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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,130 1,885 3,120
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.25% 7.75% 8.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.34% 24.67% 27.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,241 1,120 1,639
10th Percentile £244 £250 £215
25th Percentile £381 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £510
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.98% -5.56%
75th Percentile £613 £657 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 139 374
10th Percentile £20.31 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.50 £27.20 £24.12
Median hourly rate £65.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.50% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.93
UK median hourly rate £55.75 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +4.21% +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 13,034 7,640 11,427
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.11% 31.43% 31.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,737 4,858 7,040
10th Percentile £341 £289 £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 £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £716 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 959 439 980
10th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.00
Median hourly rate £48.05 £40.84 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% +2.10% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.52 £67.50 £61.82
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.48 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.05 £39.18 £40.00
% change year-on-year +22.64% -2.05% -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -16 895 £504 -8.41% 1,000
South East -3 368 £496 -0.20% 711
North of England -14 318 £417 -8.45% 436
Midlands -20 211 £503 +57.03% 297
North West -9 166 £400 -14.12% 231
West Midlands -26 147 £500 +66.67% 186
East of England -6 138 £450 -10.00% 219
Yorkshire -14 138 £475 +14.73% 140
South West -15 138 £568 +18.35% 244
East Midlands -13 62 £525 +47.47% 111
North East -26 14 £450 - 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
1 142 (6.67%) Confluence
2 108 (5.07%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.82%) 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%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.094%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.094%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.094%) WinCC
Applications
1 286 (13.43%) Microsoft Office
2 214 (10.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 172 (8.08%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 59 (2.77%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.47%) Simulink
8 9 (0.42%) Adobe Illustrator
8 9 (0.42%) Photoshop
9 8 (0.38%) 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%) Sketch
11 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
12 2 (0.094%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.094%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.094%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.047%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 50 (2.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.70%) Primavera
4 14 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.38%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.38%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Shopify
10 4 (0.19%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 440 (20.66%) Azure
2 254 (11.92%) AWS
3 183 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (7.93%) Power Platform
5 102 (4.79%) Entra ID
6 91 (4.27%) SaaS
7 84 (3.94%) GCP
8 72 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (2.35%) GitHub
10 33 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
10 33 (1.55%) Google Workspace
10 33 (1.55%) PaaS
10 33 (1.55%) Power Automate
11 30 (1.41%) IaaS
12 29 (1.36%) Figma
13 27 (1.27%) Serverless
14 26 (1.22%) PowerApps
15 23 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
15 23 (1.08%) Snowflake
16 22 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 93 (4.37%) Firewall
2 52 (2.44%) LAN
2 52 (2.44%) WAN
3 47 (2.21%) TCP/IP
4 44 (2.07%) DNS
5 42 (1.97%) 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 18 (0.85%) Skype
11 17 (0.80%) DHCP
12 15 (0.70%) HTTP
13 14 (0.66%) SAN
13 14 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.52%) IPsec
15 11 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.47%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (6.67%) Power BI
2 84 (3.94%) SQL Server
3 49 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 48 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
4 48 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (1.60%) 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
10 16 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
12 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
12 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (0.56%) Power Query
14 11 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 237 (11.13%) JIRA
2 94 (4.41%) Git
3 40 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.78%) GitLab
5 31 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.85%) 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%) Cucumber
General
1 1,005 (47.18%) Social Skills
2 655 (30.75%) Finance
3 462 (21.69%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (9.25%) Banking
5 171 (8.03%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.49%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.16%) Presentation Skills
8 87 (4.08%) Marketing
9 81 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
10 71 (3.33%) Legal
11 70 (3.29%) Aerospace
12 66 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
13 61 (2.86%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.54%) Military
14 54 (2.54%) Telecoms
15 51 (2.39%) Law
16 47 (2.21%) Retail
17 38 (1.78%) Front Office
18 32 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 31 (1.46%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 297 (13.94%) Analyst
2 231 (10.85%) Senior
3 181 (8.50%) Architect
4 163 (7.65%) Lead
5 159 (7.46%) Project Manager
6 148 (6.95%) Business Analyst
6 148 (6.95%) Developer
7 63 (2.96%) Delivery Manager
8 61 (2.86%) Consultant
9 59 (2.77%) Senior Analyst
10 58 (2.72%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
12 49 (2.30%) Software Engineer
13 48 (2.25%) Product Manager
14 44 (2.07%) Designer
14 44 (2.07%) Senior Manager
15 39 (1.83%) Data Scientist
16 38 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
17 37 (1.74%) Security Engineer
17 37 (1.74%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (4.08%) 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
7 34 (1.60%) XML
8 32 (1.50%) SOAP
9 31 (1.46%) Spring
10 28 (1.31%) CSS
11 27 (1.27%) OAuth
11 27 (1.27%) PyTorch
12 26 (1.22%) JSON
13 25 (1.17%) .NET Framework
13 25 (1.17%) Pandas
14 22 (1.03%) AngularJS
15 21 (0.99%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 159 (7.46%) Management Information System
2 152 (7.14%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.59%) Onboarding
4 71 (3.33%) Cloud Native
5 64 (3.00%) Self-Motivation
6 59 (2.77%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.72%) Virtual Team
8 50 (2.35%) Data Structures
8 50 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
8 50 (2.35%) PMI
9 47 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
10 44 (2.07%) Algorithms
11 38 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
11 38 (1.78%) Robotics
12 33 (1.55%) Operational Technology
13 30 (1.41%) Derivative
13 30 (1.41%) Security Posture
14 29 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
15 26 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
16 25 (1.17%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 251 (11.78%) Windows
2 160 (7.51%) Linux
3 68 (3.19%) Unix
4 65 (3.05%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.63%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.17%) Android
7 22 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (0.85%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.52%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.52%) 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
1 727 (34.13%) Computer Science
2 642 (30.14%) Agile
3 542 (25.45%) Problem-Solving
4 350 (16.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 312 (14.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 304 (14.27%) AI
7 303 (14.23%) Project Management
8 286 (13.43%) DevOps
9 233 (10.94%) CI/CD
10 223 (10.47%) Analytics
11 220 (10.33%) Decision-Making
11 220 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 205 (9.62%) Change Management
13 204 (9.58%) Migration
14 200 (9.39%) ITIL
15 199 (9.34%) Cybersecurity
16 191 (8.97%) Risk Management
17 183 (8.59%) PRINCE2
18 182 (8.54%) Roadmaps
19 181 (8.50%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 331 (15.54%) Python
2 318 (14.93%) SQL
3 148 (6.95%) Java
4 106 (4.98%) PowerShell
5 85 (3.99%) C#
6 73 (3.43%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.63%) C++
8 37 (1.74%) Bash
9 33 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.27%) 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
1 468 (21.97%) Computer Science Degree
2 416 (19.53%) Security Cleared
3 298 (13.99%) SC Cleared
4 234 (10.99%) Master's Degree
5 139 (6.53%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.73%) PMP
7 95 (4.46%) CISSP
8 77 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
9 71 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
10 56 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
11 55 (2.58%) CISM
12 50 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
13 49 (2.30%) DV Cleared
14 44 (2.07%) Azure Certification
14 44 (2.07%) PhD
15 40 (1.88%) CCNP
16 35 (1.64%) MBA
17 33 (1.55%) CBAP
18 32 (1.50%) CCNA
19 26 (1.22%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (6.71%) QA
2 106 (4.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 104 (4.88%) PMO
4 100 (4.69%) NIST
5 97 (4.55%) GDPR
6 84 (3.94%) Data Quality
7 49 (2.30%) SLA
8 39 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.83%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (1.03%) GRC
11 20 (0.94%) NCSC
12 15 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.66%) IFRS
14 13 (0.61%) Basel III
15 12 (0.56%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.56%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.47%) COBIT
17 9 (0.42%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.42%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 139 (6.53%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.49%) Docker
3 35 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.17%) 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
8 5 (0.23%) XenApp
8 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
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%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.047%) Squid
12 1 (0.047%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 131 (6.15%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.38%) Terraform
3 58 (2.72%) Ansible
4 55 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.74%) SCCM
6 34 (1.60%) Grafana
7 29 (1.36%) OPNET
8 27 (1.27%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.70%) Puppet
11 12 (0.56%) Kibana
12 11 (0.52%) Nmap
13 10 (0.47%) WSUS
14 9 (0.42%) Kiali
14 9 (0.42%) vCenter Server
15 8 (0.38%) Nessus
16 7 (0.33%) HP ALM
17 6 (0.28%) Control-M
17 6 (0.28%) SCOM
Vendors
1 487 (22.86%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.85%) Oracle
3 118 (5.54%) SAP
3 118 (5.54%) ServiceNow
4 72 (3.38%) Google
5 68 (3.19%) Cisco
6 51 (2.39%) Splunk
7 48 (2.25%) Databricks
7 48 (2.25%) Remedy
8 41 (1.92%) Citrix
8 41 (1.92%) VMware
9 39 (1.83%) Atlassian
10 37 (1.74%) Salesforce
11 36 (1.69%) IBM
12 33 (1.55%) Adobe
13 32 (1.50%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.36%) CheckPoint
15 23 (1.08%) Aruba
16 21 (0.99%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.94%) Siemens