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 24 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 26 19
Rank change year-on-year -11 -7 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,188 1,851 3,056
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.04% 7.39% 8.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.95% 23.70% 26.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,216 1,112 1,633
10th Percentile £206 £235 £235
25th Percentile £366 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.68%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £630
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 134 368
10th Percentile £17.70 £20.07 £15.82
25th Percentile £27.30 £28.00 £24.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £48.90 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +2.24% +21.27% -12.81%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.69 £61.35
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £47.05 £40.00
% change year-on-year -4.36% +17.63% -17.15%

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 13,719 7,809 11,369
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.58% 31.18% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,272 4,915 7,009
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 £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,038 510 1,012
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.01
25th Percentile £22.81 £20.06 £20.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £42.25
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -28.99% -23.18%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.36 £77.59 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £29.25 £40.33
% change year-on-year +70.94% -27.46% -26.85%

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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 -19 937 £514 -6.59% 509
South East 0 412 £500 +4.99% 541
North of England -14 333 £447 -1.22% 347
Midlands -22 192 £505 +41.06% 241
North West -10 183 £443 -2.74% 190
East of England -5 145 £450 -10.00% 172
West Midlands -27 143 £492 +23.00% 122
Yorkshire -8 135 £500 +11.86% 111
South West -25 120 £443 -6.84% 193
East Midlands -17 47 £550 +55.81% 119
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 53
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 (5.53%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.98%) Confluence
3 65 (2.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.46%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.73%) Apache
7 11 (0.50%) IIS
8 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.37%) SAS
9 7 (0.32%) Camunda
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
13 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.091%) WinCC
Applications
1 254 (11.61%) Microsoft Office
2 206 (9.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 127 (5.80%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.61%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
9 10 (0.46%) Simulink
10 8 (0.37%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.37%) Revit
11 6 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.27%) Trello
12 5 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.091%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.091%) Windchill
14 1 (0.046%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 52 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.69%) Primavera
3 9 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.18%) HFM
8 4 (0.18%) Magento
8 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 4 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 482 (22.03%) Azure
2 289 (13.21%) AWS
3 191 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
4 179 (8.18%) Power Platform
5 127 (5.80%) Entra ID
6 108 (4.94%) GCP
7 79 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.47%) SaaS
9 52 (2.38%) GitHub
10 34 (1.55%) Figma
10 34 (1.55%) Serverless
11 33 (1.51%) Power Automate
11 33 (1.51%) Snowflake
12 32 (1.46%) OneDrive
12 32 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 29 (1.33%) PaaS
14 28 (1.28%) Dynamics 365
15 27 (1.23%) Google Workspace
16 25 (1.14%) IaaS
17 23 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.48%) Firewall
2 66 (3.02%) TCP/IP
3 64 (2.93%) DNS
4 57 (2.61%) Network Security
5 46 (2.10%) WAN
6 44 (2.01%) LAN
6 44 (2.01%) VPN
7 33 (1.51%) DHCP
8 26 (1.19%) Wireless
9 23 (1.05%) BGP
10 20 (0.91%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.91%) OSPF
11 19 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
12 15 (0.69%) 3GPP
13 13 (0.59%) Skype
14 12 (0.55%) Internet
14 12 (0.55%) SAN
14 12 (0.55%) SSH
15 11 (0.50%) DMZ
15 11 (0.50%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (6.95%) Power BI
2 101 (4.62%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.15%) Relational Database
5 44 (2.01%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.74%) Tableau
7 33 (1.51%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.46%) Metadata
9 29 (1.33%) Big Data
10 25 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.96%) MySQL
12 19 (0.87%) Oracle Database
13 17 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.73%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
16 12 (0.55%) Power Query
16 12 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 192 (8.78%) JIRA
2 100 (4.57%) Git
3 40 (1.83%) GitLab
3 40 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
5 20 (0.91%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.87%) MLflow
7 15 (0.69%) Selenium
8 11 (0.50%) Gradle
8 11 (0.50%) JUnit
8 11 (0.50%) Postman
9 10 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.41%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.41%) TeamCity
11 8 (0.37%) Maven
12 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.32%) Subversion
13 6 (0.27%) Burp Suite
13 6 (0.27%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,000 (45.70%) Social Skills
2 670 (30.62%) Finance
3 450 (20.57%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.68%) Banking
5 186 (8.50%) Public Sector
6 129 (5.90%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (5.12%) Presentation Skills
8 93 (4.25%) Marketing
9 87 (3.98%) Aerospace
10 85 (3.88%) Legal
11 79 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
11 79 (3.61%) Manufacturing
12 71 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
13 61 (2.79%) Telecoms
14 57 (2.61%) Retail
15 51 (2.33%) Law
16 43 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.78%) Front Office
18 32 (1.46%) Investment Banking
18 32 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 323 (14.76%) Analyst
2 247 (11.29%) Senior
3 170 (7.77%) Architect
4 162 (7.40%) Lead
5 149 (6.81%) Business Analyst
6 148 (6.76%) Developer
7 143 (6.54%) Project Manager
8 64 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
9 61 (2.79%) Consultant
9 61 (2.79%) Senior Manager
10 57 (2.61%) Senior Analyst
10 57 (2.61%) Technical Support
11 52 (2.38%) Designer
12 51 (2.33%) Software Engineer
13 50 (2.29%) Product Manager
14 47 (2.15%) Delivery Manager
15 45 (2.06%) IT Support
16 44 (2.01%) IT Manager
17 42 (1.92%) IT Analyst
17 42 (1.92%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (4.20%) REST
2 82 (3.75%) .NET
3 57 (2.61%) React
4 46 (2.10%) Kafka
5 43 (1.97%) Middleware
5 43 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
6 36 (1.65%) .NET Framework
6 36 (1.65%) OAuth
7 35 (1.60%) HTML
7 35 (1.60%) RESTful
8 27 (1.23%) Spring Boot
8 27 (1.23%) Web Services
9 26 (1.19%) Spring
9 26 (1.19%) XML
10 25 (1.14%) JSON
10 25 (1.14%) SAML
11 24 (1.10%) CSS
11 24 (1.10%) SOAP
12 22 (1.01%) AngularJS
12 22 (1.01%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 176 (8.04%) Management Information System
2 135 (6.17%) Onboarding
3 127 (5.80%) Product Ownership
4 89 (4.07%) Self-Motivation
5 81 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 69 (3.15%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.38%) Data Structures
7 52 (2.38%) Virtual Team
8 46 (2.10%) Algorithms
9 45 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (2.06%) Security Posture
10 42 (1.92%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.92%) PMI
11 39 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.65%) Robotics
13 32 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
13 32 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
14 29 (1.33%) Derivative
14 29 (1.33%) Life Science
15 28 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 300 (13.71%) Windows
2 168 (7.68%) Linux
3 70 (3.20%) Windows Server
4 69 (3.15%) Unix
5 54 (2.47%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.14%) Android
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.32%) AIX
14 6 (0.27%) Windows 7
15 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.18%) Debian
16 4 (0.18%) Rocky
16 4 (0.18%) Solaris
16 4 (0.18%) VMS
17 3 (0.14%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (32.95%) Computer Science
2 633 (28.93%) Agile
3 561 (25.64%) Problem-Solving
4 365 (16.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 348 (15.90%) AI
6 344 (15.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 297 (13.57%) DevOps
8 273 (12.48%) Project Management
9 253 (11.56%) CI/CD
10 252 (11.52%) Analytics
11 231 (10.56%) Decision-Making
12 221 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 213 (9.73%) ITIL
14 212 (9.69%) Cybersecurity
15 202 (9.23%) Roadmaps
16 199 (9.10%) Change Management
17 189 (8.64%) Migration
18 179 (8.18%) Risk Management
19 174 (7.95%) Project Delivery
20 173 (7.91%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 363 (16.59%) Python
2 322 (14.72%) SQL
3 147 (6.72%) Java
4 127 (5.80%) PowerShell
5 90 (4.11%) C#
6 85 (3.88%) JavaScript
7 40 (1.83%) Bash
8 36 (1.65%) C++
9 27 (1.23%) TypeScript
10 23 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 22 (1.01%) R
12 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.73%) C
15 13 (0.59%) Rust
16 12 (0.55%) Go
16 12 (0.55%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.55%) Perl
17 11 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.46%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 441 (20.16%) Computer Science Degree
2 384 (17.55%) Security Cleared
3 261 (11.93%) SC Cleared
4 215 (9.83%) Master's Degree
5 133 (6.08%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.35%) CISSP
7 113 (5.16%) PMP
8 89 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 78 (3.56%) Cisco Certification
10 63 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (2.56%) CISM
12 54 (2.47%) DV Cleared
13 51 (2.33%) Azure Certification
14 45 (2.06%) PhD
15 38 (1.74%) CCNP
16 36 (1.65%) CCNA
17 35 (1.60%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.51%) CBAP
18 33 (1.51%) MBA
19 32 (1.46%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (5.44%) QA
2 111 (5.07%) NIST
3 110 (5.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 98 (4.48%) Data Quality
5 97 (4.43%) PMO
6 88 (4.02%) GDPR
7 47 (2.15%) SLA
8 38 (1.74%) Accessibility
9 36 (1.65%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.19%) GRC
12 20 (0.91%) NCSC
13 17 (0.78%) IFRS
14 16 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.41%) COBIT
18 8 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 175 (8.00%) Active Directory
2 118 (5.39%) Docker
3 41 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.23%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 10 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.41%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) NFS
11 3 (0.14%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.14%) XenApp
11 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 129 (5.90%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.79%) Terraform
3 73 (3.34%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.83%) Ansible
5 34 (1.55%) Grafana
6 33 (1.51%) SCCM
7 32 (1.46%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 14 (0.64%) Puppet
12 11 (0.50%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.41%) WSUS
14 8 (0.37%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.37%) Nessus
15 6 (0.27%) Kibana
16 5 (0.23%) Control-M
16 5 (0.23%) Nmap
16 5 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 513 (23.45%) Microsoft
2 156 (7.13%) Oracle
3 122 (5.58%) SAP
4 113 (5.16%) ServiceNow
5 89 (4.07%) Google
6 60 (2.74%) Cisco
7 48 (2.19%) Databricks
8 47 (2.15%) VMware
9 42 (1.92%) Citrix
10 40 (1.83%) Salesforce
11 39 (1.78%) IBM
12 38 (1.74%) Adobe
13 37 (1.69%) Splunk
14 30 (1.37%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.23%) CyberArk
16 23 (1.05%) CheckPoint
16 23 (1.05%) Red Hat
17 20 (0.91%) Siemens
18 19 (0.87%) Ariba
19 18 (0.82%) HP