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 21 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 26 19
Rank change year-on-year -11 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,176 1,844 3,104
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.39% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.93% 23.69% 26.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,205 1,105 1,660
10th Percentile £206 £235 £235
25th Percentile £367 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £630
90th Percentile £720 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 233 134 374
10th Percentile £18.35 £20.07 £15.79
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.00 £24.18
Median hourly rate £51.44 £50.00 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +2.88% +23.99% -12.81%
75th Percentile £83.75 £70.12 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.93
UK median hourly rate £47.00 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.68% +19.51% -17.02%

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 13,660 7,785 11,504
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.59% 31.21% 30.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,212 4,905 7,080
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £646
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,033 502 1,024
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.88 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £20.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.13 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.27% -27.41% -24.55%
75th Percentile £73.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.39 £79.87 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.29
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.54% -27.13%

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 21 June 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 21 June 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 21 June 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 -19 931 £510 -7.36% 679
South East -1 410 £500 +4.99% 576
North of England -12 334 £447 -0.67% 389
Midlands -25 193 £513 +43.16% 240
North West -6 185 £443 -2.74% 228
West Midlands -28 143 £492 +23.00% 126
East of England -5 142 £450 -10.00% 184
Yorkshire -11 134 £500 +14.68% 118
South West -22 119 £450 -5.26% 197
East Midlands -18 48 £538 +52.27% 114
North East -38 15 £450 +130.77% 51
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
1 121 (5.56%) SharePoint
2 107 (4.92%) Confluence
3 65 (2.99%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.42%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.74%) Apache
7 11 (0.51%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.092%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 254 (11.67%) Microsoft Office
2 205 (9.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.79%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.57%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.092%) Windchill
14 1 (0.046%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 50 (2.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.69%) Primavera
3 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.28%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) HFM
9 4 (0.18%) Magento
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 477 (21.92%) Azure
2 286 (13.14%) AWS
3 192 (8.82%) Microsoft 365
4 176 (8.09%) Power Platform
5 127 (5.84%) Entra ID
6 106 (4.87%) GCP
7 78 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (3.45%) SaaS
9 51 (2.34%) GitHub
10 34 (1.56%) Figma
10 34 (1.56%) Serverless
11 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.47%) OneDrive
12 32 (1.47%) PowerApps
12 32 (1.47%) Snowflake
13 29 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
13 29 (1.33%) PaaS
14 28 (1.29%) Google Workspace
15 25 (1.15%) IaaS
16 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.46%) Firewall
2 66 (3.03%) TCP/IP
3 64 (2.94%) DNS
4 57 (2.62%) Network Security
5 46 (2.11%) WAN
6 43 (1.98%) LAN
6 43 (1.98%) VPN
7 33 (1.52%) DHCP
8 25 (1.15%) Wireless
9 22 (1.01%) BGP
10 20 (0.92%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.87%) OSPF
11 19 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (0.64%) 3GPP
12 14 (0.64%) Skype
13 12 (0.55%) Internet
13 12 (0.55%) SAN
13 12 (0.55%) SSH
14 11 (0.51%) DMZ
15 10 (0.46%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (6.85%) Power BI
2 102 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.79%) Tableau
7 32 (1.47%) Metadata
7 32 (1.47%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Big Data
9 25 (1.15%) MongoDB
10 21 (0.97%) MySQL
11 19 (0.87%) Oracle Database
12 18 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
15 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.55%) Power Query
18 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 191 (8.78%) JIRA
2 100 (4.60%) Git
3 40 (1.84%) GitLab
3 40 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
5 21 (0.97%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.87%) MLflow
7 14 (0.64%) Selenium
8 11 (0.51%) Gradle
8 11 (0.51%) JUnit
8 11 (0.51%) Postman
9 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.41%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.37%) Maven
12 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.32%) Subversion
13 6 (0.28%) Burp Suite
13 6 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 992 (45.59%) Social Skills
2 670 (30.79%) Finance
3 443 (20.36%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.50%) Banking
5 183 (8.41%) Public Sector
6 126 (5.79%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
8 91 (4.18%) Marketing
9 87 (4.00%) Aerospace
10 85 (3.91%) Legal
11 79 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
11 79 (3.63%) Manufacturing
12 70 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
13 59 (2.71%) Telecoms
14 56 (2.57%) Retail
15 50 (2.30%) Law
16 41 (1.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.79%) Front Office
18 32 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
19 31 (1.42%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 319 (14.66%) Analyst
2 244 (11.21%) Senior
3 170 (7.81%) Architect
4 161 (7.40%) Lead
5 151 (6.94%) Developer
6 144 (6.62%) Business Analyst
6 144 (6.62%) Project Manager
7 65 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
8 60 (2.76%) Consultant
9 59 (2.71%) Senior Manager
10 57 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
10 57 (2.62%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.39%) Designer
11 52 (2.39%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.30%) Product Manager
13 47 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
14 45 (2.07%) IT Manager
15 44 (2.02%) IT Support
16 42 (1.93%) IT Analyst
16 42 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.18%) REST
2 82 (3.77%) .NET
3 56 (2.57%) React
4 45 (2.07%) Kafka
5 43 (1.98%) Oracle Fusion
6 42 (1.93%) Middleware
7 37 (1.70%) .NET Framework
8 35 (1.61%) HTML
8 35 (1.61%) OAuth
8 35 (1.61%) RESTful
9 28 (1.29%) Web Services
10 27 (1.24%) Spring Boot
10 27 (1.24%) XML
11 26 (1.19%) Spring
12 25 (1.15%) JSON
12 25 (1.15%) SAML
13 24 (1.10%) CSS
14 23 (1.06%) SOAP
15 22 (1.01%) AngularJS
15 22 (1.01%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 171 (7.86%) Management Information System
2 133 (6.11%) Onboarding
3 128 (5.88%) Product Ownership
4 89 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 80 (3.68%) Cloud Native
6 68 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
7 51 (2.34%) Virtual Team
8 46 (2.11%) Algorithms
9 45 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (2.07%) Security Posture
10 42 (1.93%) PMI
11 40 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
11 40 (1.84%) Operational Technology
12 36 (1.65%) Robotics
13 32 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
13 32 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
14 29 (1.33%) Derivative
14 29 (1.33%) Life Science
15 28 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 302 (13.88%) Windows
2 170 (7.81%) Linux
3 71 (3.26%) Unix
3 71 (3.26%) Windows Server
4 56 (2.57%) Windows 10
5 34 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 29 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 27 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.15%) Android
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 718 (33.00%) Computer Science
2 620 (28.49%) Agile
3 556 (25.55%) Problem-Solving
4 353 (16.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 346 (15.90%) AI
6 340 (15.63%) Continuous Improvement
7 293 (13.47%) DevOps
8 268 (12.32%) Project Management
9 250 (11.49%) Analytics
10 249 (11.44%) CI/CD
11 225 (10.34%) Decision-Making
12 216 (9.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 209 (9.60%) Cybersecurity
14 205 (9.42%) ITIL
15 203 (9.33%) Change Management
16 199 (9.15%) Roadmaps
17 190 (8.73%) Migration
18 181 (8.32%) Risk Management
19 173 (7.95%) Scrum
20 172 (7.90%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 361 (16.59%) Python
2 321 (14.75%) SQL
3 147 (6.76%) Java
4 125 (5.74%) PowerShell
5 90 (4.14%) C#
6 82 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.84%) Bash
8 38 (1.75%) C++
9 27 (1.24%) TypeScript
10 24 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.06%) R
12 18 (0.83%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.78%) C
14 13 (0.60%) Rust
15 12 (0.55%) Go
15 12 (0.55%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.55%) Perl
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 441 (20.27%) Computer Science Degree
2 384 (17.65%) Security Cleared
3 262 (12.04%) SC Cleared
4 216 (9.93%) Master's Degree
5 132 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.42%) CISSP
7 114 (5.24%) PMP
8 87 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
9 77 (3.54%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (2.62%) CISM
12 53 (2.44%) DV Cleared
13 49 (2.25%) Azure Certification
14 43 (1.98%) PhD
15 37 (1.70%) CCNP
16 36 (1.65%) CCNA
17 35 (1.61%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.56%) MBA
19 32 (1.47%) CISA
20 31 (1.42%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (5.51%) QA
2 112 (5.15%) NIST
3 111 (5.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.41%) PMO
5 95 (4.37%) Data Quality
6 89 (4.09%) GDPR
7 46 (2.11%) SLA
8 38 (1.75%) Accessibility
9 36 (1.65%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.15%) GRC
12 19 (0.87%) NCSC
13 16 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.74%) IFRS
14 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.41%) COBIT
17 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 173 (7.95%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.47%) Docker
3 39 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.29%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.97%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.18%) XenApp
11 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 3 (0.14%) NFS
12 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (5.93%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.68%) Terraform
3 72 (3.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.85%) Ansible
5 34 (1.56%) Grafana
5 34 (1.56%) SCCM
6 32 (1.47%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.69%) Puppet
10 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.51%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.41%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) Kibana
15 5 (0.23%) Control-M
15 5 (0.23%) Kiali
15 5 (0.23%) Nmap
Vendors
1 508 (23.35%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.08%) Oracle
3 118 (5.42%) SAP
4 110 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 89 (4.09%) Google
6 60 (2.76%) Cisco
7 47 (2.16%) Databricks
8 46 (2.11%) Citrix
9 44 (2.02%) VMware
10 39 (1.79%) Splunk
11 38 (1.75%) Salesforce
12 37 (1.70%) Adobe
12 37 (1.70%) IBM
13 29 (1.33%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.24%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.06%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.06%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.92%) Siemens
17 19 (0.87%) Ariba
18 18 (0.83%) HP