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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,200 1,892 3,137
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.63% 7.77% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.89% 24.81% 26.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,301 1,128 1,687
10th Percentile £275 £252 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £788 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £501
% change year-on-year - -0.10% -5.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 145 343
10th Percentile £16.92 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £30.00 £22.88
Median hourly rate £53.25 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £48.50 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -7.62% +31.25% -11.11%

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 13,027 7,627 11,707
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.32% 31.32% 31.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,717 4,896 7,252
10th Percentile £340 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £743
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,001 426 929
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.50 £24.66 £17.72
Median hourly rate £39.50 £50.00 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -21.00% +29.03% -25.48%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £38.95
% change year-on-year -16.67% +15.53% -27.43%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 8 April 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 -12 961 £514 -6.59% 866
South East -3 354 £500 - 660
North of England -5 334 £418 -12.00% 472
Midlands -24 201 £500 +49.25% 318
North West -5 179 £400 -15.25% 244
South West -3 153 £650 +21.95% 220
West Midlands -32 147 £495 +65.00% 181
East of England -7 138 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -13 138 £475 -9.52% 164
East Midlands -14 53 £531 +49.16% 136
North East -19 18 £407 -4.24% 71
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
1 152 (6.91%) Confluence
2 107 (4.86%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) Appian
13 2 (0.091%) Drupal
13 2 (0.091%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.091%) IIS
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 285 (12.95%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (8.50%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.86%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.45%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 7 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.091%) Revit
13 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 45 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.86%) Primavera
4 18 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 455 (20.68%) Azure
2 260 (11.82%) AWS
3 190 (8.64%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.68%) Power Platform
5 105 (4.77%) Entra ID
5 105 (4.77%) GCP
6 103 (4.68%) SaaS
7 80 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
8 59 (2.68%) GitHub
9 36 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
9 36 (1.64%) Power Automate
10 35 (1.59%) Serverless
11 32 (1.45%) Google Workspace
11 32 (1.45%) PaaS
12 31 (1.41%) IaaS
13 28 (1.27%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.18%) Cloud Computing
15 24 (1.09%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.82%) Firewall
2 57 (2.59%) LAN
3 56 (2.55%) WAN
4 45 (2.05%) DNS
4 45 (2.05%) TCP/IP
5 40 (1.82%) Network Security
6 38 (1.73%) VPN
7 29 (1.32%) Wireless
8 27 (1.23%) BGP
9 21 (0.95%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.95%) OSPF
10 20 (0.91%) DHCP
10 20 (0.91%) HTTP
11 17 (0.77%) Skype
12 16 (0.73%) Internet
13 14 (0.64%) VLAN
13 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (0.59%) SAN
14 13 (0.59%) Unified Communications
15 12 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (6.32%) Power BI
2 81 (3.68%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (2.14%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.86%) NoSQL
7 39 (1.77%) Tableau
8 31 (1.41%) MySQL
9 28 (1.27%) Big Data
10 23 (1.05%) Metadata
11 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
13 16 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
15 14 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
17 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
18 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
18 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 250 (11.36%) JIRA
2 93 (4.23%) Git
3 54 (2.45%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.77%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.00%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.86%) Selenium
8 17 (0.77%) MLflow
9 15 (0.68%) Postman
10 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) JUnit
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
16 6 (0.27%) TeamCity
17 5 (0.23%) PyCharm
General
1 1,059 (48.14%) Social Skills
2 678 (30.82%) Finance
3 497 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
4 228 (10.36%) Banking
5 172 (7.82%) Public Sector
6 109 (4.95%) Presentation Skills
7 103 (4.68%) Organisational Skills
8 78 (3.55%) Marketing
9 77 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.32%) Aerospace
12 72 (3.27%) Legal
13 65 (2.95%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.45%) Military
15 51 (2.32%) Front Office
16 46 (2.09%) Telecoms
17 45 (2.05%) Retail
18 44 (2.00%) Law
19 43 (1.95%) Investment Banking
20 42 (1.91%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 312 (14.18%) Analyst
2 224 (10.18%) Senior
3 183 (8.32%) Lead
4 174 (7.91%) Architect
5 166 (7.55%) Developer
6 165 (7.50%) Project Manager
7 148 (6.73%) Business Analyst
8 79 (3.59%) Consultant
9 64 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.68%) Technical Support
11 55 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
12 54 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.23%) Software Engineer
14 46 (2.09%) Data Scientist
14 46 (2.09%) Security Engineer
15 45 (2.05%) Product Manager
16 40 (1.82%) Senior Manager
17 38 (1.73%) Systems Engineer
18 36 (1.64%) Data Engineer
19 35 (1.59%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.32%) REST
2 61 (2.77%) .NET
3 51 (2.32%) RESTful
4 47 (2.14%) Middleware
5 44 (2.00%) HTML
6 42 (1.91%) React
7 41 (1.86%) Kafka
8 38 (1.73%) XML
9 34 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.55%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.50%) JSON
10 33 (1.50%) SOAP
11 31 (1.41%) Spring
12 30 (1.36%) Pandas
13 29 (1.32%) CSS
13 29 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
13 29 (1.32%) OAuth
14 28 (1.27%) PyTorch
15 27 (1.23%) TensorFlow
16 25 (1.14%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 170 (7.73%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 112 (5.09%) Onboarding
4 81 (3.68%) Cloud Native
5 74 (3.36%) Virtual Team
6 66 (3.00%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.77%) Algorithms
8 59 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
8 59 (2.68%) Self-Motivation
9 50 (2.27%) PMI
10 49 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (2.23%) Data Structures
11 42 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
12 41 (1.86%) Derivative
13 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
13 32 (1.45%) Security Posture
14 31 (1.41%) Robotics
15 30 (1.36%) Equities
16 29 (1.32%) Operational Technology
17 27 (1.23%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 252 (11.45%) Windows
2 159 (7.23%) Linux
3 66 (3.00%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.64%) Windows 10
5 57 (2.59%) Unix
6 21 (0.95%) Android
7 20 (0.91%) Mac OS
7 20 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.64%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 4 (0.18%) CentOS
15 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 796 (36.18%) Computer Science
2 703 (31.95%) Agile
3 579 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (16.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 320 (14.55%) Project Management
6 319 (14.50%) AI
7 312 (14.18%) Continuous Improvement
8 311 (14.14%) DevOps
9 245 (11.14%) CI/CD
10 239 (10.86%) Change Management
11 237 (10.77%) ITIL
12 235 (10.68%) Analytics
12 235 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 226 (10.27%) Cybersecurity
14 225 (10.23%) Decision-Making
15 208 (9.45%) Migration
16 207 (9.41%) PRINCE2
17 206 (9.36%) Risk Management
18 203 (9.23%) Project Delivery
19 195 (8.86%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 360 (16.36%) Python
2 319 (14.50%) SQL
3 148 (6.73%) Java
4 115 (5.23%) PowerShell
5 78 (3.55%) JavaScript
6 74 (3.36%) C#
7 62 (2.82%) C++
8 39 (1.77%) Bash
9 35 (1.59%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.27%) R
11 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 22 (1.00%) Go
13 16 (0.73%) Perl
13 16 (0.73%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.68%) C
14 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
16 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 500 (22.73%) Computer Science Degree
2 429 (19.50%) Security Cleared
3 308 (14.00%) SC Cleared
4 274 (12.45%) Master's Degree
5 136 (6.18%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.50%) PMP
7 106 (4.82%) CISSP
8 88 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
9 60 (2.73%) Cisco Certification
10 59 (2.68%) PhD
11 57 (2.59%) CISM
12 53 (2.41%) DV Cleared
12 53 (2.41%) TOGAF Certification
13 51 (2.32%) Azure Certification
14 48 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
15 41 (1.86%) CCNP
16 34 (1.55%) MBA
17 31 (1.41%) AWS Certification
18 30 (1.36%) CBAP
18 30 (1.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.73%) QA
2 105 (4.77%) GDPR
3 104 (4.73%) PMO
4 95 (4.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.91%) NIST
6 75 (3.41%) Data Quality
7 45 (2.05%) PCI DSS
7 45 (2.05%) SLA
8 36 (1.64%) Accessibility
9 22 (1.00%) GRC
9 22 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 20 (0.91%) NCSC
11 14 (0.64%) IFRS
12 13 (0.59%) Basel III
13 12 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.55%) IFRS 17
14 11 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 145 (6.59%) Active Directory
2 126 (5.73%) Docker
3 42 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.77%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 2 (0.091%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.091%) Virtual Machines
13 1 (0.045%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 137 (6.23%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.95%) Terraform
3 66 (3.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.77%) Ansible
5 42 (1.91%) Grafana
6 37 (1.68%) SCCM
7 32 (1.45%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 17 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.73%) Puppet
11 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 12 (0.55%) Kibana
13 11 (0.50%) SCOM
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
15 8 (0.36%) WSUS
16 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
16 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
18 5 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 489 (22.23%) Microsoft
2 138 (6.27%) Oracle
3 123 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.36%) SAP
5 88 (4.00%) Google
6 69 (3.14%) Cisco
7 58 (2.64%) Splunk
8 52 (2.36%) Remedy
9 48 (2.18%) VMware
10 45 (2.05%) Citrix
11 44 (2.00%) Atlassian
11 44 (2.00%) Databricks
12 40 (1.82%) Salesforce
13 36 (1.64%) IBM
14 35 (1.59%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.27%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.05%) Adobe
17 21 (0.95%) Aruba
18 19 (0.86%) Red Hat
18 19 (0.86%) Siemens