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 3 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,206 1,880 3,150
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.75% 7.76% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.14% 24.80% 26.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,302 1,120 1,703
10th Percentile £275 £252 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £791 £762
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £504
% change year-on-year - -0.70% -5.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 145 334
10th Percentile £16.64 £18.88 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.72 £30.67 £22.56
Median hourly rate £52.00 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.59% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £46.98 £49.41 £38.95
% change year-on-year -4.91% +26.85% -13.44%

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 12,874 7,582 11,771
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.57% 31.28% 31.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,594 4,865 7,312
10th Percentile £335 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 982 424 919
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.50 £24.66 £17.74
Median hourly rate £37.31 £50.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.38% +33.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.25 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £37.00 £43.00 £37.83
% change year-on-year -13.95% +13.67% -27.95%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 -12 965 £515 -6.36% 866
South East -5 350 £496 -0.80% 660
North of England -4 343 £422 -11.15% 472
Midlands -22 207 £500 +42.86% 318
North West -5 181 £400 -15.25% 244
West Midlands -24 155 £500 +66.67% 181
South West -5 151 £669 +25.47% 220
Yorkshire -10 145 £500 -4.76% 164
East of England -10 137 £500 - 213
East Midlands -18 51 £531 +49.16% 136
North East -15 18 £407 -4.24% 71
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
1 156 (7.07%) Confluence
2 105 (4.76%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.63%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) Appian
13 2 (0.091%) Camunda
13 2 (0.091%) Drupal
13 2 (0.091%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 284 (12.87%) Microsoft Office
2 214 (9.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 184 (8.34%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.86%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.45%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 7 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.091%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.091%) Revit
13 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
13 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 45 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.86%) Primavera
4 18 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.36%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.18%) Shopify
11 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 452 (20.49%) Azure
2 267 (12.10%) AWS
3 188 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 168 (7.62%) Power Platform
5 118 (5.35%) GCP
6 104 (4.71%) Entra ID
7 103 (4.67%) SaaS
8 80 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.81%) GitHub
10 44 (1.99%) Serverless
11 36 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
11 36 (1.63%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.45%) Google Workspace
12 32 (1.45%) PaaS
13 31 (1.41%) IaaS
14 28 (1.27%) PowerApps
15 27 (1.22%) Cloud Computing
16 24 (1.09%) Snowflake
17 23 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
18 22 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.76%) Firewall
2 56 (2.54%) LAN
3 55 (2.49%) WAN
4 45 (2.04%) DNS
5 44 (1.99%) TCP/IP
6 39 (1.77%) Network Security
6 39 (1.77%) VPN
7 29 (1.31%) Wireless
8 27 (1.22%) BGP
9 21 (0.95%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.95%) OSPF
10 20 (0.91%) DHCP
10 20 (0.91%) HTTP
11 17 (0.77%) Skype
12 16 (0.73%) Internet
13 15 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.63%) VLAN
15 13 (0.59%) SAN
15 13 (0.59%) Unified Communications
16 12 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (6.17%) Power BI
2 80 (3.63%) SQL Server
3 71 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.22%) NoSQL
5 48 (2.18%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
7 40 (1.81%) Tableau
8 32 (1.45%) MySQL
9 28 (1.27%) Big Data
10 24 (1.09%) Metadata
11 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
13 16 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
15 14 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
17 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
18 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
18 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 252 (11.42%) JIRA
2 96 (4.35%) Git
3 62 (2.81%) Jenkins
4 47 (2.13%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.00%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.82%) Selenium
8 17 (0.77%) MLflow
9 15 (0.68%) Postman
10 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.41%) Liquibase
14 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.32%) JUnit
15 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,065 (48.28%) Social Skills
2 688 (31.19%) Finance
3 491 (22.26%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (10.74%) Banking
5 169 (7.66%) Public Sector
6 108 (4.90%) Presentation Skills
7 100 (4.53%) Organisational Skills
8 78 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
8 78 (3.54%) Marketing
9 75 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
10 73 (3.31%) Aerospace
11 72 (3.26%) Legal
12 67 (3.04%) Manufacturing
13 54 (2.45%) Military
14 51 (2.31%) Front Office
15 48 (2.18%) Financial Institution
16 45 (2.04%) Retail
16 45 (2.04%) Telecoms
17 43 (1.95%) Investment Banking
17 43 (1.95%) Law
Job Titles
1 312 (14.14%) Analyst
2 227 (10.29%) Senior
3 184 (8.34%) Lead
4 174 (7.89%) Architect
5 165 (7.48%) Developer
6 164 (7.43%) Project Manager
7 147 (6.66%) Business Analyst
8 79 (3.58%) Consultant
9 64 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.67%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
12 54 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
12 54 (2.45%) Software Engineer
13 46 (2.09%) Data Scientist
13 46 (2.09%) Security Engineer
14 45 (2.04%) Product Manager
15 39 (1.77%) Senior Manager
16 38 (1.72%) Systems Engineer
17 36 (1.63%) Data Engineer
18 35 (1.59%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.67%) REST
2 60 (2.72%) .NET
3 59 (2.67%) RESTful
4 47 (2.13%) Middleware
5 45 (2.04%) React
6 43 (1.95%) HTML
7 41 (1.86%) Kafka
8 37 (1.68%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.68%) XML
9 34 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.54%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.50%) JSON
10 33 (1.50%) SOAP
11 31 (1.41%) Spring
12 29 (1.31%) CSS
12 29 (1.31%) OAuth
12 29 (1.31%) Pandas
13 28 (1.27%) PyTorch
14 27 (1.22%) TensorFlow
15 24 (1.09%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 174 (7.89%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.80%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.94%) Onboarding
4 90 (4.08%) Cloud Native
5 74 (3.35%) Virtual Team
6 68 (3.08%) Distributed Systems
7 65 (2.95%) Data Centre
8 61 (2.77%) Algorithms
9 58 (2.63%) Self-Motivation
10 50 (2.27%) PMI
11 49 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
11 49 (2.22%) Data Structures
12 42 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
13 41 (1.86%) Derivative
14 32 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
14 32 (1.45%) Security Posture
15 30 (1.36%) Equities
16 29 (1.31%) Operational Technology
16 29 (1.31%) Robotics
17 26 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 255 (11.56%) Windows
2 168 (7.62%) Linux
3 66 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.72%) Unix
5 57 (2.58%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.95%) Android
6 21 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (0.86%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.68%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) AIX
15 4 (0.18%) CentOS
15 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 807 (36.58%) Computer Science
2 709 (32.14%) Agile
3 578 (26.20%) Problem-Solving
4 370 (16.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 321 (14.55%) DevOps
6 320 (14.51%) AI
7 315 (14.28%) Project Management
8 307 (13.92%) Continuous Improvement
9 253 (11.47%) CI/CD
10 243 (11.02%) Change Management
11 236 (10.70%) ITIL
12 234 (10.61%) Analytics
12 234 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 233 (10.56%) Cybersecurity
14 222 (10.06%) Decision-Making
15 208 (9.43%) Risk Management
16 207 (9.38%) Migration
17 203 (9.20%) PRINCE2
18 200 (9.07%) Project Delivery
19 193 (8.75%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 373 (16.91%) Python
2 317 (14.37%) SQL
3 148 (6.71%) Java
4 115 (5.21%) PowerShell
5 82 (3.72%) JavaScript
6 73 (3.31%) C#
7 62 (2.81%) C++
8 39 (1.77%) Bash
9 37 (1.68%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.41%) Go
11 28 (1.27%) R
12 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
13 17 (0.77%) Perl
14 15 (0.68%) C
14 15 (0.68%) Rust
14 15 (0.68%) T-SQL
15 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
16 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 509 (23.07%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (19.31%) Security Cleared
3 306 (13.87%) SC Cleared
4 285 (12.92%) Master's Degree
5 135 (6.12%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.44%) PMP
7 110 (4.99%) CISSP
8 88 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 62 (2.81%) CISM
10 61 (2.77%) PhD
11 59 (2.67%) Cisco Certification
12 55 (2.49%) TOGAF Certification
13 51 (2.31%) DV Cleared
14 50 (2.27%) Azure Certification
15 48 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
16 40 (1.81%) CCNP
17 34 (1.54%) MBA
18 31 (1.41%) AWS Certification
18 31 (1.41%) CBAP
19 30 (1.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.62%) QA
2 105 (4.76%) GDPR
3 102 (4.62%) PMO
4 94 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.99%) NIST
6 75 (3.40%) Data Quality
7 45 (2.04%) PCI DSS
7 45 (2.04%) SLA
8 35 (1.59%) Accessibility
9 22 (1.00%) GRC
9 22 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.95%) NCSC
11 14 (0.63%) IFRS
12 13 (0.59%) Basel III
13 12 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
14 11 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 142 (6.44%) Active Directory
2 133 (6.03%) Docker
3 42 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.73%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.045%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.045%) IAG
13 1 (0.045%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.045%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 146 (6.62%) Kubernetes
2 96 (4.35%) Terraform
3 69 (3.13%) Ansible
4 65 (2.95%) Microsoft Intune
5 49 (2.22%) Grafana
6 40 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 38 (1.72%) SCCM
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 17 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.73%) Puppet
11 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 12 (0.54%) Kibana
12 12 (0.54%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 8 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
17 5 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 484 (21.94%) Microsoft
2 139 (6.30%) Oracle
3 121 (5.49%) ServiceNow
4 117 (5.30%) SAP
5 96 (4.35%) Google
6 70 (3.17%) Cisco
7 66 (2.99%) Splunk
8 52 (2.36%) Remedy
9 47 (2.13%) VMware
10 45 (2.04%) Citrix
11 44 (1.99%) Atlassian
11 44 (1.99%) Databricks
12 40 (1.81%) Salesforce
13 38 (1.72%) IBM
14 35 (1.59%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.27%) CheckPoint
16 22 (1.00%) Adobe
17 21 (0.95%) Aruba
18 19 (0.86%) CyberArk
18 19 (0.86%) Informatica