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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,515 2,259 3,676
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.56% 7.73% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.73% 25.21% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,485 1,308 1,992
10th Percentile £269 £250 £205
25th Percentile £400 £385 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -0.05% -5.61%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £746 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +4.41% -7.10% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 171 376
10th Percentile £16.53 £20.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £28.46 £21.93
Median hourly rate £46.98 £52.50 £39.96
Median % change year-on-year -10.51% +31.38% -11.20%
75th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.25 £47.05 £40.00
% change year-on-year +11.05% +17.63% -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 15,031 8,959 13,459
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.24% 30.64% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,957 5,714 8,339
10th Percentile £343 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,102 489 1,015
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.54 £23.50 £17.55
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -30.56%
75th Percentile £69.19 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.00 £47.81 £39.92
% change year-on-year -22.60% +19.75% -19.39%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -6 2,194 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -5 1,312 £485 +4.41% 2,012
London -11 959 £515 -6.36% 866
Work from Home -3 692 £500 -4.76% 927
South East -4 352 £500 - 660
North of England -7 335 £424 -10.71% 472
Midlands -23 206 £500 +49.25% 318
North West -4 180 £400 -15.25% 244
West Midlands -26 153 £500 +66.67% 181
South West -1 151 £669 +26.42% 220
East of England -6 138 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -13 138 £500 -4.76% 164
Scotland -7 97 £500 +14.94% 94
East Midlands -18 52 £531 +49.16% 136
Wales -14 41 £291 +1.29% 61
North East -16 18 £407 -4.24% 71
Northern Ireland -8 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
1 181 (7.20%) Confluence
2 115 (4.57%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.11%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.72%) 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 (0.080%) Appian
12 2 (0.080%) Camunda
12 2 (0.080%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.080%) nginx
12 2 (0.080%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 312 (12.41%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 202 (8.03%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.62%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 9 (0.36%) Chatbot
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 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.080%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.080%) Revit
14 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.040%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 74 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.83%) Primavera
4 18 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
8 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
12 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 537 (21.35%) Azure
2 300 (11.93%) AWS
3 213 (8.47%) Microsoft 365
4 202 (8.03%) Power Platform
5 121 (4.81%) GCP
6 110 (4.37%) Entra ID
7 109 (4.33%) SaaS
8 102 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
9 71 (2.82%) GitHub
10 51 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
11 42 (1.67%) Power Automate
11 42 (1.67%) Snowflake
12 41 (1.63%) Serverless
13 39 (1.55%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.27%) Google Workspace
14 32 (1.27%) PaaS
15 31 (1.23%) IaaS
15 31 (1.23%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 123 (4.89%) Firewall
2 64 (2.54%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.39%) WAN
4 59 (2.35%) DNS
4 59 (2.35%) LAN
5 47 (1.87%) Network Security
6 40 (1.59%) 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 (0.80%) DHCP
13 19 (0.76%) Internet
14 18 (0.72%) VLAN
15 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
16 16 (0.64%) SAN
17 14 (0.56%) SSL
18 13 (0.52%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (6.48%) Power BI
2 98 (3.90%) SQL Server
3 85 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (1.99%) Big Data
5 50 (1.99%) NoSQL
5 50 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 45 (1.79%) Tableau
7 38 (1.51%) MySQL
8 36 (1.43%) Metadata
9 30 (1.19%) Data Lake
10 29 (1.15%) Hadoop
11 20 (0.80%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
17 10 (0.40%) GIS
17 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 287 (11.41%) JIRA
2 117 (4.65%) Git
3 65 (2.58%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.95%) GitLab
5 31 (1.23%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.07%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.99%) Selenium
8 18 (0.72%) MLflow
9 15 (0.60%) Postman
10 13 (0.52%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.32%) JUnit
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.28%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
16 6 (0.24%) REST Assured
General
1 1,199 (47.67%) Social Skills
2 780 (31.01%) Finance
3 561 (22.31%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (9.94%) Banking
5 209 (8.31%) Public Sector
6 123 (4.89%) Presentation Skills
7 113 (4.49%) Organisational Skills
8 93 (3.70%) Marketing
9 87 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
10 86 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
11 82 (3.26%) Manufacturing
12 76 (3.02%) Legal
13 75 (2.98%) Aerospace
14 65 (2.58%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.31%) Military
16 52 (2.07%) Front Office
17 48 (1.91%) Retail
18 47 (1.87%) Electronics
19 45 (1.79%) Financial Institution
19 45 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 354 (14.08%) Analyst
2 252 (10.02%) Senior
3 208 (8.27%) Lead
4 207 (8.23%) Architect
5 191 (7.59%) Developer
5 191 (7.59%) Project Manager
6 161 (6.40%) Business Analyst
7 97 (3.86%) Consultant
8 69 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
9 64 (2.54%) Delivery Manager
10 62 (2.47%) Senior Analyst
11 57 (2.27%) Security Engineer
11 57 (2.27%) Technical Support
12 52 (2.07%) Software Engineer
13 50 (1.99%) Data Scientist
14 48 (1.91%) Designer
15 46 (1.83%) IT Support
16 45 (1.79%) Product Manager
17 43 (1.71%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.63%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.33%) REST
2 74 (2.94%) .NET
3 60 (2.39%) RESTful
4 54 (2.15%) HTML
5 53 (2.11%) React
6 52 (2.07%) Middleware
7 45 (1.79%) Kafka
8 40 (1.59%) CSS
8 40 (1.59%) XML
9 38 (1.51%) JSON
9 38 (1.51%) PyTorch
9 38 (1.51%) SOAP
10 37 (1.47%) TensorFlow
11 36 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.43%) Spring Boot
12 35 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
13 34 (1.35%) Pandas
14 33 (1.31%) Spring
15 29 (1.15%) OAuth
16 28 (1.11%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 200 (7.95%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.64%) Product Ownership
3 120 (4.77%) Onboarding
4 95 (3.78%) Cloud Native
5 86 (3.42%) Algorithms
6 84 (3.34%) Virtual Team
7 70 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
8 67 (2.66%) Data Centre
9 65 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
10 62 (2.47%) Data Structures
11 59 (2.35%) PMI
12 56 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
13 45 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
14 43 (1.71%) Derivative
15 35 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
16 33 (1.31%) Security Posture
17 32 (1.27%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.23%) Equities
19 30 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
19 30 (1.19%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 288 (11.45%) Windows
2 188 (7.48%) Linux
3 72 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.43%) Unix
5 59 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.31%) Android
7 28 (1.11%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.60%) Apple iOS
9 15 (0.60%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.32%) 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
1 922 (36.66%) Computer Science
2 774 (30.78%) Agile
3 672 (26.72%) Problem-Solving
4 411 (16.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 363 (14.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 354 (14.08%) AI
6 354 (14.08%) DevOps
7 352 (14.00%) Project Management
8 297 (11.81%) CI/CD
9 277 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 272 (10.82%) Analytics
11 270 (10.74%) Cybersecurity
12 266 (10.58%) Change Management
13 262 (10.42%) ITIL
14 253 (10.06%) Decision-Making
15 247 (9.82%) Migration
16 234 (9.30%) Project Delivery
17 227 (9.03%) PRINCE2
18 217 (8.63%) Risk Management
18 217 (8.63%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 416 (16.54%) Python
2 367 (14.59%) SQL
3 174 (6.92%) Java
4 123 (4.89%) PowerShell
5 91 (3.62%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.42%) C#
7 72 (2.86%) C++
8 45 (1.79%) Bash
9 40 (1.59%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.27%) R
11 29 (1.15%) Go
12 24 (0.95%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.68%) Perl
15 15 (0.60%) C
15 15 (0.60%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.60%) Rust
15 15 (0.60%) T-SQL
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 570 (22.66%) Computer Science Degree
2 483 (19.20%) Security Cleared
3 344 (13.68%) SC Cleared
4 340 (13.52%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.12%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.21%) PMP
7 121 (4.81%) CISSP
8 91 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (2.74%) CISM
10 66 (2.62%) TOGAF Certification
11 65 (2.58%) PhD
12 62 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
13 61 (2.43%) DV Cleared
14 55 (2.19%) Azure Certification
15 40 (1.59%) CCNP
15 40 (1.59%) MBA
16 37 (1.47%) AWS Certification
17 33 (1.31%) CBAP
17 33 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.56%) QA
2 118 (4.69%) GDPR
3 112 (4.45%) PMO
4 103 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (3.86%) NIST
6 96 (3.82%) Data Quality
7 48 (1.91%) PCI DSS
8 44 (1.75%) SLA
9 42 (1.67%) Accessibility
10 27 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.95%) GRC
12 21 (0.83%) NCSC
13 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.56%) IFRS
16 13 (0.52%) Basel III
16 13 (0.52%) WCAG
17 12 (0.48%) COBIT
17 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
18 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 160 (6.36%) Active Directory
1 160 (6.36%) Docker
2 44 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (0.91%) Hyper-V
4 19 (0.76%) Firmware
5 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.28%) vSphere
7 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.080%) HDFS
11 2 (0.080%) NDS
11 2 (0.080%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.080%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.080%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.040%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 164 (6.52%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.86%) Terraform
3 68 (2.70%) Ansible
3 68 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 50 (1.99%) Grafana
5 40 (1.59%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.55%) SCCM
7 30 (1.19%) OPNET
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.64%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Nmap
11 12 (0.48%) Kibana
11 12 (0.48%) SCOM
12 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.32%) WSUS
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 554 (22.03%) Microsoft
2 160 (6.36%) SAP
3 155 (6.16%) Oracle
4 122 (4.85%) ServiceNow
5 100 (3.98%) Google
6 80 (3.18%) Cisco
7 77 (3.06%) Splunk
8 57 (2.27%) Databricks
9 52 (2.07%) Remedy
10 51 (2.03%) VMware
11 47 (1.87%) Citrix
12 46 (1.83%) Atlassian
12 46 (1.83%) Salesforce
13 41 (1.63%) IBM
14 38 (1.51%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.27%) CheckPoint
16 25 (0.99%) Adobe
17 24 (0.95%) Informatica
18 21 (0.83%) Aruba
18 21 (0.83%) Red Hat