Degree Contract Job Trends

Academic Degree
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 25 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,450 2,426 3,022
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.41% 7.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.64% 23.66% 26.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,290 1,365 1,742
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £489
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.93% -2.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 214 255
10th Percentile £17.01 £17.59 £18.05
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.43
Median hourly rate £39.11 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.98% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £82.47 £61.69 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £41.25 £57.35
% change year-on-year -6.13% -28.07% +18.79%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

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.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 16,739 10,253 11,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.20% 31.32% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,191 6,335 7,317
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £435 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £517 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.32% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,267 823 780
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.84 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.19% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.60 £53.63 £67.01
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £77.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.37
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.00% -6.78%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Degree job vacancy trend in the UK

Degree
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 25 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 25 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 25 August 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
England -16 2,246 £500 - 6,503
UK excluding London -16 1,314 £475 +5.56% 3,649
London -21 976 £525 -4.55% 3,623
Work from Home -20 653 £500 - 2,348
South East +5 471 £514 +8.16% 859
North of England -13 324 £470 +6.33% 723
North West -16 191 £453 -1.52% 412
Midlands -30 178 £475 +5.56% 450
West Midlands -34 132 £481 +6.89% 249
East of England -14 131 £350 -22.22% 542
South West -22 121 £411 -8.61% 619
Yorkshire -2 119 £500 +27.23% 212
Scotland -48 64 £475 +5.56% 343
East Midlands -25 44 £475 +22.11% 200
Northern Ireland -14 15 £252 -53.12% 115
Wales -30 14 £530 +73.50% 92
North East -42 14 £450 +130.77% 117
Channel Islands - 1 - - 3

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 150 (6.12%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.41%) Confluence
3 59 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.41%) Camunda
10 9 (0.37%) SAS
11 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.24%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.16%) Appian
14 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 3 (0.12%) Moodle
15 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 247 (10.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (9.84%) Microsoft Office
3 135 (5.51%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.37%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 9 (0.37%) Windchill
12 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 8 (0.33%) Simulink
12 8 (0.33%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 49 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
7 7 (0.29%) HFM
7 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 552 (22.53%) Azure
2 317 (12.94%) AWS
3 222 (9.06%) Microsoft 365
4 218 (8.90%) Power Platform
5 145 (5.92%) Entra ID
6 137 (5.59%) GCP
7 107 (4.37%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.35%) SaaS
9 62 (2.53%) GitHub
10 54 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.04%) Serverless
12 46 (1.88%) PowerApps
13 45 (1.84%) Power Automate
14 44 (1.80%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.67%) Figma
16 40 (1.63%) OneDrive
17 36 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
18 27 (1.10%) IaaS
19 26 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
19 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.61%) Firewall
2 86 (3.51%) DNS
3 67 (2.73%) Network Security
4 65 (2.65%) TCP/IP
5 63 (2.57%) VPN
6 45 (1.84%) DHCP
7 37 (1.51%) WAN
8 35 (1.43%) LAN
9 28 (1.14%) Wireless
10 21 (0.86%) BGP
11 19 (0.78%) Internet
11 19 (0.78%) SSH
12 18 (0.73%) HTTP
12 18 (0.73%) VLAN
12 18 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.69%) 3GPP
13 17 (0.69%) SSL
14 16 (0.65%) 5G
14 16 (0.65%) MPLS
14 16 (0.65%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (7.02%) Power BI
2 102 (4.16%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 51 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
5 47 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.80%) Metadata
7 34 (1.39%) Tableau
8 32 (1.31%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.10%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) Oracle Database
11 24 (0.98%) MySQL
12 22 (0.90%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
16 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
17 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
18 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 184 (7.51%) JIRA
2 132 (5.39%) Git
3 59 (2.41%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.92%) GitLab
5 35 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (0.98%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 16 (0.65%) JUnit
9 15 (0.61%) REST Assured
9 15 (0.61%) SonarQube
10 12 (0.49%) Maven
10 12 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.45%) MLflow
11 11 (0.45%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) Subversion
12 10 (0.41%) Gradle
13 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.37%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 1,081 (44.12%) Social Skills
2 727 (29.67%) Finance
3 579 (23.63%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (7.88%) Banking
5 191 (7.80%) Public Sector
6 155 (6.33%) Organisational Skills
7 115 (4.69%) Aerospace
8 98 (4.00%) Manufacturing
9 96 (3.92%) Legal
10 95 (3.88%) Marketing
11 91 (3.71%) Influencing Skills
11 91 (3.71%) Telecoms
12 89 (3.63%) Presentation Skills
13 74 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.57%) Retail
15 51 (2.08%) Law
16 50 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 48 (1.96%) Pharmaceutical
18 42 (1.71%) Front Office
19 41 (1.67%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 337 (13.76%) Analyst
2 276 (11.27%) Senior
3 196 (8.00%) Lead
4 185 (7.55%) Developer
5 165 (6.73%) Architect
6 160 (6.53%) Business Analyst
7 127 (5.18%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.98%) Consultant
9 69 (2.82%) IT Support
10 68 (2.78%) Senior Manager
10 68 (2.78%) Support Engineer
11 57 (2.33%) Designer
12 55 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.20%) Product Manager
14 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
15 51 (2.08%) IT Manager
16 48 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
17 46 (1.88%) Administrator
18 44 (1.80%) Software Engineer
19 43 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.49%) REST
2 101 (4.12%) .NET
2 101 (4.12%) Terraform
3 64 (2.61%) React
4 55 (2.24%) Kafka
5 54 (2.20%) HTML
6 49 (2.00%) RESTful
7 46 (1.88%) OAuth
8 43 (1.76%) CSS
9 42 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
10 37 (1.51%) Middleware
11 36 (1.47%) Web Services
12 35 (1.43%) OAuth2
13 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.35%) SAML
15 32 (1.31%) XML
16 31 (1.27%) OpenID
17 30 (1.22%) SOAP
18 29 (1.18%) JSON
18 29 (1.18%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.24%) Management Information System
2 144 (5.88%) Product Ownership
3 140 (5.71%) Onboarding
4 107 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 82 (3.35%) Data Structures
7 67 (2.73%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.57%) Data Centre
9 51 (2.08%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.92%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
12 43 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 42 (1.71%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.63%) Life Science
15 37 (1.51%) AI Agents
16 34 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
17 32 (1.31%) PMI
17 32 (1.31%) SCADA
18 31 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 294 (12.00%) Windows
2 179 (7.31%) Linux
3 70 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.41%) Unix
5 51 (2.08%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Mac OS
6 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.06%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 839 (34.24%) Computer Science
2 663 (27.06%) Agile
3 640 (26.12%) Problem-Solving
4 470 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
5 444 (18.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 372 (15.18%) AI
7 330 (13.47%) DevOps
8 315 (12.86%) Project Management
9 303 (12.37%) CI/CD
10 297 (12.12%) Analytics
11 282 (11.51%) ITIL
12 264 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (9.67%) Decision-Making
14 231 (9.43%) Cybersecurity
15 224 (9.14%) Change Management
16 221 (9.02%) Software Engineering
17 214 (8.73%) PRINCE2
18 213 (8.69%) Scrum
19 212 (8.65%) Roadmaps
20 202 (8.24%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 419 (17.10%) Python
2 357 (14.57%) SQL
3 167 (6.82%) Java
4 164 (6.69%) PowerShell
5 113 (4.61%) C#
6 104 (4.24%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.33%) Bash
8 52 (2.12%) C++
9 43 (1.76%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.14%) Bicep
11 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) C
13 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 23 (0.94%) R
15 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 495 (20.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 457 (18.65%) Security Cleared
3 301 (12.29%) SC Cleared
4 215 (8.78%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.55%) PMI Certification
6 117 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (4.73%) PMP
8 106 (4.33%) CISSP
9 80 (3.27%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.18%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.06%) DV Cleared
12 66 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
13 51 (2.08%) PhD
14 50 (2.04%) CISM
15 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
15 41 (1.67%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 39 (1.59%) CCNA
16 39 (1.59%) CCNP
17 33 (1.35%) A+ Certification
17 33 (1.35%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.59%) QA
2 134 (5.47%) Data Quality
3 104 (4.24%) NIST
4 99 (4.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.59%) PMO
6 65 (2.65%) GDPR
7 50 (2.04%) SLA
8 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
11 22 (0.90%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.45%) COBIT
16 11 (0.45%) P3O
17 10 (0.41%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
18 8 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 198 (8.08%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.90%) Docker
3 52 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Firmware
5 23 (0.94%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.22%) Microsoft Intune
3 63 (2.57%) Ansible
4 38 (1.55%) SCCM
5 31 (1.27%) Grafana
6 29 (1.18%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.69%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.29%) Argo
12 7 (0.29%) Control-M
12 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
12 7 (0.29%) SCOM
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 625 (25.51%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.18%) Oracle
3 140 (5.71%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.51%) SAP
5 89 (3.63%) Google
6 73 (2.98%) Cisco
7 69 (2.82%) Salesforce
8 68 (2.78%) VMware
9 60 (2.45%) Databricks
10 58 (2.37%) Adobe
11 56 (2.29%) IBM
12 45 (1.84%) Splunk
13 31 (1.27%) CyberArk
14 27 (1.10%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.06%) Citrix
16 25 (1.02%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.90%) Apple
18 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
19 20 (0.82%) Ariba
20 18 (0.73%) HP