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 26 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,259 2,016 2,723
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.00% 7.31% 7.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.78% 23.63% 25.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,212 1,199 1,581
10th Percentile £204 £259 £263
25th Percentile £363 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £640 £638
90th Percentile £713 £755 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 257 160 263
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.78 £18.70
25th Percentile £26.90 £26.95 £27.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £42.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -25.33% +4.42%
75th Percentile £83.00 £69.10 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £87.15 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £42.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year +1.18% -15.00% -7.41%

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 14,314 8,530 10,597
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.65% 30.93% 30.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,647 5,385 6,742
10th Percentile £350 £285 £325
25th Percentile £430 £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 £719 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,076 628 837
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.09 £14.40
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -22.77%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.70
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -24.15%

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 26 July 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 -21 953 £525 -4.55% 1,469
South East +3 471 £500 +4.99% 606
North of England -11 334 £450 -0.11% 391
North West -14 188 £447 -5.89% 191
Midlands -28 188 £481 +10.32% 256
East of England -3 148 £450 - 240
West Midlands -33 144 £487 +8.11% 144
Yorkshire -8 128 £450 +6.51% 128
South West -25 120 £415 -7.78% 220
East Midlands -22 42 £481 +34.36% 112
North East -44 18 £450 +130.77% 76
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
1 138 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.91%) Confluence
3 63 (2.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.33%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.75%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.44%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) SAS
9 8 (0.35%) Camunda
10 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.22%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.18%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 251 (11.11%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (9.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 132 (5.84%) Microsoft Project
4 119 (5.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.39%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.66%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.35%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.35%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.35%) Revit
10 8 (0.35%) Simulink
11 5 (0.22%) Trello
11 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.18%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.089%) Sketch
13 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (2.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.66%) Primavera
3 13 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.35%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.27%) HFM
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.22%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 519 (22.97%) Azure
2 285 (12.62%) AWS
3 207 (9.16%) Power Platform
4 199 (8.81%) Microsoft 365
5 147 (6.51%) Entra ID
6 120 (5.31%) GCP
7 95 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (3.32%) SaaS
9 55 (2.43%) GitHub
10 42 (1.86%) PowerApps
11 41 (1.81%) Power Automate
12 40 (1.77%) OneDrive
13 39 (1.73%) Serverless
14 38 (1.68%) Snowflake
15 36 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
15 36 (1.59%) Figma
16 33 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
17 26 (1.15%) IaaS
17 26 (1.15%) PaaS
18 22 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.47%) Firewall
2 70 (3.10%) TCP/IP
3 65 (2.88%) DNS
4 61 (2.70%) Network Security
5 56 (2.48%) VPN
6 41 (1.81%) WAN
7 39 (1.73%) LAN
8 36 (1.59%) DHCP
9 25 (1.11%) Wireless
10 20 (0.89%) BGP
10 20 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.84%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.75%) OSPF
13 15 (0.66%) VLAN
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) SSH
14 14 (0.62%) SSL
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (7.39%) Power BI
2 104 (4.60%) SQL Server
3 50 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
4 47 (2.08%) Relational Database
5 43 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.68%) Metadata
7 36 (1.59%) Tableau
8 31 (1.37%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.24%) Big Data
10 25 (1.11%) MongoDB
11 23 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (0.93%) MySQL
13 20 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.62%) Power Query
16 12 (0.53%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 11 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 10 (0.44%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 188 (8.32%) JIRA
2 109 (4.83%) Git
3 47 (2.08%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.68%) GitLab
5 34 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.80%) MLflow
7 17 (0.75%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.62%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.44%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 8 (0.35%) Postman
13 8 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
15 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 987 (43.69%) Social Skills
2 664 (29.39%) Finance
3 489 (21.65%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (8.41%) Public Sector
5 179 (7.92%) Banking
6 145 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
7 93 (4.12%) Legal
7 93 (4.12%) Marketing
7 93 (4.12%) Presentation Skills
8 91 (4.03%) Aerospace
9 85 (3.76%) Manufacturing
10 84 (3.72%) Influencing Skills
11 76 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
12 67 (2.97%) Telecoms
13 62 (2.74%) Retail
14 55 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 53 (2.35%) Law
16 37 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
17 33 (1.46%) Automotive
17 33 (1.46%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 315 (13.94%) Analyst
2 254 (11.24%) Senior
3 176 (7.79%) Lead
4 170 (7.53%) Architect
5 153 (6.77%) Developer
6 143 (6.33%) Project Manager
7 139 (6.15%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.14%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.70%) Consultant
10 56 (2.48%) Solutions Architect
11 54 (2.39%) IT Manager
12 53 (2.35%) Designer
12 53 (2.35%) IT Support
13 50 (2.21%) Product Manager
13 50 (2.21%) Support Engineer
14 49 (2.17%) Software Engineer
15 48 (2.12%) IT Analyst
16 46 (2.04%) Technical Support
17 44 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
18 42 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.90%) REST
2 86 (3.81%) .NET
3 57 (2.52%) React
4 42 (1.86%) Kafka
5 37 (1.64%) OAuth
6 34 (1.51%) Middleware
6 34 (1.51%) RESTful
7 33 (1.46%) .NET Framework
8 32 (1.42%) HTML
9 31 (1.37%) Oracle Fusion
9 31 (1.37%) Web Services
10 29 (1.28%) SAML
11 28 (1.24%) Spring
12 27 (1.20%) AngularJS
12 27 (1.20%) JSON
12 27 (1.20%) LDAP
13 26 (1.15%) Spring Boot
13 26 (1.15%) XML
14 25 (1.11%) CSS
14 25 (1.11%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 179 (7.92%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.42%) Onboarding
3 135 (5.98%) Product Ownership
4 98 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 90 (3.98%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.66%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.61%) Data Structures
8 54 (2.39%) Algorithms
9 51 (2.26%) Virtual Team
10 49 (2.17%) Security Posture
11 46 (2.04%) Operational Technology
12 40 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
13 38 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
15 35 (1.55%) Life Science
16 33 (1.46%) PMI
16 33 (1.46%) Robotics
17 32 (1.42%) AI Agents
18 30 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 295 (13.06%) Windows
2 163 (7.22%) Linux
3 72 (3.19%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.66%) Unix
5 46 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.28%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.20%) Mac OS
9 25 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Solaris
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Debian
14 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.13%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 757 (33.51%) Computer Science
2 638 (28.24%) Agile
3 592 (26.21%) Problem-Solving
4 398 (17.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 379 (16.78%) Continuous Improvement
6 372 (16.47%) AI
7 299 (13.24%) DevOps
8 284 (12.57%) Project Management
9 278 (12.31%) Analytics
10 261 (11.55%) CI/CD
11 249 (11.02%) ITIL
12 242 (10.71%) Decision-Making
13 238 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 228 (10.09%) Cybersecurity
15 204 (9.03%) Roadmaps
16 199 (8.81%) Change Management
17 192 (8.50%) PRINCE2
17 192 (8.50%) Software Engineering
18 188 (8.32%) Project Delivery
18 188 (8.32%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 379 (16.78%) Python
2 317 (14.03%) SQL
3 149 (6.60%) Java
4 143 (6.33%) PowerShell
5 92 (4.07%) C#
6 82 (3.63%) JavaScript
7 46 (2.04%) Bash
8 37 (1.64%) C++
9 32 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.15%) R
11 24 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.93%) Bicep
13 21 (0.93%) C
14 18 (0.80%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.44%) X++
18 8 (0.35%) Scala
Qualifications
1 430 (19.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 413 (18.28%) Security Cleared
3 271 (12.00%) SC Cleared
4 208 (9.21%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.93%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.18%) PMP
7 114 (5.05%) CISSP
8 104 (4.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (3.23%) DV Cleared
11 64 (2.83%) Azure Certification
12 63 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.35%) CISM
13 53 (2.35%) PhD
14 38 (1.68%) AWS Certification
14 38 (1.68%) CCNA
15 36 (1.59%) CCNP
15 36 (1.59%) CISA
16 35 (1.55%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 28 (1.24%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.00%) QA
2 112 (4.96%) Data Quality
3 109 (4.83%) NIST
4 104 (4.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (4.29%) PMO
6 72 (3.19%) GDPR
7 46 (2.04%) SLA
8 41 (1.81%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (1.06%) PCI DSS
11 23 (1.02%) GRC
12 22 (0.97%) NCSC
13 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.53%) IFRS
14 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.40%) P3O
16 8 (0.35%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 8 (0.35%) SOC 2
System Software
1 187 (8.28%) Active Directory
2 112 (4.96%) Docker
3 46 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.93%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.27%) vSphere
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 123 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.90%) Terraform
3 71 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.61%) Ansible
5 34 (1.51%) SCCM
6 29 (1.28%) Grafana
7 26 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.62%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.35%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.35%) Nessus
14 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.27%) SCOM
15 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 566 (25.06%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.51%) Oracle
3 131 (5.80%) ServiceNow
4 129 (5.71%) SAP
5 87 (3.85%) Google
6 63 (2.79%) Cisco
7 60 (2.66%) VMware
8 52 (2.30%) Databricks
9 51 (2.26%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.04%) Adobe
11 45 (1.99%) IBM
12 34 (1.51%) Citrix
13 33 (1.46%) CyberArk
14 30 (1.33%) Splunk
15 27 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.20%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.93%) Siemens
17 20 (0.89%) Ariba
17 20 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
18 18 (0.80%) HP