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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,161 2,067 3,187
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.58% 7.77% 8.56%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.19% 25.59% 27.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,143 1,798
10th Percentile £293 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -5.45%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £645
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £504 £507
% change year-on-year -0.79% -0.49% -6.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 125 299
10th Percentile £14.90 £20.80 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.21 £22.33
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £59.31 £71.25 £61.98
90th Percentile £83.00 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -1.23%

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 11,264 8,076 11,609
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.27% 30.36% 31.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,481 4,872 7,246
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £548
% change year-on-year -1.24% -4.11% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 867 389 826
10th Percentile £15.62 £19.72 £14.39
25th Percentile £18.94 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -2.78% +5.56%
75th Percentile £63.58 £67.50 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.92 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 1,007 £525 -4.55% 796
North of England -8 330 £445 -6.26% 555
South East +1 279 £475 -5.00% 1,069
Midlands -13 214 £523 +26.67% 455
North West -2 177 £397 -16.45% 273
South West +7 171 £650 +21.95% 386
West Midlands -14 149 £520 +18.72% 227
Yorkshire -13 142 £525 +7.14% 203
East of England -12 113 £550 +18.92% 435
East Midlands -5 65 £525 +47.47% 226
North East -16 12 £364 -27.20% 81
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
1 194 (8.98%) Confluence
2 114 (5.28%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.62%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.65%) nginx
8 11 (0.51%) Apache
9 8 (0.37%) CMS
9 8 (0.37%) IIS
10 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.28%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 275 (12.73%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (10.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 172 (7.96%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 77 (3.56%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
8 10 (0.46%) Trello
9 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.37%) FrameMaker
10 8 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
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 33 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (1.02%) Primavera
4 19 (0.88%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.65%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
10 8 (0.37%) SAP ERP
11 7 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
11 7 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
13 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.23%) Workday HCM
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 436 (20.18%) Azure
2 263 (12.17%) AWS
3 195 (9.02%) Microsoft 365
4 157 (7.27%) Power Platform
5 137 (6.34%) GCP
6 105 (4.86%) SaaS
7 83 (3.84%) Entra ID
7 83 (3.84%) GitHub
8 71 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.82%) Serverless
10 46 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
11 39 (1.80%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.57%) OCI
13 32 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
13 32 (1.48%) IaaS
14 31 (1.43%) PowerApps
15 30 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.39%) PaaS
16 25 (1.16%) Amazon S3
16 25 (1.16%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.53%) Firewall
2 62 (2.87%) DNS
3 53 (2.45%) LAN
4 49 (2.27%) WAN
5 42 (1.94%) Network Security
6 39 (1.80%) VPN
7 30 (1.39%) DHCP
7 30 (1.39%) HTTP
8 27 (1.25%) TCP/IP
9 26 (1.20%) Internet
9 26 (1.20%) Skype
10 25 (1.16%) Wireless
11 23 (1.06%) Unified Communications
12 22 (1.02%) SSH
13 21 (0.97%) BGP
14 18 (0.83%) OSPF
14 18 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.74%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) VoIP
17 13 (0.60%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.74%) Power BI
2 77 (3.56%) SQL Server
3 75 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.45%) NoSQL
5 49 (2.27%) Relational Database
6 45 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.94%) Tableau
8 38 (1.76%) MySQL
9 27 (1.25%) Big Data
10 19 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.74%) Metadata
12 16 (0.74%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
14 13 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
16 11 (0.51%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.51%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 272 (12.59%) JIRA
2 105 (4.86%) Git
3 74 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.41%) GitLab
5 25 (1.16%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.97%) Liquibase
7 19 (0.88%) Postman
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) JUnit
11 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.46%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.42%) CircleCI
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) Vagrant
13 8 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) Gradle
14 7 (0.32%) MLflow
15 6 (0.28%) XCUITest
General
1 1,126 (52.11%) Social Skills
2 713 (32.99%) Finance
3 525 (24.29%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (11.38%) Banking
5 160 (7.40%) Public Sector
6 102 (4.72%) Presentation Skills
7 86 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (3.89%) Manufacturing
9 76 (3.52%) Marketing
10 68 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
11 66 (3.05%) Legal
12 64 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
12 64 (2.96%) Military
13 59 (2.73%) Financial Institution
14 48 (2.22%) Front Office
15 45 (2.08%) Telecoms
16 43 (1.99%) Investment Banking
17 38 (1.76%) Law
17 38 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
18 33 (1.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 315 (14.58%) Analyst
2 230 (10.64%) Senior
3 216 (10.00%) Developer
4 173 (8.01%) Lead
5 158 (7.31%) Architect
6 151 (6.99%) Business Analyst
7 142 (6.57%) Project Manager
8 82 (3.79%) Software Engineer
9 81 (3.75%) Consultant
10 62 (2.87%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
12 52 (2.41%) IT Support
13 48 (2.22%) Support Analyst
14 44 (2.04%) Security Engineer
15 42 (1.94%) Senior Software Engineer
16 37 (1.71%) Senior Analyst
16 37 (1.71%) Senior Developer
17 35 (1.62%) Data Scientist
17 35 (1.62%) IT Manager
17 35 (1.62%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (5.14%) REST
2 78 (3.61%) RESTful
3 71 (3.29%) .NET
4 62 (2.87%) HTML
5 49 (2.27%) XML
6 46 (2.13%) Middleware
7 44 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
8 43 (1.99%) CSS
9 41 (1.90%) OAuth
10 40 (1.85%) JSON
10 40 (1.85%) React
11 37 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.67%) SOAP
13 33 (1.53%) Kafka
14 28 (1.30%) AngularJS
15 26 (1.20%) Node.js
16 25 (1.16%) Pandas
17 24 (1.11%) Spring
17 24 (1.11%) TensorFlow
18 23 (1.06%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.75%) Management Information System
2 116 (5.37%) Product Ownership
3 99 (4.58%) Cloud Native
4 78 (3.61%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
6 60 (2.78%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
9 52 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 51 (2.36%) Analytical Mindset
11 48 (2.22%) PMI
11 48 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
12 42 (1.94%) Derivative
13 41 (1.90%) Security Posture
14 37 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
14 37 (1.71%) Public Cloud
15 33 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
15 33 (1.53%) Life Science
16 29 (1.34%) Equities
16 29 (1.34%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 266 (12.31%) Windows
2 187 (8.65%) Linux
3 85 (3.93%) Unix
4 65 (3.01%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.55%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Android
7 21 (0.97%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.83%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (0.79%) Ubuntu
10 15 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 14 (0.65%) VMS
12 12 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
15 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.14%) CentOS
17 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 808 (37.39%) Computer Science
2 726 (33.60%) Agile
3 636 (29.43%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (17.58%) Stakeholder Management
5 340 (15.73%) DevOps
6 325 (15.04%) Project Management
7 280 (12.96%) Change Management
8 260 (12.03%) AI
9 244 (11.29%) CI/CD
10 235 (10.87%) Continuous Improvement
11 228 (10.55%) ITIL
12 226 (10.46%) Cybersecurity
13 225 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 222 (10.27%) Analytics
15 216 (10.00%) Risk Management
16 214 (9.90%) Migration
17 209 (9.67%) Decision-Making
17 209 (9.67%) Software Engineering
18 193 (8.93%) Project Delivery
19 176 (8.14%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 400 (18.51%) Python
2 343 (15.87%) SQL
3 155 (7.17%) Java
4 124 (5.74%) PowerShell
5 113 (5.23%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.89%) C#
7 82 (3.79%) C++
8 52 (2.41%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.08%) Go
10 43 (1.99%) Bash
11 25 (1.16%) R
12 24 (1.11%) Perl
12 24 (1.11%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.97%) T-SQL
14 20 (0.93%) C
15 18 (0.83%) Kotlin
16 16 (0.74%) MATLAB
17 15 (0.69%) Rust
18 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
18 12 (0.56%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 557 (25.78%) Computer Science Degree
2 380 (17.58%) Security Cleared
3 333 (15.41%) Master's Degree
4 296 (13.70%) SC Cleared
5 145 (6.71%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.88%) PMP
7 110 (5.09%) CISSP
8 87 (4.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.38%) CISM
10 65 (3.01%) Azure Certification
11 64 (2.96%) PhD
12 59 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
13 56 (2.59%) Cisco Certification
14 51 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
15 48 (2.22%) DV Cleared
16 44 (2.04%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.76%) CCNP
18 37 (1.71%) CBAP
19 33 (1.53%) MBA
20 32 (1.48%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.66%) QA
2 115 (5.32%) GDPR
3 91 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.98%) PMO
5 63 (2.92%) Data Quality
5 63 (2.92%) NIST
6 42 (1.94%) PCI DSS
7 35 (1.62%) SLA
8 33 (1.53%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.30%) GRC
11 15 (0.69%) WCAG
12 14 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 14 (0.65%) HIPAA
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) NCSC
14 12 (0.56%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.56%) IFRS
15 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 170 (7.87%) Docker
2 140 (6.48%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.74%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) DFS Replication
6 8 (0.37%) Dovecot
6 8 (0.37%) Postfix
6 8 (0.37%) Squid
7 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.093%) KVM
Systems Management
1 155 (7.17%) Kubernetes
2 114 (5.28%) Terraform
3 74 (3.42%) Ansible
4 64 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.59%) Grafana
6 50 (2.31%) SCCM
7 47 (2.17%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 24 (1.11%) Puppet
10 16 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.69%) Kibana
12 13 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.60%) SCOM
13 12 (0.56%) Nmap
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) Nessus
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Proxmox
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 7 (0.32%) QRadar
Vendors
1 461 (21.33%) Microsoft
2 163 (7.54%) Oracle
3 119 (5.51%) SAP
4 112 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 99 (4.58%) Google
6 93 (4.30%) Splunk
7 64 (2.96%) Cisco
8 52 (2.41%) Remedy
9 51 (2.36%) Atlassian
10 50 (2.31%) Salesforce
11 46 (2.13%) VMware
12 37 (1.71%) Databricks
13 36 (1.67%) Citrix
14 27 (1.25%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.16%) IBM
16 22 (1.02%) MuleSoft
17 20 (0.93%) Adobe
17 20 (0.93%) Informatica
18 18 (0.83%) CheckPoint
18 18 (0.83%) Red Hat