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 21 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,481 2,352 3,013
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.20% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.44% 22.93% 26.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,277 1,281 1,703
10th Percentile £204 £260 £243
25th Percentile £356 £387 £399
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £617
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +7.83% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 287 207 207
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.00 £25.45 £26.42
Median hourly rate £38.72 £38.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.57% -26.67% +5.00%
75th Percentile £68.75 £56.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £79.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £35.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +9.29% -38.97% +14.70%

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 17,176 10,258 11,218
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.60% 31.41% 29.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,419 6,403 6,889
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,375 840 647
10th Percentile £17.07 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.75 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.35
% change year-on-year +88.87% -51.95% +0.88%

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 21 September 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 21 September 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 21 September 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 2,257 £510 +2.00% 13,462
UK excluding London -16 1,337 £485 +7.83% 6,796
London -20 972 £525 -4.55% 7,748
Work from Home -20 652 £500 +3.31% 4,903
South East +6 460 £525 +13.51% 1,917
North of England -14 334 £475 +5.56% 1,238
North West -8 210 £475 +3.83% 690
Midlands -32 185 £450 -2.96% 865
West Midlands -32 137 £450 -5.26% 526
East of England -16 135 £350 -28.21% 929
South West -20 128 £400 -13.51% 764
Yorkshire -4 109 £503 +19.82% 380
Scotland -54 70 £500 +11.11% 669
East Midlands -19 47 £475 +6.26% 339
North East -37 15 £455 +30.65% 189
Northern Ireland -12 14 £250 -57.45% 302
Wales -31 13 £530 +73.50% 193
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 164 (6.61%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.19%) Confluence
3 63 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
6 19 (0.77%) IIS
7 14 (0.56%) Camunda
7 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 8 (0.32%) SAS
10 7 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 247 (9.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 240 (9.67%) Microsoft Office
3 122 (4.92%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (4.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 10 (0.40%) Navisworks
9 10 (0.40%) Windchill
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) AutoCAD
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 40 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 557 (22.45%) Azure
2 314 (12.66%) AWS
3 232 (9.35%) Power Platform
4 227 (9.15%) Microsoft 365
5 150 (6.05%) GCP
6 139 (5.60%) Entra ID
7 124 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.18%) SaaS
9 71 (2.86%) GitHub
10 64 (2.58%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.46%) Serverless
12 60 (2.42%) Power Automate
13 54 (2.18%) PowerApps
14 49 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
15 47 (1.89%) OneDrive
16 39 (1.57%) Snowflake
17 38 (1.53%) Figma
18 30 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
19 28 (1.13%) IaaS
20 27 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.35%) Firewall
2 85 (3.43%) DNS
3 67 (2.70%) Network Security
4 64 (2.58%) TCP/IP
5 59 (2.38%) VPN
6 46 (1.85%) DHCP
7 34 (1.37%) LAN
7 34 (1.37%) WAN
8 29 (1.17%) Wireless
9 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
9 23 (0.93%) Internet
10 21 (0.85%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) SSH
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 18 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.69%) BGP
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
15 15 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.81%) Power BI
2 113 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.30%) Relational Database
5 56 (2.26%) Metadata
6 43 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.41%) MySQL
8 32 (1.29%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.29%) Tableau
9 26 (1.05%) Elasticsearch
9 26 (1.05%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.01%) Big Data
11 24 (0.97%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
13 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
15 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 16 (0.64%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 174 (7.01%) JIRA
2 143 (5.76%) Git
3 65 (2.62%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.14%) GitLab
5 24 (0.97%) JUnit
6 23 (0.93%) Selenium
7 22 (0.89%) Maven
8 21 (0.85%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.81%) Gradle
10 19 (0.77%) Visual Studio
11 17 (0.69%) Cucumber
11 17 (0.69%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.56%) Mockito
14 12 (0.48%) Postman
15 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.40%) Subversion
16 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
17 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
17 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,128 (45.47%) Social Skills
2 734 (29.58%) Finance
3 577 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.26%) Public Sector
5 197 (7.94%) Banking
6 167 (6.73%) Organisational Skills
7 127 (5.12%) Manufacturing
8 120 (4.84%) Aerospace
9 116 (4.68%) Influencing Skills
10 98 (3.95%) Marketing
11 92 (3.71%) Telecoms
12 90 (3.63%) Presentation Skills
13 86 (3.47%) Legal
14 79 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 60 (2.42%) Retail
17 53 (2.14%) Law
17 53 (2.14%) Pharmaceutical
18 46 (1.85%) Military
19 42 (1.69%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 330 (13.30%) Analyst
2 286 (11.53%) Senior
3 204 (8.22%) Developer
4 200 (8.06%) Lead
5 165 (6.65%) Architect
6 157 (6.33%) Business Analyst
7 117 (4.72%) Project Manager
8 76 (3.06%) Consultant
9 74 (2.98%) Support Engineer
10 71 (2.86%) IT Support
11 66 (2.66%) Senior Manager
12 54 (2.18%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.10%) IT Manager
14 51 (2.06%) IT Analyst
15 50 (2.02%) Administrator
16 49 (1.98%) Designer
17 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
18 46 (1.85%) Software Engineer
19 43 (1.73%) Technical Support
20 42 (1.69%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.84%) REST
2 110 (4.43%) Terraform
3 104 (4.19%) .NET
4 73 (2.94%) React
5 71 (2.86%) HTML
6 64 (2.58%) Kafka
7 59 (2.38%) CSS
8 58 (2.34%) RESTful
9 50 (2.02%) OAuth
10 48 (1.93%) XML
11 46 (1.85%) Oracle Fusion
11 46 (1.85%) Web Services
12 43 (1.73%) Middleware
13 40 (1.61%) Spring Boot
14 39 (1.57%) OAuth2
15 38 (1.53%) SOAP
16 36 (1.45%) JSON
16 36 (1.45%) SAML
17 35 (1.41%) .NET Framework
17 35 (1.41%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 230 (9.27%) Management Information System
2 139 (5.60%) Onboarding
3 119 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 104 (4.19%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.46%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.38%) Algorithms
8 58 (2.34%) Data Structures
9 54 (2.18%) Operational Technology
10 51 (2.06%) Security Posture
11 49 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
12 46 (1.85%) AI Agents
12 46 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
12 46 (1.85%) Life Science
13 42 (1.69%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
15 37 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
16 34 (1.37%) SCADA
17 31 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
18 29 (1.17%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 297 (11.97%) Windows
2 180 (7.26%) Linux
3 83 (3.35%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.58%) Unix
5 47 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 32 (1.29%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
9 24 (0.97%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) zOS
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 799 (32.20%) Computer Science
2 667 (26.88%) Agile
3 658 (26.52%) Problem-Solving
4 526 (21.20%) Stakeholder Management
5 438 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 388 (15.64%) AI
7 356 (14.35%) DevOps
8 321 (12.94%) CI/CD
8 321 (12.94%) Project Management
9 307 (12.37%) Analytics
10 283 (11.41%) ITIL
11 263 (10.60%) Decision-Making
12 258 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (9.63%) Change Management
14 237 (9.55%) Scrum
15 234 (9.43%) Roadmaps
16 227 (9.15%) Software Engineering
17 226 (9.11%) Cybersecurity
18 209 (8.42%) Project Delivery
19 207 (8.34%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 412 (16.61%) Python
2 359 (14.47%) SQL
3 178 (7.17%) PowerShell
4 164 (6.61%) Java
5 129 (5.20%) JavaScript
6 125 (5.04%) C#
7 62 (2.50%) Bash
8 48 (1.93%) TypeScript
9 43 (1.73%) C++
10 30 (1.21%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 28 (1.13%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.97%) C
14 24 (0.97%) R
15 17 (0.69%) Scala
16 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.48%) X++
17 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 486 (19.59%) Computer Science Degree
2 473 (19.06%) Security Cleared
3 348 (14.03%) SC Cleared
4 209 (8.42%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.84%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.12%) PMP
7 124 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.31%) CISSP
9 93 (3.75%) Azure Certification
10 88 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (3.55%) DV Cleared
11 75 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
12 60 (2.42%) PhD
13 55 (2.22%) CISM
14 49 (1.98%) AWS Certification
15 47 (1.89%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 39 (1.57%) CCNA
17 38 (1.53%) CCNP
17 38 (1.53%) ISTQB
18 34 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (5.88%) QA
2 144 (5.80%) Data Quality
3 92 (3.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 91 (3.67%) NIST
5 86 (3.47%) PMO
6 76 (3.06%) GDPR
7 47 (1.89%) Accessibility
8 41 (1.65%) SLA
9 28 (1.13%) GRC
10 22 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.77%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.64%) IFRS
13 16 (0.64%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.52%) P3O
15 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.44%) ISO 31000
16 10 (0.40%) IEC 61508
17 9 (0.36%) Basel III
17 9 (0.36%) HIPAA
System Software
1 193 (7.78%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.88%) Docker
3 56 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.21%) Firmware
5 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 8 (0.32%) vSphere
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.24%) RACF
11 5 (0.20%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.50%) Ansible
4 33 (1.33%) SCCM
5 28 (1.13%) Grafana
6 26 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 9 (0.36%) CASB
11 9 (0.36%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
12 6 (0.24%) Nessus
12 6 (0.24%) WSUS
13 5 (0.20%) Control-M
13 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 634 (25.55%) Microsoft
2 181 (7.30%) Oracle
3 140 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 138 (5.56%) SAP
5 102 (4.11%) Google
6 74 (2.98%) Cisco
7 72 (2.90%) VMware
8 65 (2.62%) Salesforce
9 61 (2.46%) Adobe
10 53 (2.14%) Databricks
11 46 (1.85%) Splunk
12 43 (1.73%) IBM
13 30 (1.21%) CyberArk
13 30 (1.21%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.05%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.89%) Citrix
15 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.81%) Apple
18 19 (0.77%) Ariba