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 21 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,243 1,923 3,194
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.99% 7.85% 8.47%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.64% 25.25% 27.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,324 1,134 1,749
10th Percentile £300 £250 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £644
90th Percentile £738 £788 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 149 333
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.80 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £30.25 £22.75
Median hourly rate £45.46 £52.50 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% +31.51% -11.29%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £60.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.40
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +1.02% +20.00% -16.67%

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 12,713 7,617 11,798
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.96% 31.10% 31.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,453 4,837 7,318
10th Percentile £331 £290 £300
25th Percentile £423 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 420 909
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £25.26 £18.13
Median hourly rate £29.61 £50.00 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -40.78% +29.03% -22.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £68.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £84.60 £82.25 £77.10
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £42.50 £38.16
% change year-on-year -29.41% +11.39% -26.63%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 21 March 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 -12 980 £514 -6.59% 878
South East -2 366 £481 -3.75% 686
North of England -4 347 £444 -10.76% 486
Midlands -22 208 £500 +40.45% 321
North West -5 181 £400 -19.52% 244
South West +2 153 £688 +26.44% 212
West Midlands -23 153 £498 +53.08% 181
Yorkshire -9 150 £516 +11.98% 175
East of England -6 134 £500 - 240
East Midlands -17 54 £531 +49.16% 139
North East -18 17 £364 -23.37% 75
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
1 183 (8.16%) Confluence
2 105 (4.68%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.65%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.62%) Apache
7 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.22%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.13%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
12 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 284 (12.66%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 190 (8.47%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (3.21%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 9 (0.40%) Simulink
10 7 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.13%) InVision
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.089%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.045%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.045%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.045%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.045%) Revit
Business Applications
1 39 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 23 (1.03%) Primavera
3 20 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 473 (21.09%) Azure
2 272 (12.13%) AWS
3 186 (8.29%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.27%) Power Platform
5 128 (5.71%) GCP
6 107 (4.77%) Entra ID
7 105 (4.68%) SaaS
8 80 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 73 (3.25%) GitHub
10 47 (2.10%) Serverless
11 39 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.56%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.43%) IaaS
13 32 (1.43%) PaaS
14 30 (1.34%) Google Workspace
15 29 (1.29%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (1.20%) OCI
16 27 (1.20%) PowerApps
17 26 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.50%) Firewall
2 56 (2.50%) LAN
3 54 (2.41%) WAN
4 46 (2.05%) DNS
5 43 (1.92%) Network Security
5 43 (1.92%) TCP/IP
6 39 (1.74%) VPN
7 28 (1.25%) Wireless
8 25 (1.11%) BGP
9 22 (0.98%) HTTP
10 21 (0.94%) DHCP
10 21 (0.94%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.89%) Internet
11 20 (0.89%) OSPF
12 17 (0.76%) Skype
12 17 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) Unified Communications
13 15 (0.67%) VLAN
14 14 (0.62%) SSH
14 14 (0.62%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (5.80%) Power BI
2 81 (3.61%) PostgreSQL
3 78 (3.48%) SQL Server
4 54 (2.41%) NoSQL
5 50 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.96%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.78%) Tableau
8 33 (1.47%) MySQL
9 32 (1.43%) Big Data
10 22 (0.98%) Metadata
11 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.76%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.76%) Hadoop
12 17 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 11 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
13 11 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 270 (12.04%) JIRA
2 107 (4.77%) Git
3 67 (2.99%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.32%) GitLab
5 30 (1.34%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.76%) MLflow
8 16 (0.71%) Selenium
9 15 (0.67%) Postman
10 13 (0.58%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.49%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 10 (0.45%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.40%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.36%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.31%) JUnit
16 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
16 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,083 (48.28%) Social Skills
2 696 (31.03%) Finance
3 518 (23.09%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (10.39%) Banking
5 182 (8.11%) Public Sector
6 108 (4.81%) Presentation Skills
7 89 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
8 81 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
8 81 (3.61%) Marketing
9 78 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
10 72 (3.21%) Legal
11 71 (3.17%) Manufacturing
12 66 (2.94%) Aerospace
13 52 (2.32%) Military
14 51 (2.27%) Front Office
15 49 (2.18%) Financial Institution
16 47 (2.10%) Telecoms
17 44 (1.96%) Retail
18 43 (1.92%) Law
19 41 (1.83%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 321 (14.31%) Analyst
2 227 (10.12%) Senior
3 188 (8.38%) Lead
4 179 (7.98%) Architect
4 179 (7.98%) Developer
5 166 (7.40%) Project Manager
6 152 (6.78%) Business Analyst
7 76 (3.39%) Consultant
8 64 (2.85%) Delivery Manager
9 59 (2.63%) Software Engineer
9 59 (2.63%) Technical Support
10 57 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (2.23%) Senior Analyst
12 49 (2.18%) Security Engineer
13 48 (2.14%) Data Scientist
14 46 (2.05%) Product Manager
15 36 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
16 35 (1.56%) IT Support
16 35 (1.56%) Senior Business Analyst
17 33 (1.47%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.46%) REST
2 62 (2.76%) .NET
3 59 (2.63%) RESTful
4 51 (2.27%) React
5 47 (2.10%) HTML
6 46 (2.05%) Middleware
7 43 (1.92%) Kafka
8 37 (1.65%) Elastic Stack
8 37 (1.65%) XML
9 36 (1.60%) CSS
9 36 (1.60%) OAuth
10 35 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
10 35 (1.56%) Spring
11 34 (1.52%) JSON
12 33 (1.47%) SOAP
13 31 (1.38%) Spring Boot
14 30 (1.34%) Pandas
15 29 (1.29%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.29%) TensorFlow
16 26 (1.16%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.20%) Management Information System
2 150 (6.69%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.90%) Onboarding
4 96 (4.28%) Cloud Native
5 74 (3.30%) Virtual Team
6 67 (2.99%) Distributed Systems
7 66 (2.94%) Algorithms
7 66 (2.94%) Data Centre
8 58 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
9 50 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
9 50 (2.23%) Data Structures
10 49 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (2.14%) PMI
12 43 (1.92%) Derivative
13 36 (1.60%) Security Posture
14 34 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
15 31 (1.38%) Equities
16 29 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
17 28 (1.25%) NHS
17 28 (1.25%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 259 (11.55%) Windows
2 169 (7.53%) Linux
3 70 (3.12%) Unix
4 65 (2.90%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.41%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.80%) Android
8 16 (0.71%) Mac OS
9 14 (0.62%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.53%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
17 3 (0.13%) CentOS
17 3 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 837 (37.32%) Computer Science
2 738 (32.90%) Agile
3 609 (27.15%) Problem-Solving
4 384 (17.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 336 (14.98%) DevOps
6 329 (14.67%) AI
7 314 (14.00%) Project Management
8 299 (13.33%) Continuous Improvement
9 263 (11.73%) CI/CD
10 254 (11.32%) Change Management
11 247 (11.01%) Analytics
12 243 (10.83%) Cybersecurity
13 236 (10.52%) Decision-Making
13 236 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 235 (10.48%) ITIL
15 217 (9.67%) Migration
16 216 (9.63%) Risk Management
17 210 (9.36%) PRINCE2
18 206 (9.18%) Project Delivery
19 199 (8.87%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 392 (17.48%) Python
2 328 (14.62%) SQL
3 160 (7.13%) Java
4 122 (5.44%) PowerShell
5 86 (3.83%) JavaScript
6 70 (3.12%) C#
7 62 (2.76%) C++
8 47 (2.10%) TypeScript
9 40 (1.78%) Bash
10 36 (1.60%) Go
11 26 (1.16%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.16%) R
12 18 (0.80%) Perl
13 16 (0.71%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.67%) Rust
14 15 (0.67%) T-SQL
15 13 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.49%) C
16 11 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 535 (23.85%) Computer Science Degree
2 442 (19.71%) Security Cleared
3 318 (14.18%) Master's Degree
4 317 (14.13%) SC Cleared
5 139 (6.20%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.57%) PMP
7 121 (5.39%) CISSP
8 90 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (3.21%) CISM
10 71 (3.17%) PhD
11 59 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
13 54 (2.41%) Azure Certification
14 49 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
14 49 (2.18%) DV Cleared
15 38 (1.69%) CCNP
16 34 (1.52%) MBA
17 33 (1.47%) CBAP
18 29 (1.29%) MCSE
19 28 (1.25%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.64%) QA
2 119 (5.31%) GDPR
3 100 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 99 (4.41%) PMO
5 91 (4.06%) NIST
6 77 (3.43%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.23%) PCI DSS
8 43 (1.92%) SLA
9 37 (1.65%) Accessibility
10 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.98%) GRC
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 15 (0.67%) WCAG
13 14 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.62%) IFRS
14 13 (0.58%) Basel III
14 13 (0.58%) SOC 2
15 12 (0.53%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.49%) HIPAA
System Software
1 148 (6.60%) Docker
2 142 (6.33%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.58%) Firmware
6 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.22%) XenApp
8 5 (0.22%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.089%) HDFS
11 2 (0.089%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.045%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 161 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 99 (4.41%) Terraform
3 69 (3.08%) Ansible
4 66 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
5 47 (2.10%) Grafana
6 39 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.74%) SCCM
7 30 (1.34%) OPNET
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.80%) Puppet
10 16 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.58%) Kibana
11 13 (0.58%) Nmap
12 11 (0.49%) SCOM
13 9 (0.40%) Kiali
14 8 (0.36%) Argo
14 8 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.31%) vCenter Server
16 5 (0.22%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 486 (21.67%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.55%) Oracle
3 116 (5.17%) ServiceNow
4 112 (4.99%) SAP
5 101 (4.50%) Google
6 71 (3.17%) Cisco
7 67 (2.99%) Splunk
8 55 (2.45%) Remedy
9 52 (2.32%) Atlassian
10 48 (2.14%) Databricks
11 46 (2.05%) VMware
12 44 (1.96%) Citrix
12 44 (1.96%) IBM
13 41 (1.83%) Salesforce
14 37 (1.65%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.25%) CheckPoint
16 26 (1.16%) Red Hat
17 23 (1.03%) Adobe
17 23 (1.03%) Informatica
18 21 (0.94%) Aruba