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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -13 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,201 1,950 3,055
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.01% 7.40% 8.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.86% 23.96% 26.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,195 1,165 1,667
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £630
90th Percentile £716 £765 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 245 142 352
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.02 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.31 £25.50
Median hourly rate £48.50 £45.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.42% +8.80% -15.29%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.84 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.50 £46.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.62% +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 13,880 8,140 11,387
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.56% 30.90% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,352 5,137 7,063
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £428 £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 £719 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £522 £525
% change year-on-year +0.62% -0.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,042 537 992
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £24.30 £20.00 £20.68
Median hourly rate £53.45 £28.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.54% -32.94% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £63.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.44 £27.94 £40.94
% change year-on-year +84.11% -31.75% -26.70%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -19 942 £515 -6.36% 1,463
South East -3 423 £500 +3.90% 653
North of England -11 326 £450 -0.06% 451
Midlands -24 197 £503 +31.80% 304
North West -8 182 £447 -1.97% 249
West Midlands -30 148 £492 +17.49% 166
East of England -5 145 £450 -10.00% 237
Yorkshire -11 130 £500 +14.68% 138
South West -24 121 £425 -10.53% 256
East Midlands -13 47 £550 +54.49% 138
North East -40 14 £450 +130.77% 69
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
1 125 (5.68%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.91%) Confluence
3 57 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.45%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.77%) Apache
7 12 (0.55%) 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%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.091%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 253 (11.49%) Microsoft Office
2 204 (9.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 122 (5.54%) Microsoft Project
4 119 (5.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.82%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.091%) Windchill
15 1 (0.045%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 52 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.59%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.27%) Magento
6 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
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%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.14%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 500 (22.72%) Azure
2 288 (13.08%) AWS
3 192 (8.72%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (8.54%) Power Platform
5 132 (6.00%) Entra ID
6 111 (5.04%) GCP
7 85 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.32%) SaaS
9 56 (2.54%) GitHub
10 38 (1.73%) Serverless
11 37 (1.68%) Snowflake
12 36 (1.64%) Figma
13 33 (1.50%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.45%) Power Automate
15 31 (1.41%) OneDrive
16 29 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
17 28 (1.27%) PaaS
18 25 (1.14%) Google Workspace
19 24 (1.09%) IaaS
20 23 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.32%) Firewall
2 69 (3.13%) TCP/IP
3 68 (3.09%) DNS
4 62 (2.82%) Network Security
5 49 (2.23%) VPN
5 49 (2.23%) WAN
6 47 (2.14%) LAN
7 33 (1.50%) DHCP
8 25 (1.14%) Wireless
9 23 (1.04%) BGP
10 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.91%) OSPF
10 20 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.64%) Internet
12 13 (0.59%) 3GPP
12 13 (0.59%) SSL
13 12 (0.55%) MPLS
13 12 (0.55%) Skype
13 12 (0.55%) SSH
14 11 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (7.22%) Power BI
2 105 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.64%) Tableau
7 35 (1.59%) Metadata
7 35 (1.59%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.32%) Big Data
9 27 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 26 (1.18%) MySQL
11 21 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (0.91%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.59%) Power Query
16 12 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 185 (8.41%) JIRA
2 106 (4.82%) Git
3 44 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.82%) GitLab
5 32 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.91%) MLflow
7 17 (0.77%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.68%) Selenium
9 12 (0.55%) 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
12 9 (0.41%) Subversion
13 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.36%) Maven
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 5 (0.23%) Flyway
General
1 984 (44.71%) Social Skills
2 663 (30.12%) Finance
3 466 (21.17%) Analytical Skills
4 183 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 176 (8.00%) Banking
6 133 (6.04%) Organisational Skills
7 101 (4.59%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.45%) Marketing
9 86 (3.91%) Aerospace
9 86 (3.91%) Legal
10 81 (3.68%) Manufacturing
11 75 (3.41%) Influencing Skills
12 74 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
13 61 (2.77%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.64%) Retail
15 51 (2.32%) Law
16 46 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.77%) Front Office
18 32 (1.45%) Automotive
18 32 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 314 (14.27%) Analyst
2 242 (11.00%) Senior
3 176 (8.00%) Architect
4 164 (7.45%) Lead
5 151 (6.86%) Developer
6 140 (6.36%) Project Manager
7 139 (6.32%) Business Analyst
8 67 (3.04%) Senior Manager
9 64 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (2.77%) Consultant
11 58 (2.64%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.45%) Designer
13 51 (2.32%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.27%) IT Manager
15 49 (2.23%) IT Support
15 49 (2.23%) Product Manager
16 45 (2.04%) IT Analyst
16 45 (2.04%) Senior Analyst
16 45 (2.04%) Support Engineer
17 43 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.00%) .NET
2 87 (3.95%) REST
3 56 (2.54%) React
4 43 (1.95%) Kafka
5 38 (1.73%) Middleware
6 37 (1.68%) RESTful
7 35 (1.59%) .NET Framework
7 35 (1.59%) OAuth
8 34 (1.54%) HTML
9 32 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
10 29 (1.32%) Spring
10 29 (1.32%) Web Services
11 28 (1.27%) Spring Boot
12 27 (1.23%) SAML
13 26 (1.18%) XML
14 24 (1.09%) AngularJS
14 24 (1.09%) CSS
14 24 (1.09%) JSON
14 24 (1.09%) LDAP
14 24 (1.09%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.86%) Management Information System
2 137 (6.22%) Onboarding
3 125 (5.68%) Product Ownership
4 87 (3.95%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.86%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.91%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.27%) Data Structures
7 50 (2.27%) Virtual Team
8 46 (2.09%) Algorithms
8 46 (2.09%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.95%) Operational Technology
10 40 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
11 37 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
12 34 (1.54%) Robotics
13 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
14 31 (1.41%) Life Science
14 31 (1.41%) PMI
15 30 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
16 27 (1.23%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 295 (13.40%) Windows
2 166 (7.54%) Linux
3 72 (3.27%) Unix
4 68 (3.09%) Windows Server
5 53 (2.41%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.32%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.09%) Android
10 10 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 7 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.27%) Solaris
14 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.18%) Debian
15 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 726 (32.99%) Computer Science
2 631 (28.67%) Agile
3 570 (25.90%) Problem-Solving
4 374 (16.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (16.58%) AI
6 345 (15.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 295 (13.40%) DevOps
8 267 (12.13%) Project Management
9 266 (12.09%) Analytics
10 257 (11.68%) CI/CD
11 239 (10.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 236 (10.72%) ITIL
13 234 (10.63%) Decision-Making
14 220 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
15 200 (9.09%) Roadmaps
16 196 (8.91%) Change Management
17 179 (8.13%) Risk Management
18 177 (8.04%) Software Engineering
19 176 (8.00%) Migration
19 176 (8.00%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 371 (16.86%) Python
2 337 (15.31%) SQL
3 149 (6.77%) Java
4 125 (5.68%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.18%) C#
6 82 (3.73%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.82%) Bash
8 38 (1.73%) C++
9 30 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.18%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.18%) R
11 23 (1.04%) T-SQL
12 19 (0.86%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.77%) C
14 12 (0.55%) Bicep
14 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 12 (0.55%) Go
15 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.50%) Perl
16 10 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 442 (20.08%) Computer Science Degree
2 390 (17.72%) Security Cleared
3 262 (11.90%) SC Cleared
4 212 (9.63%) Master's Degree
5 124 (5.63%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.45%) CISSP
7 109 (4.95%) PMP
8 92 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.73%) Cisco Certification
10 59 (2.68%) DV Cleared
11 57 (2.59%) Azure Certification
12 56 (2.54%) CISM
13 53 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
14 44 (2.00%) PhD
15 40 (1.82%) CCNP
16 39 (1.77%) CCNA
17 37 (1.68%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.59%) CISA
19 28 (1.27%) A+ Certification
19 28 (1.27%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.09%) NIST
2 111 (5.04%) QA
3 108 (4.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.77%) Data Quality
5 94 (4.27%) PMO
6 83 (3.77%) GDPR
7 48 (2.18%) SLA
8 39 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.45%) 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 15 (0.68%) IFRS
15 12 (0.55%) 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
2 118 (5.36%) Docker
3 41 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (1.00%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.91%) Firmware
6 14 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.27%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.14%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.091%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (5.86%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.86%) Terraform
3 69 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.73%) Ansible
5 32 (1.45%) SCCM
6 31 (1.41%) Grafana
7 28 (1.27%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
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%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.23%) SCOM
15 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 529 (24.03%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.86%) Oracle
3 126 (5.72%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.68%) SAP
5 93 (4.23%) Google
6 65 (2.95%) Cisco
7 53 (2.41%) Databricks
8 49 (2.23%) VMware
9 45 (2.04%) Salesforce
10 44 (2.00%) Adobe
11 40 (1.82%) IBM
12 37 (1.68%) Citrix
12 37 (1.68%) Splunk
13 31 (1.41%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.36%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.95%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.95%) Siemens
17 19 (0.86%) HP
18 18 (0.82%) Ariba