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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,258 2,025 2,664
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.36% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.71% 23.60% 25.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,207 1,202 1,552
10th Percentile £204 £259 £269
25th Percentile £364 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -3.06%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £713 £762 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 163 252
10th Percentile £17.61 £18.24 £20.58
25th Percentile £28.00 £26.29 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.25 £42.50 £56.37
Median % change year-on-year +22.94% -24.61% +7.37%
75th Percentile £83.00 £69.46 £69.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.89 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £47.00 £43.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +9.30% -14.00% -4.76%

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 14,369 8,581 10,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.18% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,673 5,413 6,618
10th Percentile £350 £290 £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 1,103 643 803
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.63 £78.60
UK median hourly rate £52.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +106.76% -41.51% -23.21%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -21 953 £525 -4.55% 1,568
South East +3 481 £500 +5.26% 651
North of England -10 332 £450 -0.66% 427
North West -11 191 £449 -5.42% 216
Midlands -29 184 £463 +8.82% 277
West Midlands -35 144 £466 +3.44% 153
East of England -7 143 £450 - 263
Yorkshire -16 125 £500 +19.05% 133
South West -22 120 £415 -7.78% 236
East Midlands -25 38 £475 +32.68% 124
North East -46 16 £450 +130.77% 84
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
1 135 (5.98%) SharePoint
2 110 (4.87%) Confluence
3 61 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.089%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 250 (11.07%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (9.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.58%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.35%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) 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 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 54 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Primavera
3 12 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) 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
1 520 (23.03%) Azure
2 286 (12.67%) AWS
3 206 (9.12%) Power Platform
4 200 (8.86%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (6.38%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.49%) GCP
7 96 (4.25%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.14%) SaaS
9 60 (2.66%) GitHub
10 43 (1.90%) Power Automate
10 43 (1.90%) PowerApps
11 39 (1.73%) OneDrive
11 39 (1.73%) Snowflake
12 38 (1.68%) Serverless
13 36 (1.59%) Figma
13 36 (1.59%) Microsoft Copilot
14 34 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
15 25 (1.11%) IaaS
16 23 (1.02%) PaaS
17 22 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.52%) Firewall
2 71 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.92%) DNS
4 64 (2.83%) Network Security
5 57 (2.52%) VPN
6 39 (1.73%) WAN
7 38 (1.68%) DHCP
8 36 (1.59%) LAN
9 27 (1.20%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) BGP
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.71%) OSPF
12 16 (0.71%) VLAN
13 15 (0.66%) SSH
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) SSL
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (7.31%) Power BI
2 103 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.08%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.68%) Metadata
7 37 (1.64%) Tableau
8 33 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.20%) Big Data
10 23 (1.02%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
11 22 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (0.93%) MySQL
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Power Query
15 12 (0.53%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.49%) Data Mining
16 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 178 (7.88%) JIRA
2 106 (4.69%) Git
3 49 (2.17%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.73%) GitLab
5 35 (1.55%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.71%) MLflow
6 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.62%) Selenium
8 13 (0.58%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Gradle
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
9 11 (0.49%) 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 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 986 (43.67%) Social Skills
2 659 (29.19%) Finance
3 503 (22.28%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 172 (7.62%) Banking
6 146 (6.47%) Organisational Skills
7 96 (4.25%) Aerospace
8 95 (4.21%) Presentation Skills
9 91 (4.03%) Marketing
10 90 (3.99%) Legal
11 88 (3.90%) Manufacturing
12 81 (3.59%) Influencing Skills
13 70 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
14 68 (3.01%) Telecoms
15 60 (2.66%) Retail
16 58 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 51 (2.26%) Law
18 42 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.59%) Front Office
20 33 (1.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 314 (13.91%) Analyst
2 252 (11.16%) Senior
3 177 (7.84%) Lead
4 165 (7.31%) Architect
5 158 (7.00%) Developer
6 141 (6.24%) Business Analyst
7 139 (6.16%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.19%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.70%) Consultant
10 53 (2.35%) IT Support
10 53 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
11 52 (2.30%) Designer
11 52 (2.30%) IT Manager
11 52 (2.30%) Product Manager
12 51 (2.26%) IT Analyst
12 51 (2.26%) Support Engineer
13 47 (2.08%) Software Engineer
14 45 (1.99%) Delivery Manager
14 45 (1.99%) Technical Support
15 43 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.85%) .NET
2 86 (3.81%) REST
3 58 (2.57%) React
4 42 (1.86%) Kafka
5 37 (1.64%) OAuth
6 33 (1.46%) HTML
6 33 (1.46%) RESTful
7 32 (1.42%) .NET Framework
8 31 (1.37%) Middleware
8 31 (1.37%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
9 30 (1.33%) Web Services
10 29 (1.28%) AngularJS
11 28 (1.24%) LDAP
11 28 (1.24%) Spring
12 26 (1.15%) CSS
12 26 (1.15%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.11%) JSON
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
13 25 (1.11%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 186 (8.24%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.33%) Onboarding
3 136 (6.02%) Product Ownership
4 97 (4.30%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.66%) Data Centre
6 60 (2.66%) Data Structures
7 52 (2.30%) Algorithms
8 49 (2.17%) Security Posture
9 48 (2.13%) Virtual Team
10 45 (1.99%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
12 36 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
13 35 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 33 (1.46%) AI Agents
14 33 (1.46%) PMI
14 33 (1.46%) Robotics
15 32 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
16 30 (1.33%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 289 (12.80%) Windows
2 166 (7.35%) Linux
3 72 (3.19%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.66%) Unix
5 46 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) 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
1 763 (33.79%) Computer Science
2 629 (27.86%) Agile
3 593 (26.26%) Problem-Solving
4 401 (17.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 385 (17.05%) Continuous Improvement
6 369 (16.34%) AI
7 295 (13.06%) DevOps
8 288 (12.75%) Project Management
9 280 (12.40%) Analytics
10 260 (11.51%) CI/CD
11 255 (11.29%) ITIL
12 237 (10.50%) Decision-Making
13 232 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 230 (10.19%) Cybersecurity
15 200 (8.86%) PRINCE2
16 197 (8.72%) Change Management
17 195 (8.64%) Roadmaps
18 191 (8.46%) Software Engineering
19 189 (8.37%) Scrum
20 184 (8.15%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 383 (16.96%) Python
2 317 (14.04%) SQL
3 148 (6.55%) Java
4 147 (6.51%) PowerShell
5 93 (4.12%) C#
6 83 (3.68%) JavaScript
7 47 (2.08%) Bash
8 39 (1.73%) C++
9 33 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.20%) R
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) Bicep
13 22 (0.97%) C
14 21 (0.93%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.44%) X++
19 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
20 8 (0.35%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 437 (19.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 416 (18.42%) Security Cleared
3 272 (12.05%) SC Cleared
4 199 (8.81%) Master's Degree
5 136 (6.02%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.31%) PMP
7 114 (5.05%) CISSP
8 108 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.59%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.23%) DV Cleared
11 63 (2.79%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.39%) PhD
14 53 (2.35%) CISM
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
16 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
16 37 (1.64%) CCNP
16 37 (1.64%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 35 (1.55%) CISA
18 29 (1.28%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (5.05%) Data Quality
2 113 (5.00%) NIST
3 111 (4.92%) QA
4 105 (4.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (4.25%) PMO
6 68 (3.01%) GDPR
7 47 (2.08%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.06%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.02%) GRC
12 21 (0.93%) NCSC
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) 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 (8.37%) Active Directory
2 109 (4.83%) Docker
3 48 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.97%) Firmware
4 22 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.71%) 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 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 122 (5.40%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.94%) Terraform
3 70 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.66%) Ansible
5 36 (1.59%) SCCM
6 28 (1.24%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.66%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) 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
15 6 (0.27%) SCOM
16 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 569 (25.20%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.69%) Oracle
3 135 (5.98%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.54%) SAP
5 84 (3.72%) Google
6 63 (2.79%) VMware
7 62 (2.75%) Cisco
8 51 (2.26%) Salesforce
9 49 (2.17%) Databricks
10 47 (2.08%) IBM
11 46 (2.04%) Adobe
12 34 (1.51%) CyberArk
13 30 (1.33%) Citrix
13 30 (1.33%) Splunk
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
15 22 (0.97%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 20 (0.89%) Ariba
18 18 (0.80%) HP