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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,485 2,441 3,226
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.71% 7.47% 7.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.02% 24.21% 26.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,324 1,386 1,864
10th Percentile £208 £250 £231
25th Percentile £363 £370 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £499
% change year-on-year +0.67% -9.82% +2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 207 311
10th Percentile £16.80 £17.68 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.00 £25.36
Median hourly rate £44.50 £43.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.49% -14.00% -8.26%
75th Percentile £82.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.23 £57.35
% change year-on-year +11.86% -29.85% +9.24%

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 16,550 10,081 12,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.36% 30.84% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,044 6,256 7,729
10th Percentile £350 £278 £311
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.86% -0.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,211 751 962
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.05
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -25.00%
75th Percentile £73.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -13 2,242 £500 - 3,292
UK excluding London -11 1,373 £453 +0.67% 2,050
London -20 945 £525 -4.55% 1,599
Work from Home -18 660 £500 - 1,149
South East +1 469 £500 +4.99% 656
North of England -15 326 £450 +0.22% 432
Midlands -30 191 £492 +15.76% 279
North West -12 181 £447 -5.89% 215
East of England -4 147 £450 - 265
West Midlands -34 144 £487 +8.11% 155
Yorkshire -7 128 £450 +6.51% 141
South West -26 120 £415 -7.78% 249
Scotland -32 85 £475 +5.56% 106
East Midlands -16 45 £500 +39.66% 124
Wales -26 23 £490 +58.71% 51
North East -37 17 £450 +130.77% 79
Northern Ireland -9 15 £252 -46.95% 57

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
1 145 (5.84%) SharePoint
2 128 (5.15%) Confluence
3 62 (2.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.97%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Appian
10 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.080%) nginx
12 2 (0.080%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 278 (11.19%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 149 (6.00%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.54%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
9 8 (0.32%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
10 6 (0.24%) Trello
10 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.68%) Primavera
3 14 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.06%) Azure
2 324 (13.04%) AWS
3 230 (9.26%) Power Platform
4 210 (8.45%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (6.12%) Entra ID
6 134 (5.39%) GCP
7 106 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.34%) SaaS
9 65 (2.62%) GitHub
10 49 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
11 46 (1.85%) Snowflake
12 45 (1.81%) Figma
13 43 (1.73%) Serverless
14 41 (1.65%) PowerApps
15 40 (1.61%) Power Automate
16 36 (1.45%) OneDrive
17 33 (1.33%) Microsoft Copilot
18 30 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
19 28 (1.13%) IaaS
19 28 (1.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.51%) Firewall
2 75 (3.02%) TCP/IP
3 74 (2.98%) DNS
4 65 (2.62%) Network Security
5 58 (2.33%) VPN
6 45 (1.81%) WAN
7 42 (1.69%) LAN
8 37 (1.49%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) BGP
11 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
13 18 (0.72%) VLAN
14 15 (0.60%) Internet
14 15 (0.60%) SSH
15 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.56%) SAN
16 13 (0.52%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (7.57%) Power BI
2 116 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.89%) Metadata
7 45 (1.81%) Big Data
8 40 (1.61%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.13%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.13%) MySQL
11 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 23 (0.93%) Hadoop
13 22 (0.89%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 15 (0.60%) GIS
18 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 212 (8.53%) JIRA
2 130 (5.23%) Git
3 54 (2.17%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.57%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.76%) MLflow
7 17 (0.68%) Selenium
7 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.56%) JUnit
9 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.48%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.44%) Gradle
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,088 (43.78%) Social Skills
2 735 (29.58%) Finance
3 539 (21.69%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.45%) Public Sector
5 193 (7.77%) Banking
6 159 (6.40%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.27%) Presentation Skills
8 102 (4.10%) Marketing
9 100 (4.02%) Legal
10 95 (3.82%) Aerospace
11 89 (3.58%) Manufacturing
12 86 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
13 83 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
14 76 (3.06%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.49%) Retail
16 59 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.17%) Law
18 42 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.37%) Financial Institution
19 34 (1.37%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 345 (13.88%) Analyst
2 285 (11.47%) Senior
3 196 (7.89%) Architect
4 190 (7.65%) Lead
5 173 (6.96%) Developer
6 158 (6.36%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.12%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.90%) Senior Manager
9 70 (2.82%) Consultant
10 65 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
11 64 (2.58%) Designer
12 56 (2.25%) IT Manager
13 55 (2.21%) IT Support
14 53 (2.13%) Software Engineer
15 52 (2.09%) Support Engineer
16 51 (2.05%) Administrator
17 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
17 50 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
18 48 (1.93%) IT Analyst
19 47 (1.89%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.10%) REST
2 98 (3.94%) .NET
3 66 (2.66%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 44 (1.77%) RESTful
6 39 (1.57%) HTML
6 39 (1.57%) OAuth
7 38 (1.53%) Middleware
8 35 (1.41%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) Spring
9 33 (1.33%) Web Services
10 32 (1.29%) CSS
11 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
11 31 (1.25%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.21%) JSON
12 30 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
13 29 (1.17%) LDAP
13 29 (1.17%) SAML
14 28 (1.13%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.13%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 154 (6.20%) Onboarding
2 154 (6.20%) Product Ownership
3 115 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
4 101 (4.06%) Cloud Native
5 67 (2.70%) Algorithms
5 67 (2.70%) Data Structures
6 65 (2.62%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.37%) Virtual Team
8 51 (2.05%) Operational Technology
8 51 (2.05%) Security Posture
9 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
9 42 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
9 42 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
11 40 (1.61%) Life Science
12 36 (1.45%) AI Agents
13 35 (1.41%) PMI
14 33 (1.33%) Robotics
15 31 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 305 (12.27%) Windows
2 175 (7.04%) Linux
3 75 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.45%) Unix
5 50 (2.01%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.13%) Android
8 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.12%) MVS
12 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.12%) Rocky
12 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 831 (33.44%) Computer Science
2 686 (27.61%) Agile
3 660 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
4 432 (17.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 408 (16.42%) Continuous Improvement
6 398 (16.02%) AI
7 334 (13.44%) DevOps
8 315 (12.68%) Analytics
9 312 (12.56%) Project Management
10 301 (12.11%) CI/CD
11 267 (10.74%) Decision-Making
11 267 (10.74%) ITIL
11 267 (10.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 245 (9.86%) Cybersecurity
13 227 (9.13%) Change Management
14 219 (8.81%) Roadmaps
15 210 (8.45%) Software Engineering
16 205 (8.25%) Scrum
17 204 (8.21%) Migration
17 204 (8.21%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 429 (17.26%) Python
2 364 (14.65%) SQL
3 171 (6.88%) Java
4 146 (5.88%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.27%) C#
6 89 (3.58%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.93%) Bash
8 47 (1.89%) C++
9 38 (1.53%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
11 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
12 23 (0.93%) Bicep
13 21 (0.85%) C
14 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.44%) X++
16 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 478 (19.24%) Computer Science Degree
2 448 (18.03%) Security Cleared
3 295 (11.87%) SC Cleared
4 250 (10.06%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.84%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.07%) PMP
7 118 (4.75%) CISSP
8 107 (4.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.10%) Azure Certification
10 77 (3.10%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 56 (2.25%) CISM
12 56 (2.25%) PhD
13 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
14 41 (1.65%) CCNA
15 39 (1.57%) CCNP
16 36 (1.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 35 (1.41%) CISA
18 31 (1.25%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (5.59%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.19%) QA
3 113 (4.55%) NIST
4 109 (4.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.14%) PMO
6 83 (3.34%) GDPR
7 52 (2.09%) SLA
8 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.05%) GRC
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) COBIT
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 196 (7.89%) Active Directory
2 126 (5.07%) Docker
3 46 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Firmware
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
8 6 (0.24%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 136 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.74%) Terraform
3 76 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.41%) Ansible
5 36 (1.45%) SCCM
6 32 (1.29%) Grafana
7 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 621 (24.99%) Microsoft
2 165 (6.64%) Oracle
3 147 (5.92%) SAP
4 132 (5.31%) ServiceNow
5 101 (4.06%) Google
6 70 (2.82%) Cisco
7 65 (2.62%) Databricks
8 61 (2.45%) VMware
9 56 (2.25%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.21%) Adobe
11 51 (2.05%) IBM
12 34 (1.37%) Citrix
13 33 (1.33%) CyberArk
13 33 (1.33%) Splunk
14 29 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Ariba
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.80%) BeyondTrust
18 19 (0.76%) HP