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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,544 2,262 3,705
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.77% 7.79% 8.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.19% 25.44% 27.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,494 1,317 2,024
10th Percentile £280 £250 £205
25th Percentile £400 £399 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year - -1.33% -4.92%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.21% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 171 369
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £28.75 £21.73
Median hourly rate £45.46 £47.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% +26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.50 £45.00 £38.23
% change year-on-year +7.78% +17.72% -15.06%

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 14,802 8,892 13,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.56% 30.64% 30.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,738 5,670 8,410
10th Percentile £343 £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 £618 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,085 484 1,012
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.35 £24.18 £17.72
Median hourly rate £35.55 £42.75 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.84% +14.00% -27.18%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £62.12
90th Percentile £84.00 £80.89 £76.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -30.00% +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 27 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 27 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 27 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 2,221 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -5 1,321 £490 +3.21% 2,012
London -11 975 £513 -6.82% 866
Work from Home -5 707 £500 -4.31% 927
South East -5 350 £500 - 660
North of England -5 348 £435 -8.42% 472
Midlands -19 209 £500 +40.45% 318
North West -1 182 £400 -15.79% 244
West Midlands -20 156 £495 +65.00% 181
Yorkshire -5 149 £516 +3.25% 164
South West -5 147 £700 +31.33% 220
East of England -7 137 £500 - 213
Scotland -7 97 £500 +14.29% 94
East Midlands -17 52 £537 +50.84% 136
Wales -11 43 £303 +5.76% 61
North East -14 18 £407 -9.56% 71
Northern Ireland -11 16 £388 +24.00% 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
1 197 (7.74%) Confluence
2 112 (4.40%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (2.16%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.75%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) 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
12 3 (0.12%) Drupal
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.079%) Appian
13 2 (0.079%) nginx
Applications
1 311 (12.22%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 203 (7.98%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (2.87%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.59%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.43%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
13 2 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.039%) InDesign
14 1 (0.039%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 70 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.90%) Primavera
4 20 (0.79%) 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 (0.28%) Aladdin
9 6 (0.24%) 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%) 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%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 546 (21.46%) Azure
2 307 (12.07%) AWS
3 208 (8.18%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (7.90%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.27%) GCP
6 108 (4.25%) Entra ID
7 107 (4.21%) SaaS
8 102 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
9 74 (2.91%) GitHub
10 52 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
11 48 (1.89%) Serverless
12 43 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.61%) Power Automate
13 41 (1.61%) Snowflake
14 32 (1.26%) Google Workspace
15 31 (1.22%) IaaS
15 31 (1.22%) PaaS
15 31 (1.22%) PowerApps
16 29 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 121 (4.76%) Firewall
2 64 (2.52%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.36%) DNS
3 60 (2.36%) WAN
4 59 (2.32%) LAN
5 49 (1.93%) Network Security
6 42 (1.65%) VPN
7 30 (1.18%) BGP
8 29 (1.14%) Wireless
9 27 (1.06%) HTTP
10 26 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 24 (0.94%) Internet
11 24 (0.94%) OSPF
11 24 (0.94%) Skype
12 20 (0.79%) DHCP
13 19 (0.75%) VLAN
13 19 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (0.63%) SAN
15 14 (0.55%) SSL
15 14 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.21%) Power BI
2 97 (3.81%) SQL Server
3 91 (3.58%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 56 (2.20%) NoSQL
6 52 (2.04%) Big Data
7 50 (1.97%) Relational Database
8 46 (1.81%) Tableau
9 40 (1.57%) MySQL
10 35 (1.38%) Metadata
11 31 (1.22%) Data Lake
11 31 (1.22%) Hadoop
12 22 (0.86%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
17 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
17 11 (0.43%) GIS
18 10 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 303 (11.91%) JIRA
2 125 (4.91%) Git
3 73 (2.87%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.20%) GitLab
5 31 (1.22%) 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 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 7 (0.28%) JUnit
General
1 1,211 (47.60%) Social Skills
2 787 (30.94%) Finance
3 567 (22.29%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (10.10%) Banking
5 216 (8.49%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
7 108 (4.25%) Organisational Skills
8 95 (3.73%) Marketing
9 90 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
10 88 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
11 84 (3.30%) Manufacturing
12 75 (2.95%) Legal
13 73 (2.87%) Aerospace
14 66 (2.59%) Telecoms
15 55 (2.16%) Military
16 52 (2.04%) Front Office
17 50 (1.97%) Financial Institution
18 48 (1.89%) Retail
19 46 (1.81%) Electronics
20 44 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 363 (14.27%) Analyst
2 250 (9.83%) Senior
3 213 (8.37%) Lead
4 211 (8.29%) Architect
5 192 (7.55%) Developer
6 188 (7.39%) Project Manager
7 163 (6.41%) Business Analyst
8 95 (3.73%) Consultant
9 73 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.52%) Delivery Manager
11 59 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
12 58 (2.28%) Software Engineer
12 58 (2.28%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.16%) Security Engineer
14 52 (2.04%) Data Scientist
15 48 (1.89%) Designer
16 45 (1.77%) IT Support
16 45 (1.77%) Product Manager
17 42 (1.65%) Systems Engineer
18 39 (1.53%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.52%) REST
2 75 (2.95%) .NET
3 66 (2.59%) RESTful
4 56 (2.20%) React
5 55 (2.16%) HTML
6 51 (2.00%) Middleware
7 46 (1.81%) Kafka
8 41 (1.61%) CSS
9 40 (1.57%) PyTorch
10 39 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
10 39 (1.53%) JSON
10 39 (1.53%) XML
11 38 (1.49%) TensorFlow
12 37 (1.45%) SOAP
13 36 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
14 35 (1.38%) Spring Boot
15 34 (1.34%) Pandas
16 32 (1.26%) OAuth
16 32 (1.26%) Spring
17 29 (1.14%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.10%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.56%) Product Ownership
3 119 (4.68%) Onboarding
4 104 (4.09%) Cloud Native
5 91 (3.58%) Algorithms
6 85 (3.34%) Virtual Team
7 70 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
8 68 (2.67%) Self-Motivation
9 67 (2.63%) Data Centre
10 63 (2.48%) Data Structures
11 58 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
12 57 (2.24%) PMI
13 49 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
14 44 (1.73%) Derivative
15 35 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
16 34 (1.34%) Security Posture
17 32 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
18 31 (1.22%) Equities
18 31 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
19 30 (1.18%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 291 (11.44%) Windows
2 197 (7.74%) Linux
3 72 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.71%) Unix
5 56 (2.20%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.30%) Android
7 26 (1.02%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 15 (0.59%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 946 (37.19%) Computer Science
2 788 (30.97%) Agile
3 686 (26.97%) Problem-Solving
4 415 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 369 (14.50%) DevOps
6 363 (14.27%) AI
7 353 (13.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 348 (13.68%) Project Management
9 306 (12.03%) CI/CD
10 279 (10.97%) Change Management
10 279 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 276 (10.85%) Analytics
12 273 (10.73%) Cybersecurity
13 263 (10.34%) Decision-Making
13 263 (10.34%) ITIL
14 250 (9.83%) Migration
15 237 (9.32%) Project Delivery
16 230 (9.04%) Software Engineering
17 226 (8.88%) PRINCE2
18 221 (8.69%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 437 (17.18%) Python
2 373 (14.66%) SQL
3 176 (6.92%) Java
4 124 (4.87%) PowerShell
5 93 (3.66%) JavaScript
6 85 (3.34%) C#
7 75 (2.95%) C++
8 46 (1.81%) Bash
9 45 (1.77%) TypeScript
10 39 (1.53%) Go
11 32 (1.26%) R
12 25 (0.98%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.75%) Perl
14 18 (0.71%) Shell Script
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 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 586 (23.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 483 (18.99%) Security Cleared
3 372 (14.62%) Master's Degree
4 340 (13.36%) SC Cleared
5 153 (6.01%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.15%) PMP
7 123 (4.83%) CISSP
8 92 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (2.95%) PhD
10 74 (2.91%) CISM
11 69 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
12 63 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
13 60 (2.36%) DV Cleared
14 58 (2.28%) Azure Certification
15 43 (1.69%) MBA
16 39 (1.53%) CCNP
17 35 (1.38%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.38%) CBAP
18 31 (1.22%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (6.41%) QA
2 125 (4.91%) GDPR
3 109 (4.28%) PMO
4 100 (3.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (3.73%) NIST
6 93 (3.66%) Data Quality
7 49 (1.93%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.77%) SLA
9 44 (1.73%) Accessibility
10 28 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.90%) GRC
12 21 (0.83%) NCSC
13 18 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.67%) WCAG
15 16 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
16 14 (0.55%) IFRS
17 13 (0.51%) Basel III
18 12 (0.47%) IFRS 17
19 11 (0.43%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.43%) SOC 2
System Software
1 173 (6.80%) Docker
2 156 (6.13%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.83%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.67%) 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 (0.079%) HDFS
11 2 (0.079%) NDS
11 2 (0.079%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.079%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.039%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.039%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 175 (6.88%) Kubernetes
2 106 (4.17%) Terraform
3 78 (3.07%) Ansible
4 67 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
5 54 (2.12%) Grafana
6 45 (1.77%) Prometheus
7 39 (1.53%) SCCM
8 30 (1.18%) OPNET
9 18 (0.71%) Puppet
9 18 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.51%) Kibana
11 13 (0.51%) Nmap
12 12 (0.47%) SCOM
13 9 (0.35%) Kiali
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.28%) WSUS
15 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 558 (21.93%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.25%) Oracle
3 155 (6.09%) SAP
4 125 (4.91%) ServiceNow
5 109 (4.28%) Google
6 85 (3.34%) Cisco
7 84 (3.30%) Splunk
8 58 (2.28%) Databricks
9 55 (2.16%) Remedy
10 51 (2.00%) Atlassian
11 50 (1.97%) VMware
12 47 (1.85%) Citrix
13 46 (1.81%) IBM
14 45 (1.77%) Salesforce
15 39 (1.53%) Palo Alto
16 31 (1.22%) CheckPoint
17 26 (1.02%) Informatica
18 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
19 24 (0.94%) Adobe
20 21 (0.83%) Red Hat