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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -11 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,157 1,864 3,100
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.02% 7.53% 8.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.89% 24.10% 27.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,119 1,664
10th Percentile £210 £235 £235
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £725 £767 £750
UK median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 139 373
10th Percentile £19.03 £18.06 £15.49
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.67 £24.18
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +24.22% -10.56%
75th Percentile £84.00 £73.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.15 £73.95
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.15%

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 13,577 7,736 11,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.27% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,129 4,859 7,056
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year - -1.75% -2.84%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,030 496 1,012
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.24 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.31 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +73.24% -26.56% -24.97%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -18 921 £505 -8.18% 1,303
South East +1 403 £500 +5.26% 1,038
North of England -13 331 £447 -3.35% 799
Midlands -22 195 £523 +46.77% 485
North West -7 181 £418 -10.25% 408
West Midlands -27 141 £487 +23.56% 248
East of England -3 138 £450 -10.00% 527
Yorkshire -7 135 £503 +12.58% 269
South West -22 117 £460 -3.26% 380
East Midlands -14 52 £545 +58.55% 237
North East -35 15 £450 +130.77% 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
1 117 (5.42%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.87%) Confluence
3 63 (2.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.39%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) 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 (0.19%) Appian
11 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 251 (11.64%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 124 (5.75%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.60%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.42%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.046%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 51 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.65%) Primavera
3 11 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.42%) 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
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 470 (21.79%) Azure
2 275 (12.75%) AWS
3 187 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 171 (7.93%) Power Platform
5 126 (5.84%) Entra ID
6 101 (4.68%) GCP
7 79 (3.66%) SaaS
8 76 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (2.50%) GitHub
10 33 (1.53%) Figma
10 33 (1.53%) Serverless
11 32 (1.48%) Power Automate
12 31 (1.44%) OneDrive
12 31 (1.44%) PowerApps
12 31 (1.44%) Snowflake
13 30 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
13 30 (1.39%) Google Workspace
14 29 (1.34%) PaaS
15 25 (1.16%) IaaS
16 23 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.40%) Firewall
2 62 (2.87%) TCP/IP
3 61 (2.83%) DNS
4 56 (2.60%) Network Security
5 46 (2.13%) WAN
6 43 (1.99%) LAN
7 39 (1.81%) VPN
8 32 (1.48%) DHCP
9 25 (1.16%) Wireless
10 21 (0.97%) BGP
11 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
13 18 (0.83%) OSPF
14 14 (0.65%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.65%) Skype
15 13 (0.60%) SSH
16 12 (0.56%) SAN
17 11 (0.51%) DMZ
17 11 (0.51%) VXLAN
18 10 (0.46%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.68%) Power BI
2 100 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.18%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.81%) Tableau
7 31 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.39%) Metadata
9 28 (1.30%) Big Data
10 23 (1.07%) MongoDB
11 22 (1.02%) MySQL
12 19 (0.88%) Oracle Database
13 18 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.51%) Power Query
17 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 184 (8.53%) JIRA
2 97 (4.50%) Git
3 39 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.88%) MLflow
6 19 (0.88%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.65%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Gradle
8 12 (0.56%) JUnit
9 11 (0.51%) Postman
10 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.42%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.37%) Maven
13 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Subversion
14 6 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 995 (46.13%) Social Skills
2 671 (31.11%) Finance
3 440 (20.40%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.62%) Banking
5 181 (8.39%) Public Sector
6 126 (5.84%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.15%) Presentation Skills
8 96 (4.45%) Marketing
9 86 (3.99%) Legal
10 85 (3.94%) Aerospace
11 79 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (3.52%) Manufacturing
13 69 (3.20%) Influencing Skills
14 56 (2.60%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.46%) Retail
16 50 (2.32%) Law
17 41 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.81%) Front Office
19 32 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
20 31 (1.44%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 319 (14.79%) Analyst
2 247 (11.45%) Senior
3 166 (7.70%) Architect
4 161 (7.46%) Lead
5 147 (6.82%) Developer
6 145 (6.72%) Business Analyst
7 144 (6.68%) Project Manager
8 66 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
9 60 (2.78%) Consultant
10 58 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
10 58 (2.69%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.60%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.46%) Designer
13 52 (2.41%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.32%) Delivery Manager
15 49 (2.27%) Product Manager
16 44 (2.04%) IT Manager
17 42 (1.95%) Security Engineer
18 40 (1.85%) IT Analyst
18 40 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.31%) REST
2 79 (3.66%) .NET
3 56 (2.60%) React
4 45 (2.09%) Kafka
4 45 (2.09%) Middleware
5 44 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
6 37 (1.72%) HTML
7 34 (1.58%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.58%) OAuth
7 34 (1.58%) RESTful
8 27 (1.25%) Spring Boot
8 27 (1.25%) XML
9 26 (1.21%) CSS
9 26 (1.21%) Web Services
10 25 (1.16%) Spring
11 24 (1.11%) JSON
11 24 (1.11%) SAML
12 23 (1.07%) AngularJS
12 23 (1.07%) SOAP
13 22 (1.02%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 166 (7.70%) Management Information System
2 134 (6.21%) Onboarding
3 127 (5.89%) Product Ownership
4 88 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
5 77 (3.57%) Cloud Native
6 68 (3.15%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.46%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.36%) Data Structures
9 47 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (2.09%) Algorithms
11 43 (1.99%) PMI
12 40 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.85%) Security Posture
13 39 (1.81%) Operational Technology
14 37 (1.72%) Robotics
15 34 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
16 32 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (1.39%) Derivative
18 28 (1.30%) Life Science
19 26 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 289 (13.40%) Windows
2 168 (7.79%) Linux
3 71 (3.29%) Unix
3 71 (3.29%) Windows Server
4 53 (2.46%) Windows 10
5 34 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 27 (1.25%) Apple iOS
7 26 (1.21%) Android
7 26 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
13 4 (0.19%) VMS
14 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 714 (33.10%) Computer Science
2 608 (28.19%) Agile
3 550 (25.50%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.46%) Stakeholder Management
5 339 (15.72%) Continuous Improvement
6 337 (15.62%) AI
7 288 (13.35%) DevOps
8 264 (12.24%) Project Management
9 245 (11.36%) CI/CD
10 244 (11.31%) Analytics
11 227 (10.52%) Decision-Making
12 218 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 209 (9.69%) Cybersecurity
14 201 (9.32%) Change Management
15 198 (9.18%) Roadmaps
16 196 (9.09%) ITIL
17 194 (8.99%) Migration
18 179 (8.30%) Risk Management
19 174 (8.07%) Project Delivery
20 171 (7.93%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 351 (16.27%) Python
2 325 (15.07%) SQL
3 149 (6.91%) Java
4 121 (5.61%) PowerShell
5 87 (4.03%) C#
6 85 (3.94%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.90%) Bash
8 39 (1.81%) C++
9 27 (1.25%) TypeScript
10 24 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.07%) R
12 18 (0.83%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.79%) C
13 17 (0.79%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
15 13 (0.60%) Perl
16 12 (0.56%) Go
17 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) Kotlin
18 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 438 (20.31%) Computer Science Degree
2 382 (17.71%) Security Cleared
3 259 (12.01%) SC Cleared
4 211 (9.78%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.21%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.33%) PMP
7 113 (5.24%) CISSP
8 83 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
11 58 (2.69%) CISM
12 51 (2.36%) DV Cleared
13 48 (2.23%) Azure Certification
14 40 (1.85%) PhD
15 36 (1.67%) CCNP
16 34 (1.58%) CCNA
17 33 (1.53%) MBA
18 32 (1.48%) CBAP
19 31 (1.44%) AWS Certification
20 30 (1.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (5.56%) QA
2 111 (5.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 111 (5.15%) NIST
3 96 (4.45%) PMO
4 93 (4.31%) GDPR
5 92 (4.27%) Data Quality
6 47 (2.18%) SLA
7 39 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.72%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.16%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) NCSC
12 16 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.74%) IFRS
13 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
14 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 167 (7.74%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.52%) Docker
3 38 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.30%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.97%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.42%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.19%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.19%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (5.98%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.57%) Terraform
3 71 (3.29%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.87%) Ansible
5 34 (1.58%) Grafana
5 34 (1.58%) SCCM
6 32 (1.48%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.51%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) Kibana
15 6 (0.28%) Kiali
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
Vendors
1 500 (23.18%) Microsoft
2 155 (7.19%) Oracle
3 123 (5.70%) SAP
4 108 (5.01%) ServiceNow
5 86 (3.99%) Google
6 60 (2.78%) Cisco
7 46 (2.13%) Databricks
8 45 (2.09%) Citrix
9 43 (1.99%) VMware
10 42 (1.95%) Salesforce
11 40 (1.85%) Splunk
12 37 (1.72%) Adobe
13 35 (1.62%) IBM
14 29 (1.34%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.21%) CyberArk
16 23 (1.07%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.07%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.93%) Ariba
17 20 (0.93%) Siemens
18 19 (0.88%) Aruba