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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,272 2,026 2,644
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.99% 7.34% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.74% 23.57% 25.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,211 1,201 1,540
10th Percentile £205 £259 £270
25th Percentile £365 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -3.80%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £713 £763 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 164 250
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.46 £20.24
25th Percentile £27.97 £26.30 £27.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £42.50 £56.92
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -25.33% +13.84%
75th Percentile £83.00 £69.10 £69.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.81 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.25 £42.75 £52.19
% change year-on-year +5.85% -18.09% +4.38%

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 14,437 8,595 10,271
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.72% 31.14% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,718 5,421 6,548
10th Percentile £350 £289 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,109 642 789
10th Percentile £18.24 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.71 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.71 £78.15
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +102.78% -41.51% -22.22%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -21 959 £525 -4.55% 2,068
South East +5 483 £500 +5.26% 743
North of England -10 332 £450 - 536
North West -11 192 £449 -5.42% 279
Midlands -31 185 £463 +8.82% 327
East of England -6 145 £450 - 326
West Midlands -34 144 £466 +3.44% 172
Yorkshire -6 124 £500 +19.05% 159
South West -22 123 £415 -7.78% 280
East Midlands -24 39 £475 +32.68% 155
North East -42 16 £450 +130.77% 104
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
1 136 (5.99%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.89%) Confluence
3 61 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.28%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.48%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.088%) WinCC
Applications
1 251 (11.05%) Microsoft Office
2 222 (9.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.55%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.33%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.088%) Sketch
13 2 (0.088%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 55 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Primavera
3 13 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.26%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 526 (23.15%) Azure
2 288 (12.68%) AWS
3 209 (9.20%) Power Platform
4 200 (8.80%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (6.34%) Entra ID
6 126 (5.55%) GCP
7 98 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.17%) SaaS
9 60 (2.64%) GitHub
10 45 (1.98%) Power Automate
10 45 (1.98%) PowerApps
11 40 (1.76%) OneDrive
11 40 (1.76%) Snowflake
12 39 (1.72%) Serverless
13 36 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
13 36 (1.58%) Figma
13 36 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.10%) IaaS
15 23 (1.01%) PaaS
16 22 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.53%) Firewall
2 71 (3.13%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.90%) DNS
4 64 (2.82%) Network Security
5 58 (2.55%) VPN
6 39 (1.72%) WAN
7 38 (1.67%) DHCP
8 36 (1.58%) LAN
9 27 (1.19%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) BGP
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.70%) OSPF
12 16 (0.70%) VLAN
13 15 (0.66%) SSH
13 15 (0.66%) SSL
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) Internet
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (7.39%) Power BI
2 104 (4.58%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.11%) Relational Database
5 45 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.72%) Metadata
7 37 (1.63%) Tableau
8 33 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.23%) Big Data
10 23 (1.01%) MongoDB
10 23 (1.01%) MySQL
10 23 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
12 16 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.70%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.62%) Power Query
14 13 (0.57%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 180 (7.92%) JIRA
2 106 (4.67%) Git
3 49 (2.16%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.72%) GitLab
5 35 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.70%) MLflow
6 16 (0.70%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.62%) Selenium
8 13 (0.57%) JUnit
9 11 (0.48%) Gradle
9 11 (0.48%) Subversion
9 11 (0.48%) TeamCity
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.40%) Maven
12 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 6 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 994 (43.75%) Social Skills
2 662 (29.14%) Finance
3 506 (22.27%) Analytical Skills
4 189 (8.32%) Public Sector
5 173 (7.61%) Banking
6 146 (6.43%) Organisational Skills
7 98 (4.31%) Aerospace
8 95 (4.18%) Presentation Skills
9 92 (4.05%) Legal
9 92 (4.05%) Marketing
10 89 (3.92%) Manufacturing
11 81 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
13 68 (2.99%) Telecoms
14 60 (2.64%) Retail
15 58 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.24%) Law
17 42 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.58%) Front Office
19 33 (1.45%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 314 (13.82%) Analyst
2 253 (11.14%) Senior
3 180 (7.92%) Lead
4 165 (7.26%) Architect
5 159 (7.00%) Developer
6 141 (6.21%) Business Analyst
7 139 (6.12%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.17%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.68%) Consultant
10 55 (2.42%) IT Support
11 53 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
11 53 (2.33%) Support Engineer
12 52 (2.29%) Designer
12 52 (2.29%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.29%) Product Manager
13 51 (2.24%) IT Analyst
14 48 (2.11%) Software Engineer
15 45 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
16 44 (1.94%) Technical Support
17 43 (1.89%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.87%) .NET
2 86 (3.79%) REST
3 58 (2.55%) React
4 42 (1.85%) Kafka
5 37 (1.63%) OAuth
6 34 (1.50%) HTML
7 33 (1.45%) RESTful
8 32 (1.41%) .NET Framework
8 32 (1.41%) Middleware
9 31 (1.36%) Oracle Fusion
10 30 (1.32%) SAML
10 30 (1.32%) Web Services
11 29 (1.28%) AngularJS
12 28 (1.23%) LDAP
12 28 (1.23%) Spring
13 26 (1.14%) CSS
13 26 (1.14%) OAuth2
14 25 (1.10%) JSON
14 25 (1.10%) SailPoint
14 25 (1.10%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.23%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.29%) Onboarding
3 137 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 97 (4.27%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.73%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.38%) Algorithms
9 50 (2.20%) Security Posture
10 48 (2.11%) Virtual Team
11 46 (2.02%) Operational Technology
12 40 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
14 35 (1.54%) Life Science
15 33 (1.45%) AI Agents
15 33 (1.45%) PMI
15 33 (1.45%) Robotics
16 32 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.32%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 291 (12.81%) Windows
2 167 (7.35%) Linux
3 74 (3.26%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.64%) Unix
5 46 (2.02%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.10%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.26%) AIX
12 6 (0.26%) Solaris
13 4 (0.18%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.13%) Debian
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 768 (33.80%) Computer Science
2 633 (27.86%) Agile
3 597 (26.28%) Problem-Solving
4 405 (17.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 386 (16.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 372 (16.37%) AI
7 298 (13.12%) DevOps
8 291 (12.81%) Project Management
9 284 (12.50%) Analytics
10 262 (11.53%) CI/CD
11 258 (11.36%) ITIL
12 239 (10.52%) Decision-Making
13 233 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 232 (10.21%) Cybersecurity
15 200 (8.80%) PRINCE2
16 199 (8.76%) Change Management
17 195 (8.58%) Roadmaps
18 194 (8.54%) Software Engineering
19 191 (8.41%) Scrum
20 184 (8.10%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 387 (17.03%) Python
2 322 (14.17%) SQL
3 150 (6.60%) Java
3 150 (6.60%) PowerShell
4 94 (4.14%) C#
5 86 (3.79%) JavaScript
6 47 (2.07%) Bash
7 39 (1.72%) C++
8 33 (1.45%) TypeScript
9 28 (1.23%) R
10 25 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.01%) Bicep
12 22 (0.97%) C
12 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) X++
17 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 440 (19.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 419 (18.44%) Security Cleared
3 275 (12.10%) SC Cleared
4 202 (8.89%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.99%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.28%) PMP
7 115 (5.06%) CISSP
8 111 (4.89%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.61%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.21%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.86%) Azure Certification
12 62 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.38%) CISM
13 54 (2.38%) PhD
14 40 (1.76%) CCNA
15 38 (1.67%) AWS Certification
16 37 (1.63%) CCNP
16 37 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 35 (1.54%) CISA
18 30 (1.32%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.06%) Data Quality
2 114 (5.02%) NIST
3 111 (4.89%) QA
4 106 (4.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (4.23%) PMO
6 69 (3.04%) GDPR
7 47 (2.07%) SLA
8 41 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.06%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.01%) GRC
12 22 (0.97%) NCSC
13 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) IFRS
16 10 (0.44%) COBIT
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
17 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
17 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 189 (8.32%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.84%) Docker
3 50 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.97%) Firmware
4 22 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
7 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.31%) vSphere
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
8 6 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
9 4 (0.18%) NFS
9 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
10 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.088%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 123 (5.41%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.96%) Terraform
3 70 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.64%) Ansible
5 36 (1.58%) SCCM
6 28 (1.23%) Grafana
7 25 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.66%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.48%) Puppet
11 11 (0.48%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.35%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.35%) Nessus
14 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.31%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 575 (25.31%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.65%) Oracle
3 138 (6.07%) ServiceNow
4 127 (5.59%) SAP
5 85 (3.74%) Google
6 65 (2.86%) VMware
7 63 (2.77%) Cisco
8 52 (2.29%) Databricks
9 51 (2.24%) Salesforce
10 47 (2.07%) IBM
11 46 (2.02%) Adobe
12 34 (1.50%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.36%) Citrix
14 30 (1.32%) Splunk
15 28 (1.23%) Palo Alto
16 27 (1.19%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.97%) BeyondTrust
18 21 (0.92%) Siemens
19 20 (0.88%) Ariba
20 18 (0.79%) HP