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 13 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -19 -7 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,527 2,331 2,949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.60% 7.08% 7.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.41% 22.21% 26.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,289 1,270 1,674
10th Percentile £205 £268 £232
25th Percentile £372 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £613
90th Percentile £710 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £460 £475
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 313 206 178
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.72 £24.50 £26.09
Median hourly rate £40.00 £33.50 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +19.40% -21.53% -14.62%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.47 £84.38 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.49 £33.50 £52.19
% change year-on-year +14.88% -35.81% +4.38%

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 17,542 10,494 10,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.94% 31.87% 29.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,589 6,568 6,650
10th Percentile £356 £283 £310
25th Percentile £447 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £630
90th Percentile £713 £704 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,480 890 571
10th Percentile £16.50 £17.59 £18.13
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.87 £25.43
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.35%
75th Percentile £72.25 £40.41 £68.00
90th Percentile £89.08 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.64%

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 13 October 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 13 October 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 13 October 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 2,294 £510 +1.22% 6,343
UK excluding London -16 1,352 £483 +5.00% 2,888
London -18 1,002 £526 -4.36% 3,826
Work from Home -19 678 £505 +1.00% 2,383
South East +9 470 £525 +16.67% 836
North of England -16 341 £477 +4.15% 565
North West -8 217 £479 +4.70% 316
Midlands -33 181 £450 -5.26% 342
East of England -14 138 £425 -15.00% 351
West Midlands -39 132 £450 -9.09% 236
South West -23 126 £415 -20.95% 324
Yorkshire -23 106 £494 +9.67% 164
Scotland -48 74 £475 +5.56% 237
East Midlands -15 48 £475 +6.03% 106
North East -31 18 £460 +2.22% 88
Wales -31 13 £530 +66.62% 98
Northern Ireland -15 12 £250 -56.04% 177
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 153 (6.05%) SharePoint
2 126 (4.99%) Confluence
3 57 (2.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.91%) Apache
6 21 (0.83%) CMS
6 21 (0.83%) IIS
7 20 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (0.55%) Camunda
8 14 (0.55%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.28%) SAS
11 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.20%) FactoryTalk
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) nginx
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 243 (9.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 228 (9.02%) Microsoft Office
3 110 (4.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 110 (4.35%) Microsoft Project
4 61 (2.41%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.67%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 16 (0.63%) Adobe After Effects
7 15 (0.59%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.51%) Simulink
9 13 (0.51%) Windchill
10 8 (0.32%) AutoCAD
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
13 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 31 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.51%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 4 (0.16%) Unit4 Business World
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 574 (22.71%) Azure
2 309 (12.23%) AWS
3 220 (8.71%) Power Platform
4 211 (8.35%) Microsoft 365
5 156 (6.17%) GCP
6 139 (5.50%) Entra ID
7 136 (5.38%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (2.97%) SaaS
9 74 (2.93%) GitHub
10 63 (2.49%) Serverless
11 62 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
12 59 (2.33%) Power Automate
13 52 (2.06%) PowerApps
14 50 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
15 49 (1.94%) OneDrive
16 41 (1.62%) Snowflake
17 39 (1.54%) Figma
18 32 (1.27%) Amazon S3
19 31 (1.23%) IaaS
20 29 (1.15%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.12%) Firewall
2 82 (3.24%) DNS
3 66 (2.61%) TCP/IP
4 64 (2.53%) Network Security
5 59 (2.33%) VPN
6 45 (1.78%) DHCP
7 31 (1.23%) WAN
8 30 (1.19%) LAN
9 28 (1.11%) Wireless
10 23 (0.91%) VLAN
11 22 (0.87%) 3GPP
12 21 (0.83%) 5G
13 20 (0.79%) SSL
14 19 (0.75%) Internet
14 19 (0.75%) SSH
15 17 (0.67%) BGP
15 17 (0.67%) Radio Access Network
15 17 (0.67%) Wireshark
16 15 (0.59%) OSPF
16 15 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.21%) Power BI
2 109 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.33%) Metadata
5 48 (1.90%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
7 39 (1.54%) MySQL
8 34 (1.35%) NoSQL
9 32 (1.27%) Tableau
10 31 (1.23%) Big Data
11 30 (1.19%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.07%) Elasticsearch
13 26 (1.03%) Oracle Database
14 22 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
15 19 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.75%) Data Lake
16 16 (0.63%) Data Mining
16 16 (0.63%) GIS
17 11 (0.44%) Redis
Development Applications
1 178 (7.04%) JIRA
2 150 (5.94%) Git
3 66 (2.61%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.22%) GitLab
5 29 (1.15%) Gradle
6 27 (1.07%) JUnit
7 25 (0.99%) Maven
8 24 (0.95%) SonarQube
9 22 (0.87%) Selenium
10 20 (0.79%) Cucumber
11 19 (0.75%) Visual Studio
12 18 (0.71%) Mockito
12 18 (0.71%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
14 15 (0.59%) Postman
15 11 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
15 11 (0.44%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
16 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,131 (44.76%) Social Skills
2 730 (28.89%) Finance
3 589 (23.31%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.31%) Banking
5 209 (8.27%) Public Sector
6 164 (6.49%) Organisational Skills
7 150 (5.94%) Manufacturing
8 133 (5.26%) Aerospace
9 127 (5.03%) Influencing Skills
10 105 (4.16%) Marketing
11 93 (3.68%) Telecoms
12 87 (3.44%) Presentation Skills
13 85 (3.36%) Legal
14 80 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
15 69 (2.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 65 (2.57%) Retail
17 64 (2.53%) Pharmaceutical
18 48 (1.90%) Law
19 47 (1.86%) Military
20 43 (1.70%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 337 (13.34%) Analyst
2 294 (11.63%) Senior
3 209 (8.27%) Developer
4 201 (7.95%) Lead
5 173 (6.85%) Business Analyst
6 163 (6.45%) Architect
7 108 (4.27%) Project Manager
8 80 (3.17%) Consultant
9 67 (2.65%) IT Support
9 67 (2.65%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.41%) Senior Manager
11 55 (2.18%) Administrator
12 54 (2.14%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.06%) IT Manager
14 49 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
14 49 (1.94%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.74%) Data Analyst
15 44 (1.74%) Product Manager
15 44 (1.74%) Software Engineer
16 43 (1.70%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (4.79%) Terraform
2 120 (4.75%) REST
3 106 (4.19%) .NET
4 75 (2.97%) React
5 73 (2.89%) HTML
6 67 (2.65%) Kafka
7 65 (2.57%) CSS
8 64 (2.53%) RESTful
9 53 (2.10%) OAuth
10 49 (1.94%) XML
11 46 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.78%) Web Services
13 43 (1.70%) Middleware
13 43 (1.70%) Spring Boot
14 41 (1.62%) SOAP
15 40 (1.58%) OAuth2
15 40 (1.58%) SAML
16 39 (1.54%) Spring
17 36 (1.42%) OpenID
18 35 (1.39%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 233 (9.22%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.18%) Onboarding
3 128 (5.07%) Product Ownership
4 111 (4.39%) Self-Motivation
5 108 (4.27%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.57%) Algorithms
7 64 (2.53%) Operational Technology
8 60 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
9 59 (2.33%) Data Centre
9 59 (2.33%) Data Structures
10 57 (2.26%) Life Science
11 52 (2.06%) Security Posture
12 48 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
13 47 (1.86%) AI Agents
14 43 (1.70%) Virtual Team
15 41 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
16 40 (1.58%) SCADA
17 34 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
18 32 (1.27%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 287 (11.36%) Windows
2 184 (7.28%) Linux
3 82 (3.24%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.65%) Unix
5 40 (1.58%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.42%) macOS
7 33 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 32 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.87%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) VMS
12 5 (0.20%) Solaris
12 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.079%) Debian
15 2 (0.079%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (32.05%) Computer Science
2 698 (27.62%) Agile
3 682 (26.99%) Problem-Solving
4 582 (23.03%) Stakeholder Management
5 449 (17.77%) Continuous Improvement
6 402 (15.91%) AI
7 379 (15.00%) DevOps
8 349 (13.81%) CI/CD
9 322 (12.74%) Analytics
10 307 (12.15%) Project Management
11 277 (10.96%) ITIL
12 273 (10.80%) Decision-Making
13 261 (10.33%) Scrum
14 258 (10.21%) Roadmaps
15 256 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 242 (9.58%) Software Engineering
17 236 (9.34%) Change Management
18 232 (9.18%) Cybersecurity
19 228 (9.02%) Project Delivery
20 227 (8.98%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 395 (15.63%) Python
2 364 (14.40%) SQL
3 177 (7.00%) PowerShell
4 165 (6.53%) Java
5 132 (5.22%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.87%) C#
7 67 (2.65%) Bash
8 47 (1.86%) TypeScript
9 37 (1.46%) C++
10 33 (1.31%) Bicep
11 30 (1.19%) Shell Script
12 26 (1.03%) T-SQL
13 24 (0.95%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.87%) R
15 20 (0.79%) Scala
16 19 (0.75%) C
17 14 (0.55%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.47%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.47%) Kotlin
18 12 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 499 (19.75%) Computer Science Degree
1 499 (19.75%) Security Cleared
2 369 (14.60%) SC Cleared
3 215 (8.51%) Master's Degree
4 154 (6.09%) PMI Certification
5 134 (5.30%) PMP
6 119 (4.71%) Microsoft Certification
7 109 (4.31%) CISSP
8 99 (3.92%) Azure Certification
9 98 (3.88%) DV Cleared
10 84 (3.32%) BPSS Clearance
10 84 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (2.41%) PhD
12 56 (2.22%) CISM
13 50 (1.98%) AWS Certification
14 43 (1.70%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 41 (1.62%) DBS Check
15 41 (1.62%) ISTQB
16 36 (1.42%) CCNA
16 36 (1.42%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (6.13%) QA
2 150 (5.94%) Data Quality
3 88 (3.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.40%) GDPR
5 84 (3.32%) NIST
6 74 (2.93%) PMO
7 51 (2.02%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.50%) SLA
9 32 (1.27%) GRC
10 21 (0.83%) NCSC
11 19 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.71%) PCI DSS
12 18 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 16 (0.63%) IFRS
14 14 (0.55%) IEC 61508
15 12 (0.47%) ISO 31000
15 12 (0.47%) P3O
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.44%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 179 (7.08%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.83%) Docker
3 62 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.11%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.95%) Firmware
6 20 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) vSphere
8 8 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
11 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.20%) RACF
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 140 (5.54%) Kubernetes
2 72 (2.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.41%) Ansible
4 32 (1.27%) SCCM
5 26 (1.03%) Grafana
6 25 (0.99%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.71%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.59%) Functional Safety
9 14 (0.55%) Puppet
10 12 (0.47%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) CASB
11 10 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.32%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 616 (24.38%) Microsoft
2 183 (7.24%) Oracle
3 133 (5.26%) SAP
4 131 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 114 (4.51%) Google
6 75 (2.97%) VMware
7 72 (2.85%) Salesforce
8 70 (2.77%) Cisco
9 65 (2.57%) Adobe
10 64 (2.53%) Databricks
11 46 (1.82%) Splunk
12 45 (1.78%) IBM
13 30 (1.19%) Red Hat
14 28 (1.11%) OpenAI
15 23 (0.91%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.83%) Apple
16 21 (0.83%) Citrix
17 20 (0.79%) Ariba
17 20 (0.79%) CyberArk
18 18 (0.71%) EMC