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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,131 1,870 3,102
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.25% 7.75% 8.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.36% 24.61% 27.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,237 1,116 1,628
10th Percentile £238 £250 £217
25th Percentile £380 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £511
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.76% -5.87%
75th Percentile £613 £656 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 138 372
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.50 £27.10 £24.08
Median hourly rate £64.25 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.09% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.25 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.98
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%

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 13,027 7,597 11,354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.07% 31.50% 31.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,745 4,832 6,983
10th Percentile £345 £288 £313
25th Percentile £425 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 947 432 976
10th Percentile £17.08 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.00
Median hourly rate £48.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.25% - -23.81%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.50 £61.82
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.35 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +29.92% -6.25% -25.93%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -17 891 £505 -8.18% 1,005
South East -5 372 £500 +1.21% 691
North of England -11 322 £418 -8.98% 473
Midlands -24 212 £503 +57.03% 302
North West -7 164 £400 -14.12% 236
West Midlands -25 148 £495 +65.00% 186
Yorkshire -13 141 £450 +0.67% 165
East of England -8 136 £450 -10.00% 237
South West -15 135 £556 +16.01% 265
East Midlands -12 62 £531 +49.16% 116
North East -22 17 £450 - 78
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
1 139 (6.52%) Confluence
2 112 (5.26%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.55%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.80%) Apache
6 16 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
7 7 (0.33%) CMS
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.28%) SAS
9 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.19%) IIS
11 3 (0.14%) Moodle
11 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.094%) Appian
12 2 (0.094%) Camunda
12 2 (0.094%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.094%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.094%) WinCC
Applications
1 283 (13.28%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (9.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 167 (7.84%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.72%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.47%) Adobe Illustrator
7 10 (0.47%) Photoshop
7 10 (0.47%) Simulink
8 9 (0.42%) Adobe After Effects
9 8 (0.38%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.38%) Revit
9 8 (0.38%) Trello
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.23%) Sketch
11 2 (0.094%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.094%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.094%) FrameMaker
12 1 (0.047%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 51 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.66%) Primavera
4 13 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.38%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.38%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Shopify
9 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 438 (20.55%) Azure
2 257 (12.06%) AWS
3 183 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 167 (7.84%) Power Platform
5 101 (4.74%) Entra ID
6 89 (4.18%) SaaS
7 84 (3.94%) GCP
8 70 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (2.35%) GitHub
10 33 (1.55%) Google Workspace
11 32 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
11 32 (1.50%) PaaS
12 30 (1.41%) Figma
12 30 (1.41%) IaaS
12 30 (1.41%) Power Automate
13 26 (1.22%) Serverless
14 24 (1.13%) PowerApps
14 24 (1.13%) Snowflake
15 22 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.03%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 92 (4.32%) Firewall
2 52 (2.44%) LAN
2 52 (2.44%) WAN
3 50 (2.35%) TCP/IP
4 47 (2.21%) DNS
5 43 (2.02%) Network Security
6 34 (1.60%) VPN
7 27 (1.27%) Wireless
8 24 (1.13%) BGP
9 21 (0.99%) Ethernet
9 21 (0.99%) OSPF
10 20 (0.94%) DHCP
11 18 (0.84%) Skype
12 14 (0.66%) HTTP
12 14 (0.66%) SAN
12 14 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
14 11 (0.52%) IPsec
14 11 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
15 10 (0.47%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (6.57%) Power BI
2 83 (3.89%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 48 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
4 48 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (1.64%) Tableau
6 30 (1.41%) NoSQL
7 29 (1.36%) Big Data
7 29 (1.36%) Metadata
8 25 (1.17%) MySQL
9 19 (0.89%) MongoDB
10 16 (0.75%) Hadoop
11 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 14 (0.66%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.56%) Power Query
15 11 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 234 (10.98%) JIRA
2 94 (4.41%) Git
3 40 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.78%) GitLab
5 31 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.99%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.84%) MLflow
8 16 (0.75%) Selenium
9 13 (0.61%) Gradle
10 12 (0.56%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.52%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.47%) Postman
13 9 (0.42%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.42%) JUnit
13 9 (0.42%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.33%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.33%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.28%) Artifactory
General
1 1,000 (46.93%) Social Skills
2 650 (30.50%) Finance
3 458 (21.49%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (9.20%) Banking
5 177 (8.31%) Public Sector
6 115 (5.40%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (5.07%) Presentation Skills
8 86 (4.04%) Marketing
9 79 (3.71%) Documentation Skills
10 73 (3.43%) Legal
11 70 (3.28%) Aerospace
12 65 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
13 64 (3.00%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.49%) Military
15 52 (2.44%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.39%) Law
17 48 (2.25%) Retail
18 38 (1.78%) Front Office
19 33 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 31 (1.45%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 305 (14.31%) Analyst
2 237 (11.12%) Senior
3 179 (8.40%) Architect
4 161 (7.56%) Lead
5 156 (7.32%) Project Manager
6 151 (7.09%) Business Analyst
7 148 (6.95%) Developer
8 63 (2.96%) Delivery Manager
9 62 (2.91%) Senior Analyst
10 57 (2.67%) Consultant
10 57 (2.67%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
12 49 (2.30%) Product Manager
12 49 (2.30%) Software Engineer
13 45 (2.11%) Designer
13 45 (2.11%) Senior Manager
14 40 (1.88%) Data Scientist
15 38 (1.78%) Data Engineer
15 38 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
16 37 (1.74%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (4.04%) REST
2 66 (3.10%) .NET
3 52 (2.44%) Middleware
4 50 (2.35%) React
5 42 (1.97%) Kafka
6 40 (1.88%) HTML
6 40 (1.88%) Oracle Fusion
6 40 (1.88%) RESTful
7 34 (1.60%) Spring Boot
8 33 (1.55%) XML
9 31 (1.45%) SOAP
9 31 (1.45%) Spring
10 28 (1.31%) CSS
11 27 (1.27%) PyTorch
12 26 (1.22%) OAuth
12 26 (1.22%) Pandas
13 25 (1.17%) .NET Framework
13 25 (1.17%) JSON
14 24 (1.13%) Web Services
15 22 (1.03%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 158 (7.41%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.99%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 71 (3.33%) Cloud Native
5 65 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
6 61 (2.86%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.72%) Virtual Team
8 52 (2.44%) Data Structures
9 51 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (2.30%) PMI
11 47 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
12 45 (2.11%) Algorithms
13 38 (1.78%) Robotics
14 36 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
15 33 (1.55%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.45%) Derivative
17 30 (1.41%) Security Posture
18 28 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
19 26 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
20 25 (1.17%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 256 (12.01%) Windows
2 160 (7.51%) Linux
3 69 (3.24%) Unix
4 65 (3.05%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.58%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.13%) Android
7 22 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 21 (0.99%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.84%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.52%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.23%) AIX
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 4 (0.19%) Rocky
14 4 (0.19%) Solaris
15 2 (0.094%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 732 (34.35%) Computer Science
2 637 (29.89%) Agile
3 546 (25.62%) Problem-Solving
4 346 (16.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 309 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 308 (14.45%) AI
7 302 (14.17%) Project Management
8 282 (13.23%) DevOps
9 233 (10.93%) CI/CD
10 224 (10.51%) Analytics
11 222 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 221 (10.37%) Decision-Making
13 205 (9.62%) Migration
14 203 (9.53%) Change Management
14 203 (9.53%) ITIL
15 195 (9.15%) Cybersecurity
16 193 (9.06%) Risk Management
17 184 (8.63%) PRINCE2
18 180 (8.45%) Roadmaps
19 177 (8.31%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 334 (15.67%) Python
2 320 (15.02%) SQL
3 148 (6.95%) Java
4 104 (4.88%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.99%) C#
6 72 (3.38%) JavaScript
7 58 (2.72%) C++
8 37 (1.74%) Bash
9 32 (1.50%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.22%) R
11 22 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.80%) C
13 15 (0.70%) Perl
13 15 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.66%) Go
14 14 (0.66%) Rust
14 14 (0.66%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.47%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 467 (21.91%) Computer Science Degree
2 414 (19.43%) Security Cleared
3 295 (13.84%) SC Cleared
4 231 (10.84%) Master's Degree
5 140 (6.57%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.73%) PMP
7 95 (4.46%) CISSP
8 75 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
10 54 (2.53%) CISM
10 54 (2.53%) TOGAF Certification
11 51 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
12 48 (2.25%) DV Cleared
13 45 (2.11%) PhD
14 44 (2.06%) Azure Certification
15 40 (1.88%) CCNP
16 34 (1.60%) MBA
17 33 (1.55%) CBAP
18 32 (1.50%) CCNA
19 27 (1.27%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.76%) QA
2 107 (5.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 105 (4.93%) PMO
4 100 (4.69%) NIST
5 96 (4.50%) GDPR
6 87 (4.08%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.30%) SLA
8 39 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.83%) PCI DSS
9 24 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.03%) GRC
11 20 (0.94%) NCSC
12 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.66%) IFRS
14 12 (0.56%) Basel III
14 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.47%) COBIT
16 9 (0.42%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 138 (6.48%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.49%) Docker
3 35 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.13%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.99%) Firmware
6 8 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.33%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.19%) XenApp
9 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
10 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.094%) HDFS
11 2 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.047%) GPFS
12 1 (0.047%) IAG
12 1 (0.047%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 131 (6.15%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.38%) Terraform
3 58 (2.72%) Ansible
4 57 (2.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 36 (1.69%) SCCM
6 34 (1.60%) Grafana
7 27 (1.27%) OPNET
7 27 (1.27%) Prometheus
8 18 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.70%) Puppet
10 12 (0.56%) Kibana
11 11 (0.52%) Nmap
12 10 (0.47%) WSUS
13 9 (0.42%) Kiali
13 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
14 8 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.38%) Nessus
15 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.28%) Control-M
Vendors
1 489 (22.95%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.95%) Oracle
3 119 (5.58%) SAP
4 117 (5.49%) ServiceNow
5 72 (3.38%) Google
6 68 (3.19%) Cisco
7 50 (2.35%) Splunk
8 48 (2.25%) Databricks
9 45 (2.11%) Remedy
10 41 (1.92%) Citrix
10 41 (1.92%) VMware
11 38 (1.78%) Salesforce
12 37 (1.74%) Atlassian
13 36 (1.69%) IBM
14 34 (1.60%) Adobe
15 32 (1.50%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.36%) CheckPoint
17 23 (1.08%) Aruba
18 21 (0.99%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.99%) Siemens