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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -12 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,155 1,841 3,081
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.06% 7.52% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.96% 23.99% 26.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,196 1,097 1,671
10th Percentile £213 £235 £235
25th Percentile £375 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £628
90th Percentile £723 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 217 138 373
10th Percentile £19.80 £18.03 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.00 £26.59 £24.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +25.00% -18.35%
75th Percentile £84.00 £74.38 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.23 £73.50
UK median hourly rate £51.44 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +2.88% +25.00% -20.00%

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 13,505 7,674 11,449
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.71% 31.36% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,063 4,834 7,080
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year - -2.05% -2.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,032 471 1,012
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.63 £22.16 £18.99
Median hourly rate £50.24 £32.00 £40.29
Median % change year-on-year +57.01% -20.57% -26.75%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.43 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.35 £80.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +63.93% -23.75% -27.27%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -16 927 £513 -6.82% 766
South East 0 396 £500 +5.26% 616
North of England -13 326 £447 -3.35% 447
Midlands -24 200 £513 +43.16% 249
North West -11 175 £418 -10.87% 241
West Midlands -26 144 £481 +16.61% 138
East of England -3 137 £450 -10.00% 212
Yorkshire -8 136 £500 +11.86% 158
South West -21 117 £469 -1.26% 233
East Midlands -17 54 £545 +55.71% 111
North East -31 15 £450 +130.77% 60
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 (5.52%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.92%) Confluence
3 64 (2.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.58%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.70%) Apache
7 9 (0.42%) IIS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.28%) Camunda
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.19%) Appian
10 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 242 (11.23%) Microsoft Office
2 197 (9.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 121 (5.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 120 (5.57%) Microsoft Project
5 52 (2.41%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.42%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.28%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
14 1 (0.046%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 52 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.56%) Primavera
3 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.42%) 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 ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.19%) HFM
9 4 (0.19%) Magento
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 473 (21.95%) Azure
2 280 (12.99%) AWS
3 187 (8.68%) Microsoft 365
4 166 (7.70%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.66%) Entra ID
6 97 (4.50%) GCP
7 80 (3.71%) SaaS
8 75 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (2.51%) GitHub
10 35 (1.62%) Figma
11 32 (1.48%) PaaS
11 32 (1.48%) Power Automate
12 31 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
12 31 (1.44%) OneDrive
12 31 (1.44%) PowerApps
12 31 (1.44%) Serverless
13 30 (1.39%) Google Workspace
13 30 (1.39%) Snowflake
14 28 (1.30%) IaaS
15 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 95 (4.41%) Firewall
2 61 (2.83%) DNS
2 61 (2.83%) TCP/IP
3 53 (2.46%) Network Security
4 49 (2.27%) WAN
5 48 (2.23%) LAN
6 39 (1.81%) VPN
7 32 (1.48%) DHCP
8 25 (1.16%) Wireless
9 22 (1.02%) BGP
10 21 (0.97%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.88%) OSPF
12 18 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.70%) Skype
14 13 (0.60%) 3GPP
15 12 (0.56%) SAN
15 12 (0.56%) SSH
15 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.51%) VoIP
17 10 (0.46%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (6.45%) Power BI
2 99 (4.59%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.72%) Tableau
7 31 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.35%) Big Data
9 28 (1.30%) Metadata
10 22 (1.02%) MongoDB
10 22 (1.02%) MySQL
11 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
13 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
15 12 (0.56%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 10 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 183 (8.49%) JIRA
2 95 (4.41%) Git
3 41 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 14 (0.65%) Gradle
10 13 (0.60%) JUnit
11 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.56%) Postman
12 10 (0.46%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.46%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.37%) Maven
15 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.32%) Burp Suite
15 7 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 995 (46.17%) Social Skills
2 668 (31.00%) Finance
3 428 (19.86%) Analytical Skills
4 189 (8.77%) Banking
5 181 (8.40%) Public Sector
6 121 (5.61%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
8 93 (4.32%) Marketing
9 84 (3.90%) Aerospace
10 83 (3.85%) Legal
11 76 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
11 76 (3.53%) Manufacturing
12 70 (3.25%) Influencing Skills
13 57 (2.65%) Telecoms
14 53 (2.46%) Law
15 52 (2.41%) Retail
16 41 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.67%) Front Office
18 34 (1.58%) Investment Banking
19 31 (1.44%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 316 (14.66%) Analyst
2 249 (11.55%) Senior
3 168 (7.80%) Architect
4 161 (7.47%) Lead
5 151 (7.01%) Developer
6 147 (6.82%) Business Analyst
7 141 (6.54%) Project Manager
8 64 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
9 58 (2.69%) Consultant
9 58 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
10 57 (2.65%) Senior Manager
10 57 (2.65%) Software Engineer
11 56 (2.60%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.46%) Delivery Manager
12 53 (2.46%) Designer
13 48 (2.23%) Product Manager
14 42 (1.95%) IT Manager
15 41 (1.90%) IT Analyst
15 41 (1.90%) Security Engineer
15 41 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.32%) REST
2 77 (3.57%) .NET
3 56 (2.60%) React
4 47 (2.18%) Kafka
4 47 (2.18%) Oracle Fusion
5 45 (2.09%) Middleware
6 37 (1.72%) HTML
7 33 (1.53%) .NET Framework
7 33 (1.53%) RESTful
8 31 (1.44%) OAuth
8 31 (1.44%) Spring Boot
9 29 (1.35%) XML
10 27 (1.25%) CSS
10 27 (1.25%) Spring
11 26 (1.21%) Web Services
12 24 (1.11%) AngularJS
12 24 (1.11%) JSON
13 23 (1.07%) SOAP
14 22 (1.02%) Pandas
14 22 (1.02%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 157 (7.29%) Management Information System
2 130 (6.03%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.75%) Product Ownership
4 86 (3.99%) Self-Motivation
5 75 (3.48%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.20%) Data Centre
7 55 (2.55%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.32%) Data Structures
9 47 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (2.04%) Algorithms
10 44 (2.04%) PMI
11 42 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
12 38 (1.76%) Robotics
12 38 (1.76%) Security Posture
13 35 (1.62%) Operational Technology
14 32 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.35%) Derivative
15 29 (1.35%) Life Science
16 27 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 289 (13.41%) Windows
2 173 (8.03%) Linux
3 74 (3.43%) Unix
4 68 (3.16%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.55%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.30%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.25%) Android
8 27 (1.25%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.19%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Rocky
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
13 4 (0.19%) VMS
14 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (33.87%) Computer Science
2 600 (27.84%) Agile
3 542 (25.15%) Problem-Solving
4 347 (16.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 330 (15.31%) AI
6 329 (15.27%) Continuous Improvement
7 291 (13.50%) DevOps
8 261 (12.11%) Project Management
9 243 (11.28%) CI/CD
10 237 (11.00%) Analytics
11 223 (10.35%) Decision-Making
12 217 (10.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 205 (9.51%) Cybersecurity
14 197 (9.14%) Change Management
15 194 (9.00%) Migration
16 193 (8.96%) Roadmaps
17 191 (8.86%) ITIL
18 180 (8.35%) Risk Management
19 178 (8.26%) Software Engineering
20 171 (7.94%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 352 (16.33%) Python
2 327 (15.17%) SQL
3 159 (7.38%) Java
4 119 (5.52%) PowerShell
5 89 (4.13%) C#
6 86 (3.99%) JavaScript
7 46 (2.13%) C++
8 41 (1.90%) Bash
9 29 (1.35%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
10 23 (1.07%) R
11 17 (0.79%) C
11 17 (0.79%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.74%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.65%) Rust
14 13 (0.60%) Go
14 13 (0.60%) Perl
15 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 451 (20.93%) Computer Science Degree
2 388 (18.00%) Security Cleared
3 264 (12.25%) SC Cleared
4 209 (9.70%) Master's Degree
5 128 (5.94%) PMI Certification
6 110 (5.10%) CISSP
7 109 (5.06%) PMP
8 82 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.67%) Cisco Certification
10 59 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.60%) CISM
12 50 (2.32%) DV Cleared
13 49 (2.27%) Azure Certification
14 41 (1.90%) CCNP
14 41 (1.90%) PhD
15 36 (1.67%) CCNA
16 34 (1.58%) CBAP
17 31 (1.44%) MBA
18 30 (1.39%) AWS Certification
18 30 (1.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (5.66%) QA
2 110 (5.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 110 (5.10%) NIST
3 95 (4.41%) PMO
4 91 (4.22%) GDPR
5 88 (4.08%) Data Quality
6 47 (2.18%) SLA
7 39 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.72%) PCI DSS
9 27 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (1.07%) GRC
11 19 (0.88%) NCSC
12 16 (0.74%) IFRS
13 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.51%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
18 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 162 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.43%) Docker
3 38 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.30%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.97%) Firmware
6 9 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.14%) NFS
10 3 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.62%) Terraform
3 70 (3.25%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.78%) Ansible
5 35 (1.62%) Grafana
6 34 (1.58%) SCCM
7 33 (1.53%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.65%) Puppet
12 13 (0.60%) Progress Chef
13 10 (0.46%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.37%) Kiali
15 8 (0.37%) Kibana
15 8 (0.37%) Nessus
16 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
17 6 (0.28%) Nmap
18 5 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 497 (23.06%) Microsoft
2 160 (7.42%) Oracle
3 121 (5.61%) SAP
4 103 (4.78%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.76%) Google
6 67 (3.11%) Cisco
7 50 (2.32%) Databricks
8 43 (2.00%) Citrix
8 43 (2.00%) VMware
9 42 (1.95%) Salesforce
9 42 (1.95%) Splunk
10 35 (1.62%) Adobe
10 35 (1.62%) IBM
11 33 (1.53%) Palo Alto
12 27 (1.25%) CheckPoint
13 25 (1.16%) CyberArk
14 22 (1.02%) Aruba
14 22 (1.02%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.97%) Siemens
16 19 (0.88%) Ariba