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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -17 -3 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,244 2,018 2,567
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.91% 7.32% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.54% 23.25% 25.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,181 1,183 1,487
10th Percentile £204 £260 £287
25th Percentile £363 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.21%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £731 £750 £768
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 165 223
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.10 £20.02
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.28 £30.39
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -25.89% +17.06%
75th Percentile £82.50 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.05 £78.84
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% -19.05% +5.00%

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 14,440 8,679 10,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.50% 30.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,717 5,462 6,379
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 682 686
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.14 £14.74
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £54.94 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.59
UK median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +94.08% -44.11% -18.18%

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 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 26 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 26 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 -21 974 £525 -4.55% 1,217
South East +7 472 £514 +8.16% 498
North of England -17 324 £470 +5.20% 423
North West -15 192 £453 -2.37% 226
Midlands -30 179 £475 +5.56% 301
West Midlands -34 133 £481 +6.89% 164
East of England -12 130 £350 -26.32% 281
South West -24 121 £408 -9.44% 437
Yorkshire -1 118 £500 +27.23% 130
East Midlands -26 44 £475 +22.11% 136
North East -44 14 £450 +130.77% 76
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
1 140 (6.24%) SharePoint
2 102 (4.55%) Confluence
3 55 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) Camunda
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.40%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 6 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.089%) nginx
Applications
1 232 (10.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 218 (9.71%) Microsoft Office
3 121 (5.39%) Microsoft Project
4 112 (4.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.05%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 47 (2.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 513 (22.86%) Azure
2 287 (12.79%) AWS
3 206 (9.18%) Microsoft 365
4 203 (9.05%) Power Platform
5 136 (6.06%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.66%) GCP
7 103 (4.59%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.21%) SaaS
9 57 (2.54%) GitHub
10 44 (1.96%) PowerApps
11 43 (1.92%) Power Automate
11 43 (1.92%) Serverless
12 42 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
13 39 (1.74%) OneDrive
14 38 (1.69%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.56%) Figma
16 32 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.07%) IaaS
18 23 (1.02%) PaaS
19 22 (0.98%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.50%) Firewall
2 75 (3.34%) DNS
3 67 (2.99%) Network Security
4 59 (2.63%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.63%) VPN
5 44 (1.96%) DHCP
6 35 (1.56%) WAN
7 32 (1.43%) LAN
8 24 (1.07%) Wireless
9 19 (0.85%) BGP
9 19 (0.85%) Internet
10 18 (0.80%) 3GPP
10 18 (0.80%) SSH
11 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
12 15 (0.67%) 5G
12 15 (0.67%) OSPF
12 15 (0.67%) VLAN
13 13 (0.58%) MPLS
13 13 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
13 13 (0.58%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (7.22%) Power BI
2 98 (4.37%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 44 (1.96%) Metadata
5 43 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
7 33 (1.47%) Tableau
8 32 (1.43%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.16%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) Oracle Database
11 22 (0.98%) MySQL
12 21 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.53%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) Power Query
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 174 (7.75%) JIRA
2 117 (5.21%) Git
3 53 (2.36%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.05%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.94%) Selenium
7 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.67%) JUnit
8 15 (0.67%) SonarQube
9 12 (0.53%) Maven
10 11 (0.49%) MLflow
10 11 (0.49%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.31%) Mockito
14 7 (0.31%) Postman
15 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 981 (43.72%) Social Skills
2 661 (29.46%) Finance
3 521 (23.22%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (8.20%) Banking
5 172 (7.66%) Public Sector
6 141 (6.28%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (4.90%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.19%) Manufacturing
9 89 (3.97%) Legal
9 89 (3.97%) Marketing
10 81 (3.61%) Telecoms
11 80 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
12 73 (3.25%) Presentation Skills
13 63 (2.81%) Retail
14 61 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
15 51 (2.27%) Law
16 49 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 43 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
18 41 (1.83%) Front Office
19 38 (1.69%) Military
Job Titles
1 313 (13.95%) Analyst
2 244 (10.87%) Senior
3 186 (8.29%) Lead
4 168 (7.49%) Developer
5 152 (6.77%) Architect
6 147 (6.55%) Business Analyst
7 115 (5.12%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.94%) Senior Manager
9 65 (2.90%) Support Engineer
10 62 (2.76%) IT Support
11 56 (2.50%) Consultant
12 54 (2.41%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.36%) IT Analyst
14 52 (2.32%) Designer
15 51 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
16 49 (2.18%) IT Manager
17 47 (2.09%) Delivery Manager
18 40 (1.78%) Data Analyst
18 40 (1.78%) Senior Analyst
18 40 (1.78%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.23%) Terraform
2 92 (4.10%) REST
3 91 (4.06%) .NET
4 55 (2.45%) React
5 51 (2.27%) HTML
6 50 (2.23%) Kafka
7 40 (1.78%) CSS
8 39 (1.74%) RESTful
9 38 (1.69%) OAuth
10 35 (1.56%) Middleware
11 34 (1.52%) .NET Framework
12 32 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
12 32 (1.43%) Web Services
13 29 (1.29%) SAML
14 27 (1.20%) LDAP
14 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
14 27 (1.20%) OpenID
14 27 (1.20%) XML
15 26 (1.16%) SailPoint
15 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.20%) Management Information System
2 133 (5.93%) Onboarding
2 133 (5.93%) Product Ownership
3 89 (3.97%) Self-Motivation
4 83 (3.70%) Cloud Native
5 74 (3.30%) Data Structures
6 57 (2.54%) Data Centre
7 55 (2.45%) Algorithms
8 45 (2.01%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.92%) Operational Technology
10 41 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
11 40 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
12 39 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
13 34 (1.52%) Life Science
13 34 (1.52%) Virtual Team
14 32 (1.43%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
16 30 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 30 (1.34%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 279 (12.43%) Windows
2 172 (7.66%) Linux
3 67 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.58%) Unix
5 45 (2.01%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.98%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 767 (34.18%) Computer Science
2 633 (28.21%) Agile
3 591 (26.34%) Problem-Solving
4 431 (19.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 419 (18.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 353 (15.73%) AI
7 307 (13.68%) DevOps
8 288 (12.83%) Project Management
9 278 (12.39%) Analytics
10 270 (12.03%) CI/CD
11 259 (11.54%) ITIL
12 245 (10.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 219 (9.76%) Cybersecurity
14 218 (9.71%) Decision-Making
15 206 (9.18%) Software Engineering
16 205 (9.14%) Change Management
17 204 (9.09%) PRINCE2
18 203 (9.05%) Scrum
19 201 (8.96%) Roadmaps
20 181 (8.07%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 381 (16.98%) Python
2 328 (14.62%) SQL
3 157 (7.00%) PowerShell
4 148 (6.60%) Java
5 100 (4.46%) C#
6 98 (4.37%) JavaScript
7 54 (2.41%) Bash
8 45 (2.01%) C++
9 36 (1.60%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.16%) Bicep
11 24 (1.07%) C
11 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.02%) R
13 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 446 (19.88%) Computer Science Degree
2 423 (18.85%) Security Cleared
3 272 (12.12%) SC Cleared
4 192 (8.56%) Master's Degree
5 129 (5.75%) PMI Certification
6 113 (5.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 112 (4.99%) PMP
8 105 (4.68%) CISSP
9 73 (3.25%) Cisco Certification
9 73 (3.25%) DV Cleared
10 66 (2.94%) Azure Certification
11 59 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
12 50 (2.23%) PhD
13 47 (2.09%) CISM
14 41 (1.83%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 37 (1.65%) AWS Certification
16 34 (1.52%) CCNA
17 33 (1.47%) CCNP
18 32 (1.43%) A+ Certification
19 31 (1.38%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (5.53%) QA
2 121 (5.39%) Data Quality
3 99 (4.41%) NIST
4 91 (4.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 83 (3.70%) PMO
6 62 (2.76%) GDPR
7 43 (1.92%) SLA
8 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.94%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) NCSC
12 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
16 10 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.40%) COBIT
17 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
18 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 185 (8.24%) Active Directory
2 112 (4.99%) Docker
3 50 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.27%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.27%) vSphere
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
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%) Squid
Systems Management
1 114 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.12%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.72%) Ansible
4 34 (1.52%) SCCM
5 29 (1.29%) Grafana
6 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.76%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.36%) WSUS
12 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.31%) Control-M
12 7 (0.31%) SCOM
13 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.27%) Nessus
13 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 574 (25.58%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.86%) Oracle
3 137 (6.11%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.53%) SAP
5 84 (3.74%) Google
6 66 (2.94%) VMware
7 62 (2.76%) Cisco
8 61 (2.72%) Salesforce
9 56 (2.50%) IBM
10 50 (2.23%) Adobe
11 48 (2.14%) Databricks
12 41 (1.83%) Splunk
13 31 (1.38%) CyberArk
14 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.16%) Citrix
16 22 (0.98%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.89%) Apple
19 19 (0.85%) Ariba
20 16 (0.71%) HP