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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,251 2,052 2,587
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.93% 7.38% 7.80%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.54% 23.46% 25.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,203 1,206 1,513
10th Percentile £204 £250 £280
25th Percentile £367 £376 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.80%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 169 231
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.19 £20.12
25th Percentile £27.65 £27.28 £28.69
Median hourly rate £45.50 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +7.06% -25.89% +15.20%
75th Percentile £83.38 £68.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.60 £79.17
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -1.86% -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 14,481 8,747 10,114
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.47% 30.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,770 5,471 6,455
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £433 £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 £526
% change year-on-year - -0.19% -4.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,126 677 736
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.32 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -19 972 £525 -4.55% 3,654
South East +1 475 £500 +5.26% 1,083
North of England -16 330 £470 +4.50% 848
North West -10 192 £459 -2.39% 458
Midlands -32 176 £450 +0.67% 522
East of England -11 132 £413 -8.33% 587
West Midlands -36 131 £450 - 292
Yorkshire -8 124 £500 +23.84% 259
South West -22 123 £415 +10.67% 492
East Midlands -26 43 £475 +33.80% 230
North East -47 14 £450 +130.77% 152
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
1 139 (6.18%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.62%) Confluence
3 64 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.29%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) 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%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.089%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 222 (9.86%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 122 (5.42%) Microsoft Project
4 109 (4.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (2.09%) 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 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.36%) Simulink
12 6 (0.27%) Windchill
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
14 4 (0.18%) Trello
15 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (2.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) 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%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
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%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 524 (23.28%) Azure
2 287 (12.75%) AWS
3 210 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
4 208 (9.24%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.44%) Entra ID
6 129 (5.73%) GCP
7 97 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
8 78 (3.47%) SaaS
9 55 (2.44%) GitHub
10 48 (2.13%) PowerApps
11 47 (2.09%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.91%) OneDrive
13 41 (1.82%) Serverless
14 40 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
15 39 (1.73%) Snowflake
16 37 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
17 35 (1.55%) Figma
18 25 (1.11%) IaaS
19 24 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
20 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.62%) Firewall
2 72 (3.20%) DNS
3 67 (2.98%) Network Security
4 62 (2.75%) TCP/IP
5 59 (2.62%) VPN
6 42 (1.87%) DHCP
7 38 (1.69%) WAN
8 34 (1.51%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
11 18 (0.80%) Internet
12 17 (0.76%) VLAN
13 15 (0.67%) 3GPP
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) SSH
13 15 (0.67%) SSL
14 13 (0.58%) 5G
15 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
15 12 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (7.33%) Power BI
2 97 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 45 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
6 41 (1.82%) Metadata
7 32 (1.42%) Tableau
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.16%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.98%) MySQL
13 21 (0.93%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Power Query
16 13 (0.58%) Data Mining
17 12 (0.53%) GIS
17 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 9 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 171 (7.60%) JIRA
2 114 (5.06%) Git
3 49 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.00%) GitLab
5 36 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.76%) Selenium
6 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
7 12 (0.53%) JUnit
7 12 (0.53%) MLflow
7 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
8 11 (0.49%) Subversion
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
1 983 (43.67%) Social Skills
2 651 (28.92%) Finance
3 518 (23.01%) Analytical Skills
4 175 (7.77%) Public Sector
5 172 (7.64%) Banking
6 143 (6.35%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (4.93%) Aerospace
8 93 (4.13%) Marketing
9 92 (4.09%) Manufacturing
10 90 (4.00%) Legal
11 78 (3.47%) Presentation Skills
11 78 (3.47%) Telecoms
12 77 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
13 63 (2.80%) Retail
14 62 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
15 50 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 47 (2.09%) Law
17 42 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
18 40 (1.78%) Front Office
19 36 (1.60%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 307 (13.64%) Analyst
2 249 (11.06%) Senior
3 183 (8.13%) Lead
4 162 (7.20%) Developer
5 151 (6.71%) Architect
6 141 (6.26%) Business Analyst
7 122 (5.42%) Project Manager
8 70 (3.11%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.71%) IT Support
9 61 (2.71%) Support Engineer
10 58 (2.58%) Consultant
11 56 (2.49%) Product Manager
12 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
13 51 (2.27%) Designer
13 51 (2.27%) IT Manager
14 50 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
15 49 (2.18%) Solutions Architect
16 45 (2.00%) Software Engineer
17 41 (1.82%) Data Engineer
18 40 (1.78%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (4.00%) REST
2 89 (3.95%) .NET
3 50 (2.22%) React
4 46 (2.04%) Kafka
5 42 (1.87%) HTML
6 39 (1.73%) OAuth
6 39 (1.73%) RESTful
7 32 (1.42%) Middleware
8 31 (1.38%) .NET Framework
8 31 (1.38%) CSS
8 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
8 31 (1.38%) Web Services
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
10 28 (1.24%) OpenID
11 27 (1.20%) LDAP
11 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
12 26 (1.16%) SailPoint
12 26 (1.16%) XML
13 24 (1.07%) AngularJS
14 23 (1.02%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.31%) Management Information System
2 134 (5.95%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.91%) Onboarding
4 93 (4.13%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.86%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.07%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.58%) Algorithms
7 58 (2.58%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.27%) Security Posture
9 44 (1.95%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
11 41 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.82%) Virtual Team
12 39 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.55%) Life Science
14 33 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.38%) AI Agents
15 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.38%) PMI
15 31 (1.38%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 281 (12.48%) Windows
2 168 (7.46%) Linux
3 66 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.58%) Unix
5 45 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.93%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Debian
11 4 (0.18%) Rocky
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) VMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 775 (34.43%) Computer Science
2 627 (27.85%) Agile
3 593 (26.34%) Problem-Solving
4 416 (18.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 408 (18.13%) Continuous Improvement
6 351 (15.59%) AI
7 303 (13.46%) DevOps
8 289 (12.84%) Project Management
9 281 (12.48%) Analytics
10 268 (11.91%) ITIL
11 261 (11.59%) CI/CD
12 240 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 228 (10.13%) Cybersecurity
14 221 (9.82%) Decision-Making
15 205 (9.11%) Change Management
16 204 (9.06%) Roadmaps
17 200 (8.88%) Software Engineering
18 199 (8.84%) PRINCE2
19 194 (8.62%) Scrum
20 187 (8.31%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 383 (17.01%) Python
2 320 (14.22%) SQL
3 159 (7.06%) PowerShell
4 146 (6.49%) Java
5 98 (4.35%) C#
6 92 (4.09%) JavaScript
7 52 (2.31%) Bash
8 44 (1.95%) C++
9 31 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 24 (1.07%) R
12 23 (1.02%) Bicep
12 23 (1.02%) C
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 21 (0.93%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) Scala
17 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 445 (19.77%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (18.66%) Security Cleared
3 272 (12.08%) SC Cleared
4 191 (8.49%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.24%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (5.15%) PMP
8 113 (5.02%) CISSP
9 81 (3.60%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.24%) DV Cleared
11 67 (2.98%) Azure Certification
12 57 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.35%) CISM
14 50 (2.22%) PhD
15 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 36 (1.60%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.60%) CCNP
17 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
17 32 (1.42%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.29%) QA
2 116 (5.15%) Data Quality
3 107 (4.75%) NIST
4 97 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.86%) PMO
6 66 (2.93%) GDPR
7 42 (1.87%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.93%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) PCI DSS
12 19 (0.84%) NCSC
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.49%) IFRS
15 10 (0.44%) COBIT
15 10 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.44%) P3O
16 8 (0.36%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 192 (8.53%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.89%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) 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
7 8 (0.36%) 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 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 93 (4.13%) Terraform
3 74 (3.29%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.89%) Ansible
5 37 (1.64%) SCCM
6 27 (1.20%) 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%) Control-M
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.27%) Nessus
17 5 (0.22%) CASB
Vendors
1 586 (26.03%) Microsoft
2 150 (6.66%) Oracle
3 142 (6.31%) ServiceNow
4 124 (5.51%) SAP
5 87 (3.86%) Google
6 69 (3.07%) VMware
7 62 (2.75%) Cisco
8 58 (2.58%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.27%) Databricks
9 51 (2.27%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
11 36 (1.60%) Splunk
12 31 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 28 (1.24%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.20%) Citrix
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 20 (0.89%) Apple
15 20 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
16 19 (0.84%) Ariba
17 17 (0.76%) HP