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 30 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,464 2,312 3,551
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.80% 7.56% 8.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.37% 24.47% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,347 1,317 1,913
10th Percentile £206 £242 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 189 408
10th Percentile £16.55 £20.00 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.06 £26.32 £22.46
Median hourly rate £43.75 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.41% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.35 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £40.23 £42.25
% change year-on-year +16.83% -4.78% -12.35%

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 16,028 9,450 12,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.23% 30.88% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,706 5,857 7,950
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,161 635 1,116
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.78 £20.19 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +77.62% -31.24% -26.00%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.13 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.33% -36.92% -19.87%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -12 2,207 £500 - 2,192
UK excluding London -10 1,350 £450 - 1,585
London -19 940 £515 -6.36% 911
Work from Home -16 666 £500 -4.76% 754
South East -2 421 £500 +4.71% 536
North of England -11 333 £449 -1.32% 336
Midlands -22 199 £500 +34.77% 249
North West -7 187 £447 -1.97% 189
West Midlands -27 147 £487 +17.94% 139
East of England -4 145 £450 -10.00% 165
Yorkshire -8 133 £500 +11.86% 102
South West -22 121 £435 -8.42% 189
Scotland -25 91 £475 +5.56% 61
East Midlands -14 50 £550 +54.49% 110
Wales -20 29 £450 +47.31% 36
Northern Ireland -11 15 £254 -40.24% 55
North East -38 13 £450 +130.77% 52

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
1 134 (5.44%) SharePoint
2 132 (5.36%) Confluence
3 63 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.99%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.93%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.41%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.081%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.081%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 280 (11.36%) Microsoft Office
2 226 (9.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (5.56%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (2.80%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 13 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 7 (0.28%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 63 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.65%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) Magento
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 564 (22.89%) Azure
2 325 (13.19%) AWS
3 210 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 208 (8.44%) Power Platform
5 142 (5.76%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.03%) GCP
7 102 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.41%) SaaS
9 65 (2.64%) GitHub
10 44 (1.79%) Figma
11 42 (1.70%) Snowflake
12 40 (1.62%) Serverless
13 38 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.42%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.42%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.30%) OneDrive
15 32 (1.30%) PaaS
16 28 (1.14%) IaaS
17 26 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.75%) Firewall
2 80 (3.25%) DNS
2 80 (3.25%) TCP/IP
3 69 (2.80%) Network Security
4 54 (2.19%) WAN
5 53 (2.15%) VPN
6 49 (1.99%) LAN
7 35 (1.42%) DHCP
8 29 (1.18%) BGP
9 28 (1.14%) Wireless
10 25 (1.01%) OSPF
11 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.81%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.77%) SSL
14 15 (0.61%) Internet
14 15 (0.61%) VLAN
15 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) HTTP
15 14 (0.57%) SAN
16 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.22%) Power BI
2 119 (4.83%) SQL Server
3 66 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.03%) Big Data
5 50 (2.03%) Relational Database
6 44 (1.79%) Metadata
7 40 (1.62%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.58%) Tableau
9 33 (1.34%) MySQL
10 29 (1.18%) MongoDB
11 28 (1.14%) Hadoop
12 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
17 14 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
18 13 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
19 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 219 (8.89%) JIRA
2 123 (4.99%) Git
3 51 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.75%) GitLab
5 31 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) MLflow
6 20 (0.81%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.77%) Selenium
8 15 (0.61%) Postman
9 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.41%) Gradle
10 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
11 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
12 8 (0.32%) Maven
12 8 (0.32%) Subversion
13 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,109 (45.01%) Social Skills
2 743 (30.15%) Finance
3 522 (21.19%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.40%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.00%) Banking
6 145 (5.88%) Organisational Skills
7 119 (4.83%) Presentation Skills
8 108 (4.38%) Marketing
9 94 (3.81%) Legal
10 89 (3.61%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
12 85 (3.45%) Manufacturing
13 79 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
14 74 (3.00%) Telecoms
15 57 (2.31%) Retail
16 53 (2.15%) Law
17 52 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.62%) Front Office
19 38 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
20 34 (1.38%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 349 (14.16%) Analyst
2 271 (11.00%) Senior
3 200 (8.12%) Architect
4 183 (7.43%) Lead
5 172 (6.98%) Developer
6 158 (6.41%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.21%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.00%) Consultant
9 72 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.72%) Designer
11 63 (2.56%) Senior Manager
12 57 (2.31%) Senior Analyst
12 57 (2.31%) Technical Support
13 52 (2.11%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.07%) IT Support
15 50 (2.03%) Administrator
15 50 (2.03%) Security Engineer
16 49 (1.99%) IT Manager
16 49 (1.99%) Product Manager
17 47 (1.91%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.10%) .NET
2 99 (4.02%) REST
3 70 (2.84%) React
4 50 (2.03%) Kafka
5 45 (1.83%) HTML
6 44 (1.79%) Middleware
7 42 (1.70%) RESTful
8 40 (1.62%) .NET Framework
9 38 (1.54%) OAuth
10 37 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
11 34 (1.38%) CSS
12 33 (1.34%) Spring
12 33 (1.34%) Spring Boot
13 32 (1.30%) Web Services
14 28 (1.14%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.14%) JSON
14 28 (1.14%) SAML
14 28 (1.14%) XML
15 27 (1.10%) LDAP
15 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 207 (8.40%) Management Information System
2 147 (5.97%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.76%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.94%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.56%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.52%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.44%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.03%) Security Posture
11 48 (1.95%) Operational Technology
12 47 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
13 40 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
14 38 (1.54%) PMI
15 36 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (1.46%) Life Science
16 35 (1.42%) Robotics
17 30 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
18 28 (1.14%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 314 (12.74%) Windows
2 180 (7.31%) Linux
3 75 (3.04%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.88%) Unix
5 56 (2.27%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.26%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.14%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
14 7 (0.28%) AIX
15 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
16 4 (0.16%) Solaris
17 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 824 (33.44%) Computer Science
2 688 (27.92%) Agile
3 654 (26.54%) Problem-Solving
4 397 (16.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 387 (15.71%) AI
6 383 (15.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 339 (13.76%) DevOps
8 298 (12.09%) Analytics
9 297 (12.05%) Project Management
10 296 (12.01%) CI/CD
11 267 (10.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 263 (10.67%) Decision-Making
13 249 (10.11%) ITIL
14 247 (10.02%) Cybersecurity
15 226 (9.17%) Change Management
16 218 (8.85%) Roadmaps
17 217 (8.81%) Migration
18 205 (8.32%) Software Engineering
19 194 (7.87%) Project Delivery
20 189 (7.67%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 417 (16.92%) Python
2 379 (15.38%) SQL
3 172 (6.98%) Java
4 134 (5.44%) PowerShell
5 108 (4.38%) C#
6 93 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 47 (1.91%) C++
8 43 (1.75%) Bash
9 36 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.14%) R
11 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.65%) C
14 13 (0.53%) Go
14 13 (0.53%) Perl
15 12 (0.49%) Bicep
16 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 500 (20.29%) Computer Science Degree
2 432 (17.53%) Security Cleared
3 291 (11.81%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.47%) Master's Degree
5 141 (5.72%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.28%) CISSP
7 122 (4.95%) PMP
8 96 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 87 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (2.68%) CISM
11 64 (2.60%) Azure Certification
12 62 (2.52%) DV Cleared
13 48 (1.95%) PhD
14 44 (1.79%) CCNP
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 41 (1.66%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
18 33 (1.34%) CISA
18 33 (1.34%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.44%) QA
2 124 (5.03%) Data Quality
3 120 (4.87%) NIST
4 116 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 101 (4.10%) PMO
6 96 (3.90%) GDPR
7 50 (2.03%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.50%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.26%) GRC
11 29 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 19 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.65%) IFRS
15 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.49%) COBIT
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 188 (7.63%) Active Directory
2 139 (5.64%) Docker
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.14%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 14 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.12%) XenApp
11 3 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 151 (6.13%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.61%) Terraform
3 76 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.56%) Ansible
5 36 (1.46%) Grafana
6 35 (1.42%) SCCM
7 34 (1.38%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
15 6 (0.24%) Kibana
16 5 (0.20%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 583 (23.66%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.90%) Oracle
3 140 (5.68%) SAP
4 125 (5.07%) ServiceNow
5 101 (4.10%) Google
6 73 (2.96%) Cisco
7 62 (2.52%) Databricks
8 53 (2.15%) VMware
9 50 (2.03%) Adobe
10 49 (1.99%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.75%) Citrix
11 43 (1.75%) IBM
11 43 (1.75%) Splunk
12 36 (1.46%) Palo Alto
13 29 (1.18%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.06%) CheckPoint
15 24 (0.97%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.89%) Informatica
17 21 (0.85%) Siemens
18 20 (0.81%) HP