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 11 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,556 2,315 3,776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.01% 7.85% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.76% 25.89% 27.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,490 1,323 2,090
10th Percentile £292 £230 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -5.58%
75th Percentile £631 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £787 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 165 376
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.68 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.30 £29.00 £20.98
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +23.29% -18.89%
75th Percentile £79.58 £71.00 £57.81
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £43.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +3.91% +16.67% -16.67%

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 14,395 8,940 13,648
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.83% 30.33% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,479 5,628 8,419
10th Percentile £335 £285 £290
25th Percentile £421 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.58% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £626 £650
90th Percentile £720 £725 £733
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.15% -2.67% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,070 463 1,036
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.95 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.66 £24.19 £18.29
Median hourly rate £28.36 £43.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.05% +7.50% -20.00%
75th Percentile £66.00 £67.50 £62.63
90th Percentile £83.08 £82.22 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -16.67%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 March 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 -5 2,228 £500 -4.76% 2,875
UK excluding London -7 1,338 £492 +3.58% 2,292
London -12 974 £513 -6.82% 654
Work from Home -4 702 £500 -4.76% 1,150
North of England -5 346 £445 -10.95% 527
South East -4 345 £488 -2.50% 715
Midlands -21 211 £500 +37.93% 367
North West -2 180 £400 -19.76% 272
South West +6 164 £688 +25.00% 266
West Midlands -20 154 £500 +21.21% 204
Yorkshire -16 149 £508 -0.98% 196
East of England -9 132 £525 +7.91% 271
Scotland -2 105 £525 +19.66% 109
East Midlands -19 56 £525 +47.47% 159
Wales -10 45 £282 -2.20% 75
North East -12 18 £364 -27.20% 64
Northern Ireland -13 16 £388 -8.82% 23

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
1 209 (8.18%) Confluence
2 114 (4.46%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.19%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.20%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 4 (0.16%) Skype for Business
10 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 306 (11.97%) Microsoft Office
2 233 (9.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 201 (7.86%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (4.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.82%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.59%) Simulink
7 15 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.39%) Trello
9 8 (0.31%) Sketch
10 6 (0.23%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.16%) InVision
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.078%) InDesign
13 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 67 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.06%) Primavera
3 26 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 547 (21.40%) Azure
2 307 (12.01%) AWS
3 207 (8.10%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (7.86%) Power Platform
5 147 (5.75%) GCP
6 112 (4.38%) Entra ID
7 110 (4.30%) SaaS
8 100 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
9 88 (3.44%) GitHub
10 53 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.92%) Serverless
12 44 (1.72%) Cloud Computing
13 39 (1.53%) Power Automate
13 39 (1.53%) Snowflake
14 32 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
14 32 (1.25%) IaaS
14 32 (1.25%) PaaS
15 29 (1.13%) OCI
15 29 (1.13%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.10%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.62%) Firewall
2 61 (2.39%) WAN
3 60 (2.35%) TCP/IP
4 59 (2.31%) DNS
4 59 (2.31%) LAN
5 50 (1.96%) Network Security
6 41 (1.60%) VPN
7 31 (1.21%) Ethernet
8 29 (1.13%) HTTP
8 29 (1.13%) Wireless
9 28 (1.10%) BGP
10 26 (1.02%) Skype
11 25 (0.98%) Internet
12 23 (0.90%) OSPF
13 22 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
14 21 (0.82%) DHCP
15 20 (0.78%) VLAN
16 18 (0.70%) SSL
17 17 (0.67%) Unified Communications
18 15 (0.59%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.18%) Power BI
2 101 (3.95%) PostgreSQL
3 97 (3.79%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.43%) NoSQL
5 51 (2.00%) Big Data
6 47 (1.84%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.84%) Tableau
7 42 (1.64%) MySQL
8 33 (1.29%) Metadata
9 32 (1.25%) Data Lake
10 29 (1.13%) Hadoop
11 25 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.59%) GIS
15 12 (0.47%) BigQuery
15 12 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
15 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
16 11 (0.43%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 299 (11.70%) JIRA
2 129 (5.05%) Git
3 75 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.27%) GitLab
5 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.98%) Rational DOORS
7 21 (0.82%) Selenium
8 16 (0.63%) Postman
9 14 (0.55%) MLflow
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.47%) Liquibase
12 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.39%) Gradle
14 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
15 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
15 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
16 7 (0.27%) JMeter
16 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,255 (49.10%) Social Skills
2 797 (31.18%) Finance
3 580 (22.69%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (9.86%) Banking
5 224 (8.76%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.66%) Presentation Skills
7 108 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
8 94 (3.68%) Marketing
9 91 (3.56%) Manufacturing
10 88 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
11 86 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (2.97%) Legal
13 62 (2.43%) Aerospace
14 60 (2.35%) Military
15 58 (2.27%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.03%) Financial Institution
17 49 (1.92%) Front Office
18 48 (1.88%) Retail
19 47 (1.84%) Electronics
20 46 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 360 (14.08%) Analyst
2 250 (9.78%) Senior
3 215 (8.41%) Lead
4 207 (8.10%) Architect
5 206 (8.06%) Developer
6 181 (7.08%) Project Manager
7 167 (6.53%) Business Analyst
8 101 (3.95%) Consultant
9 72 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
10 69 (2.70%) Software Engineer
11 62 (2.43%) Technical Support
12 61 (2.39%) Delivery Manager
13 60 (2.35%) Security Engineer
14 55 (2.15%) Senior Analyst
15 48 (1.88%) Data Scientist
15 48 (1.88%) Designer
16 47 (1.84%) IT Support
17 42 (1.64%) Product Manager
18 38 (1.49%) Technical Analyst
19 37 (1.45%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.46%) REST
2 75 (2.93%) .NET
3 66 (2.58%) RESTful
4 64 (2.50%) React
5 63 (2.46%) HTML
6 52 (2.03%) CSS
6 52 (2.03%) Middleware
7 48 (1.88%) Kafka
8 41 (1.60%) Elastic Stack
9 40 (1.56%) SOAP
10 39 (1.53%) JSON
10 39 (1.53%) PyTorch
10 39 (1.53%) TensorFlow
10 39 (1.53%) XML
11 37 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.41%) OAuth
13 35 (1.37%) Spring
14 30 (1.17%) Spring Boot
15 29 (1.13%) Node.js
15 29 (1.13%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 214 (8.37%) Management Information System
2 161 (6.30%) Product Ownership
3 115 (4.50%) Cloud Native
3 115 (4.50%) Onboarding
4 88 (3.44%) Algorithms
5 81 (3.17%) Virtual Team
6 70 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
7 69 (2.70%) Data Centre
8 66 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
9 60 (2.35%) Data Structures
10 57 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
10 57 (2.23%) PMI
11 53 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
12 47 (1.84%) Derivative
13 44 (1.72%) Security Posture
14 38 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.33%) NHS
17 32 (1.25%) Equities
17 32 (1.25%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 297 (11.62%) Windows
2 192 (7.51%) Linux
3 77 (3.01%) Unix
4 74 (2.90%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.10%) Android
7 24 (0.94%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 13 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.23%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 948 (37.09%) Computer Science
2 800 (31.30%) Agile
3 710 (27.78%) Problem-Solving
4 426 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 381 (14.91%) DevOps
6 361 (14.12%) AI
7 336 (13.15%) Project Management
8 335 (13.11%) Continuous Improvement
9 311 (12.17%) CI/CD
10 290 (11.35%) Analytics
11 282 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 281 (10.99%) Change Management
13 274 (10.72%) Cybersecurity
14 269 (10.52%) Decision-Making
15 260 (10.17%) Migration
16 258 (10.09%) ITIL
17 236 (9.23%) Risk Management
18 235 (9.19%) Project Delivery
19 231 (9.04%) Software Engineering
20 223 (8.72%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 447 (17.49%) Python
2 377 (14.75%) SQL
3 180 (7.04%) Java
4 129 (5.05%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.11%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.25%) C#
7 75 (2.93%) C++
8 55 (2.15%) TypeScript
9 48 (1.88%) Bash
10 42 (1.64%) Go
11 29 (1.13%) R
12 26 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.78%) Perl
15 16 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.59%) Rust
16 15 (0.59%) SystemVerilog
16 15 (0.59%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.55%) C
18 13 (0.51%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 604 (23.63%) Computer Science Degree
2 489 (19.13%) Security Cleared
3 391 (15.30%) Master's Degree
4 353 (13.81%) SC Cleared
5 153 (5.99%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.24%) CISSP
7 129 (5.05%) PMP
8 91 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.33%) CISM
10 78 (3.05%) PhD
11 73 (2.86%) TOGAF Certification
12 71 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
13 65 (2.54%) Azure Certification
14 64 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
15 57 (2.23%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.60%) CCNP
17 38 (1.49%) MBA
18 36 (1.41%) AWS Certification
19 33 (1.29%) CBAP
20 32 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.53%) QA
2 138 (5.40%) GDPR
3 110 (4.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 109 (4.26%) PMO
5 95 (3.72%) NIST
6 94 (3.68%) Data Quality
7 50 (1.96%) PCI DSS
8 46 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.56%) SLA
10 32 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.10%) GRC
12 21 (0.82%) NCSC
13 19 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.70%) WCAG
15 17 (0.67%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.55%) Basel III
17 14 (0.55%) IFRS
18 13 (0.51%) DO-254
19 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 190 (7.43%) Docker
2 162 (6.34%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.78%) Firmware
5 18 (0.70%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) NDS
9 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.078%) HDFS
11 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 192 (7.51%) Kubernetes
2 109 (4.26%) Terraform
3 74 (2.90%) Ansible
4 66 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (1.96%) Grafana
6 42 (1.64%) Prometheus
7 41 (1.60%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 20 (0.78%) Puppet
10 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.59%) Kibana
13 13 (0.51%) Nmap
14 11 (0.43%) SCOM
15 9 (0.35%) Kiali
16 8 (0.31%) Argo
17 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
17 7 (0.27%) WSUS
18 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
18 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 544 (21.28%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.42%) Oracle
3 162 (6.34%) SAP
4 115 (4.50%) ServiceNow
5 113 (4.42%) Google
6 85 (3.33%) Cisco
6 85 (3.33%) Splunk
7 60 (2.35%) Databricks
8 56 (2.19%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.11%) Remedy
10 48 (1.88%) Salesforce
10 48 (1.88%) VMware
11 46 (1.80%) IBM
12 42 (1.64%) Citrix
13 41 (1.60%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.17%) CheckPoint
15 27 (1.06%) Informatica
16 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
16 25 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.86%) Adobe