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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,230 1,975 3,245
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.29% 7.68% 8.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.33% 25.37% 27.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,293 1,113 1,806
10th Percentile £300 £243 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £516
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.74% -6.18%
75th Percentile £634 £675 £645
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £508
% change year-on-year -0.99% -0.49% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 120 325
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.69 £14.02
25th Percentile £21.56 £30.78 £23.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £46.84 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.94% +17.10% -11.11%
75th Percentile £71.88 £75.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -11.76% +6.25% -11.11%

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 12,164 7,785 11,679
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.33% 30.28% 31.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,102 4,803 7,209
10th Percentile £325 £290 £290
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 934 389 889
10th Percentile £16.11 £20.09 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.26 £20.51
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.67% +15.29% -10.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.47 £40.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -36.33% -5.88% -11.46%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 27 February 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 -10 976 £517 -6.07% 578
North of England -3 350 £447 -10.60% 374
South East -2 318 £475 -5.00% 538
Midlands -18 214 £520 +30.00% 267
South West +6 183 £650 +21.95% 189
North West 0 182 £400 -15.79% 216
West Midlands -19 156 £500 - 173
Yorkshire -16 151 £525 +5.00% 119
East of England -9 136 £528 +17.22% 202
East Midlands -10 58 £525 +47.47% 94
North East -13 18 £364 -27.20% 44
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
1 195 (8.74%) Confluence
2 110 (4.93%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.70%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.58%) Apache
7 11 (0.49%) Skype for Business
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.27%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 292 (13.09%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (9.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (8.12%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.54%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.49%) Simulink
9 10 (0.45%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 3 (0.13%) Mozilla Thunderbird
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.090%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.090%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
15 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.045%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 36 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 25 (1.12%) Primavera
3 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
5 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.31%) SAP EWM
6 7 (0.31%) SAP WM
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
8 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 456 (20.45%) Azure
2 267 (11.97%) AWS
3 191 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 162 (7.26%) Power Platform
5 144 (6.46%) GCP
6 110 (4.93%) SaaS
7 98 (4.39%) Entra ID
8 76 (3.41%) GitHub
9 72 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (2.56%) Serverless
11 42 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.61%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.57%) OCI
14 31 (1.39%) Cloud Computing
14 31 (1.39%) PaaS
15 30 (1.35%) IaaS
16 28 (1.26%) Google Workspace
16 28 (1.26%) PowerApps
17 27 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
18 25 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.53%) Firewall
2 59 (2.65%) LAN
3 55 (2.47%) DNS
3 55 (2.47%) WAN
4 45 (2.02%) TCP/IP
5 40 (1.79%) VPN
6 38 (1.70%) Network Security
7 29 (1.30%) Wireless
8 27 (1.21%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Skype
10 24 (1.08%) HTTP
11 23 (1.03%) BGP
11 23 (1.03%) Ethernet
11 23 (1.03%) Internet
11 23 (1.03%) Unified Communications
12 22 (0.99%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.90%) OSPF
14 18 (0.81%) SSH
14 18 (0.81%) VLAN
15 15 (0.67%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (5.61%) Power BI
2 83 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.41%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.65%) NoSQL
5 46 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.88%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.84%) Tableau
8 38 (1.70%) MySQL
9 30 (1.35%) Big Data
10 21 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
10 21 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 20 (0.90%) Metadata
12 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.63%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.49%) BigQuery
16 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
16 10 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 265 (11.88%) JIRA
2 102 (4.57%) Git
3 73 (3.27%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.56%) GitLab
5 23 (1.03%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.94%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.81%) Postman
8 14 (0.63%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.49%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.49%) MLflow
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
14 7 (0.31%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.31%) JUnit
15 5 (0.22%) TeamCity
General
1 1,144 (51.30%) Social Skills
2 705 (31.61%) Finance
3 527 (23.63%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (10.72%) Banking
5 174 (7.80%) Public Sector
6 116 (5.20%) Presentation Skills
7 96 (4.30%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (3.77%) Manufacturing
8 84 (3.77%) Marketing
9 75 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
10 71 (3.18%) Influencing Skills
11 63 (2.83%) Legal
12 56 (2.51%) Military
13 55 (2.47%) Financial Institution
14 45 (2.02%) Front Office
15 43 (1.93%) Aerospace
16 41 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 41 (1.84%) Retail
17 40 (1.79%) Law
18 39 (1.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 316 (14.17%) Analyst
2 232 (10.40%) Senior
3 187 (8.39%) Developer
4 185 (8.30%) Lead
5 175 (7.85%) Architect
6 158 (7.09%) Project Manager
7 151 (6.77%) Business Analyst
8 83 (3.72%) Software Engineer
9 82 (3.68%) Consultant
10 66 (2.96%) Technical Support
11 61 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
12 46 (2.06%) Security Engineer
13 45 (2.02%) Senior Analyst
14 43 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
14 43 (1.93%) IT Support
15 42 (1.88%) Data Scientist
16 41 (1.84%) Senior Software Engineer
17 37 (1.66%) Technical Analyst
18 36 (1.61%) Support Analyst
19 35 (1.57%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (5.02%) REST
2 69 (3.09%) RESTful
3 63 (2.83%) .NET
4 53 (2.38%) React
5 51 (2.29%) HTML
6 48 (2.15%) Middleware
7 47 (2.11%) Elastic Stack
8 41 (1.84%) Kafka
9 39 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
10 38 (1.70%) CSS
10 38 (1.70%) XML
11 35 (1.57%) OAuth
12 34 (1.52%) JSON
12 34 (1.52%) SOAP
13 29 (1.30%) PyTorch
13 29 (1.30%) Spring
13 29 (1.30%) TensorFlow
14 28 (1.26%) Spring Boot
15 27 (1.21%) Node.js
15 27 (1.21%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 188 (8.43%) Management Information System
2 121 (5.43%) Product Ownership
3 106 (4.75%) Cloud Native
4 103 (4.62%) Onboarding
5 70 (3.14%) Distributed Systems
6 68 (3.05%) Virtual Team
7 64 (2.87%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.74%) Self-Motivation
9 60 (2.69%) Data Centre
10 53 (2.38%) Analytical Mindset
11 51 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (2.06%) PMI
13 45 (2.02%) Security Posture
14 41 (1.84%) Derivative
15 36 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (1.61%) Public Cloud
16 32 (1.43%) Life Science
17 29 (1.30%) Data Structures
17 29 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (1.26%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 268 (12.02%) Windows
2 183 (8.21%) Linux
3 80 (3.59%) Unix
4 67 (3.00%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.56%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.90%) Android
7 19 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.72%) Ubuntu
9 15 (0.67%) Apple iOS
9 15 (0.67%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.49%) VMS
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 3 (0.13%) CentOS
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (36.28%) Computer Science
2 717 (32.15%) Agile
3 638 (28.61%) Problem-Solving
4 385 (17.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 345 (15.47%) DevOps
6 301 (13.50%) AI
7 298 (13.36%) Project Management
8 269 (12.06%) Change Management
9 258 (11.57%) CI/CD
10 254 (11.39%) Analytics
11 246 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 240 (10.76%) Decision-Making
13 233 (10.45%) Cybersecurity
14 225 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 220 (9.87%) Risk Management
16 219 (9.82%) ITIL
17 217 (9.73%) Migration
18 210 (9.42%) Software Engineering
19 202 (9.06%) Project Delivery
20 180 (8.07%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 404 (18.12%) Python
2 338 (15.16%) SQL
3 157 (7.04%) Java
4 127 (5.70%) PowerShell
5 100 (4.48%) JavaScript
6 75 (3.36%) C#
7 72 (3.23%) C++
8 47 (2.11%) TypeScript
9 46 (2.06%) Go
10 44 (1.97%) Bash
11 26 (1.17%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.12%) R
13 20 (0.90%) Perl
14 17 (0.76%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.72%) C
16 15 (0.67%) Rust
17 14 (0.63%) Kotlin
17 14 (0.63%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 543 (24.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 407 (18.25%) Security Cleared
3 348 (15.61%) Master's Degree
4 322 (14.44%) SC Cleared
5 132 (5.92%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.34%) PMP
7 114 (5.11%) CISSP
8 89 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.32%) CISM
10 70 (3.14%) PhD
11 63 (2.83%) TOGAF Certification
12 62 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
13 58 (2.60%) Azure Certification
14 56 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
15 46 (2.06%) DV Cleared
16 42 (1.88%) CCNP
17 39 (1.75%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.57%) CBAP
19 34 (1.52%) MBA
20 32 (1.43%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.64%) QA
2 115 (5.16%) GDPR
3 98 (4.39%) PMO
4 97 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 74 (3.32%) NIST
6 72 (3.23%) Data Quality
7 47 (2.11%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.52%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.43%) SLA
10 31 (1.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (1.35%) GRC
12 15 (0.67%) NCSC
12 15 (0.67%) WCAG
13 14 (0.63%) Basel III
13 14 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
14 13 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 164 (7.35%) Docker
2 149 (6.68%) Active Directory
3 45 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.76%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.18%) vSphere
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.13%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.13%) HDFS
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 167 (7.49%) Kubernetes
2 113 (5.07%) Terraform
3 77 (3.45%) Ansible
4 70 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 53 (2.38%) Grafana
6 46 (2.06%) SCCM
7 45 (2.02%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.35%) OPNET
9 22 (0.99%) Puppet
10 17 (0.76%) Kibana
11 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
12 15 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.58%) Nmap
14 11 (0.49%) SCOM
15 10 (0.45%) WSUS
16 9 (0.40%) Kiali
17 7 (0.31%) Argo
17 7 (0.31%) Nessus
18 5 (0.22%) Progress Chef
18 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 471 (21.12%) Microsoft
2 158 (7.09%) Oracle
3 122 (5.47%) SAP
4 112 (5.02%) ServiceNow
5 103 (4.62%) Google
6 83 (3.72%) Splunk
7 72 (3.23%) Cisco
8 54 (2.42%) Remedy
9 52 (2.33%) Atlassian
10 47 (2.11%) VMware
11 44 (1.97%) Databricks
11 44 (1.97%) Salesforce
12 40 (1.79%) Citrix
13 35 (1.57%) Palo Alto
14 25 (1.12%) CheckPoint
14 25 (1.12%) IBM
15 23 (1.03%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.99%) Informatica
17 21 (0.94%) Aruba
18 20 (0.90%) Siemens