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 18 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,122 2,093 3,092
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.67% 7.79% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.41% 25.61% 27.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,246 1,155 1,784
10th Percentile £293 £250 £225
25th Percentile £400 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £665 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £513
% change year-on-year -1.96% -0.49% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 126 248
10th Percentile £14.25 £20.88 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.50 £30.36 £22.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -7.97% +6.77%
75th Percentile £60.61 £71.19 £66.44
90th Percentile £90.00 £85.00 £78.85
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £45.21
% change year-on-year -16.25% -11.52% +13.03%

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 10,932 8,174 11,381
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.37% 30.42% 30.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,232 4,967 7,148
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £416 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 864 397 734
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.91 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £22.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -7.64% +11.11%
75th Percentile £61.18 £67.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.55 £82.25 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £50.00
% change year-on-year -36.36% -20.96% +11.11%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 18 January 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 -3 997 £525 -4.55% 796
North of England -6 311 £425 -15.00% 582
South East +1 275 £475 -5.00% 1,186
Midlands -13 207 £513 +20.59% 443
South West +5 170 £650 +21.95% 394
North West -1 167 £389 -22.25% 274
West Midlands -15 149 £525 +7.69% 190
Yorkshire -10 134 £516 +3.25% 221
East of England -13 114 £505 +12.22% 490
East Midlands -6 58 £492 +38.20% 246
North East -16 11 £364 -27.20% 96
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
1 184 (8.67%) Confluence
2 109 (5.14%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.71%) nginx
6 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.61%) Apache
8 10 (0.47%) IIS
9 8 (0.38%) CMS
10 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.33%) SAS
11 5 (0.24%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.19%) Luigi
12 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 269 (12.68%) Microsoft Office
2 218 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 173 (8.15%) Microsoft Project
4 112 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.72%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.90%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Simulink
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 9 (0.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.38%) Sketch
10 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.19%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.094%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.094%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.094%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.094%) Revit
14 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.99%) Primavera
4 18 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.71%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.61%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.57%) SAP EWM
8 10 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.47%) Oracle EBS R12
9 8 (0.38%) Oracle Financials
9 8 (0.38%) SAP ERP
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 422 (19.89%) Azure
2 258 (12.16%) AWS
3 186 (8.77%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (7.16%) Power Platform
5 134 (6.31%) GCP
6 99 (4.67%) SaaS
7 83 (3.91%) GitHub
8 77 (3.63%) Entra ID
9 68 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
10 60 (2.83%) Serverless
11 43 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.79%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.60%) OCI
14 31 (1.46%) IaaS
15 29 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.37%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.32%) PaaS
17 25 (1.18%) Amazon ECS
17 25 (1.18%) Amazon S3
18 24 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.52%) Firewall
2 57 (2.69%) DNS
3 44 (2.07%) LAN
4 40 (1.89%) Network Security
5 39 (1.84%) VPN
5 39 (1.84%) WAN
6 31 (1.46%) HTTP
7 27 (1.27%) DHCP
8 25 (1.18%) Internet
8 25 (1.18%) Wireless
9 24 (1.13%) Skype
9 24 (1.13%) TCP/IP
10 22 (1.04%) SSH
11 20 (0.94%) BGP
11 20 (0.94%) Unified Communications
12 17 (0.80%) OSPF
13 15 (0.71%) VLAN
14 13 (0.61%) VoIP
14 13 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.57%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (5.66%) Power BI
2 75 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
2 75 (3.53%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.50%) NoSQL
4 49 (2.31%) Relational Database
5 43 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.98%) Tableau
7 37 (1.74%) MySQL
8 26 (1.23%) Big Data
9 19 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.71%) Oracle Database
12 14 (0.66%) Metadata
12 14 (0.66%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.57%) GIS
14 12 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 11 (0.52%) Amazon Aurora
15 11 (0.52%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 264 (12.44%) JIRA
2 103 (4.85%) Git
3 75 (3.53%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.50%) GitLab
5 23 (1.08%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.99%) Liquibase
7 18 (0.85%) Postman
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 12 (0.57%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.52%) JUnit
11 10 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.47%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.47%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.42%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.38%) Artifactory
13 8 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.38%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.38%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.33%) Gradle
14 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,108 (52.21%) Social Skills
2 688 (32.42%) Finance
3 517 (24.36%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (11.83%) Banking
5 153 (7.21%) Public Sector
6 100 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
7 87 (4.10%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (3.96%) Manufacturing
9 76 (3.58%) Marketing
10 72 (3.39%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (3.35%) Legal
12 65 (3.06%) Military
13 58 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
14 57 (2.69%) Financial Institution
15 47 (2.21%) Front Office
16 46 (2.17%) Investment Banking
17 44 (2.07%) Telecoms
18 39 (1.84%) Law
19 38 (1.79%) Pharmaceutical
20 36 (1.70%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 305 (14.37%) Analyst
2 223 (10.51%) Senior
3 207 (9.75%) Developer
4 166 (7.82%) Lead
5 153 (7.21%) Architect
6 149 (7.02%) Business Analyst
7 143 (6.74%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.82%) Consultant
8 81 (3.82%) Software Engineer
9 58 (2.73%) Technical Support
10 53 (2.50%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (2.36%) IT Support
11 50 (2.36%) Support Analyst
12 45 (2.12%) Security Engineer
13 41 (1.93%) Senior Software Engineer
14 37 (1.74%) Senior Developer
15 35 (1.65%) Data Scientist
16 34 (1.60%) Support Engineer
17 33 (1.56%) IT Manager
17 33 (1.56%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (5.18%) REST
2 75 (3.53%) RESTful
3 71 (3.35%) .NET
4 63 (2.97%) HTML
5 54 (2.54%) XML
6 47 (2.21%) CSS
7 44 (2.07%) Elastic Stack
7 44 (2.07%) Middleware
8 41 (1.93%) JSON
9 40 (1.89%) React
10 39 (1.84%) OAuth
11 34 (1.60%) Kafka
12 33 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
12 33 (1.56%) SOAP
13 29 (1.37%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.23%) Spring
15 25 (1.18%) Node.js
16 24 (1.13%) Pandas
16 24 (1.13%) TensorFlow
17 23 (1.08%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.81%) Management Information System
2 112 (5.28%) Product Ownership
3 97 (4.57%) Cloud Native
4 75 (3.53%) Onboarding
5 61 (2.87%) Distributed Systems
6 60 (2.83%) Algorithms
7 56 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.59%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.36%) Virtual Team
11 49 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
12 47 (2.21%) PMI
13 42 (1.98%) Derivative
14 41 (1.93%) Security Posture
15 37 (1.74%) Public Cloud
16 36 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
17 34 (1.60%) Life Science
18 30 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
19 29 (1.37%) PKI
20 28 (1.32%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 249 (11.73%) Windows
2 185 (8.72%) Linux
3 81 (3.82%) Unix
4 59 (2.78%) Windows Server
5 48 (2.26%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.08%) Android
7 19 (0.90%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.80%) Mac OS
9 17 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
10 14 (0.66%) VMS
10 14 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 9 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
13 8 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.14%) CentOS
15 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.094%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.094%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 797 (37.56%) Computer Science
2 710 (33.46%) Agile
3 631 (29.74%) Problem-Solving
4 358 (16.87%) Stakeholder Management
5 329 (15.50%) DevOps
6 316 (14.89%) Project Management
7 269 (12.68%) Change Management
8 241 (11.36%) AI
9 239 (11.26%) CI/CD
10 228 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 222 (10.46%) ITIL
12 220 (10.37%) Cybersecurity
13 216 (10.18%) Analytics
14 215 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 206 (9.71%) Decision-Making
15 206 (9.71%) Risk Management
16 204 (9.61%) Software Engineering
17 203 (9.57%) Migration
18 187 (8.81%) Project Delivery
19 173 (8.15%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 392 (18.47%) Python
2 328 (15.46%) SQL
3 153 (7.21%) Java
4 122 (5.75%) PowerShell
5 116 (5.47%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.86%) C#
7 81 (3.82%) C++
8 52 (2.45%) TypeScript
9 42 (1.98%) Bash
10 41 (1.93%) Go
11 26 (1.23%) R
12 24 (1.13%) Perl
13 23 (1.08%) PL/SQL
14 20 (0.94%) C
15 19 (0.90%) T-SQL
16 18 (0.85%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.71%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
18 14 (0.66%) Rust
19 12 (0.57%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 550 (25.92%) Computer Science Degree
2 372 (17.53%) Security Cleared
3 320 (15.08%) Master's Degree
4 290 (13.67%) SC Cleared
5 146 (6.88%) PMI Certification
6 130 (6.13%) PMP
7 107 (5.04%) CISSP
8 85 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (3.30%) CISM
10 63 (2.97%) PhD
11 61 (2.87%) Azure Certification
12 56 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
13 54 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
14 49 (2.31%) DV Cleared
15 46 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
16 41 (1.93%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.74%) CCNP
18 36 (1.70%) HND
19 33 (1.56%) MCSE
20 32 (1.51%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.79%) QA
2 109 (5.14%) GDPR
3 89 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (3.86%) PMO
5 63 (2.97%) NIST
6 62 (2.92%) Data Quality
7 39 (1.84%) PCI DSS
8 36 (1.70%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.51%) SLA
10 31 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.23%) GRC
12 15 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.71%) WCAG
13 13 (0.61%) Basel III
13 13 (0.61%) NCSC
14 12 (0.57%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.57%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.57%) P3O
15 11 (0.52%) IFRS
16 10 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 164 (7.73%) Docker
2 131 (6.17%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.85%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.80%) Firmware
6 9 (0.42%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.42%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.42%) Postfix
6 9 (0.42%) Squid
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.24%) XenApp
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.094%) KVM
13 1 (0.047%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 153 (7.21%) Kubernetes
2 114 (5.37%) Terraform
3 74 (3.49%) Ansible
4 57 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.64%) Grafana
6 47 (2.21%) Prometheus
7 46 (2.17%) SCCM
8 30 (1.41%) OPNET
9 24 (1.13%) Puppet
10 15 (0.71%) Kibana
11 14 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.61%) SCOM
13 12 (0.57%) Nmap
14 11 (0.52%) Nessus
15 10 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 9 (0.42%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.42%) QRadar
16 9 (0.42%) WSUS
17 8 (0.38%) Kiali
18 7 (0.33%) Argo
Vendors
1 439 (20.69%) Microsoft
2 158 (7.45%) Oracle
3 112 (5.28%) SAP
4 109 (5.14%) ServiceNow
5 94 (4.43%) Splunk
6 89 (4.19%) Google
7 62 (2.92%) Cisco
8 51 (2.40%) Atlassian
8 51 (2.40%) Remedy
9 50 (2.36%) Salesforce
10 44 (2.07%) VMware
11 36 (1.70%) Databricks
12 34 (1.60%) Citrix
13 25 (1.18%) IBM
13 25 (1.18%) Palo Alto
14 21 (0.99%) MuleSoft
14 21 (0.99%) Red Hat
15 20 (0.94%) Adobe
16 17 (0.80%) Informatica
17 16 (0.75%) CheckPoint