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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,253 2,042 2,572
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.40% 7.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.56% 23.43% 25.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,204 1,200 1,500
10th Percentile £204 £250 £286
25th Percentile £363 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £522
Median % change year-on-year - -4.16% -2.49%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 261 168 230
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.34 £20.24
25th Percentile £26.90 £26.95 £30.38
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -25.89% +15.20%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.90 £79.25
UK median hourly rate £39.11 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -7.98% -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 14,478 8,715 10,116
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.72% 31.58% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,761 5,469 6,435
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £435 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £528
% change year-on-year +0.48% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,111 682 721
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.14 £14.88
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.87 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -20 973 £525 -4.55% 1,632
South East 0 472 £510 +7.37% 777
North of England -15 331 £474 +6.04% 551
North West -14 196 £465 +0.54% 278
Midlands -28 178 £450 - 365
West Midlands -38 133 £450 - 190
East of England -10 132 £400 -11.11% 395
Yorkshire -6 122 £500 +26.58% 168
South West -21 122 £415 +10.67% 315
East Midlands -27 43 £475 +32.68% 174
North East -43 13 £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 (6.21%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.66%) Confluence
3 63 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) 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%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 224 (9.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 223 (9.90%) Microsoft Office
3 121 (5.37%) Microsoft Project
4 110 (4.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.04%) 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 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
12 7 (0.31%) Windchill
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
14 4 (0.18%) Trello
15 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 47 (2.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) 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 ERP
Cloud Services
1 524 (23.26%) Azure
2 287 (12.74%) AWS
3 208 (9.23%) Microsoft 365
4 206 (9.14%) Power Platform
5 142 (6.30%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.64%) GCP
7 103 (4.57%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.37%) SaaS
9 56 (2.49%) GitHub
10 48 (2.13%) PowerApps
11 47 (2.09%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.91%) OneDrive
13 42 (1.86%) Serverless
14 41 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
15 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
16 36 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
17 35 (1.55%) Figma
18 25 (1.11%) IaaS
19 24 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
20 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.62%) Firewall
2 73 (3.24%) DNS
3 69 (3.06%) Network Security
4 61 (2.71%) TCP/IP
5 60 (2.66%) VPN
6 43 (1.91%) DHCP
7 38 (1.69%) WAN
8 35 (1.55%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
11 18 (0.80%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) VLAN
12 17 (0.75%) 3GPP
13 16 (0.71%) SSH
14 15 (0.67%) OSPF
14 15 (0.67%) SSL
15 14 (0.62%) 5G
16 13 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
17 12 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.23%) Power BI
2 100 (4.44%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.31%) Relational Database
4 47 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
5 46 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
6 43 (1.91%) Metadata
7 33 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.29%) Tableau
9 26 (1.15%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.11%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 23 (1.02%) MySQL
12 22 (0.98%) MongoDB
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Power Query
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
15 12 (0.53%) GIS
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 10 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 174 (7.72%) JIRA
2 118 (5.24%) Git
3 51 (2.26%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.95%) GitLab
5 36 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) Selenium
7 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
8 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 11 (0.49%) MLflow
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.36%) Maven
11 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Gradle
12 7 (0.31%) Postman
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 988 (43.85%) Social Skills
2 661 (29.34%) Finance
3 527 (23.39%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (7.90%) Banking
5 173 (7.68%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.35%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (4.88%) Aerospace
8 92 (4.08%) Manufacturing
9 91 (4.04%) Legal
9 91 (4.04%) Marketing
10 80 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
10 80 (3.55%) Telecoms
11 75 (3.33%) Presentation Skills
12 63 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.75%) Retail
14 50 (2.22%) Law
15 49 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
17 40 (1.78%) Front Office
18 36 (1.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 308 (13.67%) Analyst
2 246 (10.92%) Senior
3 185 (8.21%) Lead
4 167 (7.41%) Developer
5 152 (6.75%) Architect
6 141 (6.26%) Business Analyst
7 116 (5.15%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.97%) Senior Manager
9 64 (2.84%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.71%) IT Support
11 56 (2.49%) Consultant
12 55 (2.44%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.26%) Designer
15 50 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
15 50 (2.22%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
16 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
17 41 (1.82%) Data Engineer
18 39 (1.73%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.22%) REST
2 94 (4.17%) Terraform
3 93 (4.13%) .NET
4 52 (2.31%) React
5 46 (2.04%) Kafka
6 45 (2.00%) HTML
7 41 (1.82%) RESTful
8 38 (1.69%) OAuth
9 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
9 34 (1.51%) CSS
9 34 (1.51%) Middleware
10 32 (1.42%) Web Services
11 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
12 29 (1.29%) SAML
13 27 (1.20%) LDAP
13 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
13 27 (1.20%) OpenID
13 27 (1.20%) XML
14 26 (1.15%) SailPoint
15 24 (1.07%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 190 (8.43%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.99%) Onboarding
2 135 (5.99%) Product Ownership
3 92 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
4 87 (3.86%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.15%) Data Structures
6 57 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 56 (2.49%) Data Centre
8 48 (2.13%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
11 39 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
12 37 (1.64%) Virtual Team
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
15 31 (1.38%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 284 (12.61%) Windows
2 172 (7.63%) Linux
3 67 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.62%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.98%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) VMS
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 778 (34.53%) Computer Science
2 629 (27.92%) Agile
3 598 (26.54%) Problem-Solving
4 423 (18.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 410 (18.20%) Continuous Improvement
6 357 (15.85%) AI
7 305 (13.54%) DevOps
8 288 (12.78%) Project Management
9 278 (12.34%) Analytics
10 267 (11.85%) ITIL
11 266 (11.81%) CI/CD
12 241 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 225 (9.99%) Cybersecurity
14 219 (9.72%) Decision-Making
15 206 (9.14%) Change Management
16 203 (9.01%) Software Engineering
17 202 (8.97%) PRINCE2
18 200 (8.88%) Roadmaps
18 200 (8.88%) Scrum
19 185 (8.21%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 383 (17.00%) Python
2 328 (14.56%) SQL
3 161 (7.15%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.61%) Java
5 101 (4.48%) C#
6 93 (4.13%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.44%) Bash
8 45 (2.00%) C++
9 33 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) Bicep
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.07%) C
13 23 (1.02%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.98%) R
14 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 10 (0.44%) Scala
18 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 450 (19.97%) Computer Science Degree
2 422 (18.73%) Security Cleared
3 273 (12.12%) SC Cleared
4 194 (8.61%) Master's Degree
5 131 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 114 (5.06%) PMP
8 109 (4.84%) CISSP
9 78 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
10 74 (3.28%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.89%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
13 50 (2.22%) CISM
13 50 (2.22%) PhD
14 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 38 (1.69%) CCNA
16 36 (1.60%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.60%) CCNP
17 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
18 31 (1.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (5.37%) QA
2 118 (5.24%) Data Quality
3 104 (4.62%) NIST
4 95 (4.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 85 (3.77%) PMO
6 64 (2.84%) GDPR
7 44 (1.95%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) NCSC
12 19 (0.84%) PCI DSS
13 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.53%) IFRS
14 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 9 (0.40%) COBIT
17 8 (0.36%) HIPAA
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 194 (8.61%) Active Directory
2 112 (4.97%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.11%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) 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%) ACF2
Systems Management
1 115 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 64 (2.84%) Ansible
4 36 (1.60%) SCCM
5 28 (1.24%) Grafana
6 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.40%) WSUS
12 8 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.31%) Control-M
13 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
13 7 (0.31%) SCOM
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) CASB
15 5 (0.22%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 586 (26.01%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.84%) Oracle
3 141 (6.26%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.46%) SAP
5 86 (3.82%) Google
6 69 (3.06%) VMware
7 61 (2.71%) Cisco
8 60 (2.66%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) Databricks
9 51 (2.26%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
11 38 (1.69%) Splunk
12 32 (1.42%) CyberArk
13 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.15%) Citrix
14 26 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 20 (0.89%) Apple
17 19 (0.84%) Ariba
18 17 (0.75%) HP