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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,460 2,380 3,541
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.77% 7.54% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.24% 24.52% 27.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,333 1,358 1,932
10th Percentile £205 £248 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £629 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 189 398
10th Percentile £16.70 £19.56 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.32 £22.50
Median hourly rate £45.50 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.62% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.35 £74.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £40.23 £41.50
% change year-on-year +24.29% -3.06% -14.04%

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 16,144 9,706 12,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.28% 30.77% 29.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,766 6,036 8,026
10th Percentile £350 £277 £310
25th Percentile £425 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £522 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.62% -0.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £705 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,173 649 1,106
10th Percentile £17.45 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.46 £20.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £51.44 £27.94 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +84.11% -31.75% -26.70%
75th Percentile £72.54 £59.90 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +97.47% -41.12% -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 4 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 4 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 4 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 2,201 £500 - 3,192
UK excluding London -11 1,343 £450 - 2,059
London -19 942 £515 -6.36% 1,463
Work from Home -18 663 £500 -3.85% 1,230
South East -3 423 £500 +3.90% 653
North of England -11 326 £450 -0.06% 451
Midlands -24 197 £503 +31.80% 304
North West -8 182 £447 -1.97% 249
West Midlands -30 148 £492 +17.49% 166
East of England -5 145 £450 -10.00% 237
Yorkshire -11 130 £500 +14.68% 138
South West -24 121 £425 -10.53% 256
Scotland -24 90 £475 +5.56% 102
East Midlands -13 47 £550 +54.49% 138
Wales -24 29 £450 +47.31% 41
Northern Ireland -11 16 £254 -40.24% 60
North East -40 14 £450 +130.77% 69

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
1 137 (5.57%) SharePoint
2 132 (5.37%) Confluence
3 59 (2.40%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.93%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 8 (0.33%) 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 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.081%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 279 (11.34%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 138 (5.61%) Microsoft Project
4 132 (5.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.93%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 9 (0.37%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 5 (0.20%) Trello
12 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 63 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.61%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) Magento
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%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) HFM
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 568 (23.09%) Azure
2 324 (13.17%) AWS
3 213 (8.66%) Power Platform
4 209 (8.50%) Microsoft 365
5 140 (5.69%) Entra ID
6 126 (5.12%) GCP
7 103 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.33%) SaaS
9 68 (2.76%) GitHub
10 45 (1.83%) Figma
11 43 (1.75%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.71%) Serverless
13 40 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.42%) PowerApps
15 34 (1.38%) Power Automate
16 33 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
17 31 (1.26%) OneDrive
17 31 (1.26%) PaaS
18 27 (1.10%) IaaS
19 25 (1.02%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.47%) Firewall
2 79 (3.21%) DNS
2 79 (3.21%) TCP/IP
3 69 (2.80%) Network Security
4 53 (2.15%) WAN
5 51 (2.07%) VPN
6 48 (1.95%) LAN
7 34 (1.38%) DHCP
8 28 (1.14%) BGP
9 25 (1.02%) Wireless
10 24 (0.98%) OSPF
11 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.81%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.77%) SSL
14 15 (0.61%) Internet
14 15 (0.61%) VLAN
15 13 (0.53%) HTTP
15 13 (0.53%) MPLS
15 13 (0.53%) SAN
15 13 (0.53%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (7.32%) Power BI
2 116 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 67 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.99%) Big Data
7 46 (1.87%) Metadata
8 39 (1.59%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.54%) Tableau
10 33 (1.34%) MySQL
11 29 (1.18%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.10%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.81%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
17 15 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
18 13 (0.53%) GIS
18 13 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 217 (8.82%) JIRA
2 128 (5.20%) Git
3 53 (2.15%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.75%) GitLab
5 32 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) MLflow
7 18 (0.73%) Selenium
7 18 (0.73%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.61%) Postman
9 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
10 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) Gradle
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.37%) Subversion
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,096 (44.55%) Social Skills
2 738 (30.00%) Finance
3 524 (21.30%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 188 (7.64%) Banking
6 148 (6.02%) Organisational Skills
7 115 (4.67%) Presentation Skills
8 110 (4.47%) Marketing
9 94 (3.82%) Legal
10 89 (3.62%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.46%) Manufacturing
12 82 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
13 79 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
14 71 (2.89%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.36%) Retail
16 52 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.11%) Law
17 40 (1.63%) Front Office
18 38 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
19 32 (1.30%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 348 (14.15%) Analyst
2 275 (11.18%) Senior
3 203 (8.25%) Architect
4 181 (7.36%) Lead
5 172 (6.99%) Developer
6 158 (6.42%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.18%) Business Analyst
8 73 (2.97%) Consultant
8 73 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.76%) Senior Manager
10 67 (2.72%) Designer
11 58 (2.36%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.20%) Software Engineer
13 53 (2.15%) IT Manager
14 52 (2.11%) IT Support
14 52 (2.11%) Senior Analyst
15 50 (2.03%) Security Engineer
16 49 (1.99%) Administrator
16 49 (1.99%) Product Manager
17 48 (1.95%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.15%) .NET
2 100 (4.07%) REST
3 68 (2.76%) React
4 49 (1.99%) Kafka
5 45 (1.83%) RESTful
6 42 (1.71%) HTML
7 41 (1.67%) Middleware
8 38 (1.54%) .NET Framework
9 37 (1.50%) OAuth
10 34 (1.38%) Spring
11 33 (1.34%) Spring Boot
12 32 (1.30%) CSS
12 32 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
12 32 (1.30%) Web Services
13 29 (1.18%) XML
14 28 (1.14%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.14%) JSON
14 28 (1.14%) SAML
15 27 (1.10%) LDAP
15 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.21%) Management Information System
2 148 (6.02%) Onboarding
3 140 (5.69%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.27%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (4.02%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.76%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.52%) Algorithms
7 62 (2.52%) Data Structures
8 58 (2.36%) Virtual Team
9 49 (1.99%) Operational Technology
10 48 (1.95%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
12 45 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
13 39 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.50%) Life Science
15 34 (1.38%) Robotics
16 33 (1.34%) PMI
17 30 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
18 28 (1.14%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 308 (12.52%) Windows
2 179 (7.28%) Linux
3 73 (2.97%) Unix
3 73 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 55 (2.24%) Windows 10
5 36 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 31 (1.26%) Mac OS
7 30 (1.22%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.14%) Android
9 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
10 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.33%) Windows 7
12 7 (0.28%) AIX
13 6 (0.24%) Solaris
13 6 (0.24%) VMS
14 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 820 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 682 (27.72%) Agile
3 653 (26.54%) Problem-Solving
4 407 (16.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 394 (16.02%) AI
6 377 (15.33%) Continuous Improvement
7 335 (13.62%) DevOps
8 305 (12.40%) Analytics
9 302 (12.28%) CI/CD
10 295 (11.99%) Project Management
11 274 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 265 (10.77%) Decision-Making
13 256 (10.41%) ITIL
14 248 (10.08%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (9.07%) Change Management
16 216 (8.78%) Roadmaps
17 209 (8.50%) Migration
18 206 (8.37%) Software Engineering
19 191 (7.76%) Project Delivery
20 188 (7.64%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 423 (17.20%) Python
2 383 (15.57%) SQL
3 176 (7.15%) Java
4 130 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.31%) C#
6 92 (3.74%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.03%) C++
8 42 (1.71%) Bash
9 36 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.22%) R
11 27 (1.10%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.02%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.69%) C
15 14 (0.57%) Bicep
16 13 (0.53%) Go
16 13 (0.53%) Perl
17 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 497 (20.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (17.52%) Security Cleared
3 290 (11.79%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.49%) Master's Degree
5 135 (5.49%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.33%) CISSP
7 118 (4.80%) PMP
8 95 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
10 68 (2.76%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.68%) CISM
12 65 (2.64%) DV Cleared
13 60 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
14 48 (1.95%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNP
16 42 (1.71%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.71%) CCNA
17 36 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.42%) CISA
19 30 (1.22%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (5.16%) Data Quality
2 126 (5.12%) QA
3 119 (4.84%) NIST
4 113 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.15%) PMO
6 93 (3.78%) GDPR
7 51 (2.07%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 35 (1.42%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.26%) GRC
11 28 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 19 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.61%) IFRS
15 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.49%) COBIT
16 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
18 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 188 (7.64%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.53%) Docker
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.81%) Firmware
6 14 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.081%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 149 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.66%) Terraform
3 75 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.48%) Ansible
5 35 (1.42%) Grafana
6 34 (1.38%) SCCM
7 32 (1.30%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.37%) WSUS
15 8 (0.33%) Nessus
16 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
17 5 (0.20%) Kibana
17 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
17 5 (0.20%) SCOM
Vendors
1 586 (23.82%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.91%) Oracle
3 143 (5.81%) SAP
4 128 (5.20%) ServiceNow
5 103 (4.19%) Google
6 72 (2.93%) Cisco
7 66 (2.68%) Databricks
8 53 (2.15%) Adobe
8 53 (2.15%) VMware
9 51 (2.07%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.79%) IBM
11 42 (1.71%) Splunk
12 38 (1.54%) Citrix
13 35 (1.42%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.02%) CheckPoint
16 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.85%) Siemens
18 20 (0.81%) Fortinet
18 20 (0.81%) HP