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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,539 2,284 3,688
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.72% 7.80% 8.33%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.08% 25.43% 27.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,497 1,328 2,010
10th Percentile £275 £250 £205
25th Percentile £400 £399 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -0.05% -5.61%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £467 £500
% change year-on-year +5.35% -6.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 171 370
10th Percentile £15.97 £20.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.40 £28.46 £21.80
Median hourly rate £46.98 £46.30 £38.13
Median % change year-on-year +1.47% +21.44% -15.28%
75th Percentile £83.19 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £45.00 £39.92
% change year-on-year +11.11% +12.73% -11.29%

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 14,867 8,981 13,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.48% 30.66% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,794 5,724 8,418
10th Percentile £341 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.89% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,090 490 1,010
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £13.83
25th Percentile £20.46 £24.18 £17.72
Median hourly rate £36.00 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.29% +13.33% -28.57%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.63 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £47.81 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.79% +27.48% -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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -7 2,216 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -5 1,319 £492 +5.35% 2,012
London -11 974 £513 -6.82% 866
Work from Home -5 704 £500 -4.76% 927
South East -4 350 £500 - 660
North of England -5 347 £439 -7.53% 472
Midlands -20 207 £500 +40.45% 318
North West -5 182 £400 -15.79% 244
West Midlands -18 155 £498 +53.08% 181
South West -5 149 £694 +30.16% 220
Yorkshire -13 148 £516 +1.98% 164
East of England -9 137 £500 - 213
Scotland -5 97 £500 +14.29% 94
East Midlands -21 51 £531 +49.16% 136
Wales -11 42 £303 +5.76% 61
North East -14 18 £407 -9.56% 71
Northern Ireland -9 16 £388 +24.00% 17

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
1 194 (7.64%) Confluence
2 113 (4.45%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (2.17%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.75%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.24%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 3 (0.12%) IIS
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.079%) Appian
12 2 (0.079%) Camunda
12 2 (0.079%) nginx
Applications
1 312 (12.29%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 201 (7.92%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.80%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.47%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.43%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
13 2 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
14 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.039%) InDesign
14 1 (0.039%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 71 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.91%) Primavera
4 20 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
9 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 544 (21.43%) Azure
2 307 (12.09%) AWS
3 210 (8.27%) Microsoft 365
4 199 (7.84%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.28%) GCP
6 108 (4.25%) Entra ID
6 108 (4.25%) SaaS
7 101 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (2.91%) GitHub
9 51 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
10 49 (1.93%) Serverless
11 42 (1.65%) Cloud Computing
12 41 (1.61%) Power Automate
12 41 (1.61%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.26%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.22%) IaaS
14 31 (1.22%) PaaS
14 31 (1.22%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 121 (4.77%) Firewall
2 63 (2.48%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.36%) DNS
3 60 (2.36%) WAN
4 59 (2.32%) LAN
5 50 (1.97%) Network Security
6 42 (1.65%) VPN
7 30 (1.18%) BGP
8 29 (1.14%) Wireless
9 28 (1.10%) HTTP
10 26 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 24 (0.95%) OSPF
11 24 (0.95%) Skype
12 23 (0.91%) Internet
13 20 (0.79%) DHCP
14 19 (0.75%) VLAN
14 19 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.63%) SAN
16 14 (0.55%) SSL
16 14 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.14%) Power BI
2 96 (3.78%) SQL Server
3 90 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 57 (2.24%) NoSQL
6 51 (2.01%) Big Data
7 50 (1.97%) Relational Database
8 45 (1.77%) Tableau
9 40 (1.58%) MySQL
10 35 (1.38%) Metadata
11 31 (1.22%) Data Lake
12 30 (1.18%) Hadoop
13 21 (0.83%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 17 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
19 10 (0.39%) GIS
19 10 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 298 (11.74%) JIRA
2 124 (4.88%) Git
3 74 (2.91%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.24%) GitLab
5 31 (1.22%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.87%) Selenium
8 18 (0.71%) MLflow
9 15 (0.59%) 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 (0.32%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 7 (0.28%) JUnit
General
1 1,209 (47.62%) Social Skills
2 782 (30.80%) Finance
3 565 (22.25%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (10.04%) Banking
5 214 (8.43%) Public Sector
6 123 (4.84%) Presentation Skills
7 109 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
8 96 (3.78%) Marketing
9 88 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
9 88 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
10 82 (3.23%) Manufacturing
11 75 (2.95%) Legal
12 74 (2.91%) Aerospace
13 67 (2.64%) Telecoms
14 54 (2.13%) Military
15 52 (2.05%) Front Office
16 50 (1.97%) Financial Institution
17 48 (1.89%) Retail
18 46 (1.81%) Electronics
19 44 (1.73%) Law
Job Titles
1 362 (14.26%) Analyst
2 252 (9.93%) Senior
3 211 (8.31%) Architect
3 211 (8.31%) Lead
4 190 (7.48%) Developer
4 190 (7.48%) Project Manager
5 163 (6.42%) Business Analyst
6 95 (3.74%) Consultant
7 73 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
8 64 (2.52%) Delivery Manager
9 60 (2.36%) Senior Analyst
9 60 (2.36%) Technical Support
10 57 (2.24%) Software Engineer
11 55 (2.17%) Security Engineer
12 51 (2.01%) Data Scientist
13 48 (1.89%) Designer
14 46 (1.81%) IT Support
15 45 (1.77%) Product Manager
16 42 (1.65%) Systems Engineer
17 39 (1.54%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.53%) REST
2 73 (2.88%) .NET
3 66 (2.60%) RESTful
4 56 (2.21%) React
5 55 (2.17%) HTML
6 51 (2.01%) Middleware
7 46 (1.81%) Kafka
8 41 (1.61%) CSS
9 40 (1.58%) PyTorch
10 39 (1.54%) Elastic Stack
10 39 (1.54%) XML
11 38 (1.50%) JSON
11 38 (1.50%) TensorFlow
12 37 (1.46%) SOAP
13 36 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
13 36 (1.42%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.30%) Pandas
14 33 (1.30%) Spring
15 31 (1.22%) OAuth
16 28 (1.10%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.07%) Management Information System
2 165 (6.50%) Product Ownership
3 121 (4.77%) Onboarding
4 104 (4.10%) Cloud Native
5 90 (3.54%) Algorithms
6 85 (3.35%) Virtual Team
7 70 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
8 69 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
9 68 (2.68%) Data Centre
10 63 (2.48%) Data Structures
11 58 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
11 58 (2.28%) PMI
12 49 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
13 44 (1.73%) Derivative
14 35 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.34%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
17 31 (1.22%) Equities
18 30 (1.18%) AI Agents
18 30 (1.18%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 292 (11.50%) Windows
2 195 (7.68%) Linux
3 72 (2.84%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.64%) Unix
5 57 (2.24%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.30%) Android
7 27 (1.06%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 15 (0.59%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 946 (37.26%) Computer Science
2 781 (30.76%) Agile
3 683 (26.90%) Problem-Solving
4 412 (16.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 367 (14.45%) DevOps
6 362 (14.26%) AI
7 355 (13.98%) Continuous Improvement
8 350 (13.78%) Project Management
9 304 (11.97%) CI/CD
10 280 (11.03%) Change Management
11 278 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 276 (10.87%) Analytics
12 276 (10.87%) Cybersecurity
13 264 (10.40%) ITIL
14 258 (10.16%) Decision-Making
15 248 (9.77%) Migration
16 235 (9.26%) Project Delivery
17 229 (9.02%) Software Engineering
18 224 (8.82%) PRINCE2
19 219 (8.63%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 434 (17.09%) Python
2 368 (14.49%) SQL
3 173 (6.81%) Java
4 124 (4.88%) PowerShell
5 93 (3.66%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.27%) C#
7 73 (2.88%) C++
8 45 (1.77%) Bash
8 45 (1.77%) TypeScript
9 39 (1.54%) Go
10 31 (1.22%) R
11 24 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.71%) Perl
12 18 (0.71%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.63%) C
14 15 (0.59%) Kotlin
14 15 (0.59%) Rust
15 14 (0.55%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.51%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 587 (23.12%) Computer Science Degree
2 483 (19.02%) Security Cleared
3 363 (14.30%) Master's Degree
4 340 (13.39%) SC Cleared
5 152 (5.99%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.12%) PMP
7 126 (4.96%) CISSP
8 93 (3.66%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (2.95%) CISM
10 71 (2.80%) PhD
11 69 (2.72%) TOGAF Certification
12 63 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.40%) DV Cleared
14 60 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
15 58 (2.28%) Azure Certification
16 42 (1.65%) MBA
17 39 (1.54%) CCNP
18 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
19 34 (1.34%) CBAP
20 32 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (6.38%) QA
2 126 (4.96%) GDPR
3 108 (4.25%) PMO
4 102 (4.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (3.86%) NIST
6 93 (3.66%) Data Quality
7 50 (1.97%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.77%) SLA
9 44 (1.73%) Accessibility
10 29 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.91%) GRC
12 21 (0.83%) NCSC
13 18 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.63%) WCAG
15 14 (0.55%) IFRS
16 13 (0.51%) Basel III
17 12 (0.47%) COBIT
17 12 (0.47%) IFRS 17
18 11 (0.43%) SOC 2
System Software
1 172 (6.77%) Docker
2 158 (6.22%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.83%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.71%) Firmware
6 9 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.24%) vSphere
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.079%) HDFS
11 2 (0.079%) NDS
11 2 (0.079%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.079%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.079%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.039%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 174 (6.85%) Kubernetes
2 104 (4.10%) Terraform
3 76 (2.99%) Ansible
4 68 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 54 (2.13%) Grafana
6 45 (1.77%) Prometheus
7 39 (1.54%) SCCM
8 30 (1.18%) OPNET
9 17 (0.67%) Puppet
9 17 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.51%) Kibana
11 13 (0.51%) Nmap
12 12 (0.47%) SCOM
13 9 (0.35%) Kiali
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.28%) WSUS
15 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 558 (21.98%) Microsoft
2 156 (6.14%) Oracle
2 156 (6.14%) SAP
3 125 (4.92%) ServiceNow
4 108 (4.25%) Google
5 85 (3.35%) Cisco
6 84 (3.31%) Splunk
7 58 (2.28%) Databricks
8 55 (2.17%) Remedy
9 51 (2.01%) Atlassian
10 50 (1.97%) VMware
11 47 (1.85%) Citrix
12 45 (1.77%) IBM
12 45 (1.77%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.54%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.22%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.02%) Informatica
16 24 (0.95%) Adobe
16 24 (0.95%) BiZZdesign
17 21 (0.83%) Red Hat