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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,208 1,897 3,160
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.78% 7.82% 8.39%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.17% 24.98% 26.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,296 1,132 1,709
10th Percentile £281 £260 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £738 £800 £761
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 146 337
10th Percentile £16.89 £19.07 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.12 £30.33 £22.75
Median hourly rate £51.77 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £48.50 £47.81 £38.85
% change year-on-year +1.45% +23.05% -13.67%

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 12,862 7,593 11,787
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.69% 31.32% 31.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,573 4,863 7,324
10th Percentile £335 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 981 430 919
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £25.25 £17.80
Median hourly rate £37.00 £50.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.00% +33.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £69.45 £68.00 £62.48
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.12 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £36.70 £42.50 £37.83
% change year-on-year -13.65% +12.35% -27.95%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -12 969 £515 -6.36% 866
South East -3 347 £500 - 660
North of England -8 344 £425 -10.53% 472
Midlands -19 206 £500 +40.45% 318
North West -3 181 £400 -15.79% 244
West Midlands -22 153 £495 +65.00% 181
South West -3 150 £688 +28.44% 220
Yorkshire -13 146 £500 -1.23% 164
East of England -6 137 £500 - 213
East Midlands -18 52 £531 +49.16% 136
North East -14 18 £407 -9.56% 71
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
1 159 (7.20%) Confluence
2 103 (4.66%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.63%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 9 (0.41%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.27%) SAS
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.14%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.091%) Appian
13 2 (0.091%) Camunda
13 2 (0.091%) Drupal
13 2 (0.091%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.091%) IIS
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 283 (12.82%) Microsoft Office
2 213 (9.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (8.47%) Microsoft Project
4 116 (5.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.94%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.50%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.45%) Trello
9 9 (0.41%) Simulink
10 7 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.091%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.091%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.091%) Revit
14 1 (0.045%) Camtasia
14 1 (0.045%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 45 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.86%) Primavera
3 19 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
5 8 (0.36%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
8 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
8 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 450 (20.38%) Azure
2 263 (11.91%) AWS
3 182 (8.24%) Microsoft 365
4 163 (7.38%) Power Platform
5 118 (5.34%) GCP
6 102 (4.62%) Entra ID
7 101 (4.57%) SaaS
8 80 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.67%) GitHub
10 43 (1.95%) Serverless
11 36 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.59%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.45%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.40%) IaaS
15 30 (1.36%) PaaS
16 29 (1.31%) Cloud Computing
17 26 (1.18%) PowerApps
18 24 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
19 23 (1.04%) Snowflake
20 22 (1.00%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.62%) Firewall
2 55 (2.49%) LAN
3 54 (2.45%) WAN
4 45 (2.04%) DNS
5 44 (1.99%) TCP/IP
6 40 (1.81%) VPN
7 38 (1.72%) Network Security
8 29 (1.31%) Wireless
9 27 (1.22%) BGP
10 21 (0.95%) Ethernet
10 21 (0.95%) OSPF
11 20 (0.91%) DHCP
11 20 (0.91%) HTTP
12 18 (0.82%) Internet
13 17 (0.77%) Skype
14 15 (0.68%) VLAN
15 14 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.59%) SAN
16 13 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
17 12 (0.54%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (5.98%) Power BI
2 78 (3.53%) SQL Server
3 71 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.22%) NoSQL
5 47 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (2.13%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.81%) Tableau
7 32 (1.45%) MySQL
8 28 (1.27%) Big Data
9 22 (1.00%) Metadata
10 18 (0.82%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
11 17 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 16 (0.72%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.68%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 258 (11.68%) JIRA
2 97 (4.39%) Git
3 62 (2.81%) Jenkins
4 48 (2.17%) GitLab
5 31 (1.40%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.00%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.77%) MLflow
7 17 (0.77%) Selenium
8 15 (0.68%) Postman
9 13 (0.59%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.45%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.45%) Gradle
12 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.41%) Liquibase
13 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.32%) JUnit
14 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 1,059 (47.96%) Social Skills
2 685 (31.02%) Finance
3 493 (22.33%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (10.78%) Banking
5 169 (7.65%) Public Sector
6 108 (4.89%) Presentation Skills
7 98 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (3.62%) Marketing
9 78 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (3.26%) Aerospace
12 71 (3.22%) Legal
13 66 (2.99%) Manufacturing
14 51 (2.31%) Front Office
14 51 (2.31%) Military
15 48 (2.17%) Financial Institution
16 47 (2.13%) Telecoms
17 45 (2.04%) Retail
18 43 (1.95%) Law
19 42 (1.90%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 319 (14.45%) Analyst
2 223 (10.10%) Senior
3 185 (8.38%) Lead
4 171 (7.74%) Architect
5 166 (7.52%) Project Manager
6 163 (7.38%) Developer
7 151 (6.84%) Business Analyst
8 77 (3.49%) Consultant
9 64 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.67%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
12 55 (2.49%) Software Engineer
13 54 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
14 46 (2.08%) Data Scientist
15 45 (2.04%) Product Manager
16 44 (1.99%) Security Engineer
17 38 (1.72%) Systems Engineer
18 37 (1.68%) Senior Manager
19 35 (1.59%) Data Engineer
19 35 (1.59%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.57%) REST
2 59 (2.67%) RESTful
3 58 (2.63%) .NET
4 47 (2.13%) Middleware
5 44 (1.99%) React
6 43 (1.95%) HTML
7 41 (1.86%) Kafka
8 37 (1.68%) XML
9 36 (1.63%) Elastic Stack
10 34 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
10 34 (1.54%) Spring Boot
11 33 (1.49%) JSON
12 32 (1.45%) SOAP
13 31 (1.40%) Spring
14 29 (1.31%) CSS
14 29 (1.31%) OAuth
14 29 (1.31%) PyTorch
15 28 (1.27%) Pandas
16 27 (1.22%) TensorFlow
17 24 (1.09%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 175 (7.93%) Management Information System
2 148 (6.70%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.98%) Onboarding
4 89 (4.03%) Cloud Native
5 75 (3.40%) Virtual Team
6 68 (3.08%) Distributed Systems
7 66 (2.99%) Data Centre
8 63 (2.85%) Algorithms
9 58 (2.63%) Self-Motivation
10 51 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
11 50 (2.26%) Data Structures
12 49 (2.22%) PMI
13 45 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
14 42 (1.90%) Derivative
15 33 (1.49%) Security Posture
16 31 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
17 30 (1.36%) Equities
18 29 (1.31%) Robotics
19 28 (1.27%) Operational Technology
20 26 (1.18%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 254 (11.50%) Windows
2 172 (7.79%) Linux
3 66 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.90%) Unix
5 55 (2.49%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.95%) Android
6 21 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.82%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.68%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
12 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.18%) AIX
16 4 (0.18%) CentOS
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
17 3 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (36.64%) Computer Science
2 704 (31.88%) Agile
3 582 (26.36%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (16.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 322 (14.58%) DevOps
6 319 (14.45%) AI
7 315 (14.27%) Project Management
8 305 (13.81%) Continuous Improvement
9 250 (11.32%) CI/CD
10 249 (11.28%) Change Management
11 239 (10.82%) ITIL
12 237 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 236 (10.69%) Analytics
14 233 (10.55%) Cybersecurity
15 226 (10.24%) Decision-Making
16 208 (9.42%) Migration
16 208 (9.42%) Risk Management
17 202 (9.15%) PRINCE2
17 202 (9.15%) Project Delivery
18 195 (8.83%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 376 (17.03%) Python
2 317 (14.36%) SQL
3 149 (6.75%) Java
4 115 (5.21%) PowerShell
5 80 (3.62%) JavaScript
6 71 (3.22%) C#
7 64 (2.90%) C++
8 39 (1.77%) Bash
9 37 (1.68%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.40%) Go
11 28 (1.27%) R
12 24 (1.09%) PL/SQL
13 17 (0.77%) Perl
14 16 (0.72%) C
15 15 (0.68%) Rust
16 14 (0.63%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 13 (0.59%) Shell Script
18 11 (0.50%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 511 (23.14%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (19.29%) Security Cleared
3 305 (13.81%) SC Cleared
4 295 (13.36%) Master's Degree
5 134 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.43%) PMP
7 110 (4.98%) CISSP
8 87 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
9 64 (2.90%) PhD
10 62 (2.81%) CISM
11 58 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
12 55 (2.49%) TOGAF Certification
13 51 (2.31%) Azure Certification
13 51 (2.31%) DV Cleared
14 49 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
15 39 (1.77%) CCNP
16 36 (1.63%) MBA
17 32 (1.45%) CBAP
18 31 (1.40%) AWS Certification
19 30 (1.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (6.61%) QA
2 107 (4.85%) GDPR
3 103 (4.66%) PMO
4 92 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.94%) NIST
6 72 (3.26%) Data Quality
7 45 (2.04%) PCI DSS
7 45 (2.04%) SLA
8 35 (1.59%) Accessibility
9 24 (1.09%) GRC
10 22 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (0.95%) NCSC
12 14 (0.63%) IFRS
13 13 (0.59%) Basel III
14 12 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.54%) IFRS 17
14 12 (0.54%) WCAG
15 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.45%) NIST 800
System Software
1 140 (6.34%) Active Directory
2 134 (6.07%) Docker
3 42 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.91%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.72%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) vSphere
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.14%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 2 (0.091%) HDFS
11 2 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.045%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.045%) IAG
12 1 (0.045%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.045%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.045%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 147 (6.66%) Kubernetes
2 96 (4.35%) Terraform
3 71 (3.22%) Ansible
4 63 (2.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 49 (2.22%) Grafana
6 40 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.63%) SCCM
8 30 (1.36%) OPNET
9 17 (0.77%) Puppet
9 17 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.59%) Kibana
11 13 (0.59%) Nmap
12 12 (0.54%) SCOM
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
14 8 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.32%) vCenter Server
16 5 (0.23%) SCVMM
16 5 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 478 (21.65%) Microsoft
2 139 (6.30%) Oracle
3 120 (5.43%) ServiceNow
4 117 (5.30%) SAP
5 96 (4.35%) Google
6 71 (3.22%) Cisco
7 67 (3.03%) Splunk
8 53 (2.40%) Remedy
9 45 (2.04%) Atlassian
9 45 (2.04%) Citrix
9 45 (2.04%) Databricks
9 45 (2.04%) VMware
10 40 (1.81%) IBM
10 40 (1.81%) Salesforce
11 35 (1.59%) Palo Alto
12 27 (1.22%) CheckPoint
13 22 (1.00%) Adobe
14 21 (0.95%) Aruba
15 20 (0.91%) CyberArk
15 20 (0.91%) Informatica