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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,224 1,948 2,521
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.87% 7.16% 7.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.31% 22.83% 25.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,161 1,130 1,451
10th Percentile £204 £260 £278
25th Percentile £360 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -4.49%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £750 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £495 £500
% change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 146 206
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.62 £20.38
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.59 £33.95
Median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -27.64% +20.74%
75th Percentile £74.75 £68.25 £71.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £77.09
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £41.50 £54.00
% change year-on-year -7.83% -23.15% +13.68%

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 14,529 8,532 9,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.84% 31.35% 30.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,788 5,389 6,172
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,123 659 620
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.22 £15.99
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -52.10% -3.78%
75th Percentile £74.00 £50.00 £69.70
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -11.71%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -21 975 £525 -4.55% 5,938
South East +9 459 £521 +12.70% 1,430
North of England -18 323 £475 +9.83% 955
North West -8 198 £470 +2.79% 561
Midlands -30 173 £450 - 629
East of England -13 131 £300 -33.33% 731
West Midlands -32 128 £450 -5.26% 363
South West -20 121 £400 -13.51% 733
Yorkshire -9 110 £500 +26.58% 265
East Midlands -28 44 £475 +6.26% 264
North East -35 15 £450 +39.53% 151
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
1 142 (6.38%) SharePoint
2 101 (4.54%) Confluence
3 53 (2.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.30%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.76%) Apache
7 14 (0.63%) IIS
8 13 (0.58%) Camunda
9 12 (0.54%) CMS
10 9 (0.40%) SAS
11 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.18%) Appian
14 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 3 (0.13%) Moodle
15 3 (0.13%) Skype for Business
15 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 233 (10.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 220 (9.89%) Microsoft Office
3 119 (5.35%) Microsoft Project
4 114 (5.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (2.02%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.72%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.54%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
10 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 8 (0.36%) Simulink
10 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.36%) Windchill
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.13%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.13%) Trello
13 2 (0.090%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.090%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 45 (2.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.58%) Primavera
4 8 (0.36%) Magento
4 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 519 (23.34%) Azure
2 282 (12.68%) AWS
3 209 (9.40%) Microsoft 365
4 208 (9.35%) Power Platform
5 131 (5.89%) GCP
6 130 (5.85%) Entra ID
7 112 (5.04%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.24%) SaaS
9 61 (2.74%) GitHub
10 47 (2.11%) Serverless
11 46 (2.07%) Power Automate
12 45 (2.02%) PowerApps
13 44 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
14 41 (1.84%) OneDrive
15 35 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
16 34 (1.53%) Figma
16 34 (1.53%) Snowflake
17 25 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
18 24 (1.08%) IaaS
18 24 (1.08%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.59%) Firewall
2 74 (3.33%) DNS
3 64 (2.88%) Network Security
4 59 (2.65%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.65%) VPN
5 46 (2.07%) DHCP
6 35 (1.57%) WAN
7 33 (1.48%) LAN
8 25 (1.12%) Wireless
9 21 (0.94%) 3GPP
10 18 (0.81%) 5G
10 18 (0.81%) BGP
10 18 (0.81%) Internet
10 18 (0.81%) SSH
11 17 (0.76%) SSL
12 16 (0.72%) Radio Access Network
12 16 (0.72%) VLAN
12 16 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.67%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (7.24%) Power BI
2 105 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.25%) Metadata
4 48 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 42 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
6 39 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
7 33 (1.48%) Tableau
8 29 (1.30%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.26%) MySQL
10 27 (1.21%) Big Data
11 25 (1.12%) Oracle Database
12 24 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.85%) MongoDB
14 15 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (0.63%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.63%) Data Mining
16 13 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
17 12 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 11 (0.49%) GIS
18 11 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 171 (7.69%) JIRA
2 121 (5.44%) Git
3 55 (2.47%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.25%) GitLab
5 20 (0.90%) JUnit
6 19 (0.85%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.85%) Selenium
6 19 (0.85%) SonarQube
7 17 (0.76%) Maven
7 17 (0.76%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.67%) Gradle
9 14 (0.63%) REST Assured
9 14 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
10 11 (0.49%) MLflow
10 11 (0.49%) Mockito
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 7 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 989 (44.47%) Social Skills
2 659 (29.63%) Finance
3 520 (23.38%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (8.32%) Banking
5 171 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 145 (6.52%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.72%) Manufacturing
8 99 (4.45%) Aerospace
9 94 (4.23%) Marketing
10 87 (3.91%) Legal
11 83 (3.73%) Telecoms
12 79 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
13 75 (3.37%) Presentation Skills
14 67 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.83%) Retail
16 52 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 48 (2.16%) Law
18 43 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.89%) Military
20 40 (1.80%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 314 (14.12%) Analyst
2 248 (11.15%) Senior
3 183 (8.23%) Lead
4 171 (7.69%) Developer
5 154 (6.92%) Architect
6 144 (6.47%) Business Analyst
7 114 (5.13%) Project Manager
8 69 (3.10%) Support Engineer
9 66 (2.97%) Senior Manager
10 63 (2.83%) IT Support
11 55 (2.47%) Consultant
12 53 (2.38%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
14 48 (2.16%) IT Manager
15 46 (2.07%) Designer
16 43 (1.93%) Technical Support
17 42 (1.89%) Senior Analyst
18 41 (1.84%) Data Analyst
19 40 (1.80%) Product Manager
19 40 (1.80%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.50%) Terraform
2 91 (4.09%) .NET
3 88 (3.96%) REST
4 60 (2.70%) HTML
5 57 (2.56%) React
6 54 (2.43%) Kafka
7 48 (2.16%) CSS
8 39 (1.75%) RESTful
9 38 (1.71%) OAuth
10 36 (1.62%) Middleware
11 33 (1.48%) .NET Framework
11 33 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
11 33 (1.48%) Web Services
12 32 (1.44%) XML
13 31 (1.39%) Spring Boot
14 29 (1.30%) SAML
15 28 (1.26%) OAuth2
15 28 (1.26%) Spring
16 27 (1.21%) OpenID
17 26 (1.17%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 194 (8.72%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.07%) Onboarding
3 107 (4.81%) Product Ownership
4 92 (4.14%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.82%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.88%) Data Structures
7 57 (2.56%) Algorithms
8 56 (2.52%) Data Centre
9 45 (2.02%) Security Posture
10 42 (1.89%) Operational Technology
11 40 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
12 39 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
13 38 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
14 36 (1.62%) Life Science
15 35 (1.57%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.57%) Virtual Team
16 31 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 27 (1.21%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 283 (12.72%) Windows
2 171 (7.69%) Linux
3 76 (3.42%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.65%) Unix
5 43 (1.93%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.30%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.99%) Android
9 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.22%) VMS
10 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.18%) Solaris
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%) Rocky
12 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 745 (33.50%) Computer Science
2 616 (27.70%) Agile
3 596 (26.80%) Problem-Solving
4 437 (19.65%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (18.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 356 (16.01%) AI
7 315 (14.16%) DevOps
8 287 (12.90%) Analytics
9 286 (12.86%) Project Management
10 274 (12.32%) CI/CD
11 255 (11.47%) ITIL
12 232 (10.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 223 (10.03%) Decision-Making
14 216 (9.71%) Cybersecurity
15 206 (9.26%) Change Management
15 206 (9.26%) Software Engineering
16 205 (9.22%) Scrum
17 202 (9.08%) Roadmaps
18 191 (8.59%) PRINCE2
19 182 (8.18%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 377 (16.95%) Python
2 329 (14.79%) SQL
3 167 (7.51%) PowerShell
4 149 (6.70%) Java
5 111 (4.99%) JavaScript
6 105 (4.72%) C#
7 57 (2.56%) Bash
8 43 (1.93%) C++
9 36 (1.62%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.26%) Bicep
11 27 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 24 (1.08%) C
12 24 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 23 (1.03%) R
14 22 (0.99%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.63%) Scala
16 11 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 445 (20.01%) Computer Science Degree
2 414 (18.62%) Security Cleared
3 285 (12.81%) SC Cleared
4 186 (8.36%) Master's Degree
5 127 (5.71%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.35%) Microsoft Certification
7 111 (4.99%) PMP
8 104 (4.68%) CISSP
9 76 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
10 75 (3.37%) Azure Certification
11 74 (3.33%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
13 52 (2.34%) PhD
14 47 (2.11%) CISM
15 42 (1.89%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 38 (1.71%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.57%) CCNA
17 35 (1.57%) CCNP
18 34 (1.53%) ISTQB
19 33 (1.48%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (5.53%) QA
2 122 (5.49%) Data Quality
3 94 (4.23%) NIST
4 90 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 80 (3.60%) PMO
6 63 (2.83%) GDPR
7 41 (1.84%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.75%) SLA
9 26 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.08%) GRC
11 16 (0.72%) NCSC
11 16 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) P3O
16 9 (0.40%) COBIT
16 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.36%) ISO 19650
18 7 (0.31%) HIPAA
System Software
1 182 (8.18%) Active Directory
2 115 (5.17%) Docker
3 52 (2.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.03%) Firmware
5 22 (0.99%) Hyper-V
6 21 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.090%) Squid
Systems Management
1 114 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 69 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.65%) Ansible
4 32 (1.44%) SCCM
5 28 (1.26%) Grafana
6 26 (1.17%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.81%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.63%) Puppet
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.54%) SCOM
12 8 (0.36%) WSUS
13 7 (0.31%) Control-M
13 7 (0.31%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.27%) CASB
14 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.27%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 578 (25.99%) Microsoft
2 153 (6.88%) Oracle
3 139 (6.25%) ServiceNow
4 125 (5.62%) SAP
5 89 (4.00%) Google
6 69 (3.10%) VMware
7 61 (2.74%) Cisco
8 59 (2.65%) Salesforce
9 55 (2.47%) Adobe
10 46 (2.07%) Databricks
10 46 (2.07%) IBM
11 37 (1.66%) Splunk
12 30 (1.35%) Red Hat
13 29 (1.30%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.17%) Citrix
15 22 (0.99%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.90%) Apple
18 19 (0.85%) Ariba
19 18 (0.81%) OpenAI