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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,328 1,995 2,547
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.97% 7.07% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.30% 22.10% 26.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,197 1,129 1,455
10th Percentile £205 £273 £263
25th Percentile £372 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.39% +0.60% -6.24%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £501 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 170 161
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £21.25
25th Percentile £23.38 £25.75 £31.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £34.49 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.26% -31.02% +3.86%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.60 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.49 £88.84 £79.17
UK median hourly rate £40.09 £33.50 £43.94
% change year-on-year +19.67% -23.76% -8.99%

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 15,212 9,028 9,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.49% 32.01% 29.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,090 5,750 5,801
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,351 763 495
10th Percentile £17.20 £17.87 £19.51
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.11
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -52.10% -2.17%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £69.22
90th Percentile £91.00 £73.50 £75.34
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.49%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -18 1,013 £528 -4.00% 400
South East +10 485 £525 +15.07% 361
North of England -10 350 £475 +3.83% 237
North West -6 221 £475 +3.83% 130
Midlands -35 178 £450 -5.26% 175
East of England -13 137 £425 -15.00% 164
West Midlands -34 131 £450 -10.00% 116
South West -27 126 £415 -22.72% 191
Yorkshire -23 111 £500 +11.11% 69
East Midlands -14 46 £388 -13.50% 59
North East -27 18 £460 +2.22% 42
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
1 145 (6.23%) SharePoint
2 125 (5.37%) Confluence
3 56 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.25%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.86%) Apache
5 20 (0.86%) CMS
6 19 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.82%) IIS
7 16 (0.69%) SharePoint Server
8 14 (0.60%) Camunda
9 10 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 8 (0.34%) SAS
11 6 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.21%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.21%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.17%) Appian
13 4 (0.17%) nginx
13 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 231 (9.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 209 (8.98%) Microsoft Office
3 103 (4.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 101 (4.34%) Microsoft Project
5 51 (2.19%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.69%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.56%) Simulink
9 12 (0.52%) Windchill
10 11 (0.47%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 10 (0.43%) Adobe After Effects
12 8 (0.34%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.34%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.34%) Revit
13 7 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
14 6 (0.26%) AutoCAD
15 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
16 3 (0.13%) OrCAD
17 2 (0.086%) PTC Creo
17 2 (0.086%) Trello
Business Applications
1 30 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.47%) Primavera
4 8 (0.34%) Magento
4 8 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.30%) HFM
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.21%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.21%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
8 4 (0.17%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Aladdin
9 3 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.13%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 543 (23.32%) Azure
2 280 (12.03%) AWS
3 203 (8.72%) Microsoft 365
4 200 (8.59%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.23%) GCP
6 133 (5.71%) Entra ID
7 132 (5.67%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.01%) SaaS
9 68 (2.92%) GitHub
10 57 (2.45%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.28%) Serverless
12 51 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
13 50 (2.15%) OneDrive
14 48 (2.06%) PowerApps
15 46 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.50%) Snowflake
17 30 (1.29%) Figma
18 29 (1.25%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.25%) Azure AI
18 29 (1.25%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.82%) Firewall
2 70 (3.01%) DNS
3 59 (2.53%) TCP/IP
4 58 (2.49%) Network Security
5 56 (2.41%) VPN
6 42 (1.80%) DHCP
7 28 (1.20%) LAN
7 28 (1.20%) WAN
8 23 (0.99%) Wireless
9 22 (0.95%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.86%) 5G
11 19 (0.82%) SSH
11 19 (0.82%) VLAN
12 18 (0.77%) SSL
13 17 (0.73%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 15 (0.64%) Internet
14 15 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.56%) BGP
15 13 (0.56%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (6.06%) Power BI
2 101 (4.34%) SQL Server
3 57 (2.45%) Metadata
4 52 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.89%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.59%) MySQL
8 34 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 29 (1.25%) Tableau
10 27 (1.16%) Big Data
10 27 (1.16%) MongoDB
11 23 (0.99%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.77%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.73%) GIS
15 12 (0.52%) Data Mining
16 10 (0.43%) Delta Lake
16 10 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 171 (7.35%) JIRA
2 136 (5.84%) Git
3 61 (2.62%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.32%) GitLab
5 30 (1.29%) Gradle
6 27 (1.16%) JUnit
7 25 (1.07%) Maven
8 24 (1.03%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.86%) Selenium
10 19 (0.82%) Visual Studio
11 18 (0.77%) Mockito
12 17 (0.73%) Cucumber
13 15 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
14 14 (0.60%) REST Assured
15 13 (0.56%) Postman
16 11 (0.47%) Rational DOORS
17 9 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
17 9 (0.39%) CircleCI
18 8 (0.34%) MLflow
18 8 (0.34%) Subversion
General
1 1,039 (44.63%) Social Skills
2 670 (28.78%) Finance
3 546 (23.45%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.85%) Banking
5 182 (7.82%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.44%) Manufacturing
6 150 (6.44%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (5.15%) Aerospace
8 113 (4.85%) Influencing Skills
9 96 (4.12%) Marketing
10 82 (3.52%) Legal
11 80 (3.44%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.71%) Retail
15 62 (2.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 58 (2.49%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.06%) Law
18 44 (1.89%) Electronics
18 44 (1.89%) Military
Job Titles
1 317 (13.62%) Analyst
2 262 (11.25%) Senior
3 193 (8.29%) Developer
4 188 (8.08%) Lead
5 162 (6.96%) Business Analyst
6 151 (6.49%) Architect
7 106 (4.55%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.88%) Support Engineer
9 62 (2.66%) IT Support
10 61 (2.62%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.45%) Consultant
12 51 (2.19%) Administrator
13 49 (2.10%) IT Manager
13 49 (2.10%) Solutions Architect
14 46 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
14 46 (1.98%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.89%) Software Engineer
16 43 (1.85%) Data Analyst
17 42 (1.80%) IT Analyst
17 42 (1.80%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.90%) Terraform
2 106 (4.55%) REST
3 93 (3.99%) .NET
4 69 (2.96%) HTML
5 64 (2.75%) React
6 62 (2.66%) CSS
6 62 (2.66%) Kafka
7 53 (2.28%) RESTful
8 44 (1.89%) OAuth
8 44 (1.89%) XML
9 43 (1.85%) Web Services
10 41 (1.76%) Middleware
11 39 (1.68%) Spring Boot
12 38 (1.63%) SOAP
13 36 (1.55%) Spring
14 35 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
14 35 (1.50%) SAML
15 33 (1.42%) JSON
16 32 (1.37%) OAuth2
16 32 (1.37%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 219 (9.41%) Management Information System
2 125 (5.37%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.33%) Product Ownership
4 102 (4.38%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (4.21%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.58%) Algorithms
7 58 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
8 54 (2.32%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.32%) Operational Technology
9 52 (2.23%) Data Structures
10 51 (2.19%) Life Science
11 48 (2.06%) Security Posture
12 42 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.76%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.76%) Virtual Team
14 37 (1.59%) SCADA
15 36 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
17 33 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
18 31 (1.33%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 273 (11.73%) Windows
2 173 (7.43%) Linux
3 79 (3.39%) Windows Server
4 68 (2.92%) Unix
5 37 (1.59%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.50%) Apple iOS
7 33 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 32 (1.37%) macOS
9 24 (1.03%) Android
10 10 (0.43%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.30%) VMS
12 5 (0.21%) Solaris
12 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.086%) AIX
14 2 (0.086%) CentOS
14 2 (0.086%) Debian
14 2 (0.086%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 751 (32.26%) Computer Science
2 657 (28.22%) Agile
3 640 (27.49%) Problem-Solving
4 542 (23.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 422 (18.13%) Continuous Improvement
6 391 (16.80%) AI
7 351 (15.08%) DevOps
8 318 (13.66%) CI/CD
9 300 (12.89%) Analytics
10 281 (12.07%) Project Management
11 250 (10.74%) ITIL
12 246 (10.57%) Decision-Making
13 245 (10.52%) Roadmaps
14 242 (10.40%) Scrum
15 237 (10.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 235 (10.09%) Software Engineering
17 226 (9.71%) Cybersecurity
18 223 (9.58%) Change Management
19 220 (9.45%) Validation
20 206 (8.85%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 367 (15.76%) Python
2 338 (14.52%) SQL
3 166 (7.13%) PowerShell
4 153 (6.57%) Java
5 122 (5.24%) JavaScript
6 104 (4.47%) C#
7 62 (2.66%) Bash
8 36 (1.55%) TypeScript
9 35 (1.50%) C++
10 31 (1.33%) Bicep
11 27 (1.16%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.03%) R
13 23 (0.99%) T-SQL
14 21 (0.90%) PL/SQL
15 20 (0.86%) C
16 19 (0.82%) Scala
17 15 (0.64%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.64%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.47%) Apex Code
18 11 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 462 (19.85%) Computer Science Degree
2 458 (19.67%) Security Cleared
3 332 (14.26%) SC Cleared
4 197 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 149 (6.40%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.54%) PMP
7 116 (4.98%) Microsoft Certification
8 105 (4.51%) CISSP
9 93 (3.99%) DV Cleared
10 89 (3.82%) Azure Certification
11 81 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
12 77 (3.31%) Cisco Certification
13 60 (2.58%) PhD
14 52 (2.23%) CISM
15 46 (1.98%) AWS Certification
16 45 (1.93%) DBS Check
17 42 (1.80%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 39 (1.68%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
20 30 (1.29%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (6.49%) QA
2 139 (5.97%) Data Quality
3 83 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (3.44%) NIST
5 79 (3.39%) GDPR
6 66 (2.84%) PMO
7 41 (1.76%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.37%) SLA
9 31 (1.33%) GRC
10 18 (0.77%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.73%) IFRS
12 16 (0.69%) NCSC
13 15 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.52%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.47%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.47%) ISO 31000
15 11 (0.47%) ISO 9001
16 9 (0.39%) P3O
System Software
1 170 (7.30%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.03%) Docker
3 58 (2.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.07%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.95%) Firmware
6 21 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.34%) vSphere
8 7 (0.30%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
10 5 (0.21%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.17%) NFS
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.086%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 128 (5.50%) Kubernetes
2 68 (2.92%) Microsoft Intune
3 55 (2.36%) Ansible
4 29 (1.25%) SCCM
5 26 (1.12%) Grafana
6 24 (1.03%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.77%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.52%) Functional Safety
9 12 (0.52%) Puppet
10 11 (0.47%) SCOM
11 10 (0.43%) CASB
11 10 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.39%) Control-M
13 7 (0.30%) WSUS
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
15 5 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 5 (0.21%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.21%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.17%) Podman
Vendors
1 572 (24.57%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.83%) Oracle
3 128 (5.50%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.07%) SAP
5 110 (4.73%) Google
6 71 (3.05%) VMware
7 65 (2.79%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.53%) Cisco
9 56 (2.41%) Adobe
9 56 (2.41%) Databricks
10 42 (1.80%) IBM
11 41 (1.76%) Splunk
12 30 (1.29%) Red Hat
13 26 (1.12%) OpenAI
14 22 (0.95%) Apple
15 21 (0.90%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.86%) Citrix
17 19 (0.82%) Ariba
17 19 (0.82%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.77%) EMC