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 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,133 2,455 3,117
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.94% 7.92% 8.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.68% 26.50% 26.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,238 1,382 1,888
10th Percentile £304 £258 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.65% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £782 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 136 201
10th Percentile £15.15 £21.25 £17.50
25th Percentile £24.50 £30.65 £27.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £60.61 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.10 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.99 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -15.03% -20.00% +13.64%

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 10,316 9,264 11,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.59% 29.90% 30.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,707 5,631 7,425
10th Percentile £306 £313 £308
25th Percentile £415 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 889 438 711
10th Percentile £17.67 £20.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.00 £26.25 £26.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -6.54% +18.89%
75th Percentile £53.75 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.16 £75.08 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £53.67
% change year-on-year -40.82% -20.80% +19.26%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 1,030 £537 -0.65% 880
North of England -6 297 £450 -14.29% 417
South East -2 276 £475 -5.00% 1,062
Midlands -12 208 £483 -3.31% 346
North West -7 169 £424 -20.27% 229
West Midlands -10 160 £500 - 211
South West +4 157 £600 - 294
East of England -9 130 £505 +18.82% 324
Yorkshire -10 119 £488 -4.36% 128
East Midlands -11 48 £449 +12.25% 131
North East -14 10 £298 -40.31% 66
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
1 169 (7.92%) Confluence
2 111 (5.20%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 41 (1.92%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) nginx
7 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.61%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 8 (0.38%) SAS
12 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.23%) Luigi
14 4 (0.19%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.19%) Moodle
14 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 268 (12.56%) Microsoft Office
2 200 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 162 (7.59%) Microsoft Project
4 98 (4.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (3.19%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.89%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 10 (0.47%) Simulink
9 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.19%) Maya
12 3 (0.14%) InDesign
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.14%) Sketch
13 2 (0.094%) Camtasia
13 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 37 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.94%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.23%) Maximo
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 414 (19.41%) Azure
2 286 (13.41%) AWS
3 171 (8.02%) Microsoft 365
4 151 (7.08%) GCP
5 142 (6.66%) Power Platform
6 93 (4.36%) SaaS
7 91 (4.27%) GitHub
8 79 (3.70%) Entra ID
9 68 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
10 66 (3.09%) Serverless
11 39 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.69%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.59%) Amazon S3
14 31 (1.45%) Amazon ECS
15 29 (1.36%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.31%) Azure Sentinel
16 28 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (1.17%) Microsoft Purview
18 24 (1.13%) Azure Logic Apps
18 24 (1.13%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 87 (4.08%) Firewall
2 76 (3.56%) DNS
3 42 (1.97%) VPN
4 40 (1.88%) DHCP
4 40 (1.88%) Network Security
5 35 (1.64%) LAN
6 32 (1.50%) TCP/IP
7 31 (1.45%) HTTP
8 30 (1.41%) WAN
9 27 (1.27%) Internet
9 27 (1.27%) Wireless
10 25 (1.17%) SSH
11 23 (1.08%) Unified Communications
12 19 (0.89%) BGP
12 19 (0.89%) Skype
13 17 (0.80%) VoIP
14 16 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.66%) SMTP
15 14 (0.66%) VLAN
16 12 (0.56%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.25%) Power BI
2 95 (4.45%) PostgreSQL
3 65 (3.05%) SQL Server
4 61 (2.86%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.44%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
6 49 (2.30%) Tableau
7 31 (1.45%) MySQL
8 28 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
8 28 (1.31%) Big Data
9 18 (0.84%) Data Lake
9 18 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
10 16 (0.75%) Metadata
11 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
13 12 (0.56%) GIS
13 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
14 10 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 258 (12.10%) JIRA
2 111 (5.20%) Git
3 94 (4.41%) Jenkins
4 70 (3.28%) GitLab
5 26 (1.22%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.08%) Postman
7 18 (0.84%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Bitbucket
8 12 (0.56%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.52%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) JUnit
11 8 (0.38%) MLflow
11 8 (0.38%) SpecFlow
12 6 (0.28%) Appium
12 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
12 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
12 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
13 5 (0.23%) PyCharm
General
1 1,111 (52.09%) Social Skills
2 701 (32.86%) Finance
3 535 (25.08%) Analytical Skills
4 245 (11.49%) Banking
5 125 (5.86%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.59%) Presentation Skills
7 97 (4.55%) Manufacturing
8 83 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
9 82 (3.84%) Marketing
10 79 (3.70%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.38%) Legal
12 63 (2.95%) Military
13 59 (2.77%) Financial Institution
13 59 (2.77%) Telecoms
14 57 (2.67%) Front Office
15 54 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
16 51 (2.39%) Aerospace
17 50 (2.34%) Investment Banking
18 47 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
19 35 (1.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 311 (14.58%) Analyst
2 220 (10.31%) Developer
3 215 (10.08%) Senior
4 165 (7.74%) Lead
5 156 (7.31%) Architect
6 144 (6.75%) Business Analyst
7 137 (6.42%) Project Manager
8 90 (4.22%) Consultant
9 75 (3.52%) Software Engineer
10 51 (2.39%) Security Engineer
10 51 (2.39%) Support Analyst
11 48 (2.25%) Technical Support
12 46 (2.16%) IT Support
12 46 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
13 44 (2.06%) Data Scientist
13 44 (2.06%) Support Engineer
14 43 (2.02%) Senior Developer
15 40 (1.88%) IT Manager
16 34 (1.59%) Senior Software Engineer
17 33 (1.55%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (5.34%) REST
2 79 (3.70%) RESTful
3 71 (3.33%) .NET
4 65 (3.05%) HTML
5 49 (2.30%) XML
6 48 (2.25%) CSS
7 41 (1.92%) JSON
7 41 (1.92%) Kafka
8 39 (1.83%) Elastic Stack
8 39 (1.83%) Middleware
8 39 (1.83%) SOAP
9 36 (1.69%) OAuth
9 36 (1.69%) Web Services
10 35 (1.64%) React
11 30 (1.41%) AngularJS
11 30 (1.41%) Node.js
11 30 (1.41%) Spring
12 28 (1.31%) TensorFlow
13 27 (1.27%) Pandas
14 23 (1.08%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.67%) Management Information System
2 108 (5.06%) Product Ownership
3 93 (4.36%) Cloud Native
4 73 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 72 (3.38%) Algorithms
6 59 (2.77%) Virtual Team
7 57 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.53%) Distributed Systems
9 52 (2.44%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.34%) Derivative
11 48 (2.25%) Data Centre
12 45 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
13 42 (1.97%) Public Cloud
14 37 (1.73%) Security Posture
15 35 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.59%) Life Science
17 31 (1.45%) PKI
18 30 (1.41%) Data Structures
18 30 (1.41%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 227 (10.64%) Windows
2 168 (7.88%) Linux
3 69 (3.23%) Unix
4 51 (2.39%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.64%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 21 (0.98%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.89%) Android
9 18 (0.84%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.84%) VMS
10 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
13 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.19%) CentOS
16 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.094%) Mac OS X
16 2 (0.094%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 853 (39.99%) Computer Science
2 712 (33.38%) Agile
3 668 (31.32%) Problem-Solving
4 343 (16.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 333 (15.61%) Project Management
6 315 (14.77%) DevOps
7 270 (12.66%) Change Management
8 256 (12.00%) ITIL
9 231 (10.83%) CI/CD
10 218 (10.22%) Analytics
11 217 (10.17%) AI
11 217 (10.17%) Cybersecurity
12 213 (9.99%) Continuous Improvement
13 210 (9.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 203 (9.52%) Software Engineering
15 198 (9.28%) Decision-Making
15 198 (9.28%) Migration
16 186 (8.72%) Project Delivery
17 169 (7.92%) Risk Management
18 155 (7.27%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 423 (19.83%) Python
2 313 (14.67%) SQL
3 174 (8.16%) Java
4 114 (5.34%) PowerShell
5 112 (5.25%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.56%) C++
7 73 (3.42%) C#
8 52 (2.44%) Go
9 47 (2.20%) TypeScript
10 41 (1.92%) Bash
11 31 (1.45%) R
12 21 (0.98%) Perl
13 19 (0.89%) Ruby
14 18 (0.84%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.80%) C
15 17 (0.80%) MATLAB
16 16 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.61%) Kotlin
17 13 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 573 (26.86%) Computer Science Degree
2 331 (15.52%) Security Cleared
3 317 (14.86%) Master's Degree
4 265 (12.42%) SC Cleared
5 128 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.63%) PMP
7 105 (4.92%) CISSP
8 87 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.33%) PhD
10 68 (3.19%) CISM
11 60 (2.81%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (2.67%) Azure Certification
13 56 (2.63%) AWS Certification
14 44 (2.06%) TOGAF Certification
15 42 (1.97%) HND
16 39 (1.83%) DV Cleared
17 38 (1.78%) CCNP
18 36 (1.69%) CCNA
18 36 (1.69%) HNC
19 33 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (5.72%) QA
2 107 (5.02%) GDPR
3 87 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.80%) NIST
5 77 (3.61%) Data Quality
6 60 (2.81%) PMO
7 36 (1.69%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.55%) SLA
9 29 (1.36%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.17%) GRC
10 25 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.89%) HIPAA
11 19 (0.89%) NCSC
12 16 (0.75%) COBIT
13 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.70%) NIST 800
14 14 (0.66%) WCAG
15 13 (0.61%) P3O
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 150 (7.03%) Docker
2 136 (6.38%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.08%) Firmware
5 12 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.33%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.094%) XenApp
11 1 (0.047%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.047%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 130 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.30%) Terraform
3 79 (3.70%) Ansible
4 54 (2.53%) Grafana
5 47 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.11%) Prometheus
6 45 (2.11%) SCCM
7 23 (1.08%) OPNET
8 17 (0.80%) Puppet
9 13 (0.61%) SCOM
10 12 (0.56%) Nessus
11 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.47%) QRadar
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 7 (0.33%) Argo
14 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
14 7 (0.33%) Kibana
15 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
15 6 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 453 (21.24%) Microsoft
2 126 (5.91%) ServiceNow
3 122 (5.72%) Oracle
4 121 (5.67%) SAP
5 89 (4.17%) Google
6 85 (3.98%) Splunk
7 68 (3.19%) Cisco
8 64 (3.00%) Salesforce
9 52 (2.44%) VMware
10 49 (2.30%) Atlassian
11 41 (1.92%) Remedy
12 38 (1.78%) IBM
13 33 (1.55%) Databricks
14 28 (1.31%) Adobe
15 26 (1.22%) Citrix
16 24 (1.13%) Workday
17 22 (1.03%) Palo Alto
18 19 (0.89%) Red Hat
19 16 (0.75%) Apple
20 14 (0.66%) HP