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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,270 1,969 2,562
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.88% 7.05% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.15% 22.25% 26.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,177 1,113 1,458
10th Percentile £204 £268 £264
25th Percentile £363 £400 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £726 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £503 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +0.62% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 164 169
10th Percentile £16.46 £18.39 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.74 £26.93 £32.25
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.49 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.53% -37.29% +14.25%
75th Percentile £68.94 £62.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £84.93 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £34.49 £52.19
% change year-on-year +14.53% -33.91% +6.21%

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 14,981 8,849 9,583
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.18% 31.67% 29.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,004 5,631 5,829
10th Percentile £350 £300 £319
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 722 532
10th Percentile £17.65 £17.87 £18.13
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £51.50 £25.15 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year +104.77% -52.55% +0.95%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.63 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £46.80 £25.15 £48.78
% change year-on-year +86.08% -48.44% -8.82%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 -20 977 £525 -4.55% 5,510
South East +4 461 £525 +16.67% 1,879
North of England -7 342 £475 +5.56% 1,246
North West -10 213 £479 +4.70% 684
Midlands -31 185 £456 -1.88% 862
East of England -14 138 £425 -15.00% 877
West Midlands -26 137 £450 -5.26% 538
South West -22 132 £400 -20.00% 736
Yorkshire -5 113 £489 +15.74% 381
East Midlands -17 47 £475 +6.26% 324
North East -30 16 £460 +2.22% 189
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
1 155 (6.83%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.89%) Confluence
3 60 (2.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.28%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.88%) Apache
5 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (0.88%) IIS
6 14 (0.62%) Camunda
6 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
7 13 (0.57%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.35%) SAS
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Appian
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) nginx
12 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 235 (10.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 214 (9.43%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (5.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 105 (4.63%) Microsoft Project
5 46 (2.03%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Simulink
9 10 (0.44%) Windchill
10 9 (0.40%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
14 3 (0.13%) Trello
15 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.088%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 34 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 527 (23.22%) Azure
2 283 (12.47%) AWS
3 213 (9.38%) Microsoft 365
4 208 (9.16%) Power Platform
5 146 (6.43%) GCP
6 135 (5.95%) Entra ID
7 121 (5.33%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.17%) SaaS
9 62 (2.73%) GitHub
10 57 (2.51%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.33%) Serverless
12 50 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
13 49 (2.16%) PowerApps
14 48 (2.11%) OneDrive
15 44 (1.94%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.54%) Snowflake
17 32 (1.41%) Figma
18 29 (1.28%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.28%) OpenShift
19 27 (1.19%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.96%) Firewall
2 73 (3.22%) DNS
3 61 (2.69%) Network Security
4 55 (2.42%) TCP/IP
5 54 (2.38%) VPN
6 44 (1.94%) DHCP
7 31 (1.37%) LAN
7 31 (1.37%) WAN
8 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.97%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
11 19 (0.84%) SSH
12 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
14 16 (0.70%) Internet
14 16 (0.70%) VLAN
14 16 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.57%) BGP
16 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (6.65%) Power BI
2 107 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.47%) Metadata
4 51 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 46 (2.03%) Relational Database
6 44 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.54%) MySQL
8 32 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.32%) Tableau
10 27 (1.19%) Big Data
11 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.70%) GIS
15 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
17 11 (0.48%) Redis
18 10 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 161 (7.09%) JIRA
2 133 (5.86%) Git
3 59 (2.60%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.42%) GitLab
5 24 (1.06%) JUnit
6 23 (1.01%) Maven
7 22 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.93%) Gradle
9 20 (0.88%) Selenium
10 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
11 16 (0.70%) Mockito
12 15 (0.66%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.35%) MLflow
15 8 (0.35%) Postman
15 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
15 8 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 1,028 (45.29%) Social Skills
2 665 (29.30%) Finance
3 535 (23.57%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (8.50%) Banking
5 186 (8.19%) Public Sector
6 149 (6.56%) Organisational Skills
7 130 (5.73%) Manufacturing
8 110 (4.85%) Aerospace
9 104 (4.58%) Influencing Skills
10 92 (4.05%) Marketing
11 79 (3.48%) Telecoms
12 78 (3.44%) Legal
13 76 (3.35%) Presentation Skills
14 70 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
15 59 (2.60%) Retail
16 58 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 52 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
18 48 (2.11%) Law
19 46 (2.03%) Military
20 41 (1.81%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 307 (13.52%) Analyst
2 260 (11.45%) Senior
3 193 (8.50%) Developer
4 181 (7.97%) Lead
5 155 (6.83%) Architect
6 149 (6.56%) Business Analyst
7 108 (4.76%) Project Manager
8 68 (3.00%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.78%) IT Support
10 62 (2.73%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.47%) Consultant
12 53 (2.33%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.11%) IT Analyst
14 48 (2.11%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.94%) Administrator
16 43 (1.89%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.85%) Data Engineer
17 42 (1.85%) Senior Analyst
18 41 (1.81%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.80%) Terraform
2 101 (4.45%) REST
3 93 (4.10%) .NET
4 68 (3.00%) HTML
4 68 (3.00%) React
5 59 (2.60%) CSS
6 57 (2.51%) Kafka
7 49 (2.16%) RESTful
8 43 (1.89%) OAuth
8 43 (1.89%) XML
9 42 (1.85%) Middleware
10 40 (1.76%) Web Services
11 36 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.54%) Spring Boot
13 34 (1.50%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.50%) SAML
13 34 (1.50%) SOAP
14 32 (1.41%) JSON
14 32 (1.41%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.41%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 212 (9.34%) Management Information System
2 128 (5.64%) Onboarding
3 112 (4.93%) Product Ownership
4 94 (4.14%) Cloud Native
5 93 (4.10%) Self-Motivation
6 58 (2.56%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.51%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.11%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (2.03%) Operational Technology
12 44 (1.94%) Life Science
13 39 (1.72%) AI Agents
14 38 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
15 37 (1.63%) Virtual Team
16 36 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
16 36 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
17 31 (1.37%) SCADA
18 30 (1.32%) PMI
19 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 284 (12.51%) Windows
2 174 (7.67%) Linux
3 83 (3.66%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.04%) Unix
5 41 (1.81%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.23%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.79%) Android
10 9 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.26%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) zOS
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) CentOS
15 2 (0.088%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 729 (32.11%) Computer Science
2 644 (28.37%) Agile
3 616 (27.14%) Problem-Solving
4 505 (22.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 406 (17.89%) Continuous Improvement
6 382 (16.83%) AI
7 342 (15.07%) DevOps
8 300 (13.22%) CI/CD
9 294 (12.95%) Analytics
10 288 (12.69%) Project Management
11 255 (11.23%) ITIL
12 242 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (10.48%) Decision-Making
14 232 (10.22%) Roadmaps
14 232 (10.22%) Scrum
15 224 (9.87%) Change Management
16 221 (9.74%) Software Engineering
17 217 (9.56%) Cybersecurity
18 206 (9.07%) PRINCE2
19 199 (8.77%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 374 (16.48%) Python
2 340 (14.98%) SQL
3 169 (7.44%) PowerShell
4 145 (6.39%) Java
5 124 (5.46%) JavaScript
6 108 (4.76%) C#
7 63 (2.78%) Bash
8 38 (1.67%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.59%) C++
10 29 (1.28%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.15%) Shell Script
13 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
14 23 (1.01%) R
15 20 (0.88%) C
16 16 (0.70%) Scala
17 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.48%) X++
18 9 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 445 (19.60%) Security Cleared
2 442 (19.47%) Computer Science Degree
3 321 (14.14%) SC Cleared
4 192 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.39%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.59%) PMP
7 115 (5.07%) Microsoft Certification
8 103 (4.54%) CISSP
9 91 (4.01%) DV Cleared
10 80 (3.52%) Azure Certification
11 79 (3.48%) Cisco Certification
12 72 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.56%) PhD
14 50 (2.20%) CISM
15 49 (2.16%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 42 (1.85%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.63%) DBS Check
17 37 (1.63%) ISTQB
18 32 (1.41%) TOGAF Certification
19 31 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (6.04%) QA
2 132 (5.81%) Data Quality
3 87 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (3.70%) NIST
5 75 (3.30%) PMO
6 74 (3.26%) GDPR
7 41 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.45%) SLA
9 28 (1.23%) GRC
10 20 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.75%) NCSC
11 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
13 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
14 11 (0.48%) P3O
15 10 (0.44%) IEC 61508
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 180 (7.93%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.20%) Docker
3 57 (2.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 24 (1.06%) Firmware
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
10 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
12 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.22%) NFS
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.13%) RACF
14 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 121 (5.33%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
3 56 (2.47%) Ansible
4 30 (1.32%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 23 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 12 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.48%) SCOM
12 10 (0.44%) CASB
13 9 (0.40%) Functional Safety
14 8 (0.35%) Control-M
15 7 (0.31%) Nessus
15 7 (0.31%) WSUS
16 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
17 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 573 (25.24%) Microsoft
2 164 (7.22%) Oracle
3 134 (5.90%) ServiceNow
4 121 (5.33%) SAP
5 104 (4.58%) Google
6 72 (3.17%) VMware
7 61 (2.69%) Cisco
8 60 (2.64%) Salesforce
9 56 (2.47%) Adobe
10 47 (2.07%) Databricks
11 43 (1.89%) IBM
12 39 (1.72%) Splunk
13 30 (1.32%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.15%) OpenAI
16 21 (0.93%) Apple
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.93%) Citrix
17 19 (0.84%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.79%) Ariba