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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -12 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,254 2,019 2,666
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.99% 7.34% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.74% 23.59% 25.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,208 1,196 1,551
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £363 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £713 £751 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 161 251
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.00 £20.50
25th Percentile £27.91 £27.16 £27.00
Median hourly rate £49.25 £42.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +15.88% -24.77% +10.22%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £69.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.05 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.75 £43.00 £51.10
% change year-on-year +4.07% -15.84% -2.68%

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 14,318 8,560 10,412
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.68% 31.12% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,655 5,401 6,622
10th Percentile £350 £290 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £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 1,090 641 811
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.75 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +117.69% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.79 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%

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 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 -21 956 £525 -4.55% 1,577
South East +3 471 £500 +5.26% 646
North of England -14 334 £450 -0.66% 430
North West -11 193 £449 -5.42% 214
Midlands -31 185 £475 +11.76% 280
East of England -6 144 £450 - 252
West Midlands -36 144 £466 +3.44% 149
Yorkshire -10 125 £500 +18.34% 139
South West -23 119 £415 -7.78% 244
East Midlands -24 39 £478 +33.52% 131
North East -48 16 £450 +130.77% 81
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
1 136 (6.03%) SharePoint
2 110 (4.88%) Confluence
3 61 (2.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 249 (11.05%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (9.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 128 (5.68%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (5.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.40%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 54 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.67%) Primavera
3 12 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 523 (23.20%) Azure
2 287 (12.73%) AWS
3 207 (9.18%) Power Platform
4 202 (8.96%) Microsoft 365
5 145 (6.43%) Entra ID
6 125 (5.55%) GCP
7 97 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (3.11%) SaaS
9 59 (2.62%) GitHub
10 43 (1.91%) Power Automate
10 43 (1.91%) PowerApps
11 39 (1.73%) OneDrive
11 39 (1.73%) Snowflake
12 38 (1.69%) Serverless
13 36 (1.60%) Figma
13 36 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
14 34 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
15 25 (1.11%) IaaS
16 23 (1.02%) PaaS
17 22 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.57%) Firewall
2 72 (3.19%) TCP/IP
3 67 (2.97%) DNS
4 64 (2.84%) Network Security
5 58 (2.57%) VPN
6 39 (1.73%) WAN
7 38 (1.69%) DHCP
8 36 (1.60%) LAN
9 27 (1.20%) Wireless
10 19 (0.84%) BGP
10 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
11 18 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.71%) OSPF
12 16 (0.71%) VLAN
13 15 (0.67%) SSH
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) SSL
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (7.36%) Power BI
2 103 (4.57%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.13%) Relational Database
5 44 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.64%) Metadata
6 37 (1.64%) Tableau
7 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.20%) Big Data
9 24 (1.06%) MongoDB
10 22 (0.98%) Oracle Database
10 22 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 21 (0.93%) MySQL
12 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
13 14 (0.62%) Power Query
14 12 (0.53%) Hadoop
14 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 11 (0.49%) Data Mining
15 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 179 (7.94%) JIRA
2 106 (4.70%) Git
3 48 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.73%) GitLab
5 34 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.75%) MLflow
7 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.62%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
10 11 (0.49%) TeamCity
11 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
13 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Postman
15 6 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 989 (43.88%) Social Skills
2 659 (29.24%) Finance
3 500 (22.18%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (8.34%) Public Sector
5 175 (7.76%) Banking
6 147 (6.52%) Organisational Skills
7 94 (4.17%) Presentation Skills
8 91 (4.04%) Legal
8 91 (4.04%) Marketing
9 90 (3.99%) Aerospace
10 85 (3.77%) Manufacturing
11 82 (3.64%) Influencing Skills
12 71 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
13 67 (2.97%) Telecoms
14 61 (2.71%) Retail
15 57 (2.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.31%) Law
17 40 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.60%) Front Office
19 34 (1.51%) Military
Job Titles
1 315 (13.98%) Analyst
2 252 (11.18%) Senior
3 177 (7.85%) Lead
4 165 (7.32%) Architect
5 157 (6.97%) Developer
6 141 (6.26%) Business Analyst
7 140 (6.21%) Project Manager
8 70 (3.11%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.75%) Consultant
10 54 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
11 52 (2.31%) Designer
11 52 (2.31%) IT Manager
11 52 (2.31%) IT Support
12 51 (2.26%) Support Engineer
13 50 (2.22%) IT Analyst
13 50 (2.22%) Product Manager
14 47 (2.09%) Software Engineer
15 46 (2.04%) Technical Support
16 42 (1.86%) Security Engineer
16 42 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.82%) .NET
2 84 (3.73%) REST
3 58 (2.57%) React
4 41 (1.82%) Kafka
5 37 (1.64%) OAuth
6 33 (1.46%) HTML
6 33 (1.46%) RESTful
7 32 (1.42%) .NET Framework
8 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.33%) Middleware
9 30 (1.33%) SAML
9 30 (1.33%) Web Services
10 29 (1.29%) AngularJS
11 28 (1.24%) LDAP
11 28 (1.24%) Spring
12 26 (1.15%) CSS
12 26 (1.15%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.11%) JSON
13 25 (1.11%) SailPoint
13 25 (1.11%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.16%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.43%) Onboarding
3 136 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 99 (4.39%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.66%) Data Centre
6 60 (2.66%) Data Structures
7 53 (2.35%) Algorithms
8 50 (2.22%) Security Posture
9 49 (2.17%) Virtual Team
10 45 (2.00%) Operational Technology
11 39 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
12 38 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
13 36 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
14 35 (1.55%) Life Science
15 33 (1.46%) AI Agents
15 33 (1.46%) PMI
15 33 (1.46%) Robotics
16 32 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.33%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 291 (12.91%) Windows
2 165 (7.32%) Linux
3 72 (3.19%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.66%) Unix
5 47 (2.09%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.13%) Debian
15 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.13%) Rocky
15 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 762 (33.81%) Computer Science
2 630 (27.95%) Agile
3 593 (26.31%) Problem-Solving
4 396 (17.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 383 (16.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 370 (16.42%) AI
7 297 (13.18%) DevOps
8 282 (12.51%) Project Management
9 280 (12.42%) Analytics
10 261 (11.58%) CI/CD
11 252 (11.18%) ITIL
12 238 (10.56%) Decision-Making
13 231 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 230 (10.20%) Cybersecurity
15 197 (8.74%) Change Management
16 195 (8.65%) PRINCE2
16 195 (8.65%) Roadmaps
17 191 (8.47%) Scrum
18 189 (8.39%) Software Engineering
19 187 (8.30%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 384 (17.04%) Python
2 319 (14.15%) SQL
3 148 (6.57%) Java
3 148 (6.57%) PowerShell
4 93 (4.13%) C#
5 83 (3.68%) JavaScript
6 47 (2.09%) Bash
7 38 (1.69%) C++
8 33 (1.46%) TypeScript
9 27 (1.20%) R
10 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.02%) Bicep
12 22 (0.98%) C
13 21 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) X++
18 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
19 8 (0.35%) Scala
Qualifications
1 439 (19.48%) Computer Science Degree
2 413 (18.32%) Security Cleared
3 272 (12.07%) SC Cleared
4 203 (9.01%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.94%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.19%) PMP
7 114 (5.06%) CISSP
8 107 (4.75%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.59%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.24%) DV Cleared
11 64 (2.84%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.35%) CISM
13 53 (2.35%) PhD
14 39 (1.73%) CCNA
15 37 (1.64%) CCNP
16 36 (1.60%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 35 (1.55%) CISA
18 29 (1.29%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.10%) Data Quality
2 114 (5.06%) NIST
3 113 (5.01%) QA
4 105 (4.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (4.21%) PMO
6 71 (3.15%) GDPR
7 47 (2.09%) SLA
8 40 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.06%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.02%) GRC
12 21 (0.93%) NCSC
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.49%) IFRS
16 10 (0.44%) COBIT
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.40%) HIPAA
18 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 191 (8.47%) Active Directory
2 109 (4.84%) Docker
3 48 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.98%) Firmware
4 22 (0.98%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
7 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.31%) vSphere
8 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
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 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 124 (5.50%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.99%) Terraform
3 71 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.71%) Ansible
5 36 (1.60%) SCCM
6 27 (1.20%) Grafana
7 24 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.40%) WSUS
14 8 (0.35%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.35%) Nessus
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
16 6 (0.27%) SCOM
17 5 (0.22%) Data Guard
17 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 567 (25.16%) Microsoft
2 150 (6.65%) Oracle
3 132 (5.86%) ServiceNow
4 126 (5.59%) SAP
5 84 (3.73%) Google
6 63 (2.80%) Cisco
6 63 (2.80%) VMware
7 51 (2.26%) Databricks
7 51 (2.26%) Salesforce
8 46 (2.04%) Adobe
9 45 (2.00%) IBM
10 34 (1.51%) CyberArk
11 31 (1.38%) Citrix
12 30 (1.33%) Splunk
13 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
13 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 22 (0.98%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.93%) Siemens
16 20 (0.89%) Ariba
17 18 (0.80%) HP