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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,233 1,999 2,814
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.34% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.77% 23.76% 25.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,194 1,198 1,620
10th Percentile £204 £250 £251
25th Percentile £363 £380 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -4.23%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £638
90th Percentile £713 £756 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 155 289
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.10 £18.31
25th Percentile £27.20 £27.22 £26.88
Median hourly rate £47.00 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.59% -19.05% -3.55%
75th Percentile £83.19 £70.08 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £44.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +2.27% -7.37% -12.84%

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 14,161 8,412 10,841
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.58% 30.87% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,544 5,306 6,841
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £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 £717 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,057 611 885
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.32 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.27% -41.12% -23.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +107.75% -41.51% -25.00%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -20 941 £525 -4.55% 1,443
South East +3 464 £500 +3.90% 574
North of England -14 325 £448 +0.11% 352
Midlands -23 196 £500 +19.05% 249
North West -16 182 £447 -4.64% 169
East of England -4 146 £450 - 220
West Midlands -28 146 £487 +8.11% 141
Yorkshire -12 126 £475 +11.76% 118
South West -24 118 £415 -7.78% 189
East Midlands -15 48 £515 +43.85% 108
North East -43 17 £450 +130.77% 68
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
1 130 (5.82%) SharePoint
2 113 (5.06%) Confluence
3 57 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.30%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.81%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.090%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.090%) WinCC
Applications
1 255 (11.42%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.64%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.42%) 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 2 (0.090%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.090%) Sketch
12 2 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.63%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
11 2 (0.090%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 512 (22.93%) Azure
2 285 (12.76%) AWS
3 194 (8.69%) Power Platform
4 192 (8.60%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (6.45%) Entra ID
6 113 (5.06%) GCP
7 94 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.18%) SaaS
9 55 (2.46%) GitHub
10 37 (1.66%) Figma
10 37 (1.66%) Serverless
10 37 (1.66%) Snowflake
11 34 (1.52%) PowerApps
12 33 (1.48%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.43%) Power Automate
14 29 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
15 27 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
16 24 (1.07%) IaaS
16 24 (1.07%) PaaS
17 23 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.52%) Firewall
2 71 (3.18%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.96%) DNS
4 62 (2.78%) Network Security
5 55 (2.46%) VPN
6 43 (1.93%) WAN
7 41 (1.84%) LAN
8 36 (1.61%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) BGP
11 20 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
12 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.81%) OSPF
14 15 (0.67%) SSH
15 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.63%) Internet
16 13 (0.58%) VLAN
17 12 (0.54%) MPLS
17 12 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
17 12 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.34%) Power BI
2 103 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.10%) Relational Database
5 42 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.66%) Metadata
7 36 (1.61%) Tableau
8 31 (1.39%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.21%) Big Data
10 25 (1.12%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (0.94%) MySQL
13 19 (0.85%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.58%) Power Query
16 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 10 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 191 (8.55%) JIRA
2 107 (4.79%) Git
3 46 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.70%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.85%) MLflow
7 15 (0.67%) 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%) Postman
11 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
12 9 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 977 (43.75%) Social Skills
2 666 (29.83%) Finance
3 483 (21.63%) Analytical Skills
4 189 (8.46%) Public Sector
5 177 (7.93%) Banking
6 139 (6.22%) Organisational Skills
7 97 (4.34%) Marketing
8 91 (4.08%) Legal
9 90 (4.03%) Presentation Skills
10 88 (3.94%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.81%) Manufacturing
12 79 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
13 78 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
14 65 (2.91%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.78%) Retail
16 54 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 52 (2.33%) Law
18 37 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.52%) Front Office
20 32 (1.43%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 317 (14.20%) Analyst
2 252 (11.29%) Senior
3 172 (7.70%) Lead
4 171 (7.66%) Architect
5 150 (6.72%) Developer
6 141 (6.31%) Project Manager
7 138 (6.18%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.18%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.69%) Consultant
10 58 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
11 56 (2.51%) Designer
12 54 (2.42%) IT Manager
13 53 (2.37%) IT Support
14 51 (2.28%) Software Engineer
15 50 (2.24%) Product Manager
16 49 (2.19%) IT Analyst
16 49 (2.19%) Technical Support
17 48 (2.15%) Support Engineer
18 44 (1.97%) Senior Analyst
19 43 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.94%) REST
2 85 (3.81%) .NET
3 57 (2.55%) React
4 43 (1.93%) Kafka
5 36 (1.61%) OAuth
6 34 (1.52%) RESTful
7 33 (1.48%) .NET Framework
8 32 (1.43%) HTML
8 32 (1.43%) Middleware
9 31 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
10 30 (1.34%) Web Services
11 28 (1.25%) SAML
11 28 (1.25%) Spring
12 27 (1.21%) JSON
12 27 (1.21%) LDAP
12 27 (1.21%) XML
13 26 (1.16%) AngularJS
13 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
14 25 (1.12%) CSS
15 24 (1.07%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 180 (8.06%) Management Information System
2 143 (6.40%) Onboarding
3 134 (6.00%) Product Ownership
4 97 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.94%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.73%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.33%) Data Structures
7 52 (2.33%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.24%) Security Posture
9 49 (2.19%) Algorithms
10 46 (2.06%) Operational Technology
11 37 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
12 35 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
13 34 (1.52%) Life Science
13 34 (1.52%) Robotics
14 33 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
15 31 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.39%) PMI
16 29 (1.30%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 295 (13.21%) Windows
2 166 (7.43%) Linux
3 71 (3.18%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.87%) Unix
5 46 (2.06%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.25%) Mac OS
8 24 (1.07%) Android
9 12 (0.54%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.27%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Solaris
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.22%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Debian
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (33.54%) Computer Science
2 638 (28.57%) Agile
3 588 (26.33%) Problem-Solving
4 395 (17.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 370 (16.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 364 (16.30%) AI
7 300 (13.43%) DevOps
8 280 (12.54%) Project Management
9 274 (12.27%) Analytics
10 256 (11.46%) CI/CD
11 244 (10.93%) ITIL
12 243 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (10.61%) Decision-Making
14 228 (10.21%) Cybersecurity
15 202 (9.05%) Roadmaps
16 198 (8.87%) Change Management
17 189 (8.46%) Software Engineering
18 185 (8.28%) Project Delivery
18 185 (8.28%) Scrum
19 182 (8.15%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 374 (16.75%) Python
2 319 (14.29%) SQL
3 147 (6.58%) Java
4 138 (6.18%) PowerShell
5 90 (4.03%) C#
6 77 (3.45%) JavaScript
7 46 (2.06%) Bash
8 39 (1.75%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.21%) R
11 23 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.94%) Bicep
12 21 (0.94%) C
12 21 (0.94%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.81%) Shell Script
14 12 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
16 9 (0.40%) Perl
17 8 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 428 (19.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 399 (17.87%) Security Cleared
3 259 (11.60%) SC Cleared
4 210 (9.40%) Master's Degree
5 129 (5.78%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.15%) CISSP
7 113 (5.06%) PMP
8 100 (4.48%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.58%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.96%) DV Cleared
11 63 (2.82%) Azure Certification
12 58 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 55 (2.46%) CISM
14 47 (2.10%) PhD
15 40 (1.79%) CCNA
16 39 (1.75%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.66%) CCNP
18 36 (1.61%) CISA
19 32 (1.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
20 29 (1.30%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (5.11%) QA
2 111 (4.97%) NIST
3 108 (4.84%) Data Quality
4 106 (4.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (4.34%) PMO
6 75 (3.36%) GDPR
7 44 (1.97%) SLA
8 41 (1.84%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.21%) PCI DSS
9 27 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.03%) GRC
11 22 (0.99%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.58%) IFRS
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 9 (0.40%) HIPAA
15 9 (0.40%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 187 (8.37%) Active Directory
2 113 (5.06%) Docker
3 45 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
5 20 (0.90%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.090%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 123 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.90%) Terraform
3 70 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.64%) Ansible
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 29 (1.30%) Grafana
7 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.63%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) SCOM
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
15 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 554 (24.81%) Microsoft
2 145 (6.49%) Oracle
3 131 (5.87%) SAP
4 126 (5.64%) ServiceNow
5 92 (4.12%) Google
6 65 (2.91%) Cisco
7 58 (2.60%) VMware
8 52 (2.33%) Databricks
9 48 (2.15%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.06%) Adobe
11 45 (2.02%) IBM
12 33 (1.48%) Citrix
12 33 (1.48%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.39%) Splunk
14 29 (1.30%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.21%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.94%) Siemens
17 20 (0.90%) Ariba
17 20 (0.90%) BeyondTrust
18 18 (0.81%) HP