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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -15 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,250 2,017 2,557
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.92% 7.27% 7.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.46% 23.12% 25.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,174 1,182 1,472
10th Percentile £204 £260 £288
25th Percentile £363 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.17% -4.47%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 155 215
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £20.05
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.22 £31.02
Median hourly rate £39.75 £41.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -4.22% -27.64% +20.74%
75th Percentile £77.50 £66.25 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -6.70% -20.95% +9.95%

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 14,554 8,725 10,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.81% 31.44% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,779 5,510 6,303
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,126 679 648
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.20 £15.24
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.92 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.72% -47.05% -13.64%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -20 984 £525 -4.55% 2,442
South East +9 470 £521 +9.74% 856
North of England -18 323 £453 +1.34% 583
North West -14 193 £453 -0.98% 308
Midlands -32 178 £463 +2.78% 394
East of England -9 133 £350 -30.00% 378
West Midlands -31 132 £471 +4.67% 226
South West -24 120 £404 -10.28% 481
Yorkshire -5 116 £500 +23.84% 169
East Midlands -25 44 £475 +9.57% 167
North East -38 14 £450 +130.77% 116
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
1 143 (6.36%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.62%) Confluence
3 54 (2.40%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) Camunda
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 9 (0.40%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 6 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 236 (10.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 223 (9.91%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.42%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.58%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 519 (23.07%) Azure
2 288 (12.80%) AWS
3 210 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 209 (9.29%) Microsoft 365
5 135 (6.00%) Entra ID
6 130 (5.78%) GCP
7 106 (4.71%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.11%) SaaS
9 60 (2.67%) GitHub
10 46 (2.04%) Serverless
11 45 (2.00%) Power Automate
11 45 (2.00%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
13 40 (1.78%) OneDrive
14 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.56%) Figma
16 34 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
17 26 (1.16%) OpenShift
18 24 (1.07%) IaaS
19 22 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.49%) Firewall
2 76 (3.38%) DNS
3 62 (2.76%) Network Security
4 60 (2.67%) VPN
5 59 (2.62%) TCP/IP
6 46 (2.04%) DHCP
7 35 (1.56%) WAN
8 32 (1.42%) LAN
9 25 (1.11%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) 3GPP
10 19 (0.84%) BGP
10 19 (0.84%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) SSH
12 16 (0.71%) 5G
12 16 (0.71%) VLAN
12 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
14 14 (0.62%) Radio Access Network
15 13 (0.58%) MPLS
15 13 (0.58%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.29%) Power BI
2 102 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 48 (2.13%) Metadata
5 43 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
6 42 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
7 33 (1.47%) Tableau
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.16%) Big Data
9 26 (1.16%) Oracle Database
10 24 (1.07%) MySQL
11 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
15 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
15 12 (0.53%) Power Query
16 11 (0.49%) GIS
Development Applications
1 174 (7.73%) JIRA
2 120 (5.33%) Git
3 56 (2.49%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.18%) GitLab
5 26 (1.16%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.84%) Selenium
7 18 (0.80%) JUnit
7 18 (0.80%) SonarQube
8 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.67%) Maven
10 13 (0.58%) Gradle
10 13 (0.58%) REST Assured
10 13 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (0.49%) MLflow
11 11 (0.49%) Subversion
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Mockito
12 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket Server
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 995 (44.22%) Social Skills
2 665 (29.56%) Finance
3 517 (22.98%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.36%) Banking
5 174 (7.73%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.36%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.80%) Aerospace
8 104 (4.62%) Manufacturing
9 95 (4.22%) Marketing
10 88 (3.91%) Legal
11 82 (3.64%) Influencing Skills
11 82 (3.64%) Telecoms
12 73 (3.24%) Presentation Skills
13 63 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.76%) Retail
15 50 (2.22%) Law
16 49 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
18 42 (1.87%) Front Office
18 42 (1.87%) Military
Job Titles
1 314 (13.96%) Analyst
2 247 (10.98%) Senior
3 187 (8.31%) Lead
4 172 (7.64%) Developer
5 155 (6.89%) Architect
6 145 (6.44%) Business Analyst
7 116 (5.16%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.98%) Support Engineer
9 66 (2.93%) Senior Manager
10 62 (2.76%) IT Support
11 54 (2.40%) Consultant
12 53 (2.36%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.31%) Designer
13 52 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.13%) IT Manager
14 48 (2.13%) Product Manager
15 43 (1.91%) Delivery Manager
16 42 (1.87%) Technical Support
17 41 (1.82%) Senior Analyst
17 41 (1.82%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.44%) Terraform
2 91 (4.04%) .NET
3 90 (4.00%) REST
4 59 (2.62%) HTML
5 57 (2.53%) React
6 52 (2.31%) Kafka
7 48 (2.13%) CSS
8 39 (1.73%) RESTful
9 37 (1.64%) OAuth
10 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
10 34 (1.51%) Middleware
11 33 (1.47%) Web Services
12 32 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
13 30 (1.33%) XML
14 29 (1.29%) Spring Boot
15 28 (1.24%) SAML
16 27 (1.20%) LDAP
16 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
16 27 (1.20%) OpenID
16 27 (1.20%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.40%) Management Information System
2 130 (5.78%) Onboarding
3 120 (5.33%) Product Ownership
4 90 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.87%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.07%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.53%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.44%) Algorithms
9 45 (2.00%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.96%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
12 39 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
13 38 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
14 36 (1.60%) Virtual Team
15 35 (1.56%) Life Science
16 34 (1.51%) AI Agents
16 34 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
17 31 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
18 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 30 (1.33%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 280 (12.44%) Windows
2 172 (7.64%) Linux
3 71 (3.16%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.62%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.98%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 767 (34.09%) Computer Science
2 631 (28.04%) Agile
3 597 (26.53%) Problem-Solving
4 437 (19.42%) Stakeholder Management
5 412 (18.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 363 (16.13%) AI
7 312 (13.87%) DevOps
8 292 (12.98%) Project Management
9 285 (12.67%) Analytics
10 276 (12.27%) CI/CD
11 254 (11.29%) ITIL
12 239 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 221 (9.82%) Decision-Making
14 218 (9.69%) Cybersecurity
15 210 (9.33%) Change Management
16 208 (9.24%) Software Engineering
17 205 (9.11%) Scrum
18 203 (9.02%) PRINCE2
19 199 (8.84%) Roadmaps
20 183 (8.13%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 385 (17.11%) Python
2 330 (14.67%) SQL
3 161 (7.16%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.71%) Java
5 108 (4.80%) JavaScript
6 102 (4.53%) C#
7 56 (2.49%) Bash
8 45 (2.00%) C++
9 38 (1.69%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.20%) Bicep
11 24 (1.07%) C
11 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) Shell Script
12 23 (1.02%) T-SQL
13 22 (0.98%) R
14 12 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.44%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 451 (20.04%) Computer Science Degree
2 427 (18.98%) Security Cleared
3 280 (12.44%) SC Cleared
4 189 (8.40%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.11%) PMP
7 114 (5.07%) Microsoft Certification
8 105 (4.67%) CISSP
9 75 (3.33%) DV Cleared
10 74 (3.29%) Cisco Certification
11 69 (3.07%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
13 51 (2.27%) PhD
14 48 (2.13%) CISM
15 42 (1.87%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.56%) CCNA
18 34 (1.51%) CCNP
19 33 (1.47%) ISTQB
20 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (5.38%) QA
2 119 (5.29%) Data Quality
3 97 (4.31%) NIST
4 92 (4.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (3.64%) PMO
6 60 (2.67%) GDPR
7 42 (1.87%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.73%) SLA
9 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (0.98%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) NCSC
12 15 (0.67%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.40%) COBIT
17 9 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 185 (8.22%) Active Directory
2 115 (5.11%) Docker
3 52 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.07%) Firmware
5 22 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 18 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
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
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) Squid
Systems Management
1 118 (5.24%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.76%) Ansible
4 33 (1.47%) SCCM
5 29 (1.29%) Grafana
6 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.76%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.36%) SCOM
10 8 (0.36%) WSUS
11 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.31%) Control-M
11 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
12 6 (0.27%) Nessus
12 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 581 (25.82%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.89%) Oracle
3 133 (5.91%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.51%) SAP
5 88 (3.91%) Google
6 69 (3.07%) VMware
7 61 (2.71%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.62%) Cisco
9 54 (2.40%) Adobe
10 52 (2.31%) IBM
11 48 (2.13%) Databricks
12 36 (1.60%) Splunk
13 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.29%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.16%) Citrix
16 22 (0.98%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.89%) Apple
19 19 (0.84%) Ariba
20 17 (0.76%) OpenAI