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 29 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,478 2,333 3,004
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.16% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.31% 22.70% 27.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,275 1,270 1,698
10th Percentile £204 £263 £239
25th Percentile £357 £388 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £614
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.17% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 294 210 195
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.17 £25.30 £25.99
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.67% -33.81% +5.00%
75th Percentile £68.30 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +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 17,321 10,276 11,062
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.71% 31.52% 29.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,524 6,433 6,726
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £709 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,394 866 615
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £17.73
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -48.21% -9.54%
75th Percentile £72.25 £42.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -4.21%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 2,256 £510 +2.00% 9,837
UK excluding London -15 1,344 £478 +6.17% 5,679
London -19 970 £525 -4.55% 4,824
Work from Home -20 649 £505 +5.21% 3,470
South East +5 462 £525 +16.67% 1,527
North of England -8 340 £475 +6.26% 1,106
North West -8 212 £479 +4.70% 619
Midlands -30 185 £456 -1.35% 766
West Midlands -30 137 £450 -5.26% 475
East of England -14 136 £425 -12.82% 728
South West -25 126 £400 -20.00% 651
Yorkshire -4 112 £477 +13.45% 320
Scotland -53 70 £500 +11.11% 493
East Midlands -18 47 £475 +6.26% 291
North East -33 16 £460 +2.22% 173
Northern Ireland -13 14 £250 -57.45% 309
Wales -32 13 £530 +73.50% 175
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 3

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
1 161 (6.50%) SharePoint
2 112 (4.52%) Confluence
3 62 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (1.01%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.85%) IIS
6 20 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.73%) Apache
8 14 (0.56%) Camunda
8 14 (0.56%) CMS
8 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 8 (0.32%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) CICS
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 246 (9.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 236 (9.52%) Microsoft Office
3 115 (4.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 115 (4.64%) Microsoft Project
4 52 (2.10%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
5 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
7 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.44%) Windchill
9 10 (0.40%) Navisworks
9 10 (0.40%) Revit
9 10 (0.40%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.24%) AutoCAD
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 36 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
11 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 560 (22.60%) Azure
2 307 (12.39%) AWS
3 227 (9.16%) Power Platform
4 225 (9.08%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (6.17%) GCP
6 141 (5.69%) Entra ID
7 127 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
8 78 (3.15%) SaaS
9 71 (2.87%) GitHub
10 63 (2.54%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.46%) Power Automate
12 60 (2.42%) Serverless
13 53 (2.14%) PowerApps
14 48 (1.94%) Microsoft Copilot
14 48 (1.94%) OneDrive
15 40 (1.61%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.53%) Figma
17 29 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
17 29 (1.17%) IaaS
18 27 (1.09%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.16%) Firewall
2 83 (3.35%) DNS
3 65 (2.62%) Network Security
4 62 (2.50%) TCP/IP
5 57 (2.30%) VPN
6 45 (1.82%) DHCP
7 33 (1.33%) LAN
7 33 (1.33%) WAN
8 27 (1.09%) Wireless
9 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.85%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) Internet
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) SSH
12 19 (0.77%) SSL
13 18 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.65%) BGP
15 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.61%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (6.66%) Power BI
2 113 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.42%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.14%) Metadata
5 51 (2.06%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.49%) MySQL
8 32 (1.29%) Tableau
9 31 (1.25%) NoSQL
10 27 (1.09%) MongoDB
11 26 (1.05%) Elasticsearch
12 25 (1.01%) Big Data
12 25 (1.01%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
16 16 (0.65%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 170 (6.86%) JIRA
2 145 (5.85%) Git
3 65 (2.62%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.10%) GitLab
5 25 (1.01%) JUnit
6 23 (0.93%) Maven
6 23 (0.93%) Selenium
7 22 (0.89%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.85%) Gradle
9 19 (0.77%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.73%) Cucumber
10 18 (0.73%) REST Assured
11 16 (0.65%) Mockito
11 16 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.48%) Postman
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.32%) MLflow
15 8 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,120 (45.20%) Social Skills
2 733 (29.58%) Finance
3 583 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.51%) Public Sector
5 201 (8.11%) Banking
6 167 (6.74%) Organisational Skills
7 135 (5.45%) Manufacturing
8 120 (4.84%) Aerospace
9 119 (4.80%) Influencing Skills
10 99 (4.00%) Marketing
11 92 (3.71%) Telecoms
12 89 (3.59%) Presentation Skills
13 85 (3.43%) Legal
14 83 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
15 66 (2.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 61 (2.46%) Retail
17 57 (2.30%) Pharmaceutical
18 50 (2.02%) Law
19 48 (1.94%) Military
20 42 (1.69%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 329 (13.28%) Analyst
2 287 (11.58%) Senior
3 209 (8.43%) Developer
4 193 (7.79%) Lead
5 162 (6.54%) Business Analyst
6 158 (6.38%) Architect
7 112 (4.52%) Project Manager
8 78 (3.15%) Consultant
9 70 (2.82%) Support Engineer
10 69 (2.78%) IT Support
11 62 (2.50%) Senior Manager
12 54 (2.18%) IT Manager
13 53 (2.14%) Solutions Architect
14 51 (2.06%) Administrator
15 50 (2.02%) Security Engineer
16 48 (1.94%) IT Analyst
17 47 (1.90%) Designer
18 46 (1.86%) Software Engineer
19 44 (1.78%) Delivery Manager
20 42 (1.69%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.52%) REST
2 110 (4.44%) Terraform
3 104 (4.20%) .NET
4 75 (3.03%) React
5 72 (2.91%) HTML
6 64 (2.58%) Kafka
7 63 (2.54%) CSS
8 59 (2.38%) RESTful
9 51 (2.06%) OAuth
10 49 (1.98%) XML
11 46 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.82%) Middleware
13 43 (1.74%) Web Services
14 40 (1.61%) OAuth2
14 40 (1.61%) SOAP
15 39 (1.57%) Spring Boot
16 38 (1.53%) SAML
17 37 (1.49%) JSON
18 36 (1.45%) OpenID
19 34 (1.37%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 231 (9.32%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.57%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.84%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.28%) Self-Motivation
5 101 (4.08%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.50%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.38%) Algorithms
7 59 (2.38%) Data Structures
8 57 (2.30%) Operational Technology
9 52 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
9 52 (2.10%) Security Posture
10 50 (2.02%) Life Science
11 46 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
12 45 (1.82%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.65%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
16 35 (1.41%) SCADA
17 30 (1.21%) PMI
18 29 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 299 (12.07%) Windows
2 183 (7.38%) Linux
3 85 (3.43%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.78%) Unix
5 46 (1.86%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
6 33 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 19 (0.77%) Android
9 9 (0.36%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) zOS
12 5 (0.20%) Solaris
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.081%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 797 (32.16%) Computer Science
2 680 (27.44%) Agile
3 665 (26.84%) Problem-Solving
4 544 (21.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 440 (17.76%) Continuous Improvement
6 393 (15.86%) AI
7 361 (14.57%) DevOps
8 329 (13.28%) CI/CD
9 314 (12.67%) Analytics
10 310 (12.51%) Project Management
11 282 (11.38%) ITIL
12 265 (10.69%) Decision-Making
13 255 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 244 (9.85%) Scrum
15 240 (9.69%) Roadmaps
16 239 (9.64%) Change Management
17 228 (9.20%) Cybersecurity
18 227 (9.16%) Software Engineering
19 215 (8.68%) PRINCE2
20 213 (8.60%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 401 (16.18%) Python
2 361 (14.57%) SQL
3 177 (7.14%) PowerShell
4 161 (6.50%) Java
5 131 (5.29%) JavaScript
6 124 (5.00%) C#
7 64 (2.58%) Bash
8 47 (1.90%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.53%) C++
10 31 (1.25%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) Shell Script
11 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.93%) R
14 20 (0.81%) C
15 17 (0.69%) Scala
16 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.48%) X++
17 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 485 (19.57%) Computer Science Degree
2 480 (19.37%) Security Cleared
3 356 (14.37%) SC Cleared
4 207 (8.35%) Master's Degree
5 150 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.29%) PMP
7 120 (4.84%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.28%) CISSP
9 92 (3.71%) Azure Certification
10 89 (3.59%) DV Cleared
11 86 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
12 78 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.42%) PhD
14 54 (2.18%) CISM
15 49 (1.98%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 45 (1.82%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.57%) ISTQB
18 37 (1.49%) DBS Check
19 35 (1.41%) CCNA
19 35 (1.41%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (6.01%) QA
2 147 (5.93%) Data Quality
3 92 (3.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (3.55%) NIST
5 81 (3.27%) GDPR
6 80 (3.23%) PMO
7 49 (1.98%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.61%) SLA
9 31 (1.25%) GRC
10 20 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.77%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.69%) PCI DSS
14 16 (0.65%) IFRS
15 13 (0.52%) ISO 31000
15 13 (0.52%) P3O
16 12 (0.48%) IEC 61508
17 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
17 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
18 10 (0.40%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 192 (7.75%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.88%) Docker
3 59 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.13%) Hyper-V
5 27 (1.09%) Firmware
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) vSphere
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
10 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
11 6 (0.24%) RACF
12 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.20%) NFS
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
3 55 (2.22%) Ansible
4 34 (1.37%) SCCM
5 25 (1.01%) Grafana
6 24 (0.97%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 11 (0.44%) Functional Safety
12 10 (0.40%) CASB
13 7 (0.28%) Control-M
13 7 (0.28%) Nessus
13 7 (0.28%) WSUS
14 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.24%) Argo
15 5 (0.20%) HP ALM
15 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 622 (25.10%) Microsoft
2 183 (7.38%) Oracle
3 136 (5.49%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.41%) SAP
5 107 (4.32%) Google
6 74 (2.99%) VMware
7 71 (2.87%) Cisco
8 66 (2.66%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.54%) Adobe
10 55 (2.22%) Databricks
11 46 (1.86%) IBM
12 44 (1.78%) Splunk
13 30 (1.21%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.09%) CyberArk
14 27 (1.09%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.89%) Apple
15 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.85%) Citrix
17 19 (0.77%) Ariba