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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,405 2,463 3,552
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.64% 7.82% 8.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.55% 26.20% 27.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,413 1,343 2,087
10th Percentile £289 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.49% -6.44%
75th Percentile £638 £639 £638
90th Percentile £750 £788 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 146 253
10th Percentile £14.93 £20.06 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.31 £26.56 £22.75
Median hourly rate £35.00 £39.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% -15.55% +15.33%
75th Percentile £58.19 £65.00 £67.02
90th Percentile £89.63 £85.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -10.67% -18.80% +2.62%

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 12,299 9,399 12,977
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.93% 29.83% 30.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,064 5,705 8,157
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 943 453 757
10th Percentile £16.10 £18.82 £15.01
25th Percentile £19.07 £24.18 £23.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.51% -22.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £66.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.77 £78.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £41.25 £50.00
% change year-on-year -39.03% -17.50% +11.11%

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 January 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 -3 2,095 £505 -3.81% 4,502
UK excluding London -4 1,197 £475 - 4,255
London -4 982 £525 -4.55% 786
Work from Home 0 697 £500 - 1,727
North of England -7 303 £438 -12.50% 805
South East -3 274 £475 -5.00% 1,361
Midlands -14 205 £500 +17.65% 554
South West +1 166 £649 +21.76% 566
North West -2 164 £393 -21.40% 347
West Midlands -15 146 £523 +4.50% 199
Yorkshire -4 129 £508 +6.84% 342
East of England -12 114 £505 +12.22% 642
Scotland -4 99 £475 +11.76% 169
East Midlands -5 59 £449 +26.12% 343
Wales -1 41 £232 -32.26% 191
Northern Ireland -10 21 £425 -10.53% 89
North East -10 11 £364 -27.20% 125

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
1 191 (7.94%) Confluence
2 119 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.50%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.67%) nginx
6 14 (0.58%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.54%) Apache
7 13 (0.54%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
9 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.29%) SAS
10 5 (0.21%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.17%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.17%) Luigi
11 4 (0.17%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.17%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
Applications
1 295 (12.27%) Microsoft Office
2 247 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 185 (7.69%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 77 (3.20%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.83%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.67%) Simulink
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.46%) FrameMaker
9 11 (0.46%) Trello
10 9 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 7 (0.29%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.17%) InVision
13 2 (0.083%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.083%) InDesign
13 2 (0.083%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.083%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 60 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.79%) Primavera
4 18 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.58%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.54%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.54%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.50%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
9 9 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 6 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
11 6 (0.25%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
12 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 479 (19.92%) Azure
2 299 (12.43%) AWS
3 206 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 183 (7.61%) Power Platform
5 139 (5.78%) GCP
6 96 (3.99%) SaaS
7 93 (3.87%) GitHub
8 82 (3.41%) Entra ID
9 78 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
10 67 (2.79%) Serverless
11 56 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.87%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.46%) Cloud Computing
14 33 (1.37%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.33%) Snowflake
16 31 (1.29%) OCI
17 28 (1.16%) Amazon S3
18 27 (1.12%) IaaS
19 25 (1.04%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.74%) Firewall
2 64 (2.66%) DNS
3 48 (2.00%) VPN
4 44 (1.83%) LAN
5 43 (1.79%) Network Security
6 42 (1.75%) WAN
7 37 (1.54%) HTTP
8 36 (1.50%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.33%) Skype
10 29 (1.21%) DHCP
11 28 (1.16%) Wireless
12 27 (1.12%) Internet
13 24 (1.00%) SSH
14 20 (0.83%) BGP
14 20 (0.83%) Unified Communications
15 19 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
16 17 (0.71%) OSPF
16 17 (0.71%) VoIP
17 16 (0.67%) Ethernet
18 15 (0.62%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (5.86%) Power BI
2 88 (3.66%) SQL Server
3 85 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.45%) NoSQL
4 59 (2.45%) Relational Database
5 52 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
6 50 (2.08%) Tableau
7 37 (1.54%) MySQL
8 31 (1.29%) Big Data
9 26 (1.08%) Data Lake
10 23 (0.96%) Metadata
11 20 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
12 19 (0.79%) MongoDB
13 16 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.62%) Oracle Database
15 14 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.54%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.50%) GIS
17 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 12 (0.50%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 281 (11.68%) JIRA
2 122 (5.07%) Git
3 86 (3.58%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.54%) GitLab
5 26 (1.08%) Visual Studio
6 25 (1.04%) Liquibase
7 23 (0.96%) Selenium
8 19 (0.79%) Postman
9 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.50%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.46%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.46%) JUnit
11 10 (0.42%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.42%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.33%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.29%) Gradle
14 7 (0.29%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,243 (51.68%) Social Skills
2 766 (31.85%) Finance
3 570 (23.70%) Analytical Skills
4 282 (11.73%) Banking
5 194 (8.07%) Public Sector
6 116 (4.82%) Manufacturing
7 102 (4.24%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
9 88 (3.66%) Marketing
10 82 (3.41%) Influencing Skills
11 79 (3.28%) Legal
12 66 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
13 65 (2.70%) Military
14 63 (2.62%) Financial Institution
15 58 (2.41%) Telecoms
16 53 (2.20%) Investment Banking
16 53 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
17 52 (2.16%) Front Office
18 43 (1.79%) Aerospace
19 38 (1.58%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 359 (14.93%) Analyst
2 249 (10.35%) Senior
3 225 (9.36%) Developer
4 186 (7.73%) Lead
5 180 (7.48%) Architect
6 161 (6.69%) Business Analyst
6 161 (6.69%) Project Manager
7 98 (4.07%) Consultant
8 85 (3.53%) Software Engineer
9 63 (2.62%) IT Support
10 61 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
11 55 (2.29%) Support Analyst
12 53 (2.20%) Technical Support
13 48 (2.00%) Security Engineer
14 43 (1.79%) Senior Software Engineer
15 42 (1.75%) Senior Developer
16 39 (1.62%) Support Engineer
17 38 (1.58%) IT Analyst
18 37 (1.54%) Designer
18 37 (1.54%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (5.45%) REST
2 85 (3.53%) RESTful
3 78 (3.24%) HTML
4 75 (3.12%) .NET
5 61 (2.54%) CSS
6 58 (2.41%) XML
7 53 (2.20%) Middleware
8 47 (1.95%) Elastic Stack
8 47 (1.95%) JSON
9 46 (1.91%) React
10 44 (1.83%) SOAP
11 41 (1.70%) Kafka
11 41 (1.70%) OAuth
12 34 (1.41%) Oracle Fusion
13 32 (1.33%) AngularJS
13 32 (1.33%) TensorFlow
14 30 (1.25%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.21%) Spring
16 28 (1.16%) Node.js
17 27 (1.12%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.40%) Management Information System
2 117 (4.86%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.32%) Cloud Native
4 81 (3.37%) Algorithms
5 68 (2.83%) Onboarding
6 66 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
7 64 (2.66%) Data Centre
8 57 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
9 56 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
10 55 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
11 54 (2.25%) Virtual Team
12 53 (2.20%) PMI
13 47 (1.95%) Public Cloud
14 46 (1.91%) Derivative
15 43 (1.79%) Life Science
16 42 (1.75%) Security Posture
17 40 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
18 37 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
19 36 (1.50%) PKI
20 35 (1.46%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 289 (12.02%) Windows
2 216 (8.98%) Linux
3 89 (3.70%) Unix
4 67 (2.79%) Windows Server
5 47 (1.95%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.33%) Android
7 28 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.91%) Apple iOS
9 17 (0.71%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
10 14 (0.58%) VMS
11 13 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
12 12 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 9 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
13 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.083%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.083%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 891 (37.05%) Computer Science
2 779 (32.39%) Agile
3 706 (29.36%) Problem-Solving
4 382 (15.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 364 (15.14%) Project Management
6 354 (14.72%) DevOps
7 290 (12.06%) Change Management
8 270 (11.23%) Continuous Improvement
9 267 (11.10%) CI/CD
10 255 (10.60%) AI
11 254 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 253 (10.52%) ITIL
13 246 (10.23%) Analytics
13 246 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
14 237 (9.85%) Migration
15 227 (9.44%) Decision-Making
16 221 (9.19%) Software Engineering
17 218 (9.06%) Project Delivery
18 213 (8.86%) Risk Management
19 195 (8.11%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 428 (17.80%) Python
2 349 (14.51%) SQL
3 171 (7.11%) Java
4 132 (5.49%) PowerShell
5 124 (5.16%) JavaScript
6 90 (3.74%) C#
7 81 (3.37%) C++
8 57 (2.37%) TypeScript
9 49 (2.04%) Bash
9 49 (2.04%) Go
10 30 (1.25%) R
11 26 (1.08%) Perl
12 22 (0.91%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.87%) C
14 20 (0.83%) MATLAB
14 20 (0.83%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.75%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.62%) SystemVerilog
17 14 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
17 14 (0.58%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 601 (24.99%) Computer Science Degree
2 404 (16.80%) Security Cleared
3 371 (15.43%) Master's Degree
4 313 (13.01%) SC Cleared
5 160 (6.65%) PMI Certification
6 140 (5.82%) PMP
7 113 (4.70%) CISSP
8 96 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.04%) Azure Certification
10 69 (2.87%) CISM
10 69 (2.87%) PhD
11 64 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (2.41%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
14 54 (2.25%) AWS Certification
14 54 (2.25%) DV Cleared
15 45 (1.87%) HND
16 37 (1.54%) CCNP
17 35 (1.46%) MCSE
18 34 (1.41%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (6.57%) QA
2 131 (5.45%) GDPR
3 100 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.53%) PMO
5 81 (3.37%) Data Quality
6 67 (2.79%) NIST
7 44 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.54%) PCI DSS
9 35 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 32 (1.33%) SLA
11 25 (1.04%) GRC
12 16 (0.67%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.62%) NCSC
13 15 (0.62%) WCAG
14 14 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.58%) P3O
15 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.54%) Basel III
15 13 (0.54%) Def Stans
16 10 (0.42%) DO-254
System Software
1 183 (7.61%) Docker
2 142 (5.90%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.00%) Firmware
5 18 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) DFS Replication
7 9 (0.37%) Dovecot
7 9 (0.37%) Postfix
7 9 (0.37%) Squid
8 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.29%) XenApp
9 6 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.17%) NDS
11 4 (0.17%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.17%) vSphere
11 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 164 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 124 (5.16%) Terraform
3 80 (3.33%) Ansible
4 63 (2.62%) Grafana
5 52 (2.16%) Prometheus
6 51 (2.12%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.95%) SCCM
8 30 (1.25%) OPNET
9 25 (1.04%) Puppet
10 14 (0.58%) Kibana
10 14 (0.58%) SCOM
11 13 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
12 12 (0.50%) Nmap
13 11 (0.46%) Nessus
14 10 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.42%) QRadar
15 9 (0.37%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.37%) WSUS
16 7 (0.29%) Argo
16 7 (0.29%) Kiali
Vendors
1 509 (21.16%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.82%) Oracle
3 159 (6.61%) SAP
4 117 (4.86%) ServiceNow
5 108 (4.49%) Splunk
6 88 (3.66%) Google
7 75 (3.12%) Cisco
8 60 (2.49%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.20%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.12%) Remedy
11 47 (1.95%) VMware
12 44 (1.83%) Databricks
13 37 (1.54%) Citrix
14 28 (1.16%) IBM
14 28 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.91%) MuleSoft
15 22 (0.91%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.87%) Adobe
17 19 (0.79%) CheckPoint
17 19 (0.79%) Informatica