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 30 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 23 20
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,158 2,236 2,962
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.82% 7.92% 8.11%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.03% 25.98% 26.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,268 1,265 1,789
10th Percentile £310 £250 £233
25th Percentile £404 £408 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £800 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £515
% change year-on-year - -2.82% -4.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 140 208
10th Percentile £14.34 £21.18 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £30.57 £26.18
Median hourly rate £38.50 £42.69 £48.20
Median % change year-on-year -9.81% -11.42% +7.10%
75th Percentile £63.25 £74.06 £68.97
90th Percentile £90.00 £85.00 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £41.46 £46.29
% change year-on-year -15.57% -10.44% +14.28%

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 10,774 8,608 11,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.07% 30.51% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,074 5,297 7,078
10th Percentile £313 £302 £300
25th Percentile £419 £420 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £733 £738
UK median daily rate £522 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.52% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 894 414 685
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.55 £16.42
25th Percentile £19.01 £24.69 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.90
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -11.02% +15.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £68.00 £67.75
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.44 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025. 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 1,007 £527 -4.18% 1,530
North of England -6 312 £449 -10.30% 1,551
South East -2 286 £475 -5.00% 1,956
Midlands -12 217 £492 +15.49% 1,221
North West -2 168 £402 -19.60% 781
South West +9 164 £649 +21.76% 790
West Midlands -15 160 £500 - 617
Yorkshire -6 133 £475 - 634
East of England -10 123 £500 +14.29% 1,038
East Midlands -7 57 £450 +26.40% 543
North East -8 12 £364 -27.20% 141
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 (8.43%) Confluence
2 109 (5.05%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.53%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.74%) nginx
7 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.60%) Apache
9 12 (0.56%) IIS
10 11 (0.51%) CMS
11 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.32%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.19%) Luigi
13 4 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.14%) Hyperledger
14 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 271 (12.56%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 177 (8.20%) Microsoft Project
4 113 (5.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (3.38%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 12 (0.56%) Trello
8 11 (0.51%) FrameMaker
8 11 (0.51%) Simulink
9 10 (0.46%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 8 (0.37%) Sketch
11 7 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
12 6 (0.28%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.19%) InVision
14 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
15 2 (0.093%) Adobe After Effects
15 2 (0.093%) Navisworks
15 2 (0.093%) PTC Creo
15 2 (0.093%) Revit
16 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 38 (1.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.83%) Primavera
4 17 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.60%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.56%) SAP EWM
7 11 (0.51%) SAP ERP
8 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.32%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.23%) SAP HR
13 5 (0.23%) Veritas eDiscovery
14 4 (0.19%) SAP PM
14 4 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 423 (19.60%) Azure
2 280 (12.97%) AWS
3 179 (8.29%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (6.95%) Power Platform
5 146 (6.77%) GCP
6 90 (4.17%) SaaS
7 89 (4.12%) GitHub
8 78 (3.61%) Entra ID
9 70 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (3.01%) Serverless
11 43 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.76%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.44%) Amazon S3
13 31 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
14 30 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
15 29 (1.34%) OCI
15 29 (1.34%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.16%) IaaS
17 24 (1.11%) Azure Logic Apps
18 23 (1.07%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 100 (4.63%) Firewall
2 64 (2.97%) DNS
3 44 (2.04%) VPN
4 42 (1.95%) LAN
5 39 (1.81%) Network Security
6 34 (1.58%) WAN
7 32 (1.48%) HTTP
8 31 (1.44%) DHCP
9 29 (1.34%) TCP/IP
10 27 (1.25%) Wireless
11 26 (1.20%) Internet
11 26 (1.20%) SSH
12 23 (1.07%) Skype
13 20 (0.93%) Unified Communications
14 18 (0.83%) BGP
15 15 (0.70%) OSPF
15 15 (0.70%) VLAN
16 14 (0.65%) SMTP
16 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (0.60%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (5.47%) Power BI
2 86 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (3.43%) SQL Server
4 56 (2.59%) NoSQL
5 54 (2.50%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
7 45 (2.09%) Tableau
8 34 (1.58%) MySQL
9 26 (1.20%) Big Data
10 25 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.79%) Data Lake
11 17 (0.79%) Metadata
11 17 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
13 12 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
13 12 (0.56%) GIS
13 12 (0.56%) RDBMS
14 11 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 277 (12.84%) JIRA
2 109 (5.05%) Git
3 91 (4.22%) Jenkins
4 67 (3.10%) GitLab
5 26 (1.20%) Liquibase
6 22 (1.02%) Postman
7 18 (0.83%) Selenium
7 18 (0.83%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.56%) JUnit
9 11 (0.51%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.51%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.51%) Vagrant
10 10 (0.46%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.46%) Burp Suite
11 8 (0.37%) Artifactory
11 8 (0.37%) CircleCI
11 8 (0.37%) Metasploit
12 7 (0.32%) SonarQube
13 6 (0.28%) Appium
13 6 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,124 (52.09%) Social Skills
2 697 (32.30%) Finance
3 521 (24.14%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (11.82%) Banking
5 146 (6.77%) Public Sector
6 95 (4.40%) Presentation Skills
7 92 (4.26%) Manufacturing
8 85 (3.94%) Organisational Skills
9 76 (3.52%) Marketing
10 73 (3.38%) Legal
11 72 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (3.15%) Military
13 62 (2.87%) Financial Institution
14 58 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
15 49 (2.27%) Investment Banking
16 48 (2.22%) Front Office
17 47 (2.18%) Telecoms
18 44 (2.04%) Aerospace
19 43 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
20 38 (1.76%) Law
Job Titles
1 316 (14.64%) Analyst
2 225 (10.43%) Senior
3 210 (9.73%) Developer
4 166 (7.69%) Architect
5 162 (7.51%) Lead
6 152 (7.04%) Business Analyst
7 149 (6.90%) Project Manager
8 82 (3.80%) Consultant
9 80 (3.71%) Software Engineer
10 53 (2.46%) Technical Support
11 48 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
11 48 (2.22%) Support Analyst
12 46 (2.13%) IT Support
12 46 (2.13%) Security Engineer
13 42 (1.95%) Data Scientist
14 41 (1.90%) Senior Developer
14 41 (1.90%) Senior Software Engineer
15 39 (1.81%) Support Engineer
16 34 (1.58%) IT Manager
17 33 (1.53%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (5.65%) REST
2 82 (3.80%) RESTful
3 70 (3.24%) .NET
4 62 (2.87%) HTML
5 57 (2.64%) XML
6 49 (2.27%) Middleware
7 46 (2.13%) Elastic Stack
7 46 (2.13%) JSON
8 45 (2.09%) CSS
9 41 (1.90%) React
9 41 (1.90%) SOAP
10 40 (1.85%) Kafka
11 38 (1.76%) OAuth
12 30 (1.39%) AngularJS
13 28 (1.30%) Spring
14 27 (1.25%) Node.js
14 27 (1.25%) Pandas
14 27 (1.25%) TensorFlow
15 26 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
15 26 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 185 (8.57%) Management Information System
2 113 (5.24%) Product Ownership
3 102 (4.73%) Cloud Native
4 69 (3.20%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.01%) Algorithms
6 62 (2.87%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
8 53 (2.46%) Data Centre
9 52 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
10 51 (2.36%) Virtual Team
11 47 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
12 44 (2.04%) Derivative
13 41 (1.90%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.85%) Public Cloud
15 38 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
15 38 (1.76%) PMI
16 36 (1.67%) Life Science
17 34 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
18 30 (1.39%) Equities
18 30 (1.39%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 251 (11.63%) Windows
2 188 (8.71%) Linux
3 79 (3.66%) Unix
4 59 (2.73%) Windows Server
5 45 (2.09%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.02%) Android
8 20 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.83%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.79%) VMS
11 16 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 10 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
14 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.093%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 827 (38.32%) Computer Science
2 722 (33.46%) Agile
3 654 (30.31%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (16.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 337 (15.62%) DevOps
6 329 (15.25%) Project Management
7 269 (12.47%) Change Management
8 244 (11.31%) CI/CD
9 239 (11.08%) ITIL
10 227 (10.52%) Continuous Improvement
11 226 (10.47%) Decision-Making
12 224 (10.38%) AI
13 223 (10.33%) Cybersecurity
14 219 (10.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 218 (10.10%) Software Engineering
16 217 (10.06%) Analytics
17 209 (9.68%) Migration
18 193 (8.94%) Risk Management
19 185 (8.57%) Project Delivery
20 171 (7.92%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 408 (18.91%) Python
2 325 (15.06%) SQL
3 159 (7.37%) Java
4 126 (5.84%) PowerShell
5 112 (5.19%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.80%) C#
7 80 (3.71%) C++
8 53 (2.46%) TypeScript
9 49 (2.27%) Go
10 47 (2.18%) Bash
11 28 (1.30%) R
12 24 (1.11%) Perl
13 20 (0.93%) C
13 20 (0.93%) PL/SQL
14 19 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.79%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
16 15 (0.70%) MATLAB
17 14 (0.65%) Ruby
18 13 (0.60%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 569 (26.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 371 (17.19%) Security Cleared
3 323 (14.97%) Master's Degree
4 291 (13.48%) SC Cleared
5 139 (6.44%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.98%) PMP
7 110 (5.10%) CISSP
8 91 (4.22%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (3.34%) CISM
10 65 (3.01%) Azure Certification
11 64 (2.97%) PhD
12 57 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
14 53 (2.46%) AWS Certification
15 47 (2.18%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
16 41 (1.90%) HND
17 37 (1.71%) CCNP
18 35 (1.62%) HNC
19 33 (1.53%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (6.39%) QA
2 115 (5.33%) GDPR
3 91 (4.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 77 (3.57%) Data Quality
5 75 (3.48%) PMO
6 67 (3.10%) NIST
7 35 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 35 (1.62%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.58%) SLA
9 28 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.11%) GRC
11 15 (0.70%) Def Stans
11 15 (0.70%) NCSC
11 15 (0.70%) WCAG
12 13 (0.60%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.51%) Basel III
14 11 (0.51%) P3O
15 10 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.42%) COBIT
System Software
1 161 (7.46%) Docker
2 130 (6.02%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.93%) Firmware
5 13 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.46%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.46%) Postfix
6 10 (0.46%) Squid
7 9 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (0.14%) XenApp
12 2 (0.093%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.046%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 1 (0.046%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 147 (6.81%) Kubernetes
2 126 (5.84%) Terraform
3 80 (3.71%) Ansible
4 60 (2.78%) Grafana
5 51 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 50 (2.32%) Prometheus
7 46 (2.13%) SCCM
8 30 (1.39%) OPNET
9 21 (0.97%) Puppet
10 14 (0.65%) SCOM
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
11 12 (0.56%) Nessus
12 11 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.46%) Nmap
13 10 (0.46%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.42%) QRadar
14 9 (0.42%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) Argo
15 7 (0.32%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 452 (20.95%) Microsoft
2 145 (6.72%) Oracle
3 125 (5.79%) SAP
4 118 (5.47%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.54%) Splunk
6 96 (4.45%) Google
7 61 (2.83%) Cisco
8 60 (2.78%) Salesforce
9 50 (2.32%) Atlassian
10 49 (2.27%) Remedy
11 48 (2.22%) VMware
12 39 (1.81%) Databricks
13 35 (1.62%) IBM
14 34 (1.58%) Citrix
15 28 (1.30%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.97%) Adobe
16 21 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.88%) CheckPoint
17 19 (0.88%) MuleSoft
17 19 (0.88%) Workday