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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,184 1,915 3,115
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.51% 7.81% 8.41%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.76% 24.86% 26.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,284 1,137 1,664
10th Percentile £258 £250 £212
25th Percentile £392 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £520
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% - -4.24%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 147 351
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.30 £23.54
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £51.77 £53.50 £39.96
% change year-on-year -3.23% +33.88% -11.20%

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 13,033 7,702 11,638
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.88% 31.40% 31.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,741 4,914 7,171
10th Percentile £340 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £624 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 431 962
10th Percentile £17.01 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £24.22 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.25 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.50% +25.00% -23.81%
75th Percentile £71.50 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £42.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year +6.34% +6.88% -25.93%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -14 940 £504 -8.41% 910
South East -6 361 £500 - 623
North of England -9 331 £417 -8.35% 732
Midlands -25 210 £500 +61.29% 375
North West -8 181 £400 -14.12% 490
West Midlands -26 149 £500 +66.67% 227
South West -8 143 £650 +23.81% 221
East of England -7 141 £485 -3.00% 217
Yorkshire -16 133 £474 +12.26% 183
East Midlands -16 59 £525 +47.47% 147
North East -21 18 £407 -4.24% 65
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
1 147 (6.73%) Confluence
2 109 (4.99%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 291 (13.32%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.29%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.84%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.27%) Sketch
9 4 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.18%) Navisworks
9 4 (0.18%) Revit
10 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.092%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
10 2 (0.092%) InVision
10 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 48 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.78%) Primavera
4 16 (0.73%) 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 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 452 (20.70%) Azure
2 253 (11.58%) AWS
3 191 (8.75%) Microsoft 365
4 173 (7.92%) Power Platform
5 104 (4.76%) Entra ID
6 99 (4.53%) GCP
7 98 (4.49%) SaaS
8 76 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 56 (2.56%) GitHub
10 35 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
10 35 (1.60%) Power Automate
11 33 (1.51%) Google Workspace
12 30 (1.37%) PaaS
13 29 (1.33%) IaaS
13 29 (1.33%) PowerApps
14 28 (1.28%) Serverless
15 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
15 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.05%) Cloud Computing
16 23 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.81%) Firewall
2 58 (2.66%) LAN
3 57 (2.61%) WAN
4 47 (2.15%) DNS
5 46 (2.11%) TCP/IP
6 44 (2.01%) Network Security
7 39 (1.79%) VPN
8 29 (1.33%) Wireless
9 28 (1.28%) BGP
10 22 (1.01%) OSPF
11 21 (0.96%) DHCP
11 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.92%) HTTP
13 18 (0.82%) Skype
14 15 (0.69%) VXLAN
14 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.64%) VLAN
16 13 (0.60%) Internet
16 13 (0.60%) SAN
17 12 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.59%) Power BI
2 87 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.65%) Tableau
7 34 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.24%) Big Data
9 26 (1.19%) MySQL
10 25 (1.14%) Metadata
11 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.50%) Power Query
16 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.46%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 243 (11.13%) JIRA
2 95 (4.35%) Git
3 45 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.69%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.82%) Selenium
8 17 (0.78%) MLflow
9 13 (0.60%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.60%) Postman
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.27%) Artifactory
General
1 1,040 (47.62%) Social Skills
2 661 (30.27%) Finance
3 486 (22.25%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (9.84%) Banking
5 173 (7.92%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.04%) Organisational Skills
6 110 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
7 84 (3.85%) Marketing
8 80 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
9 76 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
10 71 (3.25%) Aerospace
11 70 (3.21%) Legal
12 64 (2.93%) Manufacturing
13 53 (2.43%) Military
14 50 (2.29%) Telecoms
15 45 (2.06%) Front Office
15 45 (2.06%) Retail
16 44 (2.01%) Law
17 38 (1.74%) Investment Banking
18 35 (1.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 298 (13.64%) Analyst
2 218 (9.98%) Senior
3 183 (8.38%) Lead
4 180 (8.24%) Architect
5 162 (7.42%) Developer
6 154 (7.05%) Project Manager
7 140 (6.41%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.39%) Consultant
9 63 (2.88%) Delivery Manager
10 58 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
11 56 (2.56%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.24%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.20%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.01%) Product Manager
16 42 (1.92%) IT Analyst
16 42 (1.92%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.74%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.74%) Designer
18 37 (1.69%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.08%) REST
2 66 (3.02%) .NET
3 48 (2.20%) Middleware
4 46 (2.11%) React
5 44 (2.01%) HTML
6 43 (1.97%) RESTful
7 42 (1.92%) Kafka
8 36 (1.65%) XML
9 34 (1.56%) JSON
9 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.47%) SOAP
11 31 (1.42%) Spring
12 29 (1.33%) OAuth
12 29 (1.33%) Pandas
13 28 (1.28%) CSS
13 28 (1.28%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
15 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 22 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 171 (7.83%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.91%) Product Ownership
3 120 (5.49%) Onboarding
4 78 (3.57%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.25%) Virtual Team
6 65 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
8 53 (2.43%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (2.29%) PMI
11 49 (2.24%) Data Structures
12 47 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
13 41 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
14 35 (1.60%) Derivative
15 34 (1.56%) Security Posture
16 33 (1.51%) Robotics
17 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
18 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
19 25 (1.14%) AI Agents
19 25 (1.14%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 253 (11.58%) Windows
2 161 (7.37%) Linux
3 71 (3.25%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.70%) Unix
5 57 (2.61%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (0.96%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.87%) Android
9 13 (0.60%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
11 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 779 (35.67%) Computer Science
2 679 (31.09%) Agile
3 569 (26.05%) Problem-Solving
4 358 (16.39%) Stakeholder Management
5 319 (14.61%) AI
6 318 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 316 (14.47%) Project Management
8 307 (14.06%) DevOps
9 239 (10.94%) CI/CD
9 239 (10.94%) ITIL
10 234 (10.71%) Analytics
11 233 (10.67%) Change Management
11 233 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 218 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
13 214 (9.80%) Decision-Making
14 206 (9.43%) Migration
15 205 (9.39%) PRINCE2
16 198 (9.07%) Project Delivery
17 196 (8.97%) Risk Management
18 192 (8.79%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 351 (16.07%) Python
2 320 (14.65%) SQL
3 144 (6.59%) Java
4 115 (5.27%) PowerShell
5 79 (3.62%) C#
6 74 (3.39%) JavaScript
7 58 (2.66%) C++
8 42 (1.92%) Bash
9 36 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.28%) R
11 26 (1.19%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
13 15 (0.69%) Go
13 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
15 13 (0.60%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 497 (22.76%) Computer Science Degree
2 418 (19.14%) Security Cleared
3 304 (13.92%) SC Cleared
4 257 (11.77%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.45%) PMP
7 97 (4.44%) CISSP
8 87 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 65 (2.98%) Cisco Certification
10 52 (2.38%) PhD
10 52 (2.38%) TOGAF Certification
11 51 (2.34%) Azure Certification
11 51 (2.34%) CISM
12 48 (2.20%) DV Cleared
13 46 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
14 43 (1.97%) CCNP
15 34 (1.56%) MBA
15 34 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 33 (1.51%) CCNA
17 30 (1.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.73%) QA
2 105 (4.81%) PMO
3 102 (4.67%) GDPR
4 98 (4.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 93 (4.26%) NIST
6 78 (3.57%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.29%) SLA
8 43 (1.97%) PCI DSS
9 38 (1.74%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.96%) GRC
12 18 (0.82%) NCSC
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.50%) IFRS 17
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 150 (6.87%) Active Directory
2 125 (5.72%) Docker
3 46 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.41%) vSphere
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) 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%) Squid
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 134 (6.14%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.71%) Terraform
3 62 (2.84%) Ansible
4 61 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.69%) Grafana
5 37 (1.69%) SCCM
6 30 (1.37%) OPNET
7 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.78%) Puppet
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.55%) Nmap
12 11 (0.50%) Kibana
13 10 (0.46%) WSUS
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 9 (0.41%) SCOM
14 9 (0.41%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) Nessus
16 6 (0.27%) Control-M
Vendors
1 496 (22.71%) Microsoft
2 139 (6.36%) Oracle
3 126 (5.77%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.40%) SAP
5 82 (3.75%) Google
6 71 (3.25%) Cisco
7 52 (2.38%) VMware
8 51 (2.34%) Remedy
8 51 (2.34%) Splunk
9 47 (2.15%) Citrix
10 45 (2.06%) Databricks
11 44 (2.01%) Atlassian
12 36 (1.65%) IBM
12 36 (1.65%) Palo Alto
13 34 (1.56%) Salesforce
14 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.19%) Adobe
16 23 (1.05%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.96%) Aruba
17 21 (0.96%) Red Hat