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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,205 1,885 3,152
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.76% 7.77% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.14% 24.82% 26.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,296 1,124 1,705
10th Percentile £280 £250 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £800 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 145 335
10th Percentile £16.89 £18.88 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.12 £30.21 £22.63
Median hourly rate £51.77 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £47.81 £38.13
% change year-on-year -4.91% +25.39% -15.28%

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 12,867 7,595 11,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.63% 31.32% 31.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,587 4,867 7,321
10th Percentile £333 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 981 429 917
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £25.15 £17.80
Median hourly rate £37.00 £50.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.00% +33.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £69.99 £68.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.13 £75.76
UK median hourly rate £36.70 £43.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -14.65% +14.67% -28.57%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -13 970 £515 -6.36% 866
South East -7 347 £500 - 660
North of England -7 343 £422 -11.15% 472
Midlands -21 204 £500 +56.25% 318
North West -4 181 £400 -15.25% 244
South West -3 151 £688 +28.99% 220
West Midlands -22 151 £494 +64.50% 181
Yorkshire -9 145 £488 -4.88% 164
East of England -7 137 £500 - 213
East Midlands -18 52 £531 +49.16% 136
North East -16 18 £407 -9.56% 71
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
1 157 (7.12%) Confluence
2 104 (4.72%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.63%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) Appian
13 2 (0.091%) Drupal
13 2 (0.091%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.091%) IIS
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 284 (12.88%) Microsoft Office
2 213 (9.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 186 (8.44%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (5.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.95%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.50%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 7 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.091%) PTC Creo
13 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
13 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.045%) Navisworks
13 1 (0.045%) Revit
Business Applications
1 45 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.86%) Primavera
3 19 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
5 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
8 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
8 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 451 (20.45%) Azure
2 265 (12.02%) AWS
3 183 (8.30%) Microsoft 365
4 164 (7.44%) Power Platform
5 118 (5.35%) GCP
6 102 (4.63%) Entra ID
6 102 (4.63%) SaaS
7 80 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
8 61 (2.77%) GitHub
9 43 (1.95%) Serverless
10 36 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
10 36 (1.63%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.45%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.41%) IaaS
13 30 (1.36%) PaaS
14 28 (1.27%) Cloud Computing
15 27 (1.22%) PowerApps
16 23 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
16 23 (1.04%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.00%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.72%) Firewall
2 55 (2.49%) LAN
3 54 (2.45%) WAN
4 45 (2.04%) DNS
5 44 (2.00%) TCP/IP
6 39 (1.77%) Network Security
6 39 (1.77%) VPN
7 29 (1.32%) Wireless
8 27 (1.22%) BGP
9 21 (0.95%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.95%) OSPF
10 20 (0.91%) DHCP
10 20 (0.91%) HTTP
11 17 (0.77%) Skype
12 16 (0.73%) Internet
13 15 (0.68%) VLAN
14 14 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.59%) SAN
15 13 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
16 12 (0.54%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (6.03%) Power BI
2 79 (3.58%) SQL Server
3 71 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.22%) NoSQL
5 47 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (2.13%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.81%) Tableau
7 32 (1.45%) MySQL
8 28 (1.27%) Big Data
9 22 (1.00%) Metadata
10 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
12 16 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 255 (11.56%) JIRA
2 97 (4.40%) Git
3 62 (2.81%) Jenkins
4 48 (2.18%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.00%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.77%) MLflow
7 17 (0.77%) Selenium
8 15 (0.68%) Postman
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) Liquibase
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.32%) JUnit
14 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,061 (48.12%) Social Skills
2 684 (31.02%) Finance
3 491 (22.27%) Analytical Skills
4 236 (10.70%) Banking
5 169 (7.66%) Public Sector
6 108 (4.90%) Presentation Skills
7 98 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (3.63%) Marketing
9 78 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.27%) Aerospace
11 72 (3.27%) Legal
12 67 (3.04%) Manufacturing
13 52 (2.36%) Military
14 50 (2.27%) Front Office
15 48 (2.18%) Financial Institution
16 47 (2.13%) Telecoms
17 44 (2.00%) Retail
18 43 (1.95%) Law
19 42 (1.90%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 317 (14.38%) Analyst
2 223 (10.11%) Senior
3 184 (8.34%) Lead
4 171 (7.76%) Architect
5 165 (7.48%) Developer
6 163 (7.39%) Project Manager
7 151 (6.85%) Business Analyst
8 78 (3.54%) Consultant
9 64 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.68%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
12 55 (2.49%) Software Engineer
13 54 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
14 46 (2.09%) Data Scientist
14 46 (2.09%) Security Engineer
15 45 (2.04%) Product Manager
16 38 (1.72%) Systems Engineer
17 37 (1.68%) Senior Manager
18 36 (1.63%) Data Engineer
19 35 (1.59%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.63%) REST
2 60 (2.72%) .NET
3 59 (2.68%) RESTful
4 47 (2.13%) Middleware
5 44 (2.00%) React
6 43 (1.95%) HTML
7 41 (1.86%) Kafka
8 37 (1.68%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.68%) XML
9 34 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.54%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.50%) JSON
10 33 (1.50%) SOAP
11 31 (1.41%) Spring
12 29 (1.32%) CSS
12 29 (1.32%) OAuth
12 29 (1.32%) Pandas
12 29 (1.32%) PyTorch
13 27 (1.22%) TensorFlow
14 24 (1.09%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.80%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.76%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.99%) Onboarding
4 89 (4.04%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.31%) Virtual Team
6 68 (3.08%) Distributed Systems
7 66 (2.99%) Data Centre
8 63 (2.86%) Algorithms
9 57 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
10 50 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
10 50 (2.27%) Data Structures
10 50 (2.27%) PMI
11 42 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
12 41 (1.86%) Derivative
13 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
13 32 (1.45%) Security Posture
14 30 (1.36%) Equities
15 29 (1.32%) Operational Technology
15 29 (1.32%) Robotics
16 26 (1.18%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 253 (11.47%) Windows
2 169 (7.66%) Linux
3 66 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.77%) Unix
5 56 (2.54%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.95%) Android
6 21 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.82%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.68%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
12 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 4 (0.18%) CentOS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
17 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (36.69%) Computer Science
2 705 (31.97%) Agile
3 579 (26.26%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (16.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 321 (14.56%) DevOps
6 318 (14.42%) AI
7 313 (14.20%) Project Management
8 305 (13.83%) Continuous Improvement
9 252 (11.43%) CI/CD
10 245 (11.11%) Change Management
11 239 (10.84%) ITIL
12 235 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 234 (10.61%) Analytics
14 233 (10.57%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (10.11%) Decision-Making
16 209 (9.48%) Migration
17 207 (9.39%) Risk Management
18 203 (9.21%) PRINCE2
19 201 (9.12%) Project Delivery
20 193 (8.75%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 375 (17.01%) Python
2 317 (14.38%) SQL
3 148 (6.71%) Java
4 114 (5.17%) PowerShell
5 81 (3.67%) JavaScript
6 73 (3.31%) C#
7 63 (2.86%) C++
8 40 (1.81%) Bash
9 38 (1.72%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.41%) Go
11 28 (1.27%) R
12 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
13 17 (0.77%) Perl
14 16 (0.73%) C
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 15 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 514 (23.31%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (19.32%) Security Cleared
3 306 (13.88%) SC Cleared
4 289 (13.11%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.08%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.40%) PMP
7 110 (4.99%) CISSP
8 88 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 63 (2.86%) PhD
10 62 (2.81%) CISM
11 58 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
12 54 (2.45%) TOGAF Certification
13 52 (2.36%) DV Cleared
14 51 (2.31%) Azure Certification
15 49 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
16 39 (1.77%) CCNP
17 34 (1.54%) MBA
18 32 (1.45%) CBAP
19 31 (1.41%) AWS Certification
20 30 (1.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.62%) QA
2 105 (4.76%) GDPR
3 103 (4.67%) PMO
4 93 (4.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.95%) NIST
6 73 (3.31%) Data Quality
7 45 (2.04%) PCI DSS
7 45 (2.04%) SLA
8 33 (1.50%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.04%) GRC
10 21 (0.95%) NCSC
10 21 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 14 (0.63%) IFRS
12 13 (0.59%) Basel III
13 12 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) ISO 9001
15 10 (0.45%) NIST 800
System Software
1 141 (6.39%) Active Directory
2 133 (6.03%) Docker
3 43 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.73%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.045%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.045%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.045%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 146 (6.62%) Kubernetes
2 97 (4.40%) Terraform
3 70 (3.17%) Ansible
4 63 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
5 49 (2.22%) Grafana
6 40 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 37 (1.68%) SCCM
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 17 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.73%) Puppet
11 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 12 (0.54%) Kibana
12 12 (0.54%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 8 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
16 5 (0.23%) Nessus
16 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 478 (21.68%) Microsoft
2 138 (6.26%) Oracle
3 121 (5.49%) ServiceNow
4 116 (5.26%) SAP
5 96 (4.35%) Google
6 71 (3.22%) Cisco
7 66 (2.99%) Splunk
8 53 (2.40%) Remedy
9 46 (2.09%) VMware
10 45 (2.04%) Atlassian
10 45 (2.04%) Citrix
11 44 (2.00%) Databricks
12 40 (1.81%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.77%) IBM
14 35 (1.59%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.22%) CheckPoint
16 22 (1.00%) Adobe
17 21 (0.95%) Aruba
18 19 (0.86%) CyberArk
18 19 (0.86%) Red Hat