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 1 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,233 1,998 2,560
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.89% 7.25% 7.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.41% 23.06% 25.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,164 1,169 1,472
10th Percentile £204 £260 £288
25th Percentile £363 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.17% -4.29%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £494 £500
% change year-on-year +1.32% -1.30% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 154 215
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £20.05
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.19 £31.02
Median hourly rate £39.75 £41.25 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -28.07% +20.74%
75th Percentile £77.50 £66.88 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -6.70% -20.95% +9.95%

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 14,491 8,664 10,013
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.42% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,739 5,465 6,298
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 678 648
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.19 £15.24
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.68 £53.44 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.13 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +94.08% -47.05% -13.64%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 -20 973 £525 -3.67% 5,604
South East +5 463 £514 +8.16% 1,330
North of England -15 326 £470 +8.73% 959
North West -14 197 £465 +1.81% 549
Midlands -33 175 £463 +2.78% 631
East of England -12 132 £350 -22.22% 699
West Midlands -33 129 £473 +2.16% 379
South West -22 121 £404 -10.28% 731
Yorkshire -3 114 £500 +23.84% 273
East Midlands -24 44 £475 +9.57% 252
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 154
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
1 143 (6.40%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.66%) Confluence
3 54 (2.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) Camunda
7 12 (0.54%) CMS
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 9 (0.40%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 235 (10.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 221 (9.90%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.46%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.72%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Windchill
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Trello
14 2 (0.090%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.090%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (2.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.58%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 517 (23.15%) Azure
2 284 (12.72%) AWS
3 213 (9.54%) Power Platform
4 208 (9.31%) Microsoft 365
5 133 (5.96%) Entra ID
6 129 (5.78%) GCP
7 108 (4.84%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.13%) SaaS
9 60 (2.69%) GitHub
10 46 (2.06%) Serverless
11 45 (2.02%) Power Automate
11 45 (2.02%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
13 40 (1.79%) OneDrive
14 38 (1.70%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.57%) Figma
16 34 (1.52%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.07%) IaaS
18 23 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
18 23 (1.03%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.48%) Firewall
2 74 (3.31%) DNS
3 62 (2.78%) Network Security
4 59 (2.64%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.64%) VPN
5 46 (2.06%) DHCP
6 34 (1.52%) WAN
7 32 (1.43%) LAN
8 25 (1.12%) Wireless
9 19 (0.85%) Internet
10 18 (0.81%) 3GPP
10 18 (0.81%) BGP
10 18 (0.81%) SSH
11 16 (0.72%) SSL
11 16 (0.72%) VLAN
11 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 15 (0.67%) 5G
12 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 13 (0.58%) MPLS
13 13 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (7.48%) Power BI
2 103 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.24%) Relational Database
4 49 (2.19%) Metadata
5 42 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
7 33 (1.48%) Tableau
8 29 (1.30%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.21%) MySQL
10 26 (1.16%) Big Data
11 25 (1.12%) Oracle Database
12 24 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.85%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.58%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 12 (0.54%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.54%) Power Query
17 11 (0.49%) GIS
Development Applications
1 172 (7.70%) JIRA
2 118 (5.28%) Git
3 55 (2.46%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.19%) GitLab
5 24 (1.07%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.85%) Selenium
7 18 (0.81%) JUnit
7 18 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.67%) Maven
10 13 (0.58%) Gradle
10 13 (0.58%) REST Assured
10 13 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (0.49%) MLflow
11 11 (0.49%) Subversion
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Mockito
12 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket Server
13 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 989 (44.29%) Social Skills
2 657 (29.42%) Finance
3 515 (23.06%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.28%) Banking
5 171 (7.66%) Public Sector
6 144 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.70%) Aerospace
8 103 (4.61%) Manufacturing
9 95 (4.25%) Marketing
10 85 (3.81%) Legal
11 81 (3.63%) Telecoms
12 79 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (3.27%) Presentation Skills
14 64 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.78%) Retail
16 49 (2.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 48 (2.15%) Law
18 43 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.88%) Front Office
19 42 (1.88%) Military
Job Titles
1 315 (14.11%) Analyst
2 247 (11.06%) Senior
3 187 (8.37%) Lead
4 171 (7.66%) Developer
5 153 (6.85%) Architect
6 147 (6.58%) Business Analyst
7 116 (5.19%) Project Manager
8 67 (3.00%) Support Engineer
9 66 (2.96%) Senior Manager
10 62 (2.78%) IT Support
11 53 (2.37%) Consultant
11 53 (2.37%) IT Analyst
12 52 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (2.15%) Designer
13 48 (2.15%) IT Manager
14 46 (2.06%) Product Manager
15 42 (1.88%) Delivery Manager
15 42 (1.88%) Senior Analyst
15 42 (1.88%) Technical Support
16 41 (1.84%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (4.39%) Terraform
2 90 (4.03%) REST
3 89 (3.99%) .NET
4 60 (2.69%) HTML
5 57 (2.55%) React
6 51 (2.28%) Kafka
7 49 (2.19%) CSS
8 39 (1.75%) RESTful
9 37 (1.66%) OAuth
10 34 (1.52%) Middleware
11 33 (1.48%) .NET Framework
11 33 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
11 33 (1.48%) Web Services
12 30 (1.34%) XML
13 29 (1.30%) Spring Boot
14 28 (1.25%) SAML
15 27 (1.21%) OAuth2
15 27 (1.21%) Spring
16 26 (1.16%) AngularJS
16 26 (1.16%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 190 (8.51%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.87%) Onboarding
3 113 (5.06%) Product Ownership
4 90 (4.03%) Self-Motivation
5 86 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.96%) Data Structures
7 55 (2.46%) Algorithms
8 54 (2.42%) Data Centre
9 45 (2.02%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.97%) Operational Technology
11 38 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
11 38 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
12 36 (1.61%) Virtual Team
13 35 (1.57%) Life Science
14 34 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (1.48%) AI Agents
16 31 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 29 (1.30%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 280 (12.54%) Windows
2 170 (7.61%) Linux
3 73 (3.27%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.60%) Unix
5 44 (1.97%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.99%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.22%) VMS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Solaris
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) CentOS
13 3 (0.13%) Debian
13 3 (0.13%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (33.72%) Computer Science
2 623 (27.90%) Agile
3 594 (26.60%) Problem-Solving
4 435 (19.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 407 (18.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 358 (16.03%) AI
7 313 (14.02%) DevOps
8 290 (12.99%) Project Management
9 287 (12.85%) Analytics
10 273 (12.23%) CI/CD
11 250 (11.20%) ITIL
12 237 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 221 (9.90%) Decision-Making
14 218 (9.76%) Cybersecurity
15 209 (9.36%) Software Engineering
16 207 (9.27%) Change Management
17 203 (9.09%) Scrum
18 201 (9.00%) Roadmaps
19 199 (8.91%) PRINCE2
20 182 (8.15%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 381 (17.06%) Python
2 332 (14.87%) SQL
3 164 (7.34%) PowerShell
4 148 (6.63%) Java
5 109 (4.88%) JavaScript
6 102 (4.57%) C#
7 56 (2.51%) Bash
8 43 (1.93%) C++
9 38 (1.70%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.21%) Bicep
11 26 (1.16%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.07%) C
12 24 (1.07%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.99%) R
14 21 (0.94%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 451 (20.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (18.81%) Security Cleared
3 279 (12.49%) SC Cleared
4 185 (8.28%) Master's Degree
5 130 (5.82%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.24%) Microsoft Certification
7 113 (5.06%) PMP
8 105 (4.70%) CISSP
9 74 (3.31%) Cisco Certification
9 74 (3.31%) DV Cleared
10 71 (3.18%) Azure Certification
11 62 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
12 52 (2.33%) PhD
13 48 (2.15%) CISM
14 42 (1.88%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 37 (1.66%) AWS Certification
16 35 (1.57%) CCNA
17 34 (1.52%) CCNP
18 33 (1.48%) ISTQB
19 32 (1.43%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (5.37%) Data Quality
2 119 (5.33%) QA
3 97 (4.34%) NIST
4 92 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.63%) PMO
6 60 (2.69%) GDPR
7 41 (1.84%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.70%) SLA
9 26 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.94%) GRC
11 16 (0.72%) NCSC
12 15 (0.67%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.63%) IFRS
14 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.45%) P3O
18 9 (0.40%) COBIT
19 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
20 7 (0.31%) HIPAA
System Software
1 182 (8.15%) Active Directory
2 113 (5.06%) Docker
3 51 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.07%) Firmware
5 22 (0.99%) Hyper-V
6 20 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
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%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.090%) Squid
Systems Management
1 114 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.64%) Ansible
4 33 (1.48%) SCCM
5 27 (1.21%) Grafana
6 25 (1.12%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.49%) SCOM
12 8 (0.36%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Control-M
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
15 5 (0.22%) CASB
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 580 (25.97%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.90%) Oracle
3 134 (6.00%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.55%) SAP
5 88 (3.94%) Google
6 68 (3.05%) VMware
7 61 (2.73%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.64%) Cisco
9 55 (2.46%) Adobe
10 50 (2.24%) IBM
11 48 (2.15%) Databricks
12 36 (1.61%) Splunk
13 30 (1.34%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.30%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.16%) Citrix
16 21 (0.94%) Apple
16 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.85%) Ariba
18 17 (0.76%) OpenAI