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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,140 1,872 3,071
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.25% 7.74% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.39% 24.63% 27.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,239 1,122 1,625
10th Percentile £238 £250 £221
25th Percentile £380 £395 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% +1.28% -5.93%
75th Percentile £613 £656 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £773
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 140 376
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.58 £27.29 £23.94
Median hourly rate £62.06 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.99% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.88
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +2.80% +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 13,060 7,600 11,282
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.06% 31.41% 30.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,773 4,834 6,961
10th Percentile £348 £285 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £521 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -0.86% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 951 434 979
10th Percentile £17.05 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.00
Median hourly rate £48.72 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.80% - -23.81%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.81 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £49.36 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +31.63% -6.25% -25.93%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -17 897 £505 -8.18% 1,034
South East -4 373 £500 +1.63% 704
North of England -11 319 £418 -9.62% 476
Midlands -22 213 £500 +49.25% 297
North West -9 163 £401 -14.01% 244
West Midlands -27 148 £495 +65.00% 185
Yorkshire -11 140 £450 +4.53% 166
South West -12 139 £553 +16.32% 269
East of England -10 138 £450 -10.00% 233
East Midlands -11 63 £525 +47.47% 112
North East -23 16 £450 -5.26% 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
1 138 (6.45%) Confluence
2 113 (5.28%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.64%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.84%) Apache
5 18 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.33%) CMS
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 6 (0.28%) SAS
8 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.19%) IIS
10 3 (0.14%) Moodle
10 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.093%) Appian
11 2 (0.093%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
11 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 282 (13.18%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 165 (7.71%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.71%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.47%) Adobe Illustrator
7 10 (0.47%) Photoshop
7 10 (0.47%) Simulink
8 9 (0.42%) Adobe After Effects
9 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 8 (0.37%) Trello
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.23%) Sketch
11 3 (0.14%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.093%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 51 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.65%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 442 (20.65%) Azure
2 258 (12.06%) AWS
3 186 (8.69%) Microsoft 365
4 170 (7.94%) Power Platform
5 101 (4.72%) Entra ID
6 88 (4.11%) SaaS
7 83 (3.88%) GCP
8 71 (3.32%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.38%) GitHub
10 34 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.54%) Google Workspace
12 32 (1.50%) PaaS
13 31 (1.45%) Power Automate
14 30 (1.40%) Figma
14 30 (1.40%) IaaS
15 27 (1.26%) Serverless
16 25 (1.17%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.17%) Snowflake
17 23 (1.07%) OneDrive
18 22 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 91 (4.25%) Firewall
2 52 (2.43%) LAN
2 52 (2.43%) WAN
3 51 (2.38%) TCP/IP
4 47 (2.20%) DNS
5 43 (2.01%) Network Security
6 34 (1.59%) VPN
7 27 (1.26%) Wireless
8 24 (1.12%) BGP
9 21 (0.98%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.98%) OSPF
10 20 (0.93%) DHCP
11 18 (0.84%) Skype
12 14 (0.65%) SAN
12 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.61%) HTTP
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) IPsec
15 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.47%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (6.59%) Power BI
2 86 (4.02%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
3 50 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.29%) Relational Database
5 36 (1.68%) Tableau
6 31 (1.45%) NoSQL
7 29 (1.36%) Big Data
7 29 (1.36%) Metadata
8 25 (1.17%) MySQL
9 20 (0.93%) MongoDB
10 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
11 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.56%) Power Query
15 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 232 (10.84%) JIRA
2 93 (4.35%) Git
3 39 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.78%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) Gradle
9 13 (0.61%) Postman
10 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.42%) JUnit
13 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,008 (47.10%) Social Skills
2 656 (30.65%) Finance
3 459 (21.45%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (9.16%) Banking
5 175 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.47%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.07%) Marketing
9 80 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
10 72 (3.36%) Legal
11 70 (3.27%) Aerospace
12 65 (3.04%) Influencing Skills
13 63 (2.94%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.48%) Telecoms
15 52 (2.43%) Military
16 51 (2.38%) Law
17 48 (2.24%) Retail
18 38 (1.78%) Front Office
19 34 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 31 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 308 (14.39%) Analyst
2 238 (11.12%) Senior
3 177 (8.27%) Architect
4 160 (7.48%) Lead
5 158 (7.38%) Project Manager
6 153 (7.15%) Business Analyst
7 148 (6.92%) Developer
8 62 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
8 62 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
9 57 (2.66%) Consultant
9 57 (2.66%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.57%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (2.34%) Software Engineer
12 49 (2.29%) Product Manager
13 46 (2.15%) Senior Manager
14 44 (2.06%) Designer
15 41 (1.92%) Data Scientist
16 40 (1.87%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.78%) IT Analyst
17 38 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.11%) REST
2 67 (3.13%) .NET
3 54 (2.52%) React
4 52 (2.43%) Middleware
5 43 (2.01%) Kafka
6 41 (1.92%) HTML
6 41 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
7 39 (1.82%) RESTful
8 33 (1.54%) Spring Boot
9 32 (1.50%) XML
10 31 (1.45%) SOAP
11 30 (1.40%) Spring
12 29 (1.36%) CSS
13 27 (1.26%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.21%) Pandas
15 25 (1.17%) .NET Framework
15 25 (1.17%) OAuth
16 24 (1.12%) JSON
16 24 (1.12%) Web Services
17 22 (1.03%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 158 (7.38%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.96%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.56%) Onboarding
4 71 (3.32%) Cloud Native
5 69 (3.22%) Self-Motivation
6 61 (2.85%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.71%) Virtual Team
8 52 (2.43%) Data Structures
9 51 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
10 48 (2.24%) PMI
11 47 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
12 45 (2.10%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.78%) Robotics
14 36 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
15 33 (1.54%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.45%) Derivative
17 30 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
17 30 (1.40%) Security Posture
18 28 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
19 26 (1.21%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 257 (12.01%) Windows
2 159 (7.43%) Linux
3 69 (3.22%) Unix
4 64 (2.99%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.57%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.17%) Android
7 22 (1.03%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.47%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
14 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (34.11%) Computer Science
2 647 (30.23%) Agile
3 549 (25.65%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 317 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 314 (14.67%) AI
7 304 (14.21%) Project Management
8 287 (13.41%) DevOps
9 236 (11.03%) CI/CD
10 226 (10.56%) Analytics
11 224 (10.47%) Decision-Making
12 221 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 206 (9.63%) ITIL
14 204 (9.53%) Change Management
15 203 (9.49%) Migration
16 194 (9.07%) Cybersecurity
17 193 (9.02%) Risk Management
18 185 (8.64%) PRINCE2
19 181 (8.46%) Roadmaps
20 174 (8.13%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 340 (15.89%) Python
2 322 (15.05%) SQL
3 153 (7.15%) Java
4 102 (4.77%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.97%) C#
6 78 (3.64%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.66%) C++
8 37 (1.73%) Bash
9 32 (1.50%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.26%) R
11 22 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 16 (0.75%) C
13 15 (0.70%) Perl
13 15 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.65%) Go
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 14 (0.65%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.47%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 466 (21.78%) Computer Science Degree
2 410 (19.16%) Security Cleared
3 292 (13.64%) SC Cleared
4 233 (10.89%) Master's Degree
5 139 (6.50%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.65%) PMP
7 94 (4.39%) CISSP
8 74 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (2.48%) CISM
11 52 (2.43%) TOGAF Certification
12 51 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (2.24%) DV Cleared
14 44 (2.06%) PhD
15 43 (2.01%) Azure Certification
16 40 (1.87%) CCNP
17 34 (1.59%) MBA
18 33 (1.54%) CBAP
19 32 (1.50%) CCNA
20 27 (1.26%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.73%) QA
2 107 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 104 (4.86%) PMO
4 100 (4.67%) NIST
5 97 (4.53%) GDPR
6 89 (4.16%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.29%) SLA
8 41 (1.92%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.82%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.03%) GRC
12 20 (0.93%) NCSC
13 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.70%) IFRS
14 12 (0.56%) Basel III
14 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.47%) COBIT
16 9 (0.42%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 137 (6.40%) Active Directory
2 116 (5.42%) Docker
3 35 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.33%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.093%) HDFS
11 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.047%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.047%) Squid
12 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 129 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 71 (3.32%) Terraform
3 59 (2.76%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.71%) Ansible
5 35 (1.64%) SCCM
6 34 (1.59%) Grafana
7 27 (1.26%) Prometheus
8 26 (1.21%) OPNET
9 18 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
12 11 (0.51%) Nmap
13 9 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.42%) Kiali
13 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
15 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 490 (22.90%) Microsoft
2 149 (6.96%) Oracle
3 120 (5.61%) SAP
4 118 (5.51%) ServiceNow
5 72 (3.36%) Google
6 68 (3.18%) Cisco
7 49 (2.29%) Databricks
7 49 (2.29%) Splunk
8 44 (2.06%) Remedy
9 42 (1.96%) Salesforce
10 41 (1.92%) Citrix
10 41 (1.92%) VMware
11 36 (1.68%) Atlassian
11 36 (1.68%) IBM
12 34 (1.59%) Adobe
13 32 (1.50%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.36%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.07%) Aruba
16 21 (0.98%) Siemens
17 20 (0.93%) CyberArk