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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -11 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,166 1,849 3,112
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 7.43% 8.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.90% 23.84% 27.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,200 1,106 1,669
10th Percentile £208 £235 £235
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £625
90th Percentile £713 £764 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 137 372
10th Percentile £18.95 £18.00 £15.77
25th Percentile £28.00 £26.32 £24.16
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +24.22% -10.56%
75th Percentile £83.94 £70.16 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.98
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.15%

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 13,625 7,757 11,501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.19% 30.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,174 4,885 7,098
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year - -1.75% -2.84%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,037 498 1,016
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.00 £20.24
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.13 £41.38
Median % change year-on-year +74.27% -27.20% -24.76%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.38 £80.30 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 -19 921 £506 -8.05% 781
South East -2 407 £500 +4.99% 609
North of England -10 333 £447 -1.76% 408
Midlands -22 197 £523 +46.36% 255
North West -7 182 £437 -4.28% 241
West Midlands -27 144 £487 +23.56% 136
East of England -4 141 £450 -10.00% 202
Yorkshire -12 136 £500 +11.86% 123
South West -22 119 £450 -5.26% 215
East Midlands -13 51 £545 +54.39% 119
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 55
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
1 119 (5.49%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.85%) Confluence
3 65 (3.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.39%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.69%) Apache
7 11 (0.51%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.092%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 251 (11.59%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (9.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.68%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (5.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.54%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.046%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 51 (2.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.65%) Primavera
3 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.18%) HFM
9 4 (0.18%) Magento
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 475 (21.93%) Azure
2 279 (12.88%) AWS
3 192 (8.86%) Microsoft 365
4 173 (7.99%) Power Platform
5 130 (6.00%) Entra ID
6 105 (4.85%) GCP
7 78 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.51%) SaaS
9 51 (2.35%) GitHub
10 34 (1.57%) Figma
11 33 (1.52%) Serverless
12 32 (1.48%) OneDrive
12 32 (1.48%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.43%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.39%) Google Workspace
14 30 (1.39%) Snowflake
15 29 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
15 29 (1.34%) PaaS
16 25 (1.15%) IaaS
17 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.43%) Firewall
2 65 (3.00%) TCP/IP
3 63 (2.91%) DNS
4 57 (2.63%) Network Security
5 46 (2.12%) WAN
6 43 (1.99%) LAN
7 41 (1.89%) VPN
8 33 (1.52%) DHCP
9 25 (1.15%) Wireless
10 21 (0.97%) BGP
11 20 (0.92%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
13 18 (0.83%) OSPF
14 14 (0.65%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.65%) Skype
15 12 (0.55%) SAN
15 12 (0.55%) SSH
16 11 (0.51%) DMZ
16 11 (0.51%) Internet
17 10 (0.46%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.74%) Power BI
2 102 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
4 46 (2.12%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.80%) Tableau
7 31 (1.43%) Metadata
7 31 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.29%) Big Data
9 23 (1.06%) MongoDB
10 21 (0.97%) MySQL
11 19 (0.88%) Oracle Database
12 18 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
15 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.51%) Power Query
17 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 187 (8.63%) JIRA
2 100 (4.62%) Git
3 40 (1.85%) GitLab
3 40 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
5 21 (0.97%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.88%) MLflow
7 14 (0.65%) Selenium
8 11 (0.51%) Gradle
8 11 (0.51%) JUnit
8 11 (0.51%) Postman
9 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.42%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.37%) Maven
12 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.32%) Subversion
13 6 (0.28%) Burp Suite
13 6 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 994 (45.89%) Social Skills
2 668 (30.84%) Finance
3 442 (20.41%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.54%) Banking
5 183 (8.45%) Public Sector
6 126 (5.82%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (5.03%) Presentation Skills
8 93 (4.29%) Marketing
9 87 (4.02%) Aerospace
10 84 (3.88%) Legal
11 80 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
12 75 (3.46%) Manufacturing
13 70 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
14 57 (2.63%) Telecoms
15 55 (2.54%) Retail
16 50 (2.31%) Law
17 41 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.80%) Front Office
19 32 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
20 31 (1.43%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 319 (14.73%) Analyst
2 244 (11.27%) Senior
3 169 (7.80%) Architect
4 158 (7.29%) Lead
5 149 (6.88%) Developer
6 144 (6.65%) Business Analyst
6 144 (6.65%) Project Manager
7 65 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
8 60 (2.77%) Consultant
9 58 (2.68%) Senior Analyst
9 58 (2.68%) Senior Manager
10 56 (2.59%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.40%) Designer
12 51 (2.35%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.31%) Product Manager
14 47 (2.17%) Delivery Manager
15 44 (2.03%) IT Manager
16 42 (1.94%) IT Analyst
16 42 (1.94%) IT Support
16 42 (1.94%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (4.25%) REST
2 82 (3.79%) .NET
3 56 (2.59%) React
4 44 (2.03%) Kafka
5 43 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
6 42 (1.94%) Middleware
7 37 (1.71%) .NET Framework
7 37 (1.71%) HTML
8 35 (1.62%) OAuth
8 35 (1.62%) RESTful
9 28 (1.29%) Web Services
10 27 (1.25%) XML
11 26 (1.20%) CSS
11 26 (1.20%) Spring Boot
12 25 (1.15%) SAML
12 25 (1.15%) Spring
13 24 (1.11%) JSON
14 23 (1.06%) SOAP
15 22 (1.02%) AngularJS
15 22 (1.02%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 169 (7.80%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 128 (5.91%) Product Ownership
4 89 (4.11%) Self-Motivation
5 79 (3.65%) Cloud Native
6 68 (3.14%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.35%) Data Structures
7 51 (2.35%) Virtual Team
8 45 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (2.03%) Algorithms
10 43 (1.99%) Security Posture
11 42 (1.94%) PMI
12 40 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
12 40 (1.85%) Operational Technology
13 36 (1.66%) Robotics
14 32 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.34%) Derivative
15 29 (1.34%) Life Science
16 28 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 299 (13.80%) Windows
2 169 (7.80%) Linux
3 71 (3.28%) Unix
3 71 (3.28%) Windows Server
4 55 (2.54%) Windows 10
5 34 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 28 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 27 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.15%) Android
9 12 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 714 (32.96%) Computer Science
2 612 (28.25%) Agile
3 551 (25.44%) Problem-Solving
4 355 (16.39%) Stakeholder Management
5 340 (15.70%) AI
5 340 (15.70%) Continuous Improvement
6 292 (13.48%) DevOps
7 264 (12.19%) Project Management
8 246 (11.36%) Analytics
8 246 (11.36%) CI/CD
9 222 (10.25%) Decision-Making
10 217 (10.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 207 (9.56%) Cybersecurity
12 204 (9.42%) Change Management
13 203 (9.37%) ITIL
14 200 (9.23%) Roadmaps
15 193 (8.91%) Migration
16 180 (8.31%) Risk Management
17 172 (7.94%) Project Delivery
18 171 (7.89%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 354 (16.34%) Python
2 323 (14.91%) SQL
3 146 (6.74%) Java
4 126 (5.82%) PowerShell
5 89 (4.11%) C#
6 84 (3.88%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.85%) Bash
8 37 (1.71%) C++
9 26 (1.20%) TypeScript
10 24 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.06%) R
12 18 (0.83%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.78%) C
14 13 (0.60%) Rust
15 12 (0.55%) Go
15 12 (0.55%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.55%) Perl
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.42%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 437 (20.18%) Computer Science Degree
2 383 (17.68%) Security Cleared
3 260 (12.00%) SC Cleared
4 211 (9.74%) Master's Degree
5 132 (6.09%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.31%) CISSP
7 114 (5.26%) PMP
8 86 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.59%) CISM
12 52 (2.40%) DV Cleared
13 49 (2.26%) Azure Certification
14 42 (1.94%) PhD
15 36 (1.66%) CCNP
16 35 (1.62%) CCNA
17 33 (1.52%) AWS Certification
17 33 (1.52%) MBA
18 31 (1.43%) CBAP
19 30 (1.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (5.54%) QA
2 110 (5.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 110 (5.08%) NIST
3 96 (4.43%) PMO
4 93 (4.29%) Data Quality
5 90 (4.16%) GDPR
6 47 (2.17%) SLA
7 38 (1.75%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.66%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.15%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) NCSC
12 16 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.74%) IFRS
13 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
14 11 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.51%) HIPAA
15 9 (0.42%) COBIT
16 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 173 (7.99%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.40%) Docker
3 38 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.29%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.97%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.42%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.28%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.18%) XenApp
10 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.91%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.69%) Terraform
3 73 (3.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.86%) Ansible
5 34 (1.57%) SCCM
6 33 (1.52%) Grafana
7 31 (1.43%) Prometheus
8 24 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
10 15 (0.69%) Puppet
11 14 (0.65%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.51%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.42%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) Kibana
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Kiali
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
Vendors
1 502 (23.18%) Microsoft
2 153 (7.06%) Oracle
3 120 (5.54%) SAP
4 109 (5.03%) ServiceNow
5 89 (4.11%) Google
6 59 (2.72%) Cisco
7 47 (2.17%) Databricks
8 46 (2.12%) Citrix
9 43 (1.99%) VMware
10 39 (1.80%) Salesforce
10 39 (1.80%) Splunk
11 37 (1.71%) Adobe
12 36 (1.66%) IBM
13 28 (1.29%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.25%) CyberArk
15 23 (1.06%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.06%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.92%) Okta
16 20 (0.92%) Siemens
17 19 (0.88%) Ariba