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

6 months to
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,174 1,913 3,108
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.56% 7.85% 8.39%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.74% 24.98% 26.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,138 1,669
10th Percentile £264 £250 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
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 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £511
% change year-on-year - -2.17% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 145 343
10th Percentile £17.46 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £27.12 £30.00 £22.88
Median hourly rate £54.75 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.46% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £51.44 £53.75 £39.92
% change year-on-year -4.30% +34.64% -11.29%

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 12,984 7,658 11,602
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.22% 31.41% 31.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,700 4,906 7,164
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 £746
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 425 932
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £20.82 £24.19 £17.69
Median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £37.83
Median % change year-on-year -9.08% +32.18% -27.44%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.25 £76.82
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £45.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -4.44% +20.00% -30.56%

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 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 14 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 14 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 -13 944 £513 -6.82% 858
South East -6 359 £500 - 633
North of England -8 328 £412 -12.66% 446
Midlands -23 199 £500 +61.29% 320
North West -7 182 £400 -15.25% 243
South West -4 148 £688 +30.95% 187
West Midlands -29 144 £500 +66.67% 196
East of England -8 137 £498 -2.36% 204
Yorkshire -18 129 £475 -6.17% 145
East Midlands -17 54 £525 +47.47% 123
North East -19 18 £407 -4.24% 64
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
1 151 (6.95%) Confluence
2 109 (5.01%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.61%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.60%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
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 (0.092%) Camunda
13 2 (0.092%) Drupal
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) IIS
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 291 (13.39%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (8.60%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.90%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.46%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 7 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Navisworks
12 3 (0.14%) Revit
13 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.046%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.046%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 45 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.92%) Primavera
3 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.23%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 449 (20.65%) Azure
2 249 (11.45%) AWS
3 189 (8.69%) Microsoft 365
4 168 (7.73%) Power Platform
5 105 (4.83%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.60%) SaaS
7 99 (4.55%) GCP
8 80 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.53%) GitHub
10 33 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
10 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.43%) PaaS
13 30 (1.38%) IaaS
14 26 (1.20%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.20%) Serverless
15 24 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
15 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.83%) Firewall
2 57 (2.62%) LAN
3 56 (2.58%) WAN
4 45 (2.07%) DNS
5 44 (2.02%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.89%) Network Security
7 37 (1.70%) VPN
8 29 (1.33%) Wireless
9 28 (1.29%) BGP
10 22 (1.01%) OSPF
11 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
11 21 (0.97%) HTTP
12 20 (0.92%) DHCP
13 17 (0.78%) Skype
14 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.64%) Internet
15 14 (0.64%) VLAN
15 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.60%) SAN
16 13 (0.60%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.53%) Power BI
2 85 (3.91%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 46 (2.12%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.66%) Tableau
7 34 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Big Data
9 27 (1.24%) MySQL
10 24 (1.10%) Metadata
11 17 (0.78%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
15 10 (0.46%) Power Query
16 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 248 (11.41%) JIRA
2 94 (4.32%) Git
3 45 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.61%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.97%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 17 (0.78%) MLflow
9 14 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 14 (0.64%) Postman
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
16 5 (0.23%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,046 (48.11%) Social Skills
2 665 (30.59%) Finance
3 494 (22.72%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (9.94%) Banking
5 173 (7.96%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
7 107 (4.92%) Organisational Skills
8 81 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
9 78 (3.59%) Marketing
10 76 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.36%) Aerospace
12 71 (3.27%) Legal
13 66 (3.04%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.48%) Military
15 47 (2.16%) Front Office
15 47 (2.16%) Telecoms
16 45 (2.07%) Law
16 45 (2.07%) Retail
17 39 (1.79%) Investment Banking
18 38 (1.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 300 (13.80%) Analyst
2 222 (10.21%) Senior
3 178 (8.19%) Lead
4 172 (7.91%) Architect
5 162 (7.45%) Developer
5 162 (7.45%) Project Manager
6 145 (6.67%) Business Analyst
7 76 (3.50%) Consultant
8 64 (2.94%) Delivery Manager
9 56 (2.58%) Senior Analyst
10 55 (2.53%) Technical Support
11 51 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.21%) Software Engineer
13 47 (2.16%) Data Scientist
14 44 (2.02%) Product Manager
15 40 (1.84%) Security Engineer
16 39 (1.79%) Senior Manager
16 39 (1.79%) Systems Engineer
17 37 (1.70%) Data Engineer
18 36 (1.66%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.19%) REST
2 61 (2.81%) .NET
3 48 (2.21%) Middleware
4 44 (2.02%) RESTful
5 43 (1.98%) HTML
5 43 (1.98%) React
6 42 (1.93%) Kafka
7 37 (1.70%) XML
8 34 (1.56%) JSON
8 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
9 33 (1.52%) SOAP
10 31 (1.43%) Spring
11 29 (1.33%) CSS
11 29 (1.33%) OAuth
11 29 (1.33%) Pandas
12 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
13 24 (1.10%) .NET Framework
13 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
14 23 (1.06%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.91%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.90%) Product Ownership
3 116 (5.34%) Onboarding
4 75 (3.45%) Cloud Native
5 72 (3.31%) Virtual Team
6 66 (3.04%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
8 56 (2.58%) Algorithms
9 53 (2.44%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (2.30%) Data Structures
11 49 (2.25%) PMI
12 48 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
13 41 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
14 39 (1.79%) Derivative
15 32 (1.47%) Robotics
15 32 (1.47%) Security Posture
16 31 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
17 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
18 28 (1.29%) Equities
19 25 (1.15%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 254 (11.68%) Windows
2 158 (7.27%) Linux
3 70 (3.22%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.71%) Unix
5 57 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.97%) Android
6 21 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.64%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) VMS
12 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.18%) CentOS
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 779 (35.83%) Computer Science
2 686 (31.55%) Agile
3 574 (26.40%) Problem-Solving
4 365 (16.79%) Stakeholder Management
5 317 (14.58%) Project Management
6 314 (14.44%) Continuous Improvement
7 310 (14.26%) AI
8 303 (13.94%) DevOps
9 237 (10.90%) ITIL
10 236 (10.86%) CI/CD
11 235 (10.81%) Change Management
12 232 (10.67%) Analytics
12 232 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 225 (10.35%) Decision-Making
14 221 (10.17%) Cybersecurity
15 208 (9.57%) Migration
16 206 (9.48%) PRINCE2
17 201 (9.25%) Project Delivery
18 200 (9.20%) Risk Management
19 189 (8.69%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 353 (16.24%) Python
2 316 (14.54%) SQL
3 146 (6.72%) Java
4 117 (5.38%) PowerShell
5 75 (3.45%) JavaScript
6 73 (3.36%) C#
7 61 (2.81%) C++
8 37 (1.70%) Bash
9 34 (1.56%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 25 (1.15%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) C
12 17 (0.78%) Go
13 16 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 15 (0.69%) Rust
15 13 (0.60%) Kotlin
16 12 (0.55%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 490 (22.54%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (19.60%) Security Cleared
3 308 (14.17%) SC Cleared
4 262 (12.05%) Master's Degree
5 133 (6.12%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.47%) PMP
7 98 (4.51%) CISSP
8 84 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 60 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
10 54 (2.48%) CISM
11 53 (2.44%) PhD
12 52 (2.39%) TOGAF Certification
13 50 (2.30%) Azure Certification
14 48 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
15 46 (2.12%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.93%) CCNP
17 34 (1.56%) MBA
18 31 (1.43%) AWS Certification
18 31 (1.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 30 (1.38%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.72%) QA
2 103 (4.74%) PMO
3 102 (4.69%) GDPR
4 99 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 92 (4.23%) NIST
6 78 (3.59%) Data Quality
7 44 (2.02%) PCI DSS
7 44 (2.02%) SLA
8 36 (1.66%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.01%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) NCSC
12 14 (0.64%) IFRS
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 12 (0.55%) IFRS 17
15 11 (0.51%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
16 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 147 (6.76%) Active Directory
2 122 (5.61%) Docker
3 43 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 19 (0.87%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) RACF
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 131 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.73%) Terraform
3 64 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
4 57 (2.62%) Ansible
5 37 (1.70%) Grafana
6 36 (1.66%) SCCM
7 30 (1.38%) OPNET
8 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.74%) Puppet
11 13 (0.60%) Nmap
12 11 (0.51%) Kibana
12 11 (0.51%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 8 (0.37%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
16 6 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 488 (22.45%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.49%) Oracle
3 125 (5.75%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.47%) SAP
5 85 (3.91%) Google
6 70 (3.22%) Cisco
7 52 (2.39%) Splunk
8 51 (2.35%) Remedy
9 49 (2.25%) VMware
10 45 (2.07%) Citrix
11 44 (2.02%) Atlassian
11 44 (2.02%) Databricks
12 38 (1.75%) Salesforce
13 37 (1.70%) IBM
14 35 (1.61%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
16 24 (1.10%) Adobe
17 21 (0.97%) Aruba
17 21 (0.97%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.92%) Red Hat