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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,467 2,371 2,985
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.55% 7.20% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.41% 22.95% 26.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,269 1,302 1,688
10th Percentile £204 £260 £232
25th Percentile £350 £383 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £613
90th Percentile £723 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 205 211
10th Percentile £16.46 £18.56 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.00 £25.75 £26.42
Median hourly rate £38.72 £38.50 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.57% -28.70% +9.89%
75th Percentile £68.75 £56.00 £70.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £79.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £34.75 £57.35
% change year-on-year +10.07% -39.41% +16.71%

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 17,119 10,329 11,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.54% 31.36% 29.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,405 6,446 6,894
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £707 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,341 831 654
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% -49.19% -9.08%
75th Percentile £72.54 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +1.16%

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 16 September 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 16 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 16 September 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 -16 2,244 £510 +2.00% 13,621
UK excluding London -17 1,323 £475 +5.56% 6,975
London -20 976 £525 -4.55% 7,744
Work from Home -22 649 £500 +1.63% 4,563
South East +10 458 £525 +15.07% 1,941
North of England -15 329 £475 +5.91% 1,282
North West -7 206 £475 +3.83% 733
Midlands -29 176 £450 -1.37% 890
East of England -11 137 £350 -28.21% 962
West Midlands -33 130 £450 -5.26% 544
South West -25 126 £400 -15.79% 798
Yorkshire -12 107 £507 +20.60% 376
Scotland -50 70 £500 +11.11% 689
East Midlands -20 45 £475 +9.57% 346
North East -37 16 £455 +30.65% 196
Northern Ireland -10 15 £250 -57.45% 304
Wales -29 14 £530 +73.50% 207
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 164 (6.65%) SharePoint
2 102 (4.13%) Confluence
3 61 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.05%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Apache
7 18 (0.73%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
8 13 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) nginx
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 244 (9.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 238 (9.65%) Microsoft Office
3 125 (5.07%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (4.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.11%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Windchill
11 9 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.36%) Revit
12 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.32%) Simulink
12 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 40 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.53%) Primavera
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 564 (22.86%) Azure
2 312 (12.65%) AWS
3 231 (9.36%) Power Platform
4 230 (9.32%) Microsoft 365
5 145 (5.88%) GCP
6 137 (5.55%) Entra ID
7 122 (4.95%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.40%) SaaS
9 71 (2.88%) GitHub
10 63 (2.55%) Dynamics 365
11 59 (2.39%) Serverless
12 58 (2.35%) Power Automate
13 53 (2.15%) PowerApps
14 46 (1.86%) Microsoft Copilot
14 46 (1.86%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.58%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.54%) Figma
17 29 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
18 28 (1.13%) IaaS
19 27 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.46%) Firewall
2 85 (3.45%) DNS
3 66 (2.68%) Network Security
3 66 (2.68%) TCP/IP
4 61 (2.47%) VPN
5 46 (1.86%) DHCP
6 35 (1.42%) LAN
6 35 (1.42%) WAN
7 29 (1.18%) Wireless
8 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
9 22 (0.89%) Internet
10 21 (0.85%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) SSH
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 18 (0.73%) BGP
13 18 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (6.89%) Power BI
2 115 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.31%) Relational Database
5 54 (2.19%) Metadata
6 44 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.42%) MySQL
8 32 (1.30%) Tableau
9 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
10 26 (1.05%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.01%) Big Data
11 25 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
12 24 (0.97%) Oracle Database
12 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
17 15 (0.61%) GIS
18 13 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 177 (7.17%) JIRA
2 140 (5.67%) Git
3 64 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.11%) GitLab
5 23 (0.93%) JUnit
5 23 (0.93%) Selenium
6 22 (0.89%) Maven
7 21 (0.85%) SonarQube
8 19 (0.77%) Gradle
9 17 (0.69%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.65%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Mockito
13 12 (0.49%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 10 (0.41%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
16 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
17 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,119 (45.36%) Social Skills
2 735 (29.79%) Finance
3 564 (22.86%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.27%) Public Sector
5 200 (8.11%) Banking
6 167 (6.77%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (4.90%) Manufacturing
8 113 (4.58%) Aerospace
9 106 (4.30%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (3.93%) Marketing
11 92 (3.73%) Telecoms
12 90 (3.65%) Presentation Skills
13 88 (3.57%) Legal
14 78 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 59 (2.39%) Retail
17 52 (2.11%) Law
17 52 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 44 (1.78%) Military
19 41 (1.66%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 331 (13.42%) Analyst
2 290 (11.76%) Senior
3 206 (8.35%) Developer
4 199 (8.07%) Lead
5 164 (6.65%) Architect
6 154 (6.24%) Business Analyst
7 122 (4.95%) Project Manager
8 75 (3.04%) Consultant
8 75 (3.04%) Support Engineer
9 72 (2.92%) IT Support
10 68 (2.76%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
12 53 (2.15%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.11%) IT Manager
14 50 (2.03%) Administrator
14 50 (2.03%) Designer
15 47 (1.91%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.82%) Security Engineer
16 45 (1.82%) Technical Support
17 42 (1.70%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (4.70%) REST
2 107 (4.34%) Terraform
3 105 (4.26%) .NET
4 71 (2.88%) React
5 70 (2.84%) HTML
6 64 (2.59%) Kafka
7 58 (2.35%) CSS
8 55 (2.23%) RESTful
9 48 (1.95%) OAuth
10 47 (1.91%) XML
11 44 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
12 42 (1.70%) Web Services
13 41 (1.66%) Spring Boot
14 39 (1.58%) Middleware
15 37 (1.50%) OAuth2
16 36 (1.46%) JSON
16 36 (1.46%) Spring
17 35 (1.42%) SOAP
18 34 (1.38%) .NET Framework
18 34 (1.38%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 227 (9.20%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.59%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.86%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (4.01%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.47%) Algorithms
6 61 (2.47%) Data Structures
7 59 (2.39%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.15%) Operational Technology
9 50 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
10 49 (1.99%) Security Posture
11 47 (1.91%) Virtual Team
12 46 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
13 45 (1.82%) Life Science
14 42 (1.70%) AI Agents
15 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
16 37 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
17 33 (1.34%) SCADA
18 32 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
19 29 (1.18%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 299 (12.12%) Windows
2 186 (7.54%) Linux
3 83 (3.36%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.59%) Unix
5 47 (1.91%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.34%) Mac OS
8 31 (1.26%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.01%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) zOS
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 805 (32.63%) Computer Science
2 665 (26.96%) Agile
3 652 (26.43%) Problem-Solving
4 505 (20.47%) Stakeholder Management
5 433 (17.55%) Continuous Improvement
6 384 (15.57%) AI
7 354 (14.35%) DevOps
8 318 (12.89%) CI/CD
9 312 (12.65%) Project Management
10 310 (12.57%) Analytics
11 281 (11.39%) ITIL
12 259 (10.50%) Decision-Making
13 253 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 234 (9.49%) Change Management
14 234 (9.49%) Scrum
15 231 (9.36%) Roadmaps
16 227 (9.20%) Cybersecurity
16 227 (9.20%) Software Engineering
17 207 (8.39%) PRINCE2
17 207 (8.39%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 411 (16.66%) Python
2 360 (14.59%) SQL
3 179 (7.26%) PowerShell
4 172 (6.97%) Java
5 131 (5.31%) JavaScript
6 124 (5.03%) C#
7 62 (2.51%) Bash
8 48 (1.95%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.82%) C++
10 30 (1.22%) Bicep
11 29 (1.18%) Shell Script
11 29 (1.18%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.97%) C
14 22 (0.89%) R
15 15 (0.61%) Scala
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 493 (19.98%) Computer Science Degree
2 467 (18.93%) Security Cleared
3 340 (13.78%) SC Cleared
4 202 (8.19%) Master's Degree
5 142 (5.76%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.11%) Microsoft Certification
7 124 (5.03%) PMP
8 104 (4.22%) CISSP
9 94 (3.81%) Azure Certification
10 85 (3.45%) DV Cleared
11 84 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
12 73 (2.96%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.31%) PhD
14 51 (2.07%) CISM
15 47 (1.91%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 46 (1.86%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.58%) CCNA
17 39 (1.58%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.54%) CCNP
19 34 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (5.96%) QA
2 140 (5.67%) Data Quality
3 91 (3.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 91 (3.69%) NIST
4 86 (3.49%) PMO
5 71 (2.88%) GDPR
6 48 (1.95%) Accessibility
7 41 (1.66%) SLA
8 28 (1.13%) GRC
9 23 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (0.77%) NCSC
11 16 (0.65%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.57%) IFRS
13 13 (0.53%) P3O
14 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.41%) COBIT
15 10 (0.41%) ISO 31000
16 9 (0.36%) IEC 61508
17 8 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 194 (7.86%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.90%) Docker
3 56 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.18%) Firmware
5 26 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
10 5 (0.20%) RACF
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.12%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.51%) Ansible
4 35 (1.42%) SCCM
5 28 (1.13%) Grafana
6 26 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) SCOM
10 8 (0.32%) CASB
10 8 (0.32%) Functional Safety
10 8 (0.32%) WSUS
11 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.24%) Argo
11 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
11 6 (0.24%) Control-M
11 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
11 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 637 (25.82%) Microsoft
2 181 (7.34%) Oracle
3 137 (5.55%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.47%) SAP
5 94 (3.81%) Google
6 73 (2.96%) Cisco
6 73 (2.96%) VMware
7 65 (2.63%) Salesforce
8 63 (2.55%) Adobe
9 51 (2.07%) Databricks
10 46 (1.86%) Splunk
11 41 (1.66%) IBM
12 32 (1.30%) Red Hat
13 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 24 (0.97%) Citrix
15 22 (0.89%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.81%) Apple
18 19 (0.77%) Ariba