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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,218 1,975 3,270
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.35% 7.64% 8.62%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.59% 25.33% 27.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,285 1,103 1,823
10th Percentile £299 £242 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £632 £662 £645
90th Percentile £738 £798 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 117 321
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.78 £23.75
Median hourly rate £35.00 £46.18 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.21% +15.45% -11.11%
75th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £85.50 £85.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -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 11,931 7,796 11,779
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.15% 30.16% 31.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,922 4,791 7,261
10th Percentile £325 £294 £295
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 924 372 895
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.01 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £25.26 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £48.40 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.04% +7.56% -2.17%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.52 £83.13 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% -11.11% -4.26%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -8 987 £517 -6.07% 797
North of England -6 344 £436 -10.97% 454
South East 0 309 £475 -5.00% 691
Midlands -17 215 £525 +31.25% 300
North West -2 180 £393 -17.26% 269
South West +9 179 £650 +18.18% 217
West Midlands -18 155 £523 +10.00% 191
Yorkshire -14 147 £516 +1.98% 138
East of England -11 133 £550 +22.22% 232
East Midlands -8 60 £525 +47.47% 109
North East -15 18 £364 -27.20% 56
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
1 190 (8.57%) Confluence
2 107 (4.82%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.71%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) Skype for Business
8 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
10 5 (0.23%) nginx
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 293 (13.21%) Microsoft Office
2 218 (9.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.16%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.61%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 9 (0.41%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
12 4 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.090%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.090%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.090%) Revit
15 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 36 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (1.08%) Primavera
4 21 (0.95%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
5 10 (0.45%) SAP EWM
5 10 (0.45%) SAP WM
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 7 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 445 (20.06%) Azure
2 268 (12.08%) AWS
3 190 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 155 (6.99%) Power Platform
5 144 (6.49%) GCP
6 108 (4.87%) SaaS
7 87 (3.92%) Entra ID
8 78 (3.52%) GitHub
9 72 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (2.57%) Serverless
11 42 (1.89%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.58%) OCI
13 33 (1.49%) Power Automate
14 32 (1.44%) Cloud Computing
15 31 (1.40%) PaaS
16 30 (1.35%) IaaS
17 27 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
17 27 (1.22%) Google Workspace
18 26 (1.17%) PowerApps
19 23 (1.04%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.42%) Firewall
2 57 (2.57%) DNS
2 57 (2.57%) LAN
3 53 (2.39%) WAN
4 43 (1.94%) TCP/IP
5 42 (1.89%) VPN
6 37 (1.67%) Network Security
7 29 (1.31%) DHCP
8 25 (1.13%) Skype
8 25 (1.13%) Wireless
9 24 (1.08%) Internet
10 23 (1.04%) BGP
10 23 (1.04%) Ethernet
10 23 (1.04%) HTTP
10 23 (1.04%) Unified Communications
11 20 (0.90%) OSPF
12 19 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 18 (0.81%) SSH
14 15 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
14 15 (0.68%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (5.46%) Power BI
2 81 (3.65%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.43%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.66%) NoSQL
5 43 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.89%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.85%) Tableau
8 38 (1.71%) MySQL
9 30 (1.35%) Big Data
10 21 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
11 20 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.86%) Metadata
13 15 (0.68%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.59%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
15 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.50%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 10 (0.45%) RDBMS
18 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 262 (11.81%) JIRA
2 101 (4.55%) Git
3 71 (3.20%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.52%) GitLab
5 25 (1.13%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.95%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.81%) Postman
8 16 (0.72%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.59%) MLflow
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) JUnit
15 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
15 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,143 (51.53%) Social Skills
2 715 (32.24%) Finance
3 527 (23.76%) Analytical Skills
4 244 (11.00%) Banking
5 170 (7.66%) Public Sector
6 120 (5.41%) Presentation Skills
7 98 (4.42%) Organisational Skills
8 86 (3.88%) Manufacturing
9 83 (3.74%) Marketing
10 75 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (3.25%) Influencing Skills
12 63 (2.84%) Legal
13 57 (2.57%) Military
14 55 (2.48%) Financial Institution
15 46 (2.07%) Front Office
16 41 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 41 (1.85%) Retail
16 41 (1.85%) Telecoms
17 39 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
18 38 (1.71%) Law
Job Titles
1 325 (14.65%) Analyst
2 230 (10.37%) Senior
3 188 (8.48%) Developer
4 183 (8.25%) Lead
5 174 (7.84%) Architect
6 161 (7.26%) Project Manager
7 159 (7.17%) Business Analyst
8 84 (3.79%) Consultant
9 82 (3.70%) Software Engineer
10 67 (3.02%) Technical Support
11 63 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (2.12%) IT Support
13 46 (2.07%) Security Engineer
14 44 (1.98%) Senior Analyst
15 41 (1.85%) Data Scientist
15 41 (1.85%) Senior Software Engineer
16 39 (1.76%) Support Analyst
17 37 (1.67%) Technical Analyst
18 36 (1.62%) Delivery Manager
19 34 (1.53%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.87%) REST
2 68 (3.07%) RESTful
3 65 (2.93%) .NET
4 53 (2.39%) HTML
5 52 (2.34%) React
6 48 (2.16%) Middleware
7 47 (2.12%) Elastic Stack
8 40 (1.80%) CSS
9 39 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
9 39 (1.76%) XML
10 38 (1.71%) Kafka
11 35 (1.58%) JSON
11 35 (1.58%) OAuth
12 34 (1.53%) SOAP
13 30 (1.35%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.35%) TensorFlow
14 29 (1.31%) Spring
15 28 (1.26%) AngularJS
16 27 (1.22%) Node.js
16 27 (1.22%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 186 (8.39%) Management Information System
2 115 (5.18%) Product Ownership
3 103 (4.64%) Cloud Native
4 99 (4.46%) Onboarding
5 69 (3.11%) Distributed Systems
6 64 (2.89%) Virtual Team
7 62 (2.80%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.75%) Data Centre
9 56 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
10 54 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
11 50 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
12 45 (2.03%) PMI
13 44 (1.98%) Security Posture
14 41 (1.85%) Derivative
15 37 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
16 36 (1.62%) Public Cloud
17 33 (1.49%) Life Science
18 28 (1.26%) Equities
18 28 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.26%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 270 (12.17%) Windows
2 184 (8.30%) Linux
3 81 (3.65%) Unix
4 68 (3.07%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.66%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Android
7 18 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
8 17 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 16 (0.72%) Mac OS
10 15 (0.68%) Apple iOS
10 15 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.54%) VMS
13 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 4 (0.18%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.14%) Debian
16 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 799 (36.02%) Computer Science
2 719 (32.42%) Agile
3 644 (29.04%) Problem-Solving
4 384 (17.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 343 (15.46%) DevOps
6 306 (13.80%) Project Management
7 296 (13.35%) AI
8 273 (12.31%) Change Management
9 256 (11.54%) CI/CD
10 253 (11.41%) Analytics
11 238 (10.73%) Continuous Improvement
12 237 (10.69%) Decision-Making
13 232 (10.46%) Cybersecurity
14 223 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 220 (9.92%) Risk Management
16 218 (9.83%) ITIL
17 213 (9.60%) Migration
18 209 (9.42%) Software Engineering
19 198 (8.93%) Project Delivery
20 176 (7.94%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 406 (18.30%) Python
2 337 (15.19%) SQL
3 154 (6.94%) Java
4 122 (5.50%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.78%) JavaScript
6 78 (3.52%) C#
7 72 (3.25%) C++
8 49 (2.21%) TypeScript
9 46 (2.07%) Go
10 43 (1.94%) Bash
11 25 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.13%) R
12 21 (0.95%) Perl
13 18 (0.81%) C
14 17 (0.77%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
16 14 (0.63%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
18 10 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 539 (24.30%) Computer Science Degree
2 397 (17.90%) Security Cleared
3 348 (15.69%) Master's Degree
4 317 (14.29%) SC Cleared
5 133 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.37%) PMP
7 113 (5.09%) CISSP
8 84 (3.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.29%) CISM
10 69 (3.11%) PhD
11 62 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
12 60 (2.71%) Azure Certification
13 56 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.52%) Cisco Certification
14 43 (1.94%) DV Cleared
15 40 (1.80%) AWS Certification
16 38 (1.71%) CCNP
17 36 (1.62%) CBAP
18 34 (1.53%) MBA
19 31 (1.40%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.58%) QA
2 112 (5.05%) GDPR
3 95 (4.28%) PMO
4 94 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 71 (3.20%) Data Quality
6 69 (3.11%) NIST
7 45 (2.03%) PCI DSS
8 33 (1.49%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.44%) SLA
10 30 (1.35%) GRC
10 30 (1.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 15 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
11 15 (0.68%) NCSC
12 14 (0.63%) Basel III
12 14 (0.63%) IFRS
12 14 (0.63%) WCAG
13 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.54%) Def Stans
13 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 165 (7.44%) Docker
2 141 (6.36%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.59%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) DFS Replication
9 4 (0.18%) Dovecot
9 4 (0.18%) Postfix
9 4 (0.18%) Squid
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.14%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 168 (7.57%) Kubernetes
2 115 (5.18%) Terraform
3 73 (3.29%) Ansible
4 66 (2.98%) Microsoft Intune
5 52 (2.34%) Grafana
6 46 (2.07%) SCCM
7 45 (2.03%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 21 (0.95%) Puppet
10 17 (0.77%) Kibana
11 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
12 14 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.59%) Nmap
14 12 (0.54%) SCOM
15 9 (0.41%) Kiali
15 9 (0.41%) WSUS
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 7 (0.32%) Nessus
17 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
18 4 (0.18%) Control-M
Vendors
1 458 (20.65%) Microsoft
2 156 (7.03%) Oracle
3 124 (5.59%) SAP
4 110 (4.96%) ServiceNow
5 101 (4.55%) Google
6 82 (3.70%) Splunk
7 71 (3.20%) Cisco
8 55 (2.48%) Remedy
9 51 (2.30%) Atlassian
10 47 (2.12%) Salesforce
11 45 (2.03%) Databricks
11 45 (2.03%) VMware
12 40 (1.80%) Citrix
13 30 (1.35%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.99%) IBM
14 22 (0.99%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.95%) CheckPoint
15 21 (0.95%) Informatica
15 21 (0.95%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.95%) Siemens