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 28 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,254 2,007 2,690
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.00% 7.31% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.79% 23.63% 25.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,208 1,190 1,562
10th Percentile £204 £258 £263
25th Percentile £363 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £713 £754 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 261 161 256
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.00 £20.38
25th Percentile £26.90 £27.16 £29.53
Median hourly rate £45.50 £42.50 £55.63
Median % change year-on-year +7.06% -23.60% +5.95%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.05 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £42.75 £50.00
% change year-on-year +4.09% -14.50% -5.99%

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 14,278 8,494 10,497
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.67% 30.96% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,622 5,357 6,681
10th Percentile £350 £289 £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 £722 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,083 634 820
10th Percentile £17.97 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £66.74
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.11 £77.55
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.88%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 -20 949 £525 -4.55% 1,427
South East -1 473 £500 +4.99% 637
North of England -14 333 £450 - 409
North West -9 188 £447 -5.89% 203
Midlands -29 185 £463 +3.47% 264
East of England -6 148 £450 - 241
West Midlands -35 143 £450 - 142
Yorkshire -7 127 £450 +6.51% 128
South West -21 120 £415 -7.78% 220
East Midlands -25 40 £478 +33.52% 122
North East -42 18 £450 +130.77% 81
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
1 136 (6.03%) SharePoint
2 113 (5.01%) Confluence
3 63 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.29%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 8 (0.35%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.22%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 248 (11.00%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 131 (5.81%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.40%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (2.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Primavera
3 12 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 7 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 522 (23.16%) Azure
2 287 (12.73%) AWS
3 206 (9.14%) Power Platform
4 198 (8.78%) Microsoft 365
5 148 (6.57%) Entra ID
6 125 (5.55%) GCP
7 96 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.28%) SaaS
9 56 (2.48%) GitHub
10 42 (1.86%) PowerApps
11 41 (1.82%) Power Automate
12 40 (1.77%) OneDrive
13 38 (1.69%) Serverless
13 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
14 36 (1.60%) Figma
15 35 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
16 34 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
17 25 (1.11%) IaaS
17 25 (1.11%) PaaS
18 22 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.44%) Firewall
2 71 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 64 (2.84%) DNS
4 61 (2.71%) Network Security
5 55 (2.44%) VPN
6 41 (1.82%) WAN
7 39 (1.73%) LAN
8 35 (1.55%) DHCP
9 25 (1.11%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) BGP
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.75%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) SSH
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) SSL
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (7.36%) Power BI
2 104 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.13%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.69%) Metadata
7 36 (1.60%) Tableau
8 32 (1.42%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.24%) Big Data
10 24 (1.06%) MongoDB
11 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (0.93%) MySQL
13 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Power Query
16 12 (0.53%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 10 (0.44%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 187 (8.30%) JIRA
2 107 (4.75%) Git
3 48 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.69%) GitLab
5 34 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.80%) MLflow
7 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.62%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 8 (0.35%) Postman
13 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
15 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 983 (43.61%) Social Skills
2 654 (29.02%) Finance
3 490 (21.74%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.90%) Banking
6 146 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
7 95 (4.21%) Presentation Skills
8 93 (4.13%) Legal
9 92 (4.08%) Marketing
10 90 (3.99%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.82%) Manufacturing
12 83 (3.68%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
14 68 (3.02%) Telecoms
15 60 (2.66%) Retail
16 55 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 53 (2.35%) Law
18 37 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.60%) Front Office
20 33 (1.46%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 315 (13.98%) Analyst
2 252 (11.18%) Senior
3 176 (7.81%) Lead
4 168 (7.45%) Architect
5 155 (6.88%) Developer
6 143 (6.34%) Project Manager
7 139 (6.17%) Business Analyst
8 69 (3.06%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.71%) Consultant
10 54 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
11 53 (2.35%) Designer
11 53 (2.35%) IT Manager
11 53 (2.35%) IT Support
12 50 (2.22%) IT Analyst
12 50 (2.22%) Product Manager
12 50 (2.22%) Support Engineer
13 49 (2.17%) Software Engineer
14 46 (2.04%) Technical Support
15 42 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
15 42 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.90%) REST
2 87 (3.86%) .NET
3 58 (2.57%) React
4 42 (1.86%) Kafka
5 37 (1.64%) OAuth
6 33 (1.46%) HTML
6 33 (1.46%) Middleware
6 33 (1.46%) RESTful
7 32 (1.42%) .NET Framework
8 31 (1.38%) Web Services
9 30 (1.33%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
10 28 (1.24%) AngularJS
10 28 (1.24%) LDAP
10 28 (1.24%) Spring
11 27 (1.20%) JSON
12 26 (1.15%) CSS
12 26 (1.15%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
13 25 (1.11%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 181 (8.03%) Management Information System
2 147 (6.52%) Onboarding
3 135 (5.99%) Product Ownership
4 100 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.95%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.71%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.57%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.35%) Algorithms
9 50 (2.22%) Security Posture
9 50 (2.22%) Virtual Team
10 45 (2.00%) Operational Technology
11 39 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
11 39 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
12 38 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 34 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.46%) PMI
15 33 (1.46%) Robotics
16 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
17 30 (1.33%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 293 (13.00%) Windows
2 166 (7.36%) Linux
3 71 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 62 (2.75%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Debian
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 760 (33.72%) Computer Science
2 637 (28.26%) Agile
3 589 (26.13%) Problem-Solving
4 396 (17.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 379 (16.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 369 (16.37%) AI
7 297 (13.18%) DevOps
8 284 (12.60%) Project Management
9 278 (12.33%) Analytics
10 259 (11.49%) CI/CD
11 251 (11.14%) ITIL
12 239 (10.60%) Decision-Making
13 232 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 228 (10.12%) Cybersecurity
15 201 (8.92%) Roadmaps
16 195 (8.65%) Change Management
16 195 (8.65%) PRINCE2
17 193 (8.56%) Software Engineering
18 191 (8.47%) Scrum
19 188 (8.34%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 384 (17.04%) Python
2 314 (13.93%) SQL
3 147 (6.52%) PowerShell
4 146 (6.48%) Java
5 93 (4.13%) C#
6 83 (3.68%) JavaScript
7 48 (2.13%) Bash
8 39 (1.73%) C++
9 33 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.20%) R
11 23 (1.02%) Bicep
11 23 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) C
13 21 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 18 (0.80%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) X++
18 8 (0.35%) Scala
Qualifications
1 432 (19.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 416 (18.46%) Security Cleared
3 273 (12.11%) SC Cleared
4 206 (9.14%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.94%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.19%) PMP
7 114 (5.06%) CISSP
8 107 (4.75%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
10 74 (3.28%) DV Cleared
11 64 (2.84%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.35%) CISM
13 53 (2.35%) PhD
14 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 38 (1.69%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.60%) CCNP
16 36 (1.60%) CISA
16 36 (1.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 29 (1.29%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (4.97%) QA
2 111 (4.92%) Data Quality
2 111 (4.92%) NIST
3 105 (4.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 95 (4.21%) PMO
5 70 (3.11%) GDPR
6 45 (2.00%) SLA
7 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 24 (1.06%) PCI DSS
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
11 21 (0.93%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) IFRS
15 9 (0.40%) P3O
16 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 8 (0.35%) SOC 2
System Software
1 188 (8.34%) Active Directory
2 111 (4.92%) Docker
3 46 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.98%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 125 (5.55%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.95%) Terraform
3 71 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.62%) Ansible
5 33 (1.46%) SCCM
6 28 (1.24%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
10 11 (0.49%) Puppet
10 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.35%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.35%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.27%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 561 (24.89%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.57%) Oracle
3 131 (5.81%) ServiceNow
4 130 (5.77%) SAP
5 85 (3.77%) Google
6 62 (2.75%) Cisco
7 60 (2.66%) VMware
8 52 (2.31%) Databricks
9 51 (2.26%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.04%) Adobe
11 45 (2.00%) IBM
12 34 (1.51%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.38%) Citrix
14 29 (1.29%) Splunk
15 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 20 (0.89%) Ariba
18 18 (0.80%) HP