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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,486 2,433 3,429
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.72% 7.50% 8.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.08% 24.42% 26.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,337 1,398 1,937
10th Percentile £206 £250 £215
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 197 378
10th Percentile £16.70 £19.12 £16.85
25th Percentile £26.13 £26.32 £24.39
Median hourly rate £41.71 £45.02 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.34% +8.47% -17.00%
75th Percentile £82.31 £64.52 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.70 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £39.66 £50.00
% change year-on-year +8.42% -20.68% +2.81%

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 16,487 9,965 12,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.71% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,019 6,179 7,959
10th Percentile £350 £281 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,190 716 1,085
10th Percentile £17.86 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.44 £20.47
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.81 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +95.80% -35.39% -24.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £58.34 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.41 £75.00 £75.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -19.87%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 2,231 £500 - 3,738
UK excluding London -10 1,370 £450 - 2,986
London -20 946 £525 -4.55% 1,356
Work from Home -18 667 £500 - 2,245
South East -2 444 £500 +4.71% 826
North of England -12 330 £450 +0.62% 650
Midlands -22 199 £500 +19.05% 403
North West -11 187 £447 -1.87% 309
East of England -4 149 £450 -10.00% 381
West Midlands -32 149 £492 +9.33% 200
Yorkshire -12 127 £475 +11.76% 256
South West -23 116 £425 -10.53% 306
Scotland -28 93 £475 +5.56% 240
East Midlands -11 48 £515 +43.85% 203
Wales -23 25 £450 +47.31% 120
Northern Ireland -12 16 £254 -40.24% 126
North East -42 16 £450 +130.77% 89

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
1 142 (5.71%) SharePoint
2 139 (5.59%) Confluence
3 61 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.89%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 9 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.080%) FactoryTalk
14 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 285 (11.46%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 143 (5.75%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (2.70%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
7 16 (0.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Photoshop
9 12 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
12 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
12 7 (0.28%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CATIA
15 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.60%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) HFM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.05%) Azure
2 324 (13.03%) AWS
3 215 (8.65%) Power Platform
4 209 (8.41%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (5.79%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.11%) GCP
7 106 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.30%) SaaS
9 68 (2.74%) GitHub
10 44 (1.77%) Figma
11 41 (1.65%) Serverless
11 41 (1.65%) Snowflake
12 39 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
13 35 (1.41%) PowerApps
14 34 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
15 33 (1.33%) OneDrive
15 33 (1.33%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.13%) PaaS
17 27 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
18 24 (0.97%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.42%) Firewall
2 80 (3.22%) TCP/IP
3 79 (3.18%) DNS
4 69 (2.78%) Network Security
5 55 (2.21%) VPN
6 51 (2.05%) WAN
7 47 (1.89%) LAN
8 35 (1.41%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) BGP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
11 21 (0.84%) OSPF
12 20 (0.80%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.72%) SSL
14 17 (0.68%) VLAN
15 16 (0.64%) Internet
16 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
16 14 (0.56%) SAN
17 13 (0.52%) HTTP
17 13 (0.52%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (7.36%) Power BI
2 116 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 67 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.89%) Big Data
7 45 (1.81%) Metadata
8 38 (1.53%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 31 (1.25%) MySQL
11 30 (1.21%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.01%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.97%) Data Lake
14 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
15 19 (0.76%) Oracle Database
16 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
18 14 (0.56%) GIS
19 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 224 (9.01%) JIRA
2 130 (5.23%) Git
3 55 (2.21%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.73%) GitLab
5 33 (1.33%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.84%) MLflow
7 18 (0.72%) Selenium
8 15 (0.60%) Postman
8 15 (0.60%) Visual Studio
9 13 (0.52%) JUnit
9 13 (0.52%) REST Assured
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
11 10 (0.40%) Subversion
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.36%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) Maven
13 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,100 (44.25%) Social Skills
2 743 (29.89%) Finance
3 535 (21.52%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 191 (7.68%) Banking
6 153 (6.15%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.38%) Presentation Skills
8 107 (4.30%) Marketing
9 99 (3.98%) Legal
10 91 (3.66%) Aerospace
10 91 (3.66%) Manufacturing
11 84 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
13 72 (2.90%) Telecoms
14 61 (2.45%) Retail
15 58 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 54 (2.17%) Law
17 41 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.49%) Front Office
19 33 (1.33%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 353 (14.20%) Analyst
2 282 (11.34%) Senior
3 199 (8.00%) Architect
4 186 (7.48%) Lead
5 179 (7.20%) Developer
6 160 (6.44%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.15%) Business Analyst
8 73 (2.94%) Consultant
9 71 (2.86%) Senior Manager
10 69 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
11 66 (2.65%) Designer
12 55 (2.21%) IT Support
13 54 (2.17%) IT Manager
13 54 (2.17%) Software Engineer
13 54 (2.17%) Technical Support
14 51 (2.05%) Senior Analyst
14 51 (2.05%) Support Engineer
15 50 (2.01%) Administrator
15 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
16 49 (1.97%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.18%) REST
2 101 (4.06%) .NET
3 70 (2.82%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 47 (1.89%) RESTful
6 41 (1.65%) HTML
7 39 (1.57%) Middleware
8 38 (1.53%) OAuth
9 37 (1.49%) .NET Framework
10 34 (1.37%) Spring
11 32 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
11 32 (1.29%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.29%) Web Services
12 31 (1.25%) CSS
13 30 (1.21%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.21%) XML
14 28 (1.13%) JSON
14 28 (1.13%) PyTorch
15 27 (1.09%) PySpark
15 27 (1.09%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.13%) Management Information System
2 149 (5.99%) Onboarding
2 149 (5.99%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.42%) Self-Motivation
4 104 (4.18%) Cloud Native
5 65 (2.61%) Data Centre
6 63 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 62 (2.49%) Data Structures
7 62 (2.49%) Virtual Team
8 53 (2.13%) Operational Technology
9 48 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
9 48 (1.93%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
12 40 (1.61%) Life Science
13 38 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.37%) Robotics
15 32 (1.29%) AI Agents
15 32 (1.29%) PMI
16 31 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 310 (12.47%) Windows
2 177 (7.12%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.78%) Unix
5 53 (2.13%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 28 (1.13%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
12 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) Solaris
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
16 3 (0.12%) Rocky
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 838 (33.71%) Computer Science
2 694 (27.92%) Agile
3 667 (26.83%) Problem-Solving
4 426 (17.14%) Stakeholder Management
5 398 (16.01%) Continuous Improvement
6 394 (15.85%) AI
7 336 (13.52%) DevOps
8 307 (12.35%) Project Management
9 303 (12.19%) Analytics
10 297 (11.95%) CI/CD
11 277 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 270 (10.86%) Decision-Making
13 261 (10.50%) ITIL
14 253 (10.18%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (8.97%) Roadmaps
16 222 (8.93%) Change Management
17 216 (8.69%) Software Engineering
18 209 (8.41%) Migration
19 197 (7.92%) Scrum
20 195 (7.84%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 426 (17.14%) Python
2 373 (15.00%) SQL
3 178 (7.16%) Java
4 135 (5.43%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.22%) C#
6 88 (3.54%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.93%) C++
8 43 (1.73%) Bash
9 39 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.21%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
12 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.76%) C
14 15 (0.60%) Bicep
15 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.48%) Perl
16 11 (0.44%) Go
17 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 497 (19.99%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (17.34%) Security Cleared
3 286 (11.50%) SC Cleared
4 263 (10.58%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.63%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.31%) CISSP
7 124 (4.99%) PMP
8 99 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.06%) Azure Certification
11 70 (2.82%) CISM
12 66 (2.65%) DV Cleared
13 62 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
14 50 (2.01%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.69%) CCNA
17 41 (1.65%) CCNP
18 39 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
19 35 (1.41%) CISA
20 33 (1.33%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.19%) Data Quality
2 127 (5.11%) QA
3 116 (4.67%) NIST
4 109 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 106 (4.26%) PMO
6 88 (3.54%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) SLA
8 49 (1.97%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.25%) PCI DSS
10 30 (1.21%) GRC
11 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.88%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.52%) IFRS
16 12 (0.48%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.40%) COBIT
17 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 10 (0.40%) SOC 2
System Software
1 193 (7.76%) Active Directory
2 131 (5.27%) Docker
3 47 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.84%) Firmware
6 14 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 5 (0.20%) Embedded Firmware
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.080%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 143 (5.75%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.58%) Terraform
3 75 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.37%) Ansible
5 34 (1.37%) Grafana
5 34 (1.37%) SCCM
6 31 (1.25%) Prometheus
7 20 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 13 (0.52%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.48%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.20%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 606 (24.38%) Microsoft
2 172 (6.92%) Oracle
3 149 (5.99%) SAP
4 131 (5.27%) ServiceNow
5 100 (4.02%) Google
6 71 (2.86%) Cisco
7 66 (2.65%) Databricks
8 60 (2.41%) VMware
9 56 (2.25%) Salesforce
10 53 (2.13%) Adobe
11 47 (1.89%) IBM
12 39 (1.57%) Splunk
13 36 (1.45%) Citrix
14 32 (1.29%) CyberArk
14 32 (1.29%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.05%) Red Hat
16 23 (0.93%) CheckPoint
17 21 (0.84%) Ariba
17 21 (0.84%) Siemens
18 20 (0.80%) Informatica