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 12 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,390 2,287 3,638
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.03% 7.83% 8.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.78% 25.32% 27.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,383 1,312 1,923
10th Percentile £250 £241 £216
25th Percentile £375 £379 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £633
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 179 409
10th Percentile £17.77 £17.35 £14.04
25th Percentile £27.97 £27.20 £22.50
Median hourly rate £55.75 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £45.66 £41.50
% change year-on-year +42.36% +10.02% -7.78%

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 15,141 9,032 13,069
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.87% 30.93% 30.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,047 5,698 8,072
10th Percentile £350 £285 £305
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £623 £650
90th Percentile £720 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% +1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,082 514 1,069
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.82
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.46 £17.80
Median hourly rate £48.05 £39.18 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.64% -2.05% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.46 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.07 £75.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £39.66 £40.94
% change year-on-year +19.77% -3.13% -17.91%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 12 May 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 -9 2,130 £500 -2.91% 2,711
UK excluding London -8 1,298 £475 +5.56% 2,022
London -16 895 £504 -8.41% 990
Work from Home -12 645 £500 - 1,155
South East -3 368 £496 -0.20% 700
North of England -14 318 £417 -8.45% 447
Midlands -20 211 £503 +57.03% 312
North West -9 166 £400 -14.12% 243
West Midlands -26 147 £500 +66.67% 194
East of England -6 138 £450 -10.00% 217
Yorkshire -14 138 £475 +14.73% 141
South West -15 138 £568 +18.35% 241
Scotland -11 91 £500 +11.11% 84
East Midlands -13 62 £525 +47.47% 117
Wales -19 28 £370 +21.12% 49
North East -26 14 £450 - 68
Northern Ireland -6 13 £456 +7.35% 19

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
1 168 (7.03%) Confluence
2 118 (4.94%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (2.05%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.92%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) IIS
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.084%) Drupal
12 2 (0.084%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.084%) nginx
12 2 (0.084%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.084%) WinCC
Applications
1 305 (12.76%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 189 (7.91%) Microsoft Project
4 141 (5.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.68%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Simulink
8 10 (0.42%) Adobe Illustrator
8 10 (0.42%) Photoshop
9 9 (0.38%) Trello
10 8 (0.33%) Adobe After Effects
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Sketch
12 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.084%) FrameMaker
15 1 (0.042%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 70 (2.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.71%) Primavera
4 14 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 3 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 499 (20.88%) Azure
2 285 (11.92%) AWS
3 203 (8.49%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (7.87%) Power Platform
5 108 (4.52%) Entra ID
6 97 (4.06%) SaaS
7 95 (3.97%) GCP
8 88 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 57 (2.38%) GitHub
10 43 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.42%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.38%) Google Workspace
12 33 (1.38%) PaaS
13 32 (1.34%) Figma
14 30 (1.26%) IaaS
14 30 (1.26%) Snowflake
15 28 (1.17%) Serverless
16 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.13%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.56%) Firewall
2 63 (2.64%) TCP/IP
3 57 (2.38%) DNS
4 56 (2.34%) WAN
5 53 (2.22%) LAN
6 49 (2.05%) Network Security
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 27 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) Ethernet
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 21 (0.88%) Skype
12 18 (0.75%) HTTP
13 17 (0.71%) DHCP
13 17 (0.71%) SAN
14 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.50%) IPsec
15 12 (0.50%) SSL
15 12 (0.50%) VLAN
15 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.61%) Power BI
2 97 (4.06%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.05%) Big Data
7 40 (1.67%) Metadata
8 37 (1.55%) Tableau
9 34 (1.42%) NoSQL
10 30 (1.26%) MySQL
11 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 22 (0.92%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.88%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.54%) Oracle Database
17 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 12 (0.50%) Power Query
17 12 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
18 10 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 272 (11.38%) JIRA
2 109 (4.56%) Git
3 45 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.72%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.84%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 13 (0.54%) Gradle
10 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.42%) Postman
13 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.38%) JUnit
13 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.29%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.25%) Artifactory
General
1 1,118 (46.78%) Social Skills
2 732 (30.63%) Finance
3 518 (21.67%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.83%) Banking
5 200 (8.37%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.44%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.15%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.18%) Marketing
9 87 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.18%) Legal
11 72 (3.01%) Aerospace
11 72 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (2.93%) Manufacturing
13 69 (2.89%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.43%) Military
15 52 (2.18%) Law
16 47 (1.97%) Retail
17 39 (1.63%) Front Office
17 39 (1.63%) Pharmaceutical
18 38 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 338 (14.14%) Analyst
2 250 (10.46%) Senior
3 210 (8.79%) Architect
4 185 (7.74%) Lead
5 180 (7.53%) Project Manager
6 169 (7.07%) Developer
7 160 (6.69%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.10%) Consultant
9 67 (2.80%) Senior Analyst
9 67 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
10 63 (2.64%) Delivery Manager
11 58 (2.43%) Technical Support
12 57 (2.38%) Designer
13 50 (2.09%) Software Engineer
14 49 (2.05%) Security Engineer
15 48 (2.01%) Product Manager
16 44 (1.84%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.84%) Senior Manager
17 43 (1.80%) Systems Engineer
18 42 (1.76%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.97%) REST
2 79 (3.31%) .NET
3 59 (2.47%) React
4 57 (2.38%) Middleware
5 50 (2.09%) HTML
6 45 (1.88%) Kafka
6 45 (1.88%) RESTful
7 42 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.59%) CSS
9 36 (1.51%) SOAP
9 36 (1.51%) Spring Boot
9 36 (1.51%) XML
10 33 (1.38%) Spring
11 32 (1.34%) PyTorch
12 29 (1.21%) JSON
12 29 (1.21%) Pandas
13 28 (1.17%) .NET Framework
14 27 (1.13%) OAuth
15 26 (1.09%) TensorFlow
16 25 (1.05%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 188 (7.87%) Management Information System
2 168 (7.03%) Product Ownership
3 130 (5.44%) Onboarding
4 83 (3.47%) Cloud Native
5 73 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
6 66 (2.76%) Virtual Team
7 63 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 61 (2.55%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.51%) Algorithms
10 53 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
10 53 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
10 53 (2.22%) PMI
11 40 (1.67%) Operational Technology
12 39 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
13 38 (1.59%) Robotics
14 35 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
15 32 (1.34%) Security Posture
16 31 (1.30%) Derivative
17 29 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
17 29 (1.21%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 278 (11.63%) Windows
2 178 (7.45%) Linux
3 71 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.93%) Unix
5 58 (2.43%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.34%) Android
7 23 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 22 (0.92%) Mac OS
9 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.46%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) Debian
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 824 (34.48%) Computer Science
2 691 (28.91%) Agile
3 627 (26.23%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (15.90%) Stakeholder Management
5 348 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
6 333 (13.93%) Project Management
7 329 (13.77%) AI
8 318 (13.31%) DevOps
9 272 (11.38%) CI/CD
10 257 (10.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 253 (10.59%) Analytics
12 246 (10.29%) Decision-Making
13 235 (9.83%) Migration
14 234 (9.79%) Change Management
14 234 (9.79%) Cybersecurity
15 217 (9.08%) ITIL
16 203 (8.49%) Risk Management
17 201 (8.41%) Roadmaps
18 200 (8.37%) PRINCE2
19 199 (8.33%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 369 (15.44%) Python
2 357 (14.94%) SQL
3 171 (7.15%) Java
4 110 (4.60%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.93%) C#
6 79 (3.31%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.80%) C++
8 39 (1.63%) Bash
9 36 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.30%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.75%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.71%) C
14 16 (0.67%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) Go
15 15 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.59%) Rust
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.50%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 520 (21.76%) Computer Science Degree
2 462 (19.33%) Security Cleared
3 326 (13.64%) SC Cleared
4 280 (11.72%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.44%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.61%) PMP
7 107 (4.48%) CISSP
8 79 (3.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.14%) Cisco Certification
10 68 (2.85%) TOGAF Certification
11 65 (2.72%) CISM
12 60 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.43%) DV Cleared
14 48 (2.01%) Azure Certification
15 47 (1.97%) PhD
16 43 (1.80%) CCNP
17 39 (1.63%) MBA
18 35 (1.46%) CBAP
18 35 (1.46%) CCNA
19 30 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (6.61%) QA
2 113 (4.73%) PMO
3 110 (4.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (4.48%) NIST
5 106 (4.44%) GDPR
6 104 (4.35%) Data Quality
7 50 (2.09%) SLA
8 43 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 42 (1.76%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.05%) GRC
12 20 (0.84%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.59%) COBIT
14 14 (0.59%) IFRS
15 13 (0.54%) Basel III
16 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 11 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 151 (6.32%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.69%) Docker
3 37 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.13%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.96%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.21%) XenApp
8 5 (0.21%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.084%) HDFS
11 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.042%) GPFS
12 1 (0.042%) IAG
12 1 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 147 (6.15%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.14%) Terraform
3 61 (2.55%) Ansible
4 59 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (1.59%) SCCM
6 37 (1.55%) Grafana
7 30 (1.26%) Prometheus
8 29 (1.21%) OPNET
9 18 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.63%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
13 10 (0.42%) WSUS
14 9 (0.38%) Kiali
14 9 (0.38%) vCenter Server
15 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.33%) Nessus
16 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 6 (0.25%) SCOM
Vendors
1 541 (22.64%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.65%) Oracle
3 145 (6.07%) SAP
4 119 (4.98%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.39%) Google
6 76 (3.18%) Cisco
7 65 (2.72%) Splunk
8 56 (2.34%) Databricks
9 48 (2.01%) Remedy
10 45 (1.88%) VMware
11 43 (1.80%) Citrix
12 41 (1.72%) IBM
12 41 (1.72%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.63%) Atlassian
14 36 (1.51%) Adobe
15 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.38%) CheckPoint
17 23 (0.96%) Aruba
17 23 (0.96%) Informatica
18 21 (0.88%) CyberArk