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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,140 1,810 2,982
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.12% 7.55% 8.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.09% 23.99% 26.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,194 1,081 1,613
10th Percentile £213 £235 £232
25th Percentile £381 £379 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £731 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 133 374
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.50 £27.94 £24.03
Median hourly rate £55.75 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% +31.25% -17.09%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.38
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £52.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +0.68% +30.37% -20.00%

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 13,302 7,545 11,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.84% 31.45% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,925 4,767 6,956
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £742
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,006 450 1,002
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.35 £18.84
Median hourly rate £48.28 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.54% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.94 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.01 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +53.85% -18.75% -27.27%

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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 -17 908 £515 -6.36% 1,594
South East 0 379 £500 +5.26% 727
North of England -15 329 £447 -3.35% 495
Midlands -22 208 £503 +40.36% 290
North West -5 181 £417 -11.09% 263
West Midlands -29 148 £475 +15.15% 182
East of England -6 138 £450 -10.00% 266
Yorkshire -15 133 £475 +6.26% 162
South West -20 123 £485 +0.21% 301
East Midlands -16 58 £537 +50.84% 108
North East -30 15 £450 +130.77% 78
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
1 117 (5.47%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.95%) Confluence
3 62 (2.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.64%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.84%) Apache
7 10 (0.47%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.28%) Camunda
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.28%) SAS
10 4 (0.19%) Appian
10 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 245 (11.45%) Microsoft Office
2 198 (9.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 121 (5.65%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.48%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 10 (0.47%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.23%) Sketch
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
14 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 51 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.56%) Primavera
3 11 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.19%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 463 (21.64%) Azure
2 275 (12.85%) AWS
3 185 (8.64%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.62%) Power Platform
5 116 (5.42%) Entra ID
6 93 (4.35%) GCP
7 78 (3.64%) SaaS
8 69 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.43%) GitHub
10 37 (1.73%) Figma
11 32 (1.50%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.45%) PaaS
13 28 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
13 28 (1.31%) OneDrive
13 28 (1.31%) Power Automate
13 28 (1.31%) Snowflake
14 27 (1.26%) IaaS
14 27 (1.26%) PowerApps
14 27 (1.26%) Serverless
15 22 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 93 (4.35%) Firewall
2 57 (2.66%) TCP/IP
3 56 (2.62%) DNS
4 54 (2.52%) Network Security
5 51 (2.38%) WAN
6 50 (2.34%) LAN
7 38 (1.78%) VPN
8 27 (1.26%) DHCP
9 24 (1.12%) Wireless
10 23 (1.07%) BGP
11 21 (0.98%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.93%) OSPF
13 18 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (0.79%) Skype
15 14 (0.65%) SAN
15 14 (0.65%) VXLAN
16 12 (0.56%) 3GPP
17 11 (0.51%) SSH
17 11 (0.51%) VoIP
18 10 (0.47%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (6.21%) Power BI
2 95 (4.44%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 48 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.64%) Tableau
7 32 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.31%) Metadata
9 26 (1.21%) Big Data
10 22 (1.03%) MongoDB
10 22 (1.03%) MySQL
11 19 (0.89%) Oracle Database
12 16 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
12 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 10 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
17 10 (0.47%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 183 (8.55%) JIRA
2 97 (4.53%) Git
3 41 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.87%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.84%) MLflow
6 18 (0.84%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.75%) Selenium
8 14 (0.65%) Gradle
9 13 (0.61%) JUnit
10 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.56%) Postman
11 11 (0.51%) TeamCity
12 10 (0.47%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.47%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.37%) Maven
15 7 (0.33%) Burp Suite
15 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.33%) Subversion
General
1 993 (46.40%) Social Skills
2 673 (31.45%) Finance
3 423 (19.77%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (9.21%) Banking
5 172 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 121 (5.65%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 88 (4.11%) Marketing
9 81 (3.79%) Aerospace
10 80 (3.74%) Legal
11 73 (3.41%) Manufacturing
12 72 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
13 66 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
14 54 (2.52%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.48%) Law
16 51 (2.38%) Retail
17 40 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.82%) Front Office
19 37 (1.73%) Investment Banking
20 30 (1.40%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 312 (14.58%) Analyst
2 249 (11.64%) Senior
3 164 (7.66%) Architect
4 162 (7.57%) Lead
5 151 (7.06%) Developer
6 143 (6.68%) Business Analyst
7 142 (6.64%) Project Manager
8 59 (2.76%) Senior Analyst
8 59 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
9 57 (2.66%) Software Engineer
9 57 (2.66%) Technical Support
10 56 (2.62%) Consultant
11 53 (2.48%) Delivery Manager
11 53 (2.48%) Senior Manager
12 52 (2.43%) Designer
13 47 (2.20%) Product Manager
14 42 (1.96%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
16 40 (1.87%) IT Manager
16 40 (1.87%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (4.58%) REST
2 75 (3.50%) .NET
3 57 (2.66%) React
4 49 (2.29%) Kafka
5 48 (2.24%) Middleware
6 47 (2.20%) Oracle Fusion
7 40 (1.87%) HTML
8 39 (1.82%) RESTful
9 32 (1.50%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.50%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.45%) CSS
11 29 (1.36%) XML
12 28 (1.31%) OAuth
13 27 (1.26%) Spring
14 26 (1.21%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.21%) SOAP
15 25 (1.17%) Web Services
16 23 (1.07%) JSON
16 23 (1.07%) Pandas
17 22 (1.03%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 154 (7.20%) Management Information System
2 125 (5.84%) Product Ownership
3 122 (5.70%) Onboarding
4 83 (3.88%) Self-Motivation
5 79 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.99%) Data Centre
7 56 (2.62%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (2.24%) Data Structures
10 44 (2.06%) Algorithms
10 44 (2.06%) PMI
11 41 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
12 38 (1.78%) Robotics
13 36 (1.68%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.64%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
16 31 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.45%) Derivative
17 29 (1.36%) Life Science
18 27 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 285 (13.32%) Windows
2 172 (8.04%) Linux
3 73 (3.41%) Unix
4 64 (2.99%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.76%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 27 (1.26%) Android
7 27 (1.26%) Mac OS
8 25 (1.17%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.33%) AIX
11 7 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
13 4 (0.19%) VMS
14 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 736 (34.39%) Computer Science
2 597 (27.90%) Agile
3 544 (25.42%) Problem-Solving
4 336 (15.70%) Stakeholder Management
5 328 (15.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 318 (14.86%) AI
7 292 (13.64%) DevOps
8 262 (12.24%) Project Management
9 249 (11.64%) CI/CD
10 226 (10.56%) Analytics
11 221 (10.33%) Decision-Making
12 215 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 203 (9.49%) Cybersecurity
14 200 (9.35%) Change Management
15 196 (9.16%) Migration
16 192 (8.97%) Roadmaps
17 188 (8.79%) ITIL
18 184 (8.60%) Software Engineering
19 179 (8.36%) Risk Management
20 166 (7.76%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 350 (16.36%) Python
2 326 (15.23%) SQL
3 159 (7.43%) Java
4 115 (5.37%) PowerShell
5 87 (4.07%) JavaScript
6 86 (4.02%) C#
7 50 (2.34%) C++
8 41 (1.92%) Bash
9 28 (1.31%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
11 22 (1.03%) R
12 18 (0.84%) C
13 17 (0.79%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.75%) Rust
15 15 (0.70%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.65%) Perl
17 13 (0.61%) Go
18 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
19 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
20 9 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 461 (21.54%) Computer Science Degree
2 383 (17.90%) Security Cleared
3 258 (12.06%) SC Cleared
4 216 (10.09%) Master's Degree
5 126 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 108 (5.05%) CISSP
6 108 (5.05%) PMP
7 79 (3.69%) Cisco Certification
8 76 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
9 57 (2.66%) CISM
10 55 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
11 52 (2.43%) DV Cleared
12 51 (2.38%) Azure Certification
13 43 (2.01%) CCNP
14 42 (1.96%) PhD
15 34 (1.59%) CCNA
16 32 (1.50%) CBAP
16 32 (1.50%) MBA
17 29 (1.36%) AWS Certification
18 28 (1.31%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (5.89%) QA
2 105 (4.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.81%) NIST
4 94 (4.39%) PMO
5 93 (4.35%) GDPR
6 85 (3.97%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.24%) SLA
8 43 (2.01%) Accessibility
9 38 (1.78%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (1.07%) GRC
12 19 (0.89%) NCSC
13 16 (0.75%) IFRS
14 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.47%) COBIT
17 10 (0.47%) HIPAA
18 9 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
19 8 (0.37%) Basel III
System Software
1 150 (7.01%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.56%) Docker
3 36 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 23 (1.07%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) NFS
10 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.093%) HDFS
11 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 137 (6.40%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.74%) Terraform
3 68 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.71%) Ansible
5 37 (1.73%) Grafana
6 34 (1.59%) SCCM
7 33 (1.54%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.61%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.61%) Puppet
11 12 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.42%) Kiali
12 9 (0.42%) Kibana
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
13 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Nmap
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 493 (23.04%) Microsoft
2 161 (7.52%) Oracle
3 120 (5.61%) SAP
4 100 (4.67%) ServiceNow
5 80 (3.74%) Google
6 70 (3.27%) Cisco
7 49 (2.29%) Databricks
8 45 (2.10%) Splunk
9 43 (2.01%) Citrix
10 41 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 41 (1.92%) VMware
11 38 (1.78%) Adobe
12 35 (1.64%) IBM
13 31 (1.45%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.31%) CheckPoint
15 24 (1.12%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.98%) Aruba
16 21 (0.98%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.98%) Siemens
17 19 (0.89%) Ariba