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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,243 2,005 2,886
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 7.36% 8.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.77% 23.85% 26.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,205 1,206 1,644
10th Percentile £205 £250 £250
25th Percentile £363 £380 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £502
Median % change year-on-year - -0.30% -6.26%
75th Percentile £600 £648 £635
90th Percentile £713 £758 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 155 315
10th Percentile £17.25 £20.10 £18.22
25th Percentile £26.74 £27.22 £26.39
Median hourly rate £45.25 £42.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.47% -10.53% -5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £70.08 £64.63
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £44.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +1.14% +3.53% -17.07%

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 14,226 8,407 11,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 30.88% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,595 5,311 6,932
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.28% -2.32%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £717 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 603 934
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.26
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £26.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.77% -38.37% -22.17%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.22 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +103.66% -40.82% -24.71%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -19 941 £525 -4.55% 973
South East +2 460 £500 +4.99% 512
North of England -14 330 £450 +0.67% 312
Midlands -26 196 £498 +18.45% 218
North West -15 187 £447 -5.89% 151
East of England -5 151 £450 - 198
West Midlands -33 147 £481 +6.89% 119
Yorkshire -13 126 £488 +14.71% 111
South West -27 118 £415 -7.78% 182
East Midlands -14 47 £515 +43.85% 99
North East -35 17 £450 +130.77% 54
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
1 130 (5.80%) SharePoint
2 114 (5.08%) Confluence
3 59 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.34%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.80%) Apache
7 12 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 8 (0.36%) Camunda
9 8 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.089%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.089%) WinCC
Applications
1 259 (11.55%) Microsoft Office
2 217 (9.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 127 (5.66%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.45%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe After Effects
9 11 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 9 (0.40%) Simulink
11 8 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.36%) Revit
12 7 (0.31%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.22%) Trello
13 5 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.089%) Adobe XD
14 2 (0.089%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.089%) Sketch
14 2 (0.089%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 56 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.62%) Primavera
3 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.36%) Magento
6 7 (0.31%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.22%) HFM
9 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.13%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 513 (22.87%) Azure
2 287 (12.80%) AWS
3 192 (8.56%) Microsoft 365
3 192 (8.56%) Power Platform
4 142 (6.33%) Entra ID
5 111 (4.95%) GCP
6 93 (4.15%) Azure DevOps
7 72 (3.21%) SaaS
8 56 (2.50%) GitHub
9 37 (1.65%) Figma
9 37 (1.65%) Serverless
10 35 (1.56%) Snowflake
11 34 (1.52%) PowerApps
12 33 (1.47%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.43%) Power Automate
14 30 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
15 27 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
16 24 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.07%) IaaS
16 24 (1.07%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.32%) Firewall
2 72 (3.21%) TCP/IP
3 67 (2.99%) DNS
4 61 (2.72%) Network Security
5 54 (2.41%) VPN
6 47 (2.10%) WAN
7 46 (2.05%) LAN
8 35 (1.56%) DHCP
9 25 (1.11%) Wireless
10 21 (0.94%) BGP
10 21 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.89%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.80%) OSPF
13 15 (0.67%) Internet
14 14 (0.62%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.62%) SSH
14 14 (0.62%) VLAN
15 12 (0.53%) MPLS
15 12 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
15 12 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (7.22%) Power BI
2 104 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 52 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (2.14%) Relational Database
5 43 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.69%) Metadata
7 36 (1.60%) Tableau
8 31 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.25%) Big Data
10 27 (1.20%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.98%) MySQL
11 22 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (0.85%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.71%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.58%) Hadoop
14 13 (0.58%) Power Query
15 12 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
15 12 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 194 (8.65%) JIRA
2 109 (4.86%) Git
3 47 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.74%) GitLab
5 33 (1.47%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.89%) MLflow
7 16 (0.71%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.67%) Selenium
9 13 (0.58%) JUnit
10 11 (0.49%) Gradle
10 11 (0.49%) Postman
10 11 (0.49%) Subversion
11 10 (0.45%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.45%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.45%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.40%) Maven
13 7 (0.31%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.27%) Zephyr
15 5 (0.22%) Flyway
General
1 987 (44.00%) Social Skills
2 668 (29.78%) Finance
3 486 (21.67%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 177 (7.89%) Banking
6 139 (6.20%) Organisational Skills
7 97 (4.32%) Marketing
8 93 (4.15%) Presentation Skills
9 90 (4.01%) Legal
10 88 (3.92%) Aerospace
10 88 (3.92%) Manufacturing
11 79 (3.52%) Influencing Skills
12 78 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (2.85%) Telecoms
14 63 (2.81%) Retail
15 54 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.32%) Law
17 38 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
18 35 (1.56%) Front Office
19 32 (1.43%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 319 (14.22%) Analyst
2 251 (11.19%) Senior
3 175 (7.80%) Lead
4 173 (7.71%) Architect
5 156 (6.95%) Developer
6 145 (6.46%) Project Manager
7 139 (6.20%) Business Analyst
8 71 (3.17%) Senior Manager
9 60 (2.67%) Consultant
10 59 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
11 56 (2.50%) Designer
12 55 (2.45%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.27%) IT Support
13 51 (2.27%) Software Engineer
13 51 (2.27%) Technical Support
14 50 (2.23%) Product Manager
15 49 (2.18%) Support Engineer
16 48 (2.14%) IT Analyst
17 44 (1.96%) Senior Analyst
18 43 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (3.97%) REST
2 87 (3.88%) .NET
3 59 (2.63%) React
4 43 (1.92%) Kafka
5 38 (1.69%) OAuth
6 37 (1.65%) RESTful
7 34 (1.52%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.52%) HTML
7 34 (1.52%) Middleware
8 31 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (1.34%) Web Services
10 29 (1.29%) SAML
10 29 (1.29%) XML
11 28 (1.25%) Spring
12 27 (1.20%) LDAP
13 26 (1.16%) AngularJS
13 26 (1.16%) Spring Boot
14 25 (1.11%) CSS
14 25 (1.11%) OAuth2
15 24 (1.07%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 178 (7.94%) Management Information System
2 141 (6.29%) Onboarding
3 134 (5.97%) Product Ownership
4 98 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.72%) Data Centre
7 54 (2.41%) Virtual Team
8 52 (2.32%) Data Structures
9 48 (2.14%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.10%) Algorithms
11 46 (2.05%) Operational Technology
12 37 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
13 36 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
14 35 (1.56%) Life Science
15 34 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.52%) PMI
15 34 (1.52%) Robotics
16 31 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
17 29 (1.29%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 295 (13.15%) Windows
2 161 (7.18%) Linux
3 73 (3.25%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.85%) Unix
5 50 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.34%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.29%) Mac OS
9 24 (1.07%) Android
10 11 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.31%) AIX
12 7 (0.31%) Windows 7
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.27%) Solaris
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.13%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.13%) Rocky
15 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 752 (33.53%) Computer Science
2 647 (28.85%) Agile
3 590 (26.30%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (17.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 375 (16.72%) Continuous Improvement
6 362 (16.14%) AI
7 302 (13.46%) DevOps
8 283 (12.62%) Project Management
9 270 (12.04%) Analytics
10 254 (11.32%) CI/CD
11 247 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 243 (10.83%) ITIL
13 240 (10.70%) Decision-Making
14 224 (9.99%) Cybersecurity
15 205 (9.14%) Roadmaps
16 202 (9.01%) Change Management
17 193 (8.60%) Software Engineering
18 185 (8.25%) Project Delivery
18 185 (8.25%) Scrum
19 183 (8.16%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 373 (16.63%) Python
2 321 (14.31%) SQL
3 147 (6.55%) Java
4 136 (6.06%) PowerShell
5 91 (4.06%) C#
6 79 (3.52%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.87%) Bash
8 40 (1.78%) C++
9 32 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.20%) R
11 25 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 20 (0.89%) C
14 18 (0.80%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.76%) Bicep
16 12 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.53%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.45%) Go
18 9 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 9 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 436 (19.44%) Computer Science Degree
2 400 (17.83%) Security Cleared
3 262 (11.68%) SC Cleared
4 215 (9.59%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.93%) PMI Certification
6 115 (5.13%) CISSP
6 115 (5.13%) PMP
7 99 (4.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 78 (3.48%) Cisco Certification
9 64 (2.85%) DV Cleared
10 63 (2.81%) Azure Certification
11 61 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
12 56 (2.50%) CISM
13 44 (1.96%) PhD
14 39 (1.74%) AWS Certification
15 38 (1.69%) CCNA
16 37 (1.65%) CCNP
17 36 (1.60%) CISA
18 32 (1.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 29 (1.29%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (5.08%) QA
2 112 (4.99%) NIST
3 108 (4.81%) Data Quality
4 107 (4.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (4.28%) PMO
6 77 (3.43%) GDPR
7 45 (2.01%) SLA
8 41 (1.83%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.20%) PCI DSS
9 27 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.11%) GRC
11 22 (0.98%) NCSC
12 13 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.58%) IFRS
13 12 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.45%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.40%) P3O
17 8 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 186 (8.29%) Active Directory
2 113 (5.04%) Docker
3 45 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.98%) Firmware
5 20 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.40%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.31%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
10 6 (0.27%) vSphere
11 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.18%) NFS
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.13%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.089%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 124 (5.53%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.83%) Terraform
3 69 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.59%) Ansible
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 29 (1.29%) Grafana
7 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.49%) Puppet
11 11 (0.49%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.40%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.40%) WSUS
13 8 (0.36%) Nessus
14 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) SCOM
14 5 (0.22%) Tivoli
15 4 (0.18%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 557 (24.83%) Microsoft
2 147 (6.55%) Oracle
3 131 (5.84%) SAP
4 130 (5.80%) ServiceNow
5 90 (4.01%) Google
6 63 (2.81%) Cisco
7 56 (2.50%) VMware
8 53 (2.36%) Databricks
9 49 (2.18%) Salesforce
10 46 (2.05%) Adobe
11 44 (1.96%) IBM
12 35 (1.56%) Citrix
13 32 (1.43%) CyberArk
14 31 (1.38%) Splunk
15 29 (1.29%) Palo Alto
16 25 (1.11%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.94%) Siemens
18 20 (0.89%) Ariba
19 19 (0.85%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.85%) HP