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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,550 2,277 3,711
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 7.82% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.29% 25.58% 27.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,500 1,319 2,035
10th Percentile £284 £241 £205
25th Percentile £400 £386 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.19%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.63% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 171 367
10th Percentile £15.77 £20.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.10 £28.30 £21.69
Median hourly rate £45.46 £43.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.72% +14.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £82.63 £70.50 £60.13
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +6.96% +13.33% -16.67%

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 14,749 8,900 13,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.66% 30.55% 30.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,717 5,665 8,401
10th Percentile £335 £288 £300
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £714 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,078 478 1,011
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £13.87
25th Percentile £20.31 £24.18 £17.74
Median hourly rate £34.93 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.82% +13.33% -27.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £84.00 £81.01 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £48.31 £37.50
% change year-on-year -37.90% +28.83% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -5 2,226 £500 -3.75% 2,559
UK excluding London -5 1,334 £492 +3.63% 2,036
London -13 969 £513 -6.82% 869
Work from Home -5 710 £500 -3.85% 943
South East -3 359 £500 - 667
North of England -7 348 £444 -6.63% 471
Midlands -21 210 £500 +40.45% 319
North West -4 181 £400 -15.79% 247
West Midlands -21 154 £498 +65.83% 178
South West -8 151 £700 +28.74% 218
Yorkshire -14 150 £516 +11.98% 159
East of England -7 133 £500 - 229
Scotland -5 99 £500 +13.96% 102
East Midlands -15 55 £531 +49.16% 140
Wales -10 44 £303 +4.85% 61
North East -18 18 £407 -14.32% 71
Northern Ireland -12 16 £388 +24.00% 21

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
1 204 (8.00%) Confluence
2 116 (4.55%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.20%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.75%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.24%) SAS
10 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.12%) Drupal
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 311 (12.20%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 203 (7.96%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (2.86%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.71%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.43%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.12%) InVision
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.078%) InDesign
14 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 68 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.94%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 556 (21.80%) Azure
2 308 (12.08%) AWS
3 208 (8.16%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (7.88%) Power Platform
5 139 (5.45%) GCP
6 110 (4.31%) Entra ID
7 108 (4.24%) SaaS
8 102 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
9 83 (3.25%) GitHub
10 53 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.92%) Serverless
12 43 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.61%) Power Automate
14 40 (1.57%) Snowflake
15 32 (1.25%) Google Workspace
16 31 (1.22%) IaaS
16 31 (1.22%) PaaS
16 31 (1.22%) PowerApps
17 30 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
18 26 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 119 (4.67%) Firewall
2 63 (2.47%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.35%) DNS
4 58 (2.27%) LAN
4 58 (2.27%) WAN
5 50 (1.96%) Network Security
6 40 (1.57%) VPN
7 29 (1.14%) HTTP
8 28 (1.10%) BGP
9 27 (1.06%) Wireless
10 26 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 24 (0.94%) Skype
12 23 (0.90%) Internet
12 23 (0.90%) OSPF
13 20 (0.78%) DHCP
14 19 (0.75%) VLAN
14 19 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
15 17 (0.67%) SSL
16 16 (0.63%) SAN
17 15 (0.59%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (6.24%) Power BI
2 96 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
2 96 (3.76%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
4 56 (2.20%) NoSQL
5 54 (2.12%) Big Data
6 48 (1.88%) Tableau
7 46 (1.80%) Relational Database
8 40 (1.57%) MySQL
9 34 (1.33%) Metadata
10 31 (1.22%) Data Lake
10 31 (1.22%) Hadoop
11 22 (0.86%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 17 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.59%) GIS
15 13 (0.51%) Geospatial Data
16 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 303 (11.88%) JIRA
2 131 (5.14%) Git
3 74 (2.90%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.24%) GitLab
5 30 (1.18%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.86%) Selenium
8 18 (0.71%) MLflow
9 15 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.35%) Gradle
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.31%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.27%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.27%) JMeter
16 6 (0.24%) REST Assured
General
1 1,216 (47.69%) Social Skills
2 789 (30.94%) Finance
3 574 (22.51%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (9.92%) Banking
5 223 (8.75%) Public Sector
6 120 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
7 104 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
8 98 (3.84%) Marketing
9 91 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
10 89 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
11 85 (3.33%) Manufacturing
12 75 (2.94%) Legal
13 70 (2.75%) Aerospace
14 65 (2.55%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.20%) Military
16 52 (2.04%) Front Office
17 50 (1.96%) Financial Institution
18 47 (1.84%) Retail
19 44 (1.73%) Electronics
19 44 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 370 (14.51%) Analyst
2 252 (9.88%) Senior
3 212 (8.31%) Architect
3 212 (8.31%) Lead
4 197 (7.73%) Developer
5 188 (7.37%) Project Manager
6 164 (6.43%) Business Analyst
7 97 (3.80%) Consultant
8 72 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
9 64 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
10 59 (2.31%) Senior Analyst
10 59 (2.31%) Software Engineer
10 59 (2.31%) Technical Support
11 56 (2.20%) Security Engineer
12 53 (2.08%) Data Scientist
13 48 (1.88%) Designer
14 46 (1.80%) Product Manager
15 45 (1.76%) IT Support
16 39 (1.53%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.49%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.27%) REST
2 76 (2.98%) .NET
3 62 (2.43%) RESTful
4 61 (2.39%) React
5 60 (2.35%) HTML
6 51 (2.00%) Middleware
7 48 (1.88%) CSS
8 46 (1.80%) Kafka
9 40 (1.57%) JSON
10 39 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
10 39 (1.53%) PyTorch
10 39 (1.53%) TensorFlow
10 39 (1.53%) XML
11 38 (1.49%) SOAP
11 38 (1.49%) Spring
12 37 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
13 34 (1.33%) OAuth
13 34 (1.33%) Pandas
13 34 (1.33%) Spring Boot
14 29 (1.14%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.20%) Management Information System
2 164 (6.43%) Product Ownership
3 121 (4.75%) Onboarding
4 110 (4.31%) Cloud Native
5 91 (3.57%) Algorithms
6 83 (3.25%) Virtual Team
7 69 (2.71%) Data Centre
7 69 (2.71%) Distributed Systems
8 68 (2.67%) Self-Motivation
9 63 (2.47%) Data Structures
10 57 (2.24%) PMI
11 56 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
12 50 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
13 45 (1.76%) Derivative
14 35 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
14 35 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.33%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.25%) Equities
16 32 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
16 32 (1.25%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 293 (11.49%) Windows
2 192 (7.53%) Linux
3 73 (2.86%) Unix
4 71 (2.78%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.16%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.10%) Android
7 25 (0.98%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.55%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.24%) VMS
16 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 4 (0.16%) Debian
18 3 (0.12%) CentOS
18 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 956 (37.49%) Computer Science
2 801 (31.41%) Agile
3 702 (27.53%) Problem-Solving
4 423 (16.59%) Stakeholder Management
5 378 (14.82%) DevOps
6 366 (14.35%) AI
7 351 (13.76%) Continuous Improvement
8 347 (13.61%) Project Management
9 315 (12.35%) CI/CD
10 286 (11.22%) Analytics
11 279 (10.94%) Change Management
11 279 (10.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 274 (10.75%) Cybersecurity
13 266 (10.43%) Decision-Making
14 262 (10.27%) ITIL
15 256 (10.04%) Migration
16 239 (9.37%) Project Delivery
17 228 (8.94%) PRINCE2
18 226 (8.86%) Software Engineering
19 225 (8.82%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 442 (17.33%) Python
2 375 (14.71%) SQL
3 183 (7.18%) Java
4 126 (4.94%) PowerShell
5 99 (3.88%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.25%) C#
7 73 (2.86%) C++
8 53 (2.08%) TypeScript
9 46 (1.80%) Bash
10 39 (1.53%) Go
11 32 (1.25%) R
12 25 (0.98%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.75%) Perl
13 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.59%) Rust
14 15 (0.59%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.55%) Kotlin
16 13 (0.51%) C
16 13 (0.51%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 598 (23.45%) Computer Science Degree
2 488 (19.14%) Security Cleared
3 382 (14.98%) Master's Degree
4 345 (13.53%) SC Cleared
5 152 (5.96%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.10%) PMP
7 128 (5.02%) CISSP
8 91 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
9 77 (3.02%) CISM
10 76 (2.98%) PhD
11 71 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
12 63 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.35%) Azure Certification
14 59 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
14 59 (2.31%) DV Cleared
15 39 (1.53%) MBA
16 36 (1.41%) CCNP
17 35 (1.37%) CBAP
18 32 (1.25%) AWS Certification
19 31 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.47%) QA
2 133 (5.22%) GDPR
3 106 (4.16%) PMO
4 104 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (3.80%) Data Quality
6 95 (3.73%) NIST
7 53 (2.08%) PCI DSS
8 44 (1.73%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.69%) SLA
10 30 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.90%) GRC
12 21 (0.82%) NCSC
13 18 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
14 17 (0.67%) WCAG
15 15 (0.59%) HIPAA
16 14 (0.55%) IFRS
17 13 (0.51%) Basel III
18 12 (0.47%) IFRS 17
18 12 (0.47%) SOC 2
System Software
1 181 (7.10%) Docker
2 154 (6.04%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.82%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.59%) Firmware
6 9 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.24%) vSphere
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.078%) HDFS
11 2 (0.078%) NDS
11 2 (0.078%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.039%) IAG
12 1 (0.039%) PowerHA
Systems Management
1 183 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 106 (4.16%) Terraform
3 73 (2.86%) Ansible
4 68 (2.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 52 (2.04%) Grafana
6 44 (1.73%) Prometheus
7 39 (1.53%) SCCM
8 30 (1.18%) OPNET
9 20 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
10 18 (0.71%) Puppet
11 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.51%) Kibana
12 13 (0.51%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 7 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.27%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.27%) WSUS
Vendors
1 554 (21.73%) Microsoft
2 163 (6.39%) Oracle
3 154 (6.04%) SAP
4 119 (4.67%) ServiceNow
5 114 (4.47%) Google
6 81 (3.18%) Splunk
7 79 (3.10%) Cisco
8 61 (2.39%) Databricks
9 55 (2.16%) Remedy
10 52 (2.04%) Atlassian
11 49 (1.92%) IBM
11 49 (1.92%) VMware
12 47 (1.84%) Salesforce
13 46 (1.80%) Citrix
14 39 (1.53%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.25%) CheckPoint
16 28 (1.10%) Red Hat
17 26 (1.02%) Informatica
18 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
19 24 (0.94%) Adobe