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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,568 2,300 3,720
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.86% 7.84% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.37% 25.68% 27.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,517 1,327 2,050
10th Percentile £286 £243 £205
25th Percentile £400 £387 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.19%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.84% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 171 367
10th Percentile £15.72 £20.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.00 £28.46 £21.69
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £83.00 £71.13 £59.96
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +6.96% +13.33% -16.67%

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 14,787 8,957 13,551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.73% 30.54% 30.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,750 5,664 8,396
10th Percentile £335 £288 £298
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £714 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,086 476 1,001
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £13.99
25th Percentile £19.93 £24.42 £17.80
Median hourly rate £30.00 £42.50 £38.16
Median % change year-on-year -29.41% +11.39% -26.63%
75th Percentile £67.84 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £84.00 £81.01 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.50 £48.82 £37.50
% change year-on-year -41.62% +30.17% -23.47%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 21 March 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 -4 2,243 £500 -3.85% 2,619
UK excluding London -3 1,341 £489 +2.84% 2,081
London -12 980 £514 -6.59% 893
Work from Home -5 713 £500 -3.85% 979
South East -2 366 £481 -3.75% 688
North of England -4 347 £444 -10.76% 487
Midlands -22 208 £500 +40.45% 320
North West -5 181 £400 -19.52% 243
South West +2 153 £688 +26.44% 214
West Midlands -23 153 £498 +53.08% 182
Yorkshire -9 150 £516 +11.98% 177
East of England -6 134 £500 - 242
Scotland -4 98 £496 +13.11% 103
East Midlands -17 54 £531 +49.16% 137
Wales -10 45 £300 +3.90% 67
North East -18 17 £364 -23.37% 75
Northern Ireland -12 16 £388 +24.00% 18

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
1 212 (8.26%) Confluence
2 117 (4.56%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.74%) Apache
7 12 (0.47%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.23%) SAS
10 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.12%) Drupal
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 313 (12.19%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 206 (8.02%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (2.92%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.43%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Sketch
11 6 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.12%) InVision
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.078%) InDesign
14 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 68 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.97%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 559 (21.77%) Azure
2 309 (12.03%) AWS
3 213 (8.29%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (7.83%) Power Platform
5 139 (5.41%) GCP
6 114 (4.44%) Entra ID
7 110 (4.28%) SaaS
8 102 (3.97%) Azure DevOps
9 85 (3.31%) GitHub
10 52 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.91%) Serverless
12 42 (1.64%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.60%) Power Automate
14 40 (1.56%) Snowflake
15 32 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.25%) IaaS
15 32 (1.25%) PaaS
16 31 (1.21%) PowerApps
17 30 (1.17%) Google Workspace
18 29 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.60%) Firewall
2 61 (2.38%) TCP/IP
3 59 (2.30%) DNS
3 59 (2.30%) LAN
3 59 (2.30%) WAN
4 51 (1.99%) Network Security
5 41 (1.60%) VPN
6 28 (1.09%) BGP
6 28 (1.09%) HTTP
6 28 (1.09%) Wireless
7 26 (1.01%) Ethernet
8 25 (0.97%) Skype
9 23 (0.90%) Internet
9 23 (0.90%) OSPF
10 21 (0.82%) DHCP
11 20 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
12 19 (0.74%) VLAN
13 16 (0.62%) SAN
13 16 (0.62%) SSL
14 15 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.15%) Power BI
2 98 (3.82%) PostgreSQL
3 96 (3.74%) SQL Server
4 63 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (2.30%) NoSQL
6 54 (2.10%) Big Data
7 48 (1.87%) Tableau
8 46 (1.79%) Relational Database
9 40 (1.56%) MySQL
10 34 (1.32%) Metadata
11 31 (1.21%) Data Lake
11 31 (1.21%) Hadoop
12 22 (0.86%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
15 15 (0.58%) GIS
16 13 (0.51%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
18 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
18 11 (0.43%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 309 (12.03%) JIRA
2 132 (5.14%) Git
3 75 (2.92%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.26%) GitLab
5 30 (1.17%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.05%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.86%) Selenium
8 18 (0.70%) MLflow
9 15 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
12 10 (0.39%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.31%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.27%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,226 (47.74%) Social Skills
2 793 (30.88%) Finance
3 587 (22.86%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (9.85%) Banking
5 225 (8.76%) Public Sector
6 120 (4.67%) Presentation Skills
7 105 (4.09%) Organisational Skills
8 97 (3.78%) Marketing
9 91 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
10 90 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
11 88 (3.43%) Manufacturing
12 77 (3.00%) Legal
13 68 (2.65%) Aerospace
14 65 (2.53%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.18%) Military
16 52 (2.02%) Front Office
17 50 (1.95%) Financial Institution
18 47 (1.83%) Retail
19 44 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 44 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 368 (14.33%) Analyst
2 255 (9.93%) Senior
3 214 (8.33%) Lead
4 213 (8.29%) Architect
5 205 (7.98%) Developer
6 190 (7.40%) Project Manager
7 166 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 96 (3.74%) Consultant
9 72 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.49%) Delivery Manager
11 61 (2.38%) Software Engineer
12 60 (2.34%) Security Engineer
13 59 (2.30%) Technical Support
14 58 (2.26%) Senior Analyst
15 53 (2.06%) Data Scientist
16 47 (1.83%) Designer
17 46 (1.79%) IT Support
17 46 (1.79%) Product Manager
18 38 (1.48%) Data Engineer
18 38 (1.48%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.28%) REST
2 76 (2.96%) .NET
3 63 (2.45%) RESTful
4 62 (2.41%) React
5 59 (2.30%) HTML
6 51 (1.99%) Middleware
7 48 (1.87%) CSS
8 47 (1.83%) Kafka
9 39 (1.52%) Elastic Stack
9 39 (1.52%) JSON
9 39 (1.52%) PyTorch
9 39 (1.52%) TensorFlow
9 39 (1.52%) XML
10 38 (1.48%) SOAP
11 37 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
11 37 (1.44%) Spring
12 36 (1.40%) OAuth
13 34 (1.32%) Pandas
14 33 (1.29%) Spring Boot
15 29 (1.13%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 211 (8.22%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.46%) Product Ownership
3 120 (4.67%) Onboarding
4 109 (4.24%) Cloud Native
5 93 (3.62%) Algorithms
6 84 (3.27%) Virtual Team
7 69 (2.69%) Distributed Systems
8 68 (2.65%) Data Centre
9 67 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
10 63 (2.45%) Data Structures
11 57 (2.22%) PMI
12 56 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
13 53 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
14 45 (1.75%) Derivative
15 37 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
15 37 (1.44%) Security Posture
16 35 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
17 33 (1.29%) NHS
18 32 (1.25%) Equities
18 32 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 296 (11.53%) Windows
2 194 (7.55%) Linux
3 74 (2.88%) Unix
4 72 (2.80%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.14%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.17%) Android
7 25 (0.97%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.62%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.55%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.23%) VMS
16 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 4 (0.16%) Debian
18 3 (0.12%) CentOS
18 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 965 (37.58%) Computer Science
2 809 (31.50%) Agile
3 706 (27.49%) Problem-Solving
4 427 (16.63%) Stakeholder Management
5 378 (14.72%) DevOps
6 367 (14.29%) AI
7 351 (13.67%) Continuous Improvement
8 349 (13.59%) Project Management
9 314 (12.23%) CI/CD
10 287 (11.18%) Analytics
11 283 (11.02%) Cybersecurity
12 279 (10.86%) Change Management
12 279 (10.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 269 (10.48%) Decision-Making
14 262 (10.20%) ITIL
15 255 (9.93%) Migration
16 238 (9.27%) Project Delivery
17 235 (9.15%) PRINCE2
18 229 (8.92%) Software Engineering
19 228 (8.88%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 445 (17.33%) Python
2 378 (14.72%) SQL
3 185 (7.20%) Java
4 130 (5.06%) PowerShell
5 99 (3.86%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.23%) C#
7 72 (2.80%) C++
8 53 (2.06%) TypeScript
9 46 (1.79%) Bash
10 41 (1.60%) Go
11 32 (1.25%) R
12 26 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.86%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.74%) Perl
15 15 (0.58%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.58%) Rust
15 15 (0.58%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.51%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 605 (23.56%) Computer Science Degree
2 496 (19.31%) Security Cleared
3 383 (14.91%) Master's Degree
4 352 (13.71%) SC Cleared
5 157 (6.11%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.26%) CISSP
6 135 (5.26%) PMP
7 94 (3.66%) Microsoft Certification
8 82 (3.19%) CISM
9 77 (3.00%) PhD
10 71 (2.76%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
12 61 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
13 60 (2.34%) Azure Certification
14 59 (2.30%) DV Cleared
15 39 (1.52%) MBA
16 38 (1.48%) CCNP
17 35 (1.36%) CBAP
18 32 (1.25%) AWS Certification
19 31 (1.21%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.50%) QA
2 134 (5.22%) GDPR
3 109 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 108 (4.21%) PMO
5 100 (3.89%) NIST
6 98 (3.82%) Data Quality
7 53 (2.06%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.75%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.67%) SLA
10 32 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.90%) GRC
12 22 (0.86%) NCSC
13 18 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
13 18 (0.70%) WCAG
14 17 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.58%) HIPAA
16 14 (0.55%) IFRS
17 13 (0.51%) Basel III
17 13 (0.51%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.47%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 182 (7.09%) Docker
2 159 (6.19%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.82%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.58%) Firmware
6 9 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.19%) XenApp
8 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.078%) HDFS
11 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.078%) NDS
11 2 (0.078%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 184 (7.17%) Kubernetes
2 105 (4.09%) Terraform
3 72 (2.80%) Ansible
4 69 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (1.99%) Grafana
6 43 (1.67%) Prometheus
7 41 (1.60%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 20 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
10 18 (0.70%) Puppet
11 16 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.51%) Kibana
12 13 (0.51%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
15 8 (0.31%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.31%) WSUS
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.27%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 558 (21.73%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.39%) Oracle
3 155 (6.04%) SAP
4 118 (4.60%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.32%) Google
6 82 (3.19%) Splunk
7 81 (3.15%) Cisco
8 61 (2.38%) Databricks
9 55 (2.14%) Atlassian
9 55 (2.14%) Remedy
10 50 (1.95%) VMware
11 49 (1.91%) IBM
12 47 (1.83%) Salesforce
13 46 (1.79%) Citrix
14 40 (1.56%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.25%) CheckPoint
16 28 (1.09%) Informatica
16 28 (1.09%) Red Hat
17 25 (0.97%) Adobe
17 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign