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 4 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,435 2,354 2,939
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.29% 7.72%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.45% 23.37% 26.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,271 1,307 1,680
10th Percentile £204 £260 £260
25th Percentile £356 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £620
90th Percentile £727 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £484
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.02% -3.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 193 233
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.00 £19.41
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £26.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £41.50 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% -23.15% +13.68%
75th Percentile £70.69 £60.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year -5.46% -29.45% +24.19%

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 16,856 10,071 11,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.42% 31.17% 29.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,303 6,240 7,066
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £629 £622 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,260 801 703
10th Percentile £17.39 £18.13 £15.75
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.54
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.78
90th Percentile £87.02 £71.45 £76.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £51.72
% change year-on-year +88.87% -51.37% +3.44%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 2,224 £500 - 9,778
UK excluding London -16 1,296 £475 +5.56% 5,137
London -21 975 £525 -4.55% 5,806
Work from Home -20 656 £500 +4.17% 3,421
South East +9 459 £521 +12.70% 1,400
North of England -18 323 £475 +9.83% 930
North West -8 198 £470 +2.79% 547
Midlands -30 173 £450 - 614
East of England -13 131 £300 -33.33% 716
West Midlands -32 128 £450 -5.26% 358
South West -20 121 £400 -13.51% 720
Yorkshire -9 110 £500 +26.58% 254
Scotland -53 65 £475 +5.56% 515
East Midlands -28 44 £475 +6.26% 255
North East -35 15 £450 +39.53% 149
Northern Ireland -13 14 £238 -58.24% 222
Wales -31 14 £530 +71.67% 127
Channel Islands - 1 - - 2

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
1 149 (6.12%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.31%) Confluence
3 55 (2.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 15 (0.62%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 247 (10.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 240 (9.86%) Microsoft Office
3 131 (5.38%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.26%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.66%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.37%) Windchill
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
12 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.25%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 45 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.66%) Primavera
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.29%) HFM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.21%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 562 (23.08%) Azure
2 314 (12.90%) AWS
3 227 (9.32%) Power Platform
4 223 (9.16%) Microsoft 365
5 141 (5.79%) GCP
6 139 (5.71%) Entra ID
7 120 (4.93%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.33%) SaaS
9 70 (2.87%) GitHub
10 58 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
11 55 (2.26%) Serverless
12 51 (2.09%) Power Automate
13 50 (2.05%) PowerApps
14 42 (1.72%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.68%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.64%) Figma
17 39 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
18 27 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
18 27 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.72%) Firewall
2 85 (3.49%) DNS
3 66 (2.71%) TCP/IP
4 64 (2.63%) Network Security
5 62 (2.55%) VPN
6 47 (1.93%) DHCP
7 37 (1.52%) WAN
8 36 (1.48%) LAN
9 29 (1.19%) Wireless
10 21 (0.86%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.82%) BGP
11 20 (0.82%) SSL
11 20 (0.82%) VLAN
12 19 (0.78%) 5G
13 18 (0.74%) Internet
13 18 (0.74%) SSH
13 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (0.70%) HTTP
15 16 (0.66%) MPLS
15 16 (0.66%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (7.19%) Power BI
2 112 (4.60%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 52 (2.14%) Metadata
5 51 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
6 43 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.44%) Tableau
8 30 (1.23%) MySQL
9 29 (1.19%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.15%) Big Data
11 25 (1.03%) Oracle Database
11 25 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
13 21 (0.86%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.74%) Data Mining
15 16 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.66%) Data Lake
16 14 (0.57%) Power Query
17 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 180 (7.39%) JIRA
2 135 (5.54%) Git
3 61 (2.51%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.09%) GitLab
5 22 (0.90%) Selenium
6 21 (0.86%) JUnit
7 19 (0.78%) Rational DOORS
7 19 (0.78%) SonarQube
8 18 (0.74%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.70%) Maven
9 17 (0.70%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.62%) Gradle
10 15 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.45%) MLflow
12 11 (0.45%) Mockito
12 11 (0.45%) Postman
12 11 (0.45%) Subversion
13 9 (0.37%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 1,087 (44.64%) Social Skills
2 723 (29.69%) Finance
3 575 (23.61%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (8.05%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.89%) Banking
6 160 (6.57%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.48%) Manufacturing
8 104 (4.27%) Aerospace
9 99 (4.07%) Marketing
10 94 (3.86%) Telecoms
11 93 (3.82%) Legal
12 90 (3.70%) Influencing Skills
12 90 (3.70%) Presentation Skills
13 80 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
14 64 (2.63%) Retail
15 58 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 50 (2.05%) Law
17 49 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
18 43 (1.77%) Military
19 42 (1.72%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 340 (13.96%) Analyst
2 276 (11.33%) Senior
3 193 (7.93%) Lead
4 191 (7.84%) Developer
5 166 (6.82%) Architect
6 161 (6.61%) Business Analyst
7 125 (5.13%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.04%) Consultant
9 72 (2.96%) Support Engineer
10 71 (2.92%) IT Support
11 67 (2.75%) Senior Manager
12 57 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.18%) IT Analyst
14 52 (2.14%) Designer
15 50 (2.05%) IT Manager
16 45 (1.85%) Administrator
17 43 (1.77%) Data Analyst
17 43 (1.77%) Senior Analyst
17 43 (1.77%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.77%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.35%) REST
1 106 (4.35%) Terraform
2 102 (4.19%) .NET
3 66 (2.71%) React
4 64 (2.63%) HTML
5 61 (2.51%) Kafka
6 52 (2.14%) CSS
7 50 (2.05%) RESTful
8 46 (1.89%) OAuth
9 43 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.60%) Middleware
11 37 (1.52%) Web Services
11 37 (1.52%) XML
12 36 (1.48%) OAuth2
13 35 (1.44%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.36%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.36%) SAML
15 32 (1.31%) Spring
16 31 (1.27%) JSON
16 31 (1.27%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 214 (8.79%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.87%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.39%) Self-Motivation
5 94 (3.86%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.96%) Data Structures
7 66 (2.71%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.55%) Data Centre
9 52 (2.14%) Operational Technology
10 46 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
10 46 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (1.89%) Security Posture
11 43 (1.77%) Life Science
12 42 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
12 42 (1.72%) Virtual Team
13 40 (1.64%) AI Agents
14 36 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
15 34 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 30 (1.23%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 297 (12.20%) Windows
2 179 (7.35%) Linux
3 80 (3.29%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.46%) Unix
5 48 (1.97%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.36%) Mac OS
7 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 30 (1.23%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.03%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.25%) VMS
11 6 (0.25%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 821 (33.72%) Computer Science
2 653 (26.82%) Agile
3 645 (26.49%) Problem-Solving
4 477 (19.59%) Stakeholder Management
5 431 (17.70%) Continuous Improvement
6 378 (15.52%) AI
7 343 (14.09%) DevOps
8 311 (12.77%) Project Management
9 310 (12.73%) CI/CD
10 309 (12.69%) Analytics
11 276 (11.33%) ITIL
12 249 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 242 (9.94%) Decision-Making
14 225 (9.24%) Cybersecurity
15 224 (9.20%) Change Management
16 219 (8.99%) Software Engineering
17 218 (8.95%) Scrum
18 214 (8.79%) Roadmaps
19 203 (8.34%) Project Delivery
20 202 (8.30%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 412 (16.92%) Python
2 358 (14.70%) SQL
3 176 (7.23%) PowerShell
4 166 (6.82%) Java
5 120 (4.93%) C#
6 119 (4.89%) JavaScript
7 60 (2.46%) Bash
8 46 (1.89%) C++
9 45 (1.85%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.23%) Bicep
11 29 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.07%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.99%) C
15 23 (0.94%) R
16 15 (0.62%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.49%) X++
19 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 500 (20.53%) Computer Science Degree
2 451 (18.52%) Security Cleared
3 318 (13.06%) SC Cleared
4 206 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.46%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.09%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (4.72%) PMP
8 106 (4.35%) CISSP
9 88 (3.61%) Azure Certification
10 83 (3.41%) Cisco Certification
11 76 (3.12%) DV Cleared
12 70 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.18%) PhD
14 50 (2.05%) CISM
15 44 (1.81%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.77%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.68%) CCNA
18 40 (1.64%) CCNP
19 37 (1.52%) ISTQB
20 34 (1.40%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.63%) Data Quality
1 137 (5.63%) QA
2 98 (4.02%) NIST
3 97 (3.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.49%) PMO
5 69 (2.83%) GDPR
6 49 (2.01%) Accessibility
7 46 (1.89%) SLA
8 26 (1.07%) GRC
8 26 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 18 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (0.74%) NCSC
10 17 (0.70%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.57%) IFRS
12 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
12 11 (0.45%) COBIT
12 11 (0.45%) P3O
13 9 (0.37%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
14 8 (0.33%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 194 (7.97%) Active Directory
2 122 (5.01%) Docker
3 55 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.07%) Firmware
4 26 (1.07%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.21%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.22%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.51%) Ansible
4 36 (1.48%) SCCM
5 30 (1.23%) Grafana
6 28 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.74%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) SCOM
10 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
10 8 (0.33%) WSUS
11 7 (0.29%) Control-M
12 6 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.25%) Argo
12 6 (0.25%) CASB
12 6 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
12 6 (0.25%) Nessus
12 6 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 633 (26.00%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.23%) Oracle
3 141 (5.79%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.50%) SAP
5 94 (3.86%) Google
6 72 (2.96%) VMware
7 71 (2.92%) Cisco
8 67 (2.75%) Salesforce
9 64 (2.63%) Adobe
10 57 (2.34%) Databricks
11 48 (1.97%) IBM
12 43 (1.77%) Splunk
13 30 (1.23%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.07%) Citrix
16 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.90%) Apple
18 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
19 20 (0.82%) Ariba
19 20 (0.82%) OpenAI