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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -12 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,147 1,845 3,096
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.50% 8.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.88% 24.03% 27.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,191 1,107 1,672
10th Percentile £210 £235 £235
25th Percentile £375 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £721 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 136 373
10th Percentile £19.03 £17.97 £14.49
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.12 £24.10
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +24.22% -15.26%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.38 £73.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +25.00% -20.00%

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 13,522 7,678 11,468
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.67% 31.22% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,079 4,828 7,097
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 481 1,007
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.01 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.49 £32.00 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +57.77% -20.64% -26.68%
75th Percentile £73.42 £65.62 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.32 £81.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.27 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.18% -24.33% -27.27%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -16 922 £502 -8.82% 855
South East -1 395 £500 +5.26% 632
North of England -13 325 £447 -3.35% 459
Midlands -22 198 £523 +45.95% 255
North West -9 176 £418 -10.98% 259
West Midlands -29 143 £487 +17.94% 142
East of England -4 137 £450 -10.00% 221
Yorkshire -8 134 £500 +11.86% 150
South West -21 118 £460 -3.26% 282
East Midlands -13 53 £545 +55.71% 113
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 62
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
1 118 (5.50%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.89%) Confluence
3 62 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.44%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Apache
7 10 (0.47%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.33%) SAS
10 6 (0.28%) Camunda
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Appian
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.093%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 245 (11.41%) Microsoft Office
2 196 (9.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.73%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (5.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.42%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.047%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.047%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 51 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.65%) Primavera
3 10 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 464 (21.61%) Azure
2 275 (12.81%) AWS
3 185 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.87%) Power Platform
5 123 (5.73%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.56%) GCP
7 78 (3.63%) SaaS
8 75 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
9 53 (2.47%) GitHub
10 33 (1.54%) Figma
11 32 (1.49%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.49%) Serverless
12 31 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.44%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.44%) OneDrive
12 31 (1.44%) PowerApps
13 30 (1.40%) Snowflake
14 28 (1.30%) PaaS
15 24 (1.12%) IaaS
16 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 91 (4.24%) Firewall
2 61 (2.84%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.79%) DNS
4 54 (2.52%) Network Security
5 47 (2.19%) LAN
5 47 (2.19%) WAN
6 38 (1.77%) VPN
7 31 (1.44%) DHCP
8 24 (1.12%) Wireless
9 21 (0.98%) BGP
10 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.84%) OSPF
11 18 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 15 (0.70%) Skype
13 13 (0.61%) 3GPP
13 13 (0.61%) SSH
14 12 (0.56%) SAN
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) VoIP
16 10 (0.47%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.61%) Power BI
2 98 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.19%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.72%) Tableau
7 31 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.35%) Metadata
9 27 (1.26%) Big Data
10 22 (1.02%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.98%) MySQL
12 18 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
12 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
13 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.51%) Power Query
16 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 183 (8.52%) JIRA
2 97 (4.52%) Git
3 39 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.77%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.88%) MLflow
8 14 (0.65%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) JUnit
10 12 (0.56%) Gradle
10 12 (0.56%) Postman
11 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.42%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.37%) Maven
14 7 (0.33%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.33%) Subversion
15 6 (0.28%) Burp Suite
General
1 991 (46.16%) Social Skills
2 669 (31.16%) Finance
3 430 (20.03%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (8.57%) Banking
5 180 (8.38%) Public Sector
6 123 (5.73%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.17%) Presentation Skills
8 95 (4.42%) Marketing
9 84 (3.91%) Aerospace
10 83 (3.87%) Legal
11 77 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
11 77 (3.59%) Manufacturing
12 70 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
13 56 (2.61%) Telecoms
14 53 (2.47%) Retail
15 51 (2.38%) Law
16 41 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 35 (1.63%) Front Office
18 31 (1.44%) Investment Banking
19 30 (1.40%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 320 (14.90%) Analyst
2 246 (11.46%) Senior
3 167 (7.78%) Architect
4 162 (7.55%) Lead
5 148 (6.89%) Business Analyst
5 148 (6.89%) Developer
6 142 (6.61%) Project Manager
7 65 (3.03%) Solutions Architect
8 58 (2.70%) Senior Analyst
9 57 (2.65%) Consultant
9 57 (2.65%) Senior Manager
10 55 (2.56%) Software Engineer
10 55 (2.56%) Technical Support
11 53 (2.47%) Designer
12 52 (2.42%) Delivery Manager
13 48 (2.24%) Product Manager
14 42 (1.96%) IT Manager
15 41 (1.91%) IT Analyst
15 41 (1.91%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.42%) REST
2 77 (3.59%) .NET
3 55 (2.56%) React
4 46 (2.14%) Kafka
4 46 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.10%) Middleware
6 38 (1.77%) HTML
7 34 (1.58%) RESTful
8 33 (1.54%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.49%) OAuth
10 29 (1.35%) XML
11 27 (1.26%) CSS
11 27 (1.26%) Spring Boot
12 26 (1.21%) JSON
12 26 (1.21%) Web Services
13 25 (1.16%) Spring
14 24 (1.12%) SOAP
15 23 (1.07%) AngularJS
16 22 (1.02%) Pandas
16 22 (1.02%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 162 (7.55%) Management Information System
2 132 (6.15%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.87%) Product Ownership
4 86 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 75 (3.49%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.21%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.47%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 45 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (2.05%) Algorithms
11 43 (2.00%) PMI
12 41 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
13 37 (1.72%) Operational Technology
13 37 (1.72%) Robotics
13 37 (1.72%) Security Posture
14 32 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
15 30 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
16 29 (1.35%) Derivative
17 27 (1.26%) Life Science
18 26 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 286 (13.32%) Windows
2 171 (7.96%) Linux
3 74 (3.45%) Unix
4 69 (3.21%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.52%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.26%) Android
8 27 (1.26%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.33%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.19%) Debian
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
14 4 (0.19%) VMS
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 718 (33.44%) Computer Science
2 605 (28.18%) Agile
3 546 (25.43%) Problem-Solving
4 351 (16.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 334 (15.56%) AI
6 331 (15.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 287 (13.37%) DevOps
8 262 (12.20%) Project Management
9 242 (11.27%) CI/CD
10 241 (11.22%) Analytics
11 225 (10.48%) Decision-Making
12 217 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 206 (9.59%) Cybersecurity
14 200 (9.32%) Change Management
15 198 (9.22%) Migration
16 197 (9.18%) Roadmaps
17 193 (8.99%) ITIL
18 179 (8.34%) Risk Management
19 171 (7.96%) Software Engineering
20 170 (7.92%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 347 (16.16%) Python
2 322 (15.00%) SQL
3 147 (6.85%) Java
4 118 (5.50%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.96%) C#
6 84 (3.91%) JavaScript
7 43 (2.00%) C++
8 41 (1.91%) Bash
9 26 (1.21%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
10 23 (1.07%) R
11 18 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.79%) C
13 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
15 12 (0.56%) Go
15 12 (0.56%) Perl
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.47%) Kotlin
18 9 (0.42%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 441 (20.54%) Computer Science Degree
2 384 (17.89%) Security Cleared
3 261 (12.16%) SC Cleared
4 210 (9.78%) Master's Degree
5 131 (6.10%) PMI Certification
6 112 (5.22%) PMP
7 109 (5.08%) CISSP
8 82 (3.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 76 (3.54%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (2.65%) CISM
12 50 (2.33%) DV Cleared
13 47 (2.19%) Azure Certification
14 41 (1.91%) PhD
15 39 (1.82%) CCNP
16 34 (1.58%) CBAP
17 33 (1.54%) CCNA
17 33 (1.54%) MBA
18 30 (1.40%) AWS Certification
19 29 (1.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (5.59%) QA
2 111 (5.17%) NIST
3 110 (5.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.47%) PMO
5 92 (4.29%) GDPR
6 90 (4.19%) Data Quality
7 47 (2.19%) SLA
8 39 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 38 (1.77%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (1.12%) GRC
12 18 (0.84%) NCSC
13 16 (0.75%) IFRS
14 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.47%) COBIT
18 9 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
19 8 (0.37%) PSD2
System Software
1 163 (7.59%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.45%) Docker
3 37 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.26%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 9 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.14%) NFS
10 3 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.92%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.49%) Terraform
3 70 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.84%) Ansible
5 34 (1.58%) Grafana
5 34 (1.58%) SCCM
6 32 (1.49%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 13 (0.61%) Progress Chef
11 10 (0.47%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Kibana
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Kiali
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
16 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 496 (23.10%) Microsoft
2 156 (7.27%) Oracle
3 121 (5.64%) SAP
4 106 (4.94%) ServiceNow
5 84 (3.91%) Google
6 64 (2.98%) Cisco
7 46 (2.14%) Databricks
8 44 (2.05%) Citrix
9 42 (1.96%) Salesforce
9 42 (1.96%) VMware
10 41 (1.91%) Splunk
11 36 (1.68%) Adobe
12 35 (1.63%) IBM
13 31 (1.44%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.21%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.16%) CheckPoint
16 22 (1.02%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.98%) Aruba
18 20 (0.93%) Siemens
19 19 (0.88%) Ariba