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 30 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -9 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,197 1,826 2,996
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.23% 7.60% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.40% 24.20% 26.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,236 1,094 1,628
10th Percentile £218 £240 £230
25th Percentile £390 £384 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.08% +2.13% -9.09%
75th Percentile £602 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £764
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 210 132 376
10th Percentile £20.18 £17.83 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.09 £27.12 £24.08
Median hourly rate £55.00 £51.25 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year +7.32% +27.73% -13.24%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.13
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £51.80 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.36% +29.49% -19.65%

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 13,397 7,545 11,253
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.89% 31.40% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,988 4,788 6,986
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £624 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £746
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,012 440 996
10th Percentile £17.10 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.34
Median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.15% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £73.00 £66.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.10 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -17 927 £515 -6.36% 1,206
South East -2 384 £500 +5.26% 613
North of England -14 334 £444 -4.11% 431
Midlands -20 218 £505 +41.06% 245
North West -7 180 £416 -11.86% 232
West Midlands -27 155 £481 +20.25% 161
East of England -4 141 £450 -10.00% 219
Yorkshire -17 139 £463 +6.08% 140
South West -16 136 £505 +5.32% 249
East Midlands -14 61 £537 +50.84% 84
North East -27 15 £450 +130.77% 67
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
1 120 (5.46%) SharePoint
2 119 (5.42%) Confluence
3 63 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.82%) Apache
7 8 (0.36%) IIS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.27%) Camunda
9 6 (0.27%) CMS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WebSphere
Applications
1 265 (12.06%) Microsoft Office
2 209 (9.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 141 (6.42%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.55%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.55%) Adobe After Effects
7 12 (0.55%) Simulink
7 12 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
8 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.36%) Revit
9 7 (0.32%) Trello
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.27%) Sketch
11 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 51 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.59%) Primavera
3 12 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) HFM
9 4 (0.18%) Magento
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 468 (21.30%) Azure
2 279 (12.70%) AWS
3 187 (8.51%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.69%) Power Platform
5 117 (5.33%) Entra ID
6 93 (4.23%) GCP
7 80 (3.64%) SaaS
8 68 (3.10%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.37%) GitHub
10 36 (1.64%) Figma
11 32 (1.46%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.41%) PaaS
13 29 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
13 29 (1.32%) Power Automate
13 29 (1.32%) PowerApps
14 28 (1.27%) IaaS
14 28 (1.27%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.18%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.18%) Serverless
16 22 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.42%) Firewall
2 55 (2.50%) DNS
3 54 (2.46%) TCP/IP
4 53 (2.41%) Network Security
5 52 (2.37%) WAN
6 51 (2.32%) LAN
7 37 (1.68%) VPN
8 26 (1.18%) Wireless
9 25 (1.14%) DHCP
10 22 (1.00%) BGP
11 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.86%) OSPF
13 17 (0.77%) Skype
14 16 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.64%) SAN
15 14 (0.64%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.50%) 3GPP
16 11 (0.50%) SSH
17 10 (0.46%) HTTP
17 10 (0.46%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 138 (6.28%) Power BI
2 96 (4.37%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.18%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.73%) Tableau
7 32 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.37%) Metadata
9 26 (1.18%) Big Data
10 22 (1.00%) MongoDB
10 22 (1.00%) MySQL
11 18 (0.82%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.59%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.50%) Power Query
17 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 209 (9.51%) JIRA
2 96 (4.37%) Git
3 40 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.78%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.82%) MLflow
8 15 (0.68%) Selenium
9 14 (0.64%) Gradle
10 13 (0.59%) JUnit
11 12 (0.55%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.55%) Postman
12 10 (0.46%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.46%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.41%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.36%) Maven
14 8 (0.36%) Metasploit
15 7 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 1,022 (46.52%) Social Skills
2 682 (31.04%) Finance
3 436 (19.85%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (8.97%) Banking
5 176 (8.01%) Public Sector
6 123 (5.60%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.01%) Presentation Skills
8 88 (4.01%) Marketing
9 79 (3.60%) Aerospace
9 79 (3.60%) Legal
10 74 (3.37%) Manufacturing
11 73 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
12 68 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
13 54 (2.46%) Law
14 53 (2.41%) Telecoms
15 50 (2.28%) Retail
16 39 (1.78%) Front Office
16 39 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 37 (1.68%) Investment Banking
18 32 (1.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 313 (14.25%) Analyst
2 253 (11.52%) Senior
3 173 (7.87%) Architect
4 166 (7.56%) Lead
5 152 (6.92%) Developer
5 152 (6.92%) Project Manager
6 145 (6.60%) Business Analyst
7 62 (2.82%) Delivery Manager
8 60 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
9 59 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
10 57 (2.59%) Consultant
10 57 (2.59%) Software Engineer
10 57 (2.59%) Technical Support
11 55 (2.50%) Senior Manager
12 51 (2.32%) Designer
13 49 (2.23%) Product Manager
14 43 (1.96%) IT Manager
14 43 (1.96%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
16 40 (1.82%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (4.46%) REST
2 74 (3.37%) .NET
3 57 (2.59%) React
4 53 (2.41%) Oracle Fusion
5 51 (2.32%) Middleware
6 48 (2.18%) Kafka
7 42 (1.91%) HTML
8 38 (1.73%) RESTful
9 32 (1.46%) CSS
9 32 (1.46%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.41%) .NET Framework
11 29 (1.32%) XML
12 28 (1.27%) OAuth
13 27 (1.23%) Spring
14 26 (1.18%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.18%) SOAP
15 25 (1.14%) Web Services
16 24 (1.09%) Pandas
17 23 (1.05%) JSON
17 23 (1.05%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 157 (7.15%) Management Information System
2 133 (6.05%) Product Ownership
3 123 (5.60%) Onboarding
4 84 (3.82%) Self-Motivation
5 83 (3.78%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.91%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.59%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.32%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (2.05%) Algorithms
9 45 (2.05%) PMI
10 44 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
11 38 (1.73%) Robotics
11 38 (1.73%) Security Posture
12 35 (1.59%) Operational Technology
13 34 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.50%) Derivative
14 33 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.32%) Life Science
16 27 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 285 (12.97%) Windows
2 172 (7.83%) Linux
3 72 (3.28%) Unix
4 66 (3.00%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.64%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.27%) Android
8 24 (1.09%) Apple iOS
8 24 (1.09%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.27%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
15 2 (0.091%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (34.00%) Computer Science
2 626 (28.49%) Agile
3 557 (25.35%) Problem-Solving
4 346 (15.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 337 (15.34%) Continuous Improvement
6 327 (14.88%) AI
7 294 (13.38%) DevOps
8 285 (12.97%) Project Management
9 249 (11.33%) CI/CD
10 244 (11.11%) Analytics
11 234 (10.65%) Decision-Making
12 226 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 208 (9.47%) Change Management
14 205 (9.33%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.29%) Migration
16 195 (8.88%) Roadmaps
17 191 (8.69%) ITIL
18 189 (8.60%) Risk Management
19 186 (8.47%) Software Engineering
20 185 (8.42%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 359 (16.34%) Python
2 330 (15.02%) SQL
3 162 (7.37%) Java
4 118 (5.37%) PowerShell
5 87 (3.96%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.91%) C#
7 53 (2.41%) C++
8 44 (2.00%) Bash
9 29 (1.32%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.14%) R
11 22 (1.00%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.86%) C
13 16 (0.73%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.73%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 14 (0.64%) Perl
16 13 (0.59%) Go
17 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.50%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 466 (21.21%) Computer Science Degree
2 401 (18.25%) Security Cleared
3 275 (12.52%) SC Cleared
4 227 (10.33%) Master's Degree
5 133 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 116 (5.28%) PMP
7 110 (5.01%) CISSP
8 76 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
8 76 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 59 (2.69%) CISM
10 55 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
11 54 (2.46%) DV Cleared
12 52 (2.37%) Azure Certification
13 45 (2.05%) PhD
14 42 (1.91%) CCNP
15 33 (1.50%) CCNA
15 33 (1.50%) MBA
15 33 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
16 32 (1.46%) CBAP
17 31 (1.41%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.87%) QA
2 107 (4.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.69%) NIST
4 102 (4.64%) PMO
5 93 (4.23%) GDPR
6 91 (4.14%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.28%) SLA
8 43 (1.96%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.78%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.00%) GRC
12 20 (0.91%) NCSC
13 16 (0.73%) IFRS
14 15 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.46%) COBIT
18 9 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.41%) Basel III
18 9 (0.41%) HIPAA
System Software
1 152 (6.92%) Active Directory
2 121 (5.51%) Docker
3 36 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.27%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.27%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.18%) XenApp
10 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 141 (6.42%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.69%) Terraform
3 67 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.69%) Ansible
5 37 (1.68%) Grafana
6 35 (1.59%) SCCM
7 32 (1.46%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.64%) Puppet
11 13 (0.59%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.50%) Kibana
13 10 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 9 (0.41%) WSUS
15 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 8 (0.36%) Nmap
15 8 (0.36%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
17 6 (0.27%) OPNET
Vendors
1 503 (22.89%) Microsoft
2 168 (7.65%) Oracle
3 123 (5.60%) SAP
4 105 (4.78%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.60%) Google
6 69 (3.14%) Cisco
7 50 (2.28%) Databricks
8 49 (2.23%) Splunk
9 44 (2.00%) Citrix
10 41 (1.87%) Salesforce
10 41 (1.87%) VMware
11 38 (1.73%) Adobe
12 35 (1.59%) IBM
13 32 (1.46%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.32%) CheckPoint
15 24 (1.09%) Red Hat
15 24 (1.09%) Remedy
16 22 (1.00%) Aruba
16 22 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.96%) Siemens