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 14 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,493 2,723 3,574
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.84% 7.87% 8.03%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.33% 26.62% 27.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,453 1,524 2,172
10th Percentile £283 £230 £219
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £644
90th Percentile £750 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 163 212
10th Percentile £15.25 £20.12 £17.28
25th Percentile £22.80 £26.71 £27.34
Median hourly rate £35.00 £41.91 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.49% -16.18% +13.64%
75th Percentile £55.00 £70.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £89.63 £85.00 £83.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -15.00% +14.29%

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 12,262 10,228 13,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.65% 29.58% 29.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,988 6,266 8,308
10th Percentile £310 £305 £300
25th Percentile £415 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,009 495 736
10th Percentile £16.82 £19.72 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.37
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.91 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -39.99% -20.17% +16.67%
75th Percentile £53.75 £66.00 £67.52
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.89
% change year-on-year -45.54% -11.00% +15.31%

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025. 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 -1 2,159 £513 -2.38% 3,438
UK excluding London -2 1,243 £475 - 3,195
London -4 1,022 £530 -3.64% 729
Work from Home +1 719 £500 - 5,677
North of England -7 298 £450 -10.00% 673
South East +2 283 £475 -5.00% 1,022
Midlands -10 218 £475 -2.06% 532
West Midlands -14 167 £500 - 276
South West +5 165 £648 +12.70% 353
North West -2 161 £423 -15.50% 345
East of England -11 130 £500 +15.94% 463
Yorkshire -8 128 £475 -1.04% 269
Scotland -2 104 £450 +2.56% 145
East Midlands -9 51 £448 +18.21% 237
Wales -3 44 £226 -43.50% 74
Northern Ireland -7 30 £425 -10.53% 35
North East -15 10 £298 -40.31% 64

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
1 188 (7.54%) Confluence
2 122 (4.89%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 39 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 15 (0.60%) Apache
7 15 (0.60%) CMS
8 14 (0.56%) IIS
8 14 (0.56%) Skype for Business
9 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.28%) SAS
10 5 (0.20%) Luigi
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.12%) Ethereum
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 305 (12.23%) Microsoft Office
2 244 (9.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (7.50%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (4.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 74 (2.97%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.64%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.48%) Trello
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 10 (0.40%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
13 6 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 4 (0.16%) InVision
15 3 (0.12%) InDesign
15 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
15 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
15 3 (0.12%) Revit
15 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 62 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.80%) Primavera
4 16 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.60%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.48%) Oracle General Ledger
7 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
10 9 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
10 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
10 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
11 8 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
12 7 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 7 (0.28%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 6 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
13 6 (0.24%) Endur
13 6 (0.24%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 502 (20.14%) Azure
2 333 (13.36%) AWS
3 200 (8.02%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (7.54%) Power Platform
5 160 (6.42%) GCP
6 103 (4.13%) GitHub
7 90 (3.61%) SaaS
8 83 (3.33%) Entra ID
9 79 (3.17%) Azure DevOps
10 74 (2.97%) Serverless
11 53 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 42 (1.68%) Power Automate
13 36 (1.44%) Amazon S3
14 35 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
15 33 (1.32%) Amazon ECS
15 33 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.28%) PowerApps
17 31 (1.24%) Snowflake
18 26 (1.04%) Azure Logic Apps
18 26 (1.04%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.49%) Firewall
2 72 (2.89%) DNS
3 54 (2.17%) VPN
4 47 (1.89%) Network Security
5 40 (1.60%) LAN
6 38 (1.52%) HTTP
6 38 (1.52%) WAN
7 37 (1.48%) DHCP
8 34 (1.36%) TCP/IP
8 34 (1.36%) Wireless
9 30 (1.20%) Skype
10 28 (1.12%) Internet
11 25 (1.00%) SSH
12 24 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (0.84%) VoIP
14 20 (0.80%) Unified Communications
15 19 (0.76%) BGP
16 18 (0.72%) Ethernet
17 17 (0.68%) Cisco IOS
18 16 (0.64%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (5.86%) Power BI
2 102 (4.09%) PostgreSQL
3 88 (3.53%) SQL Server
4 67 (2.69%) NoSQL
5 63 (2.53%) Relational Database
6 60 (2.41%) Tableau
7 56 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
8 34 (1.36%) MySQL
9 33 (1.32%) Big Data
10 28 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
10 28 (1.12%) Data Lake
11 26 (1.04%) Metadata
12 21 (0.84%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.64%) Oracle Database
15 15 (0.60%) RDBMS
16 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.48%) GIS
17 12 (0.48%) Hadoop
17 12 (0.48%) Redis
Development Applications
1 296 (11.87%) JIRA
2 132 (5.29%) Git
3 107 (4.29%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.17%) GitLab
5 29 (1.16%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.04%) Selenium
7 24 (0.96%) Postman
8 20 (0.80%) Visual Studio
9 13 (0.52%) Bitbucket
9 13 (0.52%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 8 (0.32%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
14 7 (0.28%) SonarQube
14 7 (0.28%) Subversion
14 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,299 (52.11%) Social Skills
2 791 (31.73%) Finance
3 610 (24.47%) Analytical Skills
4 283 (11.35%) Banking
5 180 (7.22%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.85%) Manufacturing
7 101 (4.05%) Organisational Skills
8 100 (4.01%) Presentation Skills
9 89 (3.57%) Marketing
10 88 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
11 86 (3.45%) Legal
12 73 (2.93%) Telecoms
13 71 (2.85%) Military
14 70 (2.81%) Financial Institution
15 62 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.49%) Investment Banking
16 61 (2.45%) Front Office
17 60 (2.41%) Pharmaceutical
18 48 (1.93%) Aerospace
19 41 (1.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 366 (14.68%) Analyst
2 245 (9.83%) Senior
3 239 (9.59%) Developer
4 190 (7.62%) Architect
5 179 (7.18%) Lead
6 168 (6.74%) Project Manager
7 162 (6.50%) Business Analyst
8 107 (4.29%) Consultant
9 81 (3.25%) Software Engineer
10 68 (2.73%) IT Support
11 63 (2.53%) Support Analyst
12 57 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.13%) Technical Support
14 49 (1.97%) Security Engineer
15 47 (1.89%) Senior Developer
16 46 (1.85%) IT Manager
16 46 (1.85%) Support Engineer
17 44 (1.76%) Data Scientist
18 39 (1.56%) IT Analyst
18 39 (1.56%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (5.33%) REST
2 95 (3.81%) RESTful
3 79 (3.17%) .NET
4 74 (2.97%) HTML
5 56 (2.25%) CSS
6 55 (2.21%) XML
7 52 (2.09%) Middleware
8 50 (2.01%) JSON
9 49 (1.97%) Kafka
10 48 (1.93%) React
11 47 (1.89%) SOAP
12 45 (1.81%) Elastic Stack
13 40 (1.60%) TensorFlow
14 39 (1.56%) OAuth
15 36 (1.44%) PyTorch
15 36 (1.44%) Web Services
16 35 (1.40%) Spring
17 34 (1.36%) AngularJS
18 32 (1.28%) Node.js
19 30 (1.20%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 199 (7.98%) Management Information System
2 114 (4.57%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.41%) Cloud Native
4 87 (3.49%) Algorithms
5 77 (3.09%) Onboarding
6 65 (2.61%) Analytical Mindset
7 63 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
7 63 (2.53%) Distributed Systems
8 58 (2.33%) Virtual Team
9 57 (2.29%) Data Centre
10 50 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
11 49 (1.97%) Public Cloud
12 48 (1.93%) Derivative
13 45 (1.81%) Life Science
14 41 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
15 40 (1.60%) PMI
15 40 (1.60%) Security Posture
16 39 (1.56%) Mobile App
17 37 (1.48%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 286 (11.47%) Windows
2 207 (8.30%) Linux
3 86 (3.45%) Unix
4 64 (2.57%) Windows Server
5 43 (1.72%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.28%) Mac OS
7 29 (1.16%) Android
8 24 (0.96%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.68%) VMS
11 15 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
12 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
17 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.080%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.080%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 949 (38.07%) Computer Science
2 796 (31.93%) Agile
3 762 (30.57%) Problem-Solving
4 392 (15.72%) Project Management
5 376 (15.08%) Stakeholder Management
6 368 (14.76%) DevOps
7 289 (11.59%) Change Management
8 286 (11.47%) CI/CD
9 284 (11.39%) ITIL
10 273 (10.95%) Continuous Improvement
11 264 (10.59%) AI
12 259 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 258 (10.35%) Analytics
14 246 (9.87%) Cybersecurity
15 237 (9.51%) Decision-Making
16 230 (9.23%) Software Engineering
17 226 (9.07%) Migration
18 218 (8.74%) Project Delivery
19 197 (7.90%) Risk Management
20 194 (7.78%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 466 (18.69%) Python
2 361 (14.48%) SQL
3 187 (7.50%) Java
4 131 (5.25%) PowerShell
5 118 (4.73%) JavaScript
6 91 (3.65%) C#
7 77 (3.09%) C++
8 63 (2.53%) Go
9 58 (2.33%) TypeScript
10 53 (2.13%) Bash
11 36 (1.44%) R
12 24 (0.96%) Perl
13 20 (0.80%) C
14 19 (0.76%) MATLAB
14 19 (0.76%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.72%) PL/SQL
16 17 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
16 17 (0.68%) Ruby
17 15 (0.60%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.60%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 644 (25.83%) Computer Science Degree
2 384 (15.40%) Security Cleared
3 380 (15.24%) Master's Degree
4 304 (12.19%) SC Cleared
5 145 (5.82%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.25%) PMP
7 118 (4.73%) CISSP
8 96 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 78 (3.13%) Azure Certification
10 74 (2.97%) PhD
11 69 (2.77%) CISM
12 65 (2.61%) AWS Certification
13 62 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
14 55 (2.21%) TOGAF Certification
15 50 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
16 48 (1.93%) DV Cleared
16 48 (1.93%) HND
17 38 (1.52%) CCNP
18 37 (1.48%) CCNA
18 37 (1.48%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (6.18%) QA
2 129 (5.17%) GDPR
3 101 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 100 (4.01%) Data Quality
5 76 (3.05%) NIST
6 75 (3.01%) PMO
7 46 (1.85%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.48%) SLA
9 33 (1.32%) PCI DSS
10 32 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.00%) GRC
12 20 (0.80%) HIPAA
13 18 (0.72%) NCSC
14 16 (0.64%) COBIT
14 16 (0.64%) WCAG
15 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
15 15 (0.60%) NIST 800
16 13 (0.52%) P3O
17 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 185 (7.42%) Docker
2 150 (6.02%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.08%) Firmware
5 13 (0.52%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.40%) Postfix
6 10 (0.40%) Squid
7 9 (0.36%) XenApp
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
13 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 164 (6.58%) Kubernetes
2 141 (5.66%) Terraform
3 89 (3.57%) Ansible
4 66 (2.65%) Grafana
5 55 (2.21%) Prometheus
6 48 (1.93%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.89%) SCCM
8 30 (1.20%) OPNET
9 22 (0.88%) Puppet
10 14 (0.56%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 10 (0.40%) Kibana
12 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
12 10 (0.40%) QRadar
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nmap
14 8 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 538 (21.58%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.66%) SAP
3 149 (5.98%) Oracle
4 131 (5.25%) ServiceNow
5 100 (4.01%) Splunk
6 97 (3.89%) Google
7 76 (3.05%) Cisco
8 73 (2.93%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.17%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.17%) VMware
10 50 (2.01%) Remedy
11 47 (1.89%) Databricks
12 37 (1.48%) Citrix
13 35 (1.40%) IBM
14 30 (1.20%) Adobe
15 25 (1.00%) Palo Alto
16 23 (0.92%) Workday
17 22 (0.88%) Red Hat
18 17 (0.68%) MuleSoft
19 16 (0.64%) HP