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 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 22 22
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,503 2,845 3,674
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.97% 7.74% 7.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.92% 26.31% 27.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,418 1,584 2,238
10th Percentile £273 £225 £230
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £627 £638
90th Percentile £750 £756 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 239 155 216
10th Percentile £15.31 £20.05 £17.75
25th Percentile £22.92 £24.35 £26.97
Median hourly rate £33.50 £39.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.10% -22.00% +11.86%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.13 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.85 £75.00 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -10.67% -25.00% +13.64%

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 11,963 10,815 13,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.30% 29.44% 29.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,699 6,533 8,612
10th Percentile £303 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £520 £535
% change year-on-year -3.85% -2.80% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,040 531 772
10th Percentile £17.47 £19.30 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.36 £24.18 £27.38
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £53.85
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -21.08% +19.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £68.97
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +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 22 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 22 November 2025. 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 -3 2,131 £520 +1.51% 5,056
UK excluding London -2 1,250 £475 - 3,341
London -4 1,025 £548 +2.77% 2,124
Work from Home 0 731 £500 - 2,224
North of England -6 303 £450 -14.29% 587
South East 0 268 £475 -2.06% 1,232
Midlands -11 219 £475 -4.62% 460
North West -8 178 £425 -19.81% 325
West Midlands -11 167 £500 - 277
South West +4 151 £600 - 368
East of England -7 131 £505 +21.54% 458
Scotland +1 123 £463 +8.82% 196
Yorkshire -12 116 £476 -4.85% 182
East Midlands -4 52 £448 +12.00% 176
Wales -4 45 £232 -42.00% 67
Northern Ireland -3 37 £370 -22.11% 64
North East -10 10 £298 -33.68% 85

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
1 171 (6.83%) Confluence
2 127 (5.07%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.88%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 16 (0.64%) CMS
8 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.52%) IIS
10 12 (0.48%) Apache
11 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Moodle
11 7 (0.28%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) Luigi
13 4 (0.16%) Alfresco
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 296 (11.83%) Microsoft Office
2 232 (9.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 164 (6.55%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (4.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.84%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 18 (0.72%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Trello
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 6 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.24%) Sketch
13 5 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
13 5 (0.20%) Maya
13 5 (0.20%) Navisworks
13 5 (0.20%) Revit
14 4 (0.16%) AutoCAD
14 4 (0.16%) InDesign
14 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 67 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.84%) Primavera
4 14 (0.56%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
7 9 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.24%) Endur
10 6 (0.24%) Maximo
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.24%) Teamcenter
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 5 (0.20%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 487 (19.46%) Azure
2 325 (12.98%) AWS
3 192 (7.67%) Microsoft 365
4 174 (6.95%) Power Platform
5 161 (6.43%) GCP
6 103 (4.12%) GitHub
7 97 (3.88%) SaaS
8 84 (3.36%) Entra ID
9 75 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
10 72 (2.88%) Serverless
11 48 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
12 40 (1.60%) Amazon S3
13 38 (1.52%) Power Automate
14 37 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
15 35 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
16 32 (1.28%) PowerApps
17 30 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
17 30 (1.20%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.27%) Firewall
2 87 (3.48%) DNS
3 57 (2.28%) VPN
4 51 (2.04%) Network Security
5 44 (1.76%) DHCP
6 38 (1.52%) TCP/IP
7 37 (1.48%) HTTP
8 36 (1.44%) LAN
8 36 (1.44%) WAN
9 32 (1.28%) Wireless
10 29 (1.16%) Internet
11 26 (1.04%) Skype
11 26 (1.04%) Unified Communications
11 26 (1.04%) VoIP
12 25 (1.00%) SSH
12 25 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.92%) BGP
14 21 (0.84%) Cisco IOS
15 18 (0.72%) Ethernet
16 17 (0.68%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (5.31%) Power BI
2 104 (4.16%) PostgreSQL
3 82 (3.28%) SQL Server
4 73 (2.92%) NoSQL
5 59 (2.36%) Relational Database
6 57 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
6 57 (2.28%) Tableau
7 33 (1.32%) MySQL
8 32 (1.28%) Big Data
9 31 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
10 29 (1.16%) Data Lake
11 24 (0.96%) Metadata
12 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.72%) Hadoop
14 17 (0.68%) Redis
14 17 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 14 (0.56%) Oracle Database
16 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
17 12 (0.48%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 270 (10.79%) JIRA
2 125 (4.99%) Git
3 106 (4.23%) Jenkins
4 77 (3.08%) GitLab
5 29 (1.16%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.04%) Postman
7 21 (0.84%) Selenium
8 15 (0.60%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.40%) JUnit
11 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
12 9 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.36%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.32%) MLflow
13 8 (0.32%) Subversion
14 7 (0.28%) IntelliJ
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 6 (0.24%) Appium
General
1 1,306 (52.18%) Social Skills
2 800 (31.96%) Finance
3 616 (24.61%) Analytical Skills
4 276 (11.03%) Banking
5 170 (6.79%) Public Sector
6 125 (4.99%) Manufacturing
7 107 (4.27%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.04%) Organisational Skills
9 96 (3.84%) Marketing
10 90 (3.60%) Influencing Skills
11 85 (3.40%) Legal
12 76 (3.04%) Telecoms
13 69 (2.76%) Financial Institution
14 65 (2.60%) Investment Banking
15 62 (2.48%) Front Office
15 62 (2.48%) Pharmaceutical
16 58 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
17 55 (2.20%) Military
18 54 (2.16%) Aerospace
19 42 (1.68%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 377 (15.06%) Analyst
2 243 (9.71%) Developer
3 241 (9.63%) Senior
4 188 (7.51%) Lead
5 171 (6.83%) Architect
6 155 (6.19%) Business Analyst
7 153 (6.11%) Project Manager
8 109 (4.35%) Consultant
9 80 (3.20%) Software Engineer
10 65 (2.60%) IT Support
11 64 (2.56%) Support Analyst
12 53 (2.12%) Security Engineer
12 53 (2.12%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (1.92%) Support Engineer
13 48 (1.92%) Technical Support
14 46 (1.84%) Data Scientist
15 45 (1.80%) IT Manager
15 45 (1.80%) Senior Developer
16 43 (1.72%) Data Engineer
17 41 (1.64%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (5.47%) REST
2 91 (3.64%) RESTful
3 77 (3.08%) HTML
4 73 (2.92%) .NET
5 60 (2.40%) CSS
6 56 (2.24%) Kafka
7 53 (2.12%) XML
8 51 (2.04%) JSON
9 46 (1.84%) SOAP
10 42 (1.68%) Web Services
11 41 (1.64%) Elastic Stack
11 41 (1.64%) Middleware
11 41 (1.64%) React
12 39 (1.56%) OAuth
13 38 (1.52%) TensorFlow
14 34 (1.36%) AngularJS
14 34 (1.36%) Node.js
15 33 (1.32%) Spring
16 32 (1.28%) PyTorch
17 30 (1.20%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.23%) Management Information System
2 109 (4.35%) Product Ownership
3 99 (3.96%) Cloud Native
4 92 (3.68%) Algorithms
5 79 (3.16%) Onboarding
6 68 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
7 64 (2.56%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (2.36%) Analytical Mindset
10 55 (2.20%) Data Centre
11 51 (2.04%) Public Cloud
12 50 (2.00%) Derivative
13 46 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
14 44 (1.76%) Life Science
15 42 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
16 41 (1.64%) PKI
17 39 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
17 39 (1.56%) Mobile App
18 36 (1.44%) PMI
18 36 (1.44%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 269 (10.75%) Windows
2 199 (7.95%) Linux
3 78 (3.12%) Unix
4 59 (2.36%) Windows Server
5 36 (1.44%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.12%) Mac OS
7 26 (1.04%) Android
8 25 (1.00%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.68%) VMS
11 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.080%) Mac OS X
16 2 (0.080%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 986 (39.39%) Computer Science
2 772 (30.84%) Agile
3 768 (30.68%) Problem-Solving
4 405 (16.18%) Project Management
5 376 (15.02%) Stakeholder Management
6 344 (13.74%) DevOps
7 299 (11.95%) Change Management
8 295 (11.79%) ITIL
9 263 (10.51%) Analytics
10 260 (10.39%) CI/CD
11 258 (10.31%) Continuous Improvement
12 252 (10.07%) Cybersecurity
13 250 (9.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 247 (9.87%) AI
15 231 (9.23%) Migration
16 224 (8.95%) Software Engineering
17 222 (8.87%) Project Delivery
18 208 (8.31%) Decision-Making
19 189 (7.55%) Risk Management
20 180 (7.19%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 481 (19.22%) Python
2 359 (14.34%) SQL
3 196 (7.83%) Java
4 125 (4.99%) PowerShell
5 122 (4.87%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.28%) C#
7 78 (3.12%) C++
8 63 (2.52%) Go
9 49 (1.96%) TypeScript
10 47 (1.88%) Bash
11 39 (1.56%) R
12 23 (0.92%) MATLAB
12 23 (0.92%) Perl
13 21 (0.84%) Ruby
14 20 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
15 19 (0.76%) C
16 17 (0.68%) PL/SQL
16 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
18 15 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 651 (26.01%) Computer Science Degree
2 371 (14.82%) Master's Degree
3 351 (14.02%) Security Cleared
4 276 (11.03%) SC Cleared
5 144 (5.75%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.19%) PMP
7 119 (4.75%) CISSP
8 99 (3.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.32%) PhD
10 74 (2.96%) Azure Certification
11 71 (2.84%) Cisco Certification
12 70 (2.80%) AWS Certification
13 69 (2.76%) CISM
14 54 (2.16%) HND
15 47 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
16 44 (1.76%) CCNP
16 44 (1.76%) DV Cleared
17 42 (1.68%) HNC
18 38 (1.52%) CCNA
19 36 (1.44%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (5.51%) QA
2 125 (4.99%) GDPR
3 100 (4.00%) Data Quality
4 96 (3.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.48%) NIST
6 66 (2.64%) PMO
7 45 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 35 (1.40%) SLA
9 33 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.08%) GRC
10 27 (1.08%) PCI DSS
11 23 (0.92%) HIPAA
12 21 (0.84%) NCSC
13 18 (0.72%) COBIT
14 16 (0.64%) NIST 800
15 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
15 15 (0.60%) P3O
16 14 (0.56%) WCAG
17 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 170 (6.79%) Docker
2 157 (6.27%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.16%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
7 10 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 146 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 121 (4.83%) Terraform
3 87 (3.48%) Ansible
4 64 (2.56%) Grafana
5 55 (2.20%) Prometheus
6 52 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.88%) SCCM
8 17 (0.68%) Puppet
9 14 (0.56%) OPNET
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
11 12 (0.48%) QRadar
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
16 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 6 (0.24%) Kibana
Vendors
1 550 (21.97%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.67%) SAP
3 132 (5.27%) Oracle
4 127 (5.07%) ServiceNow
5 98 (3.92%) Google
6 89 (3.56%) Cisco
6 89 (3.56%) Splunk
7 71 (2.84%) Salesforce
8 58 (2.32%) VMware
9 46 (1.84%) Atlassian
10 38 (1.52%) IBM
11 36 (1.44%) Databricks
12 34 (1.36%) Remedy
13 33 (1.32%) Citrix
14 32 (1.28%) Adobe
15 26 (1.04%) Workday
16 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.80%) Red Hat
18 19 (0.76%) Apple
19 15 (0.60%) Fortinet