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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,179 1,821 2,992
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.21% 7.61% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.32% 24.23% 26.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,226 1,093 1,626
10th Percentile £215 £239 £230
25th Percentile £390 £384 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £604 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 131 376
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.80 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.37 £26.86 £24.08
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.33% -10.83%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.13
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +31.25% -18.83%

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 13,348 7,517 11,216
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.92% 31.42% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,953 4,781 6,985
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 £748
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.91% -1.84% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,014 437 989
10th Percentile £17.11 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.32
Median hourly rate £47.52 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.22% -18.75% -25.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £81.01 £75.60
UK median hourly rate £48.05 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +47.85% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -18 916 £515 -6.36% 1,240
South East 0 382 £500 +5.26% 608
North of England -12 331 £443 -3.48% 434
Midlands -20 216 £503 +40.76% 252
North West -6 177 £415 -12.63% 235
West Midlands -23 154 £478 +23.35% 161
East of England -6 141 £450 -10.00% 218
Yorkshire -12 139 £463 +10.25% 143
South West -17 136 £505 +6.32% 257
East Midlands -13 60 £537 +50.84% 91
North East -30 15 £450 +130.77% 63
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
1 119 (5.46%) Confluence
1 119 (5.46%) SharePoint
2 63 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 35 (1.61%) Apache Spark
4 23 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (0.83%) Apache
6 8 (0.37%) IIS
7 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.28%) Camunda
8 6 (0.28%) CMS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) SAS
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.092%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 265 (12.16%) Microsoft Office
2 209 (9.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 142 (6.52%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.57%) 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 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 7 (0.32%) Trello
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.28%) Sketch
11 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 51 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.60%) Primavera
3 12 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) HFM
10 4 (0.18%) Magento
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 460 (21.11%) Azure
2 273 (12.53%) AWS
3 187 (8.58%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.76%) Power Platform
5 117 (5.37%) Entra ID
6 88 (4.04%) GCP
7 80 (3.67%) SaaS
8 67 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.39%) GitHub
10 36 (1.65%) Figma
11 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
12 31 (1.42%) PaaS
13 29 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
13 29 (1.33%) PowerApps
14 28 (1.28%) IaaS
14 28 (1.28%) Power Automate
15 27 (1.24%) Snowflake
16 26 (1.19%) OneDrive
17 25 (1.15%) Serverless
18 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.36%) Firewall
2 55 (2.52%) DNS
3 54 (2.48%) TCP/IP
4 53 (2.43%) Network Security
5 52 (2.39%) WAN
6 51 (2.34%) LAN
7 37 (1.70%) VPN
8 26 (1.19%) Wireless
9 25 (1.15%) DHCP
10 22 (1.01%) BGP
11 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.87%) OSPF
13 17 (0.78%) Skype
14 16 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.64%) SAN
15 14 (0.64%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.50%) 3GPP
17 10 (0.46%) HTTP
17 10 (0.46%) SSH
17 10 (0.46%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 138 (6.33%) Power BI
2 96 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.74%) Tableau
7 32 (1.47%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.38%) Metadata
9 26 (1.19%) Big Data
10 22 (1.01%) MongoDB
10 22 (1.01%) MySQL
11 18 (0.83%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.60%) 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
1 207 (9.50%) JIRA
2 95 (4.36%) Git
3 39 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.74%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
8 15 (0.69%) Selenium
9 14 (0.64%) Gradle
10 13 (0.60%) 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 (0.37%) Maven
14 8 (0.37%) Metasploit
15 7 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 1,015 (46.58%) Social Skills
2 673 (30.89%) Finance
3 432 (19.83%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (8.90%) Banking
5 173 (7.94%) Public Sector
6 121 (5.55%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 88 (4.04%) Marketing
9 79 (3.63%) Aerospace
10 75 (3.44%) Legal
11 74 (3.40%) Manufacturing
12 73 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
13 67 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
14 53 (2.43%) Telecoms
15 51 (2.34%) Law
16 50 (2.29%) Retail
17 38 (1.74%) Front Office
18 37 (1.70%) Investment Banking
19 35 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 33 (1.51%) Military
Job Titles
1 310 (14.23%) Analyst
2 251 (11.52%) Senior
3 171 (7.85%) Architect
4 164 (7.53%) Lead
5 152 (6.98%) Project Manager
6 149 (6.84%) Developer
7 144 (6.61%) Business Analyst
8 62 (2.85%) Delivery Manager
9 59 (2.71%) Senior Analyst
9 59 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
10 57 (2.62%) Software Engineer
10 57 (2.62%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.57%) Consultant
12 55 (2.52%) Senior Manager
13 51 (2.34%) Designer
14 49 (2.25%) Product Manager
15 43 (1.97%) IT Manager
16 41 (1.88%) Security Engineer
17 40 (1.84%) Data Scientist
17 40 (1.84%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (4.41%) REST
2 72 (3.30%) .NET
3 56 (2.57%) React
4 53 (2.43%) Oracle Fusion
5 50 (2.29%) Middleware
6 48 (2.20%) Kafka
7 41 (1.88%) HTML
8 37 (1.70%) RESTful
9 32 (1.47%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.42%) .NET Framework
10 31 (1.42%) CSS
11 28 (1.28%) XML
12 27 (1.24%) OAuth
12 27 (1.24%) Spring
13 26 (1.19%) AngularJS
14 24 (1.10%) Pandas
14 24 (1.10%) SOAP
14 24 (1.10%) Web Services
15 23 (1.06%) PyTorch
16 22 (1.01%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 154 (7.07%) Management Information System
2 134 (6.15%) Product Ownership
3 123 (5.64%) Onboarding
4 84 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
5 78 (3.58%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.94%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.62%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
9 49 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (2.07%) Algorithms
10 45 (2.07%) PMI
11 44 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
12 38 (1.74%) Robotics
13 35 (1.61%) Operational Technology
13 35 (1.61%) Security Posture
14 33 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.51%) Derivative
15 32 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
16 29 (1.33%) Life Science
17 26 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 282 (12.94%) Windows
2 170 (7.80%) Linux
3 71 (3.26%) Unix
4 66 (3.03%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.66%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.28%) Android
8 24 (1.10%) Apple iOS
8 24 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
15 2 (0.092%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 739 (33.91%) Computer Science
2 622 (28.55%) Agile
3 551 (25.29%) Problem-Solving
4 341 (15.65%) Stakeholder Management
5 333 (15.28%) Continuous Improvement
6 325 (14.92%) AI
7 287 (13.17%) DevOps
8 284 (13.03%) Project Management
9 243 (11.15%) CI/CD
10 241 (11.06%) Analytics
11 234 (10.74%) Decision-Making
12 225 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 205 (9.41%) Change Management
13 205 (9.41%) Cybersecurity
14 203 (9.32%) Migration
15 192 (8.81%) Roadmaps
16 190 (8.72%) ITIL
17 189 (8.67%) Risk Management
18 185 (8.49%) PRINCE2
18 185 (8.49%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 353 (16.20%) Python
2 328 (15.05%) SQL
3 157 (7.21%) Java
4 116 (5.32%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.90%) C#
5 85 (3.90%) JavaScript
6 52 (2.39%) C++
7 41 (1.88%) Bash
8 29 (1.33%) TypeScript
9 25 (1.15%) R
10 21 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.87%) C
12 16 (0.73%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.73%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Perl
15 13 (0.60%) Go
16 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.50%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 459 (21.06%) Computer Science Degree
2 400 (18.36%) Security Cleared
3 274 (12.57%) SC Cleared
4 224 (10.28%) Master's Degree
5 133 (6.10%) PMI Certification
6 116 (5.32%) PMP
7 108 (4.96%) CISSP
8 76 (3.49%) Cisco Certification
8 76 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 59 (2.71%) CISM
10 55 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 54 (2.48%) DV Cleared
12 50 (2.29%) Azure Certification
13 45 (2.07%) PhD
14 42 (1.93%) CCNP
15 34 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
16 33 (1.51%) CCNA
16 33 (1.51%) MBA
17 32 (1.47%) CBAP
18 28 (1.28%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (5.87%) QA
2 107 (4.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.73%) NIST
4 102 (4.68%) PMO
5 93 (4.27%) GDPR
6 91 (4.18%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.29%) SLA
8 42 (1.93%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.79%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.01%) GRC
12 20 (0.92%) NCSC
13 16 (0.73%) IFRS
14 15 (0.69%) 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 (6.98%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.37%) Docker
3 36 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 135 (6.20%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.58%) Terraform
3 67 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.66%) Ansible
5 37 (1.70%) Grafana
6 35 (1.61%) SCCM
7 31 (1.42%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.64%) Puppet
11 11 (0.50%) Kibana
11 11 (0.50%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 8 (0.37%) Nmap
14 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) OPNET
Vendors
1 503 (23.08%) Microsoft
2 165 (7.57%) Oracle
3 123 (5.64%) SAP
4 106 (4.86%) ServiceNow
5 76 (3.49%) Google
6 69 (3.17%) Cisco
7 49 (2.25%) Databricks
7 49 (2.25%) Splunk
8 44 (2.02%) Citrix
9 41 (1.88%) VMware
10 40 (1.84%) Salesforce
11 38 (1.74%) Adobe
12 33 (1.51%) IBM
13 32 (1.47%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
15 25 (1.15%) Remedy
16 22 (1.01%) Aruba
16 22 (1.01%) CyberArk
16 22 (1.01%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.96%) Siemens