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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,260 1,993 2,544
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.88% 7.17% 7.77%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.29% 22.82% 26.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,170 1,155 1,457
10th Percentile £204 £261 £275
25th Percentile £358 £389 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.55% -2.44% -3.76%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £498 £500
% change year-on-year +0.50% -0.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 151 196
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.22 £35.94
Median hourly rate £39.50 £41.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -3.66% -28.51% +22.44%
75th Percentile £70.88 £68.63 £72.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.25 £77.09
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £41.25 £56.92
% change year-on-year -6.13% -27.53% +21.52%

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 14,783 8,734 9,780
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.92% 31.42% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,942 5,518 6,072
10th Percentile £350 £304 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £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 1,158 678 591
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.08
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.52 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.82% -54.27% -
75th Percentile £74.24 £50.00 £69.22
90th Percentile £88.75 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -20 980 £525 -4.55% 2,404
South East +7 468 £525 +13.51% 937
North of England -16 336 £475 +9.08% 556
North West -8 209 £473 +5.00% 304
Midlands -33 174 £450 - 387
East of England -13 135 £300 -33.33% 401
West Midlands -39 128 £450 -5.26% 225
South West -20 124 £400 -13.51% 413
Yorkshire -9 111 £500 +19.05% 156
East Midlands -26 45 £475 +6.26% 162
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 105
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
1 152 (6.73%) SharePoint
2 100 (4.42%) Confluence
3 58 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.28%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 16 (0.71%) IIS
8 13 (0.58%) Camunda
9 12 (0.53%) CMS
9 12 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) Appian
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 236 (10.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 225 (9.96%) Microsoft Office
3 118 (5.22%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 44 (1.95%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 8 (0.35%) Simulink
10 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.35%) Windchill
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.13%) Trello
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.088%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 43 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.53%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 526 (23.27%) Azure
2 285 (12.61%) AWS
3 215 (9.51%) Microsoft 365
4 211 (9.34%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.93%) GCP
6 130 (5.75%) Entra ID
7 109 (4.82%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (3.32%) SaaS
9 63 (2.79%) GitHub
10 51 (2.26%) Power Automate
11 50 (2.21%) PowerApps
12 49 (2.17%) Serverless
13 45 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
13 45 (1.99%) OneDrive
14 41 (1.81%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.50%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.46%) Figma
17 25 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
17 25 (1.11%) IaaS
17 25 (1.11%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.51%) Firewall
2 75 (3.32%) DNS
3 62 (2.74%) Network Security
4 60 (2.65%) TCP/IP
5 58 (2.57%) VPN
6 46 (2.04%) DHCP
7 35 (1.55%) WAN
8 33 (1.46%) LAN
9 25 (1.11%) Wireless
10 23 (1.02%) 3GPP
11 19 (0.84%) 5G
11 19 (0.84%) Internet
12 18 (0.80%) BGP
12 18 (0.80%) SSH
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
14 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 16 (0.71%) Wireshark
15 15 (0.66%) OSPF
15 15 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (7.04%) Power BI
2 107 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.26%) Metadata
4 49 (2.17%) Relational Database
5 45 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
6 38 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (1.50%) Tableau
8 30 (1.33%) MySQL
8 30 (1.33%) NoSQL
9 25 (1.11%) Big Data
9 25 (1.11%) Oracle Database
10 24 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.97%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (0.66%) GIS
14 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
14 14 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 168 (7.43%) JIRA
2 122 (5.40%) Git
3 56 (2.48%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.35%) GitLab
5 21 (0.93%) JUnit
6 19 (0.84%) Selenium
6 19 (0.84%) SonarQube
7 18 (0.80%) Maven
8 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.71%) Gradle
10 15 (0.66%) Rational DOORS
11 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
11 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.53%) Mockito
13 11 (0.49%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.49%) Subversion
14 10 (0.44%) MLflow
15 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
17 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 1,012 (44.78%) Social Skills
2 658 (29.12%) Finance
3 522 (23.10%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.32%) Banking
5 173 (7.65%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.59%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (5.00%) Manufacturing
8 104 (4.60%) Aerospace
9 93 (4.12%) Marketing
10 85 (3.76%) Legal
11 83 (3.67%) Influencing Skills
11 83 (3.67%) Telecoms
12 74 (3.27%) Presentation Skills
13 66 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.70%) Retail
15 53 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 48 (2.12%) Law
17 46 (2.04%) Pharmaceutical
18 44 (1.95%) Military
19 38 (1.68%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 313 (13.85%) Analyst
2 252 (11.15%) Senior
3 188 (8.32%) Lead
4 177 (7.83%) Developer
5 153 (6.77%) Architect
6 144 (6.37%) Business Analyst
7 112 (4.96%) Project Manager
8 71 (3.14%) Support Engineer
9 66 (2.92%) Senior Manager
10 63 (2.79%) IT Support
11 54 (2.39%) Consultant
12 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
13 51 (2.26%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.12%) IT Manager
15 46 (2.04%) Designer
16 45 (1.99%) Technical Support
17 42 (1.86%) Administrator
18 41 (1.81%) Data Engineer
18 41 (1.81%) Security Engineer
18 41 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.51%) Terraform
2 92 (4.07%) .NET
3 90 (3.98%) REST
4 63 (2.79%) HTML
5 60 (2.65%) React
6 56 (2.48%) Kafka
7 51 (2.26%) CSS
8 41 (1.81%) RESTful
9 38 (1.68%) OAuth
10 36 (1.59%) XML
11 34 (1.50%) Middleware
12 33 (1.46%) .NET Framework
12 33 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
12 33 (1.46%) Web Services
13 32 (1.42%) Spring Boot
14 29 (1.28%) SAML
15 28 (1.24%) OAuth2
16 27 (1.19%) JSON
16 27 (1.19%) OpenID
16 27 (1.19%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.94%) Management Information System
2 133 (5.88%) Onboarding
3 106 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.16%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.61%) Algorithms
6 59 (2.61%) Data Structures
7 54 (2.39%) Data Centre
8 45 (1.99%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
10 42 (1.86%) Operational Technology
11 41 (1.81%) Life Science
12 38 (1.68%) Virtual Team
13 37 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
13 37 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.59%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.37%) SCADA
16 29 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 285 (12.61%) Windows
2 174 (7.70%) Linux
3 78 (3.45%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.57%) Unix
5 42 (1.86%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.97%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) VMS
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) Rocky
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 746 (33.01%) Computer Science
2 623 (27.57%) Agile
3 601 (26.59%) Problem-Solving
4 455 (20.13%) Stakeholder Management
5 409 (18.10%) Continuous Improvement
6 360 (15.93%) AI
7 318 (14.07%) DevOps
8 292 (12.92%) Project Management
9 286 (12.65%) Analytics
10 278 (12.30%) CI/CD
11 259 (11.46%) ITIL
12 237 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 230 (10.18%) Decision-Making
14 215 (9.51%) Cybersecurity
14 215 (9.51%) Scrum
15 213 (9.42%) Change Management
16 208 (9.20%) Roadmaps
17 207 (9.16%) Software Engineering
18 196 (8.67%) PRINCE2
19 184 (8.14%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 384 (16.99%) Python
2 334 (14.78%) SQL
3 170 (7.52%) PowerShell
4 146 (6.46%) Java
5 116 (5.13%) JavaScript
6 106 (4.69%) C#
7 57 (2.52%) Bash
8 43 (1.90%) C++
9 38 (1.68%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.24%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.06%) C
12 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.06%) R
13 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.66%) Scala
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 10 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.44%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 443 (19.60%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (18.85%) Security Cleared
3 299 (13.23%) SC Cleared
4 189 (8.36%) Master's Degree
5 132 (5.84%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.27%) Microsoft Certification
7 117 (5.18%) PMP
8 102 (4.51%) CISSP
9 79 (3.50%) DV Cleared
10 76 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
11 75 (3.32%) Azure Certification
12 65 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
13 55 (2.43%) PhD
14 47 (2.08%) CISM
15 44 (1.95%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 38 (1.68%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.59%) ISTQB
18 34 (1.50%) CCNA
18 34 (1.50%) CCNP
19 33 (1.46%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.71%) QA
2 125 (5.53%) Data Quality
3 92 (4.07%) NIST
4 87 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 83 (3.67%) PMO
6 65 (2.88%) GDPR
7 40 (1.77%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.68%) SLA
9 25 (1.11%) GRC
9 25 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 16 (0.71%) NCSC
10 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.62%) IFRS
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.49%) P3O
14 10 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
16 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
16 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 184 (8.14%) Active Directory
2 115 (5.09%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.11%) Firmware
5 23 (1.02%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.088%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 113 (5.00%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.65%) Ansible
4 31 (1.37%) SCCM
5 27 (1.19%) Grafana
6 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.53%) SCOM
11 8 (0.35%) WSUS
12 7 (0.31%) CASB
12 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
12 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.27%) Control-M
13 6 (0.27%) Nessus
13 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 585 (25.88%) Microsoft
2 157 (6.95%) Oracle
3 138 (6.11%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.53%) SAP
5 90 (3.98%) Google
6 70 (3.10%) VMware
7 60 (2.65%) Cisco
7 60 (2.65%) Salesforce
8 55 (2.43%) Adobe
9 46 (2.04%) Databricks
10 43 (1.90%) IBM
11 38 (1.68%) Splunk
12 32 (1.42%) Red Hat
13 29 (1.28%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.15%) Citrix
15 22 (0.97%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 19 (0.84%) OpenAI
18 18 (0.80%) Apple
18 18 (0.80%) Ariba