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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,152 1,902 3,139
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.34% 7.80% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.50% 24.90% 27.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,270 1,124 1,658
10th Percentile £250 £250 £213
25th Percentile £383 £387 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £511
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.76% -5.87%
75th Percentile £613 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £503
% change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 142 372
10th Percentile £20.75 £17.53 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.50 £27.53 £24.08
Median hourly rate £65.00 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.64% +32.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £55.75 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +6.19% +31.25% -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 13,042 7,638 11,518
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.37% 31.33% 31.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,753 4,846 7,100
10th Percentile £340 £289 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 967 440 984
10th Percentile £17.08 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.29 £18.10
Median hourly rate £47.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% +10.00% -23.81%
75th Percentile £71.75 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.44 £81.42 £76.47
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -16 911 £500 -9.09% 1,357
South East -6 369 £478 -4.50% 826
North of England -8 324 £417 -8.35% 663
Midlands -26 209 £500 +66.67% 372
North West -9 170 £400 -12.28% 415
West Midlands -26 147 £500 +66.67% 215
East of England -5 140 £475 -5.00% 320
Yorkshire -12 138 £474 +14.43% 190
South West -13 138 £623 +24.55% 273
East Midlands -18 60 £525 +55.33% 156
North East -26 16 £407 -12.00% 65
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
1 143 (6.64%) Confluence
2 106 (4.93%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.53%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Apache
7 7 (0.33%) CMS
7 7 (0.33%) SAS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.23%) IIS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) Camunda
12 2 (0.093%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 288 (13.38%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 177 (8.22%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.70%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.42%) Simulink
7 9 (0.42%) Trello
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe After Effects
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.28%) Sketch
10 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.19%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.093%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.093%) InVision
Business Applications
1 49 (2.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.74%) Primavera
4 14 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 444 (20.63%) Azure
2 247 (11.48%) AWS
3 188 (8.74%) Microsoft 365
4 175 (8.13%) Power Platform
5 105 (4.88%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.55%) SaaS
7 88 (4.09%) GCP
8 74 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.42%) GitHub
10 34 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.53%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.49%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.44%) IaaS
13 31 (1.44%) PaaS
14 26 (1.21%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.16%) Serverless
16 24 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
17 23 (1.07%) Figma
17 23 (1.07%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.37%) Firewall
2 52 (2.42%) LAN
2 52 (2.42%) WAN
3 46 (2.14%) TCP/IP
4 43 (2.00%) Network Security
5 42 (1.95%) DNS
6 36 (1.67%) VPN
7 26 (1.21%) Wireless
8 23 (1.07%) BGP
9 21 (0.98%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.93%) OSPF
11 18 (0.84%) Skype
12 17 (0.79%) DHCP
13 16 (0.74%) HTTP
14 14 (0.65%) SAN
14 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.51%) IPsec
16 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
17 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (6.69%) Power BI
2 88 (4.09%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.37%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.63%) Tableau
7 31 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.39%) Metadata
9 28 (1.30%) Big Data
9 28 (1.30%) MySQL
10 19 (0.88%) MongoDB
11 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
11 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
13 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.56%) Power Query
15 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.51%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 242 (11.25%) JIRA
2 95 (4.41%) Git
3 40 (1.86%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.72%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) Gradle
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Postman
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) JUnit
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.28%) Cucumber
General
1 1,020 (47.40%) Social Skills
2 649 (30.16%) Finance
3 473 (21.98%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (9.48%) Banking
5 174 (8.09%) Public Sector
6 115 (5.34%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.16%) Presentation Skills
8 83 (3.86%) Marketing
9 82 (3.81%) Documentation Skills
10 71 (3.30%) Aerospace
10 71 (3.30%) Legal
11 67 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
12 59 (2.74%) Manufacturing
13 54 (2.51%) Military
14 53 (2.46%) Telecoms
15 51 (2.37%) Law
16 47 (2.18%) Retail
17 38 (1.77%) Front Office
18 35 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 32 (1.49%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 293 (13.62%) Analyst
2 220 (10.22%) Senior
3 184 (8.55%) Architect
4 172 (7.99%) Lead
5 156 (7.25%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.88%) Business Analyst
6 148 (6.88%) Developer
7 64 (2.97%) Consultant
8 62 (2.88%) Delivery Manager
9 60 (2.79%) Technical Support
10 59 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
11 55 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.23%) Software Engineer
13 46 (2.14%) Data Scientist
13 46 (2.14%) Product Manager
14 40 (1.86%) Designer
14 40 (1.86%) Security Engineer
15 38 (1.77%) Data Engineer
15 38 (1.77%) Senior Manager
16 37 (1.72%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (4.04%) REST
2 65 (3.02%) .NET
3 51 (2.37%) Middleware
4 48 (2.23%) React
5 42 (1.95%) Kafka
6 41 (1.91%) RESTful
7 40 (1.86%) HTML
8 36 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
9 35 (1.63%) XML
10 33 (1.53%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.49%) SOAP
12 30 (1.39%) JSON
12 30 (1.39%) Spring
13 29 (1.35%) OAuth
14 27 (1.25%) CSS
14 27 (1.25%) Pandas
14 27 (1.25%) PyTorch
15 26 (1.21%) .NET Framework
16 22 (1.02%) TensorFlow
17 21 (0.98%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 165 (7.67%) Management Information System
2 152 (7.06%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.53%) Onboarding
4 74 (3.44%) Cloud Native
5 63 (2.93%) Self-Motivation
6 61 (2.83%) Virtual Team
7 59 (2.74%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.37%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.32%) PMI
10 48 (2.23%) Algorithms
10 48 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
11 47 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
13 38 (1.77%) Robotics
14 34 (1.58%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.49%) Security Posture
16 30 (1.39%) Derivative
17 29 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
18 26 (1.21%) AI Agents
19 24 (1.12%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 249 (11.57%) Windows
2 162 (7.53%) Linux
3 67 (3.11%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.97%) Unix
5 56 (2.60%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.02%) Android
7 20 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (0.84%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 11 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.23%) AIX
12 5 (0.23%) Debian
12 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
14 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (34.71%) Computer Science
2 657 (30.53%) Agile
3 552 (25.65%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.50%) Stakeholder Management
5 317 (14.73%) AI
6 310 (14.41%) Continuous Improvement
7 304 (14.13%) Project Management
8 291 (13.52%) DevOps
9 235 (10.92%) CI/CD
10 228 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 227 (10.55%) Analytics
12 218 (10.13%) Decision-Making
13 213 (9.90%) Change Management
14 208 (9.67%) ITIL
15 205 (9.53%) Cybersecurity
16 203 (9.43%) Migration
17 198 (9.20%) Risk Management
18 189 (8.78%) PRINCE2
19 186 (8.64%) Roadmaps
20 184 (8.55%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 342 (15.89%) Python
2 319 (14.82%) SQL
3 144 (6.69%) Java
4 110 (5.11%) PowerShell
5 81 (3.76%) C#
6 73 (3.39%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.56%) C++
8 39 (1.81%) Bash
9 34 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.35%) R
11 24 (1.12%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.79%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.70%) C
13 15 (0.70%) Perl
14 14 (0.65%) Go
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 14 (0.65%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 484 (22.49%) Computer Science Degree
2 418 (19.42%) Security Cleared
3 299 (13.89%) SC Cleared
4 240 (11.15%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.37%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.58%) PMP
7 98 (4.55%) CISSP
8 87 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
9 67 (3.11%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.65%) TOGAF Certification
11 55 (2.56%) CISM
12 49 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
13 47 (2.18%) DV Cleared
13 47 (2.18%) PhD
14 45 (2.09%) Azure Certification
15 37 (1.72%) CCNP
16 34 (1.58%) MBA
17 32 (1.49%) CBAP
17 32 (1.49%) CCNA
18 25 (1.16%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.83%) QA
2 105 (4.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.79%) PMO
4 100 (4.65%) NIST
5 98 (4.55%) GDPR
6 82 (3.81%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.32%) SLA
8 40 (1.86%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.86%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.02%) GRC
11 21 (0.98%) NCSC
12 14 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.60%) Basel III
13 13 (0.60%) IFRS
13 13 (0.60%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 140 (6.51%) Active Directory
2 120 (5.58%) Docker
3 36 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 22 (1.02%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.33%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.093%) HDFS
11 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.046%) Squid
12 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 129 (5.99%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.49%) Terraform
3 60 (2.79%) Ansible
4 56 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.72%) SCCM
6 36 (1.67%) Grafana
7 30 (1.39%) OPNET
8 26 (1.21%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.84%) Puppet
9 18 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.51%) Kibana
11 11 (0.51%) Nmap
12 10 (0.46%) WSUS
13 9 (0.42%) Kiali
13 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.33%) Nessus
14 7 (0.33%) SCOM
15 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 493 (22.91%) Microsoft
2 142 (6.60%) Oracle
3 122 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 116 (5.39%) SAP
5 75 (3.49%) Google
6 66 (3.07%) Cisco
7 49 (2.28%) Remedy
7 49 (2.28%) Splunk
8 47 (2.18%) Databricks
9 44 (2.04%) Citrix
10 43 (2.00%) Atlassian
11 42 (1.95%) VMware
12 37 (1.72%) Salesforce
13 34 (1.58%) IBM
14 32 (1.49%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.35%) Adobe
15 29 (1.35%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.07%) Aruba
17 22 (1.02%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.93%) Siemens