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 10 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,397 2,243 3,585
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.84% 7.64% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.41% 24.62% 27.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,320 1,279 1,944
10th Percentile £217 £235 £225
25th Percentile £375 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £763 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £456 £450 £490
% change year-on-year +1.33% -8.16% -0.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 182 418
10th Percentile £17.09 £17.83 £14.25
25th Percentile £27.31 £26.59 £21.76
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.84 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £44.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +17.98% +10.35% -19.00%

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 15,557 9,112 13,045
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.44% 31.02% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,328 5,673 8,090
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £618 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,144 565 1,118
10th Percentile £17.01 £17.69 £13.87
25th Percentile £22.18 £21.25 £18.32
Median hourly rate £48.61 £30.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.38% -23.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £64.52 £62.64
90th Percentile £85.18 £77.38 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £30.00 £41.27
% change year-on-year +58.33% -27.30% -21.40%

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 10 June 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 10 June 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 10 June 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 -12 2,137 £500 -0.99% 2,401
UK excluding London -8 1,303 £456 +1.33% 1,925
London -17 917 £513 -6.82% 793
Work from Home -16 647 £500 -4.76% 1,107
South East -1 391 £500 +5.26% 622
North of England -11 324 £447 -3.35% 458
Midlands -23 200 £513 +43.16% 254
North West -11 174 £418 -10.98% 249
West Midlands -27 144 £481 +16.61% 142
East of England -4 137 £450 -10.00% 218
Yorkshire -14 135 £500 +11.86% 161
South West -19 116 £469 -1.26% 232
Scotland -16 96 £500 +11.11% 94
East Midlands -17 54 £545 +55.71% 112
Wales -21 27 £450 +44.23% 53
Northern Ireland -5 16 £254 -18.72% 50
North East -26 15 £450 +130.77% 60

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
1 130 (5.42%) Confluence
2 129 (5.38%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.09%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.88%) Apache
7 10 (0.42%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
9 7 (0.29%) SAS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) nginx
13 2 (0.083%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 265 (11.06%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (9.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (5.72%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.54%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.63%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.38%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.21%) Sketch
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.17%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 67 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.58%) Primavera
3 13 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.17%) HFM
10 4 (0.17%) Magento
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.13%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 528 (22.03%) Azure
2 309 (12.89%) AWS
3 201 (8.39%) Microsoft 365
4 185 (7.72%) Power Platform
5 126 (5.26%) Entra ID
6 110 (4.59%) GCP
7 87 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.59%) SaaS
9 62 (2.59%) GitHub
10 40 (1.67%) Figma
11 39 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.46%) Snowflake
13 34 (1.42%) PaaS
14 31 (1.29%) Power Automate
14 31 (1.29%) Serverless
15 30 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.25%) Google Workspace
15 30 (1.25%) IaaS
15 30 (1.25%) OneDrive
15 30 (1.25%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.55%) Firewall
2 76 (3.17%) DNS
3 75 (3.13%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.46%) Network Security
5 53 (2.21%) WAN
6 49 (2.04%) LAN
7 38 (1.59%) VPN
8 31 (1.29%) DHCP
9 26 (1.08%) BGP
10 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
10 23 (0.96%) OSPF
10 23 (0.96%) Wireless
11 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 15 (0.63%) SAN
12 15 (0.63%) Skype
12 15 (0.63%) SSL
13 14 (0.58%) HTTP
13 14 (0.58%) VLAN
14 13 (0.54%) 3GPP
14 13 (0.54%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (6.47%) Power BI
2 109 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.04%) Big Data
5 49 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.63%) Metadata
7 38 (1.59%) Tableau
8 35 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
10 27 (1.13%) MySQL
11 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.79%) Data Lake
13 18 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 14 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
16 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
17 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 215 (8.97%) JIRA
2 111 (4.63%) Git
3 49 (2.04%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.71%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.88%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 15 (0.63%) Cucumber
9 15 (0.63%) Postman
10 14 (0.58%) Gradle
11 13 (0.54%) JUnit
11 13 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.42%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
General
1 1,100 (45.89%) Social Skills
2 737 (30.75%) Finance
3 484 (20.19%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 203 (8.47%) Banking
6 136 (5.67%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (5.01%) Presentation Skills
8 102 (4.26%) Marketing
9 90 (3.75%) Legal
10 85 (3.55%) Aerospace
11 82 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
12 80 (3.34%) Manufacturing
13 73 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
14 69 (2.88%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.21%) Law
16 51 (2.13%) Retail
17 47 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 37 (1.54%) Front Office
19 36 (1.50%) Investment Banking
19 36 (1.50%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 353 (14.73%) Analyst
2 272 (11.35%) Senior
3 191 (7.97%) Architect
4 182 (7.59%) Lead
5 166 (6.93%) Developer
6 160 (6.68%) Project Manager
7 157 (6.55%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.80%) Consultant
10 66 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
11 65 (2.71%) Designer
12 60 (2.50%) Software Engineer
13 57 (2.38%) Senior Manager
14 56 (2.34%) Technical Support
15 53 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
16 52 (2.17%) Security Engineer
17 49 (2.04%) Administrator
18 48 (2.00%) Product Manager
19 46 (1.92%) Data Scientist
19 46 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.21%) REST
2 85 (3.55%) .NET
3 64 (2.67%) React
4 51 (2.13%) Kafka
5 47 (1.96%) Oracle Fusion
6 46 (1.92%) HTML
6 46 (1.92%) Middleware
7 38 (1.59%) RESTful
8 36 (1.50%) .NET Framework
8 36 (1.50%) CSS
9 34 (1.42%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.34%) OAuth
10 32 (1.34%) XML
11 30 (1.25%) Spring
12 29 (1.21%) Web Services
13 28 (1.17%) AngularJS
13 28 (1.17%) JSON
14 26 (1.08%) Pandas
14 26 (1.08%) PyTorch
14 26 (1.08%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 185 (7.72%) Management Information System
2 141 (5.88%) Onboarding
3 139 (5.80%) Product Ownership
4 100 (4.17%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 70 (2.92%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.63%) Virtual Team
8 59 (2.46%) Algorithms
8 59 (2.46%) Data Structures
9 51 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
9 51 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (1.88%) PMI
11 42 (1.75%) Operational Technology
12 39 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
12 39 (1.63%) Security Posture
13 38 (1.59%) Robotics
14 35 (1.46%) Life Science
15 32 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.25%) Derivative
17 29 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 309 (12.89%) Windows
2 191 (7.97%) Linux
3 74 (3.09%) Unix
3 74 (3.09%) Windows Server
4 57 (2.38%) Windows 10
5 33 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 31 (1.29%) Android
7 28 (1.17%) Apple iOS
8 27 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.33%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.29%) AIX
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 817 (34.08%) Computer Science
2 643 (26.83%) Agile
3 624 (26.03%) Problem-Solving
4 370 (15.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 360 (15.02%) Continuous Improvement
6 352 (14.69%) AI
7 318 (13.27%) DevOps
8 290 (12.10%) Project Management
9 276 (11.51%) CI/CD
10 267 (11.14%) Analytics
11 254 (10.60%) Decision-Making
12 253 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
14 227 (9.47%) Migration
15 223 (9.30%) Change Management
16 209 (8.72%) Roadmaps
17 206 (8.59%) ITIL
18 204 (8.51%) Software Engineering
19 187 (7.80%) Risk Management
20 183 (7.63%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 393 (16.40%) Python
2 361 (15.06%) SQL
3 183 (7.63%) Java
4 122 (5.09%) PowerShell
5 97 (4.05%) C#
6 90 (3.75%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.38%) C++
8 41 (1.71%) Bash
9 33 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.13%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.71%) C
13 15 (0.63%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.58%) Go
14 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
14 14 (0.58%) Perl
14 14 (0.58%) Rust
15 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 9 (0.38%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 497 (20.73%) Computer Science Degree
2 435 (18.15%) Security Cleared
3 295 (12.31%) SC Cleared
4 252 (10.51%) Master's Degree
5 139 (5.80%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.05%) CISSP
7 119 (4.96%) PMP
8 83 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
8 83 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 70 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (2.75%) CISM
11 61 (2.54%) DV Cleared
12 55 (2.29%) Azure Certification
13 45 (1.88%) PhD
14 44 (1.84%) CCNP
15 39 (1.63%) CCNA
16 37 (1.54%) CBAP
16 37 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
17 34 (1.42%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.38%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.67%) QA
2 116 (4.84%) NIST
3 113 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 111 (4.63%) Data Quality
5 104 (4.34%) PMO
6 98 (4.09%) GDPR
7 49 (2.04%) SLA
8 46 (1.92%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.67%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.08%) GRC
12 19 (0.79%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.67%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.46%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.38%) P3O
System Software
1 171 (7.13%) Active Directory
2 135 (5.63%) Docker
3 40 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.29%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.88%) Firmware
6 9 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.13%) NFS
10 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 146 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.34%) Terraform
3 74 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.46%) Ansible
5 39 (1.63%) Grafana
6 37 (1.54%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.50%) SCCM
8 22 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.58%) Puppet
11 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.38%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.38%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Kiali
14 8 (0.33%) Kibana
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 6 (0.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 543 (22.65%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.30%) Oracle
3 142 (5.92%) SAP
4 103 (4.30%) ServiceNow
5 90 (3.75%) Google
6 72 (3.00%) Cisco
7 60 (2.50%) Databricks
8 53 (2.21%) Splunk
9 47 (1.96%) VMware
10 46 (1.92%) Salesforce
11 45 (1.88%) Citrix
12 41 (1.71%) Adobe
13 39 (1.63%) IBM
14 33 (1.38%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.29%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.04%) CyberArk
17 23 (0.96%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.88%) Informatica
18 21 (0.88%) Siemens
19 20 (0.83%) Ariba