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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,194 1,894 3,144
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.61% 7.78% 8.39%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.84% 24.81% 26.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,297 1,135 1,691
10th Percentile £271 £251 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £376
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 £788 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £501
% change year-on-year - -0.10% -5.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 144 344
10th Percentile £16.94 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £29.75 £22.94
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £53.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -5.66% +32.50% -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 13,026 7,633 11,741
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.30% 31.34% 31.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,722 4,903 7,278
10th Percentile £340 £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 £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £745
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 994 424 933
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.75 £24.66 £17.75
Median hourly rate £41.94 £50.75 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -17.36% +30.30% -24.37%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.39 £82.43 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £45.00 £39.92
% change year-on-year -12.22% +12.73% -23.96%

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 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 9 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 9 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 -12 955 £513 -6.82% 866
South East -3 356 £500 - 660
North of England -6 333 £417 -12.21% 472
Midlands -25 198 £500 +49.25% 318
North West -4 180 £400 -15.79% 244
South West -1 153 £650 +21.95% 220
West Midlands -27 143 £500 +66.67% 181
East of England -8 138 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -18 136 £488 -6.02% 164
East Midlands -16 54 £525 +47.47% 136
North East -17 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
1 152 (6.93%) Confluence
2 107 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.60%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
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%) Camunda
13 2 (0.091%) Drupal
13 2 (0.091%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.091%) IIS
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 286 (13.04%) Microsoft Office
2 215 (9.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 188 (8.57%) Microsoft Project
4 119 (5.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.87%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.46%) Trello
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.091%) Revit
14 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.046%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 47 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.87%) Primavera
4 18 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) 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%) NetSuite
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 452 (20.60%) Azure
2 254 (11.58%) AWS
3 189 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 167 (7.61%) Power Platform
5 106 (4.83%) Entra ID
6 101 (4.60%) SaaS
7 100 (4.56%) GCP
8 80 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.69%) GitHub
10 36 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
10 36 (1.64%) Power Automate
11 32 (1.46%) Google Workspace
11 32 (1.46%) PaaS
12 31 (1.41%) IaaS
13 29 (1.32%) Serverless
14 28 (1.28%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
15 24 (1.09%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.88%) Firewall
2 58 (2.64%) LAN
3 57 (2.60%) WAN
4 45 (2.05%) TCP/IP
5 44 (2.01%) DNS
6 40 (1.82%) Network Security
7 38 (1.73%) VPN
8 29 (1.32%) Wireless
9 28 (1.28%) BGP
10 22 (1.00%) OSPF
11 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.91%) DHCP
12 20 (0.91%) HTTP
13 17 (0.77%) Skype
14 16 (0.73%) Internet
15 15 (0.68%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.64%) VLAN
16 14 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.59%) SAN
17 13 (0.59%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 138 (6.29%) Power BI
2 86 (3.92%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 36 (1.64%) NoSQL
5 36 (1.64%) Tableau
6 31 (1.41%) MySQL
7 28 (1.28%) Big Data
8 23 (1.05%) Metadata
9 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
10 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
11 16 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
13 14 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.41%) Power Query
15 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 251 (11.44%) JIRA
2 92 (4.19%) Git
3 48 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 34 (1.55%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.00%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.82%) Selenium
8 17 (0.77%) MLflow
9 14 (0.64%) Postman
10 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.46%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.36%) JUnit
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
16 6 (0.27%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
16 6 (0.27%) TeamCity
17 5 (0.23%) PyCharm
General
1 1,054 (48.04%) Social Skills
2 672 (30.63%) Finance
3 495 (22.56%) Analytical Skills
4 222 (10.12%) Banking
5 175 (7.98%) Public Sector
6 110 (5.01%) Presentation Skills
7 103 (4.69%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
9 78 (3.56%) Marketing
10 76 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.28%) Aerospace
12 71 (3.24%) Legal
13 66 (3.01%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.46%) Military
15 49 (2.23%) Front Office
16 46 (2.10%) Telecoms
17 45 (2.05%) Retail
18 43 (1.96%) Law
19 41 (1.87%) Investment Banking
20 39 (1.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 313 (14.27%) Analyst
2 223 (10.16%) Senior
3 179 (8.16%) Lead
4 174 (7.93%) Architect
5 166 (7.57%) Project Manager
6 165 (7.52%) Developer
7 149 (6.79%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.46%) Consultant
9 64 (2.92%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.69%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
12 55 (2.51%) Solutions Architect
13 49 (2.23%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.14%) Data Scientist
15 46 (2.10%) Security Engineer
16 45 (2.05%) Product Manager
17 39 (1.78%) Senior Manager
17 39 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
18 36 (1.64%) Data Engineer
19 35 (1.60%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.10%) REST
2 62 (2.83%) .NET
3 47 (2.14%) Middleware
4 46 (2.10%) RESTful
5 43 (1.96%) HTML
6 42 (1.91%) React
7 41 (1.87%) Kafka
8 36 (1.64%) XML
9 34 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.55%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.50%) JSON
10 33 (1.50%) SOAP
11 31 (1.41%) Pandas
11 31 (1.41%) Spring
12 29 (1.32%) CSS
12 29 (1.32%) OAuth
13 28 (1.28%) PyTorch
14 27 (1.23%) TensorFlow
15 25 (1.14%) .NET Framework
15 25 (1.14%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.89%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.79%) Product Ownership
3 116 (5.29%) Onboarding
4 77 (3.51%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.33%) Virtual Team
6 67 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.69%) Algorithms
7 59 (2.69%) Self-Motivation
8 53 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
9 50 (2.28%) PMI
10 49 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (2.23%) Data Structures
11 42 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
12 39 (1.78%) Derivative
13 32 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
13 32 (1.46%) Robotics
13 32 (1.46%) Security Posture
14 29 (1.32%) Operational Technology
15 28 (1.28%) Equities
15 28 (1.28%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 256 (11.67%) Windows
2 157 (7.16%) Linux
3 70 (3.19%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.78%) Unix
5 57 (2.60%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.96%) Android
7 20 (0.91%) Mac OS
7 20 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.64%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.46%) 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
1 786 (35.82%) Computer Science
2 696 (31.72%) Agile
3 576 (26.25%) Problem-Solving
4 367 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
5 322 (14.68%) Project Management
6 315 (14.36%) Continuous Improvement
7 311 (14.18%) AI
8 307 (13.99%) DevOps
9 238 (10.85%) CI/CD
9 238 (10.85%) ITIL
10 237 (10.80%) Change Management
11 236 (10.76%) Analytics
12 233 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 227 (10.35%) Cybersecurity
14 225 (10.26%) Decision-Making
15 209 (9.53%) Migration
16 207 (9.43%) PRINCE2
17 204 (9.30%) Project Delivery
18 202 (9.21%) Risk Management
19 193 (8.80%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 355 (16.18%) Python
2 318 (14.49%) SQL
3 148 (6.75%) Java
4 117 (5.33%) PowerShell
5 77 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 74 (3.37%) C#
7 63 (2.87%) C++
8 37 (1.69%) Bash
9 34 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.28%) R
11 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.77%) C
12 17 (0.77%) Go
12 17 (0.77%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.73%) Perl
14 15 (0.68%) Rust
15 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
16 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 493 (22.47%) Computer Science Degree
2 432 (19.69%) Security Cleared
3 312 (14.22%) SC Cleared
4 265 (12.08%) Master's Degree
5 136 (6.20%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.52%) PMP
7 105 (4.79%) CISSP
8 87 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 61 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.60%) CISM
11 56 (2.55%) PhD
12 52 (2.37%) TOGAF Certification
13 51 (2.32%) Azure Certification
13 51 (2.32%) DV Cleared
14 49 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
15 42 (1.91%) CCNP
16 34 (1.55%) MBA
17 31 (1.41%) AWS Certification
18 30 (1.37%) CBAP
18 30 (1.37%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.65%) QA
2 105 (4.79%) PMO
3 104 (4.74%) GDPR
4 98 (4.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (4.10%) NIST
6 76 (3.46%) Data Quality
7 45 (2.05%) PCI DSS
7 45 (2.05%) SLA
8 35 (1.60%) Accessibility
9 22 (1.00%) GRC
9 22 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.87%) NCSC
11 14 (0.64%) IFRS
12 13 (0.59%) Basel III
13 12 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.55%) IFRS 17
14 11 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 147 (6.70%) Active Directory
2 122 (5.56%) Docker
3 43 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.96%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.82%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.32%) vSphere
8 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
12 2 (0.091%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.091%) Virtual Machines
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) RACF
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 132 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.65%) Terraform
3 65 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 57 (2.60%) Ansible
5 37 (1.69%) Grafana
6 36 (1.64%) SCCM
7 30 (1.37%) OPNET
8 27 (1.23%) Prometheus
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 (0.55%) Kibana
13 11 (0.50%) SCOM
14 9 (0.41%) Kiali
15 8 (0.36%) WSUS
16 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
16 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.27%) Control-M
17 6 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 490 (22.33%) Microsoft
2 140 (6.38%) Oracle
3 122 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 120 (5.47%) SAP
5 85 (3.87%) Google
6 71 (3.24%) Cisco
7 54 (2.46%) Splunk
8 52 (2.37%) Remedy
9 49 (2.23%) VMware
10 45 (2.05%) Citrix
11 44 (2.01%) Atlassian
11 44 (2.01%) Databricks
12 40 (1.82%) Salesforce
13 37 (1.69%) IBM
14 36 (1.64%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.28%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.05%) Adobe
17 22 (1.00%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.96%) Aruba
19 19 (0.87%) Red Hat