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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,504 2,439 3,191
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.73% 7.45% 7.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.07% 24.17% 26.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,337 1,382 1,844
10th Percentile £206 £251 £232
25th Percentile £363 £370 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £629 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +0.67% -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 207 305
10th Percentile £16.85 £17.68 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.41 £25.75 £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.75 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -15.00% -7.18%
75th Percentile £82.47 £64.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £40.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +10.00% -30.25% +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 16,621 10,093 12,140
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 30.85% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,099 6,261 7,684
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,216 755 941
10th Percentile £17.80 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -25.11%
75th Percentile £73.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £86.63 £75.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 July 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 July 2026.

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 25 July 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 -13 2,259 £500 - 3,068
UK excluding London -10 1,384 £453 +0.67% 1,957
London -21 952 £525 -4.55% 1,441
Work from Home -19 663 £500 - 1,056
South East +1 471 £500 +4.99% 641
North of England -13 333 £450 - 422
Midlands -28 190 £487 +11.58% 270
North West -13 187 £447 -5.89% 204
East of England -4 148 £450 - 252
West Midlands -34 144 £487 +8.11% 152
Yorkshire -9 129 £463 +9.47% 148
South West -24 120 £415 -7.78% 241
Scotland -34 87 £450 - 71
East Midlands -20 44 £500 +39.66% 118
Wales -28 23 £490 +58.71% 59
North East -44 17 £450 +130.77% 75
Northern Ireland -11 15 £252 -46.95% 52

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
1 149 (5.95%) SharePoint
2 128 (5.11%) Confluence
3 65 (2.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.76%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.96%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 278 (11.10%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 151 (6.03%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
9 8 (0.32%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
10 6 (0.24%) Trello
10 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.68%) Primavera
3 14 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 579 (23.12%) Azure
2 327 (13.06%) AWS
3 234 (9.35%) Power Platform
4 214 (8.55%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (6.07%) Entra ID
6 137 (5.47%) GCP
7 106 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.35%) SaaS
9 65 (2.60%) GitHub
10 49 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
11 46 (1.84%) Snowflake
12 45 (1.80%) Figma
12 45 (1.80%) Serverless
13 44 (1.76%) PowerApps
14 43 (1.72%) Power Automate
15 40 (1.60%) OneDrive
16 36 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
17 30 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
18 28 (1.12%) IaaS
18 28 (1.12%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.59%) Firewall
2 76 (3.04%) DNS
2 76 (3.04%) TCP/IP
3 65 (2.60%) Network Security
4 58 (2.32%) VPN
5 45 (1.80%) WAN
6 42 (1.68%) LAN
7 37 (1.48%) DHCP
8 25 (1.00%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) BGP
10 22 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.76%) OSPF
11 19 (0.76%) SSL
11 19 (0.76%) VLAN
12 15 (0.60%) HTTP
12 15 (0.60%) Internet
12 15 (0.60%) SSH
13 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
13 14 (0.56%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (7.55%) Power BI
2 116 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 64 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.08%) Relational Database
6 48 (1.92%) Metadata
7 45 (1.80%) Big Data
8 40 (1.60%) Tableau
9 35 (1.40%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.12%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.12%) MySQL
11 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 23 (0.92%) Hadoop
13 22 (0.88%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 15 (0.60%) GIS
18 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 212 (8.47%) JIRA
2 130 (5.19%) Git
3 54 (2.16%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.56%) GitLab
5 34 (1.36%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.76%) MLflow
7 17 (0.68%) Selenium
7 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.56%) JUnit
9 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.48%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Gradle
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,096 (43.77%) Social Skills
2 737 (29.43%) Finance
3 541 (21.61%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 194 (7.75%) Banking
6 159 (6.35%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
8 102 (4.07%) Marketing
9 101 (4.03%) Legal
10 95 (3.79%) Aerospace
11 90 (3.59%) Manufacturing
12 86 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
13 83 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
14 76 (3.04%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.48%) Retail
16 59 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.16%) Law
18 43 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.36%) Financial Institution
19 34 (1.36%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 345 (13.78%) Analyst
2 287 (11.46%) Senior
3 196 (7.83%) Architect
4 191 (7.63%) Lead
5 175 (6.99%) Developer
6 159 (6.35%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.07%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.88%) Consultant
8 72 (2.88%) Senior Manager
9 65 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.56%) Designer
11 56 (2.24%) IT Manager
11 56 (2.24%) IT Support
12 53 (2.12%) Software Engineer
12 53 (2.12%) Support Engineer
13 51 (2.04%) Administrator
14 50 (2.00%) Product Manager
14 50 (2.00%) Senior Analyst
15 48 (1.92%) IT Analyst
16 47 (1.88%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.11%) REST
2 98 (3.91%) .NET
3 68 (2.72%) React
4 52 (2.08%) Kafka
5 44 (1.76%) RESTful
6 41 (1.64%) OAuth
7 39 (1.56%) HTML
8 38 (1.52%) Middleware
9 35 (1.40%) .NET Framework
10 33 (1.32%) Spring
10 33 (1.32%) Web Services
11 32 (1.28%) CSS
12 31 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 31 (1.24%) SAML
12 31 (1.24%) Spring Boot
13 30 (1.20%) JSON
13 30 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
14 29 (1.16%) LDAP
14 29 (1.16%) OAuth2
14 29 (1.16%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.23%) Management Information System
2 155 (6.19%) Onboarding
3 154 (6.15%) Product Ownership
4 116 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.07%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.84%) Algorithms
6 71 (2.84%) Data Structures
7 65 (2.60%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.36%) Virtual Team
9 52 (2.08%) Operational Technology
10 51 (2.04%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
12 43 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
13 42 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
14 41 (1.64%) Life Science
15 37 (1.48%) AI Agents
16 35 (1.40%) PMI
17 33 (1.32%) Robotics
18 32 (1.28%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 306 (12.22%) Windows
2 175 (6.99%) Linux
3 76 (3.04%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.44%) Unix
5 49 (1.96%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.12%) Android
8 28 (1.12%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.12%) MVS
12 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.12%) Rocky
12 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 841 (33.59%) Computer Science
2 688 (27.48%) Agile
3 664 (26.52%) Problem-Solving
4 436 (17.41%) Stakeholder Management
5 411 (16.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 399 (15.93%) AI
7 334 (13.34%) DevOps
8 316 (12.62%) Analytics
9 313 (12.50%) Project Management
10 305 (12.18%) CI/CD
11 270 (10.78%) Decision-Making
11 270 (10.78%) ITIL
12 267 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 246 (9.82%) Cybersecurity
14 227 (9.07%) Change Management
15 219 (8.75%) Roadmaps
16 215 (8.59%) Software Engineering
17 205 (8.19%) Scrum
18 204 (8.15%) Migration
18 204 (8.15%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 430 (17.17%) Python
2 364 (14.54%) SQL
3 173 (6.91%) Java
4 149 (5.95%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.23%) C#
6 91 (3.63%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.92%) Bash
8 47 (1.88%) C++
9 40 (1.60%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.16%) R
11 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.96%) Shell Script
11 24 (0.96%) T-SQL
12 23 (0.92%) Bicep
13 21 (0.84%) C
14 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.44%) X++
16 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 485 (19.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 450 (17.97%) Security Cleared
3 297 (11.86%) SC Cleared
4 251 (10.02%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.03%) PMP
7 118 (4.71%) CISSP
8 107 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.31%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.08%) Azure Certification
10 77 (3.08%) DV Cleared
11 69 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (2.28%) CISM
13 56 (2.24%) PhD
14 43 (1.72%) AWS Certification
15 41 (1.64%) CCNA
16 39 (1.56%) CCNP
17 36 (1.44%) CISA
17 36 (1.44%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 32 (1.28%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (5.55%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.15%) QA
3 113 (4.51%) NIST
4 109 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (4.15%) PMO
6 83 (3.31%) GDPR
7 52 (2.08%) SLA
8 51 (2.04%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.08%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.04%) GRC
12 22 (0.88%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) COBIT
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 197 (7.87%) Active Directory
2 126 (5.03%) Docker
3 48 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.92%) Firmware
4 23 (0.92%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
8 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.24%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 138 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.75%) Terraform
3 77 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.40%) Ansible
5 36 (1.44%) SCCM
6 32 (1.28%) Grafana
7 29 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Argo
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 625 (24.96%) Microsoft
2 165 (6.59%) Oracle
3 147 (5.87%) SAP
4 133 (5.31%) ServiceNow
5 100 (3.99%) Google
6 70 (2.80%) Cisco
7 65 (2.60%) Databricks
8 63 (2.52%) VMware
9 58 (2.32%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.20%) Adobe
11 51 (2.04%) IBM
12 35 (1.40%) Citrix
12 35 (1.40%) Splunk
13 33 (1.32%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.12%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.84%) Ariba
16 21 (0.84%) Siemens
17 20 (0.80%) BeyondTrust
18 19 (0.76%) HP