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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -12 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,203 1,899 3,065
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.41% 8.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.93% 23.89% 27.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,208 1,135 1,648
10th Percentile £204 £246 £235
25th Percentile £363 £377 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% +0.60% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £719 £764 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.10% - -5.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 141 362
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.39 £25.40
Median hourly rate £47.00 £46.30 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.51% +11.57% -15.29%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.90
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £46.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year -3.78% +15.63% -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 13,827 7,949 11,327
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.55% 31.01% 30.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,320 5,000 6,991
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £715 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,038 529 1,003
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £24.21 £20.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.75 £28.60 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +84.44% -32.71% -22.73%
75th Percentile £73.68 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.40
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +78.57% -31.61% -26.47%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -19 937 £515 -6.36% 1,560
South East -2 422 £500 +4.71% 660
North of England -12 332 £449 -1.37% 438
Midlands -22 198 £500 +34.77% 321
North West -9 186 £447 -2.67% 239
West Midlands -26 146 £487 +17.94% 174
East of England -3 145 £450 -10.00% 251
Yorkshire -8 133 £500 +11.86% 135
South West -23 121 £435 -8.42% 275
East Midlands -10 50 £550 +54.49% 147
North East -36 13 £450 +130.77% 70
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
1 121 (5.49%) SharePoint
2 112 (5.08%) Confluence
3 60 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.45%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.77%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.41%) SAS
10 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.091%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 255 (11.58%) Microsoft Office
2 204 (9.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 123 (5.58%) Microsoft Project
4 60 (2.72%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
5 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
6 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 7 (0.32%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.23%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.091%) Windchill
14 1 (0.045%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 51 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.64%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Magento
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.14%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 500 (22.70%) Azure
2 290 (13.16%) AWS
3 191 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 186 (8.44%) Power Platform
5 134 (6.08%) Entra ID
6 110 (4.99%) GCP
7 87 (3.95%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.36%) SaaS
9 54 (2.45%) GitHub
10 37 (1.68%) Serverless
10 37 (1.68%) Snowflake
11 35 (1.59%) Figma
12 33 (1.50%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.50%) PowerApps
13 31 (1.41%) OneDrive
14 29 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
15 28 (1.27%) PaaS
16 26 (1.18%) Google Workspace
17 24 (1.09%) IaaS
18 23 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.49%) Firewall
2 69 (3.13%) DNS
2 69 (3.13%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.81%) Network Security
4 50 (2.27%) VPN
4 50 (2.27%) WAN
5 48 (2.18%) LAN
6 34 (1.54%) DHCP
7 28 (1.27%) Wireless
8 24 (1.09%) BGP
9 21 (0.95%) OSPF
10 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.64%) 3GPP
11 14 (0.64%) Internet
12 13 (0.59%) Skype
12 13 (0.59%) SSL
13 12 (0.54%) MPLS
13 12 (0.54%) SSH
14 11 (0.50%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (7.13%) Power BI
2 106 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.68%) Tableau
7 35 (1.59%) NoSQL
8 33 (1.50%) Metadata
9 29 (1.32%) Big Data
10 27 (1.23%) MongoDB
11 26 (1.18%) MySQL
12 20 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.86%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
15 15 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
15 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.54%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 189 (8.58%) JIRA
2 104 (4.72%) Git
3 42 (1.91%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.82%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.86%) MLflow
7 18 (0.82%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.68%) Selenium
9 12 (0.54%) JUnit
10 11 (0.50%) Postman
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.41%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.36%) Maven
13 8 (0.36%) Subversion
14 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 992 (45.03%) Social Skills
2 663 (30.10%) Finance
3 461 (20.93%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 182 (8.26%) Banking
6 131 (5.95%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.77%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (4.40%) Marketing
9 86 (3.90%) Aerospace
10 84 (3.81%) Legal
11 80 (3.63%) Manufacturing
12 77 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
13 76 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
14 62 (2.81%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.63%) Retail
16 52 (2.36%) Law
17 45 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 38 (1.72%) Front Office
19 32 (1.45%) Automotive
19 32 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 313 (14.21%) Analyst
2 243 (11.03%) Senior
3 176 (7.99%) Architect
4 163 (7.40%) Lead
5 152 (6.90%) Developer
6 143 (6.49%) Project Manager
7 140 (6.35%) Business Analyst
8 65 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
9 64 (2.91%) Senior Manager
10 62 (2.81%) Consultant
11 57 (2.59%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.41%) Designer
13 51 (2.32%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.27%) Senior Analyst
15 49 (2.22%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.18%) IT Support
17 46 (2.09%) Delivery Manager
17 46 (2.09%) IT Manager
18 44 (2.00%) Support Engineer
19 43 (1.95%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.09%) REST
2 89 (4.04%) .NET
3 58 (2.63%) React
4 45 (2.04%) Kafka
5 40 (1.82%) Middleware
6 36 (1.63%) .NET Framework
6 36 (1.63%) HTML
6 36 (1.63%) OAuth
6 36 (1.63%) Oracle Fusion
6 36 (1.63%) RESTful
7 29 (1.32%) Spring
7 29 (1.32%) Spring Boot
7 29 (1.32%) Web Services
8 27 (1.23%) SAML
9 26 (1.18%) XML
10 25 (1.13%) CSS
11 24 (1.09%) AngularJS
11 24 (1.09%) JSON
11 24 (1.09%) LDAP
12 23 (1.04%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 174 (7.90%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.13%) Onboarding
3 128 (5.81%) Product Ownership
4 88 (3.99%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.86%) Cloud Native
6 67 (3.04%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.32%) Data Structures
7 51 (2.32%) Virtual Team
8 48 (2.18%) Security Posture
9 46 (2.09%) Algorithms
10 42 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.91%) Operational Technology
11 37 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
12 35 (1.59%) PMI
12 35 (1.59%) Robotics
13 34 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
14 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
15 30 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
15 30 (1.36%) Life Science
16 27 (1.23%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 298 (13.53%) Windows
2 166 (7.54%) Linux
3 70 (3.18%) Unix
4 69 (3.13%) Windows Server
5 53 (2.41%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.09%) Android
10 10 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 7 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 727 (33.00%) Computer Science
2 638 (28.96%) Agile
3 571 (25.92%) Problem-Solving
4 367 (16.66%) Stakeholder Management
5 361 (16.39%) AI
6 350 (15.89%) Continuous Improvement
7 303 (13.75%) DevOps
8 272 (12.35%) Project Management
9 261 (11.85%) Analytics
10 255 (11.58%) CI/CD
11 236 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 233 (10.58%) Decision-Making
13 228 (10.35%) ITIL
14 221 (10.03%) Cybersecurity
15 202 (9.17%) Roadmaps
16 195 (8.85%) Change Management
17 181 (8.22%) Migration
18 180 (8.17%) Risk Management
19 179 (8.13%) Project Delivery
20 178 (8.08%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 366 (16.61%) Python
2 334 (15.16%) SQL
3 147 (6.67%) Java
4 127 (5.76%) PowerShell
5 95 (4.31%) C#
6 83 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.82%) Bash
8 37 (1.68%) C++
9 30 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.13%) R
11 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.04%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.73%) C
15 12 (0.54%) Go
16 11 (0.50%) Bicep
16 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.50%) Perl
16 11 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 444 (20.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 390 (17.70%) Security Cleared
3 262 (11.89%) SC Cleared
4 214 (9.71%) Master's Degree
5 128 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.40%) CISSP
7 112 (5.08%) PMP
8 92 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.77%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (2.59%) Azure Certification
11 57 (2.59%) DV Cleared
12 56 (2.54%) CISM
13 44 (2.00%) PhD
14 41 (1.86%) CCNP
15 40 (1.82%) CCNA
16 36 (1.63%) AWS Certification
17 33 (1.50%) CISA
18 31 (1.41%) MBA
19 27 (1.23%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.36%) QA
2 113 (5.13%) NIST
3 111 (5.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 101 (4.58%) Data Quality
5 95 (4.31%) PMO
6 85 (3.86%) GDPR
7 47 (2.13%) SLA
8 39 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 34 (1.54%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.27%) GRC
11 27 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (1.00%) NCSC
13 16 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.64%) IFRS
15 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.41%) COBIT
18 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 179 (8.13%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.40%) Docker
3 41 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.95%) Firmware
6 14 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 131 (5.95%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.90%) Terraform
3 70 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.77%) Ansible
5 32 (1.45%) Grafana
6 31 (1.41%) SCCM
7 30 (1.36%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.59%) Puppet
12 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.41%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 5 (0.23%) Kibana
15 5 (0.23%) SCOM
15 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 529 (24.01%) Microsoft
2 153 (6.95%) Oracle
3 123 (5.58%) SAP
4 122 (5.54%) ServiceNow
5 93 (4.22%) Google
6 66 (3.00%) Cisco
7 50 (2.27%) Databricks
8 49 (2.22%) VMware
9 43 (1.95%) Salesforce
10 42 (1.91%) Adobe
11 39 (1.77%) Citrix
11 39 (1.77%) IBM
12 37 (1.68%) Splunk
13 32 (1.45%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.32%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
16 22 (1.00%) CheckPoint
17 21 (0.95%) Siemens
18 19 (0.86%) HP
19 18 (0.82%) Ariba