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 3 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,499 2,369 3,031
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.15% 7.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.36% 22.62% 27.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,285 1,289 1,715
10th Percentile £204 £268 £241
25th Percentile £363 £400 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £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 305 215 194
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.75 £25.45 £25.99
Median hourly rate £40.00 £34.48 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.01% -31.04% +1.75%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £84.20 £81.00 £77.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +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 17,408 10,474 11,139
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.73% 31.60% 29.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,559 6,535 6,767
10th Percentile £351 £290 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £633 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £708 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £521
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.08% -3.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,427 884 610
10th Percentile £16.95 £17.87 £17.99
25th Percentile £25.67 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £46.80 £25.15 £48.18
Median % change year-on-year +86.08% -47.80% -10.08%
75th Percentile £71.50 £42.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.02
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -3.66%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 -15 2,278 £510 +2.00% 12,897
UK excluding London -15 1,357 £485 +7.83% 7,964
London -20 980 £525 -4.55% 6,439
Work from Home -21 662 £508 +5.02% 5,421
South East +6 466 £525 +16.67% 2,063
North of England -6 343 £478 +6.22% 1,388
North West -8 217 £479 +4.70% 723
Midlands -27 189 £450 -5.26% 973
West Midlands -26 141 £450 -8.16% 579
East of England -13 137 £425 -15.00% 1,008
South West -21 130 £400 -23.81% 835
Yorkshire -11 110 £500 +17.65% 428
Scotland -49 70 £500 +11.11% 962
East Midlands -21 47 £478 +6.94% 394
North East -37 16 £460 +2.22% 252
Northern Ireland -13 13 £238 -59.57% 442
Wales -33 12 £530 +73.50% 384
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
1 160 (6.40%) SharePoint
2 115 (4.60%) Confluence
3 59 (2.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.92%) Apache
6 21 (0.84%) IIS
7 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.64%) CMS
9 14 (0.56%) Camunda
9 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.32%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) nginx
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) Appian
Applications
1 245 (9.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 236 (9.44%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (4.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 111 (4.44%) Microsoft Project
5 56 (2.24%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Simulink
9 12 (0.48%) Windchill
10 10 (0.40%) Revit
11 9 (0.36%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.32%) Sketch
13 7 (0.28%) AutoCAD
14 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
14 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
15 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
16 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 34 (1.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) 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
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 561 (22.45%) Azure
2 306 (12.24%) AWS
3 225 (9.00%) Power Platform
4 221 (8.84%) Microsoft 365
5 154 (6.16%) GCP
6 140 (5.60%) Entra ID
7 129 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
8 78 (3.12%) SaaS
9 70 (2.80%) GitHub
10 62 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
10 62 (2.48%) Serverless
11 60 (2.40%) Power Automate
12 53 (2.12%) PowerApps
13 49 (1.96%) Microsoft Copilot
14 48 (1.92%) OneDrive
15 40 (1.60%) Snowflake
16 39 (1.56%) Figma
17 32 (1.28%) Amazon S3
18 30 (1.20%) IaaS
19 29 (1.16%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.12%) Firewall
2 82 (3.28%) DNS
3 65 (2.60%) Network Security
4 63 (2.52%) TCP/IP
5 57 (2.28%) VPN
6 44 (1.76%) DHCP
7 33 (1.32%) LAN
7 33 (1.32%) WAN
8 27 (1.08%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.84%) 5G
11 20 (0.80%) Internet
11 20 (0.80%) VLAN
12 19 (0.76%) SSH
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
13 18 (0.72%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.64%) BGP
16 15 (0.60%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (6.48%) Power BI
2 114 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.28%) Metadata
5 50 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.48%) MySQL
8 33 (1.32%) NoSQL
9 32 (1.28%) Tableau
10 31 (1.24%) Big Data
11 27 (1.08%) Elasticsearch
11 27 (1.08%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (0.76%) Data Lake
15 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
15 16 (0.64%) GIS
16 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 173 (6.92%) JIRA
2 146 (5.84%) Git
3 66 (2.64%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.28%) GitLab
5 25 (1.00%) JUnit
6 23 (0.92%) Maven
7 22 (0.88%) Selenium
7 22 (0.88%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.84%) Gradle
9 19 (0.76%) Cucumber
9 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
11 16 (0.64%) Mockito
11 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.48%) Postman
13 10 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,128 (45.14%) Social Skills
2 732 (29.29%) Finance
3 585 (23.41%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (8.60%) Public Sector
5 201 (8.04%) Banking
6 169 (6.76%) Organisational Skills
7 142 (5.68%) Manufacturing
8 125 (5.00%) Aerospace
9 120 (4.80%) Influencing Skills
10 104 (4.16%) Marketing
11 89 (3.56%) Presentation Skills
11 89 (3.56%) Telecoms
12 83 (3.32%) Legal
13 81 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
14 68 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 63 (2.52%) Retail
16 57 (2.28%) Pharmaceutical
17 49 (1.96%) Law
17 49 (1.96%) Military
18 43 (1.72%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 331 (13.25%) Analyst
2 288 (11.52%) Senior
3 207 (8.28%) Developer
4 198 (7.92%) Lead
5 164 (6.56%) Business Analyst
6 162 (6.48%) Architect
7 112 (4.48%) Project Manager
8 78 (3.12%) Consultant
9 69 (2.76%) IT Support
9 69 (2.76%) Support Engineer
10 63 (2.52%) Senior Manager
11 54 (2.16%) Administrator
11 54 (2.16%) IT Manager
11 54 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (1.92%) IT Analyst
12 48 (1.92%) Security Engineer
13 46 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
13 46 (1.84%) Designer
14 45 (1.80%) Software Engineer
15 42 (1.68%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (4.68%) REST
2 116 (4.64%) Terraform
3 105 (4.20%) .NET
4 76 (3.04%) React
5 73 (2.92%) HTML
6 65 (2.60%) Kafka
7 64 (2.56%) CSS
8 60 (2.40%) RESTful
9 51 (2.04%) OAuth
10 49 (1.96%) XML
11 46 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
12 44 (1.76%) Middleware
12 44 (1.76%) Web Services
13 40 (1.60%) OAuth2
14 39 (1.56%) SOAP
14 39 (1.56%) Spring Boot
15 38 (1.52%) SAML
16 36 (1.44%) JSON
16 36 (1.44%) OpenID
17 33 (1.32%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 233 (9.32%) Management Information System
2 137 (5.48%) Onboarding
3 122 (4.88%) Product Ownership
4 109 (4.36%) Self-Motivation
5 104 (4.16%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.56%) Algorithms
7 62 (2.48%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.36%) Data Structures
9 58 (2.32%) Operational Technology
10 52 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
11 51 (2.04%) Life Science
11 51 (2.04%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.84%) AI Agents
13 45 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
14 42 (1.68%) Virtual Team
15 39 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
16 36 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
16 36 (1.44%) SCADA
17 29 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
17 29 (1.16%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 297 (11.88%) Windows
2 184 (7.36%) Linux
3 84 (3.36%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.76%) Unix
5 45 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) zOS
13 5 (0.20%) Solaris
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.16%) AIX
15 3 (0.12%) MVS
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
16 2 (0.080%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (32.13%) Computer Science
2 690 (27.61%) Agile
3 673 (26.93%) Problem-Solving
4 557 (22.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 443 (17.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 402 (16.09%) AI
7 371 (14.85%) DevOps
8 336 (13.45%) CI/CD
9 316 (12.65%) Analytics
10 309 (12.36%) Project Management
11 278 (11.12%) ITIL
12 266 (10.64%) Decision-Making
13 256 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 247 (9.88%) Roadmaps
14 247 (9.88%) Scrum
15 242 (9.68%) Change Management
16 232 (9.28%) Software Engineering
17 227 (9.08%) Cybersecurity
18 222 (8.88%) Project Delivery
19 219 (8.76%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 403 (16.13%) Python
2 366 (14.65%) SQL
3 180 (7.20%) PowerShell
4 160 (6.40%) Java
5 131 (5.24%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.92%) C#
7 65 (2.60%) Bash
8 46 (1.84%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.52%) C++
10 31 (1.24%) Bicep
11 29 (1.16%) Shell Script
12 28 (1.12%) T-SQL
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) R
15 21 (0.84%) C
16 17 (0.68%) Scala
17 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.48%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 495 (19.81%) Security Cleared
2 490 (19.61%) Computer Science Degree
3 367 (14.69%) SC Cleared
4 212 (8.48%) Master's Degree
5 152 (6.08%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.40%) PMP
7 119 (4.76%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.28%) CISSP
9 94 (3.76%) Azure Certification
10 93 (3.72%) DV Cleared
11 86 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
12 81 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.40%) PhD
14 53 (2.12%) CISM
15 47 (1.88%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 46 (1.84%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.56%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.52%) DBS Check
19 35 (1.40%) CCNA
19 35 (1.40%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (5.88%) Data Quality
1 147 (5.88%) QA
2 93 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (3.60%) NIST
4 85 (3.40%) GDPR
5 77 (3.08%) PMO
6 50 (2.00%) Accessibility
7 40 (1.60%) SLA
8 31 (1.24%) GRC
9 20 (0.80%) NCSC
9 20 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.64%) IFRS
12 13 (0.52%) IEC 61508
13 12 (0.48%) ISO 31000
13 12 (0.48%) P3O
14 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.40%) Basel III
System Software
1 188 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.88%) Docker
3 59 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.08%) Firmware
4 27 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.36%) vSphere
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.24%) RACF
10 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 135 (5.40%) Kubernetes
2 74 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.40%) Ansible
4 32 (1.28%) SCCM
5 27 (1.08%) Grafana
6 25 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Functional Safety
10 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) CASB
12 8 (0.32%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 621 (24.85%) Microsoft
2 183 (7.32%) Oracle
3 136 (5.44%) SAP
4 135 (5.40%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.44%) Google
6 74 (2.96%) VMware
7 71 (2.84%) Cisco
7 71 (2.84%) Salesforce
8 65 (2.60%) Adobe
9 57 (2.28%) Databricks
10 46 (1.84%) IBM
11 45 (1.80%) Splunk
12 31 (1.24%) Red Hat
13 28 (1.12%) OpenAI
14 26 (1.04%) CyberArk
15 22 (0.88%) Apple
15 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.84%) Citrix
17 20 (0.80%) Ariba