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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,469 2,465 3,080
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 7.49% 7.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.88% 24.08% 26.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,322 1,394 1,784
10th Percentile £208 £250 £250
25th Percentile £366 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.33% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 213 273
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.56 £18.35
25th Percentile £27.13 £25.75 £25.36
Median hourly rate £44.75 £43.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.07% -18.10% -
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.52 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.33 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £41.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +6.71% -28.51% +14.70%

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 16,594 10,238 11,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.40% 31.11% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,104 6,323 7,429
10th Percentile £350 £282 £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 £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 786 855
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £74.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £74.38 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.24 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +99.77% -44.11% -16.15%

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 4 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 4 August 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 4 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 -13 2,257 £500 - 4,043
UK excluding London -12 1,358 £474 +5.33% 2,396
London -21 958 £525 -4.55% 2,001
Work from Home -21 657 £500 - 1,650
South East +3 478 £500 +5.26% 745
North of England -11 328 £450 - 530
North West -8 189 £450 -5.26% 274
Midlands -34 181 £463 +8.82% 339
East of England -7 145 £450 - 322
West Midlands -37 139 £466 +3.44% 181
Yorkshire -9 124 £500 +19.05% 163
South West -25 123 £415 -7.78% 279
Scotland -42 71 £475 +5.56% 119
East Midlands -19 40 £475 +32.68% 158
Wales -30 19 £490 +57.05% 57
Northern Ireland -12 15 £252 -46.95% 64
North East -44 15 £450 +130.77% 98

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
1 143 (5.79%) SharePoint
2 117 (4.74%) Confluence
3 63 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.26%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.73%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 10 (0.41%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 270 (10.94%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.63%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.47%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Simulink
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
15 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 59 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 567 (22.96%) Azure
2 320 (12.96%) AWS
3 231 (9.36%) Power Platform
4 214 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
5 151 (6.12%) Entra ID
6 132 (5.35%) GCP
7 104 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.24%) SaaS
9 69 (2.79%) GitHub
10 50 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
11 47 (1.90%) Power Automate
11 47 (1.90%) PowerApps
11 47 (1.90%) Snowflake
12 45 (1.82%) Figma
12 45 (1.82%) Serverless
13 40 (1.62%) OneDrive
14 39 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
15 29 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.13%) IaaS
17 26 (1.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.78%) Firewall
2 77 (3.12%) DNS
3 75 (3.04%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.71%) Network Security
5 62 (2.51%) VPN
6 43 (1.74%) WAN
7 40 (1.62%) DHCP
7 40 (1.62%) LAN
8 27 (1.09%) Wireless
9 22 (0.89%) BGP
10 20 (0.81%) SSL
10 20 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 18 (0.73%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.73%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSH
14 15 (0.61%) HTTP
14 15 (0.61%) Internet
15 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (7.45%) Power BI
2 109 (4.41%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (2.07%) Relational Database
5 48 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.66%) Metadata
7 38 (1.54%) Tableau
8 33 (1.34%) Big Data
8 33 (1.34%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.05%) MongoDB
10 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.89%) MySQL
11 22 (0.89%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
13 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
16 13 (0.53%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 192 (7.78%) JIRA
2 124 (5.02%) Git
3 55 (2.23%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.66%) GitLab
5 35 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 16 (0.65%) MLflow
6 16 (0.65%) Selenium
6 16 (0.65%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.57%) JUnit
8 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
9 11 (0.45%) Gradle
9 11 (0.45%) Postman
9 11 (0.45%) Subversion
10 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.36%) Maven
11 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,086 (43.99%) Social Skills
2 721 (29.20%) Finance
3 553 (22.40%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (8.14%) Public Sector
5 183 (7.41%) Banking
6 162 (6.56%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.25%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.21%) Aerospace
9 98 (3.97%) Legal
9 98 (3.97%) Marketing
10 90 (3.65%) Manufacturing
11 88 (3.56%) Influencing Skills
12 78 (3.16%) Telecoms
13 73 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 61 (2.47%) Retail
15 53 (2.15%) Law
16 47 (1.90%) Pharmaceutical
17 38 (1.54%) Front Office
18 37 (1.50%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 336 (13.61%) Analyst
2 286 (11.58%) Senior
3 195 (7.90%) Lead
4 182 (7.37%) Architect
5 175 (7.09%) Developer
6 153 (6.20%) Business Analyst
7 144 (5.83%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.96%) Senior Manager
9 70 (2.84%) Consultant
10 60 (2.43%) Designer
11 59 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
12 58 (2.35%) IT Support
12 58 (2.35%) Support Engineer
13 53 (2.15%) IT Manager
14 52 (2.11%) Product Manager
15 51 (2.07%) IT Analyst
16 50 (2.03%) Software Engineer
17 48 (1.94%) Systems Engineer
18 47 (1.90%) Administrator
19 46 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.13%) REST
2 99 (4.01%) .NET
3 61 (2.47%) React
4 45 (1.82%) Kafka
5 43 (1.74%) RESTful
6 41 (1.66%) OAuth
7 40 (1.62%) HTML
8 36 (1.46%) Middleware
9 33 (1.34%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.34%) SAML
10 32 (1.30%) CSS
10 32 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
10 32 (1.30%) Web Services
11 31 (1.26%) Spring
12 30 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.22%) OAuth2
13 29 (1.17%) JSON
13 29 (1.17%) LDAP
14 28 (1.13%) Spring Boot
15 27 (1.09%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.18%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.12%) Product Ownership
3 150 (6.08%) Onboarding
4 112 (4.54%) Self-Motivation
5 96 (3.89%) Cloud Native
6 73 (2.96%) Data Structures
7 67 (2.71%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.63%) Data Centre
9 55 (2.23%) Virtual Team
10 53 (2.15%) Security Posture
11 51 (2.07%) Operational Technology
12 45 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
13 42 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
14 41 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
15 39 (1.58%) Life Science
16 38 (1.54%) AI Agents
17 35 (1.42%) PMI
18 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
19 33 (1.34%) Robotics
20 32 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 301 (12.19%) Windows
2 179 (7.25%) Linux
3 77 (3.12%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.47%) Unix
5 50 (2.03%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.26%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.17%) Android
9 27 (1.09%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.12%) Rocky
15 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 835 (33.82%) Computer Science
2 667 (27.01%) Agile
3 644 (26.08%) Problem-Solving
4 438 (17.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 411 (16.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 391 (15.84%) AI
7 325 (13.16%) DevOps
8 315 (12.76%) Project Management
9 305 (12.35%) Analytics
10 293 (11.87%) CI/CD
11 279 (11.30%) ITIL
12 257 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 256 (10.37%) Decision-Making
14 249 (10.09%) Cybersecurity
15 220 (8.91%) Change Management
16 211 (8.55%) Software Engineering
17 210 (8.51%) PRINCE2
17 210 (8.51%) Roadmaps
18 201 (8.14%) Project Delivery
18 201 (8.14%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 426 (17.25%) Python
2 345 (13.97%) SQL
3 165 (6.68%) Java
4 159 (6.44%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.33%) C#
6 93 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.15%) Bash
8 46 (1.86%) C++
9 40 (1.62%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.13%) R
11 25 (1.01%) Bicep
12 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.85%) C
13 21 (0.85%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.45%) X++
16 10 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 489 (19.81%) Computer Science Degree
2 444 (17.98%) Security Cleared
3 289 (11.71%) SC Cleared
4 222 (8.99%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.67%) PMI Certification
6 121 (4.90%) PMP
7 120 (4.86%) CISSP
8 115 (4.66%) Microsoft Certification
9 87 (3.52%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.12%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.04%) DV Cleared
12 67 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.43%) CISM
14 53 (2.15%) PhD
15 43 (1.74%) CCNA
16 41 (1.66%) AWS Certification
16 41 (1.66%) CCNP
17 39 (1.58%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 37 (1.50%) CISA
19 31 (1.26%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.22%) Data Quality
2 119 (4.82%) QA
3 118 (4.78%) NIST
4 112 (4.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 100 (4.05%) PMO
6 74 (3.00%) GDPR
7 52 (2.11%) SLA
8 50 (2.03%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.05%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.01%) GRC
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 17 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.49%) COBIT
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) IFRS
16 11 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 198 (8.02%) Active Directory
2 117 (4.74%) Docker
3 52 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.93%) Firmware
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 133 (5.39%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.81%) Terraform
3 78 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.55%) Ansible
5 38 (1.54%) SCCM
6 28 (1.13%) Grafana
7 25 (1.01%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.49%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.28%) SCOM
16 6 (0.24%) Argo
17 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 629 (25.48%) Microsoft
2 161 (6.52%) Oracle
3 140 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.47%) SAP
5 90 (3.65%) Google
6 71 (2.88%) Cisco
7 67 (2.71%) VMware
8 64 (2.59%) Databricks
9 61 (2.47%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.23%) Adobe
11 49 (1.98%) IBM
12 34 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 33 (1.34%) Splunk
14 32 (1.30%) Citrix
15 30 (1.22%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.17%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
18 21 (0.85%) Ariba
18 21 (0.85%) Siemens
19 20 (0.81%) CheckPoint