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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,177 1,910 3,127
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.48% 7.76% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.71% 24.71% 26.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,284 1,133 1,665
10th Percentile £250 £250 £210
25th Percentile £388 £400 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -5.09%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 144 354
10th Percentile £20.28 £17.90 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.28 £28.18 £23.81
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% +35.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.87% +33.75% -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 13,026 7,730 11,673
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.78% 31.43% 31.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,740 4,914 7,197
10th Percentile £343 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £746
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -1.43% -1.59% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 983 437 971
10th Percentile £17.06 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £23.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £47.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +18.75% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.29 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.35 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £46.13 £41.38 £40.00
% change year-on-year +11.49% +3.44% -25.93%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -14 936 £503 -8.64% 695
South East -8 363 £500 - 576
North of England -8 330 £408 -10.44% 664
Midlands -21 208 £500 +56.25% 328
North West -4 180 £400 -12.28% 447
West Midlands -24 147 £500 +66.67% 195
South West -8 142 £650 +24.40% 190
East of England -7 140 £481 -3.75% 196
Yorkshire -17 133 £474 +10.05% 163
East Midlands -18 59 £525 +47.47% 132
North East -20 17 £364 -21.30% 59
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
1 143 (6.57%) Confluence
2 111 (5.10%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.52%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 290 (13.32%) Microsoft Office
2 218 (10.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.27%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.62%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 7 (0.32%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.32%) Revit
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.28%) Sketch
10 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.092%) InVision
12 2 (0.092%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 48 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.78%) Primavera
4 16 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 448 (20.58%) Azure
2 247 (11.35%) AWS
3 189 (8.68%) Microsoft 365
4 178 (8.18%) Power Platform
5 108 (4.96%) Entra ID
6 103 (4.73%) SaaS
7 94 (4.32%) GCP
8 76 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.53%) GitHub
10 38 (1.75%) Power Automate
11 36 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
13 30 (1.38%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.33%) PaaS
15 28 (1.29%) IaaS
15 28 (1.29%) Serverless
16 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
16 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
17 23 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
18 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.41%) Firewall
2 53 (2.43%) LAN
3 52 (2.39%) WAN
4 45 (2.07%) TCP/IP
5 43 (1.98%) DNS
5 43 (1.98%) Network Security
6 34 (1.56%) VPN
7 24 (1.10%) Wireless
8 22 (1.01%) BGP
9 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.87%) HTTP
10 19 (0.87%) OSPF
11 18 (0.83%) DHCP
11 18 (0.83%) Skype
12 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.60%) SAN
14 12 (0.55%) Internet
14 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.46%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (6.75%) Power BI
2 87 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.30%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.70%) Tableau
7 33 (1.52%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Metadata
8 28 (1.29%) MySQL
9 27 (1.24%) Big Data
10 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) Power Query
15 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.51%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 241 (11.07%) JIRA
2 96 (4.41%) Git
3 44 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
8 13 (0.60%) Postman
9 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
General
1 1,032 (47.40%) Social Skills
2 659 (30.27%) Finance
3 480 (22.05%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (9.78%) Banking
5 179 (8.22%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.05%) Organisational Skills
6 110 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
7 83 (3.81%) Marketing
8 82 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
9 74 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
10 70 (3.22%) Aerospace
11 67 (3.08%) Legal
12 62 (2.85%) Manufacturing
13 53 (2.43%) Military
14 51 (2.34%) Telecoms
15 45 (2.07%) Law
16 44 (2.02%) Retail
17 43 (1.98%) Front Office
18 36 (1.65%) Investment Banking
19 35 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 293 (13.46%) Analyst
2 214 (9.83%) Senior
3 181 (8.31%) Lead
4 178 (8.18%) Architect
5 162 (7.44%) Developer
6 155 (7.12%) Project Manager
7 139 (6.38%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.40%) Consultant
9 62 (2.85%) Delivery Manager
10 58 (2.66%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
12 51 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.25%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.16%) Data Scientist
15 44 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 41 (1.88%) Security Engineer
17 40 (1.84%) IT Analyst
18 39 (1.79%) Data Engineer
19 37 (1.70%) Designer
19 37 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.09%) REST
2 67 (3.08%) .NET
3 50 (2.30%) Middleware
4 47 (2.16%) React
5 44 (2.02%) HTML
5 44 (2.02%) RESTful
6 41 (1.88%) Kafka
7 36 (1.65%) XML
8 34 (1.56%) JSON
8 34 (1.56%) OAuth
8 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.52%) SOAP
10 31 (1.42%) Spring
11 30 (1.38%) Pandas
12 29 (1.33%) CSS
13 28 (1.29%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
15 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 23 (1.06%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.95%) Management Information System
2 148 (6.80%) Product Ownership
3 118 (5.42%) Onboarding
4 77 (3.54%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.26%) Virtual Team
6 62 (2.85%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.66%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.34%) Algorithms
8 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.34%) PMI
9 50 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.52%) Derivative
12 33 (1.52%) Robotics
12 33 (1.52%) Security Posture
13 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
14 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
15 25 (1.15%) Life Science
16 24 (1.10%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 247 (11.35%) Windows
2 155 (7.12%) Linux
3 67 (3.08%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.80%) Unix
5 57 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.92%) Android
6 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
7 19 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.51%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.23%) AIX
11 5 (0.23%) VMS
11 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.18%) Debian
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.14%) CentOS
13 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 778 (35.74%) Computer Science
2 676 (31.05%) Agile
3 563 (25.86%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 321 (14.75%) AI
6 316 (14.52%) Continuous Improvement
7 313 (14.38%) Project Management
8 307 (14.10%) DevOps
9 240 (11.02%) Analytics
10 238 (10.93%) CI/CD
11 232 (10.66%) ITIL
12 229 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 227 (10.43%) Change Management
14 217 (9.97%) Decision-Making
15 211 (9.69%) Cybersecurity
16 206 (9.46%) Migration
17 204 (9.37%) PRINCE2
18 195 (8.96%) Project Delivery
19 194 (8.91%) Risk Management
20 189 (8.68%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 350 (16.08%) Python
2 323 (14.84%) SQL
3 146 (6.71%) Java
4 116 (5.33%) PowerShell
5 81 (3.72%) C#
6 77 (3.54%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.62%) C++
8 38 (1.75%) Bash
9 36 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.29%) R
11 25 (1.15%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
14 14 (0.64%) Go
14 14 (0.64%) Perl
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 498 (22.88%) Computer Science Degree
2 417 (19.15%) Security Cleared
3 303 (13.92%) SC Cleared
4 256 (11.76%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.16%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.37%) PMP
7 91 (4.18%) CISSP
8 90 (4.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 57 (2.62%) Cisco Certification
10 55 (2.53%) TOGAF Certification
11 52 (2.39%) PhD
12 51 (2.34%) CISM
13 48 (2.20%) Azure Certification
13 48 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
14 47 (2.16%) DV Cleared
15 36 (1.65%) CCNP
16 34 (1.56%) MBA
16 34 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 30 (1.38%) CBAP
17 30 (1.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.89%) QA
2 104 (4.78%) PMO
3 100 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 98 (4.50%) GDPR
5 95 (4.36%) NIST
6 79 (3.63%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.30%) SLA
8 40 (1.84%) PCI DSS
9 39 (1.79%) Accessibility
10 23 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.96%) GRC
12 18 (0.83%) NCSC
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.51%) IFRS 17
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 151 (6.94%) Active Directory
2 125 (5.74%) Docker
3 37 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.06%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) GPFS
13 1 (0.046%) IAG
13 1 (0.046%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 132 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.58%) Terraform
3 59 (2.71%) Ansible
3 59 (2.71%) Microsoft Intune
4 37 (1.70%) Grafana
5 36 (1.65%) SCCM
6 30 (1.38%) OPNET
7 27 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.78%) Puppet
8 17 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 11 (0.51%) Kibana
10 11 (0.51%) Nmap
11 10 (0.46%) WSUS
12 9 (0.41%) Kiali
12 9 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.37%) SCOM
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
15 6 (0.28%) Nessus
Vendors
1 501 (23.01%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.48%) Oracle
3 124 (5.70%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.47%) SAP
5 79 (3.63%) Google
6 64 (2.94%) Cisco
7 51 (2.34%) Remedy
7 51 (2.34%) Splunk
8 47 (2.16%) Databricks
9 44 (2.02%) Citrix
10 43 (1.98%) Atlassian
10 43 (1.98%) VMware
11 35 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 34 (1.56%) IBM
13 32 (1.47%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.19%) Adobe
16 23 (1.06%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.96%) Aruba
18 20 (0.92%) Siemens