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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,294 1,969 2,532
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.93% 7.05% 7.92%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.22% 22.03% 26.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,183 1,102 1,448
10th Percentile £204 £268 £263
25th Percentile £375 £401 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.22% +0.80% -6.10%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 285 170 159
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.72 £25.30 £31.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £34.48 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.30% -31.04% +3.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.36 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.80 £88.00 £79.34
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £33.50 £42.69
% change year-on-year +19.40% -21.53% -14.62%

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 15,073 8,936 9,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.38% 32.01% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,009 5,683 5,769
10th Percentile £353 £292 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £712 £732
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,315 751 497
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.62
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.41
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -52.10% -1.87%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £69.69
90th Percentile £90.60 £72.50 £75.74
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.35%

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 13 October 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 13 October 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 13 October 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 -18 1,002 £526 -4.36% 3,858
South East +9 470 £525 +16.67% 830
North of England -16 341 £477 +4.15% 562
North West -8 217 £479 +4.70% 310
Midlands -33 181 £450 -5.26% 339
East of England -14 138 £425 -15.00% 348
West Midlands -39 132 £450 -9.09% 228
South West -23 126 £415 -20.95% 323
Yorkshire -23 106 £494 +9.67% 167
East Midlands -15 48 £475 +6.03% 111
North East -31 18 £460 +2.22% 88
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
1 144 (6.28%) SharePoint
2 122 (5.32%) Confluence
3 54 (2.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.26%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.92%) Apache
6 20 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.87%) CMS
6 20 (0.87%) IIS
7 14 (0.61%) Camunda
7 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
8 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.31%) SAS
10 6 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
11 5 (0.22%) FactoryTalk
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.17%) nginx
12 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) Umbraco
Applications
1 230 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 208 (9.07%) Microsoft Office
3 106 (4.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 100 (4.36%) Microsoft Project
5 51 (2.22%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.57%) Simulink
9 12 (0.52%) Windchill
10 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 10 (0.44%) Adobe After Effects
12 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.35%) Revit
13 6 (0.26%) AutoCAD
14 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
14 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.087%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.087%) MicroStation
15 2 (0.087%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 31 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
8 4 (0.17%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Aladdin
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 538 (23.45%) Azure
2 282 (12.29%) AWS
3 200 (8.72%) Microsoft 365
4 199 (8.67%) Power Platform
5 148 (6.45%) GCP
6 133 (5.80%) Entra ID
7 127 (5.54%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.05%) SaaS
9 65 (2.83%) GitHub
10 55 (2.40%) Power Automate
10 55 (2.40%) Serverless
11 51 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
12 48 (2.09%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.05%) PowerApps
14 45 (1.96%) Microsoft Copilot
15 36 (1.57%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.39%) Figma
17 30 (1.31%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.26%) OpenShift
19 28 (1.22%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.92%) Firewall
2 72 (3.14%) DNS
3 60 (2.62%) Network Security
4 58 (2.53%) TCP/IP
5 56 (2.44%) VPN
6 44 (1.92%) DHCP
7 28 (1.22%) LAN
7 28 (1.22%) WAN
8 23 (1.00%) Wireless
9 22 (0.96%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.87%) 5G
11 19 (0.83%) SSH
12 18 (0.78%) SSL
12 18 (0.78%) VLAN
13 17 (0.74%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.74%) Wireshark
14 15 (0.65%) Internet
14 15 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.57%) BGP
15 13 (0.57%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (6.15%) Power BI
2 101 (4.40%) SQL Server
3 57 (2.48%) Metadata
4 52 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (1.87%) Relational Database
7 37 (1.61%) MySQL
8 34 (1.48%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.31%) Tableau
10 28 (1.22%) Big Data
10 28 (1.22%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.09%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.74%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.70%) GIS
16 12 (0.52%) Data Mining
17 10 (0.44%) Delta Lake
17 10 (0.44%) Redis
Development Applications
1 168 (7.32%) JIRA
2 138 (6.02%) Git
3 59 (2.57%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.40%) GitLab
5 29 (1.26%) Gradle
6 26 (1.13%) JUnit
7 25 (1.09%) Maven
8 24 (1.05%) SonarQube
9 19 (0.83%) Selenium
9 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.78%) Mockito
11 17 (0.74%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.61%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.48%) Postman
14 11 (0.48%) Rational DOORS
15 9 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
16 8 (0.35%) MLflow
16 8 (0.35%) Subversion
17 7 (0.31%) TeamCity
General
1 1,026 (44.73%) Social Skills
2 661 (28.81%) Finance
3 538 (23.45%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (8.81%) Banking
5 179 (7.80%) Public Sector
6 148 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
7 142 (6.19%) Manufacturing
8 116 (5.06%) Aerospace
9 111 (4.84%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (4.14%) Marketing
11 81 (3.53%) Telecoms
12 79 (3.44%) Legal
13 76 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
14 68 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.79%) Retail
16 61 (2.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 57 (2.48%) Pharmaceutical
18 47 (2.05%) Law
19 44 (1.92%) Military
20 41 (1.79%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 310 (13.51%) Analyst
2 260 (11.33%) Senior
3 192 (8.37%) Developer
4 189 (8.24%) Lead
5 157 (6.84%) Business Analyst
6 155 (6.76%) Architect
7 104 (4.53%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.88%) Support Engineer
9 61 (2.66%) IT Support
10 59 (2.57%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.48%) Consultant
12 51 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
13 50 (2.18%) IT Manager
14 49 (2.14%) Administrator
15 47 (2.05%) Security Engineer
16 45 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
17 43 (1.87%) IT Analyst
18 41 (1.79%) Product Manager
18 41 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
18 41 (1.79%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (5.01%) Terraform
2 102 (4.45%) REST
3 95 (4.14%) .NET
4 68 (2.96%) HTML
5 67 (2.92%) React
6 60 (2.62%) CSS
6 60 (2.62%) Kafka
7 53 (2.31%) RESTful
8 45 (1.96%) OAuth
9 43 (1.87%) XML
10 41 (1.79%) Web Services
11 40 (1.74%) Middleware
12 39 (1.70%) Spring Boot
13 36 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
13 36 (1.57%) SAML
14 35 (1.53%) SOAP
14 35 (1.53%) Spring
15 32 (1.39%) .NET Framework
15 32 (1.39%) OAuth2
15 32 (1.39%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 212 (9.24%) Management Information System
2 123 (5.36%) Onboarding
3 119 (5.19%) Product Ownership
4 98 (4.27%) Cloud Native
5 97 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
6 60 (2.62%) Algorithms
7 54 (2.35%) Operational Technology
8 53 (2.31%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.31%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
9 51 (2.22%) Life Science
10 49 (2.14%) Security Posture
11 41 (1.79%) AI Agents
11 41 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
12 38 (1.66%) Virtual Team
13 37 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
14 35 (1.53%) SCADA
15 34 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
16 32 (1.39%) PMI
17 31 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 276 (12.03%) Windows
2 176 (7.67%) Linux
3 80 (3.49%) Windows Server
4 66 (2.88%) Unix
5 36 (1.57%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 32 (1.39%) Apple iOS
7 32 (1.39%) macOS
8 22 (0.96%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.31%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Solaris
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.087%) AIX
13 2 (0.087%) CentOS
13 2 (0.087%) Debian
13 2 (0.087%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 737 (32.13%) Computer Science
2 651 (28.38%) Agile
3 625 (27.24%) Problem-Solving
4 530 (23.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 410 (17.87%) Continuous Improvement
6 384 (16.74%) AI
7 350 (15.26%) DevOps
8 314 (13.69%) CI/CD
9 301 (13.12%) Analytics
10 282 (12.29%) Project Management
11 251 (10.94%) ITIL
12 242 (10.55%) Decision-Making
12 242 (10.55%) Roadmaps
12 242 (10.55%) Scrum
13 239 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 230 (10.03%) Software Engineering
15 223 (9.72%) Change Management
16 222 (9.68%) Cybersecurity
17 212 (9.24%) Validation
18 202 (8.81%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 364 (15.87%) Python
2 336 (14.65%) SQL
3 167 (7.28%) PowerShell
4 150 (6.54%) Java
5 124 (5.41%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.66%) C#
7 64 (2.79%) Bash
8 38 (1.66%) TypeScript
9 35 (1.53%) C++
10 31 (1.35%) Bicep
11 27 (1.18%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.05%) T-SQL
13 23 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.96%) R
15 19 (0.83%) C
15 19 (0.83%) Scala
16 14 (0.61%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.52%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 11 (0.48%) X++
Qualifications
1 453 (19.75%) Security Cleared
2 450 (19.62%) Computer Science Degree
3 327 (14.25%) SC Cleared
4 196 (8.54%) Master's Degree
5 148 (6.45%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.58%) PMP
7 115 (5.01%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.62%) CISSP
9 96 (4.18%) DV Cleared
10 86 (3.75%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
12 74 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.53%) PhD
14 52 (2.27%) CISM
15 46 (2.01%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.83%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.79%) DBS Check
18 38 (1.66%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.48%) TOGAF Certification
20 30 (1.31%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.28%) QA
2 135 (5.88%) Data Quality
3 83 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (3.49%) NIST
5 79 (3.44%) GDPR
6 69 (3.01%) PMO
7 42 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.39%) SLA
9 31 (1.35%) GRC
10 18 (0.78%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.74%) NCSC
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
13 15 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.52%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 11 (0.48%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 171 (7.45%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.14%) Docker
3 60 (2.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.92%) Firmware
6 20 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.39%) vSphere
8 8 (0.35%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.087%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 128 (5.58%) Kubernetes
2 68 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.53%) Ansible
4 28 (1.22%) SCCM
5 25 (1.09%) Grafana
6 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.78%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 12 (0.52%) Functional Safety
11 11 (0.48%) SCOM
12 10 (0.44%) CASB
12 10 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.35%) Control-M
14 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.26%) Nessus
14 6 (0.26%) WSUS
15 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 565 (24.63%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.02%) Oracle
3 127 (5.54%) ServiceNow
4 117 (5.10%) SAP
5 110 (4.80%) Google
6 73 (3.18%) VMware
7 64 (2.79%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.66%) Cisco
9 56 (2.44%) Adobe
9 56 (2.44%) Databricks
10 42 (1.83%) IBM
11 40 (1.74%) Splunk
12 30 (1.31%) Red Hat
13 26 (1.13%) OpenAI
14 21 (0.92%) Apple
14 21 (0.92%) Citrix
15 20 (0.87%) CyberArk
16 19 (0.83%) Ariba
16 19 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 18 (0.78%) EMC