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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,527 2,252 3,683
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.64% 7.75% 8.33%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.89% 25.26% 27.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,485 1,307 2,005
10th Percentile £275 £243 £205
25th Percentile £400 £387 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.10%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +2.26% -7.10% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 169 370
10th Percentile £16.40 £19.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £28.41 £21.80
Median hourly rate £45.46 £47.81 £38.13
Median % change year-on-year -4.91% +25.39% -15.28%
75th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.00 £46.30 £39.92
% change year-on-year +12.31% +15.98% -11.29%

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 14,960 8,916 13,542
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.42% 30.68% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,900 5,679 8,415
10th Percentile £340 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,089 487 1,010
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £13.83
25th Percentile £20.50 £24.18 £17.72
Median hourly rate £36.70 £43.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.65% +14.67% -28.57%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.76 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.12 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -27.77% +33.33% -23.47%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 -7 2,205 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -5 1,314 £475 +2.26% 2,012
London -13 970 £515 -6.36% 866
Work from Home -4 697 £500 -4.76% 927
South East -7 347 £500 - 660
North of England -7 343 £422 -11.15% 472
Midlands -21 204 £500 +56.25% 318
North West -4 181 £400 -15.25% 244
South West -3 151 £688 +28.99% 220
West Midlands -22 151 £494 +64.50% 181
Yorkshire -9 145 £488 -4.88% 164
East of England -7 137 £500 - 213
Scotland -7 97 £500 +16.28% 94
East Midlands -18 52 £531 +49.16% 136
Wales -11 43 £303 +5.30% 61
North East -16 18 £407 -9.56% 71
Northern Ireland -6 17 £406 +30.00% 17

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
1 186 (7.36%) Confluence
2 115 (4.55%) SharePoint
3 67 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 54 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.71%) Apache
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.24%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.079%) Appian
12 2 (0.079%) Camunda
12 2 (0.079%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.079%) nginx
12 2 (0.079%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.079%) WinCC
Applications
1 312 (12.35%) Microsoft Office
2 236 (9.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 203 (8.03%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (2.69%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
7 11 (0.44%) Trello
8 9 (0.36%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.28%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.12%) InVision
12 2 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.079%) PTC Creo
13 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.040%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.040%) InDesign
13 1 (0.040%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 74 (2.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.83%) Primavera
4 19 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.28%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 538 (21.29%) Azure
2 303 (11.99%) AWS
3 209 (8.27%) Microsoft 365
4 200 (7.91%) Power Platform
5 130 (5.14%) GCP
6 108 (4.27%) Entra ID
6 108 (4.27%) SaaS
7 102 (4.04%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (2.89%) GitHub
9 50 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
10 45 (1.78%) Serverless
11 42 (1.66%) Power Automate
12 41 (1.62%) Cloud Computing
12 41 (1.62%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.27%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.23%) IaaS
15 30 (1.19%) PaaS
15 30 (1.19%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 122 (4.83%) Firewall
2 63 (2.49%) TCP/IP
3 59 (2.33%) DNS
3 59 (2.33%) WAN
4 58 (2.30%) LAN
5 47 (1.86%) Network Security
6 41 (1.62%) VPN
7 30 (1.19%) BGP
8 29 (1.15%) Wireless
9 26 (1.03%) Ethernet
9 26 (1.03%) HTTP
10 25 (0.99%) Skype
11 24 (0.95%) OSPF
12 20 (0.79%) DHCP
13 19 (0.75%) Internet
13 19 (0.75%) VLAN
14 17 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.63%) SAN
16 14 (0.55%) SSL
17 13 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (6.33%) Power BI
2 97 (3.84%) SQL Server
3 89 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (2.14%) NoSQL
6 50 (1.98%) Big Data
6 50 (1.98%) Relational Database
7 45 (1.78%) Tableau
8 39 (1.54%) MySQL
9 35 (1.39%) Metadata
10 30 (1.19%) Data Lake
11 29 (1.15%) Hadoop
12 20 (0.79%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
15 14 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
16 13 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
18 10 (0.40%) GIS
18 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 293 (11.59%) JIRA
2 122 (4.83%) Git
3 69 (2.73%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.14%) GitLab
5 31 (1.23%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.07%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.91%) Selenium
8 18 (0.71%) MLflow
9 15 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.36%) Liquibase
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 7 (0.28%) JUnit
General
1 1,206 (47.72%) Social Skills
2 782 (30.95%) Finance
3 562 (22.24%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (10.09%) Banking
5 210 (8.31%) Public Sector
6 122 (4.83%) Presentation Skills
7 114 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
8 96 (3.80%) Marketing
9 89 (3.52%) Influencing Skills
10 87 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
11 82 (3.24%) Manufacturing
12 76 (3.01%) Legal
13 74 (2.93%) Aerospace
14 66 (2.61%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.22%) Military
16 51 (2.02%) Front Office
17 49 (1.94%) Financial Institution
18 47 (1.86%) Electronics
18 47 (1.86%) Retail
19 44 (1.74%) Law
Job Titles
1 360 (14.25%) Analyst
2 250 (9.89%) Senior
3 211 (8.35%) Lead
4 207 (8.19%) Architect
5 191 (7.56%) Developer
6 189 (7.48%) Project Manager
7 164 (6.49%) Business Analyst
8 96 (3.80%) Consultant
9 71 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.53%) Delivery Manager
11 62 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
12 59 (2.33%) Technical Support
13 57 (2.26%) Security Engineer
13 57 (2.26%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.02%) Data Scientist
15 48 (1.90%) Designer
16 45 (1.78%) IT Support
16 45 (1.78%) Product Manager
17 43 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.62%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.43%) REST
2 74 (2.93%) .NET
3 64 (2.53%) RESTful
4 55 (2.18%) React
5 54 (2.14%) HTML
6 52 (2.06%) Middleware
7 45 (1.78%) Kafka
8 40 (1.58%) CSS
9 39 (1.54%) Elastic Stack
9 39 (1.54%) PyTorch
9 39 (1.54%) XML
10 38 (1.50%) JSON
10 38 (1.50%) SOAP
11 37 (1.46%) TensorFlow
12 36 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.42%) Spring Boot
13 33 (1.31%) Pandas
13 33 (1.31%) Spring
14 29 (1.15%) OAuth
15 27 (1.07%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 201 (7.95%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.57%) Product Ownership
3 120 (4.75%) Onboarding
4 101 (4.00%) Cloud Native
5 88 (3.48%) Algorithms
6 83 (3.28%) Virtual Team
7 70 (2.77%) Distributed Systems
8 68 (2.69%) Data Centre
9 67 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
10 63 (2.49%) Data Structures
11 59 (2.33%) PMI
12 57 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
13 45 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
14 43 (1.70%) Derivative
15 35 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
16 33 (1.31%) Security Posture
17 32 (1.27%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.23%) Equities
18 31 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
18 31 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 289 (11.44%) Windows
2 194 (7.68%) Linux
3 72 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.57%) Unix
5 57 (2.26%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.31%) Android
7 27 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.59%) Ubuntu
10 14 (0.55%) Apple iOS
11 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.24%) VMS
16 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 4 (0.16%) CentOS
17 4 (0.16%) Debian
18 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 936 (37.04%) Computer Science
2 776 (30.71%) Agile
3 676 (26.75%) Problem-Solving
4 415 (16.42%) Stakeholder Management
5 363 (14.36%) DevOps
6 359 (14.21%) Continuous Improvement
7 357 (14.13%) AI
8 350 (13.85%) Project Management
9 301 (11.91%) CI/CD
10 280 (11.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 273 (10.80%) Analytics
11 273 (10.80%) Change Management
11 273 (10.80%) Cybersecurity
12 266 (10.53%) ITIL
13 256 (10.13%) Decision-Making
14 249 (9.85%) Migration
15 234 (9.26%) Project Delivery
16 228 (9.02%) PRINCE2
17 220 (8.71%) Software Engineering
18 219 (8.67%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 427 (16.90%) Python
2 366 (14.48%) SQL
3 174 (6.89%) Java
4 122 (4.83%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.72%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.40%) C#
7 73 (2.89%) C++
8 46 (1.82%) Bash
9 43 (1.70%) TypeScript
10 34 (1.35%) Go
11 32 (1.27%) R
12 24 (0.95%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.71%) Perl
15 16 (0.63%) C
16 15 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.59%) Rust
16 15 (0.59%) T-SQL
17 13 (0.51%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.44%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 582 (23.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 481 (19.03%) Security Cleared
3 354 (14.01%) Master's Degree
4 342 (13.53%) SC Cleared
5 153 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.14%) PMP
7 124 (4.91%) CISSP
8 91 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (2.85%) CISM
10 69 (2.73%) PhD
11 67 (2.65%) TOGAF Certification
12 63 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
13 62 (2.45%) DV Cleared
14 60 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
15 57 (2.26%) Azure Certification
16 40 (1.58%) MBA
17 39 (1.54%) CCNP
18 37 (1.46%) AWS Certification
19 34 (1.35%) CBAP
20 33 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.53%) QA
2 119 (4.71%) GDPR
3 112 (4.43%) PMO
4 102 (4.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (3.76%) Data Quality
5 95 (3.76%) NIST
6 48 (1.90%) PCI DSS
7 45 (1.78%) SLA
8 40 (1.58%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (0.99%) GRC
11 21 (0.83%) NCSC
12 17 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.55%) IFRS
15 13 (0.51%) Basel III
15 13 (0.51%) WCAG
16 12 (0.47%) COBIT
16 12 (0.47%) IFRS 17
17 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 166 (6.57%) Docker
2 158 (6.25%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.91%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.71%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) vSphere
8 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.079%) HDFS
12 2 (0.079%) NDS
12 2 (0.079%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.079%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.040%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 168 (6.65%) Kubernetes
2 103 (4.08%) Terraform
3 73 (2.89%) Ansible
4 66 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
5 53 (2.10%) Grafana
6 44 (1.74%) Prometheus
7 39 (1.54%) SCCM
8 30 (1.19%) OPNET
9 17 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.63%) Puppet
11 13 (0.51%) Nmap
12 12 (0.47%) Kibana
12 12 (0.47%) SCOM
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
14 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.32%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 550 (21.76%) Microsoft
2 158 (6.25%) SAP
3 155 (6.13%) Oracle
4 123 (4.87%) ServiceNow
5 106 (4.19%) Google
6 82 (3.24%) Cisco
7 81 (3.21%) Splunk
8 57 (2.26%) Databricks
9 53 (2.10%) Remedy
10 50 (1.98%) VMware
11 47 (1.86%) Atlassian
11 47 (1.86%) Citrix
12 46 (1.82%) Salesforce
13 44 (1.74%) IBM
14 38 (1.50%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.23%) CheckPoint
16 25 (0.99%) Informatica
17 24 (0.95%) Adobe
18 22 (0.87%) BiZZdesign
19 21 (0.83%) Red Hat