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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 23 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,200 1,902 3,140
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.61% 7.81% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.84% 24.89% 26.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,301 1,137 1,684
10th Percentile £265 £250 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £788 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 143 348
10th Percentile £17.12 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.31 £29.50 £23.25
Median hourly rate £53.50 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.83% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -6.54% +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 13,065 7,642 11,747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.31% 31.39% 31.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,757 4,902 7,274
10th Percentile £340 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 993 421 940
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.79 £24.50 £17.80
Median hourly rate £42.00 £50.00 £39.96
Median % change year-on-year -16.00% +25.13% -22.41%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.39 £82.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.75 £45.00 £39.96
% change year-on-year -9.44% +12.61% -23.89%

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 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 10 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 10 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 -12 957 £513 -6.82% 866
South East -6 358 £500 - 660
North of England -6 336 £418 -12.11% 472
Midlands -25 197 £500 +56.25% 318
North West -3 183 £400 -15.79% 244
South West -3 152 £650 +23.81% 220
West Midlands -30 142 £500 +66.67% 181
East of England -9 139 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -13 136 £488 -3.70% 164
East Midlands -15 54 £525 +47.47% 136
North East -18 18 £407 -4.24% 71
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 (6.91%) Confluence
2 108 (4.91%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) Appian
13 2 (0.091%) Drupal
13 2 (0.091%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.091%) IIS
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 289 (13.14%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 189 (8.59%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (5.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.86%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.45%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.091%) Revit
14 1 (0.045%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 47 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.91%) Primavera
4 17 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 454 (20.64%) Azure
2 257 (11.68%) AWS
3 189 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 168 (7.64%) Power Platform
5 106 (4.82%) Entra ID
6 101 (4.59%) SaaS
7 100 (4.55%) GCP
8 82 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.68%) GitHub
10 36 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
10 36 (1.64%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.45%) Google Workspace
11 32 (1.45%) PaaS
12 31 (1.41%) IaaS
13 29 (1.32%) Serverless
14 28 (1.27%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
15 24 (1.09%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.82%) Firewall
2 58 (2.64%) LAN
3 57 (2.59%) WAN
4 45 (2.05%) DNS
4 45 (2.05%) TCP/IP
5 42 (1.91%) Network Security
6 38 (1.73%) VPN
7 29 (1.32%) Wireless
8 28 (1.27%) BGP
9 22 (1.00%) OSPF
10 21 (0.95%) Ethernet
10 21 (0.95%) HTTP
11 20 (0.91%) DHCP
12 17 (0.77%) Internet
12 17 (0.77%) Skype
13 15 (0.68%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.64%) VLAN
14 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.59%) SAN
15 13 (0.59%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (6.32%) Power BI
2 87 (3.95%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 37 (1.68%) NoSQL
6 36 (1.64%) Tableau
7 31 (1.41%) MySQL
8 28 (1.27%) Big Data
9 23 (1.05%) Metadata
10 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.41%) Power Query
16 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 251 (11.41%) JIRA
2 94 (4.27%) Git
3 48 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 34 (1.55%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.95%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.82%) Selenium
8 17 (0.77%) MLflow
9 14 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 14 (0.64%) Postman
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
16 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
General
1 1,059 (48.14%) Social Skills
2 673 (30.59%) Finance
3 497 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
4 222 (10.09%) Banking
5 176 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 111 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
7 105 (4.77%) Organisational Skills
8 81 (3.68%) Documentation Skills
9 79 (3.59%) Marketing
10 76 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.27%) Aerospace
12 71 (3.23%) Legal
13 66 (3.00%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.45%) Military
15 48 (2.18%) Front Office
16 46 (2.09%) Telecoms
17 45 (2.05%) Retail
18 44 (2.00%) Law
19 41 (1.86%) Investment Banking
20 39 (1.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 312 (14.18%) Analyst
2 224 (10.18%) Senior
3 178 (8.09%) Lead
4 175 (7.95%) Architect
5 166 (7.55%) Developer
5 166 (7.55%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.73%) Business Analyst
7 76 (3.45%) Consultant
8 64 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
9 58 (2.64%) Technical Support
10 56 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
11 54 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.27%) Software Engineer
13 47 (2.14%) Data Scientist
14 46 (2.09%) Security Engineer
15 45 (2.05%) Product Manager
16 40 (1.82%) Senior Manager
17 39 (1.77%) Systems Engineer
18 36 (1.64%) Data Engineer
19 35 (1.59%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.14%) REST
2 64 (2.91%) .NET
3 48 (2.18%) Middleware
4 46 (2.09%) RESTful
5 43 (1.95%) HTML
5 43 (1.95%) React
6 42 (1.91%) Kafka
7 37 (1.68%) XML
8 34 (1.55%) JSON
8 34 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
8 34 (1.55%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.50%) SOAP
10 31 (1.41%) Pandas
10 31 (1.41%) Spring
11 29 (1.32%) CSS
11 29 (1.32%) OAuth
12 28 (1.27%) PyTorch
13 27 (1.23%) TensorFlow
14 25 (1.14%) .NET Framework
14 25 (1.14%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.82%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 117 (5.32%) Onboarding
4 76 (3.45%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.32%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 60 (2.73%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.68%) Algorithms
9 53 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (2.27%) Data Structures
11 49 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
11 49 (2.23%) PMI
12 42 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
13 39 (1.77%) Derivative
14 33 (1.50%) Robotics
15 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
15 32 (1.45%) Security Posture
16 29 (1.32%) Operational Technology
17 28 (1.27%) Equities
17 28 (1.27%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 257 (11.68%) Windows
2 160 (7.27%) Linux
3 71 (3.23%) Windows Server
4 62 (2.82%) Unix
5 56 (2.55%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.95%) Android
6 21 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.91%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.64%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.23%) AIX
14 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) CentOS
15 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 3 (0.14%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 787 (35.77%) Computer Science
2 700 (31.82%) Agile
3 580 (26.36%) Problem-Solving
4 369 (16.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 322 (14.64%) Project Management
6 317 (14.41%) Continuous Improvement
7 314 (14.27%) AI
8 309 (14.05%) DevOps
9 240 (10.91%) CI/CD
10 237 (10.77%) ITIL
11 236 (10.73%) Analytics
11 236 (10.73%) Change Management
12 234 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 228 (10.36%) Cybersecurity
14 225 (10.23%) Decision-Making
15 209 (9.50%) Migration
16 208 (9.45%) PRINCE2
17 205 (9.32%) Project Delivery
18 204 (9.27%) Risk Management
19 193 (8.77%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 355 (16.14%) Python
2 321 (14.59%) SQL
3 149 (6.77%) Java
4 118 (5.36%) PowerShell
5 77 (3.50%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.45%) C#
7 62 (2.82%) C++
8 36 (1.64%) Bash
9 35 (1.59%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.27%) R
11 25 (1.14%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.77%) C
12 17 (0.77%) Go
12 17 (0.77%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.73%) Perl
14 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
16 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 495 (22.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 433 (19.68%) Security Cleared
3 313 (14.23%) SC Cleared
4 263 (11.95%) Master's Degree
5 135 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.50%) PMP
7 105 (4.77%) CISSP
8 87 (3.95%) Microsoft Certification
9 61 (2.77%) Cisco Certification
10 56 (2.55%) CISM
11 54 (2.45%) PhD
12 51 (2.32%) Azure Certification
12 51 (2.32%) TOGAF Certification
13 50 (2.27%) DV Cleared
14 49 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
15 42 (1.91%) CCNP
16 34 (1.55%) MBA
17 31 (1.41%) AWS Certification
18 30 (1.36%) CBAP
18 30 (1.36%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.64%) QA
2 104 (4.73%) GDPR
2 104 (4.73%) PMO
3 101 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 92 (4.18%) NIST
5 76 (3.45%) Data Quality
6 45 (2.05%) PCI DSS
7 44 (2.00%) SLA
8 35 (1.59%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.00%) GRC
11 19 (0.86%) NCSC
12 14 (0.64%) IFRS
13 13 (0.59%) Basel III
14 12 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.55%) IFRS 17
15 11 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
16 10 (0.45%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 148 (6.73%) Active Directory
2 123 (5.59%) Docker
3 43 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.82%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.091%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.045%) ACF2
13 1 (0.045%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 1 (0.045%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 132 (6.00%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.64%) Terraform
3 64 (2.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 56 (2.55%) Ansible
5 37 (1.68%) Grafana
6 36 (1.64%) SCCM
7 30 (1.36%) OPNET
8 27 (1.23%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.68%) Puppet
12 13 (0.59%) Nmap
13 11 (0.50%) Kibana
13 11 (0.50%) SCOM
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
15 8 (0.36%) WSUS
16 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
16 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.27%) Control-M
17 6 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 492 (22.36%) Microsoft
2 143 (6.50%) Oracle
3 123 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 121 (5.50%) SAP
5 85 (3.86%) Google
6 71 (3.23%) Cisco
7 53 (2.41%) Splunk
8 51 (2.32%) Remedy
9 49 (2.23%) VMware
10 45 (2.05%) Citrix
11 44 (2.00%) Atlassian
11 44 (2.00%) Databricks
12 38 (1.73%) Salesforce
13 37 (1.68%) IBM
14 36 (1.64%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.32%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.05%) Adobe
17 22 (1.00%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.95%) Aruba
19 20 (0.91%) Red Hat