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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,475 2,439 3,400
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.70% 7.51% 7.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.99% 24.47% 26.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,333 1,399 1,938
10th Percentile £206 £250 £215
25th Percentile £363 £375 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 201 375
10th Percentile £16.70 £17.80 £17.11
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.32 £25.00
Median hourly rate £43.00 £46.25 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.03% +11.45% -17.00%
75th Percentile £82.31 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.23 £50.00
% change year-on-year +11.86% -19.54% +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 16,512 9,968 12,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 30.68% 29.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,042 6,170 7,955
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 £707 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,196 729 1,082
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.75 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.50 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +105.88% -38.55% -24.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £57.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £75.00 £75.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 16 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 16 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 16 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 2,227 £500 - 2,433
UK excluding London -9 1,373 £450 - 1,617
London -18 936 £525 -4.55% 1,095
Work from Home -17 663 £500 - 811
South East -1 453 £500 +4.71% 563
North of England -14 330 £450 +0.67% 323
Midlands -24 197 £498 +18.45% 235
North West -12 187 £447 -1.97% 146
East of England -6 148 £450 - 203
West Midlands -29 148 £481 +6.89% 128
Yorkshire -13 127 £475 +11.76% 127
South West -22 116 £425 -8.11% 196
Scotland -26 90 £475 +5.56% 48
East Midlands -14 47 £515 +43.85% 107
Wales -21 25 £450 +47.31% 35
Northern Ireland -12 16 £254 -40.24% 63
North East -41 16 £450 +130.77% 54

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
1 143 (5.78%) SharePoint
2 135 (5.45%) Confluence
3 61 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.86%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.32%) Camunda
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.081%) FactoryTalk
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 288 (11.64%) Microsoft Office
2 233 (9.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 146 (5.90%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (2.71%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
8 12 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.36%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.61%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.20%) HFM
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
11 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 572 (23.11%) Azure
2 324 (13.09%) AWS
3 214 (8.65%) Power Platform
4 207 (8.36%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (5.90%) Entra ID
6 128 (5.17%) GCP
7 103 (4.16%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.31%) SaaS
9 66 (2.67%) GitHub
10 46 (1.86%) Figma
11 41 (1.66%) Serverless
11 41 (1.66%) Snowflake
12 39 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
13 35 (1.41%) PowerApps
14 33 (1.33%) OneDrive
14 33 (1.33%) Power Automate
15 32 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.13%) PaaS
17 27 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
18 25 (1.01%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.36%) Firewall
2 80 (3.23%) TCP/IP
3 79 (3.19%) DNS
4 65 (2.63%) Network Security
5 55 (2.22%) VPN
6 51 (2.06%) WAN
7 47 (1.90%) LAN
8 35 (1.41%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) BGP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
11 21 (0.85%) OSPF
12 20 (0.81%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 17 (0.69%) VLAN
15 16 (0.65%) Internet
16 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
16 14 (0.57%) SAN
17 13 (0.53%) HTTP
17 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (7.39%) Power BI
2 116 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 67 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.10%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.90%) Big Data
7 46 (1.86%) Metadata
8 39 (1.58%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 31 (1.25%) MySQL
11 30 (1.21%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.01%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
14 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
17 14 (0.57%) GIS
18 13 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 221 (8.93%) JIRA
2 132 (5.33%) Git
3 55 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.66%) GitLab
5 33 (1.33%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) MLflow
7 18 (0.73%) Selenium
8 15 (0.61%) Postman
8 15 (0.61%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.57%) JUnit
9 14 (0.57%) REST Assured
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,094 (44.20%) Social Skills
2 736 (29.74%) Finance
3 537 (21.70%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.53%) Public Sector
5 190 (7.68%) Banking
6 154 (6.22%) Organisational Skills
7 107 (4.32%) Presentation Skills
8 105 (4.24%) Marketing
9 98 (3.96%) Legal
10 91 (3.68%) Aerospace
10 91 (3.68%) Manufacturing
11 86 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
13 74 (2.99%) Telecoms
14 64 (2.59%) Retail
15 57 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.10%) Law
17 41 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.49%) Front Office
19 32 (1.29%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 352 (14.22%) Analyst
2 279 (11.27%) Senior
3 198 (8.00%) Architect
4 189 (7.64%) Lead
5 178 (7.19%) Developer
6 161 (6.51%) Project Manager
7 151 (6.10%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.91%) Consultant
8 72 (2.91%) Senior Manager
9 68 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.71%) Designer
11 56 (2.26%) IT Manager
12 55 (2.22%) IT Support
13 54 (2.18%) Software Engineer
14 53 (2.14%) Technical Support
15 52 (2.10%) Support Engineer
16 51 (2.06%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (2.02%) Administrator
17 50 (2.02%) Product Manager
18 49 (1.98%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.24%) REST
2 100 (4.04%) .NET
3 71 (2.87%) React
4 50 (2.02%) Kafka
5 47 (1.90%) RESTful
6 42 (1.70%) HTML
7 40 (1.62%) OAuth
8 38 (1.54%) Middleware
9 36 (1.45%) .NET Framework
10 34 (1.37%) Spring
11 33 (1.33%) Web Services
12 32 (1.29%) CSS
12 32 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
12 32 (1.29%) Spring Boot
13 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
14 30 (1.21%) XML
15 29 (1.17%) LDAP
15 29 (1.17%) SAML
16 28 (1.13%) JSON
16 28 (1.13%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.24%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.02%) Onboarding
2 149 (6.02%) Product Ownership
3 113 (4.57%) Self-Motivation
4 102 (4.12%) Cloud Native
5 65 (2.63%) Data Centre
6 63 (2.55%) Algorithms
6 63 (2.55%) Data Structures
7 62 (2.51%) Virtual Team
8 52 (2.10%) Operational Technology
9 50 (2.02%) Security Posture
10 47 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
12 40 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
12 40 (1.62%) Life Science
13 38 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.37%) Robotics
15 33 (1.33%) PMI
16 32 (1.29%) AI Agents
17 31 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 309 (12.48%) Windows
2 176 (7.11%) Linux
3 76 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 68 (2.75%) Unix
5 53 (2.14%) 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%) Debian
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 836 (33.78%) Computer Science
2 695 (28.08%) Agile
3 667 (26.95%) Problem-Solving
4 428 (17.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 399 (16.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 389 (15.72%) AI
7 335 (13.54%) DevOps
8 308 (12.44%) Project Management
9 302 (12.20%) Analytics
10 296 (11.96%) CI/CD
11 276 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 269 (10.87%) Decision-Making
13 262 (10.59%) ITIL
14 244 (9.86%) Cybersecurity
15 224 (9.05%) Change Management
16 221 (8.93%) Roadmaps
17 215 (8.69%) Software Engineering
18 208 (8.40%) Migration
19 199 (8.04%) Scrum
20 198 (8.00%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 424 (17.13%) Python
2 366 (14.79%) SQL
3 176 (7.11%) Java
4 137 (5.54%) PowerShell
5 103 (4.16%) C#
6 90 (3.64%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.94%) C++
8 42 (1.70%) Bash
9 39 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
12 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
13 19 (0.77%) C
14 16 (0.65%) 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
1 496 (20.04%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (17.41%) Security Cleared
3 286 (11.56%) SC Cleared
4 259 (10.46%) Master's Degree
5 142 (5.74%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.05%) PMP
7 123 (4.97%) CISSP
8 100 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.35%) Cisco Certification
10 75 (3.03%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.67%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
13 63 (2.55%) CISM
14 47 (1.90%) PhD
15 43 (1.74%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.70%) CCNA
17 41 (1.66%) CCNP
18 36 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 35 (1.41%) CISA
20 33 (1.33%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.25%) Data Quality
2 127 (5.13%) QA
3 116 (4.69%) NIST
4 111 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (4.20%) PMO
6 88 (3.56%) GDPR
7 51 (2.06%) Accessibility
8 50 (2.02%) SLA
9 31 (1.25%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.17%) GRC
11 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.53%) 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
1 194 (7.84%) Active Directory
2 129 (5.21%) Docker
3 47 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 14 (0.57%) 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 (0.081%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 140 (5.66%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.60%) Terraform
3 74 (2.99%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.38%) Ansible
5 34 (1.37%) SCCM
6 33 (1.33%) Grafana
7 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.53%) Progress Chef
11 12 (0.48%) Puppet
12 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.20%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 606 (24.48%) Microsoft
2 171 (6.91%) Oracle
3 149 (6.02%) SAP
4 131 (5.29%) ServiceNow
5 98 (3.96%) Google
6 71 (2.87%) Cisco
7 66 (2.67%) Databricks
8 60 (2.42%) VMware
9 56 (2.26%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.22%) Adobe
11 48 (1.94%) IBM
12 38 (1.54%) Splunk
13 36 (1.45%) Citrix
14 32 (1.29%) CyberArk
14 32 (1.29%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.05%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.89%) CheckPoint
17 21 (0.85%) Ariba
17 21 (0.85%) Siemens
18 20 (0.81%) HP