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 14 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,584 2,324 3,744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.99% 7.87% 8.41%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.70% 25.92% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,511 1,332 2,069
10th Percentile £286 £230 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £501
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +1.40% -6.45%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £788 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 168 371
10th Percentile £15.51 £20.35 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £28.88 £21.16
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.29% +24.90% -18.89%
75th Percentile £82.06 £71.06 £57.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £36.77
% change year-on-year +1.02% +22.37% -18.28%

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 14,597 8,965 13,575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.82% 30.38% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,602 5,632 8,384
10th Percentile £333 £285 £293
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,085 468 1,023
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £24.42 £18.16
Median hourly rate £29.00 £45.00 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -35.56% +15.53% -22.10%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £61.62
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.15 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -18.36%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 -4 2,250 £500 -4.76% 2,591
UK excluding London -7 1,349 £485 +2.11% 2,074
London -13 984 £513 -6.82% 898
Work from Home -5 713 £500 -4.76% 985
South East -4 359 £475 -5.00% 674
North of England -5 347 £436 -12.75% 491
Midlands -21 207 £500 +40.06% 325
North West -4 178 £400 -19.76% 258
South West +2 162 £681 +23.86% 241
Yorkshire -10 153 £500 - 175
West Midlands -22 150 £498 +27.48% 187
East of England -8 133 £500 +2.77% 225
Scotland +1 106 £513 +16.81% 103
East Midlands -12 56 £525 +47.47% 138
Wales -12 45 £282 -2.20% 65
North East -15 17 £364 -23.37% 64
Northern Ireland -12 16 £388 +24.00% 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
1 214 (8.28%) Confluence
2 114 (4.41%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 58 (2.24%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.19%) SAS
10 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.15%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.15%) IIS
10 4 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
10 4 (0.15%) Skype for Business
10 4 (0.15%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 313 (12.11%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 202 (7.82%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (4.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 73 (2.83%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
8 15 (0.58%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Sketch
11 6 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
13 2 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.077%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.077%) InDesign
13 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.077%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 68 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.01%) Primavera
3 25 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 5 (0.19%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.15%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.15%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 558 (21.59%) Azure
2 315 (12.19%) AWS
3 208 (8.05%) Microsoft 365
4 204 (7.89%) Power Platform
5 150 (5.80%) GCP
6 115 (4.45%) Entra ID
7 111 (4.30%) SaaS
8 101 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
9 90 (3.48%) GitHub
10 52 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.90%) Serverless
12 45 (1.74%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.59%) Snowflake
14 40 (1.55%) Power Automate
15 35 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.24%) IaaS
16 32 (1.24%) PaaS
17 31 (1.20%) PowerApps
18 29 (1.12%) OCI
19 28 (1.08%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 120 (4.64%) Firewall
2 62 (2.40%) DNS
2 62 (2.40%) WAN
3 61 (2.36%) TCP/IP
4 60 (2.32%) LAN
5 50 (1.93%) Network Security
6 41 (1.59%) VPN
7 31 (1.20%) Ethernet
8 30 (1.16%) HTTP
9 29 (1.12%) BGP
9 29 (1.12%) Wireless
10 26 (1.01%) Skype
11 25 (0.97%) Internet
12 24 (0.93%) OSPF
13 23 (0.89%) DHCP
14 22 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
15 20 (0.77%) VLAN
16 18 (0.70%) SSL
17 17 (0.66%) Unified Communications
18 15 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (6.23%) Power BI
2 100 (3.87%) PostgreSQL
3 98 (3.79%) SQL Server
4 63 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
5 62 (2.40%) NoSQL
6 53 (2.05%) Big Data
7 49 (1.90%) Tableau
8 47 (1.82%) Relational Database
9 42 (1.63%) MySQL
10 34 (1.32%) Metadata
11 32 (1.24%) Data Lake
12 30 (1.16%) Hadoop
13 25 (0.97%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.58%) GIS
17 12 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
17 12 (0.46%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 305 (11.80%) JIRA
2 133 (5.15%) Git
3 75 (2.90%) Jenkins
4 59 (2.28%) GitLab
5 28 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.04%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.85%) Selenium
8 16 (0.62%) MLflow
8 16 (0.62%) Postman
9 13 (0.50%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.43%) Liquibase
10 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.39%) Gradle
12 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.27%) JMeter
14 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,255 (48.57%) Social Skills
2 797 (30.84%) Finance
3 592 (22.91%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (9.75%) Banking
5 227 (8.78%) Public Sector
6 122 (4.72%) Presentation Skills
7 106 (4.10%) Organisational Skills
8 95 (3.68%) Marketing
9 90 (3.48%) Manufacturing
10 89 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
10 89 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
11 78 (3.02%) Legal
12 67 (2.59%) Aerospace
13 62 (2.40%) Telecoms
14 61 (2.36%) Military
15 51 (1.97%) Financial Institution
16 50 (1.93%) Front Office
17 49 (1.90%) Retail
18 48 (1.86%) Electronics
19 47 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 365 (14.13%) Analyst
2 250 (9.67%) Senior
3 217 (8.40%) Lead
4 210 (8.13%) Architect
5 205 (7.93%) Developer
6 183 (7.08%) Project Manager
7 167 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 103 (3.99%) Consultant
9 73 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.59%) Software Engineer
11 63 (2.44%) Delivery Manager
12 61 (2.36%) Security Engineer
12 61 (2.36%) Technical Support
13 56 (2.17%) Senior Analyst
14 52 (2.01%) Data Scientist
15 48 (1.86%) IT Support
16 46 (1.78%) Designer
17 45 (1.74%) Product Manager
18 39 (1.51%) Technical Analyst
19 38 (1.47%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.37%) REST
2 76 (2.94%) .NET
3 66 (2.55%) RESTful
4 64 (2.48%) React
5 63 (2.44%) HTML
6 52 (2.01%) CSS
7 51 (1.97%) Middleware
8 47 (1.82%) Kafka
9 42 (1.63%) PyTorch
9 42 (1.63%) TensorFlow
10 40 (1.55%) Elastic Stack
11 39 (1.51%) JSON
11 39 (1.51%) SOAP
11 39 (1.51%) XML
12 37 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
13 36 (1.39%) OAuth
14 35 (1.35%) Spring
15 33 (1.28%) Pandas
16 30 (1.16%) Spring Boot
17 29 (1.12%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 212 (8.20%) Management Information System
2 164 (6.35%) Product Ownership
3 118 (4.57%) Onboarding
4 116 (4.49%) Cloud Native
5 93 (3.60%) Algorithms
6 81 (3.13%) Virtual Team
7 73 (2.83%) Data Centre
8 69 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
9 67 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
10 64 (2.48%) Data Structures
11 57 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
11 57 (2.21%) PMI
12 55 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
13 47 (1.82%) Derivative
14 41 (1.59%) Security Posture
15 38 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
16 37 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.32%) NHS
18 33 (1.28%) Equities
18 33 (1.28%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 301 (11.65%) Windows
2 194 (7.51%) Linux
3 75 (2.90%) Unix
3 75 (2.90%) Windows Server
4 56 (2.17%) Windows 10
5 28 (1.08%) Android
6 24 (0.93%) Mac OS
7 22 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (0.58%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.50%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.23%) VMS
14 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.15%) AIX
16 3 (0.12%) CentOS
16 3 (0.12%) Debian
16 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 971 (37.58%) Computer Science
2 807 (31.23%) Agile
3 713 (27.59%) Problem-Solving
4 428 (16.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 386 (14.94%) DevOps
6 364 (14.09%) AI
7 343 (13.27%) Continuous Improvement
8 342 (13.24%) Project Management
9 316 (12.23%) CI/CD
10 292 (11.30%) Analytics
11 285 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 282 (10.91%) Change Management
13 278 (10.76%) Cybersecurity
14 270 (10.45%) Decision-Making
15 264 (10.22%) Migration
16 262 (10.14%) ITIL
17 236 (9.13%) Project Delivery
18 232 (8.98%) Risk Management
19 231 (8.94%) Software Engineering
20 228 (8.82%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 456 (17.65%) Python
2 386 (14.94%) SQL
3 180 (6.97%) Java
4 129 (4.99%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.06%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.21%) C#
7 75 (2.90%) C++
8 56 (2.17%) TypeScript
9 47 (1.82%) Bash
10 41 (1.59%) Go
11 31 (1.20%) R
12 26 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.81%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.77%) Perl
15 16 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.58%) Rust
16 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
16 15 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.54%) C
18 13 (0.50%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 611 (23.65%) Computer Science Degree
2 498 (19.27%) Security Cleared
3 393 (15.21%) Master's Degree
4 355 (13.74%) SC Cleared
5 156 (6.04%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.22%) CISSP
7 132 (5.11%) PMP
8 91 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.25%) CISM
10 76 (2.94%) PhD
11 73 (2.83%) TOGAF Certification
12 68 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
13 67 (2.59%) Azure Certification
14 64 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
15 59 (2.28%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.59%) CCNP
17 40 (1.55%) MBA
18 38 (1.47%) AWS Certification
19 34 (1.32%) CBAP
20 31 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (6.54%) QA
2 140 (5.42%) GDPR
3 111 (4.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 110 (4.26%) PMO
5 98 (3.79%) NIST
6 97 (3.75%) Data Quality
7 51 (1.97%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.74%) Accessibility
9 42 (1.63%) SLA
10 33 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.97%) GRC
12 21 (0.81%) NCSC
13 19 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.70%) WCAG
15 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
16 16 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.54%) IFRS
18 13 (0.50%) Basel III
18 13 (0.50%) DO-254
19 12 (0.46%) COBIT
System Software
1 192 (7.43%) Docker
2 164 (6.35%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.77%) Firmware
4 20 (0.77%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.23%) vSphere
7 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.19%) XenApp
7 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
8 4 (0.15%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.15%) NDS
8 4 (0.15%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 4 (0.15%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
9 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.077%) HDFS
10 2 (0.077%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 192 (7.43%) Kubernetes
2 109 (4.22%) Terraform
3 74 (2.86%) Ansible
4 67 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (1.93%) Grafana
6 42 (1.63%) Prometheus
7 41 (1.59%) SCCM
8 30 (1.16%) OPNET
9 19 (0.74%) Puppet
9 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.54%) Kibana
12 13 (0.50%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.27%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.27%) WSUS
17 6 (0.23%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 549 (21.25%) Microsoft
2 165 (6.39%) Oracle
3 160 (6.19%) SAP
4 118 (4.57%) ServiceNow
5 116 (4.49%) Google
6 85 (3.29%) Cisco
6 85 (3.29%) Splunk
7 65 (2.52%) Databricks
8 55 (2.13%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.09%) Remedy
10 50 (1.93%) VMware
11 48 (1.86%) IBM
11 48 (1.86%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.66%) Citrix
13 41 (1.59%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.16%) CheckPoint
15 28 (1.08%) Informatica
16 26 (1.01%) Red Hat
17 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
18 22 (0.85%) Aruba