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

6 months to
21 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 20 23
Rank change year-on-year -6 +3 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,356 2,911 3,637
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.04% 7.86% 7.59%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.88% 26.82% 26.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,286 1,655 2,273
10th Percentile £268 £225 £250
25th Percentile £400 £383 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £635 £619 £650
90th Percentile £750 £756 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -1.42% -5.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 169 215
10th Percentile £15.21 £20.09 £16.27
25th Percentile £22.82 £25.35 £26.24
Median hourly rate £33.50 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.18% -15.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £53.95 £71.00 £68.63
90th Percentile £86.25 £75.00 £82.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £50.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -33.00% - +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 10,766 10,852 13,603
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.18% 29.29% 28.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,754 6,579 8,761
10th Percentile £288 £313 £313
25th Percentile £413 £420 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £637 £650
90th Percentile £711 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 906 538 746
10th Percentile £17.08 £18.13 £16.58
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.26 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £53.58
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% -11.35% +19.07%
75th Percentile £39.88 £67.69 £68.75
90th Percentile £70.08 £75.00 £79.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £51.89
% change year-on-year -49.70% -3.64% +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 21 October 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 21 October 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 21 October 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 -6 1,999 £500 +0.05% 6,225
UK excluding London -2 1,150 £468 -1.42% 5,029
London -5 999 £550 +4.76% 2,396
Work from Home -1 685 £500 - 4,201
North of England -11 262 £450 -14.29% 1,064
South East +1 227 £463 +2.78% 2,072
Midlands -6 221 £475 +1.06% 557
West Midlands -7 166 £495 -1.00% 317
North West -6 152 £454 -15.66% 642
South West -2 133 £539 +3.06% 461
Scotland 0 128 £450 +5.88% 248
East of England -4 125 £500 +25.00% 541
Yorkshire -10 103 £461 -7.74% 288
East Midlands -9 55 £448 +12.00% 234
Northern Ireland -2 38 £569 +19.74% 92
Wales -8 36 £300 -25.00% 122
North East -18 7 £450 - 142

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
1 147 (6.24%) Confluence
2 115 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 67 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.16%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.72%) nginx
7 16 (0.68%) CMS
8 15 (0.64%) Skype for Business
9 14 (0.59%) IIS
10 13 (0.55%) Apache
11 10 (0.42%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
12 7 (0.30%) Moodle
13 6 (0.25%) Luigi
13 6 (0.25%) SAS
14 4 (0.17%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.17%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.17%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.17%) Tomcat
Applications
1 257 (10.91%) Microsoft Office
2 211 (8.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 130 (5.52%) Microsoft Project
4 110 (4.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (2.93%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.85%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.72%) Simulink
8 14 (0.59%) Trello
9 11 (0.47%) FrameMaker
9 11 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
10 10 (0.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.25%) Maya
11 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.25%) Revit
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 5 (0.21%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.13%) InDesign
13 3 (0.13%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 60 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.72%) Primavera
4 13 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.55%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.51%) Oracle EBS R12
5 12 (0.51%) SAP EWM
6 9 (0.38%) FLEXCUBE
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle BPM
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
6 9 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
6 9 (0.38%) Teamcenter
7 8 (0.34%) Endur
7 8 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
7 8 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
8 7 (0.30%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 7 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 7 (0.30%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 430 (18.25%) Azure
2 322 (13.67%) AWS
3 163 (6.92%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (6.45%) Power Platform
5 145 (6.15%) GCP
6 100 (4.24%) GitHub
7 84 (3.57%) SaaS
8 72 (3.06%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.97%) Serverless
10 62 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
11 41 (1.74%) Amazon S3
12 38 (1.61%) Cloud Computing
13 37 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
14 33 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
15 29 (1.23%) OneDrive
16 28 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.10%) Amazon ECS
17 26 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
18 25 (1.06%) OpenShift
19 23 (0.98%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.29%) Firewall
2 91 (3.86%) DNS
3 67 (2.84%) VPN
4 53 (2.25%) Network Security
5 43 (1.83%) TCP/IP
6 41 (1.74%) DHCP
7 32 (1.36%) Internet
7 32 (1.36%) WAN
8 31 (1.32%) HTTP
8 31 (1.32%) Wireless
9 29 (1.23%) LAN
10 26 (1.10%) Unified Communications
11 25 (1.06%) BGP
11 25 (1.06%) SSH
12 24 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.98%) VoIP
14 18 (0.76%) OSPF
14 18 (0.76%) Skype
15 17 (0.72%) MPLS
15 17 (0.72%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (5.01%) Power BI
2 94 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
3 81 (3.44%) SQL Server
4 74 (3.14%) NoSQL
5 60 (2.55%) Tableau
6 55 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
7 54 (2.29%) Relational Database
8 36 (1.53%) Big Data
9 30 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
10 26 (1.10%) Data Lake
11 23 (0.98%) MySQL
12 22 (0.93%) Hadoop
12 22 (0.93%) Metadata
13 20 (0.85%) MongoDB
13 20 (0.85%) Oracle Database
14 18 (0.76%) Redis
15 16 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
15 16 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 14 (0.59%) RDBMS
17 13 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 256 (10.87%) JIRA
2 112 (4.75%) Jenkins
3 109 (4.63%) Git
4 79 (3.35%) GitLab
5 28 (1.19%) Liquibase
6 24 (1.02%) Postman
7 19 (0.81%) Selenium
8 16 (0.68%) Artifactory
9 15 (0.64%) JUnit
10 12 (0.51%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.51%) SpecFlow
11 11 (0.47%) Vagrant
12 10 (0.42%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.42%) MLflow
12 10 (0.42%) Visual Studio
13 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.34%) IntelliJ
14 8 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
14 8 (0.34%) Subversion
General
1 1,229 (52.16%) Social Skills
2 757 (32.13%) Finance
3 564 (23.94%) Analytical Skills
4 265 (11.25%) Banking
5 150 (6.37%) Public Sector
6 108 (4.58%) Manufacturing
7 105 (4.46%) Presentation Skills
8 95 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
9 90 (3.82%) Marketing
10 84 (3.57%) Legal
11 75 (3.18%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (2.89%) Telecoms
13 63 (2.67%) Financial Institution
14 61 (2.59%) Investment Banking
15 60 (2.55%) Front Office
16 58 (2.46%) Pharmaceutical
17 49 (2.08%) Aerospace
18 48 (2.04%) Military
19 45 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 44 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 372 (15.79%) Analyst
2 253 (10.74%) Senior
3 243 (10.31%) Developer
4 154 (6.54%) Business Analyst
5 151 (6.41%) Lead
6 140 (5.94%) Architect
7 131 (5.56%) Project Manager
8 92 (3.90%) Consultant
9 76 (3.23%) Software Engineer
10 59 (2.50%) Support Analyst
10 59 (2.50%) Support Engineer
11 48 (2.04%) IT Support
12 46 (1.95%) Data Analyst
12 46 (1.95%) Security Engineer
13 44 (1.87%) IT Manager
13 44 (1.87%) Senior Developer
14 43 (1.83%) Solutions Architect
14 43 (1.83%) Technical Support
15 42 (1.78%) Data Engineer
16 39 (1.66%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (5.39%) REST
2 86 (3.65%) RESTful
3 81 (3.44%) HTML
4 69 (2.93%) .NET
5 63 (2.67%) CSS
5 63 (2.67%) Kafka
6 48 (2.04%) Web Services
7 47 (1.99%) XML
8 45 (1.91%) Middleware
9 43 (1.83%) React
10 40 (1.70%) Elastic Stack
10 40 (1.70%) SOAP
11 38 (1.61%) JSON
12 37 (1.57%) AngularJS
12 37 (1.57%) TensorFlow
13 32 (1.36%) Node.js
14 31 (1.32%) OAuth
14 31 (1.32%) PyTorch
14 31 (1.32%) Spring
15 28 (1.19%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 191 (8.11%) Management Information System
2 97 (4.12%) Cloud Native
3 89 (3.78%) Product Ownership
4 83 (3.52%) Algorithms
5 76 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
6 65 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.67%) Onboarding
8 54 (2.29%) Virtual Team
9 52 (2.21%) Public Cloud
10 50 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
10 50 (2.12%) Data Centre
11 45 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
12 43 (1.83%) Derivative
13 42 (1.78%) Life Science
14 39 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.53%) Data Structures
16 35 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
17 34 (1.44%) PKI
18 33 (1.40%) Mobile App
19 31 (1.32%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 239 (10.14%) Windows
2 194 (8.23%) Linux
3 79 (3.35%) Unix
4 49 (2.08%) Windows Server
5 33 (1.40%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.19%) Apple iOS
7 22 (0.93%) Android
8 21 (0.89%) Mac OS
9 17 (0.72%) VMS
10 16 (0.68%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
12 8 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) CentOS
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.13%) AIX
16 3 (0.13%) SUSE
16 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 955 (40.53%) Computer Science
2 737 (31.28%) Problem-Solving
3 675 (28.65%) Agile
4 370 (15.70%) Project Management
5 331 (14.05%) DevOps
6 319 (13.54%) Stakeholder Management
7 254 (10.78%) Change Management
8 252 (10.70%) CI/CD
9 246 (10.44%) ITIL
10 227 (9.63%) Analytics
11 215 (9.13%) Software Engineering
12 213 (9.04%) Migration
13 210 (8.91%) Cybersecurity
13 210 (8.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 200 (8.49%) Continuous Improvement
15 197 (8.36%) AI
16 192 (8.15%) Decision-Making
17 177 (7.51%) Risk Management
18 165 (7.00%) Roadmaps
19 163 (6.92%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 469 (19.91%) Python
2 359 (15.24%) SQL
3 206 (8.74%) Java
4 123 (5.22%) JavaScript
5 97 (4.12%) PowerShell
6 80 (3.40%) C++
7 72 (3.06%) C#
8 62 (2.63%) Go
9 46 (1.95%) TypeScript
10 42 (1.78%) Bash
11 40 (1.70%) R
12 25 (1.06%) Perl
13 22 (0.93%) C
13 22 (0.93%) MATLAB
14 21 (0.89%) Ruby
15 20 (0.85%) PL/SQL
16 18 (0.76%) Shell Script
17 17 (0.72%) Apex Code
17 17 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
18 15 (0.64%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 636 (26.99%) Computer Science Degree
2 344 (14.60%) Master's Degree
3 298 (12.65%) Security Cleared
4 227 (9.63%) SC Cleared
5 131 (5.56%) PMI Certification
6 123 (5.22%) PMP
7 113 (4.80%) CISSP
8 82 (3.48%) PhD
9 76 (3.23%) Microsoft Certification
10 68 (2.89%) AWS Certification
11 66 (2.80%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.80%) Cisco Certification
12 65 (2.76%) CISM
13 48 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
14 47 (1.99%) DV Cleared
15 46 (1.95%) HND
16 39 (1.66%) CCNP
16 39 (1.66%) HNC
17 36 (1.53%) CCNA
18 31 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (5.18%) QA
2 111 (4.71%) GDPR
3 103 (4.37%) Data Quality
4 97 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 77 (3.27%) NIST
6 51 (2.16%) PMO
7 48 (2.04%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.53%) SLA
9 29 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.10%) GRC
10 26 (1.10%) PCI DSS
11 23 (0.98%) HIPAA
12 20 (0.85%) COBIT
13 19 (0.81%) NCSC
14 17 (0.72%) WCAG
15 15 (0.64%) NIST 800
16 14 (0.59%) Def Stans
17 13 (0.55%) JSP 440
18 12 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
19 11 (0.47%) P3O
System Software
1 159 (6.75%) Docker
2 143 (6.07%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.19%) Firmware
5 15 (0.64%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.42%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.42%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.42%) Postfix
6 10 (0.42%) Squid
6 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.34%) XenApp
8 6 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.17%) vSphere
11 3 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
11 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.13%) NDS
11 3 (0.13%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 149 (6.32%) Kubernetes
2 125 (5.31%) Terraform
3 99 (4.20%) Ansible
4 61 (2.59%) Grafana
5 56 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
6 54 (2.29%) Prometheus
7 41 (1.74%) SCCM
8 16 (0.68%) Puppet
8 16 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.55%) Argo
10 12 (0.51%) Nessus
11 11 (0.47%) QRadar
12 10 (0.42%) Proxmox
13 8 (0.34%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.30%) AirWatch
14 7 (0.30%) SCOM
14 7 (0.30%) WSUS
15 6 (0.25%) CSIRT
15 6 (0.25%) Kibana
15 6 (0.25%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 493 (20.93%) Microsoft
2 151 (6.41%) SAP
3 140 (5.94%) Oracle
4 115 (4.88%) ServiceNow
5 96 (4.07%) Google
6 86 (3.65%) Cisco
7 85 (3.61%) Splunk
8 69 (2.93%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.95%) VMware
10 40 (1.70%) IBM
11 34 (1.44%) Databricks
12 32 (1.36%) Citrix
13 31 (1.32%) Adobe
14 25 (1.06%) Atlassian
14 25 (1.06%) Palo Alto
15 24 (1.02%) Workday
16 21 (0.89%) Apple
17 17 (0.72%) Red Hat
18 16 (0.68%) Fortinet
18 16 (0.68%) Remedy