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 30 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,110 2,454 3,109
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.91% 7.96% 8.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.57% 26.61% 26.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,225 1,383 1,881
10th Percentile £302 £257 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.40% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £639 £650
90th Percentile £750 £787 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 137 201
10th Percentile £15.10 £21.25 £17.50
25th Percentile £24.00 £30.78 £27.00
Median hourly rate £37.58 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.58% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £61.43 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.28 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £34.48 £40.66 £50.00
% change year-on-year -15.20% -18.68% +13.64%

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 10,257 9,221 11,669
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.58% 29.91% 30.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,675 5,627 7,396
10th Percentile £306 £313 £306
25th Percentile £415 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 889 432 701
10th Percentile £17.67 £20.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.00 £25.70 £26.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.19% -5.71% +16.67%
75th Percentile £55.00 £68.00 £68.63
90th Percentile £76.58 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £41.71 £53.50
% change year-on-year -39.70% -22.05% +18.89%

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 30 November 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 30 November 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 30 November 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 -5 1,019 £530 -3.06% 884
North of England -10 296 £450 -14.29% 419
South East -1 272 £475 -5.00% 1,056
Midlands -10 204 £491 +0.72% 355
North West -7 168 £425 -20.04% 228
West Midlands -11 158 £500 - 216
South West +4 154 £600 - 296
East of England -9 130 £505 +18.82% 332
Yorkshire -12 119 £488 -2.40% 130
East Midlands -13 46 £448 +18.21% 134
North East -15 10 £298 -40.31% 67
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
1 166 (7.87%) Confluence
2 111 (5.26%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 39 (1.85%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.76%) nginx
7 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.62%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 8 (0.38%) SAS
12 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.24%) Luigi
14 4 (0.19%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.14%) Moodle
15 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 264 (12.51%) Microsoft Office
2 199 (9.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 163 (7.73%) Microsoft Project
4 97 (4.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (3.22%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.90%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 10 (0.47%) Simulink
9 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
10 5 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.19%) Maya
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Sketch
13 2 (0.095%) Camtasia
13 2 (0.095%) InDesign
13 2 (0.095%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.095%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 36 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.95%) Primavera
4 13 (0.62%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.57%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.43%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.24%) Maximo
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.24%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 408 (19.34%) Azure
2 279 (13.22%) AWS
3 171 (8.10%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (7.11%) GCP
5 139 (6.59%) Power Platform
6 91 (4.31%) GitHub
6 91 (4.31%) SaaS
7 79 (3.74%) Entra ID
8 67 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
9 66 (3.13%) Serverless
10 39 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
11 36 (1.71%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.61%) Amazon S3
13 31 (1.47%) Amazon ECS
14 28 (1.33%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (1.33%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.18%) Microsoft Purview
16 24 (1.14%) Azure Logic Apps
16 24 (1.14%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 85 (4.03%) Firewall
2 71 (3.36%) DNS
3 39 (1.85%) DHCP
3 39 (1.85%) Network Security
4 37 (1.75%) VPN
5 34 (1.61%) LAN
6 31 (1.47%) HTTP
7 30 (1.42%) TCP/IP
8 29 (1.37%) WAN
9 27 (1.28%) Internet
10 25 (1.18%) SSH
10 25 (1.18%) Wireless
11 19 (0.90%) Skype
11 19 (0.90%) Unified Communications
12 16 (0.76%) VoIP
12 16 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.71%) BGP
14 14 (0.66%) SMTP
14 14 (0.66%) VLAN
15 12 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.21%) Power BI
2 94 (4.45%) PostgreSQL
3 65 (3.08%) SQL Server
4 59 (2.80%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.46%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
6 49 (2.32%) Tableau
7 31 (1.47%) MySQL
8 28 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
9 27 (1.28%) Big Data
10 18 (0.85%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.76%) Metadata
13 15 (0.71%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.66%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.62%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.57%) GIS
16 12 (0.57%) RDBMS
17 10 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 255 (12.09%) JIRA
2 111 (5.26%) Git
3 94 (4.45%) Jenkins
4 70 (3.32%) GitLab
5 26 (1.23%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.09%) Postman
7 18 (0.85%) Selenium
8 12 (0.57%) Bitbucket
8 12 (0.57%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.47%) JUnit
11 8 (0.38%) SpecFlow
12 7 (0.33%) MLflow
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
14 5 (0.24%) Subversion
General
1 1,095 (51.90%) Social Skills
2 693 (32.84%) Finance
3 524 (24.83%) Analytical Skills
4 242 (11.47%) Banking
5 125 (5.92%) Public Sector
6 97 (4.60%) Presentation Skills
7 96 (4.55%) Manufacturing
8 82 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
9 81 (3.84%) Marketing
10 79 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.41%) Legal
12 64 (3.03%) Military
13 59 (2.80%) Telecoms
14 57 (2.70%) Financial Institution
15 54 (2.56%) Front Office
16 52 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
17 50 (2.37%) Aerospace
18 49 (2.32%) Investment Banking
19 47 (2.23%) Pharmaceutical
20 35 (1.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 309 (14.64%) Analyst
2 212 (10.05%) Developer
2 212 (10.05%) Senior
3 164 (7.77%) Lead
4 157 (7.44%) Architect
5 144 (6.82%) Business Analyst
6 137 (6.49%) Project Manager
7 89 (4.22%) Consultant
8 75 (3.55%) Software Engineer
9 51 (2.42%) Security Engineer
10 50 (2.37%) Support Analyst
11 48 (2.27%) Technical Support
12 46 (2.18%) IT Support
12 46 (2.18%) Solutions Architect
13 44 (2.09%) Data Scientist
13 44 (2.09%) Support Engineer
14 42 (1.99%) Senior Developer
15 40 (1.90%) IT Manager
16 34 (1.61%) Senior Software Engineer
17 32 (1.52%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.36%) REST
2 79 (3.74%) RESTful
3 71 (3.36%) .NET
4 64 (3.03%) HTML
5 49 (2.32%) XML
6 47 (2.23%) CSS
7 41 (1.94%) JSON
8 39 (1.85%) Elastic Stack
8 39 (1.85%) Kafka
8 39 (1.85%) SOAP
9 37 (1.75%) Middleware
10 36 (1.71%) OAuth
10 36 (1.71%) Web Services
11 34 (1.61%) React
12 30 (1.42%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.42%) Node.js
12 30 (1.42%) Spring
13 28 (1.33%) TensorFlow
14 27 (1.28%) Pandas
15 23 (1.09%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 183 (8.67%) Management Information System
2 109 (5.17%) Product Ownership
3 93 (4.41%) Cloud Native
4 73 (3.46%) Onboarding
5 70 (3.32%) Algorithms
6 58 (2.75%) Virtual Team
7 57 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
9 52 (2.46%) Analytical Mindset
10 48 (2.27%) Data Centre
10 48 (2.27%) Derivative
11 45 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
12 42 (1.99%) Public Cloud
13 37 (1.75%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.61%) Life Science
16 30 (1.42%) Mobile App
17 28 (1.33%) Data Structures
17 28 (1.33%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 227 (10.76%) Windows
2 168 (7.96%) Linux
3 69 (3.27%) Unix
4 51 (2.42%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.66%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.04%) Apple iOS
7 21 (1.00%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.90%) Android
9 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.85%) VMS
10 12 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
13 9 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.19%) CentOS
16 2 (0.095%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.095%) Mac OS X
16 2 (0.095%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 843 (39.95%) Computer Science
2 706 (33.46%) Agile
3 658 (31.18%) Problem-Solving
4 342 (16.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 329 (15.59%) Project Management
6 312 (14.79%) DevOps
7 269 (12.75%) Change Management
8 255 (12.09%) ITIL
9 228 (10.81%) CI/CD
10 217 (10.28%) Cybersecurity
11 214 (10.14%) AI
12 213 (10.09%) Continuous Improvement
13 212 (10.05%) Analytics
14 209 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 202 (9.57%) Software Engineering
16 197 (9.34%) Decision-Making
17 195 (9.24%) Migration
18 184 (8.72%) Project Delivery
19 169 (8.01%) Risk Management
20 155 (7.35%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 413 (19.57%) Python
2 309 (14.64%) SQL
3 168 (7.96%) Java
4 114 (5.40%) PowerShell
5 110 (5.21%) JavaScript
6 73 (3.46%) C++
7 71 (3.36%) C#
8 52 (2.46%) Go
9 46 (2.18%) TypeScript
10 41 (1.94%) Bash
11 31 (1.47%) R
12 21 (1.00%) Perl
13 19 (0.90%) Ruby
14 18 (0.85%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.81%) MATLAB
16 16 (0.76%) C
16 16 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.76%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.62%) Apex Code
17 13 (0.62%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 565 (26.78%) Computer Science Degree
2 325 (15.40%) Security Cleared
3 314 (14.88%) Master's Degree
4 260 (12.32%) SC Cleared
5 128 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.69%) PMP
7 105 (4.98%) CISSP
8 87 (4.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.32%) PhD
10 68 (3.22%) CISM
11 56 (2.65%) Azure Certification
12 55 (2.61%) AWS Certification
13 54 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
14 45 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
15 42 (1.99%) HND
16 39 (1.85%) DV Cleared
17 36 (1.71%) HNC
18 35 (1.66%) CCNA
19 33 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
19 33 (1.56%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (5.73%) QA
2 107 (5.07%) GDPR
3 87 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.84%) NIST
5 76 (3.60%) Data Quality
6 60 (2.84%) PMO
7 34 (1.61%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.56%) SLA
9 29 (1.37%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.18%) GRC
10 25 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.90%) HIPAA
11 19 (0.90%) NCSC
12 16 (0.76%) COBIT
13 15 (0.71%) Def Stans
13 15 (0.71%) NIST 800
14 14 (0.66%) WCAG
15 13 (0.62%) P3O
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 149 (7.06%) Docker
2 136 (6.45%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.09%) Firmware
5 12 (0.57%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
7 9 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.33%) vSphere
9 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.095%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.095%) XenApp
12 1 (0.047%) GPFS
12 1 (0.047%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (6.11%) Kubernetes
2 112 (5.31%) Terraform
3 74 (3.51%) Ansible
4 54 (2.56%) Grafana
5 47 (2.23%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.13%) Prometheus
6 45 (2.13%) SCCM
7 24 (1.14%) OPNET
8 17 (0.81%) Puppet
9 13 (0.62%) SCOM
10 12 (0.57%) Nessus
11 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.47%) QRadar
13 9 (0.43%) WSUS
14 7 (0.33%) Argo
14 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
14 7 (0.33%) Kibana
15 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 451 (21.37%) Microsoft
2 127 (6.02%) ServiceNow
3 120 (5.69%) Oracle
3 120 (5.69%) SAP
4 89 (4.22%) Google
5 85 (4.03%) Splunk
6 64 (3.03%) Salesforce
7 62 (2.94%) Cisco
8 48 (2.27%) VMware
9 46 (2.18%) Atlassian
10 41 (1.94%) Remedy
11 38 (1.80%) IBM
12 33 (1.56%) Databricks
13 27 (1.28%) Adobe
14 26 (1.23%) Citrix
15 24 (1.14%) Workday
16 22 (1.04%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.90%) Red Hat
18 16 (0.76%) Apple
19 14 (0.66%) HP