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 10 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,480 2,479 3,046
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.65% 7.48% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.84% 24.00% 26.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,316 1,404 1,779
10th Percentile £206 £253 £257
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £625
90th Percentile £715 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £450 £499
% change year-on-year +4.89% -9.82% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 210 271
10th Percentile £17.10 £17.50 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.58 £25.75 £25.43
Median hourly rate £44.50 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.20 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.04 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £41.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +3.66% -28.51% +16.38%

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 16,716 10,328 11,628
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.34% 31.15% 29.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,172 6,378 7,405
10th Percentile £350 £290 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,263 804 850
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £15.08
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.14 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.23 £53.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -13 2,267 £500 - 4,849
UK excluding London -13 1,363 £472 +4.89% 2,719
London -20 962 £525 -4.55% 2,477
Work from Home -20 654 £500 - 1,592
South East +3 481 £500 +5.26% 820
North of England -10 332 £453 +0.67% 555
North West -13 192 £452 -4.95% 293
Midlands -33 179 £450 +0.67% 388
East of England -7 144 £425 -5.56% 411
West Midlands -36 136 £450 - 222
Yorkshire -8 125 £500 +20.12% 160
South West -23 124 £415 +10.67% 302
Scotland -36 72 £484 +7.50% 170
East Midlands -21 41 £475 +32.68% 166
Wales -30 17 £530 +71.67% 77
Northern Ireland -14 15 £252 -46.95% 52
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 107
Channel Islands - 1 - -

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
1 145 (5.85%) SharePoint
2 115 (4.64%) Confluence
3 63 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.25%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Service Bus
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 269 (10.85%) Microsoft Office
2 246 (9.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 144 (5.81%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.54%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 5 (0.20%) Trello
12 5 (0.20%) Windchill
13 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 60 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 558 (22.50%) Azure
2 320 (12.90%) AWS
3 222 (8.95%) Power Platform
4 217 (8.75%) Microsoft 365
5 149 (6.01%) Entra ID
6 130 (5.24%) GCP
7 106 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.31%) SaaS
9 67 (2.70%) GitHub
10 51 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
11 48 (1.94%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.90%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.90%) Snowflake
13 45 (1.81%) Serverless
14 44 (1.77%) Figma
15 40 (1.61%) OneDrive
16 39 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.13%) IaaS
18 26 (1.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.68%) Firewall
2 81 (3.27%) DNS
3 80 (3.23%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.70%) Network Security
5 61 (2.46%) VPN
6 41 (1.65%) DHCP
7 40 (1.61%) WAN
8 38 (1.53%) LAN
9 29 (1.17%) Wireless
10 21 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
12 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
12 19 (0.77%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 17 (0.69%) Internet
14 16 (0.65%) OSPF
14 16 (0.65%) SSH
15 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.56%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (7.14%) Power BI
2 104 (4.19%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
3 54 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
5 41 (1.65%) Metadata
6 33 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 33 (1.33%) Tableau
7 30 (1.21%) Big Data
8 25 (1.01%) MySQL
9 24 (0.97%) MongoDB
9 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 22 (0.89%) Oracle Database
11 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
12 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
12 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.60%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.56%) Power Query
15 12 (0.48%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 190 (7.66%) JIRA
2 131 (5.28%) Git
3 57 (2.30%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.90%) GitLab
5 36 (1.45%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.60%) MLflow
9 13 (0.52%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.44%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
13 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,098 (44.27%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.23%) Finance
3 574 (23.15%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (8.10%) Public Sector
5 179 (7.22%) Banking
6 161 (6.49%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.40%) Aerospace
8 106 (4.27%) Presentation Skills
9 100 (4.03%) Legal
10 97 (3.91%) Marketing
11 92 (3.71%) Manufacturing
12 88 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
13 85 (3.43%) Telecoms
14 74 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.58%) Retail
16 62 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.18%) Law
18 50 (2.02%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.57%) Front Office
20 38 (1.53%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 340 (13.71%) Analyst
2 286 (11.53%) Senior
3 187 (7.54%) Lead
4 177 (7.14%) Developer
5 171 (6.90%) Architect
6 156 (6.29%) Business Analyst
7 145 (5.85%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.94%) Consultant
8 73 (2.94%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.50%) IT Support
10 60 (2.42%) Designer
11 59 (2.38%) Support Engineer
12 57 (2.30%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.18%) IT Manager
14 53 (2.14%) Product Manager
15 52 (2.10%) IT Analyst
16 49 (1.98%) Software Engineer
17 48 (1.94%) Administrator
18 47 (1.90%) Senior Analyst
19 46 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.31%) REST
2 97 (3.91%) .NET
3 60 (2.42%) React
4 48 (1.94%) Kafka
5 46 (1.85%) RESTful
6 45 (1.81%) HTML
6 45 (1.81%) OAuth
7 38 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
8 36 (1.45%) CSS
9 35 (1.41%) Middleware
10 34 (1.37%) SAML
11 33 (1.33%) OAuth2
11 33 (1.33%) Web Services
12 32 (1.29%) .NET Framework
13 30 (1.21%) JSON
14 29 (1.17%) OpenID
15 28 (1.13%) LDAP
15 28 (1.13%) XML
16 27 (1.09%) SOAP
16 27 (1.09%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.27%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.09%) Product Ownership
3 147 (5.93%) Onboarding
4 113 (4.56%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.75%) Cloud Native
6 75 (3.02%) Data Structures
7 70 (2.82%) Algorithms
8 64 (2.58%) Data Centre
9 55 (2.22%) Security Posture
10 52 (2.10%) Virtual Team
11 49 (1.98%) Operational Technology
12 46 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
13 44 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
14 42 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
15 40 (1.61%) Life Science
16 37 (1.49%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.37%) PMI
18 32 (1.29%) Robotics
18 32 (1.29%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.85%) Windows
2 173 (6.98%) Linux
3 73 (2.94%) Windows Server
4 57 (2.30%) Unix
5 51 (2.06%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.13%) Apple iOS
7 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
8 26 (1.05%) Android
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 834 (33.63%) Computer Science
2 670 (27.02%) Agile
3 652 (26.29%) Problem-Solving
4 454 (18.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 427 (17.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (15.52%) AI
7 330 (13.31%) DevOps
8 319 (12.86%) Project Management
9 301 (12.14%) Analytics
10 298 (12.02%) CI/CD
11 280 (11.29%) ITIL
12 263 (10.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 259 (10.44%) Decision-Making
14 245 (9.88%) Cybersecurity
15 222 (8.95%) Change Management
16 215 (8.67%) Software Engineering
17 214 (8.63%) PRINCE2
18 208 (8.39%) Roadmaps
19 206 (8.31%) Project Delivery
20 203 (8.19%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 422 (17.02%) Python
2 346 (13.95%) SQL
3 162 (6.53%) Java
4 160 (6.45%) PowerShell
5 108 (4.35%) C#
6 94 (3.79%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.26%) Bash
8 47 (1.90%) C++
9 40 (1.61%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.09%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.01%) Bicep
13 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
14 23 (0.93%) Shell Script
15 22 (0.89%) C
16 14 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
18 11 (0.44%) Scala
18 11 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 497 (20.04%) Computer Science Degree
2 447 (18.02%) Security Cleared
3 292 (11.77%) SC Cleared
4 217 (8.75%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.85%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.04%) PMP
7 121 (4.88%) CISSP
8 117 (4.72%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.10%) Azure Certification
11 74 (2.98%) DV Cleared
12 65 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.34%) CISM
14 50 (2.02%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) CCNA
16 41 (1.65%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.61%) CCNP
17 40 (1.61%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 37 (1.49%) CISA
19 31 (1.25%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.20%) Data Quality
1 129 (5.20%) QA
2 114 (4.60%) NIST
3 109 (4.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 102 (4.11%) PMO
5 74 (2.98%) GDPR
6 51 (2.06%) SLA
7 49 (1.98%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 26 (1.05%) PCI DSS
10 25 (1.01%) GRC
11 23 (0.93%) NCSC
12 15 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.52%) COBIT
13 13 (0.52%) IFRS
14 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.44%) P3O
16 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
17 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 195 (7.86%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.88%) Docker
3 51 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Firmware
5 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (5.20%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.91%) Terraform
3 79 (3.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.62%) Ansible
5 38 (1.53%) SCCM
6 29 (1.17%) Grafana
7 26 (1.05%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) Puppet
11 10 (0.40%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Cisco Prime
Vendors
1 636 (25.65%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.61%) Oracle
3 139 (5.60%) ServiceNow
4 138 (5.56%) SAP
5 88 (3.55%) Google
6 68 (2.74%) Cisco
7 67 (2.70%) VMware
8 62 (2.50%) Databricks
9 61 (2.46%) Salesforce
10 56 (2.26%) Adobe
11 48 (1.94%) IBM
12 37 (1.49%) Splunk
13 31 (1.25%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.17%) Citrix
15 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
16 27 (1.09%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.85%) Apple
17 21 (0.85%) Ariba
17 21 (0.85%) Siemens
18 20 (0.81%) BeyondTrust