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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -12 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,289 2,060 2,595
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.00% 7.41% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.76% 23.66% 25.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,222 1,217 1,520
10th Percentile £205 £259 £275
25th Percentile £368 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £516
Median % change year-on-year - -3.10% -3.37%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £757 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 163 234
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.24 £20.33
25th Percentile £27.13 £26.74 £30.38
Median hourly rate £49.25 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +15.88% -25.89% +14.70%
75th Percentile £83.19 £69.46 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.65 £76.75
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year - -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 14,522 8,707 10,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.30% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,784 5,476 6,481
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 659 755
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.10 £15.13
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.88 £79.00
UK median hourly rate £50.24 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +99.77% -41.51% -21.82%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -21 969 £525 -4.55% 2,459
South East +4 487 £500 +5.26% 815
North of England -11 338 £465 +3.33% 539
North West -13 195 £452 -4.95% 283
Midlands -33 181 £463 +3.47% 373
East of England -7 144 £425 -5.56% 415
West Midlands -32 138 £466 +3.44% 210
Yorkshire -7 127 £500 +20.12% 157
South West -22 125 £415 -7.78% 300
East Midlands -22 41 £475 +32.68% 163
North East -46 16 £450 +130.77% 104
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
1 135 (5.90%) SharePoint
2 110 (4.81%) Confluence
3 61 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.79%) Apache
7 12 (0.52%) CMS
7 12 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.087%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.087%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 247 (10.79%) Microsoft Office
2 228 (9.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 130 (5.68%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.32%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.35%) Revit
9 8 (0.35%) Simulink
10 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.17%) CPLEX
11 4 (0.17%) Trello
12 3 (0.13%) Windchill
13 2 (0.087%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.087%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 54 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.61%) Primavera
4 9 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.26%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.17%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 522 (22.80%) Azure
2 290 (12.67%) AWS
3 206 (9.00%) Power Platform
4 203 (8.87%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (6.38%) Entra ID
6 123 (5.37%) GCP
7 99 (4.33%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.19%) SaaS
9 63 (2.75%) GitHub
10 46 (2.01%) PowerApps
11 45 (1.97%) Power Automate
12 40 (1.75%) OneDrive
12 40 (1.75%) Snowflake
13 39 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
14 38 (1.66%) Serverless
15 36 (1.57%) Figma
15 36 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
16 25 (1.09%) IaaS
17 23 (1.00%) PaaS
18 22 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.63%) Firewall
2 76 (3.32%) TCP/IP
3 71 (3.10%) DNS
4 67 (2.93%) Network Security
5 59 (2.58%) VPN
6 40 (1.75%) DHCP
6 40 (1.75%) WAN
7 37 (1.62%) LAN
8 28 (1.22%) Wireless
9 20 (0.87%) BGP
10 19 (0.83%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 17 (0.74%) Internet
11 17 (0.74%) SSH
12 16 (0.70%) OSPF
12 16 (0.70%) VLAN
13 15 (0.66%) SSL
14 14 (0.61%) 3GPP
15 13 (0.57%) 5G
15 13 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.16%) Power BI
2 102 (4.46%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.14%) Relational Database
4 48 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.70%) Metadata
7 35 (1.53%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.40%) Tableau
9 26 (1.14%) Big Data
10 24 (1.05%) MongoDB
10 24 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 23 (1.00%) MySQL
12 22 (0.96%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
14 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.61%) Power Query
16 13 (0.57%) Data Mining
17 12 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 10 (0.44%) GIS
19 9 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 178 (7.78%) JIRA
2 113 (4.94%) Git
3 52 (2.27%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.01%) GitLab
5 35 (1.53%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.74%) Selenium
6 17 (0.74%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.61%) MLflow
8 13 (0.57%) JUnit
9 11 (0.48%) Gradle
9 11 (0.48%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.39%) Maven
12 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 6 (0.26%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,011 (44.17%) Social Skills
2 666 (29.10%) Finance
3 520 (22.72%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.08%) Public Sector
5 172 (7.51%) Banking
6 148 (6.47%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.59%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.11%) Presentation Skills
9 93 (4.06%) Legal
10 92 (4.02%) Marketing
11 89 (3.89%) Manufacturing
12 81 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.32%) Telecoms
14 70 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.80%) Retail
16 60 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 52 (2.27%) Law
18 44 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
19 38 (1.66%) Front Office
20 36 (1.57%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 312 (13.63%) Analyst
2 254 (11.10%) Senior
3 179 (7.82%) Lead
4 163 (7.12%) Developer
5 158 (6.90%) Architect
6 143 (6.25%) Business Analyst
7 134 (5.85%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.15%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.66%) Consultant
10 57 (2.49%) IT Support
11 56 (2.45%) Support Engineer
12 54 (2.36%) Product Manager
13 52 (2.27%) Designer
13 52 (2.27%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.27%) IT Manager
14 51 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
15 47 (2.05%) Software Engineer
16 46 (2.01%) Delivery Manager
17 45 (1.97%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (4.11%) REST
2 90 (3.93%) .NET
3 54 (2.36%) React
4 41 (1.79%) Kafka
5 39 (1.70%) HTML
6 38 (1.66%) OAuth
7 37 (1.62%) RESTful
8 33 (1.44%) .NET Framework
8 33 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
9 32 (1.40%) Middleware
10 30 (1.31%) CSS
10 30 (1.31%) SAML
10 30 (1.31%) Web Services
11 28 (1.22%) LDAP
12 27 (1.18%) AngularJS
13 26 (1.14%) JSON
13 26 (1.14%) OAuth2
14 25 (1.09%) OpenID
14 25 (1.09%) SailPoint
15 24 (1.05%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.17%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.25%) Onboarding
3 139 (6.07%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.11%) Self-Motivation
5 86 (3.76%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.84%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.62%) Data Centre
8 56 (2.45%) Algorithms
9 53 (2.32%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.05%) Virtual Team
11 45 (1.97%) Operational Technology
12 41 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
13 38 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.49%) Life Science
16 33 (1.44%) Robotics
17 32 (1.40%) AI Agents
17 32 (1.40%) PMI
18 31 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.35%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 289 (12.63%) Windows
2 174 (7.60%) Linux
3 73 (3.19%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.62%) Unix
5 47 (2.05%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.09%) Android
10 13 (0.57%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.26%) AIX
12 6 (0.26%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 772 (33.73%) Computer Science
2 632 (27.61%) Agile
3 604 (26.39%) Problem-Solving
4 416 (18.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 399 (17.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 368 (16.08%) AI
7 303 (13.24%) DevOps
8 290 (12.67%) Project Management
9 281 (12.28%) Analytics
10 265 (11.58%) CI/CD
11 261 (11.40%) ITIL
12 242 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (10.48%) Cybersecurity
14 238 (10.40%) Decision-Making
15 205 (8.96%) PRINCE2
16 204 (8.91%) Change Management
17 201 (8.78%) Roadmaps
18 200 (8.74%) Software Engineering
19 192 (8.39%) Scrum
20 188 (8.21%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 392 (17.13%) Python
2 322 (14.07%) SQL
3 156 (6.82%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.33%) Java
5 98 (4.28%) C#
6 88 (3.84%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.32%) Bash
8 40 (1.75%) C++
9 32 (1.40%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.14%) R
11 25 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.00%) Bicep
13 22 (0.96%) C
13 22 (0.96%) T-SQL
14 20 (0.87%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.52%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) Scala
17 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 448 (19.57%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (18.35%) Security Cleared
3 273 (11.93%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.34%) Master's Degree
5 138 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.29%) PMP
7 118 (5.16%) CISSP
8 114 (4.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.63%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.19%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.88%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.36%) CISM
14 51 (2.23%) PhD
15 40 (1.75%) CCNA
16 39 (1.70%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 38 (1.66%) CCNP
18 37 (1.62%) AWS Certification
19 35 (1.53%) CISA
20 30 (1.31%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.16%) QA
2 115 (5.02%) NIST
3 113 (4.94%) Data Quality
4 106 (4.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (4.19%) PMO
6 68 (2.97%) GDPR
7 46 (2.01%) SLA
8 41 (1.79%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.00%) GRC
10 23 (1.00%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.96%) NCSC
12 13 (0.57%) IFRS
13 12 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.52%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) COBIT
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 189 (8.26%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.81%) Docker
3 50 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.00%) Firmware
5 22 (0.96%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.17%) NFS
10 4 (0.17%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.087%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 117 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.98%) Terraform
3 71 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.80%) Ansible
5 36 (1.57%) SCCM
6 27 (1.18%) Grafana
7 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.57%) Puppet
11 11 (0.48%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.39%) WSUS
13 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.35%) Nessus
14 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.31%) SCOM
15 6 (0.26%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.22%) CASB
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 585 (25.56%) Microsoft
2 149 (6.51%) Oracle
3 138 (6.03%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.37%) SAP
5 83 (3.63%) Google
6 66 (2.88%) VMware
7 63 (2.75%) Cisco
8 54 (2.36%) Salesforce
9 52 (2.27%) Databricks
10 47 (2.05%) Adobe
11 46 (2.01%) IBM
12 34 (1.49%) CyberArk
13 32 (1.40%) Splunk
14 30 (1.31%) Citrix
15 29 (1.27%) Palo Alto
16 28 (1.22%) Red Hat
17 23 (1.00%) BeyondTrust
18 22 (0.96%) Siemens
19 20 (0.87%) Ariba
20 19 (0.83%) Apple