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 8 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,275 1,984 2,567
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.92% 7.09% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.24% 22.21% 26.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,175 1,112 1,465
10th Percentile £205 £268 £261
25th Percentile £371 £402 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -6.10%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £717 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 168 164
10th Percentile £16.46 £16.97 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.74 £26.19 £31.04
Median hourly rate £39.50 £35.25 £52.35
Median % change year-on-year +12.06% -32.66% +9.05%
75th Percentile £66.46 £63.29 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.40 £86.78 £83.50
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £33.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +19.94% -27.46% -4.07%

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 14,931 8,933 9,612
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.28% 31.92% 29.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,955 5,663 5,831
10th Percentile £351 £290 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £712 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,283 739 516
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.57
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.24
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.84
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.43% -10.88%

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 -20 990 £526 -4.36% 6,028
South East +8 466 £525 +16.67% 1,753
North of England -13 338 £475 +5.56% 1,187
North West -8 218 £479 +4.70% 651
Midlands -28 185 £450 -5.26% 856
West Midlands -30 137 £450 -8.16% 524
East of England -16 136 £425 -15.00% 822
South West -28 126 £415 -20.95% 663
Yorkshire -20 103 £500 +11.86% 350
East Midlands -16 47 £481 +7.37% 333
North East -30 17 £460 +2.22% 189
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
1 145 (6.37%) SharePoint
2 115 (5.05%) Confluence
3 54 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.32%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.92%) Apache
6 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.88%) IIS
7 16 (0.70%) CMS
8 14 (0.62%) Camunda
8 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 8 (0.35%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 231 (10.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 213 (9.36%) Microsoft Office
3 108 (4.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 101 (4.44%) Microsoft Project
5 48 (2.11%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
12 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.13%) MicroStation
14 2 (0.088%) CATIA
14 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 32 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.48%) Primavera
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
4 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Changepoint
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
9 3 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 531 (23.34%) Azure
2 282 (12.40%) AWS
3 200 (8.79%) Microsoft 365
3 200 (8.79%) Power Platform
4 147 (6.46%) GCP
5 132 (5.80%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.45%) Azure DevOps
7 70 (3.08%) SaaS
8 61 (2.68%) GitHub
9 56 (2.46%) Power Automate
10 54 (2.37%) Serverless
11 49 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
12 47 (2.07%) OneDrive
12 47 (2.07%) PowerApps
13 44 (1.93%) Microsoft Copilot
14 36 (1.58%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.45%) Figma
16 29 (1.27%) Amazon S3
16 29 (1.27%) OpenShift
17 28 (1.23%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.91%) Firewall
2 73 (3.21%) DNS
3 62 (2.73%) Network Security
4 56 (2.46%) TCP/IP
5 55 (2.42%) VPN
6 44 (1.93%) DHCP
7 28 (1.23%) LAN
7 28 (1.23%) WAN
8 22 (0.97%) 3GPP
8 22 (0.97%) Wireless
9 20 (0.88%) 5G
9 20 (0.88%) SSH
10 18 (0.79%) SSL
11 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
11 17 (0.75%) Wireshark
12 16 (0.70%) Internet
12 16 (0.70%) VLAN
12 16 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.57%) BGP
14 12 (0.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (6.29%) Power BI
2 107 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.55%) Metadata
4 51 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 45 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
5 45 (1.98%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.58%) MySQL
7 34 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.32%) Tableau
9 28 (1.23%) Big Data
10 27 (1.19%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
13 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.70%) GIS
15 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 11 (0.48%) Redis
17 10 (0.44%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 161 (7.08%) JIRA
2 137 (6.02%) Git
3 58 (2.55%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.42%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) JUnit
5 24 (1.05%) Maven
6 23 (1.01%) SonarQube
7 22 (0.97%) Gradle
8 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
9 18 (0.79%) Selenium
10 17 (0.75%) Cucumber
10 17 (0.75%) Mockito
11 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
14 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.40%) Postman
15 8 (0.35%) MLflow
15 8 (0.35%) Subversion
15 8 (0.35%) TeamCity
General
1 1,023 (44.97%) Social Skills
2 660 (29.01%) Finance
3 539 (23.69%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (8.57%) Banking
5 182 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.59%) Organisational Skills
7 138 (6.07%) Manufacturing
8 115 (5.05%) Aerospace
9 109 (4.79%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (4.18%) Marketing
11 78 (3.43%) Legal
11 78 (3.43%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
13 71 (3.12%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.73%) Retail
15 61 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 54 (2.37%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.11%) Law
18 45 (1.98%) Military
19 43 (1.89%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 306 (13.45%) Analyst
2 257 (11.30%) Senior
3 193 (8.48%) Developer
4 184 (8.09%) Lead
5 155 (6.81%) Architect
6 151 (6.64%) Business Analyst
7 104 (4.57%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.90%) Support Engineer
9 61 (2.68%) IT Support
10 60 (2.64%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.46%) Consultant
12 51 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
13 50 (2.20%) IT Manager
14 48 (2.11%) Administrator
15 46 (2.02%) Security Engineer
16 45 (1.98%) IT Analyst
17 44 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
18 42 (1.85%) Software Engineer
19 41 (1.80%) Data Engineer
20 40 (1.76%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.97%) Terraform
2 101 (4.44%) REST
3 93 (4.09%) .NET
4 68 (2.99%) HTML
4 68 (2.99%) React
5 60 (2.64%) CSS
5 60 (2.64%) Kafka
6 50 (2.20%) RESTful
7 44 (1.93%) OAuth
8 43 (1.89%) XML
9 41 (1.80%) Middleware
9 41 (1.80%) Web Services
10 38 (1.67%) Spring Boot
11 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.54%) SAML
13 34 (1.49%) SOAP
14 33 (1.45%) .NET Framework
15 32 (1.41%) OAuth2
15 32 (1.41%) OpenID
15 32 (1.41%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 215 (9.45%) Management Information System
2 128 (5.63%) Onboarding
3 116 (5.10%) Product Ownership
4 96 (4.22%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (4.09%) Cloud Native
6 59 (2.59%) Algorithms
7 54 (2.37%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.37%) Data Structures
8 50 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 50 (2.20%) Operational Technology
9 48 (2.11%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.07%) Life Science
11 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
12 38 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
13 35 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
13 35 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
13 35 (1.54%) Virtual Team
14 32 (1.41%) SCADA
15 31 (1.36%) PMI
16 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 280 (12.31%) Windows
2 181 (7.96%) Linux
3 83 (3.65%) Windows Server
4 71 (3.12%) Unix
5 37 (1.63%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.19%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.79%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) zOS
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Mac OS X
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 735 (32.31%) Computer Science
2 643 (28.26%) Agile
3 621 (27.30%) Problem-Solving
4 517 (22.73%) Stakeholder Management
5 408 (17.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (16.92%) AI
7 346 (15.21%) DevOps
8 307 (13.49%) CI/CD
9 300 (13.19%) Analytics
10 279 (12.26%) Project Management
11 252 (11.08%) ITIL
12 239 (10.51%) Decision-Making
13 238 (10.46%) Roadmaps
13 238 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 233 (10.24%) Scrum
15 227 (9.98%) Software Engineering
16 224 (9.85%) Change Management
17 219 (9.63%) Cybersecurity
18 208 (9.14%) Validation
19 201 (8.84%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 371 (16.31%) Python
2 339 (14.90%) SQL
3 170 (7.47%) PowerShell
4 147 (6.46%) Java
5 123 (5.41%) JavaScript
6 108 (4.75%) C#
7 64 (2.81%) Bash
8 37 (1.63%) C++
8 37 (1.63%) TypeScript
9 30 (1.32%) Bicep
10 27 (1.19%) Shell Script
11 25 (1.10%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.97%) R
14 21 (0.92%) C
15 16 (0.70%) Scala
16 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 455 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 447 (19.65%) Computer Science Degree
3 332 (14.59%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.48%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.37%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.54%) PMP
7 113 (4.97%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.70%) CISSP
9 93 (4.09%) DV Cleared
10 84 (3.69%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
12 74 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.59%) PhD
14 51 (2.24%) CISM
15 45 (1.98%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.89%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 39 (1.71%) DBS Check
18 37 (1.63%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
20 31 (1.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (6.02%) QA
2 134 (5.89%) Data Quality
3 89 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.78%) NIST
5 77 (3.38%) GDPR
6 70 (3.08%) PMO
7 39 (1.71%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.41%) SLA
9 31 (1.36%) GRC
10 19 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.79%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.70%) IFRS
14 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.48%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.48%) ISO 31000
16 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 175 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.14%) Docker
3 57 (2.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 23 (1.01%) Firmware
6 21 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.40%) vSphere
8 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.26%) BitLocker
9 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.22%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.13%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 124 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 67 (2.95%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.55%) Ansible
4 28 (1.23%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.84%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 11 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.44%) CASB
11 10 (0.44%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.40%) Control-M
13 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.26%) Nessus
13 6 (0.26%) WSUS
14 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 563 (24.75%) Microsoft
2 166 (7.30%) Oracle
3 130 (5.71%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.19%) SAP
5 108 (4.75%) Google
6 70 (3.08%) VMware
7 64 (2.81%) Salesforce
8 61 (2.68%) Cisco
9 56 (2.46%) Adobe
10 53 (2.33%) Databricks
11 43 (1.89%) IBM
12 39 (1.71%) Splunk
13 31 (1.36%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.14%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.10%) OpenAI
16 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.92%) Citrix
17 20 (0.88%) Apple
18 19 (0.84%) Ariba
18 19 (0.84%) Palo Alto