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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,142 1,818 3,021
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.16% 7.64% 8.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.18% 24.21% 27.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,215 1,102 1,635
10th Percentile £219 £235 £230
25th Percentile £392 £381 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 124 375
10th Percentile £20.33 £17.59 £14.13
25th Percentile £28.40 £27.80 £23.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.46% +36.88% -13.51%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.25
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £54.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -2.78% +35.00% -18.84%

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 13,241 7,510 11,167
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.90% 31.55% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,881 4,785 6,929
10th Percentile £350 £276 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £530
% change year-on-year +0.48% -1.42% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 998 426 982
10th Percentile £17.04 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.07 £18.15
Median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.15% -18.75% -26.31%
75th Percentile £73.00 £66.94 £62.28
90th Percentile £85.28 £80.51 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -18 896 £515 -6.36% 1,359
South East -1 380 £500 +5.26% 621
North of England -15 319 £439 -3.62% 455
Midlands -20 215 £513 +43.96% 270
North West -3 167 £402 -14.29% 250
West Midlands -26 152 £492 +40.57% 174
East of England -4 140 £450 -10.00% 224
Yorkshire -18 137 £450 +7.27% 147
South West -14 134 £503 +5.79% 286
East Midlands -14 61 £531 +49.16% 96
North East -25 15 £450 +130.77% 66
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
1 122 (5.70%) Confluence
2 117 (5.46%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.63%) Apache Spark
5 22 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.84%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) SAS
11 4 (0.19%) Appian
11 4 (0.19%) Camunda
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.093%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.093%) WinCC
Applications
1 264 (12.32%) Microsoft Office
2 204 (9.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 148 (6.91%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.57%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.56%) Adobe After Effects
7 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Simulink
9 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.37%) Revit
10 7 (0.33%) Trello
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.28%) Sketch
12 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.14%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.093%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 50 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.61%) Primavera
3 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Shopify
9 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 455 (21.24%) Azure
2 264 (12.32%) AWS
3 182 (8.50%) Microsoft 365
4 164 (7.66%) Power Platform
5 115 (5.37%) Entra ID
6 85 (3.97%) GCP
7 80 (3.73%) SaaS
8 67 (3.13%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.38%) GitHub
10 35 (1.63%) Figma
11 31 (1.45%) Google Workspace
11 31 (1.45%) PaaS
12 29 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
13 28 (1.31%) IaaS
13 28 (1.31%) Power Automate
14 27 (1.26%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.21%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.21%) PowerApps
15 26 (1.21%) Serverless
16 22 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 88 (4.11%) Firewall
2 54 (2.52%) TCP/IP
3 53 (2.47%) WAN
4 52 (2.43%) LAN
5 51 (2.38%) DNS
6 48 (2.24%) Network Security
7 34 (1.59%) VPN
8 24 (1.12%) BGP
8 24 (1.12%) DHCP
8 24 (1.12%) Wireless
9 21 (0.98%) OSPF
10 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
11 17 (0.79%) Skype
12 14 (0.65%) SAN
12 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.56%) HTTP
13 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
14 11 (0.51%) IPsec
14 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
15 10 (0.47%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 134 (6.26%) Power BI
2 94 (4.39%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.19%) Relational Database
5 46 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.68%) Tableau
7 32 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 31 (1.45%) Metadata
9 26 (1.21%) Big Data
10 23 (1.07%) MySQL
11 21 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 17 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
15 15 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
17 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
17 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
18 11 (0.51%) Power Query
18 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 210 (9.80%) JIRA
2 96 (4.48%) Git
3 40 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.73%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.03%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 15 (0.70%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) Gradle
9 13 (0.61%) Postman
10 12 (0.56%) JUnit
11 11 (0.51%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.42%) Burp Suite
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.37%) Metasploit
13 8 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 7 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.33%) Subversion
General
1 992 (46.31%) Social Skills
2 661 (30.86%) Finance
3 432 (20.17%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (9.01%) Banking
5 171 (7.98%) Public Sector
6 118 (5.51%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
8 86 (4.01%) Marketing
9 76 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
9 76 (3.55%) Legal
10 75 (3.50%) Aerospace
11 72 (3.36%) Manufacturing
12 67 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
13 53 (2.47%) Telecoms
14 51 (2.38%) Law
15 49 (2.29%) Retail
16 39 (1.82%) Front Office
17 37 (1.73%) Military
18 35 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 35 (1.63%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 303 (14.15%) Analyst
2 244 (11.39%) Senior
3 168 (7.84%) Architect
4 164 (7.66%) Lead
5 152 (7.10%) Project Manager
6 149 (6.96%) Developer
7 143 (6.68%) Business Analyst
8 60 (2.80%) Delivery Manager
9 59 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (2.71%) Technical Support
11 57 (2.66%) Consultant
11 57 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
12 53 (2.47%) Senior Manager
13 52 (2.43%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.33%) Designer
15 48 (2.24%) Product Manager
16 41 (1.91%) Data Engineer
16 41 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 40 (1.87%) IT Manager
17 40 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.44%) REST
2 74 (3.45%) .NET
3 55 (2.57%) React
4 51 (2.38%) Middleware
5 50 (2.33%) Oracle Fusion
6 46 (2.15%) Kafka
7 42 (1.96%) HTML
8 38 (1.77%) RESTful
9 32 (1.49%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.45%) .NET Framework
10 31 (1.45%) CSS
11 29 (1.35%) OAuth
11 29 (1.35%) Spring
11 29 (1.35%) XML
12 26 (1.21%) AngularJS
12 26 (1.21%) SOAP
13 25 (1.17%) Pandas
13 25 (1.17%) PyTorch
14 24 (1.12%) JSON
14 24 (1.12%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 151 (7.05%) Management Information System
2 138 (6.44%) Product Ownership
3 120 (5.60%) Onboarding
4 77 (3.59%) Self-Motivation
5 74 (3.45%) Cloud Native
6 65 (3.03%) Data Centre
7 57 (2.66%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
9 49 (2.29%) Data Structures
10 46 (2.15%) Algorithms
11 44 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.05%) PMI
12 37 (1.73%) Robotics
13 34 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.54%) Derivative
14 33 (1.54%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
16 29 (1.35%) Security Posture
17 27 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
17 27 (1.26%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 270 (12.61%) Windows
2 165 (7.70%) Linux
3 71 (3.31%) Unix
4 66 (3.08%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.66%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.21%) Android
7 23 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 22 (1.03%) Apple iOS
8 22 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 4 (0.19%) Debian
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
15 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (34.08%) Computer Science
2 620 (28.94%) Agile
3 540 (25.21%) Problem-Solving
4 342 (15.97%) Stakeholder Management
5 331 (15.45%) Continuous Improvement
6 320 (14.94%) AI
7 286 (13.35%) Project Management
8 282 (13.17%) DevOps
9 242 (11.30%) CI/CD
10 230 (10.74%) Analytics
11 227 (10.60%) Decision-Making
12 220 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 202 (9.43%) Cybersecurity
14 201 (9.38%) Migration
15 199 (9.29%) Change Management
16 191 (8.92%) Risk Management
17 188 (8.78%) ITIL
18 183 (8.54%) PRINCE2
18 183 (8.54%) Roadmaps
19 173 (8.08%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 344 (16.06%) Python
2 325 (15.17%) SQL
3 152 (7.10%) Java
4 108 (5.04%) PowerShell
5 87 (4.06%) C#
6 82 (3.83%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.57%) C++
8 35 (1.63%) Bash
9 31 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.17%) R
11 22 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.89%) C
13 17 (0.79%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.70%) Rust
16 14 (0.65%) Perl
17 13 (0.61%) Go
18 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
19 11 (0.51%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 453 (21.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 400 (18.67%) Security Cleared
3 276 (12.89%) SC Cleared
4 220 (10.27%) Master's Degree
5 130 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 113 (5.28%) PMP
7 102 (4.76%) CISSP
8 76 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.71%) CISM
11 55 (2.57%) DV Cleared
12 53 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
13 46 (2.15%) Azure Certification
14 45 (2.10%) PhD
15 41 (1.91%) CCNP
16 37 (1.73%) TOGAF Certification
17 35 (1.63%) CCNA
18 33 (1.54%) MBA
19 32 (1.49%) CBAP
20 28 (1.31%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (6.30%) QA
2 107 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.81%) NIST
4 100 (4.67%) PMO
5 92 (4.30%) GDPR
6 91 (4.25%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.29%) SLA
8 42 (1.96%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.82%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.03%) GRC
12 20 (0.93%) NCSC
13 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.70%) IFRS
14 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.47%) COBIT
17 9 (0.42%) Basel III
17 9 (0.42%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.42%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 147 (6.86%) Active Directory
2 113 (5.28%) Docker
3 36 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.98%) Firmware
6 7 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.33%) vSphere
7 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.19%) XenApp
8 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
9 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.093%) HDFS
10 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.047%) ACF2
11 1 (0.047%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 133 (6.21%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.45%) Terraform
3 63 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.71%) Ansible
5 37 (1.73%) Grafana
6 34 (1.59%) SCCM
7 31 (1.45%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 11 (0.51%) Kibana
12 10 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.47%) OPNET
13 9 (0.42%) Kiali
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 8 (0.37%) Nmap
14 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 497 (23.20%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.56%) Oracle
3 118 (5.51%) SAP
4 107 (5.00%) ServiceNow
5 70 (3.27%) Cisco
5 70 (3.27%) Google
6 50 (2.33%) Databricks
7 49 (2.29%) Splunk
8 42 (1.96%) Citrix
8 42 (1.96%) VMware
9 39 (1.82%) Salesforce
10 37 (1.73%) Adobe
11 33 (1.54%) IBM
12 32 (1.49%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.35%) CheckPoint
14 28 (1.31%) Remedy
15 23 (1.07%) Aruba
16 22 (1.03%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.98%) Siemens
18 17 (0.79%) Informatica