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 15 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 20 24
Rank change year-on-year -5 +4 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 1,944 2,538 3,128
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 7.11% 7.79% 7.31%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.54% 26.10% 25.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,108 1,446 1,946
10th Percentile £262 £269 £278
25th Percentile £392 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £530
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -4.25% -2.75%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 154 190 182
10th Percentile £20.47 £21.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £27.31 £35.00 £24.94
Median hourly rate £38.50 £57.35 £48.14
Median % change year-on-year -32.87% +19.13% +6.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £72.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £86.25 £79.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £55.00 £48.28
% change year-on-year -30.00% +13.92% +7.48%

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 8,625 9,723 12,203
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.52% 29.83% 28.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,462 6,018 7,897
10th Percentile £303 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £743
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 674 583 664
10th Percentile £18.15 £17.08 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £26.71 £24.04
Median hourly rate £25.15 £54.00 £54.78
Median % change year-on-year -53.43% -1.42% +21.73%
75th Percentile £47.12 £69.72 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.00 £78.94
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £54.78
% change year-on-year -49.70% -8.73% +21.73%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Degree 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 -2 1,015 £550 +4.76% 2,294
North of England -4 240 £449 -14.98% 850
Midlands 0 218 £450 -5.26% 669
South East -5 203 £463 -3.55% 1,697
West Midlands -2 159 £475 -5.00% 388
North West -3 157 £458 -16.82% 496
South West -3 118 £475 -6.40% 451
East of England +1 116 £488 +14.71% 490
Yorkshire -22 70 £420 -16.00% 255
East Midlands +5 59 £434 +8.38% 265
North East -8 13 £450 - 108
Degree
UK

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 105 (5.40%) Confluence
2 94 (4.84%) SharePoint
3 76 (3.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (2.47%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.87%) nginx
7 14 (0.72%) CMS
7 14 (0.72%) IIS
8 13 (0.67%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.46%) SAS
10 8 (0.41%) Apache
11 7 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
12 6 (0.31%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.26%) Luigi
13 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.21%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.21%) IBM Domino
14 4 (0.21%) Moodle
14 4 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 228 (11.73%) Microsoft Office
2 175 (9.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 95 (4.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 93 (4.78%) Microsoft Project
5 64 (3.29%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.77%) Simulink
7 12 (0.62%) Trello
8 11 (0.57%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.51%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 6 (0.31%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.31%) Maya
11 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
12 4 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.15%) Camtasia
13 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
13 3 (0.15%) Windchill
14 2 (0.10%) InDesign
14 2 (0.10%) InVision
14 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.10%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 42 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.72%) Oracle EBS R12
4 12 (0.62%) FLEXCUBE
5 11 (0.57%) Oracle BPM
5 11 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (0.57%) SAP WM
6 10 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
6 10 (0.51%) Oracle Financials
6 10 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 10 (0.51%) SAP EWM
7 9 (0.46%) Oracle E-Business Tax
7 9 (0.46%) Primavera
8 8 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.36%) Endur
9 7 (0.36%) Teamcenter
10 5 (0.26%) Maximo
10 5 (0.26%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.26%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 330 (16.98%) Azure
2 256 (13.17%) AWS
3 133 (6.84%) Microsoft 365
4 117 (6.02%) Power Platform
5 99 (5.09%) GCP
6 71 (3.65%) SaaS
7 59 (3.03%) GitHub
8 53 (2.73%) Entra ID
9 47 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (2.21%) Serverless
11 36 (1.85%) Amazon S3
12 28 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
13 27 (1.39%) Azure Sentinel
13 27 (1.39%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.34%) Cloud Computing
15 22 (1.13%) Amazon ECS
15 22 (1.13%) PaaS
15 22 (1.13%) PowerApps
16 20 (1.03%) IaaS
16 20 (1.03%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 102 (5.25%) Firewall
2 91 (4.68%) DNS
3 78 (4.01%) VPN
4 45 (2.31%) DHCP
5 44 (2.26%) Network Security
6 39 (2.01%) TCP/IP
7 34 (1.75%) Wireless
8 31 (1.59%) LAN
9 30 (1.54%) WAN
10 24 (1.23%) HTTP
11 23 (1.18%) MPLS
11 23 (1.18%) SMTP
12 21 (1.08%) BGP
12 21 (1.08%) Unified Communications
13 18 (0.93%) SSH
13 18 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (0.87%) Internet
14 17 (0.87%) Skype
15 14 (0.72%) OSPF
15 14 (0.72%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (5.04%) Power BI
2 80 (4.12%) SQL Server
3 70 (3.60%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.78%) Tableau
5 51 (2.62%) Relational Database
6 46 (2.37%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (2.26%) NoSQL
8 38 (1.95%) Big Data
9 34 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
10 29 (1.49%) Hadoop
11 22 (1.13%) MySQL
12 20 (1.03%) Data Lake
13 19 (0.98%) Oracle Database
14 15 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.77%) Redis
14 15 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 14 (0.72%) Metadata
15 14 (0.72%) MongoDB
16 12 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
16 12 (0.62%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 211 (10.85%) JIRA
2 85 (4.37%) Git
3 81 (4.17%) Jenkins
4 48 (2.47%) GitLab
5 17 (0.87%) Postman
6 16 (0.82%) JUnit
6 16 (0.82%) Liquibase
6 16 (0.82%) Selenium
7 13 (0.67%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.57%) MLflow
8 11 (0.57%) TeamCity
8 11 (0.57%) Vagrant
9 10 (0.51%) SpecFlow
10 9 (0.46%) Artifactory
10 9 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.46%) Subversion
11 8 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
12 7 (0.36%) Appium
12 7 (0.36%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.36%) webpack
General
1 1,037 (53.34%) Social Skills
2 657 (33.80%) Finance
3 490 (25.21%) Analytical Skills
4 228 (11.73%) Banking
5 110 (5.66%) Public Sector
6 99 (5.09%) Presentation Skills
7 89 (4.58%) Marketing
8 84 (4.32%) Organisational Skills
9 83 (4.27%) Manufacturing
10 69 (3.55%) Legal
11 67 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
12 64 (3.29%) Telecoms
13 54 (2.78%) Investment Banking
14 50 (2.57%) Front Office
15 44 (2.26%) Financial Institution
16 42 (2.16%) Aerospace
17 39 (2.01%) Automotive
17 39 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
18 38 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
19 37 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 283 (14.56%) Analyst
2 218 (11.21%) Developer
3 212 (10.91%) Senior
4 146 (7.51%) Business Analyst
5 118 (6.07%) Architect
6 113 (5.81%) Lead
7 105 (5.40%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.81%) Consultant
9 73 (3.76%) Support Engineer
10 56 (2.88%) Software Engineer
11 40 (2.06%) Network Engineer
12 38 (1.95%) Data Engineer
12 38 (1.95%) Security Engineer
13 37 (1.90%) Senior Developer
13 37 (1.90%) Support Analyst
14 36 (1.85%) Java Developer
14 36 (1.85%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (1.80%) IT Manager
16 34 (1.75%) Data Scientist
16 34 (1.75%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (4.37%) REST
2 68 (3.50%) HTML
3 63 (3.24%) .NET
4 51 (2.62%) Kafka
5 49 (2.52%) CSS
5 49 (2.52%) RESTful
6 48 (2.47%) Middleware
7 45 (2.31%) Web Services
8 41 (2.11%) XML
9 31 (1.59%) AngularJS
10 30 (1.54%) React
10 30 (1.54%) SOAP
11 27 (1.39%) TensorFlow
12 26 (1.34%) JSON
13 23 (1.18%) Pandas
14 22 (1.13%) Spring
15 21 (1.08%) PyTorch
16 20 (1.03%) Node.js
16 20 (1.03%) OAuth
17 19 (0.98%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 181 (9.31%) Management Information System
2 82 (4.22%) Product Ownership
3 65 (3.34%) Data Protection Act
4 57 (2.93%) Algorithms
5 50 (2.57%) Cloud Native
6 46 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
7 45 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 45 (2.31%) Onboarding
8 41 (2.11%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.01%) Data Centre
9 39 (2.01%) PKI
10 37 (1.90%) Derivative
11 36 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
12 35 (1.80%) Security Posture
13 33 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
14 29 (1.49%) PMI
15 28 (1.44%) Data Structures
16 24 (1.23%) Life Science
16 24 (1.23%) Public Cloud
17 23 (1.18%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 182 (9.36%) Windows
2 144 (7.41%) Linux
3 49 (2.52%) Windows Server
4 46 (2.37%) Unix
5 27 (1.39%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.29%) Apple iOS
7 23 (1.18%) Android
8 20 (1.03%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.77%) VMS
10 14 (0.72%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
12 12 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
13 10 (0.51%) Amazon Linux
14 4 (0.21%) CentOS
14 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.15%) AIX
16 2 (0.10%) SUSE
16 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
17 1 (0.051%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 1 (0.051%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 808 (41.56%) Computer Science
2 630 (32.41%) Problem-Solving
3 573 (29.48%) Agile
4 329 (16.92%) Project Management
5 259 (13.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 245 (12.60%) DevOps
7 215 (11.06%) ITIL
8 204 (10.49%) Change Management
9 202 (10.39%) Analytics
10 183 (9.41%) CI/CD
11 173 (8.90%) Decision-Making
12 168 (8.64%) Migration
13 163 (8.38%) Continuous Improvement
14 161 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 159 (8.18%) Software Engineering
16 146 (7.51%) Risk Management
17 142 (7.30%) Roadmaps
18 141 (7.25%) Cybersecurity
18 141 (7.25%) Scrum
19 136 (7.00%) Artificial Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 368 (18.93%) Python
2 307 (15.79%) SQL
3 190 (9.77%) Java
4 97 (4.99%) JavaScript
4 97 (4.99%) PowerShell
5 72 (3.70%) C++
6 65 (3.34%) C#
7 40 (2.06%) R
8 36 (1.85%) Bash
9 32 (1.65%) Go
10 26 (1.34%) TypeScript
11 20 (1.03%) MATLAB
12 19 (0.98%) Perl
12 19 (0.98%) PL/SQL
13 17 (0.87%) Apex Code
14 15 (0.77%) C
14 15 (0.77%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.77%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
16 13 (0.67%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 525 (27.01%) Computer Science Degree
2 248 (12.76%) Security Cleared
3 239 (12.29%) Master's Degree
4 189 (9.72%) SC Cleared
5 134 (6.89%) PMI Certification
6 118 (6.07%) PMP
7 71 (3.65%) CISSP
8 69 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.93%) PhD
11 53 (2.73%) AWS Certification
12 50 (2.57%) Azure Certification
13 43 (2.21%) CCNA
13 43 (2.21%) CISM
13 43 (2.21%) DV Cleared
14 40 (2.06%) CCNP
15 34 (1.75%) HND
16 33 (1.70%) HNC
17 29 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
18 27 (1.39%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (4.58%) QA
2 84 (4.32%) Data Quality
3 81 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (3.81%) GDPR
5 61 (3.14%) NIST
6 42 (2.16%) PMO
7 35 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.59%) SLA
9 22 (1.13%) GRC
10 20 (1.03%) PCI DSS
11 17 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.82%) COBIT
12 16 (0.82%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.62%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 12 (0.62%) NCSC
14 11 (0.57%) Def Stans
14 11 (0.57%) JSP 440
14 11 (0.57%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 10 (0.51%) WCAG
System Software
1 128 (6.58%) Active Directory
2 102 (5.25%) Docker
3 39 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.29%) Firmware
5 23 (1.18%) Hyper-V
6 19 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.67%) BitLocker
8 12 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.51%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.51%) Dovecot
9 10 (0.51%) Postfix
9 10 (0.51%) Squid
10 9 (0.46%) Microsoft App-V
10 9 (0.46%) Terminal Services
11 7 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 7 (0.36%) vSphere
12 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.15%) GridGain
13 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 99 (5.09%) Kubernetes
2 84 (4.32%) Terraform
3 81 (4.17%) Ansible
4 49 (2.52%) Microsoft Intune
5 36 (1.85%) Grafana
6 29 (1.49%) SCCM
7 28 (1.44%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.98%) Puppet
9 16 (0.82%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.62%) Nessus
11 11 (0.57%) QRadar
11 11 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.51%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.46%) Nagios
13 9 (0.46%) vMotion
14 7 (0.36%) CSIRT
14 7 (0.36%) WSUS
15 5 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 5 (0.26%) RSA Archer
15 5 (0.26%) SCOM
Vendors
1 422 (21.71%) Microsoft
2 126 (6.48%) Oracle
3 118 (6.07%) ServiceNow
4 116 (5.97%) SAP
5 79 (4.06%) Cisco
6 74 (3.81%) Google
7 71 (3.65%) Salesforce
8 54 (2.78%) Splunk
9 48 (2.47%) VMware
10 38 (1.95%) Citrix
11 32 (1.65%) IBM
12 28 (1.44%) Adobe
13 27 (1.39%) Databricks
14 22 (1.13%) Apple
15 21 (1.08%) Workday
16 20 (1.03%) Atlassian
17 17 (0.87%) Fortinet
17 17 (0.87%) HP
17 17 (0.87%) Palo Alto
18 14 (0.72%) F5