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 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 20 24
Rank change year-on-year -5 +4 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 1,975 2,588 3,129
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 7.07% 7.90% 7.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.31% 26.65% 25.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,119 1,476 1,948
10th Percentile £263 £268 £281
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £627 £650
90th Percentile £750 £775 £786
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 177 195
10th Percentile £17.39 £21.25 £16.42
25th Percentile £26.19 £33.75 £25.75
Median hourly rate £35.25 £57.35 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.54% +19.48% +6.67%
75th Percentile £63.40 £72.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.80 £79.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £36.48 £52.50 £48.28
% change year-on-year -30.51% +8.74% +7.29%

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 8,852 9,711 12,073
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.68% 29.65% 28.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,637 5,932 7,788
10th Percentile £300 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £533 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -3.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 716 549 677
10th Percentile £17.93 £18.03 £16.44
25th Percentile £18.87 £27.00 £23.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £53.00 £53.67
Median % change year-on-year -52.55% -1.24% +19.26%
75th Percentile £43.06 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.00 £78.14
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £54.00
% change year-on-year -48.67% -9.26% +20.00%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Degree 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 September 2025.

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 September 2025.

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 September 2025. 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 -4 1,022 £550 +4.27% 2,665
North of England -13 235 £447 -14.86% 911
South East -1 219 £450 -1.91% 1,980
Midlands -1 216 £464 -1.85% 545
West Midlands -5 155 £475 -5.00% 319
North West -3 152 £458 -14.96% 514
South West -6 126 £500 -4.31% 405
East of England 0 119 £488 +21.88% 491
Yorkshire -24 73 £420 -16.00% 262
East Midlands +2 61 £447 +11.75% 218
North East -14 10 £450 +5.88% 144
Degree
UK

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 115 (5.82%) Confluence
2 99 (5.01%) SharePoint
3 72 (3.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.53%) Apache Spark
5 20 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.86%) nginx
7 15 (0.76%) CMS
8 14 (0.71%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.61%) IIS
10 9 (0.46%) SAS
11 8 (0.41%) Apache
12 7 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2013
13 6 (0.30%) Luigi
13 6 (0.30%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.25%) Tomcat
15 4 (0.20%) Alfresco
15 4 (0.20%) Moodle
15 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
16 3 (0.15%) JBoss
Applications
1 232 (11.75%) Microsoft Office
2 168 (8.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 100 (5.06%) Microsoft Project
4 89 (4.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (3.29%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.81%) Simulink
7 11 (0.56%) FrameMaker
7 11 (0.56%) Trello
8 10 (0.51%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 8 (0.41%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.30%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.30%) Maya
11 4 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.15%) Camtasia
12 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
12 3 (0.15%) Windchill
13 2 (0.10%) InDesign
13 2 (0.10%) InVision
13 2 (0.10%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.10%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 42 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.71%) Oracle EBS R12
4 13 (0.66%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.61%) Primavera
5 12 (0.61%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.56%) FLEXCUBE
6 11 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
7 10 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
7 10 (0.51%) Oracle BPM
7 10 (0.51%) Oracle Financials
7 10 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
8 9 (0.46%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 9 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.41%) Teamcenter
10 7 (0.35%) Endur
11 5 (0.25%) Maximo
11 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.25%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 353 (17.87%) Azure
2 261 (13.22%) AWS
3 142 (7.19%) Microsoft 365
4 116 (5.87%) Power Platform
5 114 (5.77%) GCP
6 79 (4.00%) GitHub
7 78 (3.95%) SaaS
8 58 (2.94%) Entra ID
9 48 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
10 44 (2.23%) Serverless
11 37 (1.87%) Amazon S3
12 30 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
13 27 (1.37%) Dynamics 365
13 27 (1.37%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.32%) Cloud Computing
14 26 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.22%) OpenShift
16 23 (1.16%) Amazon ECS
17 21 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
18 20 (1.01%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.91%) Firewall
2 92 (4.66%) DNS
3 69 (3.49%) VPN
4 45 (2.28%) Network Security
5 44 (2.23%) DHCP
6 40 (2.03%) TCP/IP
7 34 (1.72%) Wireless
8 30 (1.52%) LAN
9 29 (1.47%) WAN
10 26 (1.32%) HTTP
11 24 (1.22%) Unified Communications
12 23 (1.16%) BGP
12 23 (1.16%) MPLS
13 21 (1.06%) Internet
13 21 (1.06%) SSH
14 20 (1.01%) SMTP
15 19 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
16 17 (0.86%) Skype
17 16 (0.81%) OSPF
18 15 (0.76%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (4.86%) Power BI
2 79 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 77 (3.90%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.73%) Tableau
5 49 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.48%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.38%) NoSQL
7 38 (1.92%) Big Data
8 32 (1.62%) Amazon RDS
9 27 (1.37%) Hadoop
10 20 (1.01%) Data Lake
10 20 (1.01%) Oracle Database
11 18 (0.91%) MySQL
12 16 (0.81%) Redis
13 15 (0.76%) Metadata
13 15 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.71%) MongoDB
15 13 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.61%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 217 (10.99%) JIRA
2 96 (4.86%) Git
3 81 (4.10%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.68%) GitLab
5 18 (0.91%) Postman
6 17 (0.86%) JUnit
6 17 (0.86%) Liquibase
7 14 (0.71%) Selenium
8 11 (0.56%) MLflow
8 11 (0.56%) TeamCity
8 11 (0.56%) Vagrant
9 10 (0.51%) Bitbucket
9 10 (0.51%) SpecFlow
10 9 (0.46%) Artifactory
10 9 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.46%) Subversion
11 8 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
12 7 (0.35%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.35%) Gradle
12 7 (0.35%) webpack
General
1 1,049 (53.11%) Social Skills
2 657 (33.27%) Finance
3 491 (24.86%) Analytical Skills
4 231 (11.70%) Banking
5 110 (5.57%) Public Sector
6 106 (5.37%) Presentation Skills
7 86 (4.35%) Manufacturing
8 85 (4.30%) Marketing
9 79 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
10 73 (3.70%) Legal
11 68 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
12 62 (3.14%) Telecoms
13 52 (2.63%) Investment Banking
14 50 (2.53%) Front Office
15 44 (2.23%) Aerospace
16 42 (2.13%) Financial Institution
17 41 (2.08%) Pharmaceutical
18 40 (2.03%) Automotive
19 39 (1.97%) Military
20 37 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 283 (14.33%) Analyst
2 226 (11.44%) Developer
3 208 (10.53%) Senior
4 141 (7.14%) Business Analyst
5 125 (6.33%) Lead
6 124 (6.28%) Architect
7 109 (5.52%) Project Manager
8 82 (4.15%) Consultant
9 68 (3.44%) Support Engineer
10 63 (3.19%) Software Engineer
11 43 (2.18%) Security Engineer
12 40 (2.03%) Data Engineer
12 40 (2.03%) Solutions Architect
13 39 (1.97%) Support Analyst
14 38 (1.92%) IT Support
14 38 (1.92%) Network Engineer
15 36 (1.82%) Data Scientist
15 36 (1.82%) Senior Developer
16 35 (1.77%) IT Manager
17 34 (1.72%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (4.66%) REST
2 77 (3.90%) HTML
3 63 (3.19%) .NET
4 58 (2.94%) CSS
5 55 (2.78%) Kafka
6 54 (2.73%) RESTful
7 49 (2.48%) Middleware
8 45 (2.28%) Web Services
9 41 (2.08%) XML
10 39 (1.97%) React
11 36 (1.82%) AngularJS
12 31 (1.57%) SOAP
13 29 (1.47%) TensorFlow
14 27 (1.37%) JSON
14 27 (1.37%) Spring
15 26 (1.32%) Node.js
16 25 (1.27%) PyTorch
17 24 (1.22%) Pandas
18 21 (1.06%) OAuth
19 20 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 180 (9.11%) Management Information System
2 82 (4.15%) Product Ownership
3 67 (3.39%) Cloud Native
4 66 (3.34%) Data Protection Act
5 59 (2.99%) Algorithms
6 49 (2.48%) Onboarding
7 45 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
7 45 (2.28%) Virtual Team
8 44 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
9 42 (2.13%) Data Centre
10 39 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
10 39 (1.97%) Derivative
11 37 (1.87%) Security Posture
12 33 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
13 32 (1.62%) PKI
14 30 (1.52%) Data Structures
14 30 (1.52%) Life Science
15 26 (1.32%) PMI
16 25 (1.27%) Mobile App
17 24 (1.22%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 180 (9.11%) Windows
2 143 (7.24%) Linux
3 52 (2.63%) Unix
4 40 (2.03%) Windows Server
5 26 (1.32%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.27%) Apple iOS
7 23 (1.16%) Android
8 20 (1.01%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.76%) VMS
10 14 (0.71%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.51%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
12 9 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.20%) CentOS
14 3 (0.15%) AIX
15 2 (0.10%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 2 (0.10%) SUSE
16 1 (0.051%) Windows 7
16 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 827 (41.87%) Computer Science
2 636 (32.20%) Problem-Solving
3 580 (29.37%) Agile
4 320 (16.20%) Project Management
5 265 (13.42%) Stakeholder Management
6 257 (13.01%) DevOps
7 211 (10.68%) Analytics
8 210 (10.63%) Change Management
9 207 (10.48%) ITIL
10 189 (9.57%) CI/CD
11 175 (8.86%) Decision-Making
12 173 (8.76%) Migration
13 166 (8.41%) Continuous Improvement
13 166 (8.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 160 (8.10%) Software Engineering
15 154 (7.80%) Cybersecurity
16 150 (7.59%) Risk Management
17 149 (7.54%) Artificial Intelligence
18 146 (7.39%) Scrum
19 142 (7.19%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 393 (19.90%) Python
2 312 (15.80%) SQL
3 189 (9.57%) Java
4 111 (5.62%) JavaScript
5 95 (4.81%) PowerShell
6 77 (3.90%) C++
7 65 (3.29%) C#
8 39 (1.97%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.92%) R
10 37 (1.87%) Bash
11 35 (1.77%) Go
12 21 (1.06%) MATLAB
13 19 (0.96%) Perl
13 19 (0.96%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.96%) Ruby
14 18 (0.91%) C
14 18 (0.91%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.86%) Apex Code
16 15 (0.76%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.71%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 543 (27.49%) Computer Science Degree
2 255 (12.91%) Master's Degree
3 254 (12.86%) Security Cleared
4 200 (10.13%) SC Cleared
5 131 (6.63%) PMI Certification
6 118 (5.97%) PMP
7 78 (3.95%) CISSP
8 69 (3.49%) Cisco Certification
8 69 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 59 (2.99%) PhD
10 54 (2.73%) AWS Certification
11 53 (2.68%) Azure Certification
12 48 (2.43%) CISM
13 44 (2.23%) CCNP
14 40 (2.03%) CCNA
15 39 (1.97%) DV Cleared
16 35 (1.77%) HND
17 34 (1.72%) HNC
18 31 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
19 26 (1.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (4.66%) QA
2 87 (4.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 85 (4.30%) Data Quality
4 77 (3.90%) GDPR
5 70 (3.54%) NIST
6 45 (2.28%) PMO
7 35 (1.77%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.57%) SLA
9 24 (1.22%) GRC
10 22 (1.11%) PCI DSS
11 21 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (0.86%) COBIT
13 16 (0.81%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.71%) Def Stans
14 14 (0.71%) NCSC
14 14 (0.71%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.61%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 11 (0.56%) WCAG
17 10 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 129 (6.53%) Active Directory
2 120 (6.08%) Docker
3 37 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.32%) Firmware
5 19 (0.96%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.51%) BitLocker
8 10 (0.51%) DFS Replication
8 10 (0.51%) Dovecot
8 10 (0.51%) Postfix
8 10 (0.51%) Squid
9 7 (0.35%) vSphere
10 6 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
10 6 (0.30%) Terminal Services
10 6 (0.30%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.10%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 111 (5.62%) Kubernetes
2 88 (4.46%) Terraform
3 79 (4.00%) Ansible
4 51 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.87%) Grafana
6 33 (1.67%) SCCM
7 29 (1.47%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.86%) Puppet
9 12 (0.61%) Nessus
9 12 (0.61%) vCenter Server
10 11 (0.56%) QRadar
10 11 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.51%) Proxmox
12 9 (0.46%) Argo
13 7 (0.35%) WSUS
14 6 (0.30%) CSIRT
14 6 (0.30%) Nagios
14 6 (0.30%) RSA Archer
14 6 (0.30%) vMotion
15 5 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 425 (21.52%) Microsoft
2 124 (6.28%) Oracle
3 116 (5.87%) SAP
4 112 (5.67%) ServiceNow
5 81 (4.10%) Cisco
6 80 (4.05%) Google
7 70 (3.54%) Salesforce
8 57 (2.89%) Splunk
9 46 (2.33%) VMware
10 34 (1.72%) Citrix
10 34 (1.72%) Databricks
11 33 (1.67%) IBM
12 28 (1.42%) Adobe
13 22 (1.11%) Apple
13 22 (1.11%) Workday
14 20 (1.01%) Atlassian
15 19 (0.96%) Fortinet
15 19 (0.96%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.81%) F5
16 16 (0.81%) HP