Master's Degree Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Master's Degree
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the City of London with a requirement for Master's Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 3 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 105 103 123
Rank change year-on-year -2 +20 +33
Contract jobs citing Master's Degree 14 24 23
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.83% 1.15% 0.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.13% 4.54% 4.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 14 22
10th Percentile £493 £436 £349
25th Percentile £522 £505 £678
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £800
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -26.56% +36.17%
75th Percentile £697 £775 £1,000
90th Percentile £821 £846 -
Central London median daily rate £575 £518 £800
% change year-on-year +11.11% -35.31% +36.17%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
City of London

Master's 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 the City of London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 447 529 573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 26.47% 25.25% 20.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 318 314 345
10th Percentile £325 £351 £355
25th Percentile £438 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £561 £568
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -1.10% -2.99%
75th Percentile £663 £657 £694
90th Percentile £738 £771 £817
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 5 4
10th Percentile £20.55 £23.10 £18.28
25th Percentile £25.75 £27.00 £18.70
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £45.72
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -28.91% +6.02%
75th Percentile £29.50 £112.00 £74.69
90th Percentile £51.14 - £76.38
Central London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £39.47
% change year-on-year -15.38% -17.65% -8.48%

Master's Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Master's Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Master's Degree job vacancy trend in the City of London

Master's Degree
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Master's Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Master's Degree

Master's Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Master's Degree in the City of London over the 6 months to 3 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Master's Degree in the City of London

Master's Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Master's Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Master's Degree

Master's Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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 1 (7.14%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 7 (50.00%) Azure
2 4 (28.57%) AWS
2 4 (28.57%) GCP
3 2 (14.29%) Amazon SageMaker
3 2 (14.29%) Azure Machine Learning
4 1 (7.14%) Cloud Computing
4 1 (7.14%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 2 (14.29%) Network Security
2 1 (7.14%) Firewall
2 1 (7.14%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (14.29%) NoSQL
2 1 (7.14%) Apache Hive
2 1 (7.14%) Big Data
2 1 (7.14%) Hadoop
2 1 (7.14%) KDB
2 1 (7.14%) Kdb+
2 1 (7.14%) Pinecone
2 1 (7.14%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 2 (14.29%) MLflow
2 1 (7.14%) Git
General
1 8 (57.14%) Finance
2 6 (42.86%) Social Skills
3 3 (21.43%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (21.43%) Front Office
4 2 (14.29%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (14.29%) Financial Institution
5 1 (7.14%) Banking
5 1 (7.14%) Electronics
5 1 (7.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (7.14%) Law
5 1 (7.14%) Legal
5 1 (7.14%) Manufacturing
5 1 (7.14%) Marketing
5 1 (7.14%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (7.14%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (7.14%) Public Sector
5 1 (7.14%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 4 (28.57%) Developer
2 2 (14.29%) Data Engineer
2 2 (14.29%) Data Scientist
2 2 (14.29%) Python Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
3 1 (7.14%) Data Centre Manager
3 1 (7.14%) F# Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Gen AI Engineer
3 1 (7.14%) Gen AI Specialist
3 1 (7.14%) KDB Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Lead
3 1 (7.14%) Managing Consultant
3 1 (7.14%) Operational Security Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Principal Consultant
3 1 (7.14%) Product Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Qualitative Analyst
3 1 (7.14%) Quantitative Specialist
3 1 (7.14%) Security Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Security Operations Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (14.29%) Django
1 2 (14.29%) Flask
1 2 (14.29%) NumPy
1 2 (14.29%) Pandas
1 2 (14.29%) TensorFlow
2 1 (7.14%) .NET
2 1 (7.14%) Faiss
2 1 (7.14%) LangChain
2 1 (7.14%) LangGraph
2 1 (7.14%) PySpark
2 1 (7.14%) PyTorch
2 1 (7.14%) XML
2 1 (7.14%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 3 (21.43%) Algorithms
1 3 (21.43%) Distributed Computing
2 2 (14.29%) Data Centre
2 2 (14.29%) Derivative
3 1 (7.14%) Credit Risk
3 1 (7.14%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (7.14%) Data Structures
3 1 (7.14%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (7.14%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (7.14%) Equities
3 1 (7.14%) Equity Derivative
3 1 (7.14%) Exotic Derivative
3 1 (7.14%) Fixed Income
3 1 (7.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 1 (7.14%) Onboarding
3 1 (7.14%) Product Ownership
3 1 (7.14%) Self-Motivation
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (78.57%) Computer Science
2 8 (57.14%) AI
3 7 (50.00%) Machine Learning
3 7 (50.00%) Mathematics
4 6 (42.86%) Data Science
5 4 (28.57%) Analytics
5 4 (28.57%) LLM
6 3 (21.43%) DevOps
6 3 (21.43%) Generative AI
6 3 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
6 3 (21.43%) Risk Management
6 3 (21.43%) Statistics
7 2 (14.29%) Actionable Insight
7 2 (14.29%) Asset Management
7 2 (14.29%) Data Pipeline
7 2 (14.29%) Information Security
7 2 (14.29%) ModelOps
7 2 (14.29%) Risk Assessment
7 2 (14.29%) Statistical Analysis
7 2 (14.29%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 8 (57.14%) Python
2 4 (28.57%) SQL
3 3 (21.43%) C++
4 2 (14.29%) C#
5 1 (7.14%) F#
5 1 (7.14%) Java
5 1 (7.14%) VBA
5 1 (7.14%) VC++
Qualifications
1 14 (100.00%) Degree
2 4 (28.57%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (21.43%) PhD
4 2 (14.29%) CISSP
5 1 (7.14%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (7.14%) CISM
5 1 (7.14%) CompTIA Security+
5 1 (7.14%) ISSMP
5 1 (7.14%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (21.43%) NIST
2 2 (14.29%) GDPR
2 2 (14.29%) PCI DSS
3 1 (7.14%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (7.14%) EMIR
3 1 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 1 (7.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (7.14%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 5 (35.71%) Microsoft
2 2 (14.29%) SAP
3 1 (7.14%) Ariba
3 1 (7.14%) Oracle
3 1 (7.14%) Workday