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 18 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,455 2,466 3,036
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.58% 7.50% 7.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.63% 24.00% 26.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,308 1,391 1,765
10th Percentile £204 £250 £261
25th Percentile £363 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £714 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +0.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 217 263
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.12 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.90 £25.75 £25.43
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.52 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.98 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +0.51% -27.64% +18.97%

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 16,777 10,277 11,609
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.32% 31.26% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,244 6,313 7,369
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,269 822 822
10th Percentile £17.84 £17.98 £14.54
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.75 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -6.40%

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 18 August 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 18 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 18 August 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 -16 2,253 £500 - 2,578
UK excluding London -16 1,330 £475 +5.56% 2,214
London -21 970 £525 -4.55% 753
Work from Home -19 654 £500 - 874
South East -2 478 £500 +5.26% 655
North of England -17 330 £475 +5.80% 495
North West -15 194 £466 +0.05% 243
Midlands -32 176 £450 +0.67% 351
East of England -12 133 £425 -5.56% 282
West Midlands -35 131 £450 - 178
Yorkshire -12 123 £500 +23.84% 155
South West -24 123 £415 +11.41% 280
Scotland -49 64 £475 +5.56% 91
East Midlands -25 43 £475 +33.80% 173
Northern Ireland -14 15 £252 -52.00% 73
Wales -33 14 £530 +73.50% 56
North East -45 13 £450 +130.77% 107
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

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
1 151 (6.15%) SharePoint
2 110 (4.48%) Confluence
3 66 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.86%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.41%) SAS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) HCL Notes
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 244 (9.94%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 135 (5.50%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (4.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.32%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Windchill
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 53 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
7 7 (0.29%) HFM
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 563 (22.93%) Azure
2 318 (12.95%) AWS
3 226 (9.21%) Microsoft 365
4 225 (9.16%) Power Platform
5 152 (6.19%) Entra ID
6 139 (5.66%) GCP
7 105 (4.28%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.50%) SaaS
9 63 (2.57%) GitHub
10 51 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.04%) PowerApps
12 49 (2.00%) Power Automate
12 49 (2.00%) Serverless
13 45 (1.83%) Snowflake
14 43 (1.75%) OneDrive
15 41 (1.67%) Figma
16 40 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.14%) IaaS
18 27 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
19 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.77%) Firewall
2 83 (3.38%) DNS
3 69 (2.81%) Network Security
4 65 (2.65%) TCP/IP
5 63 (2.57%) VPN
6 43 (1.75%) DHCP
7 40 (1.63%) WAN
8 38 (1.55%) LAN
9 30 (1.22%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
13 18 (0.73%) Internet
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 16 (0.65%) OSPF
15 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
15 15 (0.61%) SSH
16 14 (0.57%) 5G
16 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (7.21%) Power BI
2 104 (4.24%) SQL Server
3 57 (2.32%) Relational Database
4 54 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
5 50 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (1.75%) Metadata
7 34 (1.38%) Tableau
8 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.14%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.98%) MySQL
11 24 (0.98%) Oracle Database
12 23 (0.94%) MongoDB
13 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
14 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 14 (0.57%) Power Query
17 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 182 (7.41%) JIRA
2 131 (5.34%) Git
3 56 (2.28%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.87%) GitLab
5 37 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.45%) MLflow
10 11 (0.45%) Postman
10 11 (0.45%) Subversion
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,076 (43.83%) Social Skills
2 721 (29.37%) Finance
3 581 (23.67%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 184 (7.49%) Banking
6 154 (6.27%) Organisational Skills
7 117 (4.77%) Aerospace
8 97 (3.95%) Legal
9 96 (3.91%) Manufacturing
9 96 (3.91%) Marketing
10 89 (3.63%) Presentation Skills
11 87 (3.54%) Telecoms
12 86 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.57%) Retail
15 50 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 50 (2.04%) Law
16 48 (1.96%) Pharmaceutical
17 41 (1.67%) Front Office
18 39 (1.59%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 338 (13.77%) Analyst
2 276 (11.24%) Senior
3 195 (7.94%) Lead
4 178 (7.25%) Developer
5 163 (6.64%) Architect
6 155 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 131 (5.34%) Project Manager
8 72 (2.93%) Consultant
9 69 (2.81%) Senior Manager
10 68 (2.77%) IT Support
11 65 (2.65%) Support Engineer
12 57 (2.32%) Designer
13 56 (2.28%) Product Manager
14 54 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
15 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
15 53 (2.16%) IT Manager
16 50 (2.04%) Delivery Manager
17 47 (1.91%) Administrator
17 47 (1.91%) Software Engineer
18 44 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.40%) REST
2 98 (3.99%) .NET
3 59 (2.40%) React
4 53 (2.16%) Kafka
5 48 (1.96%) RESTful
6 47 (1.91%) OAuth
7 46 (1.87%) HTML
8 41 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
9 36 (1.47%) Web Services
10 35 (1.43%) CSS
10 35 (1.43%) Middleware
10 35 (1.43%) OAuth2
11 34 (1.38%) SAML
12 32 (1.30%) OpenID
12 32 (1.30%) XML
13 31 (1.26%) .NET Framework
14 28 (1.14%) JSON
14 28 (1.14%) LDAP
14 28 (1.14%) SOAP
15 27 (1.10%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 210 (8.55%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.82%) Onboarding
2 143 (5.82%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
4 95 (3.87%) Cloud Native
5 77 (3.14%) Data Structures
6 68 (2.77%) Algorithms
7 65 (2.65%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.16%) Security Posture
9 49 (2.00%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
11 45 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
11 45 (1.83%) Virtual Team
12 41 (1.67%) Life Science
13 36 (1.47%) AI Agents
14 35 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.34%) PMI
15 33 (1.34%) SCADA
16 31 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 295 (12.02%) Windows
2 178 (7.25%) Linux
3 69 (2.81%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.44%) Unix
5 52 (2.12%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.22%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 847 (34.50%) Computer Science
2 667 (27.17%) Agile
3 640 (26.07%) Problem-Solving
4 463 (18.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 375 (15.27%) AI
7 329 (13.40%) DevOps
8 318 (12.95%) Project Management
9 303 (12.34%) Analytics
10 296 (12.06%) CI/CD
11 290 (11.81%) ITIL
12 260 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (9.78%) Decision-Making
14 237 (9.65%) Cybersecurity
15 227 (9.25%) Change Management
16 214 (8.72%) Software Engineering
17 212 (8.64%) Roadmaps
18 211 (8.59%) PRINCE2
19 210 (8.55%) Scrum
20 206 (8.39%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 423 (17.23%) Python
2 349 (14.22%) SQL
3 167 (6.80%) Java
3 167 (6.80%) PowerShell
4 109 (4.44%) C#
5 100 (4.07%) JavaScript
6 56 (2.28%) Bash
7 50 (2.04%) C++
8 40 (1.63%) TypeScript
9 26 (1.06%) Bicep
9 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
9 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
10 24 (0.98%) R
10 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
11 23 (0.94%) C
12 15 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
14 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
14 11 (0.45%) Scala
14 11 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 496 (20.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 462 (18.82%) Security Cleared
3 305 (12.42%) SC Cleared
4 214 (8.72%) Master's Degree
5 141 (5.74%) PMI Certification
6 121 (4.93%) Microsoft Certification
6 121 (4.93%) PMP
7 113 (4.60%) CISSP
8 85 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
9 78 (3.18%) Azure Certification
10 75 (3.05%) DV Cleared
11 64 (2.61%) BPSS Clearance
12 53 (2.16%) CISM
13 50 (2.04%) PhD
14 43 (1.75%) CCNA
15 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
16 40 (1.63%) CCNP
16 40 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
17 33 (1.34%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.46%) Data Quality
2 132 (5.38%) QA
3 108 (4.40%) NIST
4 104 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 93 (3.79%) PMO
6 71 (2.89%) GDPR
7 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
7 49 (2.00%) SLA
8 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 22 (0.90%) GRC
9 22 (0.90%) PCI DSS
10 21 (0.86%) NCSC
11 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) IFRS
14 11 (0.45%) COBIT
14 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) P3O
15 9 (0.37%) IEC 61508
16 8 (0.33%) HIPAA
System Software
1 203 (8.27%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.93%) Docker
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.06%) Firmware
5 24 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.29%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 131 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 99 (4.03%) Terraform
3 83 (3.38%) Microsoft Intune
4 66 (2.69%) Ansible
5 41 (1.67%) SCCM
6 29 (1.18%) Grafana
7 27 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 19 (0.77%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.29%) Argo
15 7 (0.29%) Control-M
15 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.29%) SCOM
16 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 635 (25.87%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.13%) Oracle
3 144 (5.87%) ServiceNow
4 137 (5.58%) SAP
5 92 (3.75%) Google
6 71 (2.89%) VMware
7 70 (2.85%) Cisco
8 65 (2.65%) Salesforce
9 62 (2.53%) Databricks
10 59 (2.40%) Adobe
11 53 (2.16%) IBM
12 42 (1.71%) Splunk
13 31 (1.26%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.18%) Red Hat
15 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
16 26 (1.06%) Citrix
17 22 (0.90%) Apple
18 20 (0.81%) Ariba
18 20 (0.81%) BeyondTrust
19 18 (0.73%) HP