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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -4 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,250 2,058 2,605
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.43% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.55% 23.67% 25.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,217 1,519
10th Percentile £205 £250 £275
25th Percentile £364 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.03%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £757 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 168 239
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.34 £20.22
25th Percentile £27.23 £26.95 £30.39
Median hourly rate £51.00 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -25.89% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.94 £68.56 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.78 £77.75
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +2.35% -19.05% +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 14,466 8,694 10,180
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.41% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,766 5,465 6,478
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,121 663 761
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.37 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.17
UK median hourly rate £51.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +104.77% -41.51% -21.82%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 12 August 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 -21 962 £525 -4.55% 5,213
South East +2 473 £500 +5.26% 1,283
North of England -13 329 £466 +3.50% 934
North West -14 189 £453 -4.63% 517
Midlands -32 176 £450 +0.67% 566
East of England -6 141 £413 -8.33% 685
West Midlands -36 133 £450 - 329
Yorkshire -9 125 £500 +20.12% 274
South West -18 123 £415 +10.67% 539
East Midlands -21 41 £475 +32.68% 237
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 162
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
1 136 (6.04%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.80%) Confluence
3 61 (2.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.29%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.84%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 240 (10.67%) Microsoft Office
2 223 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 127 (5.64%) Microsoft Project
4 110 (4.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (2.27%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 10 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
12 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.18%) Trello
13 4 (0.18%) Windchill
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (2.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 517 (22.98%) Azure
2 283 (12.58%) AWS
3 205 (9.11%) Power Platform
4 204 (9.07%) Microsoft 365
5 141 (6.27%) Entra ID
6 121 (5.38%) GCP
7 98 (4.36%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.38%) SaaS
9 57 (2.53%) GitHub
10 46 (2.04%) PowerApps
11 45 (2.00%) Power Automate
12 41 (1.82%) OneDrive
13 40 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
13 40 (1.78%) Snowflake
14 39 (1.73%) Serverless
15 37 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
16 35 (1.56%) Figma
17 25 (1.11%) IaaS
18 23 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
18 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.58%) Firewall
2 76 (3.38%) TCP/IP
3 71 (3.16%) DNS
4 66 (2.93%) Network Security
5 58 (2.58%) VPN
6 40 (1.78%) DHCP
7 39 (1.73%) WAN
8 36 (1.60%) LAN
9 27 (1.20%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
12 17 (0.76%) Internet
13 16 (0.71%) VLAN
14 15 (0.67%) 3GPP
14 15 (0.67%) OSPF
14 15 (0.67%) SSH
14 15 (0.67%) SSL
15 13 (0.58%) 5G
16 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.29%) Power BI
2 97 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 45 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
6 40 (1.78%) Metadata
7 32 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 31 (1.38%) Tableau
9 26 (1.16%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.98%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.98%) MySQL
11 22 (0.98%) Oracle Database
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.62%) Power Query
14 13 (0.58%) Data Mining
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 10 (0.44%) GIS
17 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 173 (7.69%) JIRA
2 114 (5.07%) Git
3 50 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 46 (2.04%) GitLab
5 36 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.76%) Selenium
6 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.62%) MLflow
8 11 (0.49%) JUnit
8 11 (0.49%) Subversion
9 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
10 8 (0.36%) Maven
10 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
10 8 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.31%) Gradle
11 7 (0.31%) Postman
12 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 997 (44.31%) Social Skills
2 652 (28.98%) Finance
3 518 (23.02%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (7.96%) Public Sector
5 170 (7.56%) Banking
6 147 (6.53%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.71%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.18%) Legal
9 92 (4.09%) Presentation Skills
10 91 (4.04%) Marketing
11 86 (3.82%) Manufacturing
12 78 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
13 77 (3.42%) Telecoms
14 65 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.80%) Retail
16 59 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 51 (2.27%) Law
18 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.73%) Front Office
20 35 (1.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 306 (13.60%) Analyst
2 247 (10.98%) Senior
3 177 (7.87%) Lead
4 161 (7.16%) Developer
5 153 (6.80%) Architect
6 142 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 127 (5.64%) Project Manager
8 71 (3.16%) Senior Manager
9 59 (2.62%) Consultant
10 58 (2.58%) IT Support
11 57 (2.53%) Support Engineer
12 53 (2.36%) Product Manager
13 52 (2.31%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.31%) IT Manager
13 52 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
14 51 (2.27%) Designer
15 46 (2.04%) Delivery Manager
16 45 (2.00%) Software Engineer
16 45 (2.00%) Systems Engineer
17 42 (1.87%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.04%) REST
2 88 (3.91%) .NET
3 49 (2.18%) React
4 43 (1.91%) Kafka
5 39 (1.73%) HTML
6 38 (1.69%) OAuth
7 36 (1.60%) RESTful
8 33 (1.47%) Oracle Fusion
9 32 (1.42%) .NET Framework
9 32 (1.42%) Middleware
10 30 (1.33%) CSS
10 30 (1.33%) SAML
10 30 (1.33%) Web Services
11 27 (1.20%) LDAP
12 26 (1.16%) JSON
12 26 (1.16%) OAuth2
12 26 (1.16%) OpenID
13 25 (1.11%) AngularJS
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
14 24 (1.07%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 183 (8.13%) Management Information System
2 137 (6.09%) Onboarding
2 137 (6.09%) Product Ownership
3 93 (4.13%) Self-Motivation
4 87 (3.87%) Cloud Native
5 66 (2.93%) Data Structures
6 58 (2.58%) Data Centre
7 56 (2.49%) Algorithms
8 51 (2.27%) Security Posture
9 43 (1.91%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
11 41 (1.82%) Virtual Team
12 40 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
13 35 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
14 33 (1.47%) AI Agents
14 33 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.47%) Life Science
14 33 (1.47%) PMI
15 32 (1.42%) Robotics
16 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 280 (12.44%) Windows
2 166 (7.38%) Linux
3 68 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 56 (2.49%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 21 (0.93%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.27%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Solaris
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.18%) Debian
12 4 (0.18%) Rocky
13 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.13%) VMS
13 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 762 (33.87%) Computer Science
2 623 (27.69%) Agile
3 600 (26.67%) Problem-Solving
4 415 (18.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 398 (17.69%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (16.04%) AI
7 303 (13.47%) DevOps
8 287 (12.76%) Project Management
9 277 (12.31%) Analytics
10 261 (11.60%) CI/CD
10 261 (11.60%) ITIL
11 240 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 237 (10.53%) Decision-Making
13 229 (10.18%) Cybersecurity
14 201 (8.93%) Software Engineering
15 199 (8.84%) Change Management
15 199 (8.84%) PRINCE2
16 198 (8.80%) Roadmaps
17 192 (8.53%) Scrum
18 186 (8.27%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 383 (17.02%) Python
2 318 (14.13%) SQL
3 154 (6.84%) PowerShell
4 142 (6.31%) Java
5 97 (4.31%) C#
6 87 (3.87%) JavaScript
7 52 (2.31%) Bash
8 41 (1.82%) C++
9 31 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.11%) R
11 23 (1.02%) Bicep
12 22 (0.98%) C
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.44%) Scala
16 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 442 (19.64%) Computer Science Degree
2 415 (18.44%) Security Cleared
3 268 (11.91%) SC Cleared
4 189 (8.40%) Master's Degree
5 135 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.24%) PMP
7 116 (5.16%) CISSP
7 116 (5.16%) Microsoft Certification
8 80 (3.56%) Cisco Certification
9 73 (3.24%) DV Cleared
10 67 (2.98%) Azure Certification
11 57 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
12 52 (2.31%) CISM
13 49 (2.18%) PhD
14 39 (1.73%) CCNA
14 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 37 (1.64%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.60%) CCNP
17 35 (1.56%) CISA
18 31 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.11%) QA
2 112 (4.98%) Data Quality
3 109 (4.84%) NIST
4 99 (4.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 93 (4.13%) PMO
6 67 (2.98%) GDPR
7 44 (1.96%) SLA
8 39 (1.73%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
11 22 (0.98%) PCI DSS
12 20 (0.89%) NCSC
13 12 (0.53%) IFRS
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) COBIT
15 10 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
16 8 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 187 (8.31%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.89%) Docker
3 50 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.02%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.044%) ACF2
Systems Management
1 116 (5.16%) Kubernetes
2 92 (4.09%) Terraform
3 73 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.84%) Ansible
5 35 (1.56%) SCCM
6 28 (1.24%) Grafana
7 25 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.62%) Puppet
11 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.31%) Nessus
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) CASB
17 5 (0.22%) Control-M
Vendors
1 582 (25.87%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.53%) Oracle
3 138 (6.13%) ServiceNow
4 117 (5.20%) SAP
5 83 (3.69%) Google
6 66 (2.93%) VMware
7 61 (2.71%) Cisco
8 54 (2.40%) Salesforce
9 50 (2.22%) Databricks
10 48 (2.13%) Adobe
11 47 (2.09%) IBM
12 33 (1.47%) Splunk
13 30 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.29%) Citrix
15 28 (1.24%) Red Hat
16 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.93%) Siemens
18 19 (0.84%) Apple
18 19 (0.84%) Ariba
18 19 (0.84%) BeyondTrust