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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,256 2,039 2,589
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.94% 7.40% 7.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.59% 23.42% 25.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,200 1,196 1,510
10th Percentile £204 £254 £288
25th Percentile £363 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.62%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £730 £750 £757
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 168 231
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.34 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.58 £26.95 £28.69
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -25.89% +15.69%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.90 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.35
% change year-on-year -8.89% -18.81% +4.69%

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 14,472 8,705 10,161
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.59% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,744 5,463 6,454
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £435 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,122 685 718
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.16 £14.84
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £74.88 £55.49 £67.69
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +93.90% -41.51% -21.82%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -21 973 £525 -4.55% 822
South East +3 471 £514 +8.16% 679
North of England -16 331 £466 +4.19% 513
North West -12 196 £453 -2.05% 259
Midlands -27 180 £450 - 368
West Midlands -36 134 £450 - 198
East of England -9 132 £400 -11.11% 321
South West -24 124 £415 +10.67% 299
Yorkshire -8 121 £500 +26.58% 162
East Midlands -24 44 £475 +22.11% 169
North East -39 14 £450 +130.77% 103
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
1 141 (6.25%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.65%) Confluence
3 61 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) CMS
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 227 (10.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 224 (9.93%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (5.41%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (5.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.04%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.35%) Revit
11 8 (0.35%) Simulink
12 7 (0.31%) Windchill
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
14 4 (0.18%) Trello
15 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
15 2 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 47 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.62%) Primavera
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) Actimize
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 525 (23.27%) Azure
2 287 (12.72%) AWS
3 208 (9.22%) Microsoft 365
4 206 (9.13%) Power Platform
5 142 (6.29%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.63%) GCP
7 102 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (3.28%) SaaS
9 55 (2.44%) GitHub
10 47 (2.08%) PowerApps
11 46 (2.04%) Power Automate
12 42 (1.86%) OneDrive
12 42 (1.86%) Serverless
13 41 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
14 38 (1.68%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.55%) Figma
15 35 (1.55%) Microsoft Copilot
16 25 (1.11%) IaaS
17 24 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
18 23 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.61%) Firewall
2 73 (3.24%) DNS
3 69 (3.06%) Network Security
4 61 (2.70%) TCP/IP
5 60 (2.66%) VPN
6 43 (1.91%) DHCP
7 39 (1.73%) WAN
8 36 (1.60%) LAN
9 28 (1.24%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (0.80%) BGP
11 18 (0.80%) Internet
11 18 (0.80%) VLAN
12 17 (0.75%) 3GPP
13 16 (0.71%) SSH
14 15 (0.66%) OSPF
14 15 (0.66%) SSL
15 14 (0.62%) 5G
16 13 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
17 12 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.23%) Power BI
2 96 (4.26%) SQL Server
3 51 (2.26%) Relational Database
4 47 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
5 44 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
6 43 (1.91%) Metadata
7 31 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 31 (1.37%) Tableau
8 26 (1.15%) Oracle Database
9 25 (1.11%) Big Data
10 24 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.98%) MySQL
12 20 (0.89%) MongoDB
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.58%) Power Query
16 12 (0.53%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.53%) GIS
17 11 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 177 (7.85%) JIRA
2 118 (5.23%) Git
3 51 (2.26%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.91%) GitLab
5 35 (1.55%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) Selenium
7 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) JUnit
8 12 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 11 (0.49%) MLflow
9 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.35%) Maven
11 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
11 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.31%) Gradle
12 7 (0.31%) Postman
13 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 993 (44.02%) Social Skills
2 660 (29.26%) Finance
3 524 (23.23%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (7.89%) Banking
5 174 (7.71%) Public Sector
6 143 (6.34%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (4.88%) Aerospace
8 94 (4.17%) Manufacturing
9 91 (4.03%) Marketing
10 90 (3.99%) Legal
11 82 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
12 80 (3.55%) Telecoms
13 75 (3.32%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.75%) Retail
16 50 (2.22%) Law
17 49 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 43 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
19 40 (1.77%) Front Office
20 36 (1.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 308 (13.65%) Analyst
2 248 (10.99%) Senior
3 184 (8.16%) Lead
4 168 (7.45%) Developer
5 153 (6.78%) Architect
6 141 (6.25%) Business Analyst
7 116 (5.14%) Project Manager
8 67 (2.97%) Senior Manager
9 64 (2.84%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.70%) IT Support
11 56 (2.48%) Consultant
12 54 (2.39%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.35%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.26%) Designer
15 50 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
15 50 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
16 49 (2.17%) IT Manager
17 43 (1.91%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.82%) Data Engineer
19 39 (1.73%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (4.21%) REST
1 95 (4.21%) Terraform
2 92 (4.08%) .NET
3 54 (2.39%) React
4 47 (2.08%) HTML
5 46 (2.04%) Kafka
6 40 (1.77%) RESTful
7 38 (1.68%) OAuth
8 36 (1.60%) CSS
9 34 (1.51%) .NET Framework
9 34 (1.51%) Middleware
10 32 (1.42%) Web Services
11 31 (1.37%) Oracle Fusion
12 29 (1.29%) SAML
13 27 (1.20%) LDAP
13 27 (1.20%) OAuth2
13 27 (1.20%) OpenID
13 27 (1.20%) XML
14 26 (1.15%) SailPoint
15 24 (1.06%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 187 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 136 (6.03%) Product Ownership
3 135 (5.98%) Onboarding
4 92 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.77%) Cloud Native
6 70 (3.10%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 57 (2.53%) Data Centre
8 46 (2.04%) Security Posture
9 42 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
9 42 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
9 42 (1.86%) Operational Technology
10 39 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
11 37 (1.64%) Virtual Team
12 35 (1.55%) Life Science
13 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
13 32 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
14 31 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
14 31 (1.37%) PMI
15 30 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 283 (12.54%) Windows
2 171 (7.58%) Linux
3 67 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.62%) Unix
5 45 (1.99%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.98%) Android
9 10 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
11 4 (0.18%) VMS
11 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.13%) AIX
12 3 (0.13%) CentOS
12 3 (0.13%) Debian
12 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 775 (34.35%) Computer Science
2 630 (27.93%) Agile
3 599 (26.55%) Problem-Solving
4 425 (18.84%) Stakeholder Management
5 414 (18.35%) Continuous Improvement
6 357 (15.82%) AI
7 302 (13.39%) DevOps
8 290 (12.85%) Project Management
9 276 (12.23%) Analytics
10 267 (11.84%) CI/CD
11 264 (11.70%) ITIL
12 243 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 225 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
14 219 (9.71%) Decision-Making
15 207 (9.18%) Software Engineering
16 205 (9.09%) Change Management
17 202 (8.95%) PRINCE2
18 200 (8.87%) Roadmaps
18 200 (8.87%) Scrum
19 185 (8.20%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 382 (16.93%) Python
2 328 (14.54%) SQL
3 160 (7.09%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.60%) Java
5 100 (4.43%) C#
6 95 (4.21%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.35%) Bash
8 45 (1.99%) C++
9 34 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) Bicep
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.06%) C
13 22 (0.98%) R
13 22 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) Scala
17 10 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 450 (19.95%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (18.84%) Security Cleared
3 276 (12.23%) SC Cleared
4 193 (8.55%) Master's Degree
5 131 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 114 (5.05%) PMP
8 106 (4.70%) CISSP
9 79 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
10 74 (3.28%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.88%) Azure Certification
12 59 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
13 50 (2.22%) PhD
14 49 (2.17%) CISM
15 39 (1.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 38 (1.68%) CCNA
17 37 (1.64%) CCNP
18 36 (1.60%) AWS Certification
19 32 (1.42%) A+ Certification
20 30 (1.33%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (5.41%) QA
2 118 (5.23%) Data Quality
3 103 (4.57%) NIST
4 95 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.81%) PMO
6 62 (2.75%) GDPR
7 44 (1.95%) SLA
8 41 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 20 (0.89%) GRC
10 20 (0.89%) NCSC
11 18 (0.80%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.53%) IFRS
13 11 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
14 10 (0.44%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.44%) P3O
15 9 (0.40%) COBIT
16 8 (0.35%) ISO 19650
16 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 193 (8.55%) Active Directory
2 110 (4.88%) Docker
3 53 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.11%) Firmware
5 21 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.31%) vSphere
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.044%) ACF2
Systems Management
1 113 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 64 (2.84%) Ansible
4 36 (1.60%) SCCM
5 29 (1.29%) Grafana
6 26 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.80%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.62%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.44%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.40%) WSUS
12 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.31%) Control-M
13 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
13 7 (0.31%) SCOM
14 6 (0.27%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
15 5 (0.22%) CASB
15 5 (0.22%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 586 (25.98%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.87%) Oracle
3 138 (6.12%) ServiceNow
4 123 (5.45%) SAP
5 86 (3.81%) Google
6 69 (3.06%) VMware
7 62 (2.75%) Cisco
8 60 (2.66%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.26%) IBM
10 50 (2.22%) Adobe
11 49 (2.17%) Databricks
12 39 (1.73%) Splunk
13 31 (1.37%) CyberArk
14 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.15%) Citrix
16 21 (0.93%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.89%) Apple
18 19 (0.84%) Ariba
19 17 (0.75%) HP