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 9 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,268 1,992 2,576
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.91% 7.09% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.20% 22.19% 26.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,167 1,116 1,467
10th Percentile £205 £268 £263
25th Percentile £375 £402 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -6.10%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £625
90th Percentile £716 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 167 165
10th Percentile £16.46 £16.76 £21.25
25th Percentile £24.72 £26.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £35.00 £52.19
Median % change year-on-year +10.63% -32.94% +8.73%
75th Percentile £66.25 £63.33 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £86.95 £83.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £33.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +17.91% -25.56% -6.52%

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 14,922 8,976 9,645
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.29% 31.95% 29.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,941 5,696 5,843
10th Percentile £353 £290 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £732
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,292 746 518
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.20
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.29
Median hourly rate £49.50 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +96.82% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £73.81 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.52%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -18 989 £527 -4.18% 6,931
South East +6 462 £525 +16.67% 1,865
North of England -12 337 £475 +5.56% 1,268
North West -4 217 £479 +4.70% 686
Midlands -29 184 £450 -5.26% 896
West Midlands -31 137 £450 -5.26% 552
East of England -14 135 £425 -15.00% 967
South West -21 127 £415 -20.95% 698
Yorkshire -20 103 £500 +11.11% 385
East Midlands -22 46 £478 +6.70% 344
North East -31 17 £460 +2.22% 201
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
1 145 (6.39%) SharePoint
2 115 (5.07%) Confluence
3 55 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.28%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.93%) Apache
6 20 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.88%) IIS
7 16 (0.71%) CMS
8 14 (0.62%) Camunda
8 14 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.31%) SAS
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) nginx
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Appian
13 3 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 213 (9.39%) Microsoft Office
3 108 (4.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 100 (4.41%) Microsoft Project
5 48 (2.12%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.71%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Simulink
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Windchill
10 9 (0.40%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
12 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) AutoCAD
14 2 (0.088%) CATIA
14 2 (0.088%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.088%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 30 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.49%) 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%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.18%) Workfront
9 3 (0.13%) Aladdin
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.13%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 530 (23.37%) Azure
2 282 (12.43%) AWS
3 201 (8.86%) Microsoft 365
4 199 (8.77%) Power Platform
5 147 (6.48%) GCP
6 131 (5.78%) Entra ID
7 124 (5.47%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.09%) SaaS
9 61 (2.69%) GitHub
10 56 (2.47%) Power Automate
11 54 (2.38%) Serverless
12 49 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
13 47 (2.07%) OneDrive
13 47 (2.07%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.94%) Microsoft Copilot
15 36 (1.59%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.46%) Figma
17 29 (1.28%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.28%) OpenShift
18 28 (1.23%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (3.88%) Firewall
2 73 (3.22%) DNS
3 62 (2.73%) Network Security
4 57 (2.51%) TCP/IP
5 55 (2.43%) VPN
6 44 (1.94%) DHCP
7 27 (1.19%) LAN
7 27 (1.19%) WAN
8 22 (0.97%) 3GPP
8 22 (0.97%) Wireless
9 20 (0.88%) 5G
10 19 (0.84%) SSH
11 18 (0.79%) SSL
12 17 (0.75%) Radio Access Network
12 17 (0.75%) Wireshark
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 15 (0.66%) Internet
14 15 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.53%) BGP
15 12 (0.53%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.26%) Power BI
2 101 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.56%) Metadata
4 51 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (1.90%) Relational Database
7 36 (1.59%) MySQL
8 34 (1.50%) NoSQL
9 30 (1.32%) Tableau
10 28 (1.23%) Big Data
11 27 (1.19%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
13 21 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.75%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.71%) GIS
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
17 11 (0.49%) Redis
18 10 (0.44%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 160 (7.05%) JIRA
2 138 (6.08%) Git
3 58 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.43%) GitLab
5 24 (1.06%) JUnit
5 24 (1.06%) Maven
6 23 (1.01%) Gradle
6 23 (1.01%) SonarQube
7 19 (0.84%) Selenium
7 19 (0.84%) Visual Studio
8 17 (0.75%) Cucumber
8 17 (0.75%) Mockito
9 15 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
10 14 (0.62%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.49%) Postman
12 10 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.35%) MLflow
14 8 (0.35%) Subversion
14 8 (0.35%) TeamCity
General
1 1,023 (45.11%) Social Skills
2 655 (28.88%) Finance
3 539 (23.77%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.64%) Banking
5 180 (7.94%) Public Sector
6 150 (6.61%) Organisational Skills
7 137 (6.04%) Manufacturing
8 115 (5.07%) Aerospace
9 110 (4.85%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (4.19%) Marketing
11 79 (3.48%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.40%) Legal
13 76 (3.35%) Presentation Skills
14 69 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.73%) Retail
16 61 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 55 (2.43%) Pharmaceutical
18 48 (2.12%) Law
19 45 (1.98%) Military
20 43 (1.90%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 306 (13.49%) Analyst
2 256 (11.29%) Senior
3 192 (8.47%) Developer
4 185 (8.16%) Lead
5 154 (6.79%) Architect
6 150 (6.61%) Business Analyst
7 103 (4.54%) Project Manager
8 66 (2.91%) Support Engineer
9 61 (2.69%) IT Support
10 60 (2.65%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.47%) Consultant
12 50 (2.20%) IT Manager
12 50 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.16%) Administrator
14 46 (2.03%) Security Engineer
15 45 (1.98%) IT Analyst
16 44 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
17 42 (1.85%) Data Engineer
18 41 (1.81%) Software Engineer
19 40 (1.76%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (5.03%) Terraform
2 101 (4.45%) REST
3 91 (4.01%) .NET
4 68 (3.00%) HTML
4 68 (3.00%) React
5 60 (2.65%) CSS
5 60 (2.65%) Kafka
6 51 (2.25%) RESTful
7 44 (1.94%) OAuth
8 43 (1.90%) XML
9 41 (1.81%) Middleware
9 41 (1.81%) Web Services
10 38 (1.68%) Spring Boot
11 36 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
12 35 (1.54%) SAML
13 34 (1.50%) SOAP
14 32 (1.41%) OAuth2
14 32 (1.41%) OpenID
14 32 (1.41%) Spring
15 31 (1.37%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 212 (9.35%) Management Information System
2 124 (5.47%) Onboarding
3 117 (5.16%) Product Ownership
4 96 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (4.10%) Cloud Native
6 58 (2.56%) Algorithms
7 54 (2.38%) Data Structures
8 53 (2.34%) Data Centre
9 50 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
9 50 (2.20%) Operational Technology
10 48 (2.12%) Life Science
10 48 (2.12%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.76%) AI Agents
12 39 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
13 36 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
13 36 (1.59%) Virtual Team
14 34 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
15 32 (1.41%) SCADA
16 31 (1.37%) PMI
17 29 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 275 (12.13%) Windows
2 178 (7.85%) Linux
3 79 (3.48%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.95%) Unix
5 37 (1.63%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.23%) Mac OS
9 19 (0.84%) Android
10 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.22%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) Mac OS X
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.088%) Debian
14 2 (0.088%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 729 (32.14%) Computer Science
2 642 (28.31%) Agile
3 623 (27.47%) Problem-Solving
4 517 (22.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 408 (17.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (16.98%) AI
7 346 (15.26%) DevOps
8 310 (13.67%) CI/CD
9 299 (13.18%) Analytics
10 277 (12.21%) Project Management
11 252 (11.11%) ITIL
12 238 (10.49%) Decision-Making
12 238 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 236 (10.41%) Roadmaps
14 234 (10.32%) Scrum
15 226 (9.96%) Software Engineering
16 224 (9.88%) Change Management
17 217 (9.57%) Cybersecurity
18 207 (9.13%) Validation
19 202 (8.91%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 366 (16.14%) Python
2 338 (14.90%) SQL
3 166 (7.32%) PowerShell
4 146 (6.44%) Java
5 124 (5.47%) JavaScript
6 107 (4.72%) C#
7 64 (2.82%) Bash
8 38 (1.68%) TypeScript
9 35 (1.54%) C++
10 30 (1.32%) Bicep
11 27 (1.19%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.06%) T-SQL
13 22 (0.97%) R
14 19 (0.84%) C
15 17 (0.75%) Scala
16 13 (0.57%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.49%) X++
18 10 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 450 (19.84%) Security Cleared
2 446 (19.66%) Computer Science Degree
3 327 (14.42%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.51%) Master's Degree
5 144 (6.35%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.51%) PMP
7 115 (5.07%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.72%) CISSP
9 93 (4.10%) DV Cleared
10 85 (3.75%) Azure Certification
11 77 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
12 73 (3.22%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.56%) PhD
14 51 (2.25%) CISM
15 45 (1.98%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 39 (1.72%) DBS Check
18 38 (1.68%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
20 31 (1.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (6.13%) QA
2 134 (5.91%) Data Quality
3 85 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (3.62%) NIST
5 77 (3.40%) GDPR
6 69 (3.04%) PMO
7 40 (1.76%) Accessibility
8 32 (1.41%) SLA
9 31 (1.37%) GRC
10 19 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.79%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.71%) IFRS
14 15 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.49%) IEC 61508
15 11 (0.49%) ISO 31000
16 10 (0.44%) ISO 9001
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 173 (7.63%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.16%) Docker
3 57 (2.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.97%) Firmware
6 21 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) vSphere
8 8 (0.35%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.26%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.22%) NFS
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 67 (2.95%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.56%) Ansible
4 28 (1.23%) SCCM
5 25 (1.10%) Grafana
6 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.84%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Puppet
10 11 (0.49%) SCOM
11 10 (0.44%) CASB
11 10 (0.44%) Functional Safety
11 10 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.35%) Control-M
13 6 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.26%) Nessus
13 6 (0.26%) WSUS
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 563 (24.82%) Microsoft
2 163 (7.19%) Oracle
3 129 (5.69%) ServiceNow
4 117 (5.16%) SAP
5 108 (4.76%) Google
6 70 (3.09%) VMware
7 64 (2.82%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.60%) Cisco
9 57 (2.51%) Adobe
10 54 (2.38%) Databricks
11 42 (1.85%) IBM
12 40 (1.76%) Splunk
13 31 (1.37%) Red Hat
14 25 (1.10%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.93%) Apple
15 21 (0.93%) Citrix
15 21 (0.93%) CyberArk
16 19 (0.84%) Ariba
17 18 (0.79%) Palo Alto
18 17 (0.75%) EMC