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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 26 19
Rank change year-on-year -12 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,188 1,857 3,077
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.04% 7.40% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.95% 23.75% 26.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,210 1,116 1,645
10th Percentile £206 £235 £235
25th Percentile £365 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.68%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £630
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 239 134 373
10th Percentile £17.85 £20.07 £15.85
25th Percentile £27.59 £27.53 £24.25
Median hourly rate £51.44 £48.90 £41.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.19% +19.27% -11.35%
75th Percentile £83.38 £68.69 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.80
UK median hourly rate £48.50 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.45% +19.51% -17.15%

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 13,720 7,820 11,416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.60% 31.15% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,266 4,932 7,035
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 500 1,020
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.05
25th Percentile £23.49 £20.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £29.27 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.36% -31.13% -22.73%
75th Percentile £73.75 £64.52 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.39 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £28.58 £40.94
% change year-on-year +74.98% -30.20% -25.73%

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 25 June 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 25 June 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 25 June 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 -20 935 £515 -6.36% 460
South East -1 418 £500 +5.26% 534
North of England -10 329 £447 -0.67% 342
Midlands -23 193 £505 +41.06% 250
North West -5 182 £443 -2.64% 195
East of England -5 146 £450 -10.00% 170
West Midlands -26 144 £487 +17.94% 132
Yorkshire -10 133 £500 +11.86% 100
South West -29 119 £435 -8.42% 185
East Midlands -15 47 £550 +55.81% 118
North East -38 14 £450 +130.77% 53
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 (5.48%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.94%) Confluence
3 64 (2.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.73%) Apache
7 11 (0.50%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 256 (11.70%) Microsoft Office
2 205 (9.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.76%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 7 (0.32%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.27%) Trello
13 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.091%) Windchill
15 1 (0.046%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 52 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.64%) Primavera
3 9 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Magento
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 487 (22.26%) Azure
2 291 (13.30%) AWS
3 191 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
4 177 (8.09%) Power Platform
5 131 (5.99%) Entra ID
6 109 (4.98%) GCP
7 80 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.47%) SaaS
9 51 (2.33%) GitHub
10 35 (1.60%) Figma
11 34 (1.55%) Serverless
12 33 (1.51%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.46%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.46%) PowerApps
14 31 (1.42%) OneDrive
15 30 (1.37%) PaaS
16 28 (1.28%) Dynamics 365
17 27 (1.23%) Google Workspace
18 26 (1.19%) IaaS
19 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.57%) Firewall
2 67 (3.06%) TCP/IP
3 65 (2.97%) DNS
4 57 (2.61%) Network Security
5 47 (2.15%) WAN
6 45 (2.06%) LAN
6 45 (2.06%) VPN
7 33 (1.51%) DHCP
8 26 (1.19%) Wireless
9 24 (1.10%) BGP
10 21 (0.96%) OSPF
11 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.69%) 3GPP
14 13 (0.59%) Skype
15 12 (0.55%) Internet
15 12 (0.55%) IPsec
15 12 (0.55%) SAN
15 12 (0.55%) SSH
16 11 (0.50%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (6.86%) Power BI
2 99 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.15%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.01%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.69%) Tableau
7 33 (1.51%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.46%) Metadata
9 29 (1.33%) Big Data
10 25 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.96%) MySQL
12 18 (0.82%) Oracle Database
13 17 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.55%) Power Query
16 12 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 192 (8.78%) JIRA
2 101 (4.62%) Git
3 41 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.83%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.87%) MLflow
8 15 (0.69%) Selenium
9 11 (0.50%) Postman
10 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.46%) Gradle
10 10 (0.46%) JUnit
11 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.37%) Maven
12 8 (0.37%) Subversion
13 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.27%) Burp Suite
14 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
General
1 997 (45.57%) Social Skills
2 667 (30.48%) Finance
3 450 (20.57%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.50%) Banking
5 183 (8.36%) Public Sector
6 131 (5.99%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.94%) Presentation Skills
8 94 (4.30%) Marketing
9 87 (3.98%) Aerospace
10 84 (3.84%) Legal
11 80 (3.66%) Manufacturing
12 79 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
13 74 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
14 62 (2.83%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.65%) Retail
16 51 (2.33%) Law
17 43 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.78%) Front Office
19 32 (1.46%) Investment Banking
19 32 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 322 (14.72%) Analyst
2 247 (11.29%) Senior
3 171 (7.82%) Architect
4 164 (7.50%) Lead
5 148 (6.76%) Business Analyst
6 145 (6.63%) Developer
7 142 (6.49%) Project Manager
8 63 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
9 62 (2.83%) Senior Manager
10 61 (2.79%) Consultant
11 57 (2.61%) Senior Analyst
11 57 (2.61%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.42%) Designer
13 51 (2.33%) Software Engineer
14 49 (2.24%) Product Manager
15 46 (2.10%) Delivery Manager
15 46 (2.10%) IT Support
16 44 (2.01%) IT Manager
17 43 (1.97%) IT Analyst
18 42 (1.92%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (4.07%) REST
2 81 (3.70%) .NET
3 56 (2.56%) React
4 46 (2.10%) Kafka
5 42 (1.92%) Middleware
6 39 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
7 38 (1.74%) OAuth
8 35 (1.60%) .NET Framework
8 35 (1.60%) RESTful
9 33 (1.51%) HTML
10 27 (1.23%) SAML
10 27 (1.23%) Spring Boot
10 27 (1.23%) Web Services
11 26 (1.19%) Spring
12 25 (1.14%) JSON
12 25 (1.14%) XML
13 24 (1.10%) SOAP
14 23 (1.05%) CSS
15 22 (1.01%) AngularJS
15 22 (1.01%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 175 (8.00%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.17%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.76%) Product Ownership
4 90 (4.11%) Self-Motivation
5 82 (3.75%) Cloud Native
6 70 (3.20%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.38%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.33%) Virtual Team
9 48 (2.19%) Security Posture
10 45 (2.06%) Algorithms
11 44 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
12 41 (1.87%) Operational Technology
13 40 (1.83%) PMI
14 39 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
15 35 (1.60%) Robotics
16 34 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
17 32 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
19 29 (1.33%) Life Science
20 28 (1.28%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 299 (13.67%) Windows
2 169 (7.72%) Linux
3 70 (3.20%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.15%) Unix
5 53 (2.42%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.10%) Android
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.46%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.32%) AIX
14 6 (0.27%) Windows 7
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Solaris
16 4 (0.18%) VMS
17 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (32.95%) Computer Science
2 636 (29.07%) Agile
3 561 (25.64%) Problem-Solving
4 369 (16.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 354 (16.18%) AI
6 349 (15.95%) Continuous Improvement
7 299 (13.67%) DevOps
8 270 (12.34%) Project Management
9 253 (11.56%) Analytics
9 253 (11.56%) CI/CD
10 233 (10.65%) Decision-Making
11 224 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 218 (9.96%) ITIL
13 217 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
14 205 (9.37%) Roadmaps
15 198 (9.05%) Change Management
16 188 (8.59%) Migration
17 178 (8.14%) Risk Management
18 176 (8.04%) Project Delivery
19 174 (7.95%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 364 (16.64%) Python
2 322 (14.72%) SQL
3 146 (6.67%) Java
4 127 (5.80%) PowerShell
5 88 (4.02%) C#
6 84 (3.84%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.83%) Bash
8 35 (1.60%) C++
9 27 (1.23%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 22 (1.01%) R
12 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.73%) C
15 13 (0.59%) Rust
16 12 (0.55%) Go
16 12 (0.55%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.55%) Perl
17 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 440 (20.11%) Computer Science Degree
2 385 (17.60%) Security Cleared
3 260 (11.88%) SC Cleared
4 216 (9.87%) Master's Degree
5 132 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.35%) CISSP
7 113 (5.16%) PMP
8 89 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.61%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.56%) CISM
12 55 (2.51%) DV Cleared
13 50 (2.29%) Azure Certification
14 45 (2.06%) PhD
15 39 (1.78%) CCNP
16 36 (1.65%) CCNA
17 35 (1.60%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.51%) CBAP
19 31 (1.42%) CISA
19 31 (1.42%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.39%) QA
2 110 (5.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 110 (5.03%) NIST
3 99 (4.52%) Data Quality
4 96 (4.39%) PMO
5 85 (3.88%) GDPR
6 47 (2.15%) SLA
7 39 (1.78%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.65%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.23%) GRC
11 22 (1.01%) NCSC
12 17 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.78%) IFRS
13 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.41%) COBIT
17 8 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 177 (8.09%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.39%) Docker
3 41 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.23%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.14%) XenApp
11 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 129 (5.90%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.84%) Terraform
3 73 (3.34%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.88%) Ansible
5 34 (1.55%) Grafana
6 33 (1.51%) SCCM
7 32 (1.46%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
9 20 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 14 (0.64%) Puppet
12 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
15 6 (0.27%) Kibana
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
16 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 517 (23.63%) Microsoft
2 152 (6.95%) Oracle
3 123 (5.62%) SAP
4 115 (5.26%) ServiceNow
5 89 (4.07%) Google
6 61 (2.79%) Cisco
7 49 (2.24%) Databricks
8 48 (2.19%) VMware
9 41 (1.87%) Citrix
10 40 (1.83%) Adobe
10 40 (1.83%) Salesforce
11 39 (1.78%) IBM
12 37 (1.69%) Splunk
13 31 (1.42%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.28%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.05%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.05%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.91%) Siemens
17 19 (0.87%) Ariba
18 18 (0.82%) HP
1,716 Degree jobs in England