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 17 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,411 2,289 3,575
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.01% 7.79% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.77% 25.17% 27.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,385 1,327 1,903
10th Percentile £238 £242 £218
25th Percentile £375 £375 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £630
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £471 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +4.61% -10.00% +4.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 213 180 411
10th Percentile £18.06 £17.43 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.80 £22.41
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.61 £47.81 £41.50
% change year-on-year +26.79% +15.19% -7.78%

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 15,287 9,095 12,842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.77% 30.96% 30.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,167 5,741 7,961
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £621 £620 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,081 512 1,056
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £50.00 £37.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.23% -6.88% -26.69%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.87 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £37.50 £40.28
% change year-on-year +26.77% -6.89% -19.45%

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 17 May 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 17 May 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 17 May 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 -10 2,147 £500 -2.44% 2,763
UK excluding London -7 1,310 £471 +4.61% 2,055
London -16 902 £505 -8.18% 1,010
Work from Home -14 662 £500 - 2,650
South East -3 375 £500 +2.04% 682
North of England -11 320 £418 -9.62% 466
Midlands -24 213 £503 +42.35% 290
North West -6 164 £401 -13.90% 232
West Midlands -27 149 £495 +41.43% 180
Yorkshire -14 140 £450 +4.53% 170
East of England -7 139 £450 -10.00% 242
South West -14 137 £550 +15.79% 269
Scotland -13 90 £500 +11.11% 94
East Midlands -10 62 £531 +49.16% 110
Wales -21 28 £373 +21.94% 54
North East -24 16 £450 -5.26% 72
Northern Ireland -8 14 £369 -13.24% 16

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
1 161 (6.68%) Confluence
2 125 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.12%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.95%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) IIS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.12%) Moodle
10 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.083%) Drupal
11 2 (0.083%) nginx
11 2 (0.083%) Skype for Business
11 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 299 (12.40%) Microsoft Office
2 234 (9.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 179 (7.42%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.74%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Adobe Illustrator
7 12 (0.50%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.46%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 9 (0.37%) Trello
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
13 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 2 (0.083%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 71 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.66%) Primavera
4 13 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 507 (21.03%) Azure
2 295 (12.24%) AWS
3 207 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.84%) Power Platform
5 109 (4.52%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.90%) GCP
7 93 (3.86%) SaaS
8 87 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.45%) GitHub
10 44 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
11 35 (1.45%) Figma
12 33 (1.37%) Google Workspace
13 32 (1.33%) PaaS
13 32 (1.33%) Power Automate
13 32 (1.33%) Snowflake
14 30 (1.24%) IaaS
15 28 (1.16%) Serverless
16 27 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.08%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.44%) Firewall
2 68 (2.82%) TCP/IP
3 61 (2.53%) DNS
4 56 (2.32%) WAN
5 53 (2.20%) LAN
6 50 (2.07%) Network Security
7 35 (1.45%) VPN
8 28 (1.16%) BGP
9 27 (1.12%) Wireless
10 25 (1.04%) OSPF
11 23 (0.95%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.83%) Skype
13 19 (0.79%) DHCP
14 17 (0.71%) HTTP
14 17 (0.71%) SAN
15 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.54%) SSL
17 12 (0.50%) IPsec
17 12 (0.50%) VLAN
17 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.51%) Power BI
2 100 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.03%) Big Data
7 40 (1.66%) Metadata
8 39 (1.62%) Tableau
9 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
10 30 (1.24%) MySQL
11 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.95%) Data Lake
12 23 (0.95%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.50%) Power Query
16 12 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 265 (10.99%) JIRA
2 109 (4.52%) Git
3 44 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 9 (0.37%) JUnit
14 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,122 (46.54%) Social Skills
2 738 (30.61%) Finance
3 516 (21.40%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (8.83%) Banking
5 203 (8.42%) Public Sector
6 133 (5.52%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.11%) Marketing
9 88 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.19%) Legal
11 72 (2.99%) Aerospace
11 72 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
12 71 (2.94%) Manufacturing
13 67 (2.78%) Telecoms
14 53 (2.20%) Military
15 52 (2.16%) Law
16 48 (1.99%) Retail
17 41 (1.70%) Front Office
17 41 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
18 40 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 352 (14.60%) Analyst
2 258 (10.70%) Senior
3 205 (8.50%) Architect
4 181 (7.51%) Lead
5 178 (7.38%) Project Manager
6 171 (7.09%) Developer
7 166 (6.89%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
9 69 (2.86%) Consultant
10 67 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.57%) Delivery Manager
12 59 (2.45%) Designer
13 57 (2.36%) Technical Support
14 52 (2.16%) Software Engineer
15 50 (2.07%) Product Manager
16 48 (1.99%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 46 (1.91%) Senior Manager
18 45 (1.87%) Data Engineer
19 43 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.11%) REST
2 81 (3.36%) .NET
3 64 (2.65%) React
4 58 (2.41%) Middleware
5 52 (2.16%) HTML
6 46 (1.91%) Kafka
7 44 (1.82%) RESTful
8 43 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
9 40 (1.66%) CSS
10 36 (1.49%) SOAP
11 35 (1.45%) Spring Boot
11 35 (1.45%) XML
12 32 (1.33%) PyTorch
12 32 (1.33%) Spring
13 30 (1.24%) Pandas
14 29 (1.20%) JSON
15 28 (1.16%) .NET Framework
16 27 (1.12%) AngularJS
17 26 (1.08%) TensorFlow
17 26 (1.08%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 187 (7.76%) Management Information System
2 163 (6.76%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.52%) Onboarding
4 83 (3.44%) Cloud Native
5 79 (3.28%) Self-Motivation
6 66 (2.74%) Virtual Team
7 65 (2.70%) Data Centre
8 63 (2.61%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.53%) Algorithms
10 55 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
11 54 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
12 51 (2.12%) PMI
13 40 (1.66%) Operational Technology
14 38 (1.58%) Robotics
15 35 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
15 35 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
16 33 (1.37%) Derivative
17 32 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
17 32 (1.33%) Security Posture
18 29 (1.20%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 286 (11.86%) Windows
2 178 (7.38%) Linux
3 72 (2.99%) Unix
4 69 (2.86%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.36%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.33%) Android
7 25 (1.04%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 22 (0.91%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 830 (34.43%) Computer Science
2 698 (28.95%) Agile
3 638 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
4 379 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
5 353 (14.64%) Continuous Improvement
6 340 (14.10%) AI
7 334 (13.85%) Project Management
8 320 (13.27%) DevOps
9 277 (11.49%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 256 (10.62%) Analytics
12 253 (10.49%) Decision-Making
13 238 (9.87%) Migration
14 236 (9.79%) Change Management
15 229 (9.50%) Cybersecurity
16 222 (9.21%) ITIL
17 206 (8.54%) Risk Management
18 202 (8.38%) PRINCE2
18 202 (8.38%) Roadmaps
19 198 (8.21%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 382 (15.84%) Python
2 364 (15.10%) SQL
3 179 (7.42%) Java
4 108 (4.48%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.94%) C#
6 87 (3.61%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.82%) C++
8 39 (1.62%) Bash
9 35 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.29%) R
11 22 (0.91%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.75%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.71%) C
14 16 (0.66%) Perl
15 15 (0.62%) Go
15 15 (0.62%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.58%) Rust
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 519 (21.53%) Computer Science Degree
2 453 (18.79%) Security Cleared
3 318 (13.19%) SC Cleared
4 283 (11.74%) Master's Degree
5 153 (6.35%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.47%) PMP
7 106 (4.40%) CISSP
8 77 (3.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.11%) Cisco Certification
10 63 (2.61%) CISM
11 62 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 61 (2.53%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.36%) DV Cleared
14 48 (1.99%) PhD
15 47 (1.95%) Azure Certification
16 43 (1.78%) CCNP
17 38 (1.58%) MBA
18 36 (1.49%) CBAP
19 35 (1.45%) CCNA
20 30 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (6.64%) QA
2 114 (4.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 113 (4.69%) PMO
4 109 (4.52%) Data Quality
4 109 (4.52%) NIST
5 107 (4.44%) GDPR
6 50 (2.07%) SLA
7 46 (1.91%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.78%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.08%) GRC
11 20 (0.83%) NCSC
12 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.62%) IFRS
14 14 (0.58%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) Basel III
15 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
System Software
1 150 (6.22%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.64%) Docker
3 37 (1.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.083%) HDFS
11 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.041%) NFS
12 1 (0.041%) RACF
12 1 (0.041%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 146 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.07%) Terraform
3 64 (2.65%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.53%) Ansible
5 37 (1.53%) Grafana
6 35 (1.45%) SCCM
7 30 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 23 (0.95%) OPNET
9 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
13 9 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 545 (22.60%) Microsoft
2 162 (6.72%) Oracle
3 145 (6.01%) SAP
4 117 (4.85%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.36%) Google
6 76 (3.15%) Cisco
7 63 (2.61%) Splunk
8 57 (2.36%) Databricks
9 47 (1.95%) Salesforce
10 45 (1.87%) VMware
11 43 (1.78%) Citrix
12 41 (1.70%) IBM
12 41 (1.70%) Remedy
13 40 (1.66%) Adobe
14 35 (1.45%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.37%) Atlassian
15 33 (1.37%) CheckPoint
16 23 (0.95%) Aruba
16 23 (0.95%) Informatica
17 21 (0.87%) Siemens