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

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,105 2,119 2,998
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.76% 7.87% 8.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.72% 25.80% 26.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,241 1,176 1,761
10th Percentile £309 £250 £225
25th Percentile £402 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £648 £664 £649
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £508 £513
% change year-on-year -1.48% -1.02% -6.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 173 126 232
10th Percentile £14.27 £20.88 £14.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £30.22 £23.94
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -7.97% +2.62%
75th Percentile £60.61 £74.06 £67.63
90th Percentile £89.93 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £39.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -10.26% -15.55% +14.68%

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 10,677 8,213 11,203
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.30% 30.49% 30.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,037 5,007 7,048
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £420 £419 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £734 £738
UK median daily rate £522 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 857 386 698
10th Percentile £16.17 £19.57 £15.09
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.32 £23.81
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.16% -6.58% +11.11%
75th Percentile £57.50 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £82.38 £79.78
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% -20.00% +11.11%

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 11 January 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 11 January 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 11 January 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 -4 986 £525 -4.55% 758
North of England -7 303 £438 -12.50% 643
South East +2 275 £475 -5.00% 1,121
Midlands -13 209 £500 +17.65% 424
South West +4 166 £649 +21.76% 429
North West -2 164 £393 -21.40% 295
West Midlands -15 149 £520 +4.00% 173
Yorkshire -8 129 £508 +6.84% 259
East of England -12 114 £505 +13.80% 482
East Midlands -6 60 £450 +26.26% 247
North East -11 11 £364 -27.20% 98
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
1 183 (8.69%) Confluence
2 110 (5.23%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.62%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.71%) nginx
6 14 (0.67%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.62%) Apache
8 11 (0.52%) IIS
9 7 (0.33%) CMS
9 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.33%) SAS
10 5 (0.24%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.19%) Luigi
11 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 271 (12.87%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 174 (8.27%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (3.56%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.90%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Simulink
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 9 (0.43%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 8 (0.38%) Sketch
9 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
10 6 (0.29%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.19%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.095%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.095%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.095%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.095%) Revit
14 1 (0.048%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.90%) Primavera
4 18 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.67%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.62%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.57%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS R12
9 9 (0.43%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.29%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.29%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 4 (0.19%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 412 (19.57%) Azure
2 262 (12.45%) AWS
3 181 (8.60%) Microsoft 365
4 148 (7.03%) Power Platform
5 131 (6.22%) GCP
6 94 (4.47%) SaaS
7 83 (3.94%) GitHub
8 75 (3.56%) Entra ID
9 69 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (2.90%) Serverless
11 45 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.85%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
13 31 (1.47%) OCI
14 30 (1.43%) PowerApps
15 26 (1.24%) Amazon S3
15 26 (1.24%) IaaS
16 24 (1.14%) Amazon ECS
17 23 (1.09%) Azure Logic Apps
17 23 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.66%) Firewall
2 56 (2.66%) DNS
3 41 (1.95%) LAN
3 41 (1.95%) VPN
4 37 (1.76%) Network Security
5 36 (1.71%) WAN
6 31 (1.47%) HTTP
7 29 (1.38%) DHCP
8 27 (1.28%) Wireless
9 25 (1.19%) Internet
9 25 (1.19%) TCP/IP
10 24 (1.14%) Skype
10 24 (1.14%) SSH
11 20 (0.95%) Unified Communications
12 18 (0.86%) BGP
13 15 (0.71%) OSPF
13 15 (0.71%) VLAN
14 13 (0.62%) VoIP
14 13 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.57%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (5.51%) Power BI
2 77 (3.66%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (3.52%) SQL Server
4 52 (2.47%) Relational Database
5 51 (2.42%) NoSQL
6 44 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.95%) Tableau
8 35 (1.66%) MySQL
9 28 (1.33%) Big Data
10 20 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.71%) Metadata
12 15 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.67%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.67%) Oracle Database
14 13 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.57%) GIS
15 12 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.52%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.52%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 266 (12.64%) JIRA
2 105 (4.99%) Git
3 78 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.52%) GitLab
5 22 (1.05%) Liquibase
5 22 (1.05%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.90%) Postman
7 17 (0.81%) Selenium
8 12 (0.57%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.52%) JUnit
10 10 (0.48%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.48%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.48%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.48%) Vagrant
11 9 (0.43%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.38%) Artifactory
12 8 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Gradle
13 7 (0.33%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,095 (52.02%) Social Skills
2 685 (32.54%) Finance
3 507 (24.09%) Analytical Skills
4 259 (12.30%) Banking
5 150 (7.13%) Public Sector
6 96 (4.56%) Presentation Skills
7 90 (4.28%) Manufacturing
8 85 (4.04%) Organisational Skills
9 76 (3.61%) Marketing
10 70 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (3.28%) Legal
12 65 (3.09%) Military
13 59 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
14 57 (2.71%) Financial Institution
15 49 (2.33%) Investment Banking
16 48 (2.28%) Front Office
17 44 (2.09%) Telecoms
18 40 (1.90%) Aerospace
19 39 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
20 36 (1.71%) Law
Job Titles
1 308 (14.63%) Analyst
2 227 (10.78%) Senior
3 208 (9.88%) Developer
4 162 (7.70%) Lead
5 158 (7.51%) Architect
6 150 (7.13%) Business Analyst
7 145 (6.89%) Project Manager
8 80 (3.80%) Software Engineer
9 79 (3.75%) Consultant
10 52 (2.47%) Technical Support
11 50 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.28%) IT Support
12 48 (2.28%) Support Analyst
13 42 (2.00%) Security Engineer
14 41 (1.95%) Senior Software Engineer
15 40 (1.90%) Senior Developer
16 37 (1.76%) Support Engineer
17 36 (1.71%) Data Scientist
17 36 (1.71%) Senior Analyst
18 33 (1.57%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (5.51%) REST
2 76 (3.61%) RESTful
3 70 (3.33%) .NET
4 61 (2.90%) HTML
5 55 (2.61%) XML
6 48 (2.28%) Middleware
7 45 (2.14%) CSS
8 44 (2.09%) Elastic Stack
9 42 (2.00%) JSON
10 41 (1.95%) React
11 39 (1.85%) OAuth
12 37 (1.76%) Kafka
12 37 (1.76%) SOAP
13 31 (1.47%) Oracle Fusion
14 30 (1.43%) AngularJS
15 27 (1.28%) Spring
16 26 (1.24%) Node.js
17 25 (1.19%) TensorFlow
18 24 (1.14%) Pandas
19 23 (1.09%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 186 (8.84%) Management Information System
2 111 (5.27%) Product Ownership
3 97 (4.61%) Cloud Native
4 68 (3.23%) Onboarding
5 64 (3.04%) Algorithms
6 61 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
7 56 (2.66%) Data Centre
8 52 (2.47%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.38%) Virtual Team
11 49 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
12 45 (2.14%) PMI
13 44 (2.09%) Derivative
14 41 (1.95%) Security Posture
15 39 (1.85%) Public Cloud
16 37 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
17 34 (1.62%) Life Science
18 30 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
19 29 (1.38%) Data Structures
19 29 (1.38%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 245 (11.64%) Windows
2 183 (8.69%) Linux
3 78 (3.71%) Unix
4 58 (2.76%) Windows Server
5 47 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.09%) Android
7 19 (0.90%) Apple iOS
7 19 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 17 (0.81%) Ubuntu
8 17 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
9 14 (0.67%) VMS
10 13 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 9 (0.43%) Amazon Linux
13 8 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.095%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.095%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 789 (37.48%) Computer Science
2 713 (33.87%) Agile
3 628 (29.83%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (16.58%) Stakeholder Management
5 323 (15.34%) DevOps
6 320 (15.20%) Project Management
7 271 (12.87%) Change Management
8 233 (11.07%) CI/CD
9 228 (10.83%) Continuous Improvement
10 224 (10.64%) AI
10 224 (10.64%) ITIL
11 216 (10.26%) Cybersecurity
12 213 (10.12%) Analytics
12 213 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 211 (10.02%) Decision-Making
14 208 (9.88%) Software Engineering
15 201 (9.55%) Migration
15 201 (9.55%) Risk Management
16 184 (8.74%) Project Delivery
17 171 (8.12%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 383 (18.19%) Python
2 314 (14.92%) SQL
3 153 (7.27%) Java
4 121 (5.75%) PowerShell
5 112 (5.32%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.99%) C#
7 81 (3.85%) C++
8 53 (2.52%) TypeScript
9 42 (2.00%) Go
10 41 (1.95%) Bash
11 26 (1.24%) R
12 24 (1.14%) Perl
13 22 (1.05%) PL/SQL
14 20 (0.95%) C
15 19 (0.90%) T-SQL
16 18 (0.86%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.71%) MATLAB
18 13 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
18 13 (0.62%) Rust
19 12 (0.57%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 538 (25.56%) Computer Science Degree
2 367 (17.43%) Security Cleared
3 320 (15.20%) Master's Degree
4 288 (13.68%) SC Cleared
5 147 (6.98%) PMI Certification
6 133 (6.32%) PMP
7 104 (4.94%) CISSP
8 88 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.33%) CISM
10 61 (2.90%) Azure Certification
10 61 (2.90%) PhD
11 56 (2.66%) TOGAF Certification
12 53 (2.52%) Cisco Certification
13 47 (2.23%) DV Cleared
14 45 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
15 43 (2.04%) AWS Certification
16 37 (1.76%) HND
17 35 (1.66%) CCNP
18 34 (1.62%) MCSE
19 31 (1.47%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (6.79%) QA
2 112 (5.32%) GDPR
3 90 (4.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (3.75%) PMO
5 66 (3.14%) Data Quality
6 64 (3.04%) NIST
7 38 (1.81%) PCI DSS
8 35 (1.66%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.52%) SLA
10 30 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (1.14%) GRC
12 15 (0.71%) WCAG
13 14 (0.67%) NCSC
14 13 (0.62%) Basel III
14 13 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.62%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.57%) P3O
16 11 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.52%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.43%) IFRS
System Software
1 161 (7.65%) Docker
2 124 (5.89%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.90%) Firmware
5 17 (0.81%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.43%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.43%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.43%) Postfix
6 9 (0.43%) Squid
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.24%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.095%) KVM
12 1 (0.048%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 148 (7.03%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.37%) Terraform
3 73 (3.47%) Ansible
4 57 (2.71%) Grafana
5 51 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
6 47 (2.23%) Prometheus
7 46 (2.19%) SCCM
8 30 (1.43%) OPNET
9 23 (1.09%) Puppet
10 14 (0.67%) Kibana
10 14 (0.67%) SCOM
11 13 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
12 12 (0.57%) Nmap
13 11 (0.52%) Nessus
14 10 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 9 (0.43%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.43%) QRadar
15 9 (0.43%) WSUS
16 7 (0.33%) Argo
16 7 (0.33%) Kiali
Vendors
1 441 (20.95%) Microsoft
2 152 (7.22%) Oracle
3 113 (5.37%) SAP
4 111 (5.27%) ServiceNow
5 93 (4.42%) Splunk
6 84 (3.99%) Google
7 62 (2.95%) Cisco
8 53 (2.52%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.42%) Remedy
10 50 (2.38%) Atlassian
11 43 (2.04%) VMware
12 36 (1.71%) Databricks
13 33 (1.57%) Citrix
14 27 (1.28%) IBM
14 27 (1.28%) Palo Alto
15 21 (1.00%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.95%) MuleSoft
17 19 (0.90%) Adobe
17 19 (0.90%) CheckPoint
18 17 (0.81%) Informatica