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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,267 1,963 2,582
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.89% 7.07% 7.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.27% 22.40% 26.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,176 1,111 1,472
10th Percentile £204 £263 £268
25th Percentile £357 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £509
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -1.77% -3.96%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £626
90th Percentile £731 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 160 184
10th Percentile £16.46 £19.98 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.06 £26.93 £34.75
Median hourly rate £39.11 £38.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +1.58% -32.87% +19.48%
75th Percentile £69.50 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £79.75
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £38.91 £52.50
% change year-on-year -0.49% -25.89% +8.74%

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 14,844 8,764 9,784
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.05% 31.55% 29.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,933 5,581 6,019
10th Percentile £350 £303 £325
25th Percentile £443 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £527 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,219 691 570
10th Percentile £18.24 £17.96 £17.46
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -53.43% -
75th Percentile £74.00 £45.00 £69.94
90th Percentile £89.08 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -9.26%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -20 978 £525 -4.55% 6,120
South East +6 461 £525 +13.51% 1,587
North of England -14 337 £475 +5.56% 1,035
North West -10 211 £475 +3.83% 559
Midlands -31 185 £450 -2.96% 706
West Midlands -31 137 £450 -5.26% 430
East of England -11 135 £350 -28.21% 791
South West -22 128 £400 -11.11% 654
Yorkshire -10 110 £503 +19.82% 311
East Midlands -19 47 £475 +6.26% 276
North East -38 16 £455 +30.65% 176
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
1 158 (6.97%) SharePoint
2 101 (4.46%) Confluence
3 61 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.79%) IIS
7 17 (0.75%) Apache
8 14 (0.62%) Camunda
8 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
9 12 (0.53%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.13%) Appian
14 3 (0.13%) Moodle
14 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 218 (9.62%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 111 (4.90%) Microsoft Project
5 42 (1.85%) 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 10 (0.44%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 9 (0.40%) Windchill
12 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.35%) Simulink
12 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
14 3 (0.13%) Trello
15 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 41 (1.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 522 (23.03%) Azure
2 284 (12.53%) AWS
3 219 (9.66%) Microsoft 365
4 215 (9.48%) Power Platform
5 141 (6.22%) GCP
6 134 (5.91%) Entra ID
7 116 (5.12%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.22%) SaaS
9 62 (2.73%) GitHub
10 56 (2.47%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.34%) Serverless
12 50 (2.21%) PowerApps
13 49 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
14 47 (2.07%) OneDrive
15 45 (1.99%) Microsoft Copilot
16 34 (1.50%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.41%) Figma
18 26 (1.15%) Azure AI
19 25 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
19 25 (1.10%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.28%) Firewall
2 74 (3.26%) DNS
3 63 (2.78%) Network Security
4 59 (2.60%) TCP/IP
5 58 (2.56%) VPN
6 45 (1.99%) DHCP
7 33 (1.46%) WAN
8 32 (1.41%) LAN
9 24 (1.06%) Wireless
10 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.88%) 5G
12 19 (0.84%) Internet
12 19 (0.84%) SSH
13 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.75%) SSL
15 16 (0.71%) VLAN
16 15 (0.66%) BGP
16 15 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.93%) Power BI
2 107 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.38%) Metadata
4 52 (2.29%) Relational Database
5 50 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
6 41 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
7 33 (1.46%) MySQL
8 32 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.32%) Tableau
10 24 (1.06%) MongoDB
10 24 (1.06%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.01%) Big Data
12 22 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.71%) GIS
15 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
16 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
17 11 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
17 11 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 165 (7.28%) JIRA
2 131 (5.78%) Git
3 58 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.29%) GitLab
5 23 (1.01%) JUnit
6 22 (0.97%) Maven
7 21 (0.93%) SonarQube
8 20 (0.88%) Gradle
8 20 (0.88%) Selenium
9 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
10 14 (0.62%) Cucumber
10 14 (0.62%) Mockito
10 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.57%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.44%) Subversion
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.35%) MLflow
14 8 (0.35%) Postman
14 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,030 (45.43%) Social Skills
2 664 (29.29%) Finance
3 529 (23.33%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (8.47%) Banking
5 178 (7.85%) Public Sector
6 151 (6.66%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.34%) Manufacturing
8 107 (4.72%) Aerospace
9 101 (4.46%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (3.97%) Marketing
11 80 (3.53%) Legal
11 80 (3.53%) Telecoms
12 75 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
13 68 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
14 59 (2.60%) Retail
15 57 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.25%) Law
17 47 (2.07%) Pharmaceutical
18 45 (1.99%) Military
19 41 (1.81%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 309 (13.63%) Analyst
2 258 (11.38%) Senior
3 188 (8.29%) Lead
4 187 (8.25%) Developer
5 156 (6.88%) Architect
6 143 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 110 (4.85%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.26%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.87%) IT Support
9 65 (2.87%) Senior Manager
10 54 (2.38%) Consultant
10 54 (2.38%) IT Analyst
11 51 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.21%) IT Manager
13 46 (2.03%) Security Engineer
14 45 (1.99%) Technical Support
15 43 (1.90%) Designer
15 43 (1.90%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.81%) Administrator
17 40 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.59%) Terraform
2 101 (4.46%) REST
3 93 (4.10%) .NET
4 66 (2.91%) HTML
5 64 (2.82%) React
6 57 (2.51%) Kafka
7 54 (2.38%) CSS
8 46 (2.03%) RESTful
9 42 (1.85%) OAuth
9 42 (1.85%) XML
10 41 (1.81%) Web Services
11 40 (1.76%) Middleware
12 36 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.59%) Spring Boot
13 35 (1.54%) .NET Framework
14 32 (1.41%) SAML
14 32 (1.41%) SOAP
15 31 (1.37%) JSON
15 31 (1.37%) OAuth2
15 31 (1.37%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 209 (9.22%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.96%) Onboarding
3 109 (4.81%) Product Ownership
4 92 (4.06%) Cloud Native
5 90 (3.97%) Self-Motivation
6 55 (2.43%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.38%) Algorithms
8 52 (2.29%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.12%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
10 43 (1.90%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
11 40 (1.76%) Life Science
12 39 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
13 37 (1.63%) Virtual Team
14 36 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
15 30 (1.32%) SCADA
16 29 (1.28%) PMI
17 28 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 287 (12.66%) Windows
2 174 (7.68%) Linux
3 80 (3.53%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.78%) Unix
5 42 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
9 23 (1.01%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.18%) zOS
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (32.20%) Computer Science
2 626 (27.61%) Agile
3 608 (26.82%) Problem-Solving
4 479 (21.13%) Stakeholder Management
5 404 (17.82%) Continuous Improvement
6 371 (16.37%) AI
7 327 (14.42%) DevOps
8 295 (13.01%) Project Management
9 287 (12.66%) Analytics
9 287 (12.66%) CI/CD
10 260 (11.47%) ITIL
11 242 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 238 (10.50%) Decision-Making
13 222 (9.79%) Change Management
13 222 (9.79%) Roadmaps
14 221 (9.75%) Scrum
15 218 (9.62%) Cybersecurity
16 215 (9.48%) Software Engineering
17 194 (8.56%) PRINCE2
18 192 (8.47%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 380 (16.76%) Python
2 332 (14.64%) SQL
3 171 (7.54%) PowerShell
4 150 (6.62%) Java
5 121 (5.34%) JavaScript
6 109 (4.81%) C#
7 59 (2.60%) Bash
8 41 (1.81%) C++
9 39 (1.72%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.24%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.10%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.06%) C
13 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.06%) R
14 16 (0.71%) Scala
15 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.49%) X++
16 9 (0.40%) MATLAB
16 9 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 440 (19.41%) Computer Science Degree
2 430 (18.97%) Security Cleared
3 309 (13.63%) SC Cleared
4 190 (8.38%) Master's Degree
5 139 (6.13%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.34%) Microsoft Certification
6 121 (5.34%) PMP
7 105 (4.63%) CISSP
8 87 (3.84%) DV Cleared
9 81 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (3.53%) Azure Certification
11 67 (2.96%) BPSS Clearance
12 59 (2.60%) PhD
13 51 (2.25%) CISM
14 46 (2.03%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 44 (1.94%) AWS Certification
16 35 (1.54%) ISTQB
17 34 (1.50%) DBS Check
18 33 (1.46%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.46%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.87%) QA
2 130 (5.73%) Data Quality
3 89 (3.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (3.93%) NIST
4 81 (3.57%) PMO
5 70 (3.09%) GDPR
6 39 (1.72%) Accessibility
7 34 (1.50%) SLA
8 27 (1.19%) GRC
9 23 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 16 (0.71%) IFRS
10 16 (0.71%) NCSC
10 16 (0.71%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
12 11 (0.49%) P3O
13 9 (0.40%) HIPAA
13 9 (0.40%) ISO 31000
14 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
14 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 184 (8.12%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.16%) Docker
3 54 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.19%) Firmware
5 22 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) Embedded Firmware
6 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 8 (0.35%) vSphere
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 114 (5.03%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.60%) Ansible
4 31 (1.37%) SCCM
5 27 (1.19%) Grafana
6 25 (1.10%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 9 (0.40%) CASB
13 8 (0.35%) WSUS
14 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
15 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.26%) Control-M
15 6 (0.26%) HP ALM
15 6 (0.26%) Nessus
16 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 583 (25.72%) Microsoft
2 160 (7.06%) Oracle
3 137 (6.04%) ServiceNow
4 126 (5.56%) SAP
5 98 (4.32%) Google
6 70 (3.09%) VMware
7 63 (2.78%) Cisco
8 57 (2.51%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.34%) Adobe
10 45 (1.99%) Databricks
11 40 (1.76%) IBM
11 40 (1.76%) Splunk
12 31 (1.37%) Red Hat
13 30 (1.32%) CyberArk
14 24 (1.06%) Citrix
14 24 (1.06%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 20 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.84%) Apple
18 18 (0.79%) Ariba