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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,227 2,012 2,942
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.40% 8.05%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.74% 24.00% 26.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,200 1,211 1,680
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £381 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.54%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £631
90th Percentile £713 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 155 334
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.10 £18.04
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.67 £25.50
Median hourly rate £44.75 £42.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +5.29% -2.86% -11.74%
75th Percentile £83.00 £70.08 £64.13
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £46.25 £41.50
% change year-on-year -7.03% +11.45% -17.00%

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 14,152 8,384 11,168
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.62% 30.84% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,554 5,273 6,993
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £716 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,060 606 975
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.02 £20.99
Median hourly rate £54.00 £27.45 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +96.72% -36.16% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.24 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year +105.88% -38.55% -24.93%

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 16 July 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 16 July 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 16 July 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 -18 936 £525 -4.55% 1,084
South East -1 453 £500 +4.71% 558
North of England -14 330 £450 +0.67% 325
Midlands -24 197 £498 +18.45% 230
North West -12 187 £447 -1.97% 151
East of England -6 148 £450 - 204
West Midlands -29 148 £481 +6.89% 128
Yorkshire -13 127 £475 +11.76% 122
South West -22 116 £425 -8.11% 199
East Midlands -14 47 £515 +43.85% 102
North East -41 16 £450 +130.77% 57
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
1 131 (5.88%) SharePoint
2 114 (5.12%) Confluence
3 59 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.35%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.81%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Camunda
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.090%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.090%) FactoryTalk
12 2 (0.090%) WinCC
Applications
1 262 (11.76%) Microsoft Office
2 213 (9.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 128 (5.75%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.63%) Photoshop
7 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
7 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 11 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
8 9 (0.40%) Simulink
9 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) Trello
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.090%) Sketch
13 2 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 57 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.58%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
5 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) HFM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 509 (22.86%) Azure
2 284 (12.75%) AWS
3 193 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 191 (8.58%) Power Platform
5 139 (6.24%) Entra ID
6 112 (5.03%) GCP
7 91 (4.09%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.23%) SaaS
9 55 (2.47%) GitHub
10 37 (1.66%) Figma
10 37 (1.66%) Serverless
11 35 (1.57%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.48%) OneDrive
12 33 (1.48%) PowerApps
13 31 (1.39%) Power Automate
14 28 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
15 25 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (1.12%) PaaS
16 23 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (0.99%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.27%) Firewall
2 71 (3.19%) TCP/IP
3 68 (3.05%) DNS
4 60 (2.69%) Network Security
5 53 (2.38%) VPN
6 47 (2.11%) WAN
7 46 (2.07%) LAN
8 34 (1.53%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) BGP
10 21 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.90%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.81%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
15 13 (0.58%) VLAN
16 12 (0.54%) MPLS
16 12 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
16 12 (0.54%) SSH
16 12 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.32%) Power BI
2 105 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.20%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.66%) Tableau
7 36 (1.62%) Metadata
8 31 (1.39%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.26%) Big Data
10 27 (1.21%) MongoDB
11 24 (1.08%) MySQL
12 22 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.85%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.58%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.58%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 193 (8.67%) JIRA
2 109 (4.89%) Git
3 47 (2.11%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.75%) GitLab
5 33 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.90%) MLflow
7 15 (0.67%) Selenium
7 15 (0.67%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.58%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Gradle
9 11 (0.49%) Postman
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.45%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.40%) Maven
12 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 987 (44.32%) Social Skills
2 667 (29.95%) Finance
3 484 (21.73%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (8.40%) Public Sector
5 177 (7.95%) Banking
6 138 (6.20%) Organisational Skills
7 95 (4.27%) Marketing
8 93 (4.18%) Presentation Skills
9 90 (4.04%) Legal
10 88 (3.95%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.91%) Manufacturing
12 79 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
13 78 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
14 65 (2.92%) Telecoms
15 64 (2.87%) Retail
16 52 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 51 (2.29%) Law
18 36 (1.62%) Front Office
19 35 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
20 32 (1.44%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 319 (14.32%) Analyst
2 246 (11.05%) Senior
3 175 (7.86%) Lead
4 172 (7.72%) Architect
5 155 (6.96%) Developer
6 144 (6.47%) Project Manager
7 138 (6.20%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.19%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.69%) Consultant
10 59 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
11 56 (2.51%) Designer
12 53 (2.38%) IT Manager
12 53 (2.38%) Technical Support
13 52 (2.33%) IT Support
14 50 (2.25%) Product Manager
14 50 (2.25%) Software Engineer
15 49 (2.20%) IT Analyst
15 49 (2.20%) Support Engineer
16 44 (1.98%) Senior Analyst
17 43 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.00%) REST
2 87 (3.91%) .NET
3 60 (2.69%) React
4 43 (1.93%) Kafka
5 37 (1.66%) OAuth
5 37 (1.66%) RESTful
6 35 (1.57%) HTML
7 34 (1.53%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.53%) Middleware
8 32 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.35%) Web Services
10 28 (1.26%) SAML
10 28 (1.26%) Spring
11 27 (1.21%) XML
12 26 (1.17%) AngularJS
12 26 (1.17%) LDAP
12 26 (1.17%) Spring Boot
13 25 (1.12%) CSS
14 24 (1.08%) JSON
14 24 (1.08%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 175 (7.86%) Management Information System
2 139 (6.24%) Onboarding
3 132 (5.93%) Product Ownership
4 95 (4.27%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.91%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.74%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.42%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.29%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.16%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.11%) Algorithms
11 46 (2.07%) Operational Technology
12 38 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
13 37 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
14 34 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
14 34 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.53%) Life Science
14 34 (1.53%) Robotics
15 31 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.39%) PMI
16 29 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 296 (13.29%) Windows
2 162 (7.27%) Linux
3 71 (3.19%) Windows Server
4 67 (3.01%) Unix
5 51 (2.29%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.35%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
9 24 (1.08%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) AIX
13 7 (0.31%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Solaris
15 5 (0.22%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
17 3 (0.13%) Rocky
17 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 746 (33.50%) Computer Science
2 643 (28.87%) Agile
3 590 (26.49%) Problem-Solving
4 393 (17.65%) Stakeholder Management
5 368 (16.52%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (16.21%) AI
7 298 (13.38%) DevOps
8 281 (12.62%) Project Management
9 265 (11.90%) Analytics
10 250 (11.23%) CI/CD
11 246 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 242 (10.87%) ITIL
13 239 (10.73%) Decision-Making
14 220 (9.88%) Cybersecurity
15 205 (9.21%) Roadmaps
16 199 (8.94%) Change Management
17 188 (8.44%) Software Engineering
18 183 (8.22%) Scrum
19 182 (8.17%) Project Delivery
20 180 (8.08%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 372 (16.70%) Python
2 321 (14.41%) SQL
3 147 (6.60%) Java
4 131 (5.88%) PowerShell
5 90 (4.04%) C#
6 80 (3.59%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.80%) Bash
8 37 (1.66%) C++
9 32 (1.44%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.12%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.12%) R
11 22 (0.99%) T-SQL
12 19 (0.85%) C
12 19 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 14 (0.63%) Bicep
14 12 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.45%) Go
15 10 (0.45%) Perl
16 9 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 440 (19.76%) Computer Science Degree
2 391 (17.56%) Security Cleared
3 257 (11.54%) SC Cleared
4 214 (9.61%) Master's Degree
5 131 (5.88%) PMI Certification
6 116 (5.21%) CISSP
6 116 (5.21%) PMP
7 97 (4.36%) Microsoft Certification
8 79 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
9 62 (2.78%) Azure Certification
10 60 (2.69%) DV Cleared
11 58 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
12 56 (2.51%) CISM
13 44 (1.98%) PhD
14 39 (1.75%) CCNA
15 38 (1.71%) AWS Certification
15 38 (1.71%) CCNP
16 35 (1.57%) CISA
17 31 (1.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 30 (1.35%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.03%) QA
2 111 (4.98%) NIST
3 107 (4.80%) Data Quality
4 106 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (4.36%) PMO
6 78 (3.50%) GDPR
7 47 (2.11%) SLA
8 41 (1.84%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.26%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.17%) GRC
12 22 (0.99%) NCSC
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.58%) IFRS
14 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 10 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.45%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.40%) P3O
18 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 185 (8.31%) Active Directory
2 113 (5.07%) Docker
3 45 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
4 21 (0.94%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.090%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 124 (5.57%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.73%) Terraform
3 68 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.60%) Ansible
5 32 (1.44%) SCCM
6 29 (1.30%) Grafana
7 26 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 12 (0.54%) Puppet
12 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 550 (24.70%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.78%) Oracle
3 132 (5.93%) SAP
4 129 (5.79%) ServiceNow
5 90 (4.04%) Google
6 64 (2.87%) Cisco
7 56 (2.51%) VMware
8 53 (2.38%) Databricks
9 49 (2.20%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.07%) Adobe
11 44 (1.98%) IBM
12 35 (1.57%) Citrix
13 33 (1.48%) Splunk
14 32 (1.44%) CyberArk
15 29 (1.30%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.12%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.94%) Siemens
18 20 (0.90%) Ariba
19 19 (0.85%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.85%) HP