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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,266 1,977 3,229
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.24% 7.79% 8.62%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.22% 25.57% 27.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,314 1,130 1,790
10th Percentile £300 £242 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -6.36%
75th Percentile £631 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £507
% change year-on-year -2.44% +1.03% -5.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 129 329
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.50 £31.25 £23.00
Median hourly rate £41.12 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.15% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £39.43 £46.24 £39.92
% change year-on-year -14.73% +15.83% -11.29%

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 12,437 7,731 11,631
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.25% 30.48% 31.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,260 4,804 7,171
10th Percentile £325 £285 £290
25th Percentile £421 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £730 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 956 394 900
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.17 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.37 £25.26 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.47 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.06% +25.00% -18.37%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.42 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £82.99 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -39.36% +6.25% -20.00%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 -11 992 £515 -6.36% 922
North of England -2 352 £447 -10.60% 464
South East -4 337 £475 -5.00% 663
Midlands -16 214 £500 +25.00% 343
North West 0 182 £400 -20.00% 239
South West +6 180 £650 +21.95% 260
West Midlands -22 157 £500 +2.56% 202
Yorkshire -13 153 £525 +5.00% 172
East of England -10 134 £525 +8.25% 288
East Midlands -11 56 £525 +47.47% 137
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 58
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
1 188 (8.30%) Confluence
2 110 (4.85%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.68%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.57%) Apache
7 9 (0.40%) CMS
7 9 (0.40%) Skype for Business
8 8 (0.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.22%) SAS
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 287 (12.67%) Microsoft Office
2 210 (9.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 183 (8.08%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (4.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (3.31%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.79%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.49%) Simulink
9 10 (0.44%) Trello
10 8 (0.35%) Sketch
11 6 (0.26%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.088%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.044%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.044%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.044%) Revit
14 1 (0.044%) Stateflow
14 1 (0.044%) Weka
Business Applications
1 34 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.15%) Primavera
3 24 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.88%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.35%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.35%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.26%) SAP WM
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 462 (20.39%) Azure
2 268 (11.83%) AWS
3 191 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 160 (7.06%) Power Platform
5 140 (6.18%) GCP
6 110 (4.85%) SaaS
7 104 (4.59%) Entra ID
8 76 (3.35%) GitHub
9 73 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 51 (2.25%) Serverless
11 41 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.54%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.37%) Cloud Computing
13 31 (1.37%) IaaS
13 31 (1.37%) OCI
13 31 (1.37%) PaaS
14 28 (1.24%) Google Workspace
15 27 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.19%) PowerApps
16 26 (1.15%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.50%) Firewall
2 58 (2.56%) LAN
3 55 (2.43%) WAN
4 53 (2.34%) DNS
5 44 (1.94%) TCP/IP
6 43 (1.90%) Network Security
7 39 (1.72%) VPN
8 29 (1.28%) Wireless
9 25 (1.10%) DHCP
10 24 (1.06%) BGP
10 24 (1.06%) Internet
11 23 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 23 (1.02%) HTTP
11 23 (1.02%) Skype
12 22 (0.97%) Unified Communications
12 22 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.88%) OSPF
14 18 (0.79%) VLAN
15 16 (0.71%) SSH
16 15 (0.66%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.47%) Power BI
2 84 (3.71%) PostgreSQL
3 80 (3.53%) SQL Server
4 58 (2.56%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.85%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.77%) Tableau
8 37 (1.63%) MySQL
9 28 (1.24%) Big Data
10 21 (0.93%) MongoDB
11 20 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
12 19 (0.84%) Metadata
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.49%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.49%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.44%) RDBMS
17 10 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 266 (11.74%) JIRA
2 101 (4.46%) Git
3 68 (3.00%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.34%) GitLab
5 23 (1.02%) Visual Studio
6 18 (0.79%) Postman
7 16 (0.71%) Liquibase
7 16 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
8 15 (0.66%) Selenium
9 13 (0.57%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.49%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.49%) MLflow
11 10 (0.44%) Gradle
12 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.35%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.31%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.31%) JUnit
15 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
General
1 1,138 (50.22%) Social Skills
2 711 (31.38%) Finance
3 522 (23.04%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (10.55%) Banking
5 180 (7.94%) Public Sector
6 114 (5.03%) Presentation Skills
7 96 (4.24%) Organisational Skills
8 86 (3.80%) Marketing
9 78 (3.44%) Manufacturing
10 76 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
11 67 (2.96%) Legal
12 56 (2.47%) Military
13 53 (2.34%) Aerospace
14 52 (2.29%) Financial Institution
15 45 (1.99%) Front Office
16 44 (1.94%) Law
17 43 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 42 (1.85%) Retail
19 40 (1.77%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 317 (13.99%) Analyst
2 231 (10.19%) Senior
3 189 (8.34%) Lead
4 188 (8.30%) Developer
5 176 (7.77%) Architect
6 161 (7.11%) Project Manager
7 154 (6.80%) Business Analyst
8 85 (3.75%) Consultant
9 76 (3.35%) Software Engineer
10 65 (2.87%) Technical Support
11 60 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (2.25%) Delivery Manager
13 49 (2.16%) Security Engineer
14 45 (1.99%) Senior Analyst
15 43 (1.90%) Data Scientist
16 42 (1.85%) IT Support
17 37 (1.63%) Technical Analyst
18 36 (1.59%) Data Engineer
18 36 (1.59%) Senior Software Engineer
19 35 (1.54%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.85%) REST
2 66 (2.91%) .NET
2 66 (2.91%) RESTful
3 53 (2.34%) React
4 51 (2.25%) HTML
5 48 (2.12%) Middleware
6 42 (1.85%) Elastic Stack
6 42 (1.85%) Kafka
7 38 (1.68%) CSS
7 38 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
8 37 (1.63%) XML
9 36 (1.59%) OAuth
10 35 (1.54%) JSON
10 35 (1.54%) SOAP
11 30 (1.32%) PyTorch
11 30 (1.32%) TensorFlow
12 29 (1.28%) Spring
13 28 (1.24%) Pandas
13 28 (1.24%) Spring Boot
14 26 (1.15%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.34%) Management Information System
2 137 (6.05%) Product Ownership
3 105 (4.63%) Onboarding
4 100 (4.41%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.13%) Virtual Team
6 68 (3.00%) Distributed Systems
7 65 (2.87%) Data Centre
8 64 (2.82%) Algorithms
9 62 (2.74%) Self-Motivation
10 53 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
11 51 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
12 46 (2.03%) PMI
12 46 (2.03%) Security Posture
13 42 (1.85%) Derivative
14 39 (1.72%) Data Structures
14 39 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.41%) Public Cloud
16 30 (1.32%) Life Science
17 29 (1.28%) Equities
17 29 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 267 (11.78%) Windows
2 176 (7.77%) Linux
3 78 (3.44%) Unix
4 66 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.56%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.88%) Android
6 20 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.66%) Apple iOS
7 15 (0.66%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.62%) Ubuntu
8 14 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
9 13 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.40%) VMS
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 3 (0.13%) CentOS
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 824 (36.36%) Computer Science
2 729 (32.17%) Agile
3 639 (28.20%) Problem-Solving
4 390 (17.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 340 (15.00%) DevOps
6 313 (13.81%) AI
7 305 (13.46%) Project Management
8 267 (11.78%) Change Management
9 264 (11.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 255 (11.25%) CI/CD
11 250 (11.03%) Analytics
12 241 (10.64%) Decision-Making
13 237 (10.46%) Cybersecurity
14 235 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 232 (10.24%) ITIL
16 224 (9.89%) Risk Management
17 217 (9.58%) Migration
18 205 (9.05%) Project Delivery
19 204 (9.00%) Software Engineering
20 189 (8.34%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 403 (17.78%) Python
2 334 (14.74%) SQL
3 157 (6.93%) Java
4 124 (5.47%) PowerShell
5 99 (4.37%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.35%) C#
7 71 (3.13%) C++
8 48 (2.12%) TypeScript
9 43 (1.90%) Bash
10 41 (1.81%) Go
11 26 (1.15%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.10%) R
13 19 (0.84%) Perl
14 17 (0.75%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.71%) C
15 16 (0.71%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.66%) Rust
17 14 (0.62%) Kotlin
18 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.44%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 539 (23.79%) Computer Science Degree
2 430 (18.98%) Security Cleared
3 344 (15.18%) Master's Degree
4 326 (14.39%) SC Cleared
5 136 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 123 (5.43%) PMP
7 115 (5.08%) CISSP
8 89 (3.93%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.31%) CISM
10 70 (3.09%) PhD
11 63 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
12 61 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
13 58 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
14 56 (2.47%) Azure Certification
15 47 (2.07%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.81%) CCNP
17 36 (1.59%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.54%) MBA
19 32 (1.41%) CBAP
20 31 (1.37%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (6.75%) QA
2 118 (5.21%) GDPR
3 102 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 100 (4.41%) PMO
5 82 (3.62%) NIST
6 72 (3.18%) Data Quality
7 48 (2.12%) PCI DSS
8 38 (1.68%) SLA
9 35 (1.54%) Accessibility
10 31 (1.37%) GRC
11 28 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 20 (0.88%) NCSC
13 15 (0.66%) WCAG
14 14 (0.62%) Basel III
14 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.62%) IFRS
15 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.53%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.53%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.53%) SOC 2
System Software
1 159 (7.02%) Docker
2 151 (6.66%) Active Directory
3 46 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.84%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.71%) Firmware
6 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.26%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) HDFS
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
11 2 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.044%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.044%) Squid
Systems Management
1 166 (7.33%) Kubernetes
2 107 (4.72%) Terraform
3 76 (3.35%) Ansible
4 71 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
5 49 (2.16%) Grafana
6 45 (1.99%) SCCM
7 41 (1.81%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.32%) OPNET
9 21 (0.93%) Puppet
10 17 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.71%) Kibana
12 13 (0.57%) Nmap
13 11 (0.49%) SCOM
14 9 (0.40%) Kiali
14 9 (0.40%) WSUS
15 8 (0.35%) Argo
16 6 (0.26%) vCenter Server
17 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 481 (21.23%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.80%) Oracle
3 117 (5.16%) SAP
3 117 (5.16%) ServiceNow
4 102 (4.50%) Google
5 80 (3.53%) Splunk
6 75 (3.31%) Cisco
7 54 (2.38%) Remedy
8 53 (2.34%) Atlassian
9 48 (2.12%) VMware
10 44 (1.94%) Databricks
10 44 (1.94%) Salesforce
11 40 (1.77%) Citrix
12 36 (1.59%) Palo Alto
13 33 (1.46%) IBM
14 25 (1.10%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.02%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.97%) Informatica
17 21 (0.93%) Aruba
18 20 (0.88%) Siemens