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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -12 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,199 1,916 3,079
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.01% 7.42% 8.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.89% 23.97% 27.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,197 1,146 1,656
10th Percentile £204 £247 £235
25th Percentile £363 £379 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £635
90th Percentile £715 £765 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 142 358
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.02 £16.18
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.31 £25.35
Median hourly rate £45.50 £45.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.78% +8.80% -15.79%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.25 £62.20
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.84 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £46.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year -3.78% +15.63% -20.00%

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 13,835 7,992 11,392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.53% 30.95% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,318 5,035 7,040
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £718 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.82% -0.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,038 530 999
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.58 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.73% -32.76% -22.73%
75th Percentile £73.46 £63.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +78.57% -31.61% -26.70%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -18 937 £515 -6.36% 1,540
South East -6 422 £500 +3.90% 649
North of England -12 328 £449 -0.22% 432
Midlands -24 200 £503 +35.44% 316
North West -12 183 £447 -1.97% 237
West Midlands -29 149 £492 +19.27% 171
East of England -3 145 £450 -10.00% 247
Yorkshire -6 133 £500 +14.68% 131
South West -22 120 £425 -10.53% 268
East Midlands -15 49 £550 +54.49% 145
North East -36 12 £450 +130.77% 70
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
1 121 (5.50%) SharePoint
2 110 (5.00%) Confluence
3 59 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.77%) Apache
7 12 (0.55%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.41%) SAS
10 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.091%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 256 (11.64%) Microsoft Office
2 204 (9.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 123 (5.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 123 (5.59%) Microsoft Project
4 59 (2.68%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
5 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
6 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
8 9 (0.41%) Simulink
9 8 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.36%) Revit
10 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.23%) Trello
11 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.091%) Windchill
13 1 (0.045%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 52 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.59%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.27%) Magento
6 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.14%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 504 (22.92%) Azure
2 292 (13.28%) AWS
3 189 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (8.55%) Power Platform
5 133 (6.05%) Entra ID
6 110 (5.00%) GCP
7 87 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (3.32%) SaaS
9 55 (2.50%) GitHub
10 38 (1.73%) Serverless
11 37 (1.68%) Snowflake
12 36 (1.64%) Figma
13 33 (1.50%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.46%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.36%) OneDrive
16 29 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
17 28 (1.27%) PaaS
18 26 (1.18%) Google Workspace
19 24 (1.09%) IaaS
20 22 (1.00%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.50%) Firewall
2 69 (3.14%) DNS
2 69 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.82%) Network Security
4 50 (2.27%) WAN
5 49 (2.23%) VPN
6 48 (2.18%) LAN
7 34 (1.55%) DHCP
8 28 (1.27%) Wireless
9 24 (1.09%) BGP
10 21 (0.95%) OSPF
11 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (0.64%) 3GPP
12 14 (0.64%) Internet
13 13 (0.59%) SSL
14 12 (0.55%) MPLS
14 12 (0.55%) Skype
14 12 (0.55%) SSH
15 11 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (7.23%) Power BI
2 105 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.64%) Tableau
7 35 (1.59%) Metadata
7 35 (1.59%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.32%) Big Data
9 27 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 26 (1.18%) MySQL
11 21 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 18 (0.82%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.59%) Power Query
16 12 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 187 (8.50%) JIRA
2 105 (4.77%) Git
3 43 (1.96%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.82%) GitLab
5 31 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.91%) MLflow
7 18 (0.82%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.64%) Selenium
9 11 (0.50%) JUnit
9 11 (0.50%) Postman
10 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.41%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.41%) Gradle
11 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.41%) Subversion
12 8 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.36%) Maven
13 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
14 5 (0.23%) Flyway
General
1 986 (44.84%) Social Skills
2 665 (30.24%) Finance
3 455 (20.69%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (8.37%) Public Sector
5 178 (8.09%) Banking
6 131 (5.96%) Organisational Skills
7 102 (4.64%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (4.41%) Marketing
9 87 (3.96%) Aerospace
10 83 (3.77%) Legal
11 80 (3.64%) Manufacturing
12 77 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
13 75 (3.41%) Influencing Skills
14 62 (2.82%) Telecoms
15 60 (2.73%) Retail
16 51 (2.32%) Law
17 45 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.77%) Front Office
19 32 (1.46%) Automotive
19 32 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 315 (14.32%) Analyst
2 242 (11.01%) Senior
3 175 (7.96%) Architect
4 164 (7.46%) Lead
5 150 (6.82%) Developer
6 142 (6.46%) Business Analyst
6 142 (6.46%) Project Manager
7 64 (2.91%) Senior Manager
7 64 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
8 61 (2.77%) Consultant
9 58 (2.64%) Technical Support
10 54 (2.46%) Designer
11 51 (2.32%) Software Engineer
12 50 (2.27%) Senior Analyst
13 49 (2.23%) Product Manager
14 48 (2.18%) IT Support
15 47 (2.14%) IT Manager
16 44 (2.00%) Delivery Manager
16 44 (2.00%) IT Analyst
16 44 (2.00%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.00%) .NET
1 88 (4.00%) REST
2 57 (2.59%) React
3 45 (2.05%) Kafka
4 39 (1.77%) Middleware
5 36 (1.64%) OAuth
5 36 (1.64%) RESTful
6 35 (1.59%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.55%) HTML
8 33 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
9 29 (1.32%) Spring
9 29 (1.32%) Spring Boot
9 29 (1.32%) Web Services
10 27 (1.23%) SAML
11 25 (1.14%) XML
12 24 (1.09%) AngularJS
12 24 (1.09%) CSS
12 24 (1.09%) JSON
12 24 (1.09%) LDAP
12 24 (1.09%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 173 (7.87%) Management Information System
2 136 (6.18%) Onboarding
3 127 (5.78%) Product Ownership
4 88 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
5 85 (3.87%) Cloud Native
6 67 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 51 (2.32%) Data Structures
8 50 (2.27%) Virtual Team
9 48 (2.18%) Security Posture
10 46 (2.09%) Algorithms
11 41 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.86%) Operational Technology
12 37 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
13 34 (1.55%) Robotics
14 33 (1.50%) PMI
15 32 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
16 30 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.36%) Life Science
17 28 (1.27%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 297 (13.51%) Windows
2 166 (7.55%) Linux
3 70 (3.18%) Unix
4 69 (3.14%) Windows Server
5 52 (2.36%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 23 (1.05%) Android
10 10 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 7 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Solaris
15 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 726 (33.02%) Computer Science
2 634 (28.83%) Agile
3 568 (25.83%) Problem-Solving
4 370 (16.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 364 (16.55%) AI
6 348 (15.83%) Continuous Improvement
7 302 (13.73%) DevOps
8 270 (12.28%) Project Management
9 262 (11.91%) Analytics
10 256 (11.64%) CI/CD
11 237 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 233 (10.60%) Decision-Making
13 228 (10.37%) ITIL
14 220 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
15 200 (9.10%) Roadmaps
16 196 (8.91%) Change Management
17 182 (8.28%) Migration
18 178 (8.09%) Software Engineering
19 177 (8.05%) Project Delivery
19 177 (8.05%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 370 (16.83%) Python
2 335 (15.23%) SQL
3 147 (6.68%) Java
4 126 (5.73%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.18%) C#
6 82 (3.73%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.82%) Bash
8 37 (1.68%) C++
9 30 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 25 (1.14%) R
11 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.05%) T-SQL
13 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.73%) C
15 12 (0.55%) Bicep
15 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.55%) Go
16 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.50%) Perl
16 11 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 443 (20.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 388 (17.64%) Security Cleared
3 260 (11.82%) SC Cleared
4 214 (9.73%) Master's Degree
5 126 (5.73%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.32%) CISSP
7 111 (5.05%) PMP
8 92 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.77%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (2.59%) Azure Certification
10 57 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
10 57 (2.59%) DV Cleared
11 54 (2.46%) CISM
12 45 (2.05%) PhD
13 41 (1.86%) CCNP
14 40 (1.82%) CCNA
15 37 (1.68%) AWS Certification
16 33 (1.50%) CISA
17 29 (1.32%) MBA
18 27 (1.23%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.23%) QA
2 111 (5.05%) NIST
3 109 (4.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 103 (4.68%) Data Quality
5 95 (4.32%) PMO
6 84 (3.82%) GDPR
7 48 (2.18%) SLA
8 39 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 34 (1.55%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.27%) GRC
11 27 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (1.00%) NCSC
13 16 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.68%) IFRS
15 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.41%) COBIT
19 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 180 (8.19%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.37%) Docker
3 41 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.95%) Firmware
6 14 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) NFS
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.14%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.091%) HDFS
12 2 (0.091%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 130 (5.91%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.96%) Terraform
3 70 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.77%) Ansible
5 32 (1.46%) Grafana
6 31 (1.41%) SCCM
7 30 (1.36%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.59%) Puppet
12 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.41%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.36%) Nessus
15 5 (0.23%) Kibana
15 5 (0.23%) SCOM
15 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 530 (24.10%) Microsoft
2 150 (6.82%) Oracle
3 124 (5.64%) SAP
4 122 (5.55%) ServiceNow
5 93 (4.23%) Google
6 66 (3.00%) Cisco
7 52 (2.36%) Databricks
8 49 (2.23%) VMware
9 43 (1.96%) Adobe
9 43 (1.96%) Salesforce
10 39 (1.77%) IBM
11 37 (1.68%) Citrix
11 37 (1.68%) Splunk
12 32 (1.46%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.32%) CyberArk
14 23 (1.05%) Red Hat
15 22 (1.00%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.95%) Siemens
17 19 (0.86%) HP
18 18 (0.82%) Ariba