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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,265 1,974 2,533
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.89% 7.15% 7.77%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.31% 22.80% 26.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,181 1,145 1,451
10th Percentile £204 £263 £275
25th Percentile £363 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -2.44% -3.89%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £638
90th Percentile £731 £750 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 148 196
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.25 £35.94
Median hourly rate £39.50 £41.25 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -4.24% -28.07% +20.74%
75th Percentile £71.63 £68.56 £72.50
90th Percentile £87.40 £86.78 £77.09
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £56.92
% change year-on-year -6.70% -27.09% +19.83%

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 14,794 8,658 9,742
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.94% 31.37% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,964 5,469 6,048
10th Percentile £350 £304 £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 £633 £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 1,151 674 590
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.15 £17.07
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -54.27% -
75th Percentile £74.41 £50.00 £69.45
90th Percentile £88.74 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -20 986 £525 -4.55% 5,901
South East +10 469 £525 +13.51% 1,411
North of England -16 331 £474 +8.97% 879
North West -8 204 £459 +1.32% 513
Midlands -31 178 £450 - 592
East of England -10 134 £300 -33.33% 743
West Midlands -35 132 £450 -5.26% 348
South West -21 124 £400 -15.79% 691
Yorkshire -2 111 £500 +20.12% 246
East Midlands -23 45 £475 +6.26% 244
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 139
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
1 146 (6.45%) SharePoint
2 102 (4.50%) Confluence
3 53 (2.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.28%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 16 (0.71%) IIS
8 13 (0.57%) Camunda
9 12 (0.53%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.18%) Appian
14 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 3 (0.13%) Moodle
15 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
15 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 238 (10.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 227 (10.02%) Microsoft Office
3 120 (5.30%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (1.99%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 8 (0.35%) Simulink
10 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.35%) Windchill
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.13%) Trello
13 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.088%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 45 (1.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.57%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 524 (23.13%) Azure
2 288 (12.72%) AWS
3 211 (9.32%) Microsoft 365
4 210 (9.27%) Power Platform
5 135 (5.96%) GCP
6 130 (5.74%) Entra ID
7 112 (4.94%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.22%) SaaS
9 64 (2.83%) GitHub
10 49 (2.16%) Serverless
11 46 (2.03%) Power Automate
12 45 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.99%) PowerApps
13 41 (1.81%) OneDrive
14 36 (1.59%) Microsoft Copilot
15 34 (1.50%) Figma
15 34 (1.50%) Snowflake
16 25 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
17 24 (1.06%) IaaS
17 24 (1.06%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.50%) Firewall
2 74 (3.27%) DNS
3 64 (2.83%) Network Security
4 59 (2.60%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.60%) VPN
5 46 (2.03%) DHCP
6 35 (1.55%) WAN
7 33 (1.46%) LAN
8 25 (1.10%) Wireless
9 23 (1.02%) 3GPP
10 19 (0.84%) 5G
11 18 (0.79%) BGP
11 18 (0.79%) Internet
11 18 (0.79%) SSH
12 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
12 17 (0.75%) SSL
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
13 16 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.71%) Wireshark
14 15 (0.66%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (7.15%) Power BI
2 106 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.30%) Metadata
4 49 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (1.50%) Tableau
8 32 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 29 (1.28%) MySQL
10 27 (1.19%) Big Data
11 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
12 24 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 21 (0.93%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (0.62%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Data Mining
15 14 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.57%) GIS
17 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 11 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 172 (7.59%) JIRA
2 124 (5.47%) Git
3 57 (2.52%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.30%) GitLab
5 21 (0.93%) JUnit
6 19 (0.84%) Selenium
6 19 (0.84%) SonarQube
7 18 (0.79%) Maven
8 17 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
8 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.71%) Gradle
10 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
10 14 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (0.53%) Mockito
12 11 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.49%) MLflow
12 11 (0.49%) Subversion
13 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
15 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 1,013 (44.72%) Social Skills
2 663 (29.27%) Finance
3 529 (23.36%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.30%) Banking
5 174 (7.68%) Public Sector
6 148 (6.53%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (4.86%) Manufacturing
8 105 (4.64%) Aerospace
9 94 (4.15%) Marketing
10 87 (3.84%) Legal
11 85 (3.75%) Telecoms
12 81 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
13 75 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
14 67 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.74%) Retail
16 53 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 48 (2.12%) Law
18 45 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.85%) Military
20 40 (1.77%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 318 (14.04%) Analyst
2 253 (11.17%) Senior
3 185 (8.17%) Lead
4 175 (7.73%) Developer
5 157 (6.93%) Architect
6 146 (6.45%) Business Analyst
7 114 (5.03%) Project Manager
8 70 (3.09%) Support Engineer
9 66 (2.91%) Senior Manager
10 63 (2.78%) IT Support
11 56 (2.47%) Consultant
12 53 (2.34%) IT Analyst
12 53 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
13 47 (2.08%) IT Manager
14 46 (2.03%) Designer
15 44 (1.94%) Technical Support
16 43 (1.90%) Senior Analyst
17 41 (1.81%) Data Analyst
17 41 (1.81%) Delivery Manager
17 41 (1.81%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.46%) Terraform
2 92 (4.06%) .NET
3 90 (3.97%) REST
4 62 (2.74%) HTML
5 59 (2.60%) React
6 56 (2.47%) Kafka
7 50 (2.21%) CSS
8 40 (1.77%) RESTful
9 38 (1.68%) OAuth
10 36 (1.59%) Middleware
11 34 (1.50%) XML
12 33 (1.46%) .NET Framework
12 33 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
12 33 (1.46%) Web Services
13 32 (1.41%) Spring Boot
14 29 (1.28%) SAML
14 29 (1.28%) Spring
15 28 (1.24%) OAuth2
16 27 (1.19%) JSON
16 27 (1.19%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 199 (8.79%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.96%) Onboarding
3 108 (4.77%) Product Ownership
4 93 (4.11%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.89%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.74%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.56%) Algorithms
8 56 (2.47%) Data Centre
9 45 (1.99%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.90%) Operational Technology
11 41 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
12 39 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
13 38 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
13 38 (1.68%) Life Science
14 37 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
14 37 (1.63%) Virtual Team
15 36 (1.59%) AI Agents
16 31 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 29 (1.28%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 287 (12.67%) Windows
2 174 (7.68%) Linux
3 79 (3.49%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.60%) Unix
5 43 (1.90%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.97%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) VMS
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (33.25%) Computer Science
2 629 (27.77%) Agile
3 606 (26.75%) Problem-Solving
4 450 (19.87%) Stakeholder Management
5 411 (18.15%) Continuous Improvement
6 364 (16.07%) AI
7 320 (14.13%) DevOps
8 291 (12.85%) Analytics
9 290 (12.80%) Project Management
10 282 (12.45%) CI/CD
11 259 (11.43%) ITIL
12 236 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 229 (10.11%) Decision-Making
14 217 (9.58%) Cybersecurity
15 213 (9.40%) Change Management
16 212 (9.36%) Scrum
16 212 (9.36%) Software Engineering
17 208 (9.18%) Roadmaps
18 197 (8.70%) PRINCE2
19 183 (8.08%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 384 (16.95%) Python
2 336 (14.83%) SQL
3 170 (7.51%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.67%) Java
5 115 (5.08%) JavaScript
6 106 (4.68%) C#
7 57 (2.52%) Bash
8 43 (1.90%) C++
9 37 (1.63%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.24%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.06%) C
12 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
13 23 (1.02%) R
14 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.66%) Scala
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.44%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 450 (19.87%) Computer Science Degree
2 429 (18.94%) Security Cleared
3 300 (13.25%) SC Cleared
4 190 (8.39%) Master's Degree
5 130 (5.74%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.25%) Microsoft Certification
7 114 (5.03%) PMP
8 105 (4.64%) CISSP
9 77 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
9 77 (3.40%) DV Cleared
10 76 (3.36%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
12 55 (2.43%) PhD
13 48 (2.12%) CISM
14 43 (1.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 40 (1.77%) AWS Certification
16 35 (1.55%) CCNA
16 35 (1.55%) CCNP
16 35 (1.55%) ISTQB
17 33 (1.46%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (5.61%) QA
2 124 (5.47%) Data Quality
3 94 (4.15%) NIST
4 90 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (3.58%) PMO
6 67 (2.96%) GDPR
7 41 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.72%) SLA
9 26 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.10%) GRC
11 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
12 15 (0.66%) NCSC
13 14 (0.62%) IFRS
14 13 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) P3O
16 9 (0.40%) COBIT
16 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.35%) IEC 61508
17 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 185 (8.17%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.17%) Docker
3 54 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.06%) Firmware
5 23 (1.02%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
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 (0.088%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 116 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.65%) Ansible
4 32 (1.41%) SCCM
5 29 (1.28%) Grafana
6 27 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.53%) SCOM
11 8 (0.35%) WSUS
12 7 (0.31%) CASB
12 7 (0.31%) Control-M
12 7 (0.31%) Functional Safety
12 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.26%) Nessus
13 6 (0.26%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 583 (25.74%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.84%) Oracle
3 139 (6.14%) ServiceNow
4 126 (5.56%) SAP
5 92 (4.06%) Google
6 71 (3.13%) VMware
7 62 (2.74%) Cisco
8 60 (2.65%) Salesforce
9 55 (2.43%) Adobe
10 46 (2.03%) Databricks
11 45 (1.99%) IBM
12 38 (1.68%) Splunk
13 32 (1.41%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.28%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 22 (0.97%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.88%) Apple
19 19 (0.84%) Ariba
19 19 (0.84%) OpenAI