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 3 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,526 2,248 3,686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.63% 7.73% 8.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.87% 25.24% 27.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,489 1,303 2,006
10th Percentile £263 £250 £205
25th Percentile £394 £386 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £504
Median % change year-on-year - -0.70% -5.37%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £750 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +2.21% -7.05% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 170 369
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.81 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.47 £28.43 £21.73
Median hourly rate £46.98 £49.41 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -4.91% +26.85% -13.44%
75th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.25 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +9.30% +19.51% -11.11%

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 14,974 8,906 13,539
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.38% 30.63% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,910 5,678 8,405
10th Percentile £340 £296 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £618 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,090 483 1,012
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.71
25th Percentile £20.50 £24.18 £17.69
Median hourly rate £37.00 £43.00 £37.83
Median % change year-on-year -13.95% +13.67% -27.95%
75th Percentile £68.94 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.70 £50.00 £38.23
% change year-on-year -26.60% +30.80% -21.99%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 -7 2,206 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -5 1,318 £475 +2.21% 2,012
London -12 965 £515 -6.36% 866
Work from Home -3 695 £500 -4.76% 927
South East -5 350 £496 -0.80% 660
North of England -4 343 £422 -11.15% 472
Midlands -22 207 £500 +42.86% 318
North West -5 181 £400 -15.25% 244
West Midlands -24 155 £500 +66.67% 181
South West -5 151 £669 +25.47% 220
Yorkshire -10 145 £500 -4.76% 164
East of England -10 137 £500 - 213
Scotland -6 96 £500 +14.94% 94
East Midlands -18 51 £531 +49.16% 136
Wales -11 42 £300 +4.35% 61
North East -15 18 £407 -4.24% 71
Northern Ireland -7 17 £406 +30.00% 17

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
1 185 (7.32%) Confluence
2 116 (4.59%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 54 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.71%) Apache
7 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.24%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.079%) Appian
12 2 (0.079%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.079%) nginx
12 2 (0.079%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.079%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.079%) WinCC
Applications
1 312 (12.35%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 200 (7.92%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.61%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 9 (0.36%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
13 2 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.079%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.079%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.079%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.079%) Revit
14 1 (0.040%) FrameMaker
14 1 (0.040%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 74 (2.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.83%) Primavera
4 18 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 7 (0.28%) NetSuite
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
12 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 538 (21.30%) Azure
2 305 (12.07%) AWS
3 214 (8.47%) Microsoft 365
4 204 (8.08%) Power Platform
5 130 (5.15%) GCP
6 110 (4.35%) Entra ID
7 109 (4.32%) SaaS
8 102 (4.04%) Azure DevOps
9 74 (2.93%) GitHub
10 50 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
11 46 (1.82%) Serverless
12 42 (1.66%) Power Automate
12 42 (1.66%) Snowflake
13 40 (1.58%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.27%) Google Workspace
14 32 (1.27%) PaaS
15 31 (1.23%) IaaS
15 31 (1.23%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 123 (4.87%) Firewall
2 63 (2.49%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.38%) WAN
4 59 (2.34%) DNS
4 59 (2.34%) LAN
5 47 (1.86%) Network Security
6 41 (1.62%) VPN
7 30 (1.19%) BGP
8 29 (1.15%) Wireless
9 26 (1.03%) Ethernet
9 26 (1.03%) HTTP
10 25 (0.99%) Skype
11 24 (0.95%) OSPF
12 20 (0.79%) DHCP
13 19 (0.75%) Internet
14 18 (0.71%) VLAN
14 18 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.63%) SAN
16 14 (0.55%) SSL
17 13 (0.51%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (6.45%) Power BI
2 98 (3.88%) SQL Server
3 89 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (2.14%) NoSQL
6 51 (2.02%) Relational Database
7 50 (1.98%) Big Data
8 45 (1.78%) Tableau
9 39 (1.54%) MySQL
10 37 (1.46%) Metadata
11 30 (1.19%) Data Lake
12 29 (1.15%) Hadoop
13 20 (0.79%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
16 14 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
17 13 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
19 10 (0.40%) GIS
19 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 290 (11.48%) JIRA
2 121 (4.79%) Git
3 69 (2.73%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.10%) GitLab
5 31 (1.23%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.07%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.95%) Selenium
8 18 (0.71%) MLflow
9 15 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.36%) Liquibase
14 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
14 7 (0.28%) JUnit
General
1 1,208 (47.82%) Social Skills
2 786 (31.12%) Finance
3 560 (22.17%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (10.13%) Banking
5 209 (8.27%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.79%) Presentation Skills
7 114 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
8 94 (3.72%) Marketing
9 87 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
9 87 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
10 82 (3.25%) Manufacturing
11 76 (3.01%) Legal
12 75 (2.97%) Aerospace
13 64 (2.53%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.30%) Military
15 52 (2.06%) Front Office
16 49 (1.94%) Financial Institution
17 48 (1.90%) Retail
18 47 (1.86%) Electronics
19 44 (1.74%) Law
Job Titles
1 355 (14.05%) Analyst
2 254 (10.06%) Senior
3 210 (8.31%) Lead
4 209 (8.27%) Architect
5 191 (7.56%) Developer
6 190 (7.52%) Project Manager
7 160 (6.33%) Business Analyst
8 97 (3.84%) Consultant
9 71 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.53%) Delivery Manager
11 62 (2.45%) Senior Analyst
12 59 (2.34%) Technical Support
13 57 (2.26%) Security Engineer
14 56 (2.22%) Software Engineer
15 51 (2.02%) Data Scientist
16 48 (1.90%) Designer
17 45 (1.78%) IT Support
17 45 (1.78%) Product Manager
18 43 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
19 41 (1.62%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.47%) REST
2 74 (2.93%) .NET
3 64 (2.53%) RESTful
4 56 (2.22%) React
5 54 (2.14%) HTML
6 52 (2.06%) Middleware
7 45 (1.78%) Kafka
8 40 (1.58%) CSS
9 39 (1.54%) Elastic Stack
9 39 (1.54%) XML
10 38 (1.50%) JSON
10 38 (1.50%) PyTorch
10 38 (1.50%) SOAP
11 37 (1.46%) TensorFlow
12 36 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.43%) Spring Boot
13 33 (1.31%) Pandas
13 33 (1.31%) Spring
14 29 (1.15%) OAuth
15 27 (1.07%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.00%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.61%) Product Ownership
3 119 (4.71%) Onboarding
4 102 (4.04%) Cloud Native
5 86 (3.40%) Algorithms
6 84 (3.33%) Virtual Team
7 70 (2.77%) Distributed Systems
8 68 (2.69%) Self-Motivation
9 67 (2.65%) Data Centre
10 62 (2.45%) Data Structures
11 59 (2.34%) PMI
12 56 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
13 45 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
14 43 (1.70%) Derivative
15 35 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
16 33 (1.31%) Security Posture
17 32 (1.27%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.23%) Equities
18 31 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
19 30 (1.19%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 291 (11.52%) Windows
2 193 (7.64%) Linux
3 72 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.53%) Unix
5 58 (2.30%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.31%) Android
7 28 (1.11%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 15 (0.59%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 934 (36.98%) Computer Science
2 780 (30.88%) Agile
3 674 (26.68%) Problem-Solving
4 413 (16.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 362 (14.33%) DevOps
6 361 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
7 359 (14.21%) AI
8 351 (13.90%) Project Management
9 302 (11.96%) CI/CD
10 279 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 273 (10.81%) Analytics
12 272 (10.77%) Cybersecurity
13 270 (10.69%) Change Management
14 263 (10.41%) ITIL
15 254 (10.06%) Decision-Making
16 247 (9.78%) Migration
17 233 (9.22%) Project Delivery
18 227 (8.99%) PRINCE2
19 219 (8.67%) Risk Management
20 218 (8.63%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 425 (16.83%) Python
2 366 (14.49%) SQL
3 174 (6.89%) Java
4 123 (4.87%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.76%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.40%) C#
7 72 (2.85%) C++
8 45 (1.78%) Bash
9 42 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 34 (1.35%) Go
11 32 (1.27%) R
12 24 (0.95%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.71%) Perl
15 15 (0.59%) C
15 15 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.59%) Rust
15 15 (0.59%) T-SQL
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 577 (22.84%) Computer Science Degree
2 481 (19.04%) Security Cleared
3 349 (13.82%) Master's Degree
4 342 (13.54%) SC Cleared
5 154 (6.10%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.19%) PMP
7 123 (4.87%) CISSP
8 91 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (2.85%) CISM
10 68 (2.69%) TOGAF Certification
11 67 (2.65%) PhD
12 62 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
13 61 (2.41%) DV Cleared
14 55 (2.18%) Azure Certification
15 40 (1.58%) CCNP
15 40 (1.58%) MBA
16 37 (1.46%) AWS Certification
17 33 (1.31%) CBAP
18 32 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.53%) QA
2 119 (4.71%) GDPR
3 111 (4.39%) PMO
4 103 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 97 (3.84%) Data Quality
6 96 (3.80%) NIST
7 48 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.78%) SLA
9 42 (1.66%) Accessibility
10 27 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.95%) GRC
12 21 (0.83%) NCSC
13 17 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.55%) IFRS
16 13 (0.51%) Basel III
16 13 (0.51%) WCAG
17 12 (0.48%) COBIT
17 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
18 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 166 (6.57%) Docker
2 159 (6.29%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.91%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.71%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) vSphere
8 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.079%) HDFS
12 2 (0.079%) NDS
12 2 (0.079%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.079%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.040%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 168 (6.65%) Kubernetes
2 102 (4.04%) Terraform
3 72 (2.85%) Ansible
4 68 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 53 (2.10%) Grafana
6 44 (1.74%) Prometheus
7 40 (1.58%) SCCM
8 30 (1.19%) OPNET
9 17 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.63%) Puppet
11 13 (0.51%) Nmap
12 12 (0.48%) Kibana
12 12 (0.48%) SCOM
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
14 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.32%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 554 (21.93%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.29%) SAP
3 156 (6.18%) Oracle
4 123 (4.87%) ServiceNow
5 106 (4.20%) Google
6 81 (3.21%) Cisco
6 81 (3.21%) Splunk
7 57 (2.26%) Databricks
8 52 (2.06%) Remedy
9 51 (2.02%) VMware
10 47 (1.86%) Citrix
11 46 (1.82%) Atlassian
11 46 (1.82%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.70%) IBM
13 38 (1.50%) Palo Alto
14 32 (1.27%) CheckPoint
15 25 (0.99%) Informatica
16 24 (0.95%) Adobe
17 22 (0.87%) BiZZdesign
18 21 (0.83%) Red Hat