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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,231 2,019 2,666
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.34% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.72% 23.59% 25.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,196 1,196 1,551
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £363 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £713 £751 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 259 161 251
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.00 £20.50
25th Percentile £27.59 £27.16 £27.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £42.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -24.77% +10.22%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £69.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.05 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £43.00 £51.10
% change year-on-year +4.65% -15.84% -2.68%

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 14,193 8,560 10,412
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.66% 31.12% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,579 5,401 6,622
10th Percentile £350 £290 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,073 641 811
10th Percentile £18.20 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.79 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -20 948 £525 -4.55% 1,506
South East +3 467 £500 +5.26% 636
North of England -14 325 £450 -0.66% 410
North West -11 189 £449 -5.47% 202
Midlands -29 184 £463 +8.82% 270
East of England -6 144 £450 - 243
West Midlands -35 143 £450 - 149
Yorkshire -10 120 £500 +18.34% 132
South West -24 118 £415 -7.78% 229
East Midlands -26 39 £478 +33.52% 121
North East -49 16 £450 +130.77% 80
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
1 135 (6.05%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.84%) Confluence
3 61 (2.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.26%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.090%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 246 (11.03%) Microsoft Office
2 214 (9.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 128 (5.74%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (5.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.33%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.090%) Sketch
13 2 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 54 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Primavera
3 12 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 520 (23.31%) Azure
2 285 (12.77%) AWS
3 205 (9.19%) Power Platform
4 198 (8.87%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (6.45%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.56%) GCP
7 96 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
8 68 (3.05%) SaaS
9 58 (2.60%) GitHub
10 43 (1.93%) Power Automate
10 43 (1.93%) PowerApps
11 39 (1.75%) OneDrive
12 37 (1.66%) Serverless
12 37 (1.66%) Snowflake
13 36 (1.61%) Figma
13 36 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
14 34 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
15 24 (1.08%) IaaS
16 22 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (0.99%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.48%) Firewall
2 70 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 64 (2.87%) DNS
4 61 (2.73%) Network Security
5 55 (2.47%) VPN
6 37 (1.66%) WAN
7 36 (1.61%) DHCP
8 35 (1.57%) LAN
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 19 (0.85%) BGP
10 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
11 17 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.72%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) SSH
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.63%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) SSL
15 12 (0.54%) MPLS
15 12 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.35%) Power BI
2 102 (4.57%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.15%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.66%) Metadata
7 36 (1.61%) Tableau
8 31 (1.39%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.21%) Big Data
10 24 (1.08%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (0.94%) MySQL
13 20 (0.90%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.63%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 10 (0.45%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 178 (7.98%) JIRA
2 105 (4.71%) Git
3 46 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.70%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.76%) MLflow
7 16 (0.72%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.63%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Postman
14 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
15 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 974 (43.66%) Social Skills
2 652 (29.22%) Finance
3 489 (21.92%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.34%) Public Sector
5 173 (7.75%) Banking
6 146 (6.54%) Organisational Skills
7 93 (4.17%) Presentation Skills
8 91 (4.08%) Legal
9 90 (4.03%) Aerospace
9 90 (4.03%) Marketing
10 84 (3.77%) Manufacturing
11 81 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
12 71 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
13 67 (3.00%) Telecoms
14 60 (2.69%) Retail
15 56 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.33%) Law
17 37 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
18 35 (1.57%) Front Office
19 33 (1.48%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 310 (13.90%) Analyst
2 248 (11.12%) Senior
3 177 (7.93%) Lead
4 165 (7.40%) Architect
5 155 (6.95%) Developer
6 140 (6.28%) Project Manager
7 138 (6.19%) Business Analyst
8 69 (3.09%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.78%) Consultant
10 54 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
11 52 (2.33%) Designer
11 52 (2.33%) IT Manager
12 51 (2.29%) IT Support
13 50 (2.24%) IT Analyst
13 50 (2.24%) Product Manager
13 50 (2.24%) Support Engineer
14 47 (2.11%) Software Engineer
15 45 (2.02%) Technical Support
16 42 (1.88%) Delivery Manager
16 42 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.85%) .NET
2 84 (3.77%) REST
3 58 (2.60%) React
4 41 (1.84%) Kafka
5 37 (1.66%) OAuth
6 33 (1.48%) HTML
7 32 (1.43%) .NET Framework
7 32 (1.43%) RESTful
8 31 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.34%) Middleware
9 30 (1.34%) SAML
9 30 (1.34%) Web Services
10 28 (1.26%) AngularJS
10 28 (1.26%) LDAP
10 28 (1.26%) Spring
11 26 (1.17%) CSS
11 26 (1.17%) OAuth2
12 25 (1.12%) JSON
12 25 (1.12%) SailPoint
12 25 (1.12%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 181 (8.11%) Management Information System
2 144 (6.45%) Onboarding
3 135 (6.05%) Product Ownership
4 99 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.69%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.60%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.38%) Algorithms
9 50 (2.24%) Security Posture
10 49 (2.20%) Virtual Team
11 45 (2.02%) Operational Technology
12 39 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
13 38 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
14 36 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.57%) Life Science
16 33 (1.48%) PMI
16 33 (1.48%) Robotics
17 32 (1.43%) AI Agents
17 32 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
18 30 (1.34%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 287 (12.86%) Windows
2 165 (7.40%) Linux
3 72 (3.23%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.69%) Unix
5 45 (2.02%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.12%) Android
10 12 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.13%) Rocky
15 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (33.62%) Computer Science
2 626 (28.06%) Agile
3 584 (26.18%) Problem-Solving
4 392 (17.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 380 (17.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 363 (16.27%) AI
7 295 (13.22%) DevOps
8 280 (12.55%) Project Management
9 275 (12.33%) Analytics
10 257 (11.52%) CI/CD
11 250 (11.21%) ITIL
12 236 (10.58%) Decision-Making
13 230 (10.31%) Cybersecurity
14 229 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 195 (8.74%) Roadmaps
16 194 (8.70%) PRINCE2
17 193 (8.65%) Change Management
18 191 (8.56%) Scrum
19 189 (8.47%) Software Engineering
20 187 (8.38%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 378 (16.94%) Python
2 313 (14.03%) SQL
3 146 (6.54%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.50%) Java
5 93 (4.17%) C#
6 83 (3.72%) JavaScript
7 47 (2.11%) Bash
8 37 (1.66%) C++
9 33 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.17%) R
11 24 (1.08%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.03%) Bicep
13 22 (0.99%) C
14 21 (0.94%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.76%) Shell Script
16 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.45%) X++
19 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
20 8 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 428 (19.18%) Computer Science Degree
2 411 (18.42%) Security Cleared
3 270 (12.10%) SC Cleared
4 201 (9.01%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.01%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.24%) PMP
7 113 (5.06%) CISSP
8 107 (4.80%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.59%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.27%) DV Cleared
11 63 (2.82%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.38%) CISM
14 52 (2.33%) PhD
15 38 (1.70%) CCNA
16 36 (1.61%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.61%) CCNP
17 35 (1.57%) CISA
17 35 (1.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 29 (1.30%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (5.11%) NIST
2 112 (5.02%) QA
3 111 (4.98%) Data Quality
4 105 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (4.26%) PMO
6 69 (3.09%) GDPR
7 45 (2.02%) SLA
8 40 (1.79%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.03%) GRC
10 23 (1.03%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.94%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) IFRS
15 10 (0.45%) COBIT
15 10 (0.45%) P3O
16 8 (0.36%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 188 (8.43%) Active Directory
2 109 (4.89%) Docker
3 47 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.99%) Firmware
4 22 (0.99%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
7 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.31%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
9 4 (0.18%) NFS
9 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
9 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
10 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.090%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 123 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.99%) Terraform
3 69 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.64%) Ansible
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 27 (1.21%) Grafana
7 24 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.27%) SCOM
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 560 (25.10%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.63%) Oracle
3 131 (5.87%) ServiceNow
4 126 (5.65%) SAP
5 84 (3.77%) Google
6 62 (2.78%) Cisco
6 62 (2.78%) VMware
7 51 (2.29%) Databricks
8 50 (2.24%) Salesforce
9 46 (2.06%) Adobe
10 45 (2.02%) IBM
11 34 (1.52%) CyberArk
12 31 (1.39%) Citrix
13 28 (1.26%) Splunk
14 27 (1.21%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.21%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.94%) Siemens
16 20 (0.90%) Ariba
17 18 (0.81%) HP