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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,279 2,049 2,615
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.99% 7.43% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.72% 23.72% 25.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,215 1,209 1,522
10th Percentile £204 £257 £273
25th Percentile £369 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.03%
75th Percentile £611 £638 £638
90th Percentile £724 £763 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 163 239
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.24 £20.50
25th Percentile £27.13 £26.74 £27.00
Median hourly rate £49.25 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +15.88% -25.89% +9.24%
75th Percentile £83.19 £68.63 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year - -19.05% -

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 14,495 8,639 10,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.76% 31.31% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,767 5,446 6,482
10th Percentile £350 £300 £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 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,116 646 767
10th Percentile £17.97 £18.13 £15.01
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.25 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +115.71% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.93 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.02 £78.30
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.77%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 -21 964 £525 -4.55% 2,430
South East +2 484 £500 +5.26% 802
North of England -14 339 £453 +0.67% 566
North West -13 196 £450 -5.26% 298
Midlands -33 180 £450 +3.21% 391
East of England -9 142 £425 -5.56% 400
West Midlands -38 137 £450 - 217
Yorkshire -8 127 £500 +20.12% 170
South West -23 125 £415 -7.78% 309
East Midlands -25 41 £475 +32.68% 174
North East -45 16 £450 +130.77% 106
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
1 137 (6.01%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.78%) Confluence
3 61 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.18%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.48%) CMS
9 10 (0.44%) SAS
10 7 (0.31%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.088%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 249 (10.93%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 129 (5.66%) Microsoft Project
4 115 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.33%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 7 (0.31%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
12 4 (0.18%) Trello
13 3 (0.13%) Windchill
14 2 (0.088%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.088%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 53 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.66%) Primavera
3 9 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
4 8 (0.35%) Magento
5 7 (0.31%) HFM
6 6 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.26%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 521 (22.86%) Azure
2 289 (12.68%) AWS
3 205 (9.00%) Power Platform
4 204 (8.95%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (6.41%) Entra ID
6 122 (5.35%) GCP
7 99 (4.34%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (3.16%) SaaS
9 62 (2.72%) GitHub
10 45 (1.97%) PowerApps
11 44 (1.93%) Power Automate
12 40 (1.76%) OneDrive
12 40 (1.76%) Snowflake
13 38 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
13 38 (1.67%) Serverless
14 36 (1.58%) Figma
14 36 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (1.10%) IaaS
16 23 (1.01%) PaaS
17 22 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.65%) Firewall
2 75 (3.29%) TCP/IP
3 70 (3.07%) DNS
4 66 (2.90%) Network Security
5 59 (2.59%) VPN
6 40 (1.76%) WAN
7 39 (1.71%) DHCP
8 37 (1.62%) LAN
9 27 (1.18%) Wireless
10 20 (0.88%) BGP
11 19 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 18 (0.79%) Ethernet
13 17 (0.75%) SSH
14 16 (0.70%) Internet
14 16 (0.70%) OSPF
14 16 (0.70%) VLAN
15 15 (0.66%) SSL
16 14 (0.61%) 3GPP
17 13 (0.57%) 5G
17 13 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.15%) Power BI
2 102 (4.48%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.15%) Relational Database
4 46 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
5 43 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.71%) Metadata
7 34 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.40%) Tableau
9 26 (1.14%) Big Data
10 24 (1.05%) MongoDB
11 23 (1.01%) MySQL
11 23 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
14 14 (0.61%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.61%) Power Query
15 13 (0.57%) Data Mining
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 9 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
17 9 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 177 (7.77%) JIRA
2 112 (4.91%) Git
3 51 (2.24%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.97%) GitLab
5 35 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
7 15 (0.66%) Selenium
8 14 (0.61%) MLflow
9 13 (0.57%) JUnit
10 11 (0.48%) Gradle
10 11 (0.48%) Subversion
11 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.39%) Maven
13 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
13 8 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.31%) Postman
15 6 (0.26%) Bitbucket
15 6 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,001 (43.92%) Social Skills
2 663 (29.09%) Finance
3 513 (22.51%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (8.07%) Public Sector
5 170 (7.46%) Banking
6 151 (6.63%) Organisational Skills
7 104 (4.56%) Aerospace
8 93 (4.08%) Legal
8 93 (4.08%) Presentation Skills
9 91 (3.99%) Marketing
10 89 (3.91%) Manufacturing
11 81 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
12 76 (3.33%) Telecoms
13 70 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.76%) Retail
15 60 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.28%) Law
17 43 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.62%) Front Office
19 36 (1.58%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 309 (13.56%) Analyst
2 252 (11.06%) Senior
3 178 (7.81%) Lead
4 162 (7.11%) Developer
5 160 (7.02%) Architect
6 143 (6.27%) Business Analyst
7 134 (5.88%) Project Manager
8 72 (3.16%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.68%) Consultant
10 55 (2.41%) IT Support
10 55 (2.41%) Support Engineer
11 54 (2.37%) Product Manager
12 52 (2.28%) Designer
12 52 (2.28%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.24%) IT Analyst
13 51 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
14 47 (2.06%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.06%) Systems Engineer
15 46 (2.02%) Delivery Manager
16 42 (1.84%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (4.04%) REST
2 90 (3.95%) .NET
3 55 (2.41%) React
4 39 (1.71%) Kafka
5 38 (1.67%) HTML
5 38 (1.67%) OAuth
6 37 (1.62%) RESTful
7 33 (1.45%) .NET Framework
7 33 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
8 32 (1.40%) Middleware
9 30 (1.32%) CSS
9 30 (1.32%) SAML
9 30 (1.32%) Web Services
10 28 (1.23%) LDAP
11 27 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 26 (1.14%) JSON
12 26 (1.14%) OAuth2
13 25 (1.10%) OpenID
13 25 (1.10%) SailPoint
14 24 (1.05%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 184 (8.07%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.36%) Onboarding
3 139 (6.10%) Product Ownership
4 95 (4.17%) Self-Motivation
5 86 (3.77%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.85%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.63%) Data Centre
8 55 (2.41%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.24%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.06%) Virtual Team
11 45 (1.97%) Operational Technology
12 40 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
14 35 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.49%) Life Science
16 33 (1.45%) Robotics
17 32 (1.40%) AI Agents
17 32 (1.40%) PMI
18 31 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
19 30 (1.32%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 290 (12.72%) Windows
2 173 (7.59%) Linux
3 73 (3.20%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.63%) Unix
5 46 (2.02%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.10%) Android
10 13 (0.57%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.26%) AIX
12 6 (0.26%) Solaris
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 767 (33.66%) Computer Science
2 630 (27.64%) Agile
3 601 (26.37%) Problem-Solving
4 412 (18.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 394 (17.29%) Continuous Improvement
6 369 (16.19%) AI
7 303 (13.30%) DevOps
8 287 (12.59%) Project Management
9 281 (12.33%) Analytics
10 262 (11.50%) CI/CD
11 260 (11.41%) ITIL
12 239 (10.49%) Cybersecurity
13 237 (10.40%) Decision-Making
13 237 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 205 (9.00%) PRINCE2
15 200 (8.78%) Change Management
15 200 (8.78%) Roadmaps
16 198 (8.69%) Software Engineering
17 189 (8.29%) Scrum
18 188 (8.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 389 (17.07%) Python
2 318 (13.95%) SQL
3 154 (6.76%) PowerShell
4 142 (6.23%) Java
5 96 (4.21%) C#
6 87 (3.82%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.33%) Bash
8 40 (1.76%) C++
9 33 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.14%) R
11 23 (1.01%) Bicep
11 23 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.97%) C
12 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 20 (0.88%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.48%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.44%) X++
17 9 (0.39%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.39%) Scala
Qualifications
1 444 (19.48%) Computer Science Degree
2 417 (18.30%) Security Cleared
3 270 (11.85%) SC Cleared
4 190 (8.34%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.01%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.27%) PMP
7 117 (5.13%) CISSP
8 113 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.64%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.20%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.85%) Azure Certification
12 60 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.37%) CISM
14 51 (2.24%) PhD
15 40 (1.76%) CCNA
16 38 (1.67%) CCNP
16 38 (1.67%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 37 (1.62%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.54%) CISA
19 30 (1.32%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (5.05%) QA
2 114 (5.00%) NIST
3 113 (4.96%) Data Quality
4 106 (4.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (4.17%) PMO
6 68 (2.98%) GDPR
7 46 (2.02%) SLA
8 41 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.05%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.01%) GRC
12 22 (0.97%) NCSC
13 13 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.57%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.48%) COBIT
16 10 (0.44%) P3O
17 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
17 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 189 (8.29%) Active Directory
2 109 (4.78%) Docker
3 50 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.97%) Firmware
4 22 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
6 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.31%) vSphere
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
8 6 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
9 4 (0.18%) NFS
9 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
10 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.088%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 118 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.95%) Terraform
3 72 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.81%) Ansible
5 35 (1.54%) SCCM
6 27 (1.18%) Grafana
7 24 (1.05%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.48%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.39%) WSUS
14 8 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.35%) Nessus
15 7 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.31%) SCOM
16 6 (0.26%) HP ALM
17 5 (0.22%) CASB
17 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 584 (25.63%) Microsoft
2 149 (6.54%) Oracle
3 137 (6.01%) ServiceNow
4 122 (5.35%) SAP
5 84 (3.69%) Google
6 65 (2.85%) VMware
7 64 (2.81%) Cisco
8 52 (2.28%) Salesforce
9 51 (2.24%) Databricks
10 47 (2.06%) Adobe
11 46 (2.02%) IBM
12 34 (1.49%) CyberArk
13 32 (1.40%) Splunk
14 31 (1.36%) Citrix
15 29 (1.27%) Palo Alto
16 28 (1.23%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.97%) BeyondTrust
17 22 (0.97%) Siemens
18 20 (0.88%) Ariba
19 18 (0.79%) Apple