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 2 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,124 2,415 3,088
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.92% 7.96% 8.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.65% 26.61% 26.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,235 1,360 1,872
10th Percentile £304 £252 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £642 £650
90th Percentile £750 £788 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 136 201
10th Percentile £15.13 £21.75 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.32 £30.78 £27.00
Median hourly rate £37.48 £42.69 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% -14.62% +11.11%
75th Percentile £58.84 £70.44 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.19 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £41.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -18.29% -18.00% +13.64%

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 10,284 9,075 11,589
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.53% 29.91% 30.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,708 5,547 7,327
10th Percentile £306 £313 £306
25th Percentile £415 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 891 424 698
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.00 £25.70 £26.80
Median hourly rate £25.15 £48.78 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.44% -7.09% +16.67%
75th Percentile £53.75 £68.00 £68.47
90th Percentile £75.79 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £53.50
% change year-on-year -39.40% -22.43% +18.89%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025. 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 -4 1,024 £529 -3.34% 965
North of England -10 294 £450 -13.46% 570
South East 0 275 £475 -3.55% 1,164
Midlands -13 206 £491 +0.72% 390
North West -9 165 £425 -20.04% 313
South West +4 158 £600 - 323
West Midlands -13 157 £500 - 229
East of England -9 131 £505 +18.82% 393
Yorkshire -10 120 £488 -2.40% 185
East Midlands -12 49 £447 +17.94% 150
North East -13 10 £298 -40.31% 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
1 171 (8.05%) Confluence
2 112 (5.27%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 39 (1.84%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) nginx
7 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.61%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 8 (0.38%) SAS
12 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.24%) Luigi
14 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.14%) Alfresco
15 3 (0.14%) Ethereum
15 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 266 (12.52%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (9.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 167 (7.86%) Microsoft Project
4 99 (4.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (3.25%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.85%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Simulink
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
10 5 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Captivate
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
11 3 (0.14%) Maya
11 3 (0.14%) Sketch
12 2 (0.094%) Camtasia
12 2 (0.094%) InDesign
12 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.094%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 36 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.94%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.24%) Maximo
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.24%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 410 (19.30%) Azure
2 282 (13.28%) AWS
3 171 (8.05%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (7.06%) GCP
5 142 (6.69%) Power Platform
6 90 (4.24%) GitHub
6 90 (4.24%) SaaS
7 80 (3.77%) Entra ID
8 67 (3.15%) Azure DevOps
9 66 (3.11%) Serverless
10 39 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
11 37 (1.74%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.55%) Amazon S3
13 30 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
13 30 (1.41%) PowerApps
14 28 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
16 24 (1.13%) Azure Logic Apps
16 24 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
17 23 (1.08%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 88 (4.14%) Firewall
2 71 (3.34%) DNS
3 39 (1.84%) DHCP
3 39 (1.84%) Network Security
4 38 (1.79%) VPN
5 34 (1.60%) LAN
6 31 (1.46%) HTTP
7 29 (1.37%) TCP/IP
7 29 (1.37%) WAN
8 26 (1.22%) Internet
8 26 (1.22%) Wireless
9 25 (1.18%) SSH
10 19 (0.89%) Skype
10 19 (0.89%) Unified Communications
11 16 (0.75%) VoIP
11 16 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
12 15 (0.71%) BGP
13 14 (0.66%) SMTP
13 14 (0.66%) VLAN
14 12 (0.56%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.32%) Power BI
2 93 (4.38%) PostgreSQL
3 65 (3.06%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.78%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.45%) Relational Database
5 52 (2.45%) Tableau
6 49 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
7 31 (1.46%) MySQL
8 27 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
8 27 (1.27%) Big Data
9 18 (0.85%) Data Lake
10 17 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 16 (0.75%) Metadata
12 15 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.66%) Hadoop
14 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
15 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
15 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
16 10 (0.47%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 259 (12.19%) JIRA
2 111 (5.23%) Git
3 94 (4.43%) Jenkins
4 69 (3.25%) GitLab
5 26 (1.22%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.08%) Postman
7 18 (0.85%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Bitbucket
8 12 (0.56%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.47%) JUnit
11 8 (0.38%) SpecFlow
12 7 (0.33%) MLflow
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) Burp Suite
13 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,101 (51.84%) Social Skills
2 694 (32.67%) Finance
3 531 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (11.44%) Banking
5 124 (5.84%) Public Sector
6 95 (4.47%) Manufacturing
6 95 (4.47%) Presentation Skills
7 83 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (3.77%) Marketing
9 77 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
10 72 (3.39%) Legal
11 67 (3.15%) Military
12 58 (2.73%) Telecoms
13 57 (2.68%) Financial Institution
14 54 (2.54%) Front Office
15 52 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
16 49 (2.31%) Aerospace
16 49 (2.31%) Investment Banking
17 47 (2.21%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.69%) Law
Job Titles
1 313 (14.74%) Analyst
2 212 (9.98%) Developer
2 212 (9.98%) Senior
3 164 (7.72%) Lead
4 162 (7.63%) Architect
5 145 (6.83%) Business Analyst
6 138 (6.50%) Project Manager
7 91 (4.28%) Consultant
8 75 (3.53%) Software Engineer
9 51 (2.40%) Security Engineer
9 51 (2.40%) Support Analyst
10 49 (2.31%) Technical Support
11 47 (2.21%) IT Support
12 46 (2.17%) Data Scientist
12 46 (2.17%) Solutions Architect
13 44 (2.07%) Support Engineer
14 42 (1.98%) Senior Developer
15 40 (1.88%) IT Manager
16 34 (1.60%) Senior Software Engineer
17 32 (1.51%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (5.37%) REST
2 79 (3.72%) RESTful
3 71 (3.34%) .NET
4 63 (2.97%) HTML
5 49 (2.31%) XML
6 46 (2.17%) CSS
7 41 (1.93%) JSON
8 40 (1.88%) SOAP
9 39 (1.84%) Elastic Stack
9 39 (1.84%) Kafka
10 37 (1.74%) Middleware
10 37 (1.74%) Web Services
11 36 (1.69%) OAuth
12 34 (1.60%) React
13 30 (1.41%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.41%) Node.js
13 30 (1.41%) Spring
14 28 (1.32%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.27%) Pandas
16 23 (1.08%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 182 (8.57%) Management Information System
2 113 (5.32%) Product Ownership
3 94 (4.43%) Cloud Native
4 72 (3.39%) Onboarding
5 70 (3.30%) Algorithms
6 58 (2.73%) Virtual Team
7 56 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.54%) Analytical Mindset
8 54 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
9 49 (2.31%) Data Centre
10 48 (2.26%) Derivative
11 45 (2.12%) Self-Motivation
12 42 (1.98%) Public Cloud
13 38 (1.79%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.60%) Life Science
16 29 (1.37%) Data Structures
16 29 (1.37%) Mobile App
16 29 (1.37%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 228 (10.73%) Windows
2 168 (7.91%) Linux
3 69 (3.25%) Unix
4 52 (2.45%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.65%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.04%) Apple iOS
7 21 (0.99%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.89%) Android
9 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.85%) VMS
10 13 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
13 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.19%) CentOS
16 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.094%) Solaris
17 1 (0.047%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 843 (39.69%) Computer Science
2 708 (33.33%) Agile
3 661 (31.12%) Problem-Solving
4 343 (16.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 330 (15.54%) Project Management
6 310 (14.60%) DevOps
7 268 (12.62%) Change Management
8 255 (12.01%) ITIL
9 228 (10.73%) CI/CD
10 220 (10.36%) Cybersecurity
11 217 (10.22%) Analytics
11 217 (10.22%) Continuous Improvement
12 215 (10.12%) AI
13 209 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 202 (9.51%) Software Engineering
15 199 (9.37%) Decision-Making
16 196 (9.23%) Migration
17 184 (8.66%) Project Delivery
18 170 (8.00%) Risk Management
19 154 (7.25%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 417 (19.63%) Python
2 312 (14.69%) SQL
3 168 (7.91%) Java
4 116 (5.46%) PowerShell
5 110 (5.18%) JavaScript
6 72 (3.39%) C++
7 71 (3.34%) C#
8 52 (2.45%) Go
9 46 (2.17%) TypeScript
10 42 (1.98%) Bash
11 34 (1.60%) R
12 21 (0.99%) Perl
13 19 (0.89%) Ruby
14 18 (0.85%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.80%) C
15 17 (0.80%) MATLAB
16 16 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.61%) Apex Code
17 13 (0.61%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 565 (26.60%) Computer Science Degree
2 331 (15.58%) Security Cleared
3 318 (14.97%) Master's Degree
4 265 (12.48%) SC Cleared
5 128 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.65%) PMP
7 107 (5.04%) CISSP
8 85 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.34%) PhD
10 69 (3.25%) CISM
11 56 (2.64%) Azure Certification
12 55 (2.59%) AWS Certification
13 54 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
14 49 (2.31%) TOGAF Certification
15 42 (1.98%) HND
16 40 (1.88%) DV Cleared
17 36 (1.69%) HNC
18 35 (1.65%) CCNA
19 34 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
20 33 (1.55%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (5.84%) QA
2 108 (5.08%) GDPR
3 87 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (3.77%) NIST
5 79 (3.72%) Data Quality
6 60 (2.82%) PMO
7 34 (1.60%) SLA
8 33 (1.55%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.41%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.18%) GRC
10 25 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.89%) NCSC
12 18 (0.85%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.75%) COBIT
14 15 (0.71%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.71%) NIST 800
15 13 (0.61%) P3O
15 13 (0.61%) WCAG
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 149 (7.02%) Docker
2 138 (6.50%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.04%) Firmware
5 12 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.33%) vSphere
9 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.094%) XenApp
13 1 (0.047%) GPFS
13 1 (0.047%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (6.07%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.32%) Terraform
3 74 (3.48%) Ansible
4 54 (2.54%) Grafana
5 48 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.12%) Prometheus
7 44 (2.07%) SCCM
8 27 (1.27%) OPNET
9 17 (0.80%) Puppet
10 14 (0.66%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.47%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.33%) Argo
15 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
15 7 (0.33%) Kibana
16 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 451 (21.23%) Microsoft
2 130 (6.12%) ServiceNow
3 121 (5.70%) Oracle
3 121 (5.70%) SAP
4 89 (4.19%) Google
5 88 (4.14%) Splunk
6 64 (3.01%) Salesforce
7 62 (2.92%) Cisco
8 48 (2.26%) Atlassian
8 48 (2.26%) VMware
9 45 (2.12%) Remedy
10 37 (1.74%) IBM
11 33 (1.55%) Databricks
12 25 (1.18%) Adobe
12 25 (1.18%) Citrix
13 24 (1.13%) Workday
14 22 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.89%) Red Hat
16 15 (0.71%) Apple
16 15 (0.71%) CyberArk