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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 17
Rank change year-on-year -14 -8 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,405 2,215 3,512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.95% 7.74% 8.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.65% 24.95% 27.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,356 1,290 1,904
10th Percentile £238 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £375 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £627 £627
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.69% +1.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 165 410
10th Percentile £17.77 £17.62 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.94 £22.50
Median hourly rate £53.50 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.93% +35.00% -13.51%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.36 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.00 £50.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +16.00% +20.48% -7.78%

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 15,370 8,878 12,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.64% 31.03% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,197 5,609 7,914
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -1.42% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £615 £645
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.90% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,105 502 1,060
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.04 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.34 £17.80
Median hourly rate £48.05 £33.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.37% -15.63% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.62% -18.12%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -10 2,152 £500 - 3,116
UK excluding London -6 1,306 £475 +5.56% 2,210
London -18 907 £513 -6.82% 1,259
Work from Home -14 652 £500 - 1,240
South East -1 381 £500 +5.26% 681
North of England -14 320 £443 -2.58% 521
Midlands -22 210 £525 +47.47% 289
North West -7 163 £402 -14.29% 271
West Midlands -24 147 £498 +42.14% 185
Yorkshire -18 142 £463 +11.71% 185
East of England -5 138 £450 -10.00% 248
South West -12 135 £535 +12.63% 291
Scotland -16 88 £500 +11.48% 114
East Midlands -13 61 £531 +49.16% 104
Wales -23 27 £375 +22.76% 43
North East -29 15 £450 +130.77% 75
Northern Ireland -10 13 £369 -13.24% 76

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
1 152 (6.32%) Confluence
2 127 (5.28%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.12%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.96%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) SAS
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.17%) Appian
12 4 (0.17%) Camunda
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.083%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.083%) Drupal
14 2 (0.083%) nginx
Applications
1 285 (11.85%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 169 (7.03%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.62%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Adobe After Effects
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Adobe Illustrator
7 12 (0.50%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
9 8 (0.33%) Trello
10 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.083%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 65 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.62%) Primavera
4 12 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Dynamics GP
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) Magento
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 515 (21.41%) Azure
2 295 (12.27%) AWS
3 205 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 190 (7.90%) Power Platform
5 120 (4.99%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.91%) GCP
7 88 (3.66%) SaaS
8 85 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.45%) GitHub
10 41 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
11 37 (1.54%) Figma
12 33 (1.37%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.33%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.29%) PaaS
15 30 (1.25%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.16%) IaaS
17 27 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
17 27 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
17 27 (1.12%) Serverless
18 26 (1.08%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.49%) Firewall
2 71 (2.95%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.74%) DNS
4 57 (2.37%) WAN
5 55 (2.29%) Network Security
6 53 (2.20%) LAN
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.16%) BGP
9 27 (1.12%) Wireless
10 25 (1.04%) OSPF
11 24 (1.00%) DHCP
12 22 (0.91%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.75%) Skype
14 17 (0.71%) SAN
15 16 (0.67%) HTTP
15 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.54%) SSL
17 12 (0.50%) IPsec
17 12 (0.50%) VLAN
17 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.49%) Power BI
2 107 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
3 61 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.04%) Big Data
5 47 (1.95%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.66%) Metadata
6 40 (1.66%) Tableau
7 36 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
8 28 (1.16%) MySQL
9 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
10 22 (0.91%) Data Lake
11 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
11 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
14 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.50%) Power Query
15 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 253 (10.52%) JIRA
2 111 (4.62%) Git
3 47 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.66%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.50%) JUnit
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,108 (46.07%) Social Skills
2 736 (30.60%) Finance
3 495 (20.58%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.77%) Banking
5 200 (8.32%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.41%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.07%) Marketing
9 85 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
10 79 (3.28%) Legal
11 73 (3.04%) Aerospace
12 72 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
13 70 (2.91%) Manufacturing
14 65 (2.70%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.20%) Law
16 52 (2.16%) Retail
17 45 (1.87%) Military
18 40 (1.66%) Front Office
18 40 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 38 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 348 (14.47%) Analyst
2 267 (11.10%) Senior
3 199 (8.27%) Architect
4 187 (7.78%) Lead
5 175 (7.28%) Project Manager
6 171 (7.11%) Developer
7 160 (6.65%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
9 69 (2.87%) Senior Analyst
10 67 (2.79%) Consultant
11 61 (2.54%) Delivery Manager
12 60 (2.49%) Designer
13 57 (2.37%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.25%) Software Engineer
15 51 (2.12%) Senior Manager
16 50 (2.08%) Product Manager
17 48 (2.00%) Security Engineer
18 46 (1.91%) Data Engineer
18 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
19 44 (1.83%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.24%) REST
2 86 (3.58%) .NET
3 64 (2.66%) React
4 58 (2.41%) Middleware
5 52 (2.16%) HTML
6 48 (2.00%) Kafka
6 48 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
7 43 (1.79%) RESTful
8 41 (1.70%) CSS
9 35 (1.46%) Spring Boot
10 34 (1.41%) XML
11 33 (1.37%) .NET Framework
12 32 (1.33%) Spring
13 31 (1.29%) SOAP
14 30 (1.25%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.21%) Pandas
16 28 (1.16%) JSON
16 28 (1.16%) OAuth
17 27 (1.12%) AngularJS
18 26 (1.08%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 183 (7.61%) Management Information System
2 157 (6.53%) Product Ownership
3 131 (5.45%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.62%) Self-Motivation
5 84 (3.49%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 66 (2.74%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.58%) Algorithms
9 61 (2.54%) Data Structures
10 54 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
11 53 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.91%) PMI
13 40 (1.66%) Operational Technology
14 38 (1.58%) Robotics
15 36 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
16 35 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
17 33 (1.37%) Derivative
17 33 (1.37%) Security Posture
18 31 (1.29%) Life Science
19 30 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 295 (12.27%) Windows
2 180 (7.48%) Linux
3 74 (3.08%) Unix
4 72 (2.99%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.45%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.29%) Android
7 25 (1.04%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.96%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 829 (34.47%) Computer Science
2 682 (28.36%) Agile
3 629 (26.15%) Problem-Solving
4 374 (15.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 357 (14.84%) Continuous Improvement
6 345 (14.35%) AI
7 320 (13.31%) DevOps
8 319 (13.26%) Project Management
9 282 (11.73%) CI/CD
10 260 (10.81%) Analytics
10 260 (10.81%) Decision-Making
11 257 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 240 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
12 240 (9.98%) Migration
13 229 (9.52%) Change Management
14 210 (8.73%) ITIL
15 203 (8.44%) Roadmaps
16 202 (8.40%) Risk Management
17 199 (8.27%) Software Engineering
18 197 (8.19%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 384 (15.97%) Python
2 367 (15.26%) SQL
3 180 (7.48%) Java
4 112 (4.66%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.91%) C#
6 87 (3.62%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.74%) C++
8 37 (1.54%) Bash
9 34 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.21%) R
11 23 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.83%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.79%) C
14 17 (0.71%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.62%) Perl
15 15 (0.62%) Rust
16 14 (0.58%) Go
16 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 513 (21.33%) Computer Science Degree
2 450 (18.71%) Security Cleared
3 309 (12.85%) SC Cleared
4 273 (11.35%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.95%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.16%) PMP
7 111 (4.62%) CISSP
8 78 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
8 78 (3.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 67 (2.79%) CISM
10 65 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
11 64 (2.66%) DV Cleared
12 53 (2.20%) TOGAF Certification
13 49 (2.04%) PhD
14 48 (2.00%) Azure Certification
15 44 (1.83%) CCNP
16 37 (1.54%) CCNA
16 37 (1.54%) MBA
17 35 (1.46%) CBAP
18 32 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (6.44%) QA
2 114 (4.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 111 (4.62%) Data Quality
4 110 (4.57%) NIST
5 109 (4.53%) PMO
6 105 (4.37%) GDPR
7 50 (2.08%) SLA
8 47 (1.95%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.79%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.04%) GRC
12 20 (0.83%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.71%) IFRS
14 14 (0.58%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 157 (6.53%) Active Directory
2 133 (5.53%) Docker
3 38 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.83%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.29%) vSphere
7 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.17%) XenApp
8 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
9 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.083%) HDFS
10 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.042%) GPFS
11 1 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 150 (6.24%) Kubernetes
2 76 (3.16%) Terraform
3 68 (2.83%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.54%) Ansible
5 39 (1.62%) Grafana
6 36 (1.50%) SCCM
7 33 (1.37%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 14 (0.58%) OPNET
12 12 (0.50%) Kibana
13 11 (0.46%) Nmap
14 10 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
15 9 (0.37%) Kiali
15 9 (0.37%) WSUS
16 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
16 8 (0.33%) Nessus
16 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 546 (22.70%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.11%) Oracle
3 137 (5.70%) SAP
4 112 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 78 (3.24%) Google
6 77 (3.20%) Cisco
7 64 (2.66%) Splunk
8 59 (2.45%) Databricks
9 46 (1.91%) VMware
10 44 (1.83%) Citrix
10 44 (1.83%) Salesforce
11 40 (1.66%) IBM
12 39 (1.62%) Adobe
13 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.37%) CheckPoint
15 32 (1.33%) Remedy
16 23 (0.96%) Aruba
16 23 (0.96%) Informatica
17 22 (0.91%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.87%) Atlassian