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 25 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 21
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,128 2,427 3,097
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.98% 7.86% 7.92%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.85% 26.25% 26.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,220 1,360 1,886
10th Percentile £304 £256 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 137 200
10th Percentile £15.25 £21.25 £17.73
25th Percentile £24.50 £30.78 £27.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.45 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% -20.00% +14.94%

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 10,205 9,244 11,700
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.49% 29.92% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,620 5,622 7,435
10th Percentile £306 £313 £306
25th Percentile £416 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 890 441 707
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.12 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.06 £27.00 £27.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.67
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -6.83% +19.26%
75th Percentile £52.42 £68.18 £69.19
90th Percentile £74.33 £76.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.85
% change year-on-year -44.11% -16.43% +19.67%

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025. 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 -4 1,027 £537 -0.09% 1,029
North of England -5 302 £450 -14.29% 456
South East -1 263 £475 -5.00% 1,177
Midlands -10 215 £475 -4.81% 375
North West -6 176 £425 -19.81% 243
West Midlands -11 164 £500 - 231
South West +4 154 £600 - 324
East of England -8 131 £505 +18.82% 372
Yorkshire -11 117 £476 -6.71% 149
East Midlands -11 51 £447 +11.75% 138
North East -14 10 £298 -40.31% 69
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
1 167 (7.85%) Confluence
2 111 (5.22%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 42 (1.97%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.75%) nginx
7 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.61%) CMS
9 11 (0.52%) IIS
10 10 (0.47%) Apache
11 8 (0.38%) SAS
12 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.23%) Luigi
14 4 (0.19%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.19%) Moodle
14 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 264 (12.41%) Microsoft Office
2 199 (9.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 154 (7.24%) Microsoft Project
4 97 (4.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (3.20%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.99%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Simulink
7 12 (0.56%) Trello
8 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.47%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.19%) Maya
13 3 (0.14%) InDesign
13 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.14%) Sketch
14 2 (0.094%) Camtasia
14 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
Business Applications
1 38 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.94%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.52%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.28%) Endur
10 6 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.23%) Maximo
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.23%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 404 (18.98%) Azure
2 281 (13.20%) AWS
3 170 (7.99%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (7.05%) GCP
5 137 (6.44%) Power Platform
6 95 (4.46%) SaaS
7 90 (4.23%) GitHub
8 78 (3.67%) Entra ID
9 64 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
10 63 (2.96%) Serverless
11 36 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.60%) Amazon S3
13 32 (1.50%) Power Automate
14 30 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
15 29 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
16 28 (1.32%) PowerApps
17 27 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
18 26 (1.22%) Microsoft Purview
19 25 (1.17%) OneDrive
20 24 (1.13%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 88 (4.14%) Firewall
2 82 (3.85%) DNS
3 46 (2.16%) VPN
4 43 (2.02%) DHCP
4 43 (2.02%) Network Security
5 34 (1.60%) LAN
6 32 (1.50%) TCP/IP
7 30 (1.41%) HTTP
8 29 (1.36%) WAN
9 27 (1.27%) Internet
10 26 (1.22%) Unified Communications
10 26 (1.22%) Wireless
11 25 (1.17%) SSH
12 20 (0.94%) BGP
13 19 (0.89%) Skype
14 17 (0.80%) VoIP
14 17 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.70%) Cisco IOS
15 15 (0.70%) MPLS
15 15 (0.70%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (5.08%) Power BI
2 95 (4.46%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (3.15%) SQL Server
4 60 (2.82%) NoSQL
5 51 (2.40%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (2.26%) Tableau
8 31 (1.46%) MySQL
9 28 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
10 26 (1.22%) Big Data
11 19 (0.89%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
14 15 (0.70%) Metadata
14 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
15 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.56%) GIS
16 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
17 10 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 258 (12.12%) JIRA
2 107 (5.03%) Git
3 92 (4.32%) Jenkins
4 69 (3.24%) GitLab
5 26 (1.22%) Liquibase
6 21 (0.99%) Postman
7 17 (0.80%) Selenium
8 12 (0.56%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.52%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.47%) JUnit
10 10 (0.47%) Visual Studio
11 8 (0.38%) SpecFlow
12 7 (0.33%) MLflow
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
14 5 (0.23%) Subversion
General
1 1,102 (51.79%) Social Skills
2 696 (32.71%) Finance
3 536 (25.19%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (11.42%) Banking
5 123 (5.78%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.61%) Manufacturing
7 96 (4.51%) Presentation Skills
8 82 (3.85%) Marketing
9 80 (3.76%) Organisational Skills
10 77 (3.62%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (3.24%) Legal
12 59 (2.77%) Financial Institution
12 59 (2.77%) Military
12 59 (2.77%) Telecoms
13 54 (2.54%) Front Office
13 54 (2.54%) Investment Banking
14 52 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
15 51 (2.40%) Aerospace
16 46 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
17 35 (1.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 314 (14.76%) Analyst
2 217 (10.20%) Developer
3 209 (9.82%) Senior
4 164 (7.71%) Lead
5 153 (7.19%) Architect
6 143 (6.72%) Business Analyst
7 133 (6.25%) Project Manager
8 91 (4.28%) Consultant
9 75 (3.52%) Software Engineer
10 51 (2.40%) Security Engineer
10 51 (2.40%) Support Analyst
11 47 (2.21%) IT Support
11 47 (2.21%) Technical Support
12 45 (2.11%) Solutions Architect
12 45 (2.11%) Support Engineer
13 44 (2.07%) Data Scientist
14 42 (1.97%) Senior Developer
15 38 (1.79%) IT Manager
16 33 (1.55%) AWS Engineer
16 33 (1.55%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (5.31%) REST
2 78 (3.67%) RESTful
3 66 (3.10%) .NET
4 64 (3.01%) HTML
5 48 (2.26%) CSS
6 47 (2.21%) XML
7 42 (1.97%) Kafka
8 40 (1.88%) JSON
9 38 (1.79%) Elastic Stack
9 38 (1.79%) Middleware
10 37 (1.74%) SOAP
11 36 (1.69%) Web Services
12 34 (1.60%) OAuth
12 34 (1.60%) React
13 30 (1.41%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.41%) Node.js
14 28 (1.32%) Spring
15 27 (1.27%) TensorFlow
16 26 (1.22%) Pandas
17 21 (0.99%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.79%) Management Information System
2 106 (4.98%) Product Ownership
3 91 (4.28%) Cloud Native
4 74 (3.48%) Onboarding
5 70 (3.29%) Algorithms
6 59 (2.77%) Virtual Team
7 57 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
8 55 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
9 51 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
10 48 (2.26%) Derivative
11 45 (2.11%) Data Centre
12 42 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
13 41 (1.93%) Public Cloud
14 36 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
15 35 (1.64%) Security Posture
16 34 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
16 34 (1.60%) Life Science
16 34 (1.60%) PKI
17 30 (1.41%) Data Structures
17 30 (1.41%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 224 (10.53%) Windows
2 166 (7.80%) Linux
3 67 (3.15%) Unix
4 51 (2.40%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.64%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 21 (0.99%) Mac OS
8 19 (0.89%) Android
9 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.80%) VMS
11 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.19%) CentOS
17 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.094%) Mac OS X
17 2 (0.094%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 852 (40.04%) Computer Science
2 696 (32.71%) Agile
3 656 (30.83%) Problem-Solving
4 338 (15.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 336 (15.79%) Project Management
6 305 (14.33%) DevOps
7 266 (12.50%) Change Management
8 260 (12.22%) ITIL
9 227 (10.67%) Analytics
10 223 (10.48%) CI/CD
11 215 (10.10%) AI
11 215 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
12 213 (10.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 209 (9.82%) Continuous Improvement
14 202 (9.49%) Software Engineering
15 198 (9.30%) Migration
16 191 (8.98%) Decision-Making
17 182 (8.55%) Project Delivery
18 170 (7.99%) Risk Management
19 153 (7.19%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 423 (19.88%) Python
2 314 (14.76%) SQL
3 171 (8.04%) Java
4 117 (5.50%) PowerShell
5 113 (5.31%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.57%) C++
7 69 (3.24%) C#
8 52 (2.44%) Go
9 44 (2.07%) TypeScript
10 40 (1.88%) Bash
11 32 (1.50%) R
12 21 (0.99%) Perl
13 19 (0.89%) Ruby
14 18 (0.85%) C
14 18 (0.85%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
15 17 (0.80%) MATLAB
16 16 (0.75%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.61%) Apex Code
17 13 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 571 (26.83%) Computer Science Degree
2 321 (15.08%) Security Cleared
3 312 (14.66%) Master's Degree
4 255 (11.98%) SC Cleared
5 128 (6.02%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.64%) PMP
7 105 (4.93%) CISSP
8 89 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (3.38%) PhD
10 67 (3.15%) CISM
11 64 (3.01%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (2.73%) Azure Certification
13 56 (2.63%) AWS Certification
14 44 (2.07%) HND
15 41 (1.93%) CCNP
16 40 (1.88%) DV Cleared
16 40 (1.88%) TOGAF Certification
17 38 (1.79%) HNC
18 37 (1.74%) CCNA
19 33 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.31%) QA
2 103 (4.84%) GDPR
3 83 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.81%) NIST
5 79 (3.71%) Data Quality
6 57 (2.68%) PMO
7 34 (1.60%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.46%) SLA
9 26 (1.22%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.17%) GRC
10 25 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.89%) NCSC
12 18 (0.85%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.75%) COBIT
14 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.70%) NIST 800
15 13 (0.61%) P3O
15 13 (0.61%) WCAG
16 11 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 146 (6.86%) Docker
2 136 (6.39%) Active Directory
3 47 (2.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.08%) Firmware
5 12 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.47%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.47%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.47%) Postfix
6 10 (0.47%) Squid
6 10 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.094%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.094%) XenApp
12 1 (0.047%) HDFS
12 1 (0.047%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 126 (5.92%) Kubernetes
2 109 (5.12%) Terraform
3 80 (3.76%) Ansible
4 54 (2.54%) Grafana
5 49 (2.30%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (2.11%) Prometheus
7 44 (2.07%) SCCM
8 19 (0.89%) OPNET
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 13 (0.61%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.47%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.47%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.33%) Argo
15 7 (0.33%) CSIRT
16 6 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 6 (0.28%) Kibana
16 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 456 (21.43%) Microsoft
2 125 (5.87%) ServiceNow
3 122 (5.73%) Oracle
4 121 (5.69%) SAP
5 93 (4.37%) Google
6 83 (3.90%) Splunk
7 75 (3.52%) Cisco
8 65 (3.05%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.49%) VMware
10 48 (2.26%) Atlassian
11 39 (1.83%) Remedy
12 36 (1.69%) IBM
13 30 (1.41%) Databricks
14 28 (1.32%) Adobe
15 25 (1.17%) Citrix
15 25 (1.17%) Workday
16 21 (0.99%) Palo Alto
17 19 (0.89%) Red Hat
18 18 (0.85%) Apple
19 14 (0.66%) CyberArk