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

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,470 2,449 3,033
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.59% 7.46% 7.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.66% 23.82% 26.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,308 1,377 1,761
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £726 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 214 260
10th Percentile £16.78 £16.10 £18.12
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.30 £25.36
Median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.35
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% -18.81% +4.69%
75th Percentile £82.75 £61.69 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £41.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -5.56% -28.51% +18.79%

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 16,851 10,283 11,633
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.34% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,273 6,344 7,361
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £434 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £524 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.19% -0.19% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,270 822 804
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.96 £14.49
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £48.84 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.19% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £75.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +89.03% -47.05% -5.00%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 2,266 £500 - 7,026
UK excluding London -16 1,331 £475 +5.56% 4,092
London -21 981 £525 -4.55% 3,741
Work from Home -21 659 £500 - 2,392
South East +3 472 £514 +8.16% 1,102
North of England -13 331 £465 +4.03% 842
North West -14 196 £452 -2.69% 459
Midlands -28 182 £450 - 520
West Midlands -33 136 £450 - 284
East of England -10 132 £400 -11.11% 612
South West -23 124 £415 +0.61% 525
Yorkshire -8 121 £500 +26.90% 261
Scotland -51 65 £475 +5.56% 348
East Midlands -24 44 £475 +22.11% 235
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -53.12% 128
Wales -34 14 £530 +73.50% 105
North East -46 14 £450 +130.77% 143
Channel Islands - 1 - - 2

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 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.41%) Confluence
3 63 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) Camunda
10 7 (0.28%) 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%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 248 (10.04%) Microsoft Excel
1 248 (10.04%) Microsoft Office
2 135 (5.47%) Microsoft Project
3 126 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 58 (2.35%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
9 10 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
10 8 (0.32%) Windchill
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 5 (0.20%) Trello
13 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 49 (1.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
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%) Actimize
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 563 (22.79%) Azure
2 318 (12.87%) AWS
3 226 (9.15%) Power Platform
4 223 (9.03%) Microsoft 365
5 149 (6.03%) Entra ID
6 137 (5.55%) GCP
7 108 (4.37%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.40%) SaaS
9 62 (2.51%) GitHub
10 53 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.02%) Serverless
12 48 (1.94%) PowerApps
13 47 (1.90%) Power Automate
14 45 (1.82%) Snowflake
15 42 (1.70%) OneDrive
16 41 (1.66%) Figma
17 38 (1.54%) Microsoft Copilot
18 28 (1.13%) IaaS
19 27 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
20 26 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.70%) Firewall
2 84 (3.40%) DNS
3 70 (2.83%) Network Security
4 66 (2.67%) TCP/IP
5 64 (2.59%) VPN
6 44 (1.78%) DHCP
7 41 (1.66%) WAN
8 39 (1.58%) LAN
9 30 (1.21%) Wireless
10 21 (0.85%) VLAN
10 21 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
13 18 (0.73%) Internet
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 17 (0.69%) 3GPP
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
15 16 (0.65%) SSH
16 15 (0.61%) 5G
16 15 (0.61%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.21%) Power BI
2 102 (4.13%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
5 51 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.78%) Metadata
7 34 (1.38%) Tableau
8 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.05%) Big Data
9 26 (1.05%) Oracle Database
10 24 (0.97%) MySQL
10 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
14 16 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
15 13 (0.53%) Power Query
16 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 186 (7.53%) JIRA
2 134 (5.43%) Git
3 57 (2.31%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.78%) GitLab
5 35 (1.42%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.93%) 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 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
12 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,095 (44.33%) Social Skills
2 730 (29.55%) Finance
3 588 (23.81%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.65%) Banking
6 156 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (4.57%) Aerospace
8 98 (3.97%) Manufacturing
9 97 (3.93%) Legal
10 96 (3.89%) Marketing
11 94 (3.81%) Influencing Skills
12 90 (3.64%) Telecoms
13 89 (3.60%) Presentation Skills
14 76 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.55%) Retail
16 52 (2.11%) Law
17 50 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 49 (1.98%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.70%) Front Office
20 41 (1.66%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 338 (13.68%) Analyst
2 279 (11.30%) Senior
3 195 (7.89%) Lead
4 185 (7.49%) Developer
5 167 (6.76%) Architect
6 156 (6.32%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.18%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.96%) Consultant
9 68 (2.75%) IT Support
9 68 (2.75%) Senior Manager
9 68 (2.75%) Support Engineer
10 57 (2.31%) Designer
11 55 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
12 54 (2.19%) Product Manager
13 53 (2.15%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.06%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.02%) Delivery Manager
16 46 (1.86%) Administrator
16 46 (1.86%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.74%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.49%) REST
2 102 (4.13%) Terraform
3 100 (4.05%) .NET
4 63 (2.55%) React
5 54 (2.19%) Kafka
6 51 (2.06%) HTML
7 49 (1.98%) RESTful
8 46 (1.86%) OAuth
9 42 (1.70%) Oracle Fusion
10 40 (1.62%) CSS
11 37 (1.50%) Middleware
12 36 (1.46%) Web Services
13 35 (1.42%) OAuth2
14 34 (1.38%) .NET Framework
15 33 (1.34%) SAML
16 32 (1.30%) XML
17 31 (1.26%) OpenID
18 30 (1.21%) SOAP
19 29 (1.17%) JSON
20 28 (1.13%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.42%) Management Information System
2 146 (5.91%) Product Ownership
3 143 (5.79%) Onboarding
4 110 (4.45%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.77%) Cloud Native
6 79 (3.20%) Data Structures
7 68 (2.75%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.55%) Data Centre
9 51 (2.06%) Operational Technology
10 48 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
10 48 (1.94%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
12 45 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
13 44 (1.78%) Virtual Team
14 41 (1.66%) Life Science
15 37 (1.50%) AI Agents
16 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
17 33 (1.34%) PMI
18 32 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
18 32 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 295 (11.94%) Windows
2 178 (7.21%) Linux
3 70 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.43%) Unix
5 51 (2.06%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
9 26 (1.05%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) VMS
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 849 (34.37%) Computer Science
2 667 (27.00%) Agile
3 650 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 469 (18.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 443 (17.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 379 (15.34%) AI
7 327 (13.24%) DevOps
8 318 (12.87%) Project Management
9 301 (12.19%) CI/CD
10 300 (12.15%) Analytics
11 286 (11.58%) ITIL
12 264 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 241 (9.76%) Decision-Making
14 236 (9.55%) Cybersecurity
15 227 (9.19%) Change Management
16 222 (8.99%) Software Engineering
17 213 (8.62%) PRINCE2
17 213 (8.62%) Roadmaps
17 213 (8.62%) Scrum
18 205 (8.30%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 423 (17.13%) Python
2 356 (14.41%) SQL
3 168 (6.80%) Java
4 167 (6.76%) PowerShell
5 112 (4.53%) C#
6 103 (4.17%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.31%) Bash
8 51 (2.06%) C++
9 44 (1.78%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.13%) Bicep
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.97%) C
12 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.93%) R
14 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.49%) X++
16 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 504 (20.40%) Computer Science Degree
2 462 (18.70%) Security Cleared
3 306 (12.39%) SC Cleared
4 218 (8.83%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.59%) PMI Certification
6 120 (4.86%) Microsoft Certification
7 118 (4.78%) PMP
8 109 (4.41%) CISSP
9 85 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.08%) Azure Certification
10 76 (3.08%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
12 53 (2.15%) CISM
13 51 (2.06%) PhD
14 43 (1.74%) CCNA
15 42 (1.70%) CCNP
16 41 (1.66%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 40 (1.62%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.34%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.55%) QA
2 135 (5.47%) Data Quality
3 107 (4.33%) NIST
4 102 (4.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 92 (3.72%) PMO
6 66 (2.67%) GDPR
7 50 (2.02%) SLA
8 49 (1.98%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.93%) GRC
11 22 (0.89%) NCSC
12 21 (0.85%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 11 (0.45%) COBIT
15 11 (0.45%) P3O
16 10 (0.40%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.32%) GxP
17 8 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 202 (8.18%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.86%) Docker
3 55 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.09%) Firmware
5 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) 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%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.32%) Microsoft Intune
3 65 (2.63%) Ansible
4 40 (1.62%) SCCM
5 31 (1.26%) Grafana
6 28 (1.13%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.40%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) Control-M
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
15 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 639 (25.87%) Microsoft
2 179 (7.25%) Oracle
3 140 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.43%) SAP
5 91 (3.68%) Google
6 72 (2.91%) Cisco
7 71 (2.87%) VMware
8 69 (2.79%) Salesforce
9 61 (2.47%) Databricks
10 59 (2.39%) Adobe
11 53 (2.15%) IBM
12 45 (1.82%) Splunk
13 31 (1.26%) CyberArk
14 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.09%) Red Hat
16 26 (1.05%) Citrix
17 22 (0.89%) Apple
18 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
19 20 (0.81%) Ariba
20 18 (0.73%) HP