34 (1.51%) Middleware
7 31 (1.38%) .NET Framework
7 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
7 31 (1.38%) Web Services
8 30 (1.33%) CSS
8 30 (1.33%) SAML
9 27 (1.20%) LDAP
9 27 (1.20%) OpenID
10 26 (1.15%) OAuth2
11 25 (1.11%) AngularJS
11 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
12 24 (1.07%) JSON
12 24 (1.07%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 188 (8.35%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.99%) Product Ownership
3 134 (5.95%) Onboarding
4 92 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 86 (3.82%) Cloud Native
6 67 (2.98%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.58%) Data Centre
8 56 (2.49%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.26%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.95%) Operational Technology
11 42 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
12 41 (1.82%) Virtual Team
13 40 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
14 36 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
14 36 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.55%) Life Science
16 33 (1.47%) AI Agents
17 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.38%) PMI
17 31 (1.38%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 279 (12.39%) Windows
2 167 (7.42%) Linux
3 67 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.58%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 21 (0.93%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.22%) AIX
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) CentOS
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 770 (34.19%) Computer Science
2 624 (27.71%) Agile
3 595 (26.42%) Problem-Solving
4 413 (18.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (17.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 356 (15.81%) AI
7 302 (13.41%) DevOps
8 289 (12.83%) Project Management
9 280 (12.43%) Analytics
10 266 (11.81%) ITIL
11 261 (11.59%) CI/CD
12 242 (10.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 230 (10.21%) Decision-Making
14 228 (10.12%) Cybersecurity
15 203 (9.01%) Change Management
16 202 (8.97%) Roadmaps
17 200 (8.88%) Software Engineering
18 197 (8.75%) PRINCE2
19 192 (8.53%) Scrum
20 186 (8.26%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 383 (17.01%) Python
2 319 (14.17%) SQL
3 157 (6.97%) PowerShell
4 143 (6.35%) Java
5 97 (4.31%) C#
6 90 (4.00%) JavaScript
7 52 (2.31%) Bash
8 41 (1.82%) C++
9 32 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 24 (1.07%) R
12 23 (1.02%) Bicep
13 22 (0.98%) C
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 21 (0.93%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) Scala
17 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 442 (19.63%) Computer Science Degree
2 417 (18.52%) Security Cleared
3 269 (11.94%) SC Cleared
4 189 (8.39%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.24%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (5.15%) PMP
8 114 (5.06%) CISSP
9 81 (3.60%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.24%) DV Cleared
11 69 (3.06%) Azure Certification
12 57 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.35%) CISM
14 50 (2.22%) PhD
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.60%) CCNP
18 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
18 32 (1.42%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.24%) QA
2 117 (5.20%) Data Quality
3 108 (4.80%) NIST
4 97 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.91%) PMO
6 66 (2.93%) GDPR
7 42 (1.87%) SLA
8 40 (1.78%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) PCI DSS
12 19 (0.84%) NCSC
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) IFRS
15 10 (0.44%) COBIT
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 9 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
17 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 189 (8.39%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.88%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.044%) IAG
Systems Management
1 116 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 93 (4.13%) Terraform
3 73 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.89%) Ansible
5 36 (1.60%) SCCM
6 28 (1.24%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.62%) Puppet
11 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.31%) Control-M
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.27%) Nessus
17 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 585 (25.98%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.71%) Oracle
3 142 (6.31%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.46%) SAP
5 86 (3.82%) Google
6 69 (3.06%) VMware
7 63 (2.80%) Cisco
8 57 (2.53%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
10 50 (2.22%) Databricks
11 36 (1.60%) Splunk
12 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.29%) Citrix
14 28 (1.24%) Red Hat
15 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.84%) Apple
16 19 (0.84%) Ariba
16 19 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 17 (0.75%) HP