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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,391 2,267 3,522
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.96% 7.79% 8.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.65% 25.16% 27.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,364 1,317 1,908
10th Percentile £238 £235 £220
25th Percentile £376 £375 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £628 £630
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 180 411
10th Percentile £17.31 £17.43 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.80 £22.41
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £47.81 £41.50
% change year-on-year +33.88% +15.19% -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 15,276 9,009 12,782
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.66% 30.95% 30.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,147 5,671 7,961
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £646
90th Percentile £721 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +0.10% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,080 516 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.63 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.80 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.56% -12.50% -27.26%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.55 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.62% -18.12%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -10 2,136 £500 -2.44% 2,645
UK excluding London -7 1,297 £475 +5.56% 2,004
London -16 901 £513 -6.82% 1,001
Work from Home -13 647 £500 - 1,107
South East -1 374 £500 +2.04% 644
North of England -12 318 £425 -9.38% 439
Midlands -21 210 £523 +46.77% 265
North West -8 161 £402 -14.29% 228
West Midlands -25 147 £495 +36.55% 169
Yorkshire -13 141 £450 +0.67% 161
East of England -6 139 £450 -10.00% 238
South West -14 133 £545 +14.68% 270
Scotland -12 89 £500 +11.11% 88
East Midlands -11 61 £531 +49.16% 96
Wales -19 28 £373 +21.94% 38
North East -26 16 £450 -5.26% 60
Northern Ireland -12 12 £369 -13.24% 72

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
1 154 (6.44%) Confluence
2 123 (5.14%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 28 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.92%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) IIS
8 7 (0.29%) CMS
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.25%) SAS
10 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Appian
11 3 (0.13%) Camunda
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.084%) Drupal
12 2 (0.084%) nginx
12 2 (0.084%) WebSphere
Applications
1 287 (12.00%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 171 (7.15%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.68%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.46%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
9 8 (0.33%) Trello
10 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.084%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 65 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.63%) Primavera
4 12 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
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
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Dynamics GP
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) Magento
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 513 (21.46%) Azure
2 291 (12.17%) AWS
3 203 (8.49%) Microsoft 365
4 190 (7.95%) Power Platform
5 115 (4.81%) Entra ID
6 96 (4.02%) GCP
7 89 (3.72%) SaaS
8 85 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
9 57 (2.38%) GitHub
10 42 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
11 36 (1.51%) Figma
12 33 (1.38%) Google Workspace
13 32 (1.34%) Snowflake
14 31 (1.30%) PaaS
15 30 (1.25%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.17%) IaaS
17 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
18 26 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
18 26 (1.09%) PowerApps
18 26 (1.09%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.48%) Firewall
2 70 (2.93%) TCP/IP
3 64 (2.68%) DNS
4 56 (2.34%) WAN
5 54 (2.26%) Network Security
6 53 (2.22%) LAN
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 27 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 22 (0.92%) DHCP
13 19 (0.79%) Skype
14 17 (0.71%) SAN
15 16 (0.67%) HTTP
15 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.54%) SSL
17 12 (0.50%) IPsec
17 12 (0.50%) VLAN
17 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.52%) Power BI
2 102 (4.27%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
4 60 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.05%) Big Data
6 48 (2.01%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.67%) Metadata
8 39 (1.63%) Tableau
9 37 (1.55%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.21%) MySQL
11 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.96%) MongoDB
13 22 (0.92%) Data Lake
14 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.63%) Oracle Database
17 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
18 12 (0.50%) Power Query
19 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 255 (10.66%) JIRA
2 111 (4.64%) Git
3 48 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.71%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 14 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.50%) JUnit
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
14 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,110 (46.42%) Social Skills
2 733 (30.66%) Finance
3 497 (20.79%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.82%) Banking
5 200 (8.36%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.44%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.14%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.10%) Marketing
9 84 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
10 78 (3.26%) Legal
11 72 (3.01%) Aerospace
12 71 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (2.89%) Manufacturing
14 65 (2.72%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.22%) Law
16 52 (2.17%) Retail
17 48 (2.01%) Military
18 42 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 41 (1.71%) Front Office
20 38 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 348 (14.55%) Analyst
2 263 (11.00%) Senior
3 202 (8.45%) Architect
4 183 (7.65%) Lead
5 175 (7.32%) Project Manager
6 171 (7.15%) Developer
7 161 (6.73%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.93%) Senior Analyst
9 69 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
10 66 (2.76%) Consultant
11 61 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
12 59 (2.47%) Designer
13 57 (2.38%) Technical Support
14 53 (2.22%) Software Engineer
15 50 (2.09%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.01%) Security Engineer
17 47 (1.97%) Senior Manager
18 46 (1.92%) Data Scientist
19 45 (1.88%) Data Engineer
20 44 (1.84%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (4.10%) REST
2 84 (3.51%) .NET
3 63 (2.63%) React
4 58 (2.43%) Middleware
5 50 (2.09%) HTML
6 48 (2.01%) Kafka
7 45 (1.88%) Oracle Fusion
8 44 (1.84%) RESTful
9 39 (1.63%) CSS
10 36 (1.51%) Spring Boot
11 34 (1.42%) XML
12 33 (1.38%) Spring
13 32 (1.34%) SOAP
14 31 (1.30%) .NET Framework
14 31 (1.30%) Pandas
15 30 (1.25%) PyTorch
16 28 (1.17%) JSON
17 27 (1.13%) AngularJS
18 26 (1.09%) Web Services
19 25 (1.05%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 181 (7.57%) Management Information System
2 160 (6.69%) Product Ownership
3 132 (5.52%) Onboarding
4 85 (3.55%) Cloud Native
5 83 (3.47%) Self-Motivation
6 67 (2.80%) Data Centre
6 67 (2.80%) Virtual Team
7 63 (2.63%) Algorithms
7 63 (2.63%) Data Structures
8 54 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
9 53 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
10 46 (1.92%) PMI
11 40 (1.67%) Operational Technology
12 38 (1.59%) Robotics
13 36 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
14 35 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
15 34 (1.42%) Derivative
16 32 (1.34%) Security Posture
17 31 (1.30%) Life Science
18 30 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 289 (12.09%) Windows
2 178 (7.44%) Linux
3 73 (3.05%) Unix
4 71 (2.97%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.43%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.34%) Android
7 25 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.92%) Apple iOS
8 22 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
11 7 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.21%) AIX
12 5 (0.21%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Solaris
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 826 (34.55%) Computer Science
2 681 (28.48%) Agile
3 629 (26.31%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (15.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 354 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 338 (14.14%) AI
7 321 (13.43%) Project Management
8 319 (13.34%) DevOps
9 281 (11.75%) CI/CD
10 258 (10.79%) Analytics
11 257 (10.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 254 (10.62%) Decision-Making
13 241 (10.08%) Migration
14 235 (9.83%) Cybersecurity
15 227 (9.49%) Change Management
16 214 (8.95%) ITIL
17 202 (8.45%) Risk Management
17 202 (8.45%) Roadmaps
18 198 (8.28%) PRINCE2
19 197 (8.24%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 379 (15.85%) Python
2 363 (15.18%) SQL
3 178 (7.44%) Java
4 107 (4.48%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.97%) C#
6 86 (3.60%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.80%) C++
8 38 (1.59%) Bash
9 34 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.21%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.79%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.75%) C
14 16 (0.67%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.63%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) Rust
16 14 (0.59%) Go
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 511 (21.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 448 (18.74%) Security Cleared
3 311 (13.01%) SC Cleared
4 273 (11.42%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.98%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.19%) PMP
7 107 (4.48%) CISSP
8 77 (3.22%) Cisco Certification
9 75 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 64 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 64 (2.68%) CISM
11 60 (2.51%) DV Cleared
12 56 (2.34%) TOGAF Certification
13 49 (2.05%) PhD
14 48 (2.01%) Azure Certification
15 44 (1.84%) CCNP
16 36 (1.51%) CCNA
16 36 (1.51%) MBA
17 35 (1.46%) CBAP
18 30 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (6.48%) QA
2 114 (4.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 110 (4.60%) Data Quality
4 109 (4.56%) NIST
5 107 (4.48%) PMO
6 104 (4.35%) GDPR
7 51 (2.13%) SLA
8 47 (1.97%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.80%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.05%) GRC
12 20 (0.84%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.71%) IFRS
14 14 (0.59%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 154 (6.44%) Active Directory
2 138 (5.77%) Docker
3 39 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.88%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.29%) vSphere
7 6 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
11 2 (0.084%) HDFS
11 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.084%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.042%) Squid
Systems Management
1 153 (6.40%) Kubernetes
2 73 (3.05%) Terraform
3 66 (2.76%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.55%) Ansible
5 39 (1.63%) Grafana
6 36 (1.51%) SCCM
7 33 (1.38%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.71%) OPNET
10 15 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.63%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
13 9 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.38%) Kiali
13 9 (0.38%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 542 (22.67%) Microsoft
2 163 (6.82%) Oracle
3 135 (5.65%) SAP
4 112 (4.68%) ServiceNow
5 80 (3.35%) Google
6 78 (3.26%) Cisco
7 64 (2.68%) Splunk
8 58 (2.43%) Databricks
9 47 (1.97%) VMware
10 45 (1.88%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.80%) Citrix
12 40 (1.67%) IBM
13 38 (1.59%) Adobe
14 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
14 35 (1.46%) Remedy
15 33 (1.38%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.05%) Atlassian
17 23 (0.96%) Aruba
17 23 (0.96%) Informatica
18 21 (0.88%) Siemens