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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,152 1,823 3,011
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.18% 7.65% 8.29%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.24% 24.30% 27.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,222 1,105 1,624
10th Percentile £238 £240 £230
25th Percentile £391 £384 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 125 374
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.62 £14.11
25th Percentile £28.44 £27.39 £24.03
Median hourly rate £56.50 £54.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% +36.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £54.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -0.93% +35.00% -13.51%

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 13,249 7,503 11,129
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.90% 31.49% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,887 4,783 6,899
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £530
% change year-on-year +0.48% -1.42% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 987 427 973
10th Percentile £17.03 £18.02 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.13
Median hourly rate £47.54 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.83% -12.50% -25.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.00 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £48.05 £33.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year +42.37% -15.63% -27.27%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -18 907 £513 -6.82% 1,228
South East -1 381 £500 +5.26% 681
North of England -14 320 £443 -2.58% 481
Midlands -22 210 £525 +47.47% 290
North West -7 163 £402 -14.29% 255
West Midlands -24 147 £498 +42.14% 188
Yorkshire -18 142 £463 +11.71% 162
East of England -5 138 £450 -10.00% 242
South West -12 135 £535 +12.63% 297
East Midlands -13 61 £531 +49.16% 102
North East -29 15 £450 +130.77% 74
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
1 126 (5.86%) Confluence
2 116 (5.39%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.63%) Apache Spark
5 22 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.84%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) IIS
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.28%) CMS
9 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.28%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.19%) Appian
11 4 (0.19%) Camunda
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.093%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 267 (12.41%) Microsoft Office
2 208 (9.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 152 (7.06%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
6 12 (0.56%) Photoshop
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.51%) Adobe After Effects
7 11 (0.51%) Simulink
8 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
8 8 (0.37%) Revit
9 7 (0.33%) Trello
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.23%) Sketch
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.14%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.093%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.093%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 49 (2.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.60%) Primavera
4 12 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) Magento
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 454 (21.10%) Azure
2 261 (12.13%) AWS
3 187 (8.69%) Microsoft 365
4 171 (7.95%) Power Platform
5 113 (5.25%) Entra ID
6 83 (3.86%) GCP
7 82 (3.81%) SaaS
8 70 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.37%) GitHub
10 32 (1.49%) Figma
10 32 (1.49%) Google Workspace
11 31 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
11 31 (1.44%) PaaS
12 29 (1.35%) Power Automate
13 28 (1.30%) IaaS
14 27 (1.25%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.21%) OneDrive
16 25 (1.16%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.16%) Serverless
17 22 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 90 (4.18%) Firewall
2 54 (2.51%) TCP/IP
3 53 (2.46%) WAN
4 52 (2.42%) LAN
5 51 (2.37%) DNS
6 48 (2.23%) Network Security
7 34 (1.58%) VPN
8 27 (1.25%) Wireless
9 24 (1.12%) BGP
9 24 (1.12%) DHCP
10 21 (0.98%) OSPF
11 20 (0.93%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.79%) Skype
13 14 (0.65%) SAN
13 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.56%) HTTP
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.51%) IPsec
15 11 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (6.55%) Power BI
2 94 (4.37%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
5 46 (2.14%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.72%) Tableau
7 32 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.35%) Big Data
8 29 (1.35%) Metadata
9 23 (1.07%) MySQL
10 21 (0.98%) MongoDB
11 18 (0.84%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.74%) Hadoop
13 16 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.65%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.56%) Power Query
15 12 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 216 (10.04%) JIRA
2 95 (4.41%) Git
3 42 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.72%) GitLab
5 31 (1.44%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.02%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.74%) Selenium
9 13 (0.60%) Gradle
9 13 (0.60%) Postman
10 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.56%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.56%) JUnit
11 11 (0.51%) Metasploit
12 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
General
1 1,001 (46.51%) Social Skills
2 664 (30.86%) Finance
3 442 (20.54%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (9.15%) Banking
5 173 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.44%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.04%) Marketing
9 78 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
10 74 (3.44%) Legal
11 72 (3.35%) Aerospace
12 67 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
13 66 (3.07%) Manufacturing
14 52 (2.42%) Law
14 52 (2.42%) Retail
14 52 (2.42%) Telecoms
15 41 (1.91%) Military
16 39 (1.81%) Front Office
17 34 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 34 (1.58%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 308 (14.31%) Analyst
2 248 (11.52%) Senior
3 171 (7.95%) Architect
4 165 (7.67%) Lead
5 156 (7.25%) Project Manager
6 150 (6.97%) Developer
7 148 (6.88%) Business Analyst
8 61 (2.83%) Delivery Manager
8 61 (2.83%) Senior Analyst
9 59 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
10 57 (2.65%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.60%) Consultant
12 52 (2.42%) Software Engineer
13 51 (2.37%) Senior Manager
14 50 (2.32%) Product Manager
15 47 (2.18%) Designer
16 41 (1.91%) Data Engineer
16 41 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 39 (1.81%) Systems Engineer
18 38 (1.77%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.32%) REST
2 73 (3.39%) .NET
3 53 (2.46%) React
4 52 (2.42%) Middleware
5 47 (2.18%) Oracle Fusion
6 45 (2.09%) Kafka
7 41 (1.91%) HTML
8 38 (1.77%) RESTful
9 33 (1.53%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.44%) XML
11 30 (1.39%) .NET Framework
11 30 (1.39%) CSS
11 30 (1.39%) Spring
12 28 (1.30%) OAuth
13 26 (1.21%) SOAP
14 25 (1.16%) Pandas
14 25 (1.16%) PyTorch
15 24 (1.12%) AngularJS
15 24 (1.12%) JSON
15 24 (1.12%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 156 (7.25%) Management Information System
2 142 (6.60%) Product Ownership
3 120 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 76 (3.53%) Self-Motivation
5 72 (3.35%) Cloud Native
6 65 (3.02%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.70%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.37%) Data Structures
9 50 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
10 46 (2.14%) Algorithms
10 46 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.04%) PMI
12 38 (1.77%) Robotics
13 35 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.53%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.49%) Derivative
16 31 (1.44%) Security Posture
17 30 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
18 27 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
19 26 (1.21%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 270 (12.55%) Windows
2 162 (7.53%) Linux
3 72 (3.35%) Unix
4 65 (3.02%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.65%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.21%) Android
7 23 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 22 (1.02%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.23%) AIX
14 5 (0.23%) VMS
15 4 (0.19%) Debian
15 4 (0.19%) Rocky
15 4 (0.19%) Solaris
16 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 733 (34.06%) Computer Science
2 633 (29.41%) Agile
3 546 (25.37%) Problem-Solving
4 346 (16.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 327 (15.20%) Continuous Improvement
6 318 (14.78%) AI
7 293 (13.62%) Project Management
8 288 (13.38%) DevOps
9 242 (11.25%) CI/CD
10 233 (10.83%) Decision-Making
11 231 (10.73%) Analytics
12 222 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 208 (9.67%) Migration
14 204 (9.48%) Cybersecurity
15 203 (9.43%) Change Management
16 192 (8.92%) ITIL
17 191 (8.88%) Risk Management
18 185 (8.60%) Roadmaps
19 184 (8.55%) PRINCE2
20 173 (8.04%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 345 (16.03%) Python
2 328 (15.24%) SQL
3 155 (7.20%) Java
4 107 (4.97%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.95%) C#
6 80 (3.72%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.56%) C++
8 35 (1.63%) Bash
9 31 (1.44%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.16%) R
11 23 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.88%) C
13 17 (0.79%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.70%) Rust
14 15 (0.70%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.65%) Perl
16 13 (0.60%) Go
17 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.51%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 460 (21.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 406 (18.87%) Security Cleared
3 282 (13.10%) SC Cleared
4 226 (10.50%) Master's Degree
5 131 (6.09%) PMI Certification
6 114 (5.30%) PMP
7 99 (4.60%) CISSP
8 75 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.65%) CISM
11 55 (2.56%) DV Cleared
12 53 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
13 45 (2.09%) PhD
14 44 (2.04%) Azure Certification
15 41 (1.91%) CCNP
15 41 (1.91%) TOGAF Certification
16 35 (1.63%) MBA
17 34 (1.58%) CCNA
18 32 (1.49%) CBAP
19 27 (1.25%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (6.51%) QA
2 110 (5.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 103 (4.79%) NIST
4 101 (4.69%) PMO
5 96 (4.46%) GDPR
6 91 (4.23%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.28%) SLA
8 41 (1.91%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.86%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (1.02%) GRC
12 20 (0.93%) NCSC
13 17 (0.79%) IFRS
14 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.46%) COBIT
16 10 (0.46%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.42%) Basel III
17 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 146 (6.78%) Active Directory
2 114 (5.30%) Docker
3 36 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.93%) Firmware
6 7 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.33%) vSphere
7 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.19%) XenApp
8 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.14%) KVM
9 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.093%) HDFS
10 2 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.046%) GPFS
11 1 (0.046%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 134 (6.23%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.35%) Terraform
3 63 (2.93%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.70%) Ansible
5 36 (1.67%) Grafana
6 34 (1.58%) SCCM
7 30 (1.39%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 14 (0.65%) OPNET
12 12 (0.56%) Kibana
13 11 (0.51%) Nmap
14 10 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
15 9 (0.42%) Kiali
15 9 (0.42%) WSUS
16 8 (0.37%) Nessus
16 8 (0.37%) vCenter Server
17 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
18 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 496 (23.05%) Microsoft
2 159 (7.39%) Oracle
3 116 (5.39%) SAP
4 110 (5.11%) ServiceNow
5 70 (3.25%) Cisco
6 69 (3.21%) Google
7 51 (2.37%) Databricks
8 50 (2.32%) Splunk
9 42 (1.95%) Citrix
9 42 (1.95%) VMware
10 39 (1.81%) Salesforce
11 35 (1.63%) Adobe
11 35 (1.63%) IBM
12 32 (1.49%) Palo Alto
12 32 (1.49%) Remedy
13 29 (1.35%) CheckPoint
14 23 (1.07%) Aruba
15 22 (1.02%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.98%) Atlassian
16 21 (0.98%) Siemens