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 20 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,236 2,011 2,856
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.33% 7.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.76% 23.74% 26.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,200 1,207 1,637
10th Percentile £204 £250 £251
25th Percentile £363 £380 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.57% -4.38%
75th Percentile £600 £648 £638
90th Percentile £713 £757 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 156 303
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.12 £18.35
25th Percentile £26.90 £26.95 £26.40
Median hourly rate £48.50 £41.75 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.17% -13.02% -10.90%
75th Percentile £83.00 £70.04 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.25 £43.25 £42.50
% change year-on-year +4.62% +1.76% -21.30%

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 14,186 8,471 10,963
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.60% 30.89% 30.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,563 5,350 6,907
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £718 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,058 610 909
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.44
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.80 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +109.30% -40.00% -23.61%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.97 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +107.75% -40.82% -25.74%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 -20 939 £525 -4.55% 1,238
South East +3 462 £500 +4.99% 536
North of England -13 328 £450 +0.67% 327
Midlands -24 197 £498 +18.45% 229
North West -12 186 £447 -5.89% 164
East of England -5 147 £450 - 199
West Midlands -32 147 £481 +6.89% 128
Yorkshire -14 125 £475 +11.76% 105
South West -28 118 £415 -7.78% 180
East Midlands -15 48 £515 +43.85% 101
North East -37 17 £450 +130.77% 60
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
1 130 (5.81%) SharePoint
2 113 (5.05%) Confluence
3 58 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.34%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.81%) Apache
7 12 (0.54%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 257 (11.49%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 128 (5.72%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.42%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
11 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) Trello
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.63%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 515 (23.03%) Azure
2 286 (12.79%) AWS
3 194 (8.68%) Power Platform
4 192 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (6.35%) Entra ID
6 112 (5.01%) GCP
7 94 (4.20%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.22%) SaaS
9 55 (2.46%) GitHub
10 37 (1.65%) Figma
11 36 (1.61%) Serverless
11 36 (1.61%) Snowflake
12 34 (1.52%) PowerApps
13 33 (1.48%) OneDrive
14 32 (1.43%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
16 27 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.07%) IaaS
17 24 (1.07%) PaaS
18 23 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.34%) Firewall
2 70 (3.13%) TCP/IP
3 65 (2.91%) DNS
4 60 (2.68%) Network Security
5 53 (2.37%) VPN
6 45 (2.01%) WAN
7 43 (1.92%) LAN
8 34 (1.52%) DHCP
9 25 (1.12%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) BGP
11 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 19 (0.85%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.81%) OSPF
14 14 (0.63%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.63%) Internet
14 14 (0.63%) SSH
15 13 (0.58%) VLAN
16 12 (0.54%) MPLS
16 12 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
16 12 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.33%) Power BI
2 104 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.15%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.70%) Metadata
7 37 (1.65%) Tableau
8 31 (1.39%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.25%) Big Data
10 25 (1.12%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.98%) MySQL
11 22 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (0.85%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.58%) Hadoop
14 13 (0.58%) Power Query
15 12 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
15 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 193 (8.63%) JIRA
2 108 (4.83%) Git
3 47 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.74%) GitLab
5 34 (1.52%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) MLflow
7 16 (0.72%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.67%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Postman
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 983 (43.96%) Social Skills
2 667 (29.83%) Finance
3 486 (21.74%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 177 (7.92%) Banking
6 139 (6.22%) Organisational Skills
7 97 (4.34%) Marketing
8 92 (4.11%) Presentation Skills
9 90 (4.03%) Legal
10 88 (3.94%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.89%) Manufacturing
12 78 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
13 64 (2.86%) Telecoms
14 63 (2.82%) Retail
15 54 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.33%) Law
17 37 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
18 34 (1.52%) Front Office
19 32 (1.43%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 318 (14.22%) Analyst
2 252 (11.27%) Senior
3 175 (7.83%) Lead
4 172 (7.69%) Architect
5 154 (6.89%) Developer
6 144 (6.44%) Project Manager
7 139 (6.22%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.18%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.68%) Consultant
10 59 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
11 55 (2.46%) Designer
11 55 (2.46%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.33%) IT Support
13 51 (2.28%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.24%) Product Manager
14 50 (2.24%) Technical Support
15 49 (2.19%) IT Analyst
15 49 (2.19%) Support Engineer
16 44 (1.97%) Senior Analyst
17 43 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.94%) REST
2 87 (3.89%) .NET
3 57 (2.55%) React
4 43 (1.92%) Kafka
5 37 (1.65%) OAuth
6 35 (1.57%) RESTful
7 34 (1.52%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.52%) Middleware
8 33 (1.48%) HTML
9 32 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
10 30 (1.34%) Web Services
11 29 (1.30%) SAML
12 28 (1.25%) Spring
12 28 (1.25%) XML
13 27 (1.21%) LDAP
14 26 (1.16%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
15 25 (1.12%) CSS
15 25 (1.12%) OAuth2
16 24 (1.07%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 177 (7.92%) Management Information System
2 140 (6.26%) Onboarding
3 136 (6.08%) Product Ownership
4 98 (4.38%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.94%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.73%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.33%) Data Structures
7 52 (2.33%) Virtual Team
8 49 (2.19%) Security Posture
9 46 (2.06%) Algorithms
9 46 (2.06%) Operational Technology
10 37 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
11 35 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
11 35 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
11 35 (1.57%) Life Science
12 34 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
12 34 (1.52%) Robotics
13 33 (1.48%) PMI
14 31 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
15 29 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 292 (13.06%) Windows
2 161 (7.20%) Linux
3 71 (3.18%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.82%) Unix
5 48 (2.15%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.30%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 24 (1.07%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
12 6 (0.27%) VMS
13 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.13%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (33.41%) Computer Science
2 646 (28.89%) Agile
3 589 (26.34%) Problem-Solving
4 395 (17.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (16.68%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (16.14%) AI
7 301 (13.46%) DevOps
8 282 (12.61%) Project Management
9 270 (12.08%) Analytics
10 252 (11.27%) CI/CD
11 246 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 243 (10.87%) ITIL
13 240 (10.73%) Decision-Making
14 223 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
15 205 (9.17%) Roadmaps
16 201 (8.99%) Change Management
17 190 (8.50%) Software Engineering
18 187 (8.36%) Scrum
19 185 (8.27%) PRINCE2
19 185 (8.27%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 373 (16.68%) Python
2 322 (14.40%) SQL
3 148 (6.62%) Java
4 136 (6.08%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.07%) C#
6 78 (3.49%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.88%) Bash
8 40 (1.79%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.21%) R
11 25 (1.12%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.94%) C
14 18 (0.81%) Bicep
15 17 (0.76%) Shell Script
16 12 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
18 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 9 (0.40%) Go
18 9 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 431 (19.28%) Computer Science Degree
2 399 (17.84%) Security Cleared
3 260 (11.63%) SC Cleared
4 213 (9.53%) Master's Degree
5 132 (5.90%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.14%) PMP
7 114 (5.10%) CISSP
8 99 (4.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
10 65 (2.91%) DV Cleared
11 63 (2.82%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
13 55 (2.46%) CISM
14 44 (1.97%) PhD
15 39 (1.74%) CCNA
16 38 (1.70%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.65%) CCNP
18 36 (1.61%) CISA
19 33 (1.48%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
20 29 (1.30%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.14%) QA
2 111 (4.96%) NIST
3 109 (4.87%) Data Quality
4 107 (4.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (4.34%) PMO
6 77 (3.44%) GDPR
7 45 (2.01%) SLA
8 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.21%) PCI DSS
9 27 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.12%) GRC
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.58%) IFRS
13 12 (0.54%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.40%) P3O
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 185 (8.27%) Active Directory
2 112 (5.01%) Docker
3 46 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.94%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 124 (5.55%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.80%) Terraform
3 68 (3.04%) Microsoft Intune
4 57 (2.55%) Ansible
5 33 (1.48%) SCCM
6 29 (1.30%) Grafana
7 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) SCOM
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
15 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 556 (24.87%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.57%) Oracle
3 132 (5.90%) SAP
4 129 (5.77%) ServiceNow
5 89 (3.98%) Google
6 64 (2.86%) Cisco
7 58 (2.59%) VMware
8 53 (2.37%) Databricks
9 49 (2.19%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.06%) Adobe
11 44 (1.97%) IBM
12 34 (1.52%) Citrix
13 32 (1.43%) CyberArk
14 31 (1.39%) Splunk
15 29 (1.30%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.12%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.94%) Siemens
18 20 (0.89%) Ariba
19 19 (0.85%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.85%) HP