Degree Contracts in the UK excluding London

Academic Degree
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 25
Rank change year-on-year -5 +10 +1
Contract jobs citing Degree 1,067 1,860 1,690
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 8.36% 8.95% 7.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 23.49% 24.17% 21.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 590 872 984
10th Percentile £178 £180 £210
25th Percentile £300 £325 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £588
90th Percentile £650 £680 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 317 180
10th Percentile £18.13 £14.00 £15.97
25th Percentile £26.66 £22.50 £19.26
Median hourly rate £45.02 £41.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.79% -8.89% +22.45%
75th Percentile £75.00 £61.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £72.50 £73.88
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +32.50% -11.11% +21.21%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 4,542 7,695 7,993
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 35.58% 37.05% 33.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,785 4,411 5,360
10th Percentile £211 £263 £275
25th Percentile £394 £425 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £533 £530
Median % change year-on-year -6.10% +0.57% +6.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £631
90th Percentile £688 £723 £703
UK median daily rate £525 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 405 935 669
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.69 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £16.50 £19.92
Median hourly rate £42.50 £40.94 £49.57
Median % change year-on-year +3.81% -17.41% +53.14%
75th Percentile £67.50 £62.50 £65.75
90th Percentile £80.39 £76.29 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £40.00 £54.00
% change year-on-year - -25.93% +29.16%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Degree in the UK excluding London

Degree
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Degree in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Degree in the UK excluding London

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the UK excluding London

Degree
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Degree in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Degree in the UK excluding London

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK excluding London

Degree
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Degree within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
South East -9 236 £500 - 2,361
North of England -10 236 £455 +1.11% 1,594
Midlands -3 157 £300 -33.33% 1,265
North West -6 141 £459 +2.06% 867
Scotland -5 130 £450 -5.26% 432
South West -4 116 £500 -5.66% 680
East of England -1 110 £500 - 888
West Midlands 0 109 £292 -43.71% 674
Yorkshire -8 72 £414 -8.00% 530
Wales +7 61 £305 -40.68% 165
East Midlands -6 44 £338 +37.96% 550
Northern Ireland -3 29 £313 -21.88% 146
North East -13 22 £463 -7.50% 211
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1
Degree
UK

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 57 (5.34%) Microsoft Exchange
2 55 (5.15%) SharePoint
3 48 (4.50%) Confluence
4 15 (1.41%) Apache Spark
5 10 (0.94%) Skype for Business
6 5 (0.47%) Apache
6 5 (0.47%) CMS
6 5 (0.47%) SAS
7 4 (0.37%) IIS
8 3 (0.28%) Camunda
8 3 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
8 3 (0.28%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.19%) EPiServer
9 2 (0.19%) IBM Notes
9 2 (0.19%) JBoss
9 2 (0.19%) OpenROAD
9 2 (0.19%) Umbraco
9 2 (0.19%) WordPress
10 1 (0.094%) WebLogic
Applications
1 131 (12.28%) Microsoft Office
2 104 (9.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (6.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 61 (5.72%) Microsoft Project
5 37 (3.47%) MS Visio
6 20 (1.87%) Simulink
7 8 (0.75%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.75%) Trello
8 5 (0.47%) Windchill
9 3 (0.28%) AutoCAD
9 3 (0.28%) CATIA
10 2 (0.19%) CANalyzer
10 2 (0.19%) OrCAD
10 2 (0.19%) Revit
10 2 (0.19%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.094%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.094%) Fusion 360
11 1 (0.094%) InVision
11 1 (0.094%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.094%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 26 (2.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
5 3 (0.28%) Maximo
5 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.28%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.28%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.28%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.28%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.19%) Primavera
6 2 (0.19%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.19%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.094%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 185 (17.34%) Azure
2 129 (12.09%) AWS
3 99 (9.28%) Microsoft 365
4 63 (5.90%) GCP
5 61 (5.72%) Power Platform
6 22 (2.06%) PaaS
7 20 (1.87%) Cloud Computing
8 19 (1.78%) SaaS
9 17 (1.59%) Amazon S3
9 17 (1.59%) Entra ID
10 16 (1.50%) Serverless
10 16 (1.50%) Snowflake
11 15 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
13 13 (1.22%) IaaS
13 13 (1.22%) Power Automate
14 12 (1.12%) OneDrive
15 11 (1.03%) OpenShift
16 10 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
17 9 (0.84%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 63 (5.90%) VPN
2 61 (5.72%) Firewall
3 41 (3.84%) DNS
4 40 (3.75%) Network Security
5 30 (2.81%) DHCP
6 28 (2.62%) WAN
7 25 (2.34%) Wireless
8 24 (2.25%) Skype
8 24 (2.25%) TCP/IP
9 23 (2.16%) LAN
10 16 (1.50%) BGP
10 16 (1.50%) OSPF
11 14 (1.31%) Intranet
12 13 (1.22%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (1.12%) Ethernet
13 12 (1.12%) Internet
13 12 (1.12%) Radio Access Network
14 11 (1.03%) SD-WAN
15 10 (0.94%) MPLS
15 10 (0.94%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (4.69%) Power BI
2 35 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
3 31 (2.91%) Big Data
4 27 (2.53%) SQL Server
4 27 (2.53%) Tableau
5 18 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
5 18 (1.69%) Hadoop
5 18 (1.69%) Metadata
6 16 (1.50%) Oracle Database
7 15 (1.41%) Data Lake
7 15 (1.41%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (1.41%) Relational Database
8 14 (1.31%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
10 9 (0.84%) MySQL
11 7 (0.66%) Data Mining
12 5 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.47%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 87 (8.15%) JIRA
2 38 (3.56%) Git
3 25 (2.34%) Jenkins
4 14 (1.31%) Bitbucket
5 12 (1.12%) Selenium
6 9 (0.84%) GitLab
6 9 (0.84%) TestRail
7 8 (0.75%) Postman
7 8 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
8 7 (0.66%) ERwin
8 7 (0.66%) GoogleTest
9 6 (0.56%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.47%) JMeter
11 4 (0.37%) Artifactory
11 4 (0.37%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.37%) LabVIEW
11 4 (0.37%) PowerDesigner
12 3 (0.28%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.28%) TestNG
12 3 (0.28%) Travis CI
General
1 528 (49.48%) Social Skills
2 247 (23.15%) Analytical Skills
3 159 (14.90%) Finance
4 144 (13.50%) Public Sector
5 64 (6.00%) Manufacturing
6 61 (5.72%) Organisational Skills
7 52 (4.87%) Telecoms
8 44 (4.12%) Legal
9 41 (3.84%) Marketing
9 41 (3.84%) Presentation Skills
10 34 (3.19%) Automotive
10 34 (3.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 32 (3.00%) Local Government
12 31 (2.91%) Electronics
13 30 (2.81%) Banking
14 25 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
14 25 (2.34%) Pharmaceutical
15 22 (2.06%) Aerospace
16 17 (1.59%) Military
17 13 (1.22%) Retail
Job Titles
1 126 (11.81%) Analyst
2 85 (7.97%) Senior
3 83 (7.78%) Architect
4 75 (7.03%) Project Manager
5 73 (6.84%) Developer
6 52 (4.87%) Business Analyst
7 50 (4.69%) Support Engineer
8 46 (4.31%) Lead
9 34 (3.19%) Network Engineer
10 28 (2.62%) Consultant
11 27 (2.53%) Solutions Architect
12 25 (2.34%) IT Support
13 22 (2.06%) Software Engineer
14 21 (1.97%) Desktop Engineer
14 21 (1.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (1.87%) Desktop Support
16 19 (1.78%) Administrator
16 19 (1.78%) Design Engineer
16 19 (1.78%) IT Engineer
17 18 (1.69%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (3.47%) HTML
2 31 (2.91%) CSS
3 29 (2.72%) .NET
4 18 (1.69%) Web Services
5 17 (1.59%) PyTorch
5 17 (1.59%) React
5 17 (1.59%) TensorFlow
6 15 (1.41%) REST
7 14 (1.31%) AngularJS
7 14 (1.31%) Kafka
7 14 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
8 13 (1.22%) RESTful
8 13 (1.22%) scikit-learn
9 12 (1.12%) Flash
9 12 (1.12%) Matplotlib
9 12 (1.12%) Middleware
9 12 (1.12%) NumPy
9 12 (1.12%) Pandas
9 12 (1.12%) Seaborn
10 8 (0.75%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.06%) Management Information System
2 42 (3.94%) Algorithms
3 30 (2.81%) Data Centre
3 30 (2.81%) PKI
4 29 (2.72%) Product Ownership
5 25 (2.34%) NHS
6 23 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
7 22 (2.06%) Clustering
7 22 (2.06%) FPGA
7 22 (2.06%) PMI
8 21 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (1.78%) CMDB
9 19 (1.78%) Verilog
10 17 (1.59%) Cloud Native
10 17 (1.59%) VHDL
11 15 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
11 15 (1.41%) Operational Technology
12 14 (1.31%) Industry 4.0
13 13 (1.22%) Life Science
14 12 (1.12%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 127 (11.90%) Windows
2 58 (5.44%) Linux
3 42 (3.94%) Windows Server
4 35 (3.28%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.59%) Unix
6 14 (1.31%) Android
7 12 (1.12%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.66%) Embedded Linux
9 7 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.56%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.47%) Mac OS
12 4 (0.37%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.19%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.19%) VMS
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.19%) Windows XP
14 1 (0.094%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 1 (0.094%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 369 (34.58%) Computer Science
2 321 (30.08%) Problem-Solving
3 257 (24.09%) Agile
4 200 (18.74%) Project Management
5 101 (9.47%) Stakeholder Management
6 95 (8.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 95 (8.90%) ITIL
7 88 (8.25%) Analytics
8 87 (8.15%) Decision-Making
9 81 (7.59%) DevOps
10 76 (7.12%) Cybersecurity
11 73 (6.84%) Risk Management
12 72 (6.75%) Collaborative Working
12 72 (6.75%) Scrum
13 71 (6.65%) Roadmaps
14 70 (6.56%) Business Intelligence
14 70 (6.56%) Project Delivery
14 70 (6.56%) Service Management
15 68 (6.37%) Change Management
15 68 (6.37%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 127 (11.90%) Python
2 116 (10.87%) SQL
3 46 (4.31%) JavaScript
4 45 (4.22%) PowerShell
5 42 (3.94%) Java
6 35 (3.28%) C#
7 25 (2.34%) C
8 23 (2.16%) C++
9 18 (1.69%) R
9 18 (1.69%) SystemVerilog
10 14 (1.31%) Bash
11 11 (1.03%) MATLAB
11 11 (1.03%) Perl
12 10 (0.94%) Rust
13 9 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.75%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.66%) Ruby
15 7 (0.66%) TypeScript
16 6 (0.56%) Tcl
16 6 (0.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 248 (23.24%) Computer Science Degree
2 174 (16.31%) Security Cleared
3 125 (11.72%) Master's Degree
4 122 (11.43%) SC Cleared
5 63 (5.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 60 (5.62%) Cisco Certification
7 54 (5.06%) PMI Certification
8 46 (4.31%) PMP
9 42 (3.94%) CCNA
10 40 (3.75%) Azure Certification
11 39 (3.66%) CISSP
12 38 (3.56%) DV Cleared
13 37 (3.47%) AWS Certification
14 34 (3.19%) CCNP
15 28 (2.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 25 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
16 25 (2.34%) PhD
17 21 (1.97%) CISM
18 20 (1.87%) A+ Certification
19 17 (1.59%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (5.72%) QA
2 45 (4.22%) Data Quality
3 35 (3.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 31 (2.91%) GDPR
5 22 (2.06%) PMO
6 20 (1.87%) NIST
7 15 (1.41%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.41%) SLA
8 11 (1.03%) Disclosure Scotland
9 9 (0.84%) NCSC
9 9 (0.84%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.56%) DO-254
11 5 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (0.47%) Def Stans
11 5 (0.47%) HIPAA
11 5 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.37%) COSHH
12 4 (0.37%) GRC
12 4 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 99 (9.28%) Active Directory
2 38 (3.56%) Docker
3 36 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (2.06%) BitLocker
5 21 (1.97%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (1.87%) Hyper-V
7 14 (1.31%) VMware NSX
8 10 (0.94%) Microsoft App-V
9 9 (0.84%) Terminal Services
10 6 (0.56%) Firmware
10 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 6 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.28%) vSphere
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.19%) XenApp
14 1 (0.094%) HDFS
14 1 (0.094%) Time Sharing Option
14 1 (0.094%) Xen
Systems Management
1 45 (4.22%) Kubernetes
2 31 (2.91%) SCCM
3 27 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.25%) Ansible
5 23 (2.16%) vCenter Server
6 21 (1.97%) Terraform
7 12 (1.12%) WSUS
8 9 (0.84%) Nagios
9 8 (0.75%) Puppet
9 8 (0.75%) vMotion
10 6 (0.56%) MOM
11 5 (0.47%) AirWatch
11 5 (0.47%) Cacti
11 5 (0.47%) SCOM
12 4 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.37%) CASB
12 4 (0.37%) Grafana
12 4 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.37%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 236 (22.12%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.03%) SAP
3 73 (6.84%) Cisco
4 61 (5.72%) Google
5 52 (4.87%) Oracle
6 44 (4.12%) ServiceNow
7 41 (3.84%) VMware
8 35 (3.28%) Citrix
9 27 (2.53%) Atlassian
10 20 (1.87%) Intel
10 20 (1.87%) Salesforce
11 19 (1.78%) Xilinx
12 18 (1.69%) Microsemi
13 13 (1.22%) Databricks
13 13 (1.22%) HP
14 11 (1.03%) Apple
14 11 (1.03%) Remedy
14 11 (1.03%) Siemens
14 11 (1.03%) SolarWinds
15 10 (0.94%) Symantec