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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -14 -6 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,264 1,999 3,011
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.37% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.89% 23.87% 26.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,218 1,203 1,676
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £635
90th Percentile £713 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 150 339
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.22 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £28.00 £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.75 £43.25 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.16% +1.76% -15.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.25 £64.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.64 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £45.63 £41.50
% change year-on-year -8.60% +9.96% -17.00%

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 14,247 8,374 11,297
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.64% 30.89% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,611 5,284 7,039
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £524 £525
% change year-on-year +0.24% -0.24% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 587 982
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.17
25th Percentile £25.24 £20.00 £20.98
Median hourly rate £53.90 £28.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +92.50% -34.88% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £86.11 £76.63 £76.92
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £27.45 £41.50
% change year-on-year +82.15% -33.86% -24.72%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -18 965 £515 -6.36% 1,104
South East -3 442 £500 +3.90% 591
North of England -12 334 £449 +0.50% 353
Midlands -23 204 £500 +23.08% 252
North West -10 188 £447 -1.97% 172
East of England -5 152 £450 -10.00% 195
West Midlands -32 151 £495 +16.47% 125
Yorkshire -10 130 £500 +17.65% 127
South West -25 121 £435 -8.42% 196
East Midlands -15 51 £550 +54.49% 126
North East -35 16 £450 +130.77% 59
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
1 129 (5.70%) SharePoint
2 114 (5.04%) Confluence
3 59 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) 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%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.088%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.088%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.088%) WinCC
Applications
1 257 (11.35%) Microsoft Office
2 208 (9.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 124 (5.48%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.69%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.62%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.088%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.088%) Windchill
15 1 (0.044%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 56 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.62%) Primavera
3 10 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.31%) Magento
6 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.22%) HFM
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.13%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 514 (22.70%) Azure
2 292 (12.90%) AWS
3 197 (8.70%) Microsoft 365
4 192 (8.48%) Power Platform
5 136 (6.01%) Entra ID
6 116 (5.12%) GCP
7 90 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.22%) SaaS
9 58 (2.56%) GitHub
10 38 (1.68%) Serverless
11 37 (1.63%) Figma
11 37 (1.63%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 32 (1.41%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.41%) Power Automate
14 29 (1.28%) PaaS
15 28 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
16 25 (1.10%) IaaS
16 25 (1.10%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.33%) Firewall
2 71 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 69 (3.05%) DNS
4 63 (2.78%) Network Security
5 52 (2.30%) VPN
6 49 (2.16%) WAN
7 48 (2.12%) LAN
8 34 (1.50%) DHCP
9 26 (1.15%) Wireless
10 23 (1.02%) BGP
11 21 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.88%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.88%) OSPF
13 15 (0.66%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
15 13 (0.57%) SSL
15 13 (0.57%) VLAN
16 12 (0.53%) MPLS
16 12 (0.53%) Skype
16 12 (0.53%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.24%) Power BI
2 108 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.21%) Relational Database
5 45 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.63%) Tableau
7 36 (1.59%) Metadata
8 35 (1.55%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.33%) Big Data
10 27 (1.19%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.10%) MySQL
12 22 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.88%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Hadoop
16 13 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.57%) Power Query
17 12 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 192 (8.48%) JIRA
2 109 (4.81%) Git
3 45 (1.99%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.77%) GitLab
5 33 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.88%) MLflow
7 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.66%) Selenium
9 12 (0.53%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Postman
11 10 (0.44%) Gradle
11 10 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.35%) Maven
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 1,010 (44.61%) Social Skills
2 680 (30.04%) Finance
3 489 (21.60%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 179 (7.91%) Banking
6 140 (6.18%) Organisational Skills
7 100 (4.42%) Marketing
7 100 (4.42%) Presentation Skills
8 89 (3.93%) Legal
9 88 (3.89%) Aerospace
10 86 (3.80%) Manufacturing
11 80 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
12 77 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.74%) Retail
13 62 (2.74%) Telecoms
14 54 (2.39%) Law
15 51 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (1.68%) Front Office
17 36 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
18 32 (1.41%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 321 (14.18%) Analyst
2 249 (11.00%) Senior
3 176 (7.77%) Architect
4 171 (7.55%) Lead
5 159 (7.02%) Developer
6 144 (6.36%) Business Analyst
7 143 (6.32%) Project Manager
8 70 (3.09%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.74%) Consultant
9 62 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (2.56%) Technical Support
11 55 (2.43%) Designer
12 52 (2.30%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.30%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.21%) IT Support
13 50 (2.21%) Product Manager
14 48 (2.12%) IT Analyst
15 46 (2.03%) Support Engineer
16 44 (1.94%) Senior Analyst
17 43 (1.90%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.98%) .NET
2 88 (3.89%) REST
3 58 (2.56%) React
4 44 (1.94%) Kafka
5 38 (1.68%) RESTful
6 36 (1.59%) Middleware
6 36 (1.59%) OAuth
7 35 (1.55%) .NET Framework
7 35 (1.55%) HTML
8 33 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
9 29 (1.28%) Spring
9 29 (1.28%) Web Services
10 27 (1.19%) SAML
10 27 (1.19%) Spring Boot
10 27 (1.19%) XML
11 25 (1.10%) AngularJS
11 25 (1.10%) CSS
11 25 (1.10%) PySpark
12 24 (1.06%) LDAP
12 24 (1.06%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 176 (7.77%) Management Information System
2 142 (6.27%) Onboarding
3 132 (5.83%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.15%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.89%) Cloud Native
6 63 (2.78%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.30%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.21%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.12%) Algorithms
10 47 (2.08%) Operational Technology
11 46 (2.03%) Security Posture
12 39 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 34 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.50%) Robotics
15 33 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
16 32 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.37%) PMI
18 28 (1.24%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 301 (13.30%) Windows
2 164 (7.24%) Linux
3 72 (3.18%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.05%) Unix
5 52 (2.30%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.06%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) AIX
13 7 (0.31%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Solaris
15 5 (0.22%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 756 (33.39%) Computer Science
2 648 (28.62%) Agile
3 599 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
4 391 (17.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 376 (16.61%) AI
6 362 (15.99%) Continuous Improvement
7 302 (13.34%) DevOps
8 277 (12.23%) Project Management
9 272 (12.01%) Analytics
10 261 (11.53%) CI/CD
11 247 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 243 (10.73%) ITIL
13 238 (10.51%) Decision-Making
14 225 (9.94%) Cybersecurity
15 205 (9.05%) Roadmaps
16 197 (8.70%) Change Management
17 189 (8.35%) Software Engineering
18 181 (7.99%) Risk Management
19 180 (7.95%) Migration
19 180 (7.95%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 383 (16.92%) Python
2 338 (14.93%) SQL
3 154 (6.80%) Java
4 130 (5.74%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.06%) C#
6 82 (3.62%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.81%) Bash
8 38 (1.68%) C++
9 32 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.15%) R
11 23 (1.02%) T-SQL
12 19 (0.84%) C
12 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.53%) Bicep
13 12 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.53%) Go
13 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
14 10 (0.44%) Perl
14 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 459 (20.27%) Computer Science Degree
2 396 (17.49%) Security Cleared
3 262 (11.57%) SC Cleared
4 227 (10.03%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.61%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.34%) CISSP
7 112 (4.95%) PMP
8 96 (4.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.58%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (2.69%) Azure Certification
11 59 (2.61%) DV Cleared
12 58 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (2.56%) CISM
13 48 (2.12%) PhD
14 39 (1.72%) CCNA
14 39 (1.72%) CCNP
15 38 (1.68%) AWS Certification
16 35 (1.55%) CISA
17 32 (1.41%) MBA
18 29 (1.28%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.08%) QA
2 111 (4.90%) NIST
3 107 (4.73%) Data Quality
4 106 (4.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (4.28%) PMO
6 82 (3.62%) GDPR
7 49 (2.16%) SLA
8 41 (1.81%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.37%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (1.19%) GRC
12 22 (0.97%) NCSC
13 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.66%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.49%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.40%) P3O
17 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 186 (8.22%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.26%) Docker
3 44 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.93%) Firmware
4 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.40%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
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 (0.088%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (5.70%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.80%) Terraform
3 71 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.61%) Ansible
5 32 (1.41%) SCCM
6 30 (1.33%) Grafana
7 27 (1.19%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.66%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.53%) Puppet
13 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.40%) WSUS
15 8 (0.35%) Nessus
16 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.22%) SCOM
16 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 549 (24.25%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.85%) Oracle
3 130 (5.74%) SAP
4 128 (5.65%) ServiceNow
5 97 (4.28%) Google
6 66 (2.92%) Cisco
7 55 (2.43%) Databricks
7 55 (2.43%) VMware
8 49 (2.16%) Salesforce
9 45 (1.99%) Adobe
10 43 (1.90%) IBM
11 36 (1.59%) Citrix
12 35 (1.55%) Splunk
13 32 (1.41%) CyberArk
14 30 (1.33%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.10%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 20 (0.88%) Ariba
17 20 (0.88%) CheckPoint
18 19 (0.84%) HP