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 2 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,457 2,341 3,565
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.77% 7.56% 8.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.28% 24.56% 27.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,336 1,335 1,920
10th Percentile £206 £243 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 189 404
10th Percentile £16.60 £19.56 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.13 £26.32 £22.33
Median hourly rate £44.50 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.78% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.31 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.35 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.50 £40.23 £41.50
% change year-on-year +20.56% -3.06% -14.04%

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 16,078 9,533 12,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.24% 30.79% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,719 5,916 8,001
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.82% -0.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £526
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.85% +0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,171 641 1,113
10th Percentile £17.40 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +78.57% -31.61% -26.70%
75th Percentile £72.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £26.28 £43.00
% change year-on-year +90.26% -38.88% -20.54%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2,199 £500 -0.79% 3,259
UK excluding London -11 1,346 £450 - 2,086
London -18 937 £515 -6.36% 1,501
Work from Home -17 662 £500 -4.76% 1,253
South East -6 422 £500 +3.90% 661
North of England -12 328 £449 -0.22% 454
Midlands -24 200 £503 +35.44% 304
North West -12 183 £447 -1.97% 252
West Midlands -29 149 £492 +19.27% 165
East of England -3 145 £450 -10.00% 247
Yorkshire -6 133 £500 +14.68% 142
South West -22 120 £425 -10.53% 261
Scotland -22 90 £475 +5.56% 102
East Midlands -15 49 £550 +54.49% 139
Wales -19 30 £450 +47.31% 41
Northern Ireland -11 15 £254 -40.24% 63
North East -36 12 £450 +130.77% 65

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 (5.45%) Confluence
2 133 (5.41%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.94%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.081%) nginx
14 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
14 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 281 (11.44%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.66%) Microsoft Project
4 136 (5.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (2.81%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 9 (0.37%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
12 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.61%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) Magento
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
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
1 571 (23.24%) Azure
2 328 (13.35%) AWS
3 212 (8.63%) Power Platform
4 206 (8.38%) Microsoft 365
5 140 (5.70%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.05%) GCP
7 104 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.34%) SaaS
9 66 (2.69%) GitHub
10 45 (1.83%) Figma
11 43 (1.75%) Snowflake
12 41 (1.67%) Serverless
13 39 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.42%) PowerApps
15 34 (1.38%) Power Automate
16 31 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.26%) PaaS
17 30 (1.22%) OneDrive
18 27 (1.10%) IaaS
19 26 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.68%) Firewall
2 80 (3.26%) DNS
3 79 (3.22%) TCP/IP
4 69 (2.81%) Network Security
5 54 (2.20%) WAN
6 51 (2.08%) VPN
7 49 (1.99%) LAN
8 35 (1.42%) DHCP
9 29 (1.18%) BGP
10 28 (1.14%) Wireless
11 25 (1.02%) OSPF
12 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.81%) Ethernet
14 19 (0.77%) SSL
15 15 (0.61%) Internet
15 15 (0.61%) VLAN
16 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
16 14 (0.57%) HTTP
16 14 (0.57%) SAN
17 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (7.33%) Power BI
2 115 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 66 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.99%) Big Data
7 46 (1.87%) Metadata
8 39 (1.59%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.55%) Tableau
10 33 (1.34%) MySQL
11 29 (1.18%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.10%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.94%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 18 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
14 18 (0.73%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 15 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
17 13 (0.53%) GIS
17 13 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 219 (8.91%) JIRA
2 125 (5.09%) Git
3 52 (2.12%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.75%) GitLab
5 31 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) MLflow
7 19 (0.77%) Visual Studio
8 17 (0.69%) Selenium
9 15 (0.61%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.49%) JUnit
12 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Gradle
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) Subversion
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,096 (44.61%) Social Skills
2 740 (30.12%) Finance
3 513 (20.88%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 190 (7.73%) Banking
6 146 (5.94%) Organisational Skills
7 116 (4.72%) Presentation Skills
8 109 (4.44%) Marketing
9 91 (3.70%) Legal
10 90 (3.66%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
12 84 (3.42%) Manufacturing
13 79 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
14 73 (2.97%) Telecoms
15 60 (2.44%) Retail
16 52 (2.12%) Law
17 51 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.63%) Front Office
19 38 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
20 32 (1.30%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 349 (14.20%) Analyst
2 273 (11.11%) Senior
3 201 (8.18%) Architect
4 182 (7.41%) Lead
5 170 (6.92%) Developer
6 160 (6.51%) Project Manager
7 155 (6.31%) Business Analyst
8 73 (2.97%) Consultant
8 73 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.73%) Designer
10 65 (2.65%) Senior Manager
11 58 (2.36%) Technical Support
12 57 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
13 54 (2.20%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.08%) IT Support
15 50 (2.04%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.04%) Security Engineer
16 49 (1.99%) Administrator
16 49 (1.99%) Product Manager
17 47 (1.91%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.11%) .NET
2 99 (4.03%) REST
3 69 (2.81%) React
4 50 (2.04%) Kafka
5 44 (1.79%) RESTful
6 42 (1.71%) HTML
6 42 (1.71%) Middleware
7 38 (1.55%) .NET Framework
7 38 (1.55%) OAuth
8 33 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
8 33 (1.34%) Spring
8 33 (1.34%) Spring Boot
9 32 (1.30%) CSS
9 32 (1.30%) Web Services
10 28 (1.14%) AngularJS
10 28 (1.14%) JSON
10 28 (1.14%) SAML
10 28 (1.14%) XML
11 27 (1.10%) LDAP
11 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.22%) Management Information System
2 147 (5.98%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.78%) Product Ownership
4 104 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (4.03%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.89%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.56%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.52%) Algorithms
9 58 (2.36%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.04%) Security Posture
11 47 (1.91%) Operational Technology
12 46 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
13 40 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (1.47%) Life Science
16 35 (1.42%) PMI
17 34 (1.38%) Robotics
18 30 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
19 29 (1.18%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 310 (12.62%) Windows
2 178 (7.24%) Linux
3 74 (3.01%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.85%) Unix
5 54 (2.20%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.26%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 27 (1.10%) Android
10 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.33%) Windows 7
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
16 4 (0.16%) Solaris
17 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 819 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 684 (27.84%) Agile
3 650 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
4 403 (16.40%) Stakeholder Management
5 391 (15.91%) AI
6 380 (15.47%) Continuous Improvement
7 341 (13.88%) DevOps
8 299 (12.17%) Analytics
9 298 (12.13%) CI/CD
9 298 (12.13%) Project Management
10 272 (11.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 264 (10.74%) Decision-Making
12 248 (10.09%) Cybersecurity
12 248 (10.09%) ITIL
13 223 (9.08%) Change Management
14 216 (8.79%) Migration
14 216 (8.79%) Roadmaps
15 207 (8.42%) Software Engineering
16 192 (7.81%) Project Delivery
17 187 (7.61%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 420 (17.09%) Python
2 379 (15.43%) SQL
3 171 (6.96%) Java
4 131 (5.33%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.27%) C#
6 92 (3.74%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.99%) C++
8 42 (1.71%) Bash
9 36 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.18%) R
11 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.94%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.65%) C
15 13 (0.53%) Bicep
15 13 (0.53%) Go
15 13 (0.53%) Perl
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 496 (20.19%) Computer Science Degree
2 429 (17.46%) Security Cleared
3 288 (11.72%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.50%) Master's Degree
5 137 (5.58%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.21%) CISSP
7 120 (4.88%) PMP
8 95 (3.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 87 (3.54%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (2.73%) Azure Certification
11 64 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
11 64 (2.60%) CISM
12 63 (2.56%) DV Cleared
13 49 (1.99%) PhD
14 44 (1.79%) CCNP
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 42 (1.71%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
18 33 (1.34%) CISA
19 31 (1.26%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.29%) QA
2 125 (5.09%) Data Quality
3 118 (4.80%) NIST
4 114 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.19%) PMO
6 94 (3.83%) GDPR
7 51 (2.08%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.51%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.26%) GRC
11 28 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.90%) NCSC
13 19 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) IFRS
15 14 (0.57%) 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 (0.33%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 189 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.54%) Docker
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) 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
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.081%) KVM
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 148 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.66%) Terraform
3 76 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.52%) Ansible
5 36 (1.47%) Grafana
6 34 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 33 (1.34%) SCCM
8 22 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.37%) WSUS
15 8 (0.33%) Nessus
16 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
17 5 (0.20%) Kibana
17 5 (0.20%) SCOM
17 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 586 (23.85%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.76%) Oracle
3 141 (5.74%) SAP
4 124 (5.05%) ServiceNow
5 102 (4.15%) Google
6 73 (2.97%) Cisco
7 65 (2.65%) Databricks
8 53 (2.16%) VMware
9 52 (2.12%) Adobe
10 49 (1.99%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.75%) IBM
12 42 (1.71%) Splunk
13 38 (1.55%) Citrix
14 36 (1.47%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.18%) CyberArk
16 26 (1.06%) CheckPoint
17 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.85%) Siemens
19 20 (0.81%) Fortinet
19 20 (0.81%) HP