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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -13 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,249 1,991 3,064
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.38% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.89% 23.90% 26.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,206 1,190 1,693
10th Percentile £204 £250 £235
25th Percentile £363 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -7.41%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £635
90th Percentile £713 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 145 355
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.10 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.39 £25.50
Median hourly rate £44.50 £44.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.14% +3.53% -14.26%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £63.15
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.23 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £46.25 £40.25
% change year-on-year -7.03% +14.91% -19.50%

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 14,157 8,330 11,399
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.66% 30.87% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,544 5,248 7,087
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £640
90th Percentile £718 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 577 998
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.19 £20.00 £20.74
Median hourly rate £53.00 £27.76 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +90.92% -34.68% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £76.25 £75.55
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £27.38 £40.94
% change year-on-year +82.65% -33.13% -25.56%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -20 957 £515 -6.36% 1,358
South East -1 437 £500 +3.90% 597
North of England -13 333 £449 -0.17% 396
Midlands -24 204 £500 +26.98% 256
North West -7 187 £447 -1.97% 211
West Midlands -30 151 £494 +16.12% 133
East of England -6 150 £450 -10.00% 219
Yorkshire -9 130 £500 +11.86% 124
South West -26 121 £435 -8.42% 229
East Midlands -10 51 £550 +54.49% 122
North East -35 16 £450 +130.77% 64
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
1 128 (5.69%) SharePoint
2 113 (5.02%) Confluence
3 59 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.47%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) 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%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.089%) FactoryTalk
13 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 256 (11.38%) Microsoft Office
2 207 (9.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 124 (5.51%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (5.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.71%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.62%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
14 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.089%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.089%) Windchill
15 1 (0.044%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 56 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.62%) Primavera
3 10 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.31%) Magento
6 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.22%) HFM
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.13%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 510 (22.68%) Azure
2 291 (12.94%) AWS
3 195 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 190 (8.45%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.96%) Entra ID
6 113 (5.02%) GCP
7 90 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (3.16%) SaaS
9 57 (2.53%) GitHub
10 38 (1.69%) Serverless
11 37 (1.65%) Figma
11 37 (1.65%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.47%) PowerApps
13 32 (1.42%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.42%) Power Automate
14 28 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
14 28 (1.24%) PaaS
15 25 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
16 24 (1.07%) Google Workspace
16 24 (1.07%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.31%) Firewall
2 71 (3.16%) TCP/IP
3 68 (3.02%) DNS
4 62 (2.76%) Network Security
5 51 (2.27%) VPN
5 51 (2.27%) WAN
6 49 (2.18%) LAN
7 33 (1.47%) DHCP
8 26 (1.16%) Wireless
9 23 (1.02%) BGP
10 20 (0.89%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.89%) OSPF
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
11 14 (0.62%) Internet
12 13 (0.58%) SSL
13 12 (0.53%) MPLS
13 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
13 12 (0.53%) SSH
13 12 (0.53%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (7.20%) Power BI
2 105 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (2.22%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.60%) Metadata
6 36 (1.60%) Tableau
7 35 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.33%) Big Data
9 27 (1.20%) MongoDB
10 26 (1.16%) MySQL
11 22 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.62%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.58%) Power Query
16 12 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 191 (8.49%) JIRA
2 108 (4.80%) Git
3 45 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.78%) GitLab
5 32 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) MLflow
7 15 (0.67%) Selenium
7 15 (0.67%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
9 11 (0.49%) Postman
10 10 (0.44%) Gradle
10 10 (0.44%) Subversion
10 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.40%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.36%) Maven
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
14 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 1,004 (44.64%) Social Skills
2 672 (29.88%) Finance
3 479 (21.30%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (8.27%) Public Sector
5 176 (7.83%) Banking
6 138 (6.14%) Organisational Skills
7 99 (4.40%) Marketing
7 99 (4.40%) Presentation Skills
8 88 (3.91%) Aerospace
8 88 (3.91%) Legal
9 85 (3.78%) Manufacturing
10 77 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
11 76 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
12 62 (2.76%) Telecoms
13 61 (2.71%) Retail
14 54 (2.40%) Law
15 48 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (1.69%) Front Office
17 36 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
18 32 (1.42%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 319 (14.18%) Analyst
2 243 (10.80%) Senior
3 175 (7.78%) Architect
4 169 (7.51%) Lead
5 156 (6.94%) Developer
6 143 (6.36%) Business Analyst
6 143 (6.36%) Project Manager
7 68 (3.02%) Senior Manager
8 62 (2.76%) Consultant
8 62 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
9 58 (2.58%) Technical Support
10 55 (2.45%) Designer
11 52 (2.31%) IT Manager
11 52 (2.31%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.22%) IT Support
12 50 (2.22%) Product Manager
13 47 (2.09%) IT Analyst
14 46 (2.05%) Support Engineer
15 44 (1.96%) Senior Analyst
16 43 (1.91%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.91%) .NET
1 88 (3.91%) REST
2 57 (2.53%) React
3 44 (1.96%) Kafka
4 36 (1.60%) Middleware
4 36 (1.60%) RESTful
5 35 (1.56%) OAuth
6 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
6 34 (1.51%) HTML
7 33 (1.47%) Oracle Fusion
8 29 (1.29%) Spring
8 29 (1.29%) Web Services
9 27 (1.20%) SAML
9 27 (1.20%) Spring Boot
9 27 (1.20%) XML
10 25 (1.11%) PySpark
11 24 (1.07%) AngularJS
11 24 (1.07%) CSS
11 24 (1.07%) JSON
11 24 (1.07%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 174 (7.74%) Management Information System
2 141 (6.27%) Onboarding
3 132 (5.87%) Product Ownership
4 93 (4.14%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.87%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.85%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.22%) Virtual Team
8 49 (2.18%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.13%) Algorithms
10 46 (2.05%) Security Posture
11 45 (2.00%) Operational Technology
12 39 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
14 35 (1.56%) Life Science
15 34 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.51%) Robotics
16 33 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
17 32 (1.42%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.38%) PMI
19 28 (1.24%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 298 (13.25%) Windows
2 165 (7.34%) Linux
3 71 (3.16%) Unix
4 70 (3.11%) Windows Server
5 51 (2.27%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.29%) Apple iOS
9 24 (1.07%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) AIX
13 7 (0.31%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.27%) Solaris
15 5 (0.22%) VMS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (33.21%) Computer Science
2 641 (28.50%) Agile
3 587 (26.10%) Problem-Solving
4 385 (17.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (16.59%) AI
6 358 (15.92%) Continuous Improvement
7 301 (13.38%) DevOps
8 276 (12.27%) Project Management
9 269 (11.96%) Analytics
10 258 (11.47%) CI/CD
11 246 (10.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 241 (10.72%) ITIL
13 234 (10.40%) Decision-Making
14 223 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.07%) Roadmaps
16 197 (8.76%) Change Management
17 187 (8.31%) Software Engineering
18 180 (8.00%) Risk Management
19 179 (7.96%) Scrum
20 178 (7.91%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 382 (16.99%) Python
2 337 (14.98%) SQL
3 152 (6.76%) Java
4 128 (5.69%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.05%) C#
6 82 (3.65%) JavaScript
7 41 (1.82%) Bash
8 37 (1.65%) C++
9 31 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.16%) R
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.76%) C
15 12 (0.53%) Bicep
15 12 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.53%) Go
15 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.49%) Perl
17 10 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 454 (20.19%) Computer Science Degree
2 395 (17.56%) Security Cleared
3 263 (11.69%) SC Cleared
4 221 (9.83%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.65%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.34%) CISSP
7 113 (5.02%) PMP
8 95 (4.22%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.65%) Cisco Certification
10 60 (2.67%) DV Cleared
11 58 (2.58%) Azure Certification
12 56 (2.49%) CISM
13 55 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
14 48 (2.13%) PhD
15 40 (1.78%) CCNP
16 39 (1.73%) CCNA
17 37 (1.65%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.51%) CISA
19 30 (1.33%) MBA
20 29 (1.29%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (4.98%) QA
2 111 (4.94%) NIST
3 107 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.67%) Data Quality
5 97 (4.31%) PMO
6 82 (3.65%) GDPR
7 47 (2.09%) SLA
8 40 (1.78%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.38%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.24%) GRC
11 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.98%) NCSC
13 15 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.67%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.49%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.36%) COBIT
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 183 (8.14%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.25%) Docker
3 43 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.89%) Firmware
6 14 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.27%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (5.74%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.82%) Terraform
3 70 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.67%) Ansible
5 31 (1.38%) SCCM
6 30 (1.33%) Grafana
7 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.58%) Puppet
12 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) Kibana
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 541 (24.06%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.89%) Oracle
3 130 (5.78%) SAP
4 128 (5.69%) ServiceNow
5 95 (4.22%) Google
6 66 (2.93%) Cisco
7 55 (2.45%) Databricks
8 52 (2.31%) VMware
9 49 (2.18%) Salesforce
10 45 (2.00%) Adobe
11 41 (1.82%) IBM
12 36 (1.60%) Splunk
13 35 (1.56%) Citrix
14 31 (1.38%) CyberArk
14 31 (1.38%) Palo Alto
15 24 (1.07%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.93%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 20 (0.89%) Ariba
18 19 (0.84%) HP