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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 17
Rank change year-on-year -13 -8 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,428 2,205 3,523
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.98% 7.72% 8.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.74% 24.84% 27.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,361 1,280 1,910
10th Percentile £225 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £612 £628 £626
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £450 £484
% change year-on-year +4.00% -7.02% -0.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 165 415
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £27.91 £27.94 £22.13
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +35.00% -18.37%
75th Percentile £83.56 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £48.82 £41.25
% change year-on-year +12.67% +18.34% -14.29%

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 15,427 8,877 12,756
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.65% 31.07% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,228 5,604 7,949
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -1.37% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £528
% change year-on-year - -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 500 1,075
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.86 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.28 £17.94
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.36 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.62% -21.47%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 2,172 £500 -1.04% 3,145
UK excluding London -7 1,331 £468 +4.00% 2,075
London -16 911 £515 -6.36% 1,389
Work from Home -14 651 £500 - 1,278
South East 0 388 £500 +4.99% 643
North of England -17 323 £443 -2.85% 491
Midlands -21 215 £505 +41.06% 265
North West -5 170 £402 -14.29% 265
West Midlands -28 152 £487 +29.73% 173
East of England -1 141 £450 -10.00% 234
Yorkshire -12 138 £450 +5.88% 167
South West -15 137 £505 +6.32% 285
Scotland -14 91 £500 +11.48% 102
East Midlands -12 61 £531 +48.74% 92
Wales -23 28 £375 +22.76% 39
North East -27 15 £450 +130.77% 67
Northern Ireland -10 14 £350 -17.65% 64

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
1 149 (6.14%) Confluence
2 129 (5.31%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.10%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.95%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.082%) nginx
14 2 (0.082%) WebSphere
Applications
1 289 (11.90%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 164 (6.75%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.64%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.58%) Adobe After Effects
6 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.45%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
9 8 (0.33%) Sketch
9 8 (0.33%) Trello
10 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.16%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.082%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 66 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.62%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.16%) HFM
10 4 (0.16%) Magento
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 521 (21.46%) Azure
2 301 (12.40%) AWS
3 202 (8.32%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.78%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.02%) Entra ID
6 95 (3.91%) GCP
7 86 (3.54%) SaaS
8 83 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.43%) GitHub
10 40 (1.65%) Figma
11 39 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.36%) Snowflake
13 31 (1.28%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.28%) PaaS
14 30 (1.24%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.19%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.15%) IaaS
17 27 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
17 27 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
17 27 (1.11%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.45%) Firewall
2 71 (2.92%) TCP/IP
3 68 (2.80%) DNS
4 58 (2.39%) WAN
5 56 (2.31%) Network Security
6 54 (2.22%) LAN
7 35 (1.44%) VPN
8 28 (1.15%) BGP
9 25 (1.03%) OSPF
10 24 (0.99%) DHCP
10 24 (0.99%) Wireless
11 22 (0.91%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.74%) Skype
13 17 (0.70%) SAN
14 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (0.58%) HTTP
15 14 (0.58%) VXLAN
16 13 (0.54%) SSL
17 12 (0.49%) IPsec
17 12 (0.49%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (6.34%) Power BI
2 111 (4.57%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.02%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.89%) Big Data
7 42 (1.73%) Metadata
8 39 (1.61%) Tableau
9 36 (1.48%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
10 28 (1.15%) MySQL
11 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
13 18 (0.74%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
16 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.45%) GIS
17 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 249 (10.26%) JIRA
2 114 (4.70%) Git
3 45 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.73%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.82%) MLflow
8 18 (0.74%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Gradle
9 14 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) JUnit
11 11 (0.45%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 8 (0.33%) Metasploit
General
1 1,116 (45.96%) Social Skills
2 743 (30.60%) Finance
3 489 (20.14%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (8.73%) Banking
5 200 (8.24%) Public Sector
6 138 (5.68%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (4.98%) Presentation Skills
8 96 (3.95%) Marketing
9 84 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
10 81 (3.34%) Legal
11 78 (3.21%) Aerospace
12 77 (3.17%) Manufacturing
13 72 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
14 66 (2.72%) Telecoms
15 52 (2.14%) Law
16 49 (2.02%) Retail
17 41 (1.69%) Front Office
17 41 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.65%) Military
19 39 (1.61%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 347 (14.29%) Analyst
2 271 (11.16%) Senior
3 199 (8.20%) Architect
4 185 (7.62%) Lead
5 171 (7.04%) Project Manager
6 168 (6.92%) Developer
7 158 (6.51%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.76%) Consultant
10 66 (2.72%) Senior Analyst
11 62 (2.55%) Designer
12 61 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
13 58 (2.39%) Technical Support
14 57 (2.35%) Software Engineer
15 55 (2.27%) Senior Manager
16 48 (1.98%) Product Manager
16 48 (1.98%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.89%) Data Engineer
17 46 (1.89%) Data Scientist
18 45 (1.85%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.24%) REST
2 87 (3.58%) .NET
3 66 (2.72%) React
4 55 (2.27%) Middleware
5 54 (2.22%) Oracle Fusion
6 52 (2.14%) HTML
7 50 (2.06%) Kafka
8 42 (1.73%) CSS
8 42 (1.73%) RESTful
9 34 (1.40%) .NET Framework
9 34 (1.40%) Spring Boot
10 31 (1.28%) XML
11 30 (1.24%) Pandas
11 30 (1.24%) PyTorch
11 30 (1.24%) SOAP
11 30 (1.24%) Spring
12 29 (1.19%) AngularJS
13 27 (1.11%) OAuth
14 26 (1.07%) JSON
14 26 (1.07%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 179 (7.37%) Management Information System
2 152 (6.26%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.48%) Onboarding
4 91 (3.75%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.58%) Cloud Native
6 70 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.68%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.55%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.47%) Algorithms
10 54 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
11 51 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.94%) PMI
13 41 (1.69%) Operational Technology
14 38 (1.57%) Robotics
15 37 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.40%) Derivative
16 34 (1.40%) Life Science
17 33 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.28%) Security Posture
19 30 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 301 (12.40%) Windows
2 184 (7.58%) Linux
3 74 (3.05%) Unix
4 72 (2.97%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.43%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.32%) Android
7 26 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 24 (0.99%) Apple iOS
8 24 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 834 (34.35%) Computer Science
2 676 (27.84%) Agile
3 636 (26.19%) Problem-Solving
4 373 (15.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 367 (15.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 351 (14.46%) AI
7 318 (13.10%) DevOps
8 316 (13.01%) Project Management
9 285 (11.74%) CI/CD
10 266 (10.96%) Analytics
11 260 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 258 (10.63%) Decision-Making
13 239 (9.84%) Cybersecurity
14 233 (9.60%) Migration
15 226 (9.31%) Change Management
16 208 (8.57%) ITIL
17 207 (8.53%) Software Engineering
18 202 (8.32%) Risk Management
18 202 (8.32%) Roadmaps
19 198 (8.15%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 387 (15.94%) Python
2 370 (15.24%) SQL
3 178 (7.33%) Java
4 116 (4.78%) PowerShell
5 97 (4.00%) C#
6 91 (3.75%) JavaScript
7 65 (2.68%) C++
8 38 (1.57%) Bash
9 33 (1.36%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.19%) R
11 21 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 21 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 19 (0.78%) C
13 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) Perl
14 15 (0.62%) Rust
15 14 (0.58%) Go
15 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 510 (21.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 448 (18.45%) Security Cleared
3 306 (12.60%) SC Cleared
4 271 (11.16%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.93%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.15%) PMP
7 114 (4.70%) CISSP
8 82 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
10 68 (2.80%) CISM
11 64 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
11 64 (2.64%) DV Cleared
12 52 (2.14%) Azure Certification
13 51 (2.10%) PhD
14 48 (1.98%) TOGAF Certification
15 46 (1.89%) CCNP
16 39 (1.61%) CCNA
17 36 (1.48%) CBAP
18 35 (1.44%) MBA
19 33 (1.36%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.18%) QA
2 113 (4.65%) Data Quality
3 111 (4.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 111 (4.57%) PMO
4 110 (4.53%) NIST
5 102 (4.20%) GDPR
6 50 (2.06%) Accessibility
7 49 (2.02%) SLA
8 42 (1.73%) PCI DSS
9 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.03%) GRC
11 20 (0.82%) NCSC
12 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.66%) IFRS
14 14 (0.58%) COBIT
15 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 161 (6.63%) Active Directory
2 133 (5.48%) Docker
3 38 (1.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.25%) BitLocker
7 6 (0.25%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.16%) XenApp
9 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.082%) HDFS
11 2 (0.082%) NFS
11 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.082%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 148 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.25%) Terraform
3 70 (2.88%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.55%) Ansible
5 40 (1.65%) Grafana
6 37 (1.52%) SCCM
7 34 (1.40%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 11 (0.45%) Kibana
12 10 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) OPNET
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) Nmap
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.29%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 550 (22.65%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.33%) Oracle
3 144 (5.93%) SAP
4 110 (4.53%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.25%) Cisco
5 79 (3.25%) Google
6 62 (2.55%) Splunk
7 61 (2.51%) Databricks
8 46 (1.89%) VMware
9 45 (1.85%) Citrix
10 43 (1.77%) Salesforce
11 41 (1.69%) Adobe
12 38 (1.57%) IBM
13 37 (1.52%) Palo Alto
14 35 (1.44%) CheckPoint
15 27 (1.11%) Remedy
16 25 (1.03%) Aruba
17 23 (0.95%) Informatica
18 22 (0.91%) CyberArk
19 20 (0.82%) Siemens