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 14 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 24 22
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,120 2,412 3,046
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.01% 7.72% 7.71%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.11% 26.02% 26.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,379 1,910
10th Percentile £283 £257 £259
25th Percentile £402 £400 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.87% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £777 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 127 196
10th Percentile £15.25 £21.25 £17.88
25th Percentile £25.23 £30.33 £26.97
Median hourly rate £37.48 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.81% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £57.44 £69.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.19 £75.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.33 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.92% -19.35% +11.11%

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 10,042 9,271 11,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.21% 29.69% 29.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,493 5,682 7,478
10th Percentile £303 £313 £308
25th Percentile £416 £425 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £734 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 881 430 706
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.29 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.87 £27.00 £26.24
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -4.76% +16.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -44.11% -14.29% +16.67%

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025. 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 -4 1,043 £550 +3.77% 2,159
North of England -11 289 £450 -14.29% 606
South East +1 262 £475 +2.70% 1,116
Midlands -7 220 £475 -4.04% 513
North West -4 169 £450 -15.33% 329
West Midlands -9 169 £500 - 331
South West +2 140 £550 -5.34% 396
East of England -5 132 £505 +18.82% 449
Yorkshire -11 113 £475 -5.05% 180
East Midlands -8 51 £447 +11.75% 177
North East -19 8 £364 -27.20% 101
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
1 147 (6.93%) Confluence
2 111 (5.24%) SharePoint
3 67 (3.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (2.26%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) nginx
7 15 (0.71%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.66%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
12 5 (0.24%) Luigi
12 5 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.24%) SAS
13 4 (0.19%) Alfresco
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Moodle
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 249 (11.75%) Microsoft Office
2 193 (9.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 135 (6.37%) Microsoft Project
4 94 (4.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (3.16%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.99%) Chatbot
7 13 (0.61%) Simulink
8 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
8 11 (0.52%) Trello
9 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.28%) Maya
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.14%) InDesign
13 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Navisworks
13 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.14%) Revit
13 3 (0.14%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 39 (1.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.90%) Primavera
3 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
4 12 (0.57%) SAP EWM
5 11 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
6 10 (0.47%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle BPM
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.24%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 401 (18.92%) Azure
2 280 (13.21%) AWS
3 168 (7.92%) Microsoft 365
4 149 (7.03%) GCP
5 132 (6.23%) Power Platform
6 92 (4.34%) SaaS
7 91 (4.29%) GitHub
8 77 (3.63%) Entra ID
9 63 (2.97%) Serverless
10 62 (2.92%) Azure DevOps
11 35 (1.65%) Amazon S3
12 31 (1.46%) Dynamics 365
13 29 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.32%) Power Automate
15 27 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
15 27 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.27%) OCI
16 26 (1.23%) Cloud Computing
16 26 (1.23%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (1.23%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 93 (4.39%) Firewall
2 86 (4.06%) DNS
3 50 (2.36%) VPN
4 45 (2.12%) Network Security
5 41 (1.93%) DHCP
6 33 (1.56%) LAN
7 32 (1.51%) TCP/IP
8 30 (1.42%) WAN
9 29 (1.37%) HTTP
9 29 (1.37%) Internet
10 28 (1.32%) Unified Communications
11 26 (1.23%) Wireless
12 25 (1.18%) SSH
13 21 (0.99%) BGP
14 20 (0.94%) Skype
15 19 (0.90%) MPLS
15 19 (0.90%) VoIP
16 17 (0.80%) VLAN
16 17 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.71%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (4.95%) Power BI
2 93 (4.39%) PostgreSQL
3 69 (3.25%) SQL Server
4 64 (3.02%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.45%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.31%) Tableau
7 48 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
8 28 (1.32%) MySQL
9 27 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
10 25 (1.18%) Big Data
11 19 (0.90%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.80%) Hadoop
12 17 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.71%) Metadata
13 15 (0.71%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 14 (0.66%) RDBMS
15 12 (0.57%) GIS
15 12 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.57%) Redis
Development Applications
1 239 (11.27%) JIRA
2 102 (4.81%) Git
3 97 (4.58%) Jenkins
4 67 (3.16%) GitLab
5 26 (1.23%) Liquibase
6 20 (0.94%) Postman
7 15 (0.71%) Selenium
8 12 (0.57%) Bitbucket
8 12 (0.57%) JUnit
9 11 (0.52%) SpecFlow
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.42%) MLflow
12 8 (0.38%) Visual Studio
13 7 (0.33%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.28%) Appium
14 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.28%) Gradle
14 6 (0.28%) webpack
General
1 1,100 (51.89%) Social Skills
2 689 (32.50%) Finance
3 518 (24.43%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (11.65%) Banking
5 112 (5.28%) Public Sector
6 99 (4.67%) Presentation Skills
7 95 (4.48%) Manufacturing
8 83 (3.92%) Marketing
9 77 (3.63%) Organisational Skills
10 75 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (3.25%) Legal
12 61 (2.88%) Telecoms
13 57 (2.69%) Financial Institution
13 57 (2.69%) Investment Banking
14 56 (2.64%) Front Office
15 50 (2.36%) Aerospace
16 47 (2.22%) Military
16 47 (2.22%) Pharmaceutical
17 46 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
18 39 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 312 (14.72%) Analyst
2 223 (10.52%) Developer
3 211 (9.95%) Senior
4 165 (7.78%) Lead
5 138 (6.51%) Business Analyst
6 137 (6.46%) Architect
7 129 (6.08%) Project Manager
8 90 (4.25%) Consultant
9 75 (3.54%) Software Engineer
10 52 (2.45%) Support Analyst
11 50 (2.36%) Security Engineer
12 49 (2.31%) Support Engineer
13 46 (2.17%) Data Scientist
13 46 (2.17%) IT Support
13 46 (2.17%) Technical Support
14 44 (2.08%) Senior Developer
14 44 (2.08%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (1.65%) AWS Engineer
15 35 (1.65%) Data Engineer
15 35 (1.65%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.33%) REST
2 75 (3.54%) RESTful
3 66 (3.11%) .NET
3 66 (3.11%) HTML
4 51 (2.41%) CSS
5 49 (2.31%) Kafka
6 43 (2.03%) XML
7 38 (1.79%) Elastic Stack
7 38 (1.79%) Middleware
8 36 (1.70%) JSON
8 36 (1.70%) Web Services
9 35 (1.65%) React
10 33 (1.56%) AngularJS
10 33 (1.56%) SOAP
11 31 (1.46%) OAuth
12 29 (1.37%) Node.js
13 28 (1.32%) Pandas
13 28 (1.32%) TensorFlow
14 26 (1.23%) Spring
15 22 (1.04%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.92%) Management Information System
2 92 (4.34%) Cloud Native
2 92 (4.34%) Product Ownership
3 74 (3.49%) Algorithms
4 66 (3.11%) Onboarding
5 58 (2.74%) Virtual Team
6 57 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
6 57 (2.69%) Distributed Systems
7 49 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
8 48 (2.26%) Data Centre
9 47 (2.22%) Derivative
10 40 (1.89%) Public Cloud
10 40 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
11 36 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
11 36 (1.70%) Security Posture
12 33 (1.56%) Life Science
12 33 (1.56%) PKI
13 32 (1.51%) Mobile App
14 30 (1.42%) Data Structures
14 30 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 219 (10.33%) Windows
2 169 (7.97%) Linux
3 69 (3.25%) Unix
4 46 (2.17%) Windows Server
5 34 (1.60%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.13%) Apple iOS
7 22 (1.04%) Android
8 21 (0.99%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.80%) VMS
11 11 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
13 9 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.28%) CentOS
15 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
16 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.094%) Mac OS X
17 1 (0.047%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 876 (41.32%) Computer Science
2 669 (31.56%) Problem-Solving
3 664 (31.32%) Agile
4 327 (15.42%) Project Management
5 322 (15.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 301 (14.20%) DevOps
7 261 (12.31%) Change Management
8 246 (11.60%) ITIL
9 223 (10.52%) Analytics
10 217 (10.24%) CI/CD
11 215 (10.14%) Cybersecurity
12 207 (9.76%) AI
13 205 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 202 (9.53%) Software Engineering
15 201 (9.48%) Continuous Improvement
16 195 (9.20%) Migration
17 187 (8.82%) Decision-Making
18 174 (8.21%) Project Delivery
19 172 (8.11%) Risk Management
20 156 (7.36%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 428 (20.19%) Python
2 325 (15.33%) SQL
3 178 (8.40%) Java
4 113 (5.33%) JavaScript
5 109 (5.14%) PowerShell
6 79 (3.73%) C++
7 64 (3.02%) C#
8 53 (2.50%) Go
9 45 (2.12%) TypeScript
10 37 (1.75%) Bash
11 32 (1.51%) R
12 21 (0.99%) Perl
13 19 (0.90%) C
13 19 (0.90%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.90%) Ruby
14 18 (0.85%) MATLAB
15 17 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
17 15 (0.71%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 571 (26.93%) Computer Science Degree
2 311 (14.67%) Master's Degree
3 301 (14.20%) Security Cleared
4 234 (11.04%) SC Cleared
5 120 (5.66%) PMI Certification
6 112 (5.28%) PMP
7 105 (4.95%) CISSP
8 85 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 76 (3.58%) PhD
10 69 (3.25%) Cisco Certification
11 67 (3.16%) CISM
12 56 (2.64%) AWS Certification
13 55 (2.59%) Azure Certification
14 44 (2.08%) CCNP
14 44 (2.08%) HND
15 41 (1.93%) DV Cleared
16 40 (1.89%) HNC
17 39 (1.84%) CCNA
18 34 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
19 28 (1.32%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (5.09%) QA
2 100 (4.72%) GDPR
3 85 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 83 (3.92%) Data Quality
4 83 (3.92%) NIST
5 52 (2.45%) PMO
6 36 (1.70%) Accessibility
7 31 (1.46%) SLA
8 29 (1.37%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.18%) GRC
11 20 (0.94%) NCSC
12 19 (0.90%) HIPAA
13 17 (0.80%) COBIT
14 15 (0.71%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.71%) NIST 800
14 15 (0.71%) WCAG
15 12 (0.57%) P3O
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 145 (6.84%) Docker
2 140 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.18%) Firmware
5 13 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.094%) XenApp
13 1 (0.047%) GPFS
13 1 (0.047%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 126 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 106 (5.00%) Terraform
3 81 (3.82%) Ansible
4 53 (2.50%) Grafana
5 52 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.12%) Prometheus
7 41 (1.93%) SCCM
8 14 (0.66%) Puppet
9 13 (0.61%) Nessus
9 13 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.52%) QRadar
10 11 (0.52%) SCOM
11 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
12 9 (0.42%) WSUS
13 7 (0.33%) Argo
13 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
14 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.28%) Kibana
14 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
15 5 (0.24%) vRealize
Vendors
1 451 (21.27%) Microsoft
2 124 (5.85%) Oracle
3 114 (5.38%) SAP
3 114 (5.38%) ServiceNow
4 91 (4.29%) Google
5 84 (3.96%) Splunk
6 79 (3.73%) Cisco
7 62 (2.92%) Salesforce
8 50 (2.36%) VMware
9 35 (1.65%) IBM
10 29 (1.37%) Atlassian
11 26 (1.23%) Adobe
11 26 (1.23%) Databricks
12 25 (1.18%) Citrix
13 24 (1.13%) Workday
14 22 (1.04%) Palo Alto
14 22 (1.04%) Remedy
15 21 (0.99%) Apple
16 18 (0.85%) Red Hat
17 15 (0.71%) Fortinet