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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,106 2,081 2,993
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.72% 7.83% 8.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.63% 25.74% 26.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,241 1,148 1,757
10th Percentile £309 £250 £223
25th Percentile £402 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £668 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £514
% change year-on-year -1.91% -0.78% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 125 232
10th Percentile £14.25 £20.80 £14.07
25th Percentile £21.75 £30.21 £23.94
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -7.97% +2.62%
75th Percentile £60.61 £75.00 £68.16
90th Percentile £90.00 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £34.25 £39.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -12.18% -15.55% +15.33%

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 10,726 8,085 11,209
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.24% 30.41% 30.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,076 4,925 7,066
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £420 £416 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £728 £738
UK median daily rate £522 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.52% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 854 383 698
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.41 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £23.19
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -7.64% +11.11%
75th Percentile £57.19 £67.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £82.25 £78.36
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -35.51% -22.00% +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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -4 988 £525 -4.55% 731
North of England -9 305 £450 -10.00% 634
South East -2 275 £475 -5.00% 1,176
Midlands -13 207 £500 +17.65% 429
South West +4 169 £650 +21.95% 445
North West +1 164 £393 -21.40% 273
West Midlands -15 147 £525 +5.00% 149
Yorkshire -9 131 £525 +9.38% 274
East of England -12 113 £505 +12.22% 506
East Midlands -4 60 £450 +26.26% 272
North East -11 11 £364 -27.20% 95
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
1 182 (8.64%) Confluence
2 109 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.61%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.71%) nginx
6 14 (0.66%) Apache
6 14 (0.66%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.52%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) CMS
8 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 7 (0.33%) SAS
9 5 (0.24%) Ethereum
10 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.19%) Luigi
10 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
10 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 270 (12.82%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 174 (8.26%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (3.56%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.90%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.52%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.52%) Simulink
7 11 (0.52%) Trello
8 9 (0.43%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 9 (0.43%) 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 (0.095%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.095%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.095%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.095%) Revit
14 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.95%) Primavera
4 18 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.62%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.57%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS R12
9 9 (0.43%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.28%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
14 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 415 (19.71%) Azure
2 262 (12.44%) AWS
3 181 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 149 (7.08%) Power Platform
5 131 (6.22%) GCP
6 94 (4.46%) SaaS
7 83 (3.94%) GitHub
8 76 (3.61%) Entra ID
9 69 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (2.90%) Serverless
11 45 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.85%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.47%) OCI
14 30 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
14 30 (1.42%) PowerApps
15 28 (1.33%) IaaS
16 26 (1.23%) Amazon S3
17 25 (1.19%) PaaS
18 24 (1.14%) Amazon ECS
19 23 (1.09%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.65%) Firewall
2 56 (2.66%) DNS
3 42 (1.99%) LAN
4 41 (1.95%) VPN
5 38 (1.80%) Network Security
6 37 (1.76%) WAN
7 31 (1.47%) HTTP
8 29 (1.38%) DHCP
9 27 (1.28%) Wireless
10 25 (1.19%) Internet
10 25 (1.19%) TCP/IP
11 24 (1.14%) Skype
11 24 (1.14%) SSH
12 20 (0.95%) Unified Communications
13 19 (0.90%) BGP
14 16 (0.76%) OSPF
15 15 (0.71%) VLAN
16 13 (0.62%) VoIP
16 13 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
17 12 (0.57%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.56%) Power BI
2 75 (3.56%) PostgreSQL
2 75 (3.56%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.52%) NoSQL
4 52 (2.47%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.95%) Tableau
7 35 (1.66%) MySQL
8 28 (1.33%) Big Data
9 20 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.71%) Metadata
11 15 (0.71%) MongoDB
12 14 (0.66%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.66%) Oracle Database
13 13 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 12 (0.57%) GIS
14 12 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 11 (0.52%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 264 (12.54%) JIRA
2 105 (4.99%) Git
3 77 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.56%) GitLab
5 22 (1.04%) Liquibase
5 22 (1.04%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.90%) Postman
7 17 (0.81%) Selenium
8 12 (0.57%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.52%) JUnit
10 10 (0.47%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.47%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.47%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.47%) Vagrant
11 9 (0.43%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.38%) Artifactory
12 8 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Gradle
13 7 (0.33%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,093 (51.90%) Social Skills
2 687 (32.62%) Finance
3 512 (24.31%) Analytical Skills
4 258 (12.25%) Banking
5 150 (7.12%) Public Sector
6 95 (4.51%) Presentation Skills
7 90 (4.27%) Manufacturing
8 86 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
9 75 (3.56%) Marketing
10 71 (3.37%) Influencing Skills
11 68 (3.23%) Legal
12 66 (3.13%) Military
13 57 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
13 57 (2.71%) Financial Institution
14 49 (2.33%) Front Office
15 48 (2.28%) Investment Banking
16 44 (2.09%) Telecoms
17 39 (1.85%) Aerospace
17 39 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.71%) Law
Job Titles
1 308 (14.62%) Analyst
2 225 (10.68%) Senior
3 210 (9.97%) Developer
4 162 (7.69%) Lead
5 157 (7.45%) Architect
6 149 (7.08%) Business Analyst
7 142 (6.74%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.85%) Software Engineer
9 79 (3.75%) Consultant
10 53 (2.52%) Technical Support
11 50 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.28%) IT Support
12 48 (2.28%) Support Analyst
13 43 (2.04%) Security Engineer
14 41 (1.95%) Senior Software Engineer
15 40 (1.90%) Senior Developer
16 37 (1.76%) Support Engineer
17 36 (1.71%) Data Scientist
18 35 (1.66%) Senior Analyst
19 34 (1.61%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (5.46%) REST
2 76 (3.61%) RESTful
3 70 (3.32%) .NET
4 62 (2.94%) HTML
5 55 (2.61%) XML
6 48 (2.28%) Middleware
7 46 (2.18%) CSS
8 44 (2.09%) Elastic Stack
9 42 (1.99%) JSON
10 40 (1.90%) React
11 39 (1.85%) OAuth
12 37 (1.76%) SOAP
13 36 (1.71%) Kafka
14 32 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
15 30 (1.42%) AngularJS
16 27 (1.28%) Spring
17 25 (1.19%) Node.js
17 25 (1.19%) TensorFlow
18 24 (1.14%) Pandas
19 23 (1.09%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 188 (8.93%) Management Information System
2 114 (5.41%) Product Ownership
3 97 (4.61%) Cloud Native
4 67 (3.18%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.09%) Algorithms
6 61 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
7 57 (2.71%) Data Centre
8 52 (2.47%) Analytical Mindset
8 52 (2.47%) Data Protection Act
9 50 (2.37%) Virtual Team
10 49 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
11 45 (2.14%) PMI
12 44 (2.09%) Derivative
13 41 (1.95%) Security Posture
14 39 (1.85%) Public Cloud
15 37 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
16 34 (1.61%) Life Science
17 30 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
17 30 (1.42%) PKI
18 29 (1.38%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 246 (11.68%) Windows
2 183 (8.69%) Linux
3 78 (3.70%) Unix
4 58 (2.75%) Windows Server
5 47 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.09%) Android
7 19 (0.90%) Apple iOS
7 19 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
10 14 (0.66%) VMS
11 13 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
12 12 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 9 (0.43%) Amazon Linux
14 8 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.095%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.095%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 793 (37.65%) Computer Science
2 713 (33.86%) Agile
3 630 (29.91%) Problem-Solving
4 348 (16.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 326 (15.48%) DevOps
6 316 (15.00%) Project Management
7 267 (12.68%) Change Management
8 236 (11.21%) CI/CD
9 228 (10.83%) AI
10 227 (10.78%) Continuous Improvement
11 224 (10.64%) ITIL
12 215 (10.21%) Analytics
13 214 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 212 (10.07%) Cybersecurity
15 208 (9.88%) Decision-Making
15 208 (9.88%) Software Engineering
16 203 (9.64%) Migration
17 200 (9.50%) Risk Management
18 184 (8.74%) Project Delivery
19 170 (8.07%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 387 (18.38%) Python
2 317 (15.05%) SQL
3 154 (7.31%) Java
4 122 (5.79%) PowerShell
5 115 (5.46%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.99%) C#
7 81 (3.85%) C++
8 52 (2.47%) TypeScript
9 41 (1.95%) Bash
9 41 (1.95%) Go
10 26 (1.23%) R
11 24 (1.14%) Perl
12 22 (1.04%) PL/SQL
13 20 (0.95%) C
14 19 (0.90%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.85%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.71%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
18 13 (0.62%) Rust
19 12 (0.57%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 542 (25.74%) Computer Science Degree
2 369 (17.52%) Security Cleared
3 323 (15.34%) Master's Degree
4 288 (13.68%) SC Cleared
5 145 (6.89%) PMI Certification
6 131 (6.22%) PMP
7 103 (4.89%) CISSP
8 88 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (3.28%) CISM
10 62 (2.94%) PhD
11 61 (2.90%) Azure Certification
12 56 (2.66%) TOGAF Certification
13 54 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
14 47 (2.23%) DV Cleared
15 44 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
16 43 (2.04%) AWS Certification
17 37 (1.76%) HND
18 36 (1.71%) CCNP
19 34 (1.61%) MCSE
20 31 (1.47%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (6.74%) QA
2 114 (5.41%) GDPR
3 91 (4.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (3.75%) PMO
5 66 (3.13%) Data Quality
6 63 (2.99%) NIST
7 38 (1.80%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.52%) SLA
10 31 (1.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (1.14%) GRC
12 15 (0.71%) WCAG
13 14 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.66%) NCSC
14 13 (0.62%) Basel III
14 13 (0.62%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.57%) P3O
16 11 (0.52%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.43%) IFRS
System Software
1 160 (7.60%) Docker
2 125 (5.94%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.90%) Firmware
5 17 (0.81%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.43%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.43%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.43%) Postfix
6 9 (0.43%) 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 ESXi
10 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.19%) vSphere
10 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.095%) KVM
12 1 (0.047%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 148 (7.03%) Kubernetes
2 112 (5.32%) Terraform
3 73 (3.47%) Ansible
4 57 (2.71%) Grafana
5 52 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
6 47 (2.23%) Prometheus
7 46 (2.18%) SCCM
8 30 (1.42%) OPNET
9 23 (1.09%) Puppet
10 14 (0.66%) Kibana
10 14 (0.66%) SCOM
11 13 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
12 12 (0.57%) Nmap
13 11 (0.52%) Nessus
14 10 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 9 (0.43%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.43%) QRadar
15 9 (0.43%) WSUS
16 7 (0.33%) Argo
16 7 (0.33%) Kiali
Vendors
1 440 (20.89%) Microsoft
2 153 (7.26%) Oracle
3 113 (5.37%) SAP
4 112 (5.32%) ServiceNow
5 93 (4.42%) Splunk
6 85 (4.04%) Google
7 63 (2.99%) Cisco
8 53 (2.52%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.42%) Remedy
10 50 (2.37%) Atlassian
11 43 (2.04%) VMware
12 37 (1.76%) Databricks
13 33 (1.57%) Citrix
14 28 (1.33%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.28%) IBM
16 21 (1.00%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.95%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.90%) Adobe
18 19 (0.90%) CheckPoint
19 17 (0.81%) Informatica