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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,184 1,903 3,145
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.47% 7.78% 8.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.72% 24.84% 26.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,290 1,130 1,670
10th Percentile £250 £250 £210
25th Percentile £387 £400 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £512
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% +1.98% -5.12%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £638
90th Percentile £741 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £508
% change year-on-year - -1.48% -3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 144 359
10th Percentile £20.75 £17.90 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.50 £28.18 £24.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% +35.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.75
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.87% +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 13,066 7,661 11,689
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.70% 31.31% 31.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,776 4,870 7,196
10th Percentile £343 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -1.43% -1.61% -2.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 981 440 975
10th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £23.38 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £47.65 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.32% +19.13% -23.81%
75th Percentile £71.50 £67.63 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.42 £76.29
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +11.76% +6.25% -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 26 April 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 April 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 April 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 -14 929 £502 -8.82% 664
South East -8 368 £500 - 588
North of England -7 336 £415 -9.05% 605
Midlands -24 208 £500 +66.67% 339
North West -3 183 £400 -13.51% 375
West Midlands -25 147 £500 +66.67% 195
South West -9 144 £638 +25.00% 195
East of England -6 140 £475 -5.00% 200
Yorkshire -19 136 £473 +9.76% 176
East Midlands -19 59 £525 +55.33% 143
North East -23 17 £364 -21.30% 59
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
1 143 (6.55%) Confluence
2 110 (5.04%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.51%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.32%) SAS
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Moodle
12 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.092%) Appian
13 2 (0.092%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.092%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.092%) WinCC
Applications
1 291 (13.32%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 180 (8.24%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.41%) Simulink
7 9 (0.41%) Trello
8 7 (0.32%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.32%) Revit
9 6 (0.27%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.27%) Sketch
10 5 (0.23%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
11 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.092%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.092%) InVision
Business Applications
1 48 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.78%) Primavera
4 15 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.37%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.37%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 6 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.18%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.18%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.18%) Shopify
11 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 445 (20.38%) Azure
2 245 (11.22%) AWS
3 186 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 179 (8.20%) Power Platform
5 107 (4.90%) Entra ID
6 103 (4.72%) SaaS
7 93 (4.26%) GCP
8 76 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.52%) GitHub
10 38 (1.74%) Power Automate
11 36 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.47%) Google Workspace
13 30 (1.37%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.33%) PaaS
15 28 (1.28%) IaaS
16 27 (1.24%) Serverless
17 24 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
17 24 (1.10%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.01%) Figma
18 22 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 96 (4.40%) Firewall
2 53 (2.43%) LAN
3 52 (2.38%) WAN
4 45 (2.06%) TCP/IP
5 43 (1.97%) DNS
5 43 (1.97%) Network Security
6 36 (1.65%) VPN
7 26 (1.19%) Wireless
8 22 (1.01%) BGP
9 21 (0.96%) Ethernet
10 19 (0.87%) HTTP
10 19 (0.87%) OSPF
11 18 (0.82%) DHCP
11 18 (0.82%) Skype
12 15 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (0.60%) SAN
14 12 (0.55%) VXLAN
15 11 (0.50%) Internet
15 11 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
16 10 (0.46%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (6.78%) Power BI
2 87 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.34%) Relational Database
5 49 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.69%) Tableau
7 32 (1.47%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.28%) Metadata
8 28 (1.28%) MySQL
9 27 (1.24%) Big Data
10 19 (0.87%) MongoDB
11 17 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 15 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
12 15 (0.69%) Hadoop
13 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
14 12 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.55%) Power Query
15 11 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (0.50%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 242 (11.08%) JIRA
2 97 (4.44%) Git
3 43 (1.97%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.60%) GitLab
5 31 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.87%) MLflow
8 18 (0.82%) Selenium
9 13 (0.60%) Postman
10 12 (0.55%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.50%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.46%) Gradle
13 9 (0.41%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.41%) JUnit
13 9 (0.41%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.37%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.27%) Artifactory
General
1 1,029 (47.12%) Social Skills
2 660 (30.22%) Finance
3 483 (22.12%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (9.80%) Banking
5 178 (8.15%) Public Sector
6 111 (5.08%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
8 84 (3.85%) Marketing
9 82 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
10 75 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (3.25%) Aerospace
12 66 (3.02%) Legal
13 64 (2.93%) Manufacturing
14 53 (2.43%) Military
15 52 (2.38%) Telecoms
16 49 (2.24%) Law
17 44 (2.01%) Retail
18 42 (1.92%) Front Office
19 37 (1.69%) Investment Banking
20 35 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 293 (13.42%) Analyst
2 217 (9.94%) Senior
3 181 (8.29%) Lead
4 177 (8.10%) Architect
5 162 (7.42%) Developer
6 155 (7.10%) Project Manager
7 144 (6.59%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.39%) Consultant
9 62 (2.84%) Delivery Manager
10 58 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
10 58 (2.66%) Technical Support
11 50 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
12 49 (2.24%) Software Engineer
13 48 (2.20%) Data Scientist
14 44 (2.01%) Product Manager
15 41 (1.88%) Security Engineer
16 39 (1.79%) Data Engineer
16 39 (1.79%) IT Analyst
17 38 (1.74%) Designer
18 37 (1.69%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.03%) REST
2 68 (3.11%) .NET
3 51 (2.34%) Middleware
4 47 (2.15%) React
5 44 (2.01%) HTML
6 43 (1.97%) RESTful
7 41 (1.88%) Kafka
8 36 (1.65%) XML
9 34 (1.56%) OAuth
9 34 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
9 34 (1.56%) SOAP
9 34 (1.56%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.51%) JSON
11 31 (1.42%) Spring
12 30 (1.37%) Pandas
13 29 (1.33%) CSS
14 28 (1.28%) PyTorch
15 26 (1.19%) .NET Framework
16 24 (1.10%) TensorFlow
17 23 (1.05%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 172 (7.88%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 119 (5.45%) Onboarding
4 76 (3.48%) Cloud Native
5 71 (3.25%) Virtual Team
6 62 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
7 57 (2.61%) Data Centre
8 51 (2.34%) Data Structures
8 51 (2.34%) PMI
9 50 (2.29%) Algorithms
10 49 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
12 36 (1.65%) Robotics
13 34 (1.56%) Security Posture
14 33 (1.51%) Derivative
15 31 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
16 29 (1.33%) Operational Technology
17 25 (1.14%) AI Agents
17 25 (1.14%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 244 (11.17%) Windows
2 154 (7.05%) Linux
3 67 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.75%) Unix
5 57 (2.61%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.92%) Android
6 20 (0.92%) Mac OS
7 19 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.50%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.23%) AIX
11 5 (0.23%) VMS
11 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 3 (0.14%) CentOS
13 3 (0.14%) Solaris
13 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 774 (35.44%) Computer Science
2 679 (31.09%) Agile
3 562 (25.73%) Problem-Solving
4 361 (16.53%) Stakeholder Management
5 325 (14.88%) AI
6 318 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 314 (14.38%) Project Management
8 305 (13.97%) DevOps
9 241 (11.03%) Analytics
10 239 (10.94%) CI/CD
11 233 (10.67%) ITIL
12 231 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 230 (10.53%) Change Management
14 218 (9.98%) Decision-Making
15 212 (9.71%) Cybersecurity
16 208 (9.52%) Migration
17 204 (9.34%) PRINCE2
18 195 (8.93%) Project Delivery
18 195 (8.93%) Risk Management
19 189 (8.65%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 348 (15.93%) Python
2 323 (14.79%) SQL
3 146 (6.68%) Java
4 114 (5.22%) PowerShell
5 82 (3.75%) C#
6 78 (3.57%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.61%) C++
8 37 (1.69%) Bash
9 36 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.28%) R
11 25 (1.14%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.69%) C
14 14 (0.64%) Perl
14 14 (0.64%) Rust
14 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.60%) Go
16 12 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.55%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 493 (22.57%) Computer Science Degree
2 419 (19.18%) Security Cleared
3 301 (13.78%) SC Cleared
4 257 (11.77%) Master's Degree
5 137 (6.27%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.49%) PMP
7 91 (4.17%) CISSP
8 89 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
9 58 (2.66%) Cisco Certification
10 55 (2.52%) TOGAF Certification
11 52 (2.38%) PhD
12 51 (2.34%) CISM
13 49 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 47 (2.15%) Azure Certification
15 46 (2.11%) DV Cleared
16 36 (1.65%) CCNP
17 35 (1.60%) MBA
18 34 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 31 (1.42%) CCNA
20 30 (1.37%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.82%) QA
2 105 (4.81%) PMO
3 100 (4.58%) GDPR
3 100 (4.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 97 (4.44%) NIST
5 81 (3.71%) Data Quality
6 50 (2.29%) SLA
7 40 (1.83%) Accessibility
7 40 (1.83%) PCI DSS
8 23 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 21 (0.96%) GRC
10 19 (0.87%) NCSC
11 13 (0.60%) Basel III
11 13 (0.60%) IFRS
12 12 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.55%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.55%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.50%) IFRS 17
14 10 (0.46%) COBIT
14 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 148 (6.78%) Active Directory
2 126 (5.77%) Docker
3 37 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.96%) Firmware
6 9 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.32%) vSphere
9 5 (0.23%) XenApp
9 5 (0.23%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.14%) KVM
11 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.092%) HDFS
12 2 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.046%) Squid
13 1 (0.046%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 132 (6.04%) Kubernetes
2 76 (3.48%) Terraform
3 59 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.66%) Ansible
5 36 (1.65%) Grafana
6 35 (1.60%) SCCM
7 30 (1.37%) OPNET
8 26 (1.19%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.78%) Puppet
9 17 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.50%) Kibana
11 11 (0.50%) Nmap
12 10 (0.46%) WSUS
13 9 (0.41%) Kiali
13 9 (0.41%) vCenter Server
14 8 (0.37%) SCOM
15 7 (0.32%) HP ALM
16 6 (0.27%) Control-M
16 6 (0.27%) Nessus
Vendors
1 501 (22.94%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.46%) Oracle
3 124 (5.68%) ServiceNow
4 118 (5.40%) SAP
5 79 (3.62%) Google
6 65 (2.98%) Cisco
7 50 (2.29%) Remedy
7 50 (2.29%) Splunk
8 48 (2.20%) Databricks
9 44 (2.01%) Citrix
10 43 (1.97%) Atlassian
10 43 (1.97%) VMware
11 34 (1.56%) IBM
11 34 (1.56%) Salesforce
12 32 (1.47%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.33%) CheckPoint
14 27 (1.24%) Adobe
15 23 (1.05%) Aruba
15 23 (1.05%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.92%) Siemens