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

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,520 2,871 3,593
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.90% 7.95% 7.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.70% 26.97% 27.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,458 1,603 2,174
10th Percentile £282 £226 £225
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £636 £638
90th Percentile £750 £763 £747
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +3.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 160 220
10th Percentile £15.27 £20.11 £17.48
25th Percentile £22.63 £26.42 £26.84
Median hourly rate £33.50 £41.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.79% -17.50% +13.64%
75th Percentile £51.08 £70.25 £68.97
90th Percentile £82.60 £85.00 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £41.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -18.29% -18.00% +14.94%

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 12,175 10,644 13,270
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.36% 29.46% 29.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,909 6,455 8,356
10th Percentile £306 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £518 £538
% change year-on-year -3.38% -3.72% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,019 507 753
10th Percentile £17.07 £19.06 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -39.40% -22.43% +18.89%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £67.75
90th Percentile £73.85 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £51.90
% change year-on-year -44.11% -13.29% +15.33%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 17 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 5 December 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
England -3 2,167 £517 -1.13% 3,123
UK excluding London -4 1,251 £475 - 2,840
London -4 1,043 £530 -3.64% 755
Work from Home 0 727 £500 - 5,581
North of England -10 299 £450 -12.37% 592
South East -2 283 £475 -2.06% 973
Midlands -15 209 £491 +0.72% 434
South West +6 164 £600 - 320
North West -6 164 £425 -20.04% 315
West Midlands -13 161 £500 - 256
East of England -10 132 £505 +18.82% 412
Yorkshire -7 126 £475 -5.00% 214
Scotland -2 113 £450 +4.65% 111
Wales -1 48 £226 -43.50% 65
East Midlands -10 48 £447 +17.94% 166
Northern Ireland -5 31 £475 - 32
North East -12 10 £298 -40.31% 71

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
1 189 (7.50%) Confluence
2 123 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 40 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.67%) nginx
7 15 (0.60%) CMS
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) IIS
9 12 (0.48%) Apache
10 8 (0.32%) SAS
11 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
12 5 (0.20%) Luigi
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) Moodle
13 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.12%) Alfresco
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 308 (12.22%) Microsoft Office
2 240 (9.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 195 (7.74%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 74 (2.94%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.79%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.67%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Trello
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 7 (0.28%) Sketch
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 4 (0.16%) Navisworks
13 4 (0.16%) Revit
14 3 (0.12%) InDesign
14 3 (0.12%) Maya
14 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 65 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.87%) Primavera
4 15 (0.60%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
7 10 (0.40%) Dynamics GP
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.24%) Endur
11 6 (0.24%) Maximo
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
12 5 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
12 5 (0.20%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.20%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 492 (19.52%) Azure
2 323 (12.82%) AWS
3 196 (7.78%) Microsoft 365
4 186 (7.38%) Power Platform
5 161 (6.39%) GCP
6 99 (3.93%) GitHub
7 93 (3.69%) SaaS
8 86 (3.41%) Entra ID
9 78 (3.10%) Azure DevOps
10 73 (2.90%) Serverless
11 50 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
12 43 (1.71%) Power Automate
13 36 (1.43%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.35%) Cloud Computing
14 34 (1.35%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
16 31 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.19%) Snowflake
18 28 (1.11%) Azure Sentinel
19 26 (1.03%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.25%) Firewall
2 75 (2.98%) DNS
3 47 (1.87%) VPN
4 45 (1.79%) Network Security
5 40 (1.59%) DHCP
6 38 (1.51%) HTTP
6 38 (1.51%) LAN
7 36 (1.43%) WAN
8 34 (1.35%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.27%) Wireless
10 28 (1.11%) Internet
10 28 (1.11%) Skype
11 25 (0.99%) SSH
11 25 (0.99%) VoIP
12 24 (0.95%) Wi-Fi
13 19 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
13 19 (0.75%) Unified Communications
14 17 (0.67%) BGP
15 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
16 14 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (5.67%) Power BI
2 102 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
3 81 (3.21%) SQL Server
4 70 (2.78%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.42%) Tableau
6 59 (2.34%) Relational Database
7 56 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
8 34 (1.35%) Big Data
9 33 (1.31%) MySQL
10 29 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
11 27 (1.07%) Data Lake
12 26 (1.03%) Metadata
13 19 (0.75%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.60%) Redis
16 14 (0.56%) Hadoop
16 14 (0.56%) Oracle Database
17 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
18 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 300 (11.90%) JIRA
2 129 (5.12%) Git
3 106 (4.21%) Jenkins
4 76 (3.02%) GitLab
5 29 (1.15%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.03%) Postman
7 23 (0.91%) Selenium
8 19 (0.75%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 7 (0.28%) Burp Suite
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) MLflow
13 7 (0.28%) Subversion
14 6 (0.24%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,309 (51.94%) Social Skills
2 810 (32.14%) Finance
3 618 (24.52%) Analytical Skills
4 277 (10.99%) Banking
5 179 (7.10%) Public Sector
6 122 (4.84%) Manufacturing
7 106 (4.21%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
9 95 (3.77%) Marketing
10 91 (3.61%) Influencing Skills
11 87 (3.45%) Legal
12 76 (3.02%) Telecoms
13 71 (2.82%) Military
14 68 (2.70%) Financial Institution
15 61 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
15 61 (2.42%) Front Office
16 60 (2.38%) Pharmaceutical
17 59 (2.34%) Investment Banking
18 50 (1.98%) Aerospace
19 38 (1.51%) Law
Job Titles
1 374 (14.84%) Analyst
2 245 (9.72%) Senior
3 237 (9.40%) Developer
4 189 (7.50%) Architect
5 183 (7.26%) Lead
6 171 (6.79%) Project Manager
7 161 (6.39%) Business Analyst
8 111 (4.40%) Consultant
9 81 (3.21%) Software Engineer
10 68 (2.70%) IT Support
11 64 (2.54%) Support Analyst
12 55 (2.18%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (2.02%) IT Manager
13 51 (2.02%) Security Engineer
14 50 (1.98%) Technical Support
15 49 (1.94%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.75%) Senior Developer
16 44 (1.75%) Support Engineer
17 39 (1.55%) Data Analyst
17 39 (1.55%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (5.36%) REST
2 92 (3.65%) RESTful
3 80 (3.17%) .NET
4 77 (3.06%) HTML
5 58 (2.30%) CSS
6 55 (2.18%) XML
7 50 (1.98%) JSON
8 49 (1.94%) Kafka
8 49 (1.94%) SOAP
9 45 (1.79%) Middleware
10 44 (1.75%) Elastic Stack
11 42 (1.67%) React
11 42 (1.67%) Web Services
12 41 (1.63%) OAuth
13 39 (1.55%) TensorFlow
14 34 (1.35%) PyTorch
14 34 (1.35%) Spring
15 33 (1.31%) AngularJS
15 33 (1.31%) Node.js
16 31 (1.23%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.06%) Management Information System
2 125 (4.96%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.13%) Cloud Native
4 88 (3.49%) Algorithms
5 80 (3.17%) Onboarding
6 66 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
7 63 (2.50%) Analytical Mindset
8 61 (2.42%) Virtual Team
9 59 (2.34%) Data Centre
10 58 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
11 52 (2.06%) Derivative
12 51 (2.02%) Public Cloud
12 51 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
13 44 (1.75%) Life Science
14 41 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.63%) Security Posture
15 39 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
15 39 (1.55%) Mobile App
16 37 (1.47%) PMI
17 36 (1.43%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 272 (10.79%) Windows
2 200 (7.94%) Linux
3 83 (3.29%) Unix
4 63 (2.50%) Windows Server
5 36 (1.43%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.19%) Mac OS
7 29 (1.15%) Android
8 25 (0.99%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.75%) Ubuntu
10 18 (0.71%) VMS
11 14 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
12 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
17 2 (0.079%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.079%) Solaris
18 1 (0.040%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 961 (38.13%) Computer Science
2 819 (32.50%) Agile
3 773 (30.67%) Problem-Solving
4 413 (16.39%) Project Management
5 386 (15.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 356 (14.13%) DevOps
7 301 (11.94%) Change Management
8 292 (11.59%) ITIL
9 274 (10.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 271 (10.75%) CI/CD
11 264 (10.48%) Analytics
12 259 (10.28%) AI
13 257 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 252 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
15 237 (9.40%) Migration
16 230 (9.13%) Project Delivery
17 228 (9.05%) Decision-Making
18 223 (8.85%) Software Engineering
19 201 (7.98%) PRINCE2
20 195 (7.74%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 478 (18.97%) Python
2 356 (14.13%) SQL
3 189 (7.50%) Java
4 126 (5.00%) PowerShell
5 117 (4.64%) JavaScript
6 85 (3.37%) C#
7 74 (2.94%) C++
8 62 (2.46%) Go
9 53 (2.10%) Bash
10 51 (2.02%) TypeScript
11 41 (1.63%) R
12 23 (0.91%) Perl
13 21 (0.83%) MATLAB
14 20 (0.79%) Ruby
15 19 (0.75%) C
15 19 (0.75%) PL/SQL
16 18 (0.71%) T-SQL
17 17 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
18 15 (0.60%) Apex Code
18 15 (0.60%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 636 (25.24%) Computer Science Degree
2 382 (15.16%) Master's Degree
3 375 (14.88%) Security Cleared
4 300 (11.90%) SC Cleared
5 153 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 140 (5.56%) PMP
7 118 (4.68%) CISSP
8 95 (3.77%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.21%) PhD
10 73 (2.90%) Azure Certification
11 70 (2.78%) CISM
12 66 (2.62%) AWS Certification
13 60 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
14 53 (2.10%) TOGAF Certification
15 49 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
16 48 (1.90%) HND
17 44 (1.75%) DV Cleared
18 37 (1.47%) CCNA
18 37 (1.47%) HNC
19 35 (1.39%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (5.79%) QA
2 128 (5.08%) GDPR
3 102 (4.05%) Data Quality
4 99 (3.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (3.25%) NIST
6 75 (2.98%) PMO
7 43 (1.71%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.51%) SLA
9 32 (1.27%) PCI DSS
10 30 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.03%) GRC
12 21 (0.83%) HIPAA
13 20 (0.79%) NCSC
14 18 (0.71%) COBIT
15 16 (0.63%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
16 15 (0.60%) P3O
16 15 (0.60%) WCAG
17 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 175 (6.94%) Docker
2 159 (6.31%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.03%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
8 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
14 2 (0.079%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 153 (6.07%) Kubernetes
2 129 (5.12%) Terraform
3 86 (3.41%) Ansible
4 65 (2.58%) Grafana
5 55 (2.18%) Prometheus
6 51 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
7 48 (1.90%) SCCM
8 30 (1.19%) OPNET
9 21 (0.83%) Puppet
10 14 (0.56%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 11 (0.44%) QRadar
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.36%) Kibana
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
15 7 (0.28%) Nmap
Vendors
1 542 (21.51%) Microsoft
2 171 (6.79%) SAP
3 140 (5.56%) Oracle
3 140 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 95 (3.77%) Google
4 95 (3.77%) Splunk
5 77 (3.06%) Cisco
6 73 (2.90%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.14%) Atlassian
7 54 (2.14%) VMware
8 48 (1.90%) Remedy
9 42 (1.67%) Databricks
10 37 (1.47%) IBM
11 34 (1.35%) Citrix
12 30 (1.19%) Adobe
13 24 (0.95%) Workday
14 23 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.75%) Red Hat
16 15 (0.60%) CyberArk
16 15 (0.60%) Informatica