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 5 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,164 1,902 3,139
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.33% 7.80% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.48% 24.90% 27.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,124 1,658
10th Percentile £249 £250 £213
25th Percentile £383 £387 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £511
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.76% -5.87%
75th Percentile £613 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £771
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £503
% change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 142 372
10th Percentile £20.75 £17.53 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.58 £27.53 £24.08
Median hourly rate £65.00 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.64% +32.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +4.76% +31.25% -11.11%

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 13,128 7,638 11,518
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.35% 31.33% 31.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,813 4,846 7,100
10th Percentile £340 £289 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £624 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 972 440 984
10th Percentile £17.09 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.29 £18.10
Median hourly rate £47.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% +10.00% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.49 £81.42 £76.47
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%

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 5 May 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 5 May 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 5 May 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 -16 915 £500 -9.09% 1,360
South East -5 371 £485 -3.05% 838
North of England -8 327 £417 -8.35% 696
Midlands -25 211 £500 +66.67% 376
North West -8 171 £400 -12.28% 441
West Midlands -26 149 £500 +66.67% 215
East of England -8 141 £463 -7.50% 324
Yorkshire -10 140 £475 +14.73% 189
South West -15 138 £623 +24.55% 289
East Midlands -19 60 £525 +55.33% 160
North East -24 16 £407 -12.00% 72
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
1 143 (6.61%) Confluence
2 106 (4.90%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Apache
7 7 (0.32%) CMS
7 7 (0.32%) SAS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.23%) IIS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.092%) Appian
12 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 290 (13.40%) Microsoft Office
2 216 (9.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 177 (8.18%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 59 (2.73%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.42%) Simulink
7 9 (0.42%) Trello
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 7 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.28%) Sketch
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.092%) InVision
Business Applications
1 49 (2.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.74%) Primavera
4 14 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 448 (20.70%) Azure
2 248 (11.46%) AWS
3 190 (8.78%) Microsoft 365
4 176 (8.13%) Power Platform
5 105 (4.85%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.53%) SaaS
7 88 (4.07%) GCP
8 74 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.40%) GitHub
10 34 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
11 33 (1.52%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.48%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.43%) IaaS
13 31 (1.43%) PaaS
14 26 (1.20%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.16%) Figma
15 25 (1.16%) Serverless
16 24 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
17 23 (1.06%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (4.34%) Firewall
2 52 (2.40%) LAN
2 52 (2.40%) WAN
3 46 (2.13%) TCP/IP
4 43 (1.99%) DNS
4 43 (1.99%) Network Security
5 36 (1.66%) VPN
6 26 (1.20%) Wireless
7 23 (1.06%) BGP
8 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
9 20 (0.92%) OSPF
10 19 (0.88%) Skype
11 17 (0.79%) DHCP
12 16 (0.74%) HTTP
13 14 (0.65%) SAN
13 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) IPsec
15 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (6.70%) Power BI
2 88 (4.07%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.36%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.62%) Tableau
7 31 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.39%) Metadata
9 29 (1.34%) Big Data
10 28 (1.29%) MySQL
11 19 (0.88%) MongoDB
12 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
12 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.55%) Power Query
16 11 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.51%) Oracle Database
16 11 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 242 (11.18%) JIRA
2 96 (4.44%) Git
3 41 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.71%) GitLab
5 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.83%) MLflow
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.51%) Gradle
10 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.46%) Postman
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) JUnit
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
General
1 1,025 (47.37%) Social Skills
2 654 (30.22%) Finance
3 475 (21.95%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (9.47%) Banking
5 176 (8.13%) Public Sector
6 116 (5.36%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (5.13%) Presentation Skills
8 85 (3.93%) Marketing
9 82 (3.79%) Documentation Skills
10 72 (3.33%) Legal
11 71 (3.28%) Aerospace
12 68 (3.14%) Influencing Skills
13 60 (2.77%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.50%) Military
15 53 (2.45%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.36%) Law
17 49 (2.26%) Retail
18 38 (1.76%) Front Office
19 35 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 32 (1.48%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 293 (13.54%) Analyst
2 224 (10.35%) Senior
3 186 (8.60%) Architect
4 172 (7.95%) Lead
5 158 (7.30%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.84%) Business Analyst
6 148 (6.84%) Developer
7 64 (2.96%) Consultant
8 62 (2.87%) Delivery Manager
9 60 (2.77%) Technical Support
10 59 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
11 56 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.22%) Software Engineer
13 46 (2.13%) Data Scientist
13 46 (2.13%) Product Manager
14 42 (1.94%) Designer
15 41 (1.89%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.89%) Senior Manager
16 38 (1.76%) Data Engineer
17 37 (1.71%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.07%) REST
2 66 (3.05%) .NET
3 51 (2.36%) Middleware
4 48 (2.22%) React
5 42 (1.94%) Kafka
6 41 (1.89%) HTML
6 41 (1.89%) RESTful
7 37 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
8 35 (1.62%) XML
9 33 (1.52%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.48%) SOAP
11 30 (1.39%) JSON
11 30 (1.39%) Spring
12 29 (1.34%) OAuth
13 28 (1.29%) CSS
14 27 (1.25%) .NET Framework
14 27 (1.25%) Pandas
14 27 (1.25%) PyTorch
15 22 (1.02%) TensorFlow
16 21 (0.97%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 165 (7.62%) Management Information System
2 153 (7.07%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.50%) Onboarding
4 75 (3.47%) Cloud Native
5 63 (2.91%) Self-Motivation
6 61 (2.82%) Virtual Team
7 60 (2.77%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.36%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.31%) PMI
10 48 (2.22%) Algorithms
10 48 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
11 47 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
12 42 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
13 38 (1.76%) Robotics
14 34 (1.57%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.48%) Security Posture
16 30 (1.39%) Derivative
17 29 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
18 26 (1.20%) AI Agents
19 24 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 251 (11.60%) Windows
2 162 (7.49%) Linux
3 68 (3.14%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.96%) Unix
5 56 (2.59%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Android
7 20 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (0.83%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
15 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (34.66%) Computer Science
2 660 (30.50%) Agile
3 555 (25.65%) Problem-Solving
4 357 (16.50%) Stakeholder Management
5 320 (14.79%) AI
6 312 (14.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 306 (14.14%) Project Management
8 293 (13.54%) DevOps
9 236 (10.91%) CI/CD
10 230 (10.63%) Analytics
11 228 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 221 (10.21%) Decision-Making
13 214 (9.89%) Change Management
14 208 (9.61%) ITIL
15 206 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
16 204 (9.43%) Migration
17 198 (9.15%) Risk Management
18 189 (8.73%) PRINCE2
19 186 (8.60%) Roadmaps
20 185 (8.55%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 343 (15.85%) Python
2 320 (14.79%) SQL
3 144 (6.65%) Java
4 110 (5.08%) PowerShell
5 82 (3.79%) C#
6 73 (3.37%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.54%) C++
8 39 (1.80%) Bash
9 34 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.34%) R
11 24 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.79%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
13 15 (0.69%) Perl
14 14 (0.65%) Go
14 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 14 (0.65%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 487 (22.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 419 (19.36%) Security Cleared
3 299 (13.82%) SC Cleared
4 241 (11.14%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.33%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.55%) PMP
7 98 (4.53%) CISSP
8 87 (4.02%) Microsoft Certification
9 67 (3.10%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
11 55 (2.54%) CISM
12 50 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (2.22%) DV Cleared
14 47 (2.17%) PhD
15 45 (2.08%) Azure Certification
16 37 (1.71%) CCNP
17 35 (1.62%) MBA
18 32 (1.48%) CBAP
18 32 (1.48%) CCNA
19 25 (1.16%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.79%) QA
2 105 (4.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.76%) PMO
4 100 (4.62%) NIST
5 99 (4.57%) GDPR
6 83 (3.84%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.31%) SLA
8 41 (1.89%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.85%) PCI DSS
10 26 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.02%) GRC
12 21 (0.97%) NCSC
13 14 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.60%) Basel III
14 13 (0.60%) IFRS
14 13 (0.60%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
17 10 (0.46%) COBIT
17 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 141 (6.52%) Active Directory
2 120 (5.55%) Docker
3 36 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.16%) Hyper-V
5 22 (1.02%) Firmware
6 8 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.092%) HDFS
11 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.046%) Squid
12 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 129 (5.96%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.47%) Terraform
3 60 (2.77%) Ansible
4 56 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (1.76%) SCCM
6 36 (1.66%) Grafana
7 30 (1.39%) OPNET
8 26 (1.20%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.83%) Puppet
9 18 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.51%) Kibana
11 11 (0.51%) Nmap
11 11 (0.51%) WSUS
12 9 (0.42%) Kiali
12 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.37%) Nessus
14 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.32%) SCOM
15 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 497 (22.97%) Microsoft
2 144 (6.65%) Oracle
3 122 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.45%) SAP
5 75 (3.47%) Google
6 66 (3.05%) Cisco
7 49 (2.26%) Remedy
7 49 (2.26%) Splunk
8 48 (2.22%) Databricks
9 44 (2.03%) Citrix
10 43 (1.99%) Atlassian
11 42 (1.94%) VMware
12 38 (1.76%) Salesforce
13 34 (1.57%) IBM
14 32 (1.48%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.43%) Adobe
16 29 (1.34%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.06%) Aruba
18 22 (1.02%) CyberArk
19 20 (0.92%) Siemens