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 2 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,202 1,972 3,265
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.24% 7.79% 8.60%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.17% 25.55% 27.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,277 1,114 1,817
10th Percentile £300 £243 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -6.36%
75th Percentile £632 £675 £644
90th Percentile £738 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £501
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.40% -6.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 128 331
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.50 £31.13 £23.17
Median hourly rate £37.58 £51.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.67% +28.13% -11.11%
75th Percentile £72.54 £75.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £39.92
% change year-on-year -16.67% +12.73% -11.29%

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 12,117 7,719 11,792
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.32% 30.49% 31.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,054 4,761 7,276
10th Percentile £325 £285 £290
25th Percentile £422 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.55% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 943 392 911
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.14 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.36 £25.26 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £41.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% +21.95% -14.58%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.26 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.90 £82.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £42.50 £40.63
% change year-on-year -39.36% +4.62% -17.09%

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 2 March 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 2 March 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 2 March 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 -12 964 £515 -6.36% 803
North of England -4 347 £447 -10.60% 424
South East -3 320 £475 -5.00% 658
Midlands -17 205 £520 +28.08% 344
North West 0 182 £400 -15.79% 219
South West +3 179 £650 +21.95% 255
West Midlands -21 149 £500 - 208
Yorkshire -12 148 £525 +5.00% 153
East of England -9 133 £525 +16.67% 275
East Midlands -13 56 £525 +47.47% 133
North East -8 18 £364 -27.20% 56
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
1 188 (8.54%) Confluence
2 109 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.73%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 10 (0.45%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.41%) CMS
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.23%) SAS
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 286 (12.99%) Microsoft Office
2 207 (9.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.17%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (5.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 74 (3.36%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 14 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Simulink
9 9 (0.41%) Trello
10 8 (0.36%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.18%) InVision
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.091%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.045%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 34 (1.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.14%) Primavera
3 24 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.36%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.32%) SAP EWM
7 7 (0.32%) SAP WM
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 449 (20.39%) Azure
2 259 (11.76%) AWS
3 189 (8.58%) Microsoft 365
4 158 (7.18%) Power Platform
5 139 (6.31%) GCP
6 109 (4.95%) SaaS
7 97 (4.41%) Entra ID
8 76 (3.45%) GitHub
9 71 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 51 (2.32%) Serverless
11 41 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.59%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.41%) Cloud Computing
13 31 (1.41%) OCI
14 30 (1.36%) IaaS
14 30 (1.36%) PaaS
15 28 (1.27%) Google Workspace
16 27 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.23%) PowerApps
17 25 (1.14%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.54%) Firewall
2 59 (2.68%) LAN
3 55 (2.50%) WAN
4 52 (2.36%) DNS
5 45 (2.04%) TCP/IP
6 40 (1.82%) Network Security
7 39 (1.77%) VPN
8 29 (1.32%) Wireless
9 26 (1.18%) DHCP
10 24 (1.09%) Skype
11 23 (1.04%) BGP
11 23 (1.04%) Ethernet
11 23 (1.04%) Internet
12 22 (1.00%) HTTP
12 22 (1.00%) Unified Communications
12 22 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.91%) OSPF
14 18 (0.82%) VLAN
15 16 (0.73%) SSH
16 15 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (5.54%) Power BI
2 81 (3.68%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.45%) SQL Server
4 55 (2.50%) NoSQL
5 46 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.86%) Relational Database
7 39 (1.77%) Tableau
8 37 (1.68%) MySQL
9 28 (1.27%) Big Data
10 20 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
10 20 (0.91%) MongoDB
11 18 (0.82%) Metadata
12 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.64%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 12 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.50%) BigQuery
16 10 (0.45%) Oracle Database
16 10 (0.45%) RDBMS
17 9 (0.41%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 259 (11.76%) JIRA
2 98 (4.45%) Git
3 67 (3.04%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.41%) GitLab
5 23 (1.04%) Visual Studio
6 18 (0.82%) Postman
7 16 (0.73%) Liquibase
8 14 (0.64%) Selenium
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 11 (0.50%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 11 (0.50%) MLflow
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.32%) JUnit
16 5 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 1,116 (50.68%) Social Skills
2 690 (31.34%) Finance
3 512 (23.25%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (10.58%) Banking
5 173 (7.86%) Public Sector
6 112 (5.09%) Presentation Skills
7 95 (4.31%) Organisational Skills
8 83 (3.77%) Marketing
9 76 (3.45%) Manufacturing
10 75 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (3.18%) Influencing Skills
12 64 (2.91%) Legal
13 55 (2.50%) Military
14 52 (2.36%) Financial Institution
15 45 (2.04%) Aerospace
16 44 (2.00%) Front Office
17 42 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 42 (1.91%) Retail
18 41 (1.86%) Law
19 38 (1.73%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 314 (14.26%) Analyst
2 226 (10.26%) Senior
3 184 (8.36%) Developer
4 182 (8.27%) Lead
5 171 (7.77%) Architect
6 156 (7.08%) Project Manager
7 150 (6.81%) Business Analyst
8 82 (3.72%) Consultant
9 76 (3.45%) Software Engineer
10 65 (2.95%) Technical Support
11 60 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (2.13%) Delivery Manager
12 47 (2.13%) Security Engineer
13 45 (2.04%) Senior Analyst
14 43 (1.95%) IT Support
15 42 (1.91%) Data Scientist
16 37 (1.68%) Technical Analyst
17 36 (1.63%) Senior Software Engineer
17 36 (1.63%) Support Analyst
18 34 (1.54%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.90%) REST
2 65 (2.95%) RESTful
3 62 (2.82%) .NET
4 52 (2.36%) React
5 51 (2.32%) HTML
6 48 (2.18%) Middleware
7 42 (1.91%) Elastic Stack
8 41 (1.86%) Kafka
9 38 (1.73%) CSS
9 38 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
10 37 (1.68%) XML
11 36 (1.63%) OAuth
12 35 (1.59%) SOAP
13 34 (1.54%) JSON
14 29 (1.32%) PyTorch
14 29 (1.32%) Spring
14 29 (1.32%) TensorFlow
15 28 (1.27%) Spring Boot
16 27 (1.23%) Pandas
17 26 (1.18%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 186 (8.45%) Management Information System
2 126 (5.72%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.72%) Onboarding
4 99 (4.50%) Cloud Native
5 68 (3.09%) Virtual Team
6 65 (2.95%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.86%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.82%) Self-Motivation
9 61 (2.77%) Data Centre
10 51 (2.32%) Analytical Mindset
10 51 (2.32%) Data Protection Act
11 45 (2.04%) Security Posture
12 42 (1.91%) PMI
13 41 (1.86%) Derivative
14 36 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
15 33 (1.50%) Data Structures
16 32 (1.45%) Public Cloud
17 30 (1.36%) Life Science
18 28 (1.27%) Equities
18 28 (1.27%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 263 (11.94%) Windows
2 172 (7.81%) Linux
3 77 (3.50%) Unix
4 65 (2.95%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.59%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.91%) Android
7 19 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 15 (0.68%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
9 14 (0.64%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.41%) VMS
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Debian
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 793 (36.01%) Computer Science
2 708 (32.15%) Agile
3 625 (28.38%) Problem-Solving
4 378 (17.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 335 (15.21%) DevOps
6 302 (13.71%) AI
7 299 (13.58%) Project Management
8 257 (11.67%) Change Management
9 250 (11.35%) Continuous Improvement
10 249 (11.31%) CI/CD
11 244 (11.08%) Analytics
12 238 (10.81%) Decision-Making
13 230 (10.45%) Cybersecurity
14 224 (10.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 221 (10.04%) ITIL
16 218 (9.90%) Risk Management
17 215 (9.76%) Migration
18 202 (9.17%) Software Engineering
19 200 (9.08%) Project Delivery
20 178 (8.08%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 391 (17.76%) Python
2 326 (14.80%) SQL
3 153 (6.95%) Java
4 123 (5.59%) PowerShell
5 99 (4.50%) JavaScript
6 74 (3.36%) C#
7 69 (3.13%) C++
8 47 (2.13%) TypeScript
9 43 (1.95%) Bash
10 41 (1.86%) Go
11 26 (1.18%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.09%) R
13 19 (0.86%) Perl
14 17 (0.77%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.73%) C
16 15 (0.68%) Rust
17 14 (0.64%) Kotlin
17 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.54%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 529 (24.02%) Computer Science Degree
2 409 (18.57%) Security Cleared
3 336 (15.26%) Master's Degree
4 319 (14.49%) SC Cleared
5 128 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.36%) PMP
7 113 (5.13%) CISSP
8 86 (3.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.36%) CISM
10 70 (3.18%) PhD
11 63 (2.86%) TOGAF Certification
12 61 (2.77%) Cisco Certification
13 55 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
14 54 (2.45%) Azure Certification
15 46 (2.09%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.86%) CCNP
17 35 (1.59%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.54%) MBA
19 32 (1.45%) CBAP
20 31 (1.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (6.72%) QA
2 117 (5.31%) GDPR
3 98 (4.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 98 (4.45%) PMO
4 76 (3.45%) NIST
5 71 (3.22%) Data Quality
6 47 (2.13%) PCI DSS
7 34 (1.54%) Accessibility
8 33 (1.50%) SLA
9 30 (1.36%) GRC
10 27 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.73%) NCSC
12 15 (0.68%) WCAG
13 14 (0.64%) Basel III
13 14 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.64%) IFRS
14 12 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.54%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
14 12 (0.54%) SOC 2
System Software
1 157 (7.13%) Docker
2 147 (6.68%) Active Directory
3 44 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.86%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.73%) Firmware
6 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.23%) XenApp
7 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
8 4 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.18%) vSphere
9 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
9 3 (0.14%) HDFS
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 1 (0.045%) GPFS
10 1 (0.045%) PowerHA
10 1 (0.045%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 161 (7.31%) Kubernetes
2 105 (4.77%) Terraform
3 72 (3.27%) Ansible
4 70 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
5 47 (2.13%) Grafana
6 45 (2.04%) SCCM
7 39 (1.77%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 21 (0.95%) Puppet
10 16 (0.73%) Kibana
10 16 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.59%) Nmap
13 11 (0.50%) SCOM
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 9 (0.41%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) Argo
16 5 (0.23%) Nessus
16 5 (0.23%) Progress Chef
16 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 467 (21.21%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.86%) Oracle
3 117 (5.31%) SAP
4 113 (5.13%) ServiceNow
5 101 (4.59%) Google
6 79 (3.59%) Splunk
7 73 (3.32%) Cisco
8 54 (2.45%) Remedy
9 52 (2.36%) Atlassian
10 46 (2.09%) VMware
11 44 (2.00%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.95%) Databricks
13 40 (1.82%) Citrix
14 35 (1.59%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.32%) IBM
16 25 (1.14%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.04%) Red Hat
18 22 (1.00%) Informatica
19 21 (0.95%) Aruba
20 20 (0.91%) Siemens