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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,283 1,974 2,576
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.05% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.26% 22.27% 26.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,186 1,113 1,468
10th Percentile £204 £268 £263
25th Percentile £363 £400 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £501 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 167 170
10th Percentile £16.46 £16.76 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.74 £26.71 £31.78
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.50 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.49% -36.11% +13.68%
75th Percentile £68.63 £63.33 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £34.49 £50.00
% change year-on-year +14.53% -31.02% +4.17%

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 14,965 8,864 9,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.15% 31.67% 29.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,990 5,630 5,879
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £446 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,265 732 533
10th Percentile £17.55 £17.87 £18.13
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +102.78% -52.10% -
75th Percentile £73.75 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £45.50 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +80.91% -48.21% -9.23%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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 -19 984 £525 -4.55% 6,740
South East +3 464 £525 +16.67% 2,007
North of England -7 345 £475 +5.56% 1,281
North West -9 217 £479 +4.70% 699
Midlands -30 189 £450 -4.26% 879
West Midlands -29 141 £450 -5.26% 543
East of England -12 136 £425 -15.00% 955
South West -19 131 £400 -20.00% 763
Yorkshire -9 112 £500 +18.34% 392
East Midlands -17 47 £478 +6.94% 336
North East -35 16 £460 +2.22% 200
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
1 153 (6.70%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.86%) Confluence
3 59 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.27%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.88%) Apache
5 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (0.88%) IIS
6 15 (0.66%) CMS
7 14 (0.61%) Camunda
7 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
8 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.35%) SAS
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Appian
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) nginx
12 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 233 (10.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 216 (9.46%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (4.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 102 (4.47%) Microsoft Project
5 46 (2.01%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 10 (0.44%) Windchill
11 9 (0.39%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.39%) Revit
12 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
15 3 (0.13%) Trello
16 2 (0.088%) CATIA
16 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 33 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) 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%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 528 (23.13%) Azure
2 282 (12.35%) AWS
3 211 (9.24%) Microsoft 365
4 205 (8.98%) Power Platform
5 146 (6.40%) GCP
6 134 (5.87%) Entra ID
7 120 (5.26%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.20%) SaaS
9 62 (2.72%) GitHub
10 57 (2.50%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.32%) Serverless
12 50 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
13 49 (2.15%) PowerApps
14 48 (2.10%) OneDrive
15 44 (1.93%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.53%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.40%) Figma
18 29 (1.27%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.27%) OpenShift
19 27 (1.18%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 91 (3.99%) Firewall
2 72 (3.15%) DNS
3 61 (2.67%) Network Security
4 56 (2.45%) TCP/IP
5 54 (2.37%) VPN
6 44 (1.93%) DHCP
7 31 (1.36%) LAN
7 31 (1.36%) WAN
8 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.96%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
11 19 (0.83%) SSH
12 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
13 17 (0.74%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.74%) SSL
13 17 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (0.70%) Internet
14 16 (0.70%) VLAN
15 13 (0.57%) BGP
16 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (6.48%) Power BI
2 107 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.45%) Metadata
4 51 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (1.97%) Relational Database
6 44 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.53%) MySQL
8 33 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.31%) Tableau
10 27 (1.18%) Big Data
11 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.70%) Data Lake
14 16 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.70%) GIS
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 11 (0.48%) Redis
17 10 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 162 (7.10%) JIRA
2 134 (5.87%) Git
3 59 (2.58%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.45%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) JUnit
6 23 (1.01%) Maven
7 22 (0.96%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.92%) Gradle
9 19 (0.83%) Selenium
9 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.70%) Cucumber
10 16 (0.70%) Mockito
11 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.61%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (0.39%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.35%) MLflow
14 8 (0.35%) Postman
14 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,033 (45.25%) Social Skills
2 662 (29.00%) Finance
3 538 (23.57%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (8.45%) Banking
5 186 (8.15%) Public Sector
6 153 (6.70%) Organisational Skills
7 135 (5.91%) Manufacturing
8 110 (4.82%) Aerospace
9 103 (4.51%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (4.16%) Marketing
11 78 (3.42%) Legal
11 78 (3.42%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.37%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.72%) Retail
15 60 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.23%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.10%) Law
18 46 (2.01%) Military
19 42 (1.84%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 305 (13.36%) Analyst
2 260 (11.39%) Senior
3 192 (8.41%) Developer
4 185 (8.10%) Lead
5 157 (6.88%) Architect
6 149 (6.53%) Business Analyst
7 106 (4.64%) Project Manager
8 68 (2.98%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.76%) IT Support
10 62 (2.72%) Senior Manager
11 58 (2.54%) Consultant
12 52 (2.28%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (2.10%) IT Analyst
13 48 (2.10%) Security Engineer
14 46 (2.01%) Administrator
15 42 (1.84%) Data Engineer
15 42 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
15 42 (1.84%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.82%) Terraform
2 100 (4.38%) REST
3 95 (4.16%) .NET
4 68 (2.98%) HTML
4 68 (2.98%) React
5 59 (2.58%) CSS
6 57 (2.50%) Kafka
7 49 (2.15%) RESTful
8 43 (1.88%) OAuth
8 43 (1.88%) XML
9 41 (1.80%) Middleware
10 40 (1.75%) Web Services
11 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.53%) Spring Boot
13 34 (1.49%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.49%) SAML
13 34 (1.49%) SOAP
14 32 (1.40%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.40%) OpenID
15 31 (1.36%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 213 (9.33%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.65%) Onboarding
3 113 (4.95%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.12%) Cloud Native
4 94 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
5 59 (2.58%) Algorithms
6 56 (2.45%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.32%) Data Structures
8 49 (2.15%) Operational Technology
9 48 (2.10%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
11 44 (1.93%) Life Science
12 39 (1.71%) AI Agents
13 38 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
14 37 (1.62%) Virtual Team
15 36 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
16 35 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
17 33 (1.45%) SCADA
18 30 (1.31%) PMI
19 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 285 (12.48%) Windows
2 175 (7.67%) Linux
3 82 (3.59%) Windows Server
4 68 (2.98%) Unix
5 41 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.31%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.79%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) zOS
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 733 (32.11%) Computer Science
2 645 (28.25%) Agile
3 619 (27.11%) Problem-Solving
4 510 (22.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 407 (17.83%) Continuous Improvement
6 383 (16.78%) AI
7 343 (15.02%) DevOps
8 303 (13.27%) CI/CD
9 294 (12.88%) Analytics
10 285 (12.48%) Project Management
11 254 (11.13%) ITIL
12 243 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (10.38%) Decision-Making
14 233 (10.21%) Roadmaps
15 232 (10.16%) Scrum
16 225 (9.86%) Change Management
17 220 (9.64%) Software Engineering
18 217 (9.51%) Cybersecurity
19 204 (8.94%) PRINCE2
20 203 (8.89%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 374 (16.38%) Python
2 339 (14.85%) SQL
3 170 (7.45%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.35%) Java
5 124 (5.43%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.69%) C#
7 63 (2.76%) Bash
8 38 (1.66%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.58%) C++
10 29 (1.27%) Bicep
11 27 (1.18%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.14%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.96%) R
15 21 (0.92%) C
16 16 (0.70%) Scala
17 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 11 (0.48%) X++
19 9 (0.39%) Go
Qualifications
1 450 (19.71%) Security Cleared
2 445 (19.49%) Computer Science Degree
3 326 (14.28%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.45%) Master's Degree
5 147 (6.44%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.65%) PMP
7 115 (5.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 105 (4.60%) CISSP
9 92 (4.03%) DV Cleared
10 80 (3.50%) Azure Certification
11 79 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
12 72 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.54%) PhD
14 50 (2.19%) CISM
15 47 (2.06%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 42 (1.84%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.66%) DBS Check
18 36 (1.58%) ISTQB
19 32 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
20 31 (1.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.91%) QA
2 133 (5.83%) Data Quality
3 89 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.77%) NIST
5 78 (3.42%) GDPR
6 72 (3.15%) PMO
7 41 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.45%) SLA
9 30 (1.31%) GRC
10 20 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.74%) NCSC
11 17 (0.74%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
13 14 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 10 (0.44%) IEC 61508
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 179 (7.84%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.17%) Docker
3 58 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 24 (1.05%) Firmware
6 22 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
10 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
12 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.22%) NFS
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.13%) RACF
14 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 122 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 56 (2.45%) Ansible
4 29 (1.27%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 23 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 12 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.48%) SCOM
12 10 (0.44%) CASB
13 9 (0.39%) Functional Safety
14 8 (0.35%) Control-M
15 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.26%) Nessus
15 6 (0.26%) WSUS
16 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
16 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 575 (25.19%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.10%) Oracle
3 132 (5.78%) ServiceNow
4 121 (5.30%) SAP
5 106 (4.64%) Google
6 73 (3.20%) VMware
7 63 (2.76%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.67%) Cisco
9 56 (2.45%) Adobe
10 48 (2.10%) Databricks
11 43 (1.88%) IBM
12 39 (1.71%) Splunk
13 30 (1.31%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.14%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.14%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.92%) Apple
15 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.92%) Citrix
16 19 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 18 (0.79%) Ariba