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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,588 2,341 3,766
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.14% 7.79% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.06% 25.96% 28.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,501 1,310 2,105
10th Percentile £286 £225 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £501
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.40% -6.45%
75th Percentile £631 £645 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 222 151 359
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.56 £30.23 £22.33
Median hourly rate £37.54 £46.18 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -18.71% +15.68% -11.29%
75th Percentile £71.88 £75.00 £59.34
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.25 £45.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -19.44% +12.50% -11.11%

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 14,333 9,019 13,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.01% 30.02% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,465 5,582 8,268
10th Percentile £331 £285 £288
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £627 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £528
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.32% -0.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,047 451 990
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.35 £19.99
Median hourly rate £25.77 £42.50 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year -39.36% +5.92% -19.75%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £63.64
90th Percentile £82.10 £82.25 £76.58
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.81 £40.94
% change year-on-year -47.39% +16.77% -11.73%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -4 2,248 £500 -4.76% 3,106
UK excluding London -6 1,360 £492 +3.58% 2,536
London -11 983 £515 -6.36% 906
Work from Home -3 716 £500 -3.85% 1,290
North of England -3 351 £447 -10.60% 537
South East -4 333 £475 -5.00% 794
Midlands -17 211 £500 +25.00% 393
North West -2 183 £400 -20.00% 274
South West +6 180 £650 +21.44% 296
West Midlands -20 155 £500 - 217
Yorkshire -14 151 £525 +5.00% 195
East of England -10 134 £525 +8.25% 357
Scotland -2 113 £525 +20.34% 128
East Midlands -12 56 £525 +47.47% 168
Wales -9 49 £254 -12.35% 78
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 74
Northern Ireland -12 17 £388 -8.82% 30

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
1 216 (8.35%) Confluence
2 121 (4.68%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.16%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 10 (0.39%) Skype for Business
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.19%) SAS
11 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
11 4 (0.15%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.15%) IIS
11 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.15%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 315 (12.17%) Microsoft Office
2 236 (9.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 200 (7.73%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (4.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.01%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Simulink
8 14 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.35%) Sketch
9 9 (0.35%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.15%) InVision
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.077%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.077%) InDesign
13 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.077%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.039%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 65 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 27 (1.04%) Primavera
4 20 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.27%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 6 (0.23%) SAP WM
10 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.15%) Aladdin
11 4 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 548 (21.17%) Azure
2 307 (11.86%) AWS
3 216 (8.35%) Microsoft 365
4 197 (7.61%) Power Platform
5 151 (5.83%) GCP
6 114 (4.40%) SaaS
7 107 (4.13%) Entra ID
8 95 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
9 88 (3.40%) GitHub
10 54 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
11 53 (2.05%) Serverless
12 44 (1.70%) Cloud Computing
13 40 (1.55%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.35%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.24%) IaaS
16 32 (1.24%) PaaS
17 31 (1.20%) OCI
18 30 (1.16%) PowerApps
19 28 (1.08%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 119 (4.60%) Firewall
2 67 (2.59%) DNS
3 64 (2.47%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.43%) WAN
5 61 (2.36%) LAN
6 51 (1.97%) Network Security
7 45 (1.74%) VPN
8 32 (1.24%) Skype
9 31 (1.20%) Ethernet
9 31 (1.20%) HTTP
10 29 (1.12%) Wireless
11 27 (1.04%) BGP
12 26 (1.00%) DHCP
12 26 (1.00%) Internet
12 26 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.89%) OSPF
14 22 (0.85%) Unified Communications
15 21 (0.81%) VLAN
16 18 (0.70%) SSL
17 17 (0.66%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (5.83%) Power BI
2 102 (3.94%) PostgreSQL
3 100 (3.86%) SQL Server
4 64 (2.47%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
6 49 (1.89%) Big Data
7 48 (1.85%) Tableau
8 47 (1.82%) Relational Database
9 44 (1.70%) MySQL
10 34 (1.31%) Metadata
11 31 (1.20%) Data Lake
12 28 (1.08%) Hadoop
13 25 (0.97%) MongoDB
14 20 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.62%) GIS
15 16 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.43%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 303 (11.71%) JIRA
2 125 (4.83%) Git
3 77 (2.98%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.32%) GitLab
5 28 (1.08%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.81%) Selenium
7 18 (0.70%) Postman
8 16 (0.62%) Liquibase
9 15 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
10 13 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.46%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.46%) MLflow
12 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.39%) Gradle
14 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
15 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
15 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
15 8 (0.31%) JMeter
16 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,286 (49.69%) Social Skills
2 810 (31.30%) Finance
3 589 (22.76%) Analytical Skills
4 260 (10.05%) Banking
5 226 (8.73%) Public Sector
6 124 (4.79%) Presentation Skills
7 112 (4.33%) Organisational Skills
8 101 (3.90%) Marketing
9 96 (3.71%) Manufacturing
10 86 (3.32%) Influencing Skills
11 85 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
12 73 (2.82%) Legal
13 60 (2.32%) Military
14 56 (2.16%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.05%) Financial Institution
16 52 (2.01%) Aerospace
17 47 (1.82%) Electronics
17 47 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 46 (1.78%) Retail
19 45 (1.74%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 370 (14.30%) Analyst
2 258 (9.97%) Senior
3 214 (8.27%) Lead
4 209 (8.08%) Developer
5 205 (7.92%) Architect
6 177 (6.84%) Project Manager
7 165 (6.38%) Business Analyst
8 105 (4.06%) Consultant
9 80 (3.09%) Software Engineer
10 73 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (2.51%) Technical Support
12 58 (2.24%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.13%) IT Support
14 52 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
15 50 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
16 48 (1.85%) Designer
17 47 (1.82%) Data Scientist
18 40 (1.55%) Data Engineer
19 39 (1.51%) Support Analyst
20 37 (1.43%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (4.60%) REST
2 79 (3.05%) .NET
3 71 (2.74%) RESTful
4 68 (2.63%) HTML
5 65 (2.51%) React
6 55 (2.13%) CSS
7 53 (2.05%) Middleware
8 48 (1.85%) Kafka
9 44 (1.70%) Elastic Stack
10 40 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
10 40 (1.55%) SOAP
11 39 (1.51%) JSON
11 39 (1.51%) XML
12 37 (1.43%) PyTorch
12 37 (1.43%) TensorFlow
13 36 (1.39%) OAuth
14 32 (1.24%) Spring
15 30 (1.16%) AngularJS
15 30 (1.16%) Spring Boot
16 29 (1.12%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 214 (8.27%) Management Information System
2 151 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 113 (4.37%) Cloud Native
3 113 (4.37%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.36%) Algorithms
5 78 (3.01%) Virtual Team
6 71 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
7 70 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
8 69 (2.67%) Data Centre
9 60 (2.32%) Data Protection Act
10 55 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
11 52 (2.01%) PMI
12 49 (1.89%) Data Structures
13 45 (1.74%) Security Posture
14 44 (1.70%) Derivative
15 43 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
16 38 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.39%) Public Cloud
18 34 (1.31%) NHS
19 33 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 308 (11.90%) Windows
2 204 (7.88%) Linux
3 84 (3.25%) Unix
4 74 (2.86%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.28%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.16%) Android
7 24 (0.93%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 15 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
11 14 (0.54%) Ubuntu
12 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
12 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
13 9 (0.35%) VMS
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.15%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 943 (36.44%) Computer Science
2 802 (30.99%) Agile
3 742 (28.67%) Problem-Solving
4 429 (16.58%) Stakeholder Management
5 383 (14.80%) DevOps
6 347 (13.41%) AI
7 339 (13.10%) Project Management
8 315 (12.17%) Continuous Improvement
9 304 (11.75%) CI/CD
10 291 (11.24%) Change Management
11 288 (11.13%) Analytics
12 281 (10.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 272 (10.51%) Cybersecurity
13 272 (10.51%) Decision-Making
14 262 (10.12%) ITIL
15 260 (10.05%) Migration
16 236 (9.12%) Project Delivery
17 234 (9.04%) Software Engineering
18 233 (9.00%) Risk Management
19 212 (8.19%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 451 (17.43%) Python
2 383 (14.80%) SQL
3 180 (6.96%) Java
4 132 (5.10%) PowerShell
5 111 (4.29%) JavaScript
6 88 (3.40%) C#
7 79 (3.05%) C++
8 54 (2.09%) TypeScript
9 49 (1.89%) Bash
10 47 (1.82%) Go
11 31 (1.20%) R
12 26 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.81%) Perl
13 21 (0.81%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.70%) MATLAB
15 17 (0.66%) T-SQL
16 16 (0.62%) C
17 15 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.58%) Rust
17 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 604 (23.34%) Computer Science Degree
2 479 (18.51%) Security Cleared
3 404 (15.61%) Master's Degree
4 362 (13.99%) SC Cleared
5 149 (5.76%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.06%) PMP
7 128 (4.95%) CISSP
8 92 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.28%) CISM
10 76 (2.94%) PhD
11 75 (2.90%) TOGAF Certification
12 74 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
13 65 (2.51%) Azure Certification
14 63 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
15 57 (2.20%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.58%) CCNP
17 40 (1.55%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.55%) MBA
18 34 (1.31%) ITIL Certification
19 33 (1.28%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (6.61%) QA
2 135 (5.22%) GDPR
3 107 (4.13%) PMO
4 106 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (3.75%) Data Quality
6 87 (3.36%) NIST
7 50 (1.93%) PCI DSS
8 47 (1.82%) Accessibility
9 38 (1.47%) SLA
10 34 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (1.24%) GRC
12 20 (0.77%) NCSC
13 19 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.70%) WCAG
15 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.54%) Basel III
17 14 (0.54%) IFRS
18 13 (0.50%) DO-254
19 12 (0.46%) COBIT
System Software
1 192 (7.42%) Docker
2 167 (6.45%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.81%) Firmware
5 20 (0.77%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.19%) XenApp
8 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.15%) NDS
9 4 (0.15%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 4 (0.15%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) HDFS
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.077%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 190 (7.34%) Kubernetes
2 114 (4.40%) Terraform
3 79 (3.05%) Ansible
4 71 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 52 (2.01%) Grafana
6 47 (1.82%) SCCM
7 44 (1.70%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.16%) OPNET
9 22 (0.85%) Puppet
10 17 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.62%) Kibana
12 13 (0.50%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
14 9 (0.35%) WSUS
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
17 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
17 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 555 (21.45%) Microsoft
2 172 (6.65%) Oracle
3 166 (6.41%) SAP
4 120 (4.64%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.29%) Google
6 95 (3.67%) Splunk
7 85 (3.28%) Cisco
8 56 (2.16%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.09%) Databricks
9 54 (2.09%) Remedy
10 52 (2.01%) VMware
11 50 (1.93%) Salesforce
12 42 (1.62%) Citrix
13 39 (1.51%) Palo Alto
14 37 (1.43%) IBM
15 29 (1.12%) CheckPoint
16 27 (1.04%) Informatica
17 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (0.97%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.85%) Adobe