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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -4 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,251 2,046 2,606
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.40% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.59% 23.56% 25.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,197 1,208 1,519
10th Percentile £205 £250 £275
25th Percentile £364 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.03%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 168 241
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.17 £20.25
25th Percentile £26.98 £27.25 £30.41
Median hourly rate £47.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +10.59% -25.89% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.56 £68.56 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.78 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -1.86% -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 14,441 8,686 10,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.42% 30.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,744 5,449 6,489
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 1,119 667 761
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.37 £67.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.17
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +105.77% -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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -21 962 £525 -4.55% 2,753
South East +3 475 £500 +5.26% 882
North of England -15 329 £470 +4.50% 614
North West -11 191 £459 -3.37% 321
Midlands -32 177 £450 +0.67% 421
East of England -7 142 £413 -8.33% 420
West Midlands -36 133 £450 - 235
Yorkshire -11 124 £500 +20.12% 182
South West -20 122 £415 +10.67% 348
East Midlands -25 42 £475 +32.68% 185
North East -47 14 £450 +130.77% 120
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 (6.22%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.84%) Confluence
3 63 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.29%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) 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 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 240 (10.66%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (9.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.46%) Microsoft Project
4 109 (4.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 50 (2.22%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 10 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
13 4 (0.18%) Windchill
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (2.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.71%) 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 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%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 517 (22.97%) Azure
2 284 (12.62%) AWS
3 206 (9.15%) Microsoft 365
3 206 (9.15%) Power Platform
4 143 (6.35%) Entra ID
5 124 (5.51%) GCP
6 98 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
7 77 (3.42%) SaaS
8 55 (2.44%) GitHub
9 47 (2.09%) PowerApps
10 46 (2.04%) Power Automate
11 43 (1.91%) OneDrive
12 40 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
12 40 (1.78%) Serverless
12 40 (1.78%) Snowflake
13 37 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
14 35 (1.55%) Figma
15 24 (1.07%) IaaS
16 23 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (0.98%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.58%) Firewall
2 76 (3.38%) TCP/IP
3 71 (3.15%) DNS
4 66 (2.93%) Network Security
5 58 (2.58%) VPN
6 40 (1.78%) DHCP
7 39 (1.73%) WAN
8 36 (1.60%) LAN
9 27 (1.20%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
12 17 (0.76%) Internet
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 15 (0.67%) 3GPP
14 15 (0.67%) OSPF
14 15 (0.67%) SSH
14 15 (0.67%) SSL
15 13 (0.58%) 5G
16 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (7.33%) Power BI
2 96 (4.26%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
6 40 (1.78%) Metadata
7 33 (1.47%) Tableau
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.16%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 22 (0.98%) MySQL
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Power Query
15 13 (0.58%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 11 (0.49%) GIS
18 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 174 (7.73%) JIRA
2 112 (4.98%) Git
3 49 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.00%) GitLab
5 36 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.76%) Selenium
6 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
7 13 (0.58%) MLflow
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
8 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.36%) Maven
11 8 (0.36%) Postman
11 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Gradle
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 999 (44.38%) Social Skills
2 648 (28.79%) Finance
3 518 (23.01%) Analytical Skills
4 177 (7.86%) Public Sector
5 169 (7.51%) Banking
6 144 (6.40%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.84%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.18%) Legal
9 93 (4.13%) Marketing
10 92 (4.09%) Presentation Skills
11 90 (4.00%) Manufacturing
12 79 (3.51%) Influencing Skills
13 78 (3.47%) Telecoms
14 64 (2.84%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.75%) Retail
16 58 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 51 (2.27%) Law
18 42 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
19 40 (1.78%) Front Office
20 36 (1.60%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 310 (13.77%) Analyst
2 245 (10.88%) Senior
3 177 (7.86%) Lead
4 161 (7.15%) Developer
5 154 (6.84%) Architect
6 145 (6.44%) Business Analyst
7 122 (5.42%) Project Manager
8 70 (3.11%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.67%) Consultant
10 59 (2.62%) IT Support
11 57 (2.53%) Support Engineer
12 54 (2.40%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
13 53 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
14 51 (2.27%) Designer
14 51 (2.27%) IT Manager
15 48 (2.13%) Delivery Manager
16 46 (2.04%) Systems Engineer
17 44 (1.95%) Software Engineer
18 42 (1.87%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.00%) .NET
1 90 (4.00%) REST
2 49 (2.18%) React
3 47 (2.09%) Kafka
4 39 (1.73%) HTML
5 38 (1.69%) OAuth
6 37 (1.64%) RESTful
7 34 (1.51%) Middleware
8 31 (1.38%) .NET Framework
8 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
8 31 (1.38%) Web Services
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
10 29 (1.29%) CSS
11 27 (1.20%) LDAP
12 26 (1.16%) OAuth2
12 26 (1.16%) OpenID
13 25 (1.11%) AngularJS
13 25 (1.11%) JSON
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
13 25 (1.11%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.17%) Management Information System
2 136 (6.04%) Product Ownership
3 134 (5.95%) Onboarding
4 92 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.78%) Cloud Native
6 67 (2.98%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.53%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.44%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.27%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
11 42 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
12 41 (1.82%) Virtual Team
13 40 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
16 33 (1.47%) AI Agents
16 33 (1.47%) Life Science
17 32 (1.42%) PMI
17 32 (1.42%) Robotics
18 31 (1.38%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 279 (12.39%) Windows
2 167 (7.42%) Linux
3 67 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.58%) Unix
5 46 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 21 (0.93%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.27%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Solaris
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (34.03%) Computer Science
2 625 (27.77%) Agile
3 602 (26.74%) Problem-Solving
4 411 (18.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 399 (17.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 355 (15.77%) AI
7 301 (13.37%) DevOps
8 287 (12.75%) Project Management
9 277 (12.31%) Analytics
10 262 (11.64%) ITIL
11 259 (11.51%) CI/CD
12 241 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 233 (10.35%) Decision-Making
14 227 (10.08%) Cybersecurity
15 201 (8.93%) Roadmaps
16 199 (8.84%) Change Management
16 199 (8.84%) Software Engineering
17 196 (8.71%) PRINCE2
18 193 (8.57%) Scrum
19 185 (8.22%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 382 (16.97%) Python
2 317 (14.08%) SQL
3 156 (6.93%) PowerShell
4 142 (6.31%) Java
5 97 (4.31%) C#
6 88 (3.91%) JavaScript
7 51 (2.27%) Bash
8 41 (1.82%) C++
9 32 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.11%) R
11 23 (1.02%) Bicep
12 22 (0.98%) C
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 20 (0.89%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
16 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 439 (19.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 417 (18.53%) Security Cleared
3 270 (11.99%) SC Cleared
4 188 (8.35%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.24%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (5.15%) PMP
8 113 (5.02%) CISSP
9 80 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.24%) DV Cleared
11 67 (2.98%) Azure Certification
12 57 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
13 52 (2.31%) CISM
14 48 (2.13%) PhD
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
16 38 (1.69%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
18 36 (1.60%) CCNP
19 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
19 32 (1.42%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.11%) QA
2 114 (5.06%) Data Quality
3 108 (4.80%) NIST
4 97 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.91%) PMO
6 65 (2.89%) GDPR
7 42 (1.87%) SLA
8 39 (1.73%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) NCSC
11 20 (0.89%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.49%) IFRS
14 10 (0.44%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
15 9 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 187 (8.31%) Active Directory
2 109 (4.84%) Docker
3 52 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) 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 1 (0.044%) ACF2
Systems Management
1 115 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 91 (4.04%) Terraform
3 71 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.84%) Ansible
5 35 (1.55%) SCCM
6 28 (1.24%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.62%) Puppet
11 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.31%) Control-M
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.27%) Nessus
17 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 582 (25.86%) Microsoft
2 150 (6.66%) Oracle
3 140 (6.22%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.46%) SAP
5 85 (3.78%) Google
6 68 (3.02%) VMware
7 63 (2.80%) Cisco
8 57 (2.53%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.27%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
10 50 (2.22%) Databricks
11 35 (1.55%) Splunk
12 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.29%) Citrix
14 28 (1.24%) Red Hat
15 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 19 (0.84%) Apple
17 19 (0.84%) Ariba
17 19 (0.84%) BeyondTrust