Degree Contracts

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

6 months to
30 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 18 28
Rank change year-on-year -7 +10 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,312 3,551 3,747
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 7.54% 8.23% 6.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 24.34% 27.60% 25.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,317 1,913 2,302
10th Percentile £242 £225 £272
25th Percentile £363 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -5.66% +0.95%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £660
90th Percentile £750 £750 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -7.69% -2.50% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 408 198
10th Percentile £20.00 £15.85 £16.17
25th Percentile £26.32 £22.46 £24.81
Median hourly rate £46.25 £40.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.63% -20.00% +33.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.30 £65.56
90th Percentile £81.35 £74.00 £83.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.23 £42.25 £48.21
% change year-on-year -4.78% -12.35% +37.73%

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 9,498 12,868 14,954
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.99% 29.81% 26.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,860 7,945 9,899
10th Percentile £275 £313 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.90% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £650
90th Percentile £701 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £530 £525
% change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 635 1,115 731
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.00 £15.25
25th Percentile £20.19 £20.00 £22.50
Median hourly rate £28.15 £40.94 £55.33
Median % change year-on-year -31.24% -26.00% +24.33%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.24 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.13 £43.00 £53.67
% change year-on-year -36.92% -19.87% +53.33%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Degree.

Daily rate trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 30 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Degree.

Hourly rate trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 30 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 Contract 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 June 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 -8 1,888 £500 - 29,141
UK excluding London -5 1,086 £450 -7.69% 14,735
London -4 986 £550 +4.76% 15,945
Work from Home -6 695 £525 +0.15% 11,177
North of England -11 233 £455 -10.26% 3,200
South East -11 214 £478 -4.50% 3,931
Midlands -5 172 £371 -14.71% 2,183
Scotland -2 145 £450 - 1,177
North West -11 144 £456 -13.14% 1,913
South West -2 127 £475 -9.52% 1,620
West Midlands -3 122 £413 -13.16% 1,378
East of England 0 112 £500 +11.11% 1,957
Yorkshire -15 72 £447 -8.78% 1,003
Wales +4 55 £305 -32.12% 433
East Midlands -9 50 £356 +36.75% 794
Northern Ireland -1 34 £425 +6.25% 419
North East -14 17 £195 -61.95% 291
Channel Islands - 1 - -

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 100 (4.33%) Confluence
2 97 (4.20%) SharePoint
3 77 (3.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 66 (2.85%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.74%) CMS
6 14 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.56%) Apache
8 12 (0.52%) SAS
9 10 (0.43%) OpenStack
10 8 (0.35%) GemFire
10 8 (0.35%) Oracle Coherence
10 8 (0.35%) Skype for Business
11 7 (0.30%) Moodle
12 6 (0.26%) Camunda
12 6 (0.26%) IIS
13 5 (0.22%) IBM Domino
14 4 (0.17%) JBoss
14 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.17%) Tomcat
Applications
1 232 (10.03%) Microsoft Office
2 202 (8.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 126 (5.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 104 (4.50%) Microsoft Project
5 65 (2.81%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.87%) Trello
7 18 (0.78%) Simulink
8 12 (0.52%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.35%) AutoCAD
9 8 (0.35%) Windchill
10 7 (0.30%) Revit
11 6 (0.26%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.26%) Maya
11 6 (0.26%) Oracle Smart View
12 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.17%) Sketch
13 3 (0.13%) Camtasia
13 3 (0.13%) CATIA
13 3 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.13%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 54 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.65%) FLEXCUBE
4 14 (0.61%) Oracle BPM
5 9 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.35%) Endur
6 8 (0.35%) Primavera
6 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 7 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
7 7 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.30%) SAP CO
7 7 (0.30%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.26%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.26%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 405 (17.52%) Azure
2 326 (14.10%) AWS
3 154 (6.66%) Power Platform
4 151 (6.53%) Microsoft 365
5 111 (4.80%) GCP
6 79 (3.42%) SaaS
7 58 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
8 49 (2.12%) Amazon S3
9 47 (2.03%) Entra ID
9 47 (2.03%) GitHub
9 47 (2.03%) Serverless
10 44 (1.90%) Cloud Computing
11 38 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
13 33 (1.43%) Azure Sentinel
13 33 (1.43%) PaaS
14 27 (1.17%) IaaS
15 26 (1.12%) OneDrive
16 25 (1.08%) Snowflake
17 24 (1.04%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 132 (5.71%) Firewall
2 104 (4.50%) VPN
3 85 (3.68%) DNS
4 77 (3.33%) Network Security
5 52 (2.25%) TCP/IP
5 52 (2.25%) Wireless
6 47 (2.03%) WAN
7 45 (1.95%) DHCP
8 43 (1.86%) BGP
9 40 (1.73%) LAN
10 37 (1.60%) Skype
11 36 (1.56%) OSPF
12 28 (1.21%) WebEx
13 25 (1.08%) Internet
13 25 (1.08%) MPLS
14 24 (1.04%) IPsec
15 22 (0.95%) Cisco IOS
16 21 (0.91%) VLAN
16 21 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
17 19 (0.82%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (5.41%) Power BI
2 76 (3.29%) SQL Server
3 75 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.68%) Relational Database
5 61 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
6 59 (2.55%) Big Data
6 59 (2.55%) Tableau
7 45 (1.95%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.69%) Hadoop
9 33 (1.43%) Oracle Database
10 31 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.21%) MySQL
11 28 (1.21%) Oracle Reports
12 24 (1.04%) MongoDB
13 23 (0.99%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
14 20 (0.87%) Redis
15 18 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.74%) Metadata
17 12 (0.52%) Apache Hive
Development Applications
1 206 (8.91%) JIRA
2 94 (4.07%) Git
3 71 (3.07%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.69%) GitLab
5 22 (0.95%) Selenium
6 20 (0.87%) Bitbucket
7 14 (0.61%) Artifactory
8 13 (0.56%) JUnit
8 13 (0.56%) Postman
9 10 (0.43%) SpecFlow
10 9 (0.39%) Gradle
10 9 (0.39%) MLflow
11 8 (0.35%) ERwin
11 8 (0.35%) Subversion
11 8 (0.35%) TeamCity
12 7 (0.30%) Cucumber
12 7 (0.30%) Maven
12 7 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
13 6 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 6 (0.26%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,200 (51.90%) Social Skills
2 690 (29.84%) Finance
3 620 (26.82%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (9.08%) Banking
5 175 (7.57%) Public Sector
6 117 (5.06%) Marketing
7 113 (4.89%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.24%) Organisational Skills
9 92 (3.98%) Manufacturing
10 80 (3.46%) Telecoms
11 76 (3.29%) Legal
12 65 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
13 61 (2.64%) Front Office
13 61 (2.64%) Investment Banking
14 56 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 53 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
16 49 (2.12%) Financial Institution
17 47 (2.03%) Electronics
18 41 (1.77%) Military
19 38 (1.64%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 314 (13.58%) Analyst
2 254 (10.99%) Developer
3 251 (10.86%) Senior
4 151 (6.53%) Architect
5 147 (6.36%) Business Analyst
6 124 (5.36%) Lead
7 116 (5.02%) Project Manager
8 84 (3.63%) Consultant
9 77 (3.33%) Support Engineer
10 76 (3.29%) Network Engineer
11 56 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
12 52 (2.25%) Java Developer
13 45 (1.95%) Data Engineer
14 43 (1.86%) Senior Developer
15 42 (1.82%) IT Manager
15 42 (1.82%) Software Engineer
16 41 (1.77%) Data Analyst
17 39 (1.69%) Security Engineer
18 35 (1.51%) Data Scientist
18 35 (1.51%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (4.02%) HTML
2 78 (3.37%) .NET
3 77 (3.33%) CSS
4 68 (2.94%) REST
5 53 (2.29%) Kafka
6 52 (2.25%) Web Services
7 48 (2.08%) React
8 46 (1.99%) AngularJS
9 35 (1.51%) TensorFlow
10 34 (1.47%) Spring
11 32 (1.38%) Middleware
12 31 (1.34%) Pandas
12 31 (1.34%) RESTful
13 30 (1.30%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.21%) SOAP
15 24 (1.04%) Node.js
16 23 (0.99%) XML
17 21 (0.91%) .NET Framework
18 20 (0.87%) JSON
19 19 (0.82%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 197 (8.52%) Management Information System
2 91 (3.94%) Product Ownership
3 78 (3.37%) Algorithms
4 60 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
5 52 (2.25%) Data Centre
6 49 (2.12%) Onboarding
7 47 (2.03%) Virtual Team
8 45 (1.95%) Cloud Native
9 41 (1.77%) Data Structures
9 41 (1.77%) PKI
9 41 (1.77%) PMI
9 41 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
10 40 (1.73%) Derivative
11 38 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
12 35 (1.51%) Distributed Systems
13 34 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
14 33 (1.43%) Life Science
15 26 (1.12%) Distributed Computing
16 25 (1.08%) CMDB
16 25 (1.08%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 179 (7.74%) Windows
2 131 (5.67%) Linux
3 56 (2.42%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.38%) Windows 10
5 29 (1.25%) Unix
6 23 (0.99%) Android
7 18 (0.78%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.30%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.26%) Solaris
11 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.17%) AIX
12 4 (0.17%) CentOS
12 4 (0.17%) SUSE
12 4 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 927 (40.10%) Computer Science
2 746 (32.27%) Problem-Solving
3 610 (26.38%) Agile
4 417 (18.04%) Project Management
5 260 (11.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 256 (11.07%) DevOps
7 243 (10.51%) Analytics
8 202 (8.74%) ITIL
9 191 (8.26%) CI/CD
10 185 (8.00%) Change Management
11 182 (7.87%) Migration
12 180 (7.79%) Decision-Making
13 178 (7.70%) Roadmaps
14 176 (7.61%) Risk Management
15 172 (7.44%) Artificial Intelligence
16 170 (7.35%) Software Engineering
17 167 (7.22%) Continuous Improvement
18 165 (7.14%) Business Intelligence
19 163 (7.05%) Scrum
20 162 (7.01%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 413 (17.86%) Python
2 337 (14.58%) SQL
3 231 (9.99%) Java
4 119 (5.15%) JavaScript
5 85 (3.68%) C#
5 85 (3.68%) PowerShell
6 83 (3.59%) C++
7 44 (1.90%) Bash
7 44 (1.90%) R
8 28 (1.21%) C
9 27 (1.17%) PL/SQL
10 20 (0.87%) Perl
11 18 (0.78%) Shell Script
11 18 (0.78%) TypeScript
12 17 (0.74%) PHP
13 16 (0.69%) MATLAB
13 16 (0.69%) Ruby
14 15 (0.65%) Rust
15 14 (0.61%) VBA
16 13 (0.56%) Scala
Qualifications
1 600 (25.95%) Computer Science Degree
2 290 (12.54%) Master's Degree
3 283 (12.24%) Security Cleared
4 220 (9.52%) SC Cleared
5 141 (6.10%) PMI Certification
6 119 (5.15%) PMP
7 110 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
8 87 (3.76%) CISSP
9 86 (3.72%) Microsoft Certification
10 83 (3.59%) PhD
11 70 (3.03%) AWS Certification
11 70 (3.03%) CCNP
12 67 (2.90%) CCNA
13 64 (2.77%) Azure Certification
14 50 (2.16%) DV Cleared
14 50 (2.16%) Numerate Degree
15 48 (2.08%) CISM
16 37 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
17 32 (1.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 27 (1.17%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (5.23%) QA
2 111 (4.80%) Data Quality
3 73 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.77%) NIST
5 63 (2.72%) GDPR
6 53 (2.29%) PMO
7 49 (2.12%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.08%) SLA
9 20 (0.87%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.78%) HIPAA
11 16 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 13 (0.56%) COBIT
12 13 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 13 (0.56%) NCSC
12 13 (0.56%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 11 (0.48%) GRC
15 10 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.39%) MiFID
16 9 (0.39%) SEPA
System Software
1 140 (6.06%) Active Directory
2 92 (3.98%) Docker
3 46 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 25 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.82%) BitLocker
7 15 (0.65%) Firmware
8 12 (0.52%) VMware NSX
9 11 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.43%) Microsoft App-V
11 9 (0.39%) Terminal Services
12 8 (0.35%) GridGain
13 7 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
14 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 6 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.17%) vSphere
15 4 (0.17%) XenApp
16 3 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
17 2 (0.087%) iptables
17 2 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 119 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.85%) Ansible
3 79 (3.42%) Terraform
4 45 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (1.04%) SCCM
6 21 (0.91%) vCenter Server
7 18 (0.78%) Grafana
8 17 (0.74%) Puppet
9 14 (0.61%) WSUS
10 13 (0.56%) Prometheus
10 13 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.52%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.39%) Nagios
12 9 (0.39%) vMotion
13 7 (0.30%) AirWatch
13 7 (0.30%) Argo
14 5 (0.22%) Cacti
14 5 (0.22%) FortiGate
15 4 (0.17%) Nessus
15 4 (0.17%) SCOM
Vendors
1 454 (19.64%) Microsoft
2 160 (6.92%) Oracle
3 154 (6.66%) SAP
4 123 (5.32%) Cisco
4 123 (5.32%) ServiceNow
5 93 (4.02%) Google
6 78 (3.37%) Salesforce
7 57 (2.47%) VMware
8 35 (1.51%) Adobe
8 35 (1.51%) Atlassian
8 35 (1.51%) Citrix
9 32 (1.38%) Databricks
10 28 (1.21%) Palo Alto
11 25 (1.08%) Apple
11 25 (1.08%) Workday
12 23 (0.99%) Splunk
13 21 (0.91%) F5
13 21 (0.91%) Fortinet
14 20 (0.87%) IBM
15 18 (0.78%) Polycom