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 16 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,446 2,493 3,569
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.58% 7.83% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.32% 26.13% 27.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,439 1,357 2,058
10th Percentile £275 £241 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £515
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.87% -6.45%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £780 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 150 252
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.11 £14.07
25th Percentile £21.02 £27.00 £22.75
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% -13.38% +15.45%
75th Percentile £56.13 £65.00 £66.44
90th Percentile £85.30 £85.00 £78.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -10.67% -18.80% +6.16%

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 12,661 9,539 12,915
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.05% 29.94% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,349 5,794 8,090
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 946 462 754
10th Percentile £15.69 £19.33 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £23.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.33% -21.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £56.69 £66.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.40 £78.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -40.12% -16.00% +11.11%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 16 January 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 -3 2,127 £500 -4.76% 3,893
UK excluding London -4 1,212 £475 - 3,611
London -4 1,002 £525 -4.55% 782
Work from Home 0 706 £500 - 1,573
North of England -8 310 £438 -12.50% 662
South East 0 274 £475 -5.00% 1,227
Midlands -14 207 £520 +22.35% 483
South West +4 171 £650 +23.81% 434
North West -2 167 £393 -21.40% 307
West Midlands -15 148 £525 +5.00% 194
Yorkshire -12 133 £516 +5.36% 258
East of England -11 114 £505 +12.22% 541
Scotland -2 100 £475 +8.88% 145
East Midlands -9 59 £499 +40.03% 281
Wales -1 44 £232 -20.00% 161
Northern Ireland -10 20 £425 -10.53% 69
North East -16 11 £364 -27.20% 108

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
1 195 (7.97%) Confluence
2 118 (4.82%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.43%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.65%) nginx
6 14 (0.57%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.53%) Apache
8 12 (0.49%) IIS
9 11 (0.45%) CMS
10 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.29%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 293 (11.98%) Microsoft Office
2 248 (10.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (7.40%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.27%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.65%) Simulink
8 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.45%) FrameMaker
9 11 (0.45%) Trello
10 9 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 7 (0.29%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 2 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.082%) InDesign
13 2 (0.082%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.082%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 60 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.86%) Primavera
4 18 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.53%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
10 9 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
11 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.25%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 495 (20.24%) Azure
2 298 (12.18%) AWS
3 214 (8.75%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (7.69%) Power Platform
5 142 (5.81%) GCP
6 99 (4.05%) SaaS
7 97 (3.97%) GitHub
8 85 (3.48%) Entra ID
9 83 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
10 67 (2.74%) Serverless
11 55 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
12 44 (1.80%) Power Automate
13 38 (1.55%) Cloud Computing
14 34 (1.39%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
15 33 (1.35%) OCI
16 32 (1.31%) IaaS
16 32 (1.31%) PowerApps
17 28 (1.14%) Amazon S3
17 28 (1.14%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.50%) Firewall
2 62 (2.53%) DNS
3 45 (1.84%) LAN
4 43 (1.76%) Network Security
4 43 (1.76%) WAN
5 42 (1.72%) VPN
6 37 (1.51%) HTTP
7 34 (1.39%) TCP/IP
8 32 (1.31%) Skype
9 27 (1.10%) Internet
10 26 (1.06%) DHCP
10 26 (1.06%) Wireless
11 23 (0.94%) SSH
12 22 (0.90%) BGP
13 20 (0.82%) Unified Communications
14 19 (0.78%) OSPF
14 19 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
15 17 (0.70%) VoIP
16 16 (0.65%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.65%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (5.93%) Power BI
2 90 (3.68%) SQL Server
3 87 (3.56%) PostgreSQL
4 62 (2.53%) NoSQL
5 57 (2.33%) Relational Database
6 54 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
7 51 (2.09%) Tableau
8 38 (1.55%) MySQL
9 30 (1.23%) Big Data
10 26 (1.06%) Data Lake
11 23 (0.94%) Metadata
12 19 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.74%) MongoDB
14 17 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.65%) Oracle Database
16 15 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
17 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
18 12 (0.49%) GIS
19 11 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 284 (11.61%) JIRA
2 122 (4.99%) Git
3 88 (3.60%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.66%) GitLab
5 28 (1.14%) Visual Studio
6 25 (1.02%) Liquibase
7 23 (0.94%) Selenium
8 19 (0.78%) Postman
9 12 (0.49%) Bitbucket
9 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.49%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.45%) JUnit
11 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.41%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.37%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.33%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.29%) Gradle
14 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,266 (51.76%) Social Skills
2 785 (32.09%) Finance
3 586 (23.96%) Analytical Skills
4 280 (11.45%) Banking
5 196 (8.01%) Public Sector
6 111 (4.54%) Manufacturing
7 107 (4.37%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.09%) Organisational Skills
9 90 (3.68%) Marketing
10 86 (3.52%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.31%) Legal
12 66 (2.70%) Military
13 65 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.53%) Financial Institution
15 58 (2.37%) Telecoms
16 53 (2.17%) Front Office
17 52 (2.13%) Investment Banking
18 51 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
19 40 (1.64%) Aerospace
19 40 (1.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 361 (14.76%) Analyst
2 250 (10.22%) Senior
3 225 (9.20%) Developer
4 192 (7.85%) Lead
5 176 (7.20%) Architect
6 165 (6.75%) Business Analyst
7 161 (6.58%) Project Manager
8 101 (4.13%) Consultant
9 87 (3.56%) Software Engineer
10 64 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
11 63 (2.58%) IT Support
12 58 (2.37%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.25%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.25%) Support Analyst
14 43 (1.76%) Senior Software Engineer
15 39 (1.59%) Designer
15 39 (1.59%) Senior Developer
16 38 (1.55%) IT Analyst
17 36 (1.47%) Cloud Engineer
17 36 (1.47%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (5.19%) REST
2 86 (3.52%) RESTful
3 81 (3.31%) .NET
4 79 (3.23%) HTML
5 63 (2.58%) CSS
6 57 (2.33%) XML
7 50 (2.04%) Middleware
8 47 (1.92%) Elastic Stack
8 47 (1.92%) React
9 46 (1.88%) JSON
10 42 (1.72%) OAuth
11 41 (1.68%) Kafka
12 40 (1.64%) SOAP
13 34 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
14 31 (1.27%) AngularJS
14 31 (1.27%) TensorFlow
15 29 (1.19%) Node.js
15 29 (1.19%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.19%) Spring
16 27 (1.10%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 118 (4.82%) Product Ownership
3 107 (4.37%) Cloud Native
4 79 (3.23%) Algorithms
5 75 (3.07%) Onboarding
6 68 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.58%) Data Centre
8 57 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
8 57 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
9 56 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
10 55 (2.25%) PMI
10 55 (2.25%) Virtual Team
11 47 (1.92%) Public Cloud
12 45 (1.84%) Derivative
13 42 (1.72%) Life Science
13 42 (1.72%) Security Posture
14 41 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
15 38 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
16 35 (1.43%) Mobile App
16 35 (1.43%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 288 (11.77%) Windows
2 215 (8.79%) Linux
3 88 (3.60%) Unix
4 65 (2.66%) Windows Server
5 47 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Android
7 26 (1.06%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.90%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.74%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 14 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 14 (0.57%) VMS
12 13 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
13 9 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
13 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
16 2 (0.082%) Debian
16 2 (0.082%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 908 (37.12%) Computer Science
2 783 (32.01%) Agile
3 714 (29.19%) Problem-Solving
4 391 (15.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 369 (15.09%) DevOps
6 364 (14.88%) Project Management
7 295 (12.06%) Change Management
8 282 (11.53%) CI/CD
9 274 (11.20%) Continuous Improvement
10 271 (11.08%) AI
11 258 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 255 (10.43%) Cybersecurity
13 253 (10.34%) ITIL
14 252 (10.30%) Analytics
15 235 (9.61%) Migration
16 226 (9.24%) Decision-Making
17 225 (9.20%) Software Engineering
18 223 (9.12%) Project Delivery
19 219 (8.95%) Risk Management
20 198 (8.09%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 439 (17.95%) Python
2 369 (15.09%) SQL
3 174 (7.11%) Java
4 135 (5.52%) PowerShell
5 126 (5.15%) JavaScript
6 94 (3.84%) C#
7 83 (3.39%) C++
8 57 (2.33%) TypeScript
9 51 (2.09%) Bash
9 51 (2.09%) Go
10 30 (1.23%) R
11 26 (1.06%) Perl
12 23 (0.94%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.86%) C
13 21 (0.86%) T-SQL
14 20 (0.82%) MATLAB
15 18 (0.74%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.61%) SystemVerilog
17 14 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
17 14 (0.57%) Rust
Qualifications
1 615 (25.14%) Computer Science Degree
2 408 (16.68%) Security Cleared
3 376 (15.37%) Master's Degree
4 313 (12.80%) SC Cleared
5 158 (6.46%) PMI Certification
6 136 (5.56%) PMP
7 118 (4.82%) CISSP
8 91 (3.72%) Microsoft Certification
9 74 (3.03%) CISM
10 72 (2.94%) PhD
11 71 (2.90%) Azure Certification
12 65 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.49%) TOGAF Certification
14 57 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
15 54 (2.21%) DV Cleared
16 51 (2.09%) AWS Certification
17 43 (1.76%) HND
18 37 (1.51%) CCNP
19 36 (1.47%) MBA
20 34 (1.39%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (6.62%) QA
2 128 (5.23%) GDPR
3 101 (4.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (3.60%) PMO
5 77 (3.15%) Data Quality
6 70 (2.86%) NIST
7 45 (1.84%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.59%) PCI DSS
9 36 (1.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 32 (1.31%) SLA
11 26 (1.06%) GRC
12 17 (0.70%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) WCAG
15 14 (0.57%) NCSC
15 14 (0.57%) P3O
16 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) Basel III
16 13 (0.53%) Def Stans
17 11 (0.45%) IFRS
System Software
1 190 (7.77%) Docker
2 147 (6.01%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.94%) Firmware
5 18 (0.74%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) DFS Replication
7 9 (0.37%) Dovecot
7 9 (0.37%) Postfix
7 9 (0.37%) Squid
8 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.29%) XenApp
9 6 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 176 (7.20%) Kubernetes
2 129 (5.27%) Terraform
3 81 (3.31%) Ansible
4 64 (2.62%) Grafana
5 56 (2.29%) Microsoft Intune
6 53 (2.17%) Prometheus
7 47 (1.92%) SCCM
8 30 (1.23%) OPNET
9 25 (1.02%) Puppet
10 14 (0.57%) Kibana
11 13 (0.53%) SCOM
11 13 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
12 12 (0.49%) Nmap
13 11 (0.45%) Nessus
14 10 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.41%) QRadar
15 9 (0.37%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.37%) WSUS
16 8 (0.33%) Kiali
17 7 (0.29%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 510 (20.85%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.83%) Oracle
3 157 (6.42%) SAP
4 114 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 109 (4.46%) Splunk
6 95 (3.88%) Google
7 73 (2.98%) Cisco
8 56 (2.29%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.21%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.09%) Remedy
11 46 (1.88%) VMware
12 45 (1.84%) Databricks
13 37 (1.51%) Citrix
14 28 (1.14%) IBM
15 26 (1.06%) Palo Alto
16 23 (0.94%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.90%) Adobe
17 22 (0.90%) Red Hat
18 19 (0.78%) Informatica
19 17 (0.70%) CheckPoint