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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,242 2,012 2,762
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.99% 7.35% 7.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.77% 23.77% 25.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,199 1,199 1,598
10th Percentile £204 £250 £259
25th Percentile £363 £379 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £600 £643 £638
90th Percentile £713 £755 £752
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 160 275
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.78 £18.35
25th Percentile £27.10 £27.25 £27.00
Median hourly rate £45.50 £42.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.06% -22.73% +1.04%
75th Percentile £83.38 £70.48 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.15 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £43.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +3.49% -14.00% -8.26%

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 14,220 8,466 10,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 30.94% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,578 5,343 6,791
10th Percentile £350 £285 £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 £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.86% -0.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,069 622 866
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.38
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.28
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -23.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.98 £66.62
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -20 945 £525 -4.55% 1,516
South East +1 469 £500 +4.99% 601
North of England -15 326 £450 +0.22% 405
Midlands -30 191 £492 +15.76% 256
North West -12 181 £447 -5.89% 208
East of England -4 147 £450 - 234
West Midlands -34 144 £487 +8.11% 143
Yorkshire -7 128 £450 +6.51% 123
South West -26 120 £415 -7.78% 214
East Midlands -16 45 £500 +39.66% 113
North East -37 17 £450 +130.77% 76
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
1 133 (5.93%) SharePoint
2 112 (5.00%) Confluence
3 60 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.34%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) 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 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 252 (11.24%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (9.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 130 (5.80%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (5.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.36%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.58%) 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 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Primavera
3 13 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 514 (22.93%) Azure
2 285 (12.71%) AWS
3 204 (9.10%) Power Platform
4 194 (8.65%) Microsoft 365
5 145 (6.47%) Entra ID
6 118 (5.26%) GCP
7 95 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.26%) SaaS
9 55 (2.45%) GitHub
10 39 (1.74%) PowerApps
10 39 (1.74%) Serverless
10 39 (1.74%) Snowflake
11 38 (1.69%) Power Automate
12 36 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.61%) Figma
12 36 (1.61%) OneDrive
13 30 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.12%) IaaS
14 25 (1.12%) PaaS
15 22 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.46%) Firewall
2 69 (3.08%) TCP/IP
3 65 (2.90%) DNS
4 62 (2.77%) Network Security
5 56 (2.50%) VPN
6 41 (1.83%) WAN
7 39 (1.74%) LAN
8 36 (1.61%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) BGP
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.76%) OSPF
13 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
13 14 (0.62%) Internet
13 14 (0.62%) SSH
13 14 (0.62%) VLAN
14 13 (0.58%) SSL
15 12 (0.54%) MPLS
15 12 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (7.45%) Power BI
2 104 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.10%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.65%) Metadata
6 37 (1.65%) Tableau
7 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.25%) Big Data
9 25 (1.12%) MongoDB
10 23 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 21 (0.94%) MySQL
12 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Power Query
15 12 (0.54%) Hadoop
15 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
15 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 10 (0.45%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 189 (8.43%) JIRA
2 108 (4.82%) Git
3 47 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.69%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.80%) MLflow
7 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.62%) 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%) Postman
13 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
15 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 981 (43.76%) Social Skills
2 666 (29.71%) Finance
3 486 (21.68%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.47%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.94%) Banking
6 144 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
7 93 (4.15%) Marketing
7 93 (4.15%) Presentation Skills
8 92 (4.10%) Legal
9 91 (4.06%) Aerospace
10 84 (3.75%) Manufacturing
11 83 (3.70%) Influencing Skills
12 76 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
13 67 (2.99%) Telecoms
14 62 (2.77%) Retail
15 55 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.36%) Law
17 36 (1.61%) Pharmaceutical
18 33 (1.47%) Automotive
18 33 (1.47%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 316 (14.09%) Analyst
2 253 (11.28%) Senior
3 175 (7.81%) Lead
4 170 (7.58%) Architect
5 151 (6.74%) Developer
6 142 (6.33%) Project Manager
7 140 (6.24%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.17%) Senior Manager
9 59 (2.63%) Consultant
10 56 (2.50%) Solutions Architect
11 54 (2.41%) Designer
11 54 (2.41%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.32%) IT Support
13 50 (2.23%) Product Manager
14 49 (2.19%) Software Engineer
14 49 (2.19%) Support Engineer
15 48 (2.14%) IT Analyst
16 47 (2.10%) Technical Support
17 43 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
17 43 (1.92%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.84%) .NET
1 86 (3.84%) REST
2 57 (2.54%) React
3 43 (1.92%) Kafka
4 36 (1.61%) OAuth
5 34 (1.52%) Middleware
5 34 (1.52%) RESTful
6 33 (1.47%) .NET Framework
7 32 (1.43%) HTML
8 30 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
8 30 (1.34%) Web Services
9 28 (1.25%) SAML
9 28 (1.25%) Spring
10 27 (1.20%) AngularJS
10 27 (1.20%) LDAP
11 26 (1.16%) JSON
11 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
12 25 (1.12%) CSS
12 25 (1.12%) XML
13 24 (1.07%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 179 (7.98%) Management Information System
2 144 (6.42%) Onboarding
3 136 (6.07%) Product Ownership
4 97 (4.33%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.68%) Data Centre
7 56 (2.50%) Data Structures
8 52 (2.32%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.27%) Virtual Team
10 49 (2.19%) Security Posture
11 45 (2.01%) Operational Technology
12 38 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.52%) Life Science
17 33 (1.47%) PMI
17 33 (1.47%) Robotics
18 31 (1.38%) AI Agents
19 30 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 293 (13.07%) Windows
2 163 (7.27%) Linux
3 71 (3.17%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.68%) Unix
5 46 (2.05%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 24 (1.07%) Android
10 12 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Debian
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 748 (33.36%) Computer Science
2 636 (28.37%) Agile
3 587 (26.18%) Problem-Solving
4 395 (17.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 377 (16.82%) Continuous Improvement
6 370 (16.50%) AI
7 299 (13.34%) DevOps
8 284 (12.67%) Project Management
9 278 (12.40%) Analytics
10 258 (11.51%) CI/CD
11 246 (10.97%) ITIL
12 240 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (10.66%) Decision-Making
14 226 (10.08%) Cybersecurity
15 203 (9.05%) Roadmaps
16 200 (8.92%) Change Management
17 190 (8.47%) Software Engineering
18 189 (8.43%) PRINCE2
19 188 (8.39%) Scrum
20 187 (8.34%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 378 (16.86%) Python
2 319 (14.23%) SQL
3 146 (6.51%) Java
4 140 (6.24%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.10%) C#
6 79 (3.52%) JavaScript
7 46 (2.05%) Bash
8 37 (1.65%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.16%) R
11 23 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.94%) Bicep
13 21 (0.94%) C
14 18 (0.80%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.45%) X++
18 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
19 8 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 425 (18.96%) Computer Science Degree
2 409 (18.24%) Security Cleared
3 268 (11.95%) SC Cleared
4 207 (9.23%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.98%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.22%) PMP
7 114 (5.08%) CISSP
8 103 (4.59%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.52%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (3.21%) DV Cleared
11 64 (2.85%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.36%) PhD
14 52 (2.32%) CISM
15 38 (1.69%) AWS Certification
15 38 (1.69%) CCNA
16 36 (1.61%) CCNP
17 35 (1.56%) CISA
18 34 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 28 (1.25%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.04%) Data Quality
1 113 (5.04%) QA
2 110 (4.91%) NIST
3 104 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.28%) PMO
5 73 (3.26%) GDPR
6 46 (2.05%) SLA
7 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 24 (1.07%) PCI DSS
10 23 (1.03%) GRC
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.54%) IFRS
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.40%) P3O
15 8 (0.36%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 8 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 186 (8.30%) Active Directory
2 112 (5.00%) Docker
3 44 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.71%) 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 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 123 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.88%) Terraform
3 68 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.63%) Ansible
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 29 (1.29%) Grafana
7 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.54%) 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 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.27%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 561 (25.02%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.51%) Oracle
3 130 (5.80%) ServiceNow
4 129 (5.75%) SAP
5 90 (4.01%) Google
6 63 (2.81%) Cisco
7 58 (2.59%) VMware
8 52 (2.32%) Databricks
9 49 (2.19%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.05%) Adobe
11 45 (2.01%) IBM
12 33 (1.47%) Citrix
12 33 (1.47%) CyberArk
13 30 (1.34%) Splunk
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.94%) Siemens
16 20 (0.89%) Ariba
16 20 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
17 18 (0.80%) HP