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 25 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,279 1,963 2,592
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.90% 7.05% 7.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.25% 22.29% 26.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,192 1,113 1,478
10th Percentile £204 £263 £267
25th Percentile £357 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -1.19% -3.62%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £626
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 159 179
10th Percentile £16.46 £19.71 £21.25
25th Percentile £25.96 £26.71 £33.84
Median hourly rate £40.86 £37.46 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +9.06% -34.68% +14.70%
75th Percentile £70.13 £64.20 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £85.85 £79.34
UK median hourly rate £39.75 £38.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +3.25% -26.67% +5.00%

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 14,941 8,808 9,725
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.11% 31.62% 29.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,007 5,611 5,943
10th Percentile £350 £304 £325
25th Percentile £445 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £529 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,230 709 550
10th Percentile £18.16 £17.95 £18.03
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -53.43% +0.24%
75th Percentile £74.32 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -7.41%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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 25 September 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 -20 984 £525 -4.55% 5,930
South East +4 464 £525 +16.67% 1,650
North of England -7 341 £475 +5.56% 1,146
North West -8 214 £475 +3.83% 636
Midlands -30 185 £450 -2.70% 807
West Midlands -31 138 £450 -5.26% 497
East of England -16 135 £400 -15.79% 779
South West -23 129 £400 -15.79% 668
Yorkshire -3 112 £500 +19.05% 348
East Midlands -18 46 £475 +6.26% 310
North East -39 15 £460 +2.22% 171
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
1 157 (6.89%) SharePoint
2 107 (4.70%) Confluence
3 61 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.83%) IIS
7 17 (0.75%) Apache
8 15 (0.66%) Camunda
9 14 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
10 12 (0.53%) CMS
11 9 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 8 (0.35%) SAS
13 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 3 (0.13%) Appian
15 3 (0.13%) Moodle
15 3 (0.13%) nginx
15 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 233 (10.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 219 (9.61%) Microsoft Office
3 113 (4.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 108 (4.74%) Microsoft Project
5 43 (1.89%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.70%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.44%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.39%) Revit
10 9 (0.39%) Simulink
10 9 (0.39%) Windchill
11 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
14 3 (0.13%) Trello
15 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 38 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.92%) 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%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 527 (23.12%) Azure
2 286 (12.55%) AWS
3 217 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
4 213 (9.35%) Power Platform
5 147 (6.45%) GCP
6 135 (5.92%) Entra ID
7 118 (5.18%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.16%) SaaS
9 62 (2.72%) GitHub
10 57 (2.50%) Power Automate
11 53 (2.33%) Serverless
12 50 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
12 50 (2.19%) PowerApps
13 47 (2.06%) OneDrive
14 45 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
15 35 (1.54%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.40%) Figma
17 27 (1.18%) Azure AI
18 26 (1.14%) IaaS
18 26 (1.14%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 93 (4.08%) Firewall
2 73 (3.20%) DNS
3 64 (2.81%) Network Security
4 57 (2.50%) TCP/IP
5 55 (2.41%) VPN
6 45 (1.97%) DHCP
7 32 (1.40%) LAN
7 32 (1.40%) WAN
8 25 (1.10%) Wireless
9 23 (1.01%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.88%) 5G
11 19 (0.83%) SSH
12 18 (0.79%) Internet
12 18 (0.79%) Wireshark
13 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
13 17 (0.75%) SSL
14 16 (0.70%) VLAN
14 16 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.61%) BGP
16 13 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (6.80%) Power BI
2 107 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.33%) Metadata
4 52 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
5 51 (2.24%) Relational Database
6 42 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.54%) MySQL
8 32 (1.40%) NoSQL
9 31 (1.36%) Tableau
10 25 (1.10%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
11 22 (0.97%) Big Data
12 21 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.70%) GIS
15 15 (0.66%) Data Lake
16 14 (0.61%) Data Mining
17 10 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
17 10 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 166 (7.28%) JIRA
2 133 (5.84%) Git
3 59 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.28%) GitLab
5 25 (1.10%) JUnit
6 24 (1.05%) Maven
7 23 (1.01%) SonarQube
8 22 (0.97%) Gradle
9 20 (0.88%) Selenium
10 19 (0.83%) Visual Studio
11 16 (0.70%) Mockito
12 15 (0.66%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.61%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.39%) Subversion
14 9 (0.39%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.35%) MLflow
15 8 (0.35%) Postman
15 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,029 (45.15%) Social Skills
2 668 (29.31%) Finance
3 533 (23.39%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.60%) Banking
5 180 (7.90%) Public Sector
6 148 (6.49%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.40%) Manufacturing
8 108 (4.74%) Aerospace
9 104 (4.56%) Influencing Skills
10 91 (3.99%) Marketing
11 80 (3.51%) Telecoms
12 79 (3.47%) Legal
13 77 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
14 70 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
15 60 (2.63%) Retail
16 58 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 50 (2.19%) Law
18 48 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
19 45 (1.97%) Military
20 41 (1.80%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 307 (13.47%) Analyst
2 261 (11.45%) Senior
3 192 (8.42%) Developer
4 186 (8.16%) Lead
5 156 (6.85%) Architect
6 147 (6.45%) Business Analyst
7 109 (4.78%) Project Manager
8 71 (3.12%) Support Engineer
9 65 (2.85%) IT Support
10 64 (2.81%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.46%) Consultant
12 52 (2.28%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (2.24%) IT Analyst
14 47 (2.06%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.93%) Software Engineer
16 42 (1.84%) Administrator
16 42 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
16 42 (1.84%) Technical Support
17 41 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.61%) Terraform
2 99 (4.34%) REST
3 94 (4.12%) .NET
4 69 (3.03%) HTML
5 68 (2.98%) React
6 58 (2.54%) CSS
6 58 (2.54%) Kafka
7 49 (2.15%) RESTful
8 43 (1.89%) OAuth
8 43 (1.89%) XML
9 42 (1.84%) Middleware
9 42 (1.84%) Web Services
10 37 (1.62%) Spring Boot
11 36 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.54%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.49%) SAML
13 34 (1.49%) SOAP
14 32 (1.40%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.40%) OpenID
15 31 (1.36%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 211 (9.26%) Management Information System
2 130 (5.70%) Onboarding
3 112 (4.91%) Product Ownership
4 93 (4.08%) Cloud Native
5 90 (3.95%) Self-Motivation
6 56 (2.46%) Algorithms
7 55 (2.41%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.33%) Data Structures
9 49 (2.15%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (2.02%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
11 40 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
11 40 (1.76%) Life Science
12 38 (1.67%) Virtual Team
13 37 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
14 36 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
15 31 (1.36%) SCADA
16 30 (1.32%) PMI
17 28 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 288 (12.64%) Windows
2 175 (7.68%) Linux
3 81 (3.55%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.94%) Unix
5 43 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 20 (0.88%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.26%) 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%) CentOS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 738 (32.38%) Computer Science
2 639 (28.04%) Agile
3 609 (26.72%) Problem-Solving
4 494 (21.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 408 (17.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 375 (16.45%) AI
7 339 (14.87%) DevOps
8 295 (12.94%) CI/CD
9 293 (12.86%) Project Management
10 292 (12.81%) Analytics
11 263 (11.54%) ITIL
12 244 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (10.53%) Decision-Making
14 230 (10.09%) Roadmaps
15 228 (10.00%) Change Management
15 228 (10.00%) Scrum
16 225 (9.87%) Cybersecurity
17 220 (9.65%) Software Engineering
18 203 (8.91%) PRINCE2
19 199 (8.73%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 379 (16.63%) Python
2 335 (14.70%) SQL
3 168 (7.37%) PowerShell
4 151 (6.63%) Java
5 124 (5.44%) JavaScript
6 110 (4.83%) C#
7 61 (2.68%) Bash
8 39 (1.71%) C++
8 39 (1.71%) TypeScript
9 29 (1.27%) Bicep
10 27 (1.18%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.14%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 23 (1.01%) R
14 22 (0.97%) C
15 16 (0.70%) Scala
16 11 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.48%) X++
17 10 (0.44%) MATLAB
18 9 (0.39%) Go
Qualifications
1 445 (19.53%) Computer Science Degree
2 437 (19.18%) Security Cleared
3 316 (13.87%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.47%) Master's Degree
5 146 (6.41%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.62%) PMP
7 118 (5.18%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.70%) CISSP
9 86 (3.77%) DV Cleared
10 82 (3.60%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (3.51%) Azure Certification
12 69 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.63%) PhD
14 52 (2.28%) CISM
15 48 (2.11%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 45 (1.97%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.58%) ISTQB
18 35 (1.54%) DBS Check
19 33 (1.45%) A+ Certification
19 33 (1.45%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.97%) QA
2 133 (5.84%) Data Quality
3 90 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (3.86%) NIST
5 79 (3.47%) PMO
6 74 (3.25%) GDPR
7 40 (1.76%) Accessibility
8 35 (1.54%) SLA
9 28 (1.23%) GRC
10 22 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (0.75%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.70%) IFRS
12 16 (0.70%) NCSC
13 14 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.48%) P3O
15 10 (0.44%) ISO 31000
16 9 (0.39%) IEC 61508
16 9 (0.39%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 185 (8.12%) Active Directory
2 119 (5.22%) Docker
3 57 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.14%) Firmware
5 24 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
8 9 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) NFS
12 4 (0.18%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.13%) RACF
13 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 117 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 70 (3.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 57 (2.50%) Ansible
4 29 (1.27%) SCCM
5 24 (1.05%) Grafana
6 23 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.61%) Puppet
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) SCOM
12 9 (0.39%) CASB
13 8 (0.35%) Functional Safety
14 7 (0.31%) Control-M
15 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.26%) Nessus
15 6 (0.26%) WSUS
16 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
16 5 (0.22%) HP ALM
16 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 579 (25.41%) Microsoft
2 162 (7.11%) Oracle
3 139 (6.10%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.44%) SAP
5 100 (4.39%) Google
6 73 (3.20%) VMware
7 63 (2.76%) Cisco
8 58 (2.54%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.33%) Adobe
10 47 (2.06%) Databricks
11 43 (1.89%) IBM
12 40 (1.76%) Splunk
13 30 (1.32%) CyberArk
13 30 (1.32%) Red Hat
14 25 (1.10%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.97%) Citrix
16 21 (0.92%) Apple
16 21 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
17 19 (0.83%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.79%) Ariba