Degree Contracts

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 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 24 17 28
Rank change year-on-year -7 +11 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,291 3,690 4,026
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 7.84% 8.46% 6.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 25.49% 27.61% 24.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,311 1,967 2,458
10th Percentile £242 £212 £256
25th Percentile £377 £388 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £663
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 404 248
10th Percentile £18.13 £14.02 £16.25
25th Percentile £28.18 £22.69 £21.24
Median hourly rate £53.50 £40.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.75% -11.11% +22.45%
75th Percentile £68.25 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.05 £40.63 £45.00
% change year-on-year +15.82% -9.72% +23.44%

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 8,989 13,363 16,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.75% 30.65% 27.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,678 8,219 10,866
10th Percentile £288 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £707 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £530 £530
% change year-on-year -5.57% - +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 516 1,077 849
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.87 £15.25
25th Percentile £22.00 £17.88 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.72 £40.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.79% -25.93% +29.75%
75th Percentile £66.00 £61.60 £68.25
90th Percentile £80.34 £75.25 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.94 £49.57
% change year-on-year +9.92% -17.41% +55.44%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Degree.

Daily rate trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Degree.

Hourly rate trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 Contract 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 30 April 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 -7 1,886 £523 +1.95% 9,375
UK excluding London -4 1,064 £450 -10.00% 5,532
London -5 970 £550 +4.76% 4,391
Work from Home -11 671 £500 -4.76% 5,313
North of England -7 236 £456 +1.22% 1,367
South East -8 236 £500 - 1,475
Midlands -5 156 £300 -33.33% 1,061
North West -8 141 £463 +2.78% 755
Scotland -4 130 £450 -5.26% 371
South West -6 113 £500 -5.66% 498
East of England -2 110 £500 - 601
West Midlands +1 109 £292 -43.71% 588
Yorkshire -6 72 £414 -8.00% 453
Wales +7 62 £305 -40.68% 128
East Midlands -8 43 £338 +36.57% 470
Northern Ireland -3 29 £313 -21.88% 129
North East -14 22 £463 -7.50% 169
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 97 (4.23%) SharePoint
2 92 (4.02%) Confluence
3 71 (3.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 54 (2.36%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.61%) CMS
6 11 (0.48%) Apache
7 10 (0.44%) SAS
7 10 (0.44%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.39%) IIS
9 8 (0.35%) GemFire
9 8 (0.35%) Oracle Coherence
10 5 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.22%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.17%) Camunda
11 4 (0.17%) Drupal
11 4 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.17%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.17%) WordPress
12 3 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 205 (8.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 195 (8.51%) Microsoft Office
3 127 (5.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 113 (4.93%) Microsoft Project
5 72 (3.14%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.92%) Simulink
6 21 (0.92%) Trello
7 10 (0.44%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Smart View
9 5 (0.22%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.22%) Windchill
10 4 (0.17%) Camtasia
10 4 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
11 3 (0.13%) CATIA
11 3 (0.13%) Revit
11 3 (0.13%) Sketch
11 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.087%) Acrobat
12 2 (0.087%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.087%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 61 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.65%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
5 8 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.26%) FLEXCUBE
6 6 (0.26%) SAP CO
6 6 (0.26%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
6 6 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
7 5 (0.22%) Endur
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
7 5 (0.22%) Primavera
7 5 (0.22%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.22%) SAP MDG-S
7 5 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.17%) Maximo
8 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.17%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 425 (18.55%) Azure
2 316 (13.79%) AWS
3 169 (7.38%) Power Platform
4 166 (7.25%) Microsoft 365
5 116 (5.06%) GCP
6 70 (3.06%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (2.75%) SaaS
8 46 (2.01%) Serverless
9 45 (1.96%) Entra ID
10 44 (1.92%) Amazon S3
11 42 (1.83%) PaaS
12 40 (1.75%) GitHub
13 36 (1.57%) Cloud Computing
13 36 (1.57%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
14 35 (1.53%) IaaS
15 34 (1.48%) Dynamics 365
16 28 (1.22%) OneDrive
16 28 (1.22%) PowerApps
17 25 (1.09%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 122 (5.33%) Firewall
2 100 (4.36%) VPN
3 89 (3.88%) Network Security
4 69 (3.01%) DNS
5 47 (2.05%) TCP/IP
6 46 (2.01%) WAN
7 45 (1.96%) DHCP
8 44 (1.92%) Wireless
9 42 (1.83%) Skype
10 39 (1.70%) LAN
11 32 (1.40%) BGP
11 32 (1.40%) OSPF
12 26 (1.13%) Internet
13 24 (1.05%) WebEx
14 23 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.92%) MPLS
16 20 (0.87%) Radio Access Network
17 19 (0.83%) SMTP
17 19 (0.83%) SSL
18 17 (0.74%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (5.63%) Power BI
2 84 (3.67%) SQL Server
3 75 (3.27%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (3.01%) Tableau
5 68 (2.97%) Relational Database
6 58 (2.53%) Big Data
7 52 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.92%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.62%) Oracle Database
10 34 (1.48%) Hadoop
11 28 (1.22%) MySQL
12 27 (1.18%) Metadata
13 26 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
13 26 (1.13%) MongoDB
13 26 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
14 25 (1.09%) Data Lake
15 23 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
17 15 (0.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 14 (0.61%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 183 (7.99%) JIRA
2 102 (4.45%) Git
3 58 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.35%) GitLab
5 24 (1.05%) Bitbucket
5 24 (1.05%) Selenium
6 12 (0.52%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.44%) ERwin
7 10 (0.44%) JUnit
7 10 (0.44%) Maven
7 10 (0.44%) Postman
7 10 (0.44%) TestRail
8 9 (0.39%) JMeter
9 8 (0.35%) Cucumber
9 8 (0.35%) Cypress.io
9 8 (0.35%) GoogleTest
9 8 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
9 8 (0.35%) Visual Studio
10 7 (0.31%) SpecFlow
11 6 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,160 (50.63%) Social Skills
2 608 (26.54%) Analytical Skills
3 592 (25.84%) Finance
4 220 (9.60%) Public Sector
5 163 (7.11%) Banking
6 134 (5.85%) Marketing
7 104 (4.54%) Manufacturing
8 100 (4.36%) Presentation Skills
9 95 (4.15%) Legal
10 93 (4.06%) Telecoms
11 89 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
12 60 (2.62%) Front Office
13 54 (2.36%) Investment Banking
14 53 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 53 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
14 53 (2.31%) Pharmaceutical
15 52 (2.27%) Electronics
16 48 (2.10%) Financial Institution
17 44 (1.92%) Automotive
17 44 (1.92%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 293 (12.79%) Analyst
2 246 (10.74%) Developer
3 239 (10.43%) Senior
4 174 (7.59%) Architect
5 159 (6.94%) Business Analyst
6 139 (6.07%) Project Manager
7 123 (5.37%) Lead
8 87 (3.80%) Consultant
9 69 (3.01%) Support Engineer
10 67 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.71%) Network Engineer
12 45 (1.96%) Senior Developer
13 44 (1.92%) Software Engineer
14 42 (1.83%) Java Developer
15 39 (1.70%) Designer
16 37 (1.62%) Data Engineer
17 35 (1.53%) IT Manager
18 33 (1.44%) Data Scientist
19 32 (1.40%) Data Analyst
19 32 (1.40%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.23%) HTML
2 85 (3.71%) CSS
3 76 (3.32%) .NET
4 59 (2.58%) REST
5 58 (2.53%) React
6 47 (2.05%) AngularJS
7 44 (1.92%) Web Services
8 42 (1.83%) Kafka
9 32 (1.40%) RESTful
10 31 (1.35%) SOAP
11 30 (1.31%) Spring
12 29 (1.27%) Oracle Fusion
12 29 (1.27%) Pandas
13 27 (1.18%) TensorFlow
14 25 (1.09%) Middleware
15 24 (1.05%) NumPy
16 23 (1.00%) Node.js
16 23 (1.00%) PyTorch
17 21 (0.92%) scikit-learn
18 20 (0.87%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 200 (8.73%) Management Information System
2 97 (4.23%) Product Ownership
3 75 (3.27%) Algorithms
4 58 (2.53%) Data Centre
5 47 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
6 46 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
7 45 (1.96%) Derivative
8 44 (1.92%) Cloud Native
8 44 (1.92%) PKI
9 43 (1.88%) PMI
10 42 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.66%) Fixed Income
11 38 (1.66%) Life Science
11 38 (1.66%) Onboarding
12 36 (1.57%) Data Structures
13 35 (1.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 33 (1.44%) Equities
15 31 (1.35%) NHS
16 30 (1.31%) Security Posture
17 29 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 200 (8.73%) Windows
2 126 (5.50%) Linux
3 58 (2.53%) Windows Server
4 41 (1.79%) Windows 10
5 37 (1.62%) Apple iOS
6 29 (1.27%) Unix
7 26 (1.13%) Android
8 12 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 9 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
12 7 (0.31%) Mac OS
13 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.17%) SUSE
14 4 (0.17%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.13%) AIX
15 3 (0.13%) Solaris
15 3 (0.13%) VMS
16 2 (0.087%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 887 (38.72%) Computer Science
2 765 (33.39%) Problem-Solving
3 633 (27.63%) Agile
4 418 (18.25%) Project Management
5 266 (11.61%) Analytics
6 257 (11.22%) Stakeholder Management
7 252 (11.00%) DevOps
8 210 (9.17%) Decision-Making
9 192 (8.38%) Roadmaps
10 191 (8.34%) CI/CD
10 191 (8.34%) Continuous Improvement
10 191 (8.34%) Risk Management
11 176 (7.68%) Business Intelligence
12 174 (7.59%) Artificial Intelligence
12 174 (7.59%) ITIL
13 170 (7.42%) Data Analysis
14 166 (7.25%) Change Management
14 166 (7.25%) Migration
15 164 (7.16%) Software Engineering
16 160 (6.98%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 401 (17.50%) Python
2 324 (14.14%) SQL
3 189 (8.25%) Java
4 129 (5.63%) JavaScript
5 110 (4.80%) PowerShell
6 84 (3.67%) C#
7 71 (3.10%) C++
8 47 (2.05%) Bash
9 42 (1.83%) R
10 41 (1.79%) C
11 24 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 24 (1.05%) TypeScript
12 22 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.92%) Perl
13 21 (0.92%) Ruby
14 20 (0.87%) SystemVerilog
14 20 (0.87%) T-SQL
15 17 (0.74%) PHP
16 14 (0.61%) Rust
17 13 (0.57%) VBA
Qualifications
1 579 (25.27%) Computer Science Degree
2 295 (12.88%) Security Cleared
3 279 (12.18%) Master's Degree
4 220 (9.60%) SC Cleared
5 149 (6.50%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.46%) PMP
7 104 (4.54%) Microsoft Certification
8 98 (4.28%) Cisco Certification
9 95 (4.15%) CISSP
10 81 (3.54%) AWS Certification
11 74 (3.23%) Azure Certification
12 66 (2.88%) PhD
13 65 (2.84%) CCNA
14 58 (2.53%) CCNP
15 55 (2.40%) CISM
16 49 (2.14%) Numerate Degree
17 48 (2.10%) DV Cleared
18 36 (1.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 36 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
18 36 (1.57%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (5.46%) QA
2 109 (4.76%) Data Quality
3 75 (3.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 66 (2.88%) GDPR
5 61 (2.66%) NIST
6 55 (2.40%) PMO
7 48 (2.10%) Accessibility
8 19 (0.83%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.83%) SLA
9 17 (0.74%) HIPAA
10 14 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 13 (0.57%) NCSC
12 12 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.48%) GRC
14 8 (0.35%) MiFID
14 8 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 7 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 7 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 7 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 152 (6.63%) Active Directory
2 90 (3.93%) Docker
3 43 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.18%) BitLocker
5 23 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.96%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (0.61%) VMware NSX
8 12 (0.52%) Microsoft App-V
9 11 (0.48%) Firmware
10 10 (0.44%) Terminal Services
11 8 (0.35%) GridGain
11 8 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
12 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 6 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 3 (0.13%) vSphere
13 3 (0.13%) XenApp
14 2 (0.087%) iptables
14 2 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 122 (5.33%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.62%) Terraform
3 80 (3.49%) Ansible
4 49 (2.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 41 (1.79%) SCCM
6 25 (1.09%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.87%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.83%) Grafana
9 17 (0.74%) Puppet
10 16 (0.70%) WSUS
11 12 (0.52%) Progress Chef
11 12 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.44%) Argo
12 10 (0.44%) Nagios
13 9 (0.39%) vMotion
14 7 (0.31%) CASB
14 7 (0.31%) MOM
15 6 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
15 6 (0.26%) SCOM
16 5 (0.22%) Cacti
Vendors
1 447 (19.51%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.77%) SAP
3 150 (6.55%) Oracle
4 113 (4.93%) Google
5 105 (4.58%) ServiceNow
6 104 (4.54%) Cisco
7 76 (3.32%) Salesforce
8 50 (2.18%) VMware
9 40 (1.75%) Citrix
10 33 (1.44%) Databricks
11 30 (1.31%) Adobe
11 30 (1.31%) Atlassian
12 24 (1.05%) Palo Alto
13 23 (1.00%) Workday
14 21 (0.92%) Splunk
15 20 (0.87%) Intel
16 19 (0.83%) Xilinx
17 18 (0.79%) HP
17 18 (0.79%) IBM
17 18 (0.79%) Juniper