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

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,161 2,199 2,969
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.82% 7.90% 8.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.95% 25.86% 26.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,270 1,243 1,784
10th Percentile £311 £250 £231
25th Percentile £404 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £644 £656 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.53% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 139 216
10th Percentile £14.33 £21.10 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £30.46 £26.18
Median hourly rate £38.50 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.41% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £63.29 £72.50 £68.97
90th Percentile £90.00 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £40.50 £48.20
% change year-on-year -13.58% -15.97% +19.00%

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 10,831 8,504 11,210
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.18% 30.54% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,125 5,211 7,071
10th Percentile £313 £301 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £730 £738
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 889 415 693
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £16.26
25th Percentile £19.00 £24.50 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.90
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -11.02% +15.33%
75th Percentile £58.00 £68.00 £67.56
90th Percentile £76.58 £79.42 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%

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 2 January 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 2 January 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 2 January 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 -4 1,008 £525 -4.55% 866
North of England -4 316 £449 -8.47% 435
South East -3 281 £475 -5.00% 714
Midlands -11 219 £491 +15.36% 244
North West -2 171 £402 -19.60% 237
South West +8 165 £650 +21.95% 230
West Midlands -16 160 £500 - 125
Yorkshire -6 135 £475 - 138
East of England -11 122 £500 +14.29% 239
East Midlands -5 59 £449 +26.12% 119
North East -10 11 £364 -27.20% 65
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
1 185 (8.56%) Confluence
2 111 (5.14%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.74%) nginx
6 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.60%) Apache
8 12 (0.56%) IIS
9 8 (0.37%) CMS
10 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.32%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.19%) Luigi
12 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 269 (12.45%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (10.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 177 (8.19%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (3.47%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.51%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.51%) Simulink
7 11 (0.51%) Trello
8 10 (0.46%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 8 (0.37%) Sketch
10 7 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.19%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.093%) Revit
15 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 36 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.88%) Primavera
4 18 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) Oracle General Ledger
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
7 11 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
7 11 (0.51%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
9 8 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.32%) Workday HCM
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 6 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
12 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
13 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 419 (19.39%) Azure
2 272 (12.59%) AWS
3 181 (8.38%) Microsoft 365
4 149 (6.89%) Power Platform
5 141 (6.52%) GCP
6 91 (4.21%) SaaS
7 89 (4.12%) GitHub
8 77 (3.56%) Entra ID
9 68 (3.15%) Azure DevOps
10 63 (2.92%) Serverless
11 43 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.76%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
14 31 (1.43%) Amazon S3
14 31 (1.43%) OCI
15 30 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
16 29 (1.34%) PowerApps
17 26 (1.20%) IaaS
18 24 (1.11%) Azure Logic Apps
18 24 (1.11%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.77%) Firewall
2 63 (2.92%) DNS
3 45 (2.08%) VPN
4 43 (1.99%) LAN
5 39 (1.80%) Network Security
6 35 (1.62%) WAN
7 32 (1.48%) HTTP
8 30 (1.39%) DHCP
8 30 (1.39%) TCP/IP
9 26 (1.20%) SSH
9 26 (1.20%) Wireless
10 25 (1.16%) Internet
11 24 (1.11%) Skype
12 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
13 19 (0.88%) BGP
14 16 (0.74%) OSPF
15 15 (0.69%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) SMTP
16 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.60%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (5.46%) Power BI
2 84 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
3 77 (3.56%) SQL Server
4 53 (2.45%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.41%) Relational Database
6 48 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
7 43 (1.99%) Tableau
8 34 (1.57%) MySQL
9 27 (1.25%) Big Data
10 25 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 19 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
12 16 (0.74%) Metadata
12 16 (0.74%) Oracle Database
13 15 (0.69%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
15 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
15 12 (0.56%) GIS
15 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.51%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 278 (12.86%) JIRA
2 109 (5.04%) Git
3 89 (4.12%) Jenkins
4 65 (3.01%) GitLab
5 24 (1.11%) Liquibase
6 20 (0.93%) Postman
7 19 (0.88%) Visual Studio
8 18 (0.83%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Cypress.io
9 12 (0.56%) JUnit
10 11 (0.51%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.46%) Burp Suite
11 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.42%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.37%) Artifactory
13 8 (0.37%) Metasploit
14 7 (0.32%) Gradle
14 7 (0.32%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.28%) Appium
General
1 1,124 (52.01%) Social Skills
2 698 (32.30%) Finance
3 522 (24.16%) Analytical Skills
4 259 (11.99%) Banking
5 151 (6.99%) Public Sector
6 97 (4.49%) Presentation Skills
7 92 (4.26%) Manufacturing
8 85 (3.93%) Organisational Skills
9 76 (3.52%) Marketing
10 72 (3.33%) Legal
11 70 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (3.15%) Military
13 59 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
14 58 (2.68%) Financial Institution
15 49 (2.27%) Investment Banking
16 48 (2.22%) Front Office
17 45 (2.08%) Telecoms
18 44 (2.04%) Aerospace
19 42 (1.94%) Pharmaceutical
20 38 (1.76%) Law
Job Titles
1 317 (14.67%) Analyst
2 220 (10.18%) Senior
3 210 (9.72%) Developer
4 163 (7.54%) Architect
4 163 (7.54%) Lead
5 152 (7.03%) Business Analyst
6 149 (6.89%) Project Manager
7 83 (3.84%) Consultant
8 78 (3.61%) Software Engineer
9 53 (2.45%) Technical Support
10 49 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
11 48 (2.22%) Support Analyst
12 46 (2.13%) IT Support
13 44 (2.04%) Security Engineer
14 42 (1.94%) Data Scientist
15 40 (1.85%) Senior Developer
15 40 (1.85%) Senior Software Engineer
16 37 (1.71%) Support Engineer
17 34 (1.57%) IT Manager
18 33 (1.53%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (5.60%) REST
2 78 (3.61%) RESTful
3 71 (3.29%) .NET
4 62 (2.87%) HTML
5 57 (2.64%) XML
6 49 (2.27%) Middleware
7 46 (2.13%) CSS
8 45 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
8 45 (2.08%) JSON
9 41 (1.90%) React
10 39 (1.80%) Kafka
11 38 (1.76%) OAuth
11 38 (1.76%) SOAP
12 31 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
13 30 (1.39%) AngularJS
14 27 (1.25%) Node.js
14 27 (1.25%) Pandas
14 27 (1.25%) Spring
14 27 (1.25%) TensorFlow
15 23 (1.06%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.75%) Management Information System
2 113 (5.23%) Product Ownership
3 99 (4.58%) Cloud Native
4 70 (3.24%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.96%) Algorithms
6 62 (2.87%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
8 53 (2.45%) Data Centre
9 50 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
9 50 (2.31%) Virtual Team
10 47 (2.17%) Self-Motivation
11 44 (2.04%) Derivative
12 42 (1.94%) PMI
13 40 (1.85%) Security Posture
14 39 (1.80%) Public Cloud
15 37 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
16 35 (1.62%) Life Science
17 32 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
18 30 (1.39%) Equities
19 29 (1.34%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 250 (11.57%) Windows
2 186 (8.61%) Linux
3 77 (3.56%) Unix
4 60 (2.78%) Windows Server
5 45 (2.08%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Android
7 20 (0.93%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.88%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.83%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.79%) VMS
10 17 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
12 11 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.093%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 817 (37.81%) Computer Science
2 719 (33.27%) Agile
3 650 (30.08%) Problem-Solving
4 348 (16.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 331 (15.32%) DevOps
6 329 (15.22%) Project Management
7 271 (12.54%) Change Management
8 245 (11.34%) CI/CD
9 234 (10.83%) ITIL
10 228 (10.55%) Continuous Improvement
11 226 (10.46%) AI
12 222 (10.27%) Cybersecurity
13 218 (10.09%) Decision-Making
13 218 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 215 (9.95%) Analytics
15 211 (9.76%) Software Engineering
16 210 (9.72%) Migration
17 197 (9.12%) Risk Management
18 188 (8.70%) Project Delivery
19 172 (7.96%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 402 (18.60%) Python
2 322 (14.90%) SQL
3 157 (7.27%) Java
4 127 (5.88%) PowerShell
5 111 (5.14%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.84%) C#
7 80 (3.70%) C++
8 52 (2.41%) TypeScript
9 45 (2.08%) Go
10 44 (2.04%) Bash
11 29 (1.34%) R
12 23 (1.06%) Perl
13 21 (0.97%) PL/SQL
14 20 (0.93%) C
14 20 (0.93%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.83%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
16 15 (0.69%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.60%) Apex Code
17 13 (0.60%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 561 (25.96%) Computer Science Degree
2 373 (17.26%) Security Cleared
3 322 (14.90%) Master's Degree
4 293 (13.56%) SC Cleared
5 144 (6.66%) PMI Certification
6 131 (6.06%) PMP
7 111 (5.14%) CISSP
8 90 (4.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.38%) CISM
10 66 (3.05%) Azure Certification
11 63 (2.92%) PhD
12 58 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
14 51 (2.36%) AWS Certification
15 46 (2.13%) DV Cleared
16 44 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
17 40 (1.85%) HND
18 38 (1.76%) CCNP
19 35 (1.62%) MCSE
20 34 (1.57%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (6.48%) QA
2 114 (5.28%) GDPR
3 88 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (3.47%) PMO
5 74 (3.42%) Data Quality
6 68 (3.15%) NIST
7 35 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.62%) PCI DSS
8 32 (1.48%) SLA
9 29 (1.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.02%) GRC
11 15 (0.69%) NCSC
11 15 (0.69%) WCAG
12 14 (0.65%) Def Stans
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 12 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.56%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.51%) P3O
16 9 (0.42%) COBIT
System Software
1 163 (7.54%) Docker
2 127 (5.88%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.93%) Firmware
5 14 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.46%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.46%) Postfix
6 10 (0.46%) Squid
7 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.046%) NDS
13 1 (0.046%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 149 (6.89%) Kubernetes
2 124 (5.74%) Terraform
3 79 (3.66%) Ansible
4 59 (2.73%) Grafana
5 50 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
6 49 (2.27%) Prometheus
7 45 (2.08%) SCCM
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 22 (1.02%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) SCOM
11 13 (0.60%) Kibana
12 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 12 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
13 11 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.46%) Nmap
14 10 (0.46%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.42%) QRadar
15 9 (0.42%) WSUS
16 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 7 (0.32%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 451 (20.87%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.99%) Oracle
3 122 (5.65%) SAP
4 118 (5.46%) ServiceNow
5 97 (4.49%) Splunk
6 94 (4.35%) Google
7 63 (2.92%) Cisco
8 61 (2.82%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.36%) Remedy
10 50 (2.31%) Atlassian
11 45 (2.08%) VMware
12 38 (1.76%) Databricks
13 35 (1.62%) Citrix
14 34 (1.57%) IBM
15 29 (1.34%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.97%) Adobe
16 21 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.88%) CheckPoint
17 19 (0.88%) MuleSoft
17 19 (0.88%) Workday