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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,239 1,976 2,574
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.85% 7.12% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.18% 22.63% 26.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,160 1,131 1,472
10th Percentile £204 £263 £270
25th Percentile £358 £389 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £634
90th Percentile £732 £750 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 153 195
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.00 £27.16 £35.63
Median hourly rate £38.72 £39.32 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -1.53% -31.44% +19.13%
75th Percentile £69.50 £67.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.20 £86.25 £79.67
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £39.89 £56.49
% change year-on-year -4.11% -29.39% +17.37%

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 14,748 8,730 9,847
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.93% 31.46% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,908 5,534 6,107
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 £638 £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 1,162 676 593
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.08
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -54.27% -
75th Percentile £74.00 £47.80 £69.69
90th Percentile £88.66 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -20 974 £525 -4.55% 4,129
South East +4 458 £525 +12.00% 1,222
North of England -19 329 £483 +8.05% 732
North West -10 206 £475 +4.00% 387
Midlands -32 177 £450 -1.37% 521
East of England -10 135 £300 -38.46% 576
West Midlands -37 130 £450 -5.26% 305
South West -21 125 £400 -13.51% 529
Yorkshire -7 107 £513 +23.12% 224
East Midlands -23 46 £463 +6.69% 216
North East -38 16 £455 +1.11% 133
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
1 156 (6.97%) SharePoint
2 99 (4.42%) Confluence
3 61 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
6 17 (0.76%) IIS
7 13 (0.58%) Camunda
7 13 (0.58%) SharePoint Server
8 12 (0.54%) CMS
9 9 (0.40%) SAS
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 231 (10.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 220 (9.83%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (5.09%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 43 (1.92%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 41 (1.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) Primavera
4 8 (0.36%) Magento
4 8 (0.36%) 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
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 521 (23.27%) Azure
2 283 (12.64%) AWS
3 219 (9.78%) Microsoft 365
4 210 (9.38%) Power Platform
5 133 (5.94%) GCP
6 128 (5.72%) Entra ID
7 110 (4.91%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.26%) SaaS
9 64 (2.86%) GitHub
10 52 (2.32%) Power Automate
11 50 (2.23%) PowerApps
11 50 (2.23%) Serverless
12 47 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
12 47 (2.10%) OneDrive
13 43 (1.92%) Microsoft Copilot
14 34 (1.52%) Snowflake
15 32 (1.43%) Figma
16 26 (1.16%) OpenShift
17 25 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
17 25 (1.12%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.33%) Firewall
2 73 (3.26%) DNS
3 63 (2.81%) Network Security
4 58 (2.59%) TCP/IP
4 58 (2.59%) VPN
5 45 (2.01%) DHCP
6 32 (1.43%) WAN
7 31 (1.38%) LAN
8 24 (1.07%) Wireless
9 23 (1.03%) 3GPP
10 19 (0.85%) 5G
10 19 (0.85%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) SSH
12 17 (0.76%) Radio Access Network
12 17 (0.76%) SSL
12 17 (0.76%) Wireshark
13 16 (0.71%) BGP
14 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 15 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.63%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.97%) Power BI
2 107 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.28%) Metadata
3 51 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 47 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
6 32 (1.43%) Tableau
7 31 (1.38%) MySQL
8 30 (1.34%) NoSQL
9 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
10 23 (1.03%) Big Data
10 23 (1.03%) MongoDB
10 23 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 15 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.67%) GIS
12 14 (0.63%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.63%) Data Mining
13 11 (0.49%) Power Query
13 11 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 165 (7.37%) JIRA
2 123 (5.49%) Git
3 57 (2.55%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.28%) GitLab
5 22 (0.98%) JUnit
6 20 (0.89%) Maven
6 20 (0.89%) SonarQube
7 18 (0.80%) Gradle
7 18 (0.80%) Selenium
8 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.63%) REST Assured
9 14 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
10 13 (0.58%) Mockito
11 12 (0.54%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.49%) MLflow
12 11 (0.49%) Rational DOORS
12 11 (0.49%) Subversion
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
15 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 1,008 (45.02%) Social Skills
2 660 (29.48%) Finance
3 510 (22.78%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (8.53%) Banking
5 176 (7.86%) Public Sector
6 148 (6.61%) Organisational Skills
7 115 (5.14%) Manufacturing
8 100 (4.47%) Aerospace
9 90 (4.02%) Marketing
10 87 (3.89%) Influencing Skills
11 83 (3.71%) Legal
12 81 (3.62%) Telecoms
13 74 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
14 65 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
15 60 (2.68%) Retail
16 55 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 49 (2.19%) Law
18 45 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
19 43 (1.92%) Military
20 39 (1.74%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 309 (13.80%) Analyst
2 260 (11.61%) Senior
3 188 (8.40%) Lead
4 181 (8.08%) Developer
5 155 (6.92%) Architect
6 142 (6.34%) Business Analyst
7 111 (4.96%) Project Manager
8 73 (3.26%) Support Engineer
9 67 (2.99%) Senior Manager
10 65 (2.90%) IT Support
11 54 (2.41%) Consultant
12 53 (2.37%) IT Analyst
12 53 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (2.14%) IT Manager
14 45 (2.01%) Technical Support
15 44 (1.97%) Designer
16 43 (1.92%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.88%) Security Engineer
17 42 (1.88%) Senior Analyst
18 40 (1.79%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.64%) Terraform
2 94 (4.20%) .NET
3 91 (4.06%) REST
4 63 (2.81%) HTML
5 62 (2.77%) React
6 57 (2.55%) Kafka
7 51 (2.28%) CSS
8 41 (1.83%) RESTful
9 38 (1.70%) OAuth
9 38 (1.70%) XML
10 35 (1.56%) Spring Boot
11 34 (1.52%) .NET Framework
11 34 (1.52%) Middleware
11 34 (1.52%) Web Services
12 33 (1.47%) Oracle Fusion
13 30 (1.34%) Spring
14 29 (1.30%) SAML
15 28 (1.25%) JSON
15 28 (1.25%) OAuth2
16 27 (1.21%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 202 (9.02%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.85%) Onboarding
3 106 (4.73%) Product Ownership
4 91 (4.06%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 55 (2.46%) Data Structures
7 54 (2.41%) Algorithms
8 52 (2.32%) Data Centre
9 45 (2.01%) Security Posture
10 42 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
10 42 (1.88%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.79%) Virtual Team
12 39 (1.74%) Life Science
13 38 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
14 36 (1.61%) AI Agents
14 36 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
15 35 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
16 30 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
16 30 (1.34%) SCADA
17 29 (1.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 285 (12.73%) Windows
2 175 (7.82%) Linux
3 78 (3.48%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.68%) Unix
5 42 (1.88%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.30%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.98%) 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%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 724 (32.34%) Computer Science
2 619 (27.65%) Agile
3 598 (26.71%) Problem-Solving
4 453 (20.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 402 (17.95%) Continuous Improvement
6 366 (16.35%) AI
7 317 (14.16%) DevOps
8 285 (12.73%) Project Management
9 283 (12.64%) Analytics
10 280 (12.51%) CI/CD
11 255 (11.39%) ITIL
12 234 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 229 (10.23%) Decision-Making
14 216 (9.65%) Scrum
15 212 (9.47%) Cybersecurity
16 211 (9.42%) Software Engineering
17 210 (9.38%) Change Management
18 208 (9.29%) Roadmaps
19 192 (8.58%) PRINCE2
20 182 (8.13%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 379 (16.93%) Python
2 329 (14.69%) SQL
3 170 (7.59%) PowerShell
4 152 (6.79%) Java
5 119 (5.31%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.78%) C#
7 58 (2.59%) Bash
8 42 (1.88%) C++
9 38 (1.70%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.25%) Bicep
11 27 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.07%) C
12 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
13 23 (1.03%) R
14 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.63%) Scala
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 440 (19.65%) Computer Science Degree
2 418 (18.67%) Security Cleared
3 296 (13.22%) SC Cleared
4 186 (8.31%) Master's Degree
5 129 (5.76%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.45%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (5.14%) PMP
8 102 (4.56%) CISSP
9 79 (3.53%) DV Cleared
10 77 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
11 76 (3.39%) Azure Certification
12 66 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.50%) PhD
14 48 (2.14%) CISM
15 44 (1.97%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 38 (1.70%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.56%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.47%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.47%) CCNA
18 33 (1.47%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.76%) QA
2 121 (5.40%) Data Quality
3 89 (3.97%) NIST
4 85 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.62%) PMO
6 64 (2.86%) GDPR
7 39 (1.74%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.61%) SLA
9 25 (1.12%) GRC
10 24 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.76%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.71%) NCSC
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
14 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) P3O
16 8 (0.36%) COBIT
16 8 (0.36%) IEC 61508
16 8 (0.36%) ISO 31000
16 8 (0.36%) NIST 800
System Software
1 182 (8.13%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.27%) Docker
3 51 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.16%) Firmware
5 22 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (0.94%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.40%) Embedded Firmware
8 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
10 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 114 (5.09%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.17%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.64%) Ansible
4 31 (1.38%) SCCM
5 26 (1.16%) Grafana
6 24 (1.07%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.54%) SCOM
12 8 (0.36%) CASB
12 8 (0.36%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) Control-M
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 581 (25.95%) Microsoft
2 157 (7.01%) Oracle
3 133 (5.94%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.54%) SAP
5 91 (4.06%) Google
6 68 (3.04%) VMware
7 62 (2.77%) Cisco
8 58 (2.59%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.41%) Adobe
10 44 (1.97%) Databricks
11 40 (1.79%) IBM
12 38 (1.70%) Splunk
13 32 (1.43%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.30%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.12%) Citrix
16 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) OpenAI
17 20 (0.89%) Palo Alto
18 19 (0.85%) Apple
19 18 (0.80%) Ariba