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 26 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,152 2,280 3,004
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.77% 7.97% 8.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.93% 26.12% 26.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,264 1,292 1,816
10th Percentile £310 £250 £235
25th Percentile £405 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -4.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 142 208
10th Percentile £14.54 £20.58 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £30.36 £26.18
Median hourly rate £38.50 £42.69 £48.20
Median % change year-on-year -9.81% -11.42% +7.10%
75th Percentile £62.50 £71.25 £68.97
90th Percentile £89.89 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £41.46 £46.29
% change year-on-year -15.57% -10.44% +6.40%

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 10,797 8,730 11,311
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.98% 30.50% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,074 5,378 7,146
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £419 £420 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 907 416 690
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.67 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.07 £25.26 £25.41
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -46.91% -8.71% +15.31%
75th Percentile £56.69 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £79.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.35
% change year-on-year -37.13% -23.59% +16.34%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025. 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 -4 1,004 £526 -4.36% 1,322
North of England -10 311 £450 -10.00% 1,100
South East 0 285 £475 -5.00% 1,488
Midlands -12 219 £492 +9.33% 809
North West 0 168 £420 -16.00% 578
South West +4 164 £649 +18.00% 547
West Midlands -16 162 £500 - 404
Yorkshire -3 133 £475 - 424
East of England -10 122 £500 +14.29% 686
East Midlands -6 57 £450 +23.12% 367
North East -13 11 £331 -33.76% 103
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
1 182 (8.46%) Confluence
2 108 (5.02%) SharePoint
3 51 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.53%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.74%) nginx
7 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.60%) Apache
9 12 (0.56%) IIS
10 11 (0.51%) CMS
11 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.33%) SAS
12 4 (0.19%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.19%) Luigi
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 268 (12.45%) Microsoft Office
2 213 (9.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 174 (8.09%) Microsoft Project
4 109 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (3.39%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 13 (0.60%) Trello
8 11 (0.51%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.46%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 8 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.093%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 37 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.84%) Primavera
4 17 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
7 11 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
7 11 (0.51%) SAP ERP
8 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.33%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.23%) Maximo
13 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
14 4 (0.19%) Endur
14 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 418 (19.42%) Azure
2 277 (12.87%) AWS
3 177 (8.22%) Microsoft 365
4 147 (6.83%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.74%) GCP
6 92 (4.28%) SaaS
7 90 (4.18%) GitHub
8 77 (3.58%) Entra ID
9 68 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (3.02%) Serverless
11 44 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.44%) Amazon S3
13 31 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
14 30 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
15 29 (1.35%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.30%) OCI
17 25 (1.16%) Azure Logic Apps
18 24 (1.12%) IaaS
19 23 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.65%) Firewall
2 63 (2.93%) DNS
3 44 (2.04%) VPN
4 42 (1.95%) LAN
5 40 (1.86%) Network Security
6 35 (1.63%) WAN
7 31 (1.44%) HTTP
8 30 (1.39%) DHCP
9 29 (1.35%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.21%) Internet
10 26 (1.21%) SSH
10 26 (1.21%) Wireless
11 23 (1.07%) Skype
12 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
13 19 (0.88%) BGP
14 16 (0.74%) OSPF
14 16 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.70%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) SMTP
17 13 (0.60%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (5.34%) Power BI
2 86 (4.00%) PostgreSQL
3 73 (3.39%) SQL Server
4 56 (2.60%) NoSQL
5 53 (2.46%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
7 45 (2.09%) Tableau
8 33 (1.53%) MySQL
9 26 (1.21%) Big Data
10 25 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.79%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.79%) Metadata
11 17 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
13 12 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
13 12 (0.56%) GIS
13 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
14 11 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 274 (12.73%) JIRA
2 110 (5.11%) Git
3 92 (4.28%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.16%) GitLab
5 26 (1.21%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.07%) Postman
7 18 (0.84%) Selenium
8 17 (0.79%) Visual Studio
9 12 (0.56%) JUnit
10 11 (0.51%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.51%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.51%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 8 (0.37%) Burp Suite
12 8 (0.37%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
14 6 (0.28%) Appium
14 6 (0.28%) Gradle
14 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,124 (52.23%) Social Skills
2 690 (32.06%) Finance
3 525 (24.40%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (11.71%) Banking
5 143 (6.64%) Public Sector
6 93 (4.32%) Presentation Skills
7 92 (4.28%) Manufacturing
8 86 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
9 78 (3.62%) Marketing
10 73 (3.39%) Legal
11 71 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (3.16%) Military
13 61 (2.83%) Financial Institution
14 58 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
15 50 (2.32%) Front Office
15 50 (2.32%) Investment Banking
16 48 (2.23%) Telecoms
17 44 (2.04%) Aerospace
18 43 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.81%) Law
Job Titles
1 306 (14.22%) Analyst
2 216 (10.04%) Senior
3 211 (9.80%) Developer
4 168 (7.81%) Architect
5 160 (7.43%) Lead
6 149 (6.92%) Project Manager
7 146 (6.78%) Business Analyst
8 85 (3.95%) Consultant
9 78 (3.62%) Software Engineer
10 52 (2.42%) Technical Support
11 50 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (2.18%) Support Analyst
13 46 (2.14%) Security Engineer
14 45 (2.09%) IT Support
15 42 (1.95%) Data Scientist
15 42 (1.95%) Senior Developer
16 40 (1.86%) Senior Software Engineer
17 39 (1.81%) Support Engineer
18 36 (1.67%) IT Manager
19 34 (1.58%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (5.58%) REST
2 81 (3.76%) RESTful
3 70 (3.25%) .NET
4 62 (2.88%) HTML
5 54 (2.51%) XML
6 49 (2.28%) Middleware
7 46 (2.14%) Elastic Stack
8 45 (2.09%) CSS
9 44 (2.04%) JSON
10 41 (1.91%) React
11 39 (1.81%) Kafka
11 39 (1.81%) SOAP
12 36 (1.67%) OAuth
13 30 (1.39%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.30%) Spring
15 27 (1.25%) Node.js
15 27 (1.25%) TensorFlow
15 27 (1.25%) Web Services
16 26 (1.21%) Pandas
17 25 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.60%) Management Information System
2 112 (5.20%) Product Ownership
3 102 (4.74%) Cloud Native
4 72 (3.35%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.02%) Algorithms
6 61 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
8 52 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
8 52 (2.42%) Virtual Team
9 51 (2.37%) Data Centre
10 47 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
11 43 (2.00%) Derivative
12 39 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
12 39 (1.81%) Public Cloud
12 39 (1.81%) Security Posture
13 36 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.67%) Life Science
14 35 (1.63%) PMI
15 30 (1.39%) Equities
15 30 (1.39%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 245 (11.38%) Windows
2 185 (8.60%) Linux
3 77 (3.58%) Unix
4 56 (2.60%) Windows Server
5 45 (2.09%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.12%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.02%) Android
8 20 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.84%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.79%) VMS
11 16 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.093%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 825 (38.34%) Computer Science
2 714 (33.18%) Agile
3 656 (30.48%) Problem-Solving
4 347 (16.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 334 (15.52%) DevOps
6 330 (15.33%) Project Management
7 267 (12.41%) Change Management
8 243 (11.29%) CI/CD
9 240 (11.15%) ITIL
10 226 (10.50%) Continuous Improvement
11 222 (10.32%) AI
12 221 (10.27%) Cybersecurity
13 217 (10.08%) Analytics
13 217 (10.08%) Decision-Making
13 217 (10.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 214 (9.94%) Software Engineering
15 203 (9.43%) Migration
16 189 (8.78%) Risk Management
17 184 (8.55%) Project Delivery
18 167 (7.76%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 405 (18.82%) Python
2 324 (15.06%) SQL
3 159 (7.39%) Java
4 122 (5.67%) PowerShell
5 109 (5.07%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.81%) C#
7 80 (3.72%) C++
8 52 (2.42%) TypeScript
9 49 (2.28%) Go
10 47 (2.18%) Bash
11 28 (1.30%) R
12 23 (1.07%) Perl
13 19 (0.88%) C
13 19 (0.88%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.88%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.79%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
16 14 (0.65%) MATLAB
16 14 (0.65%) Ruby
17 13 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 569 (26.44%) Computer Science Degree
2 371 (17.24%) Security Cleared
3 322 (14.96%) Master's Degree
4 292 (13.57%) SC Cleared
5 135 (6.27%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.95%) PMP
7 109 (5.07%) CISSP
8 88 (4.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.30%) CISM
10 65 (3.02%) Azure Certification
11 63 (2.93%) PhD
12 57 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (2.60%) TOGAF Certification
14 54 (2.51%) AWS Certification
15 47 (2.18%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.91%) HND
17 38 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
17 38 (1.77%) CCNP
18 35 (1.63%) HNC
19 31 (1.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (6.27%) QA
2 114 (5.30%) GDPR
3 89 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (3.62%) Data Quality
5 70 (3.25%) PMO
6 67 (3.11%) NIST
7 35 (1.63%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.58%) SLA
9 33 (1.53%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (1.07%) GRC
12 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
12 15 (0.70%) NCSC
12 15 (0.70%) WCAG
13 13 (0.60%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.51%) Basel III
14 11 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.46%) P3O
16 9 (0.42%) COBIT
System Software
1 162 (7.53%) Docker
2 126 (5.86%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.93%) Firmware
5 11 (0.51%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.46%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.46%) Postfix
6 10 (0.46%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.14%) XenApp
11 2 (0.093%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.046%) HDFS
12 1 (0.046%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 148 (6.88%) Kubernetes
2 125 (5.81%) Terraform
3 80 (3.72%) Ansible
4 59 (2.74%) Grafana
5 49 (2.28%) Prometheus
6 48 (2.23%) Microsoft Intune
7 46 (2.14%) SCCM
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 21 (0.98%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.46%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.42%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Nmap
16 7 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 7 (0.33%) Argo
16 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 446 (20.72%) Microsoft
2 143 (6.64%) Oracle
3 125 (5.81%) SAP
4 117 (5.44%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.55%) Splunk
6 96 (4.46%) Google
7 63 (2.93%) Cisco
8 61 (2.83%) Salesforce
9 50 (2.32%) Atlassian
10 49 (2.28%) Remedy
11 46 (2.14%) VMware
12 38 (1.77%) Databricks
13 34 (1.58%) Citrix
13 34 (1.58%) IBM
14 29 (1.35%) Palo Alto
15 22 (1.02%) Adobe
16 21 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.93%) CheckPoint
18 18 (0.84%) Workday
19 17 (0.79%) HP