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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 23 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,549 2,376 3,800
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.14% 7.81% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.06% 25.99% 28.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,476 1,320 2,120
10th Percentile £286 £225 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -4.78%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 216 149 364
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.50 £14.02
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.25 £22.33
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £39.96
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +12.61% -11.20%
75th Percentile £68.81 £75.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £42.88 £40.00
% change year-on-year -21.88% +7.20% -11.11%

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 14,117 9,141 13,533
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.01% 30.03% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,318 5,630 8,324
10th Percentile £332 £285 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £528
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.32% -0.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,041 452 1,006
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.12 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £24.42 £19.99
Median hourly rate £25.77 £42.21 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year -38.94% +3.09% -16.45%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.24 £81.99 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £41.37
% change year-on-year -47.05% +14.83% -8.08%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 2,211 £500 -4.76% 3,628
UK excluding London -5 1,341 £492 +3.58% 3,193
London -11 966 £515 -6.36% 906
Work from Home -3 709 £500 -3.85% 1,350
North of England -3 348 £447 -10.60% 601
South East -5 318 £475 -5.00% 1,108
Midlands -14 205 £520 +26.06% 456
South West +2 183 £650 +21.95% 388
North West 0 182 £400 -15.79% 283
Yorkshire -15 149 £525 +5.00% 235
West Midlands -21 149 £500 - 233
East of England -9 135 £550 +22.22% 443
Scotland 0 114 £525 +20.69% 134
East Midlands -7 56 £525 +47.47% 216
Wales -8 49 £254 -12.35% 116
North East -9 18 £364 -27.20% 89
Northern Ireland -12 17 £388 -8.82% 45

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
1 220 (8.63%) Confluence
2 117 (4.59%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.20%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.71%) Apache
7 12 (0.47%) CMS
8 10 (0.39%) Skype for Business
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.24%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) nginx
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 316 (12.40%) Microsoft Office
2 231 (9.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 197 (7.73%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (4.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.14%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.71%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.63%) Simulink
8 14 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.35%) Sketch
9 9 (0.35%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.16%) InVision
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.078%) InDesign
13 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.039%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 65 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.98%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) SAP EWM
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.27%) SAP WM
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 538 (21.11%) Azure
2 298 (11.69%) AWS
3 213 (8.36%) Microsoft 365
4 196 (7.69%) Power Platform
5 151 (5.92%) GCP
6 113 (4.43%) SaaS
7 104 (4.08%) Entra ID
8 93 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
9 88 (3.45%) GitHub
10 54 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
10 54 (2.12%) Serverless
11 43 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
12 40 (1.57%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.37%) OCI
13 35 (1.37%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
15 31 (1.22%) IaaS
15 31 (1.22%) PaaS
16 30 (1.18%) PowerApps
17 28 (1.10%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.59%) Firewall
2 65 (2.55%) DNS
3 64 (2.51%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.43%) WAN
5 61 (2.39%) LAN
6 48 (1.88%) Network Security
7 44 (1.73%) VPN
8 32 (1.26%) Skype
9 31 (1.22%) Ethernet
10 30 (1.18%) HTTP
11 29 (1.14%) Wireless
12 26 (1.02%) BGP
12 26 (1.02%) DHCP
12 26 (1.02%) Internet
12 26 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.90%) OSPF
14 22 (0.86%) Unified Communications
15 21 (0.82%) VLAN
16 18 (0.71%) SSL
17 17 (0.67%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (5.88%) Power BI
2 99 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
3 96 (3.77%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.43%) NoSQL
5 60 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
6 50 (1.96%) Big Data
7 47 (1.84%) Tableau
8 46 (1.80%) Relational Database
9 44 (1.73%) MySQL
10 34 (1.33%) Metadata
11 32 (1.26%) Data Lake
12 28 (1.10%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.94%) MongoDB
14 20 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.59%) GIS
17 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
18 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
19 11 (0.43%) Geospatial Data
19 11 (0.43%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 297 (11.65%) JIRA
2 123 (4.83%) Git
3 77 (3.02%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.39%) GitLab
5 28 (1.10%) Visual Studio
6 20 (0.78%) Selenium
7 18 (0.71%) Postman
8 17 (0.67%) Liquibase
9 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.47%) MLflow
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
12 10 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.31%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,278 (50.14%) Social Skills
2 802 (31.46%) Finance
3 585 (22.95%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (10.08%) Banking
5 222 (8.71%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.75%) Presentation Skills
7 113 (4.43%) Organisational Skills
8 100 (3.92%) Manufacturing
8 100 (3.92%) Marketing
9 84 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
10 82 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
11 69 (2.71%) Legal
12 59 (2.31%) Military
13 56 (2.20%) Telecoms
14 54 (2.12%) Financial Institution
15 47 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 46 (1.80%) Aerospace
16 46 (1.80%) Retail
17 45 (1.77%) Electronics
17 45 (1.77%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 366 (14.36%) Analyst
2 256 (10.04%) Senior
3 212 (8.32%) Lead
4 208 (8.16%) Developer
5 201 (7.89%) Architect
6 176 (6.90%) Project Manager
7 161 (6.32%) Business Analyst
8 102 (4.00%) Consultant
9 82 (3.22%) Software Engineer
10 73 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (2.55%) Technical Support
12 58 (2.28%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.16%) IT Support
14 51 (2.00%) Senior Analyst
15 47 (1.84%) Data Scientist
16 45 (1.77%) Delivery Manager
17 44 (1.73%) Designer
18 40 (1.57%) Data Engineer
19 39 (1.53%) Support Analyst
20 37 (1.45%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (4.67%) REST
2 75 (2.94%) .NET
3 71 (2.79%) RESTful
4 68 (2.67%) HTML
5 64 (2.51%) React
6 55 (2.16%) CSS
7 53 (2.08%) Middleware
8 47 (1.84%) Kafka
9 45 (1.77%) Elastic Stack
10 40 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
10 40 (1.57%) SOAP
11 39 (1.53%) XML
12 38 (1.49%) JSON
13 36 (1.41%) OAuth
13 36 (1.41%) PyTorch
13 36 (1.41%) TensorFlow
14 32 (1.26%) Spring
15 30 (1.18%) AngularJS
15 30 (1.18%) Spring Boot
16 28 (1.10%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 211 (8.28%) Management Information System
2 139 (5.45%) Product Ownership
3 113 (4.43%) Cloud Native
3 113 (4.43%) Onboarding
4 86 (3.37%) Algorithms
5 78 (3.06%) Virtual Team
6 70 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
7 69 (2.71%) Distributed Systems
8 64 (2.51%) Data Centre
9 59 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
10 55 (2.16%) Analytical Mindset
11 49 (1.92%) PMI
12 45 (1.77%) Security Posture
13 43 (1.69%) Data Structures
13 43 (1.69%) Derivative
14 40 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
15 37 (1.45%) Public Cloud
16 36 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.33%) NHS
18 33 (1.29%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 305 (11.97%) Windows
2 204 (8.00%) Linux
3 83 (3.26%) Unix
4 73 (2.86%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.28%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.18%) Android
7 24 (0.94%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (0.71%) Apple iOS
10 15 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
11 14 (0.55%) Ubuntu
12 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
12 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 9 (0.35%) VMS
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 921 (36.13%) Computer Science
2 780 (30.60%) Agile
3 738 (28.95%) Problem-Solving
4 421 (16.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 379 (14.87%) DevOps
6 341 (13.38%) AI
7 334 (13.10%) Project Management
8 300 (11.77%) Continuous Improvement
9 298 (11.69%) CI/CD
10 290 (11.38%) Analytics
11 284 (11.14%) Change Management
12 271 (10.63%) Cybersecurity
13 270 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 269 (10.55%) Decision-Making
15 256 (10.04%) Migration
16 249 (9.77%) ITIL
17 235 (9.22%) Software Engineering
18 233 (9.14%) Project Delivery
19 230 (9.02%) Risk Management
20 210 (8.24%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 448 (17.58%) Python
2 380 (14.91%) SQL
3 178 (6.98%) Java
4 132 (5.18%) PowerShell
5 111 (4.35%) JavaScript
6 87 (3.41%) C#
7 79 (3.10%) C++
8 53 (2.08%) TypeScript
9 49 (1.92%) Bash
10 48 (1.88%) Go
11 31 (1.22%) R
12 26 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.82%) Perl
14 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.67%) MATLAB
15 17 (0.67%) T-SQL
16 16 (0.63%) C
17 15 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.59%) Rust
17 15 (0.59%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 599 (23.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 463 (18.16%) Security Cleared
3 399 (15.65%) Master's Degree
4 355 (13.93%) SC Cleared
5 143 (5.61%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.02%) PMP
7 127 (4.98%) CISSP
8 91 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.30%) CISM
10 76 (2.98%) PhD
11 75 (2.94%) TOGAF Certification
12 72 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
13 63 (2.47%) Azure Certification
13 63 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
14 56 (2.20%) DV Cleared
15 41 (1.61%) CCNP
16 39 (1.53%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.53%) MBA
17 33 (1.29%) CBAP
18 32 (1.26%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (6.51%) QA
2 134 (5.26%) GDPR
3 104 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 104 (4.08%) PMO
4 98 (3.84%) Data Quality
5 84 (3.30%) NIST
6 49 (1.92%) PCI DSS
7 46 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 34 (1.33%) SLA
10 31 (1.22%) GRC
11 19 (0.75%) Actionable Recommendations
12 18 (0.71%) WCAG
13 17 (0.67%) HIPAA
14 16 (0.63%) NCSC
15 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
16 14 (0.55%) Basel III
16 14 (0.55%) IFRS
17 13 (0.51%) DO-254
18 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 190 (7.45%) Docker
2 164 (6.43%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.82%) Firmware
5 20 (0.78%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) HDFS
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 1 (0.039%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 186 (7.30%) Kubernetes
2 113 (4.43%) Terraform
3 76 (2.98%) Ansible
4 70 (2.75%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (2.00%) Grafana
6 47 (1.84%) SCCM
7 43 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.18%) OPNET
9 22 (0.86%) Puppet
10 16 (0.63%) Kibana
10 16 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.51%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
14 9 (0.35%) WSUS
15 7 (0.27%) Argo
15 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
17 5 (0.20%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 543 (21.30%) Microsoft
2 173 (6.79%) Oracle
3 166 (6.51%) SAP
4 116 (4.55%) ServiceNow
5 112 (4.39%) Google
6 95 (3.73%) Splunk
7 83 (3.26%) Cisco
8 55 (2.16%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.12%) Remedy
10 53 (2.08%) Databricks
11 50 (1.96%) Salesforce
11 50 (1.96%) VMware
12 42 (1.65%) Citrix
13 38 (1.49%) Palo Alto
14 32 (1.26%) IBM
15 29 (1.14%) CheckPoint
16 27 (1.06%) Informatica
17 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (0.98%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.86%) Adobe