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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,415 2,278 3,595
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.80% 7.67% 8.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.33% 24.75% 27.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,336 1,303 1,933
10th Percentile £213 £235 £225
25th Percentile £367 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £615
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.06% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 187 419
10th Percentile £17.12 £18.00 £14.45
25th Percentile £26.51 £26.86 £21.93
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.15%
75th Percentile £82.84 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.14 £72.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £44.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +14.61% +10.35% -15.66%

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 15,756 9,203 13,032
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.01% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,481 5,704 8,054
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £616 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.20% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,160 598 1,119
10th Percentile £17.20 £17.74 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £18.65
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.63 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £28.34 £41.50
% change year-on-year +67.75% -31.71% -20.95%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -11 2,157 £500 - 4,344
UK excluding London -10 1,318 £464 +3.06% 3,916
London -18 921 £505 -8.18% 1,303
Work from Home -15 660 £500 -4.76% 2,967
South East +1 403 £500 +5.26% 1,038
North of England -13 331 £447 -3.35% 799
Midlands -22 195 £523 +46.77% 485
North West -7 181 £418 -10.25% 408
West Midlands -27 141 £487 +23.56% 248
East of England -3 138 £450 -10.00% 527
Yorkshire -7 135 £503 +12.58% 269
South West -22 117 £460 -3.26% 380
Scotland -19 95 £500 +11.11% 337
East Midlands -14 52 £545 +58.55% 237
Wales -20 28 £490 +60.40% 177
Northern Ireland -5 15 £254 -40.24% 243
North East -35 15 £450 +130.77% 133

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
1 129 (5.34%) Confluence
2 128 (5.30%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.90%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 12 (0.50%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
11 5 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.17%) Appian
12 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.083%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.083%) Drupal
14 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
Applications
1 275 (11.39%) Microsoft Office
2 226 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.80%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.69%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.66%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Sketch
13 5 (0.21%) Final Cut Pro
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.66%) Primavera
3 14 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.17%) HFM
9 4 (0.17%) Magento
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 533 (22.07%) Azure
2 308 (12.75%) AWS
3 203 (8.41%) Microsoft 365
4 194 (8.03%) Power Platform
5 132 (5.47%) Entra ID
6 114 (4.72%) GCP
7 92 (3.81%) Azure DevOps
8 87 (3.60%) SaaS
9 64 (2.65%) GitHub
10 41 (1.70%) Figma
11 40 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.53%) Snowflake
13 35 (1.45%) Serverless
14 34 (1.41%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.37%) PowerApps
16 31 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.28%) OneDrive
16 31 (1.28%) PaaS
17 30 (1.24%) Google Workspace
18 27 (1.12%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.68%) Firewall
2 76 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 75 (3.11%) DNS
4 63 (2.61%) Network Security
5 50 (2.07%) WAN
6 44 (1.82%) LAN
7 40 (1.66%) VPN
8 32 (1.33%) DHCP
9 25 (1.04%) BGP
9 25 (1.04%) Wireless
10 22 (0.91%) OSPF
11 21 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.83%) Ethernet
13 16 (0.66%) SSL
14 15 (0.62%) HTTP
14 15 (0.62%) SAN
15 14 (0.58%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.58%) Skype
15 14 (0.58%) SSH
16 11 (0.46%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (6.79%) Power BI
2 111 (4.60%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (1.99%) Big Data
5 48 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.70%) Metadata
6 41 (1.70%) Tableau
7 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
9 27 (1.12%) MySQL
10 25 (1.04%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.87%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
12 19 (0.79%) Oracle Database
13 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.46%) GIS
16 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 216 (8.94%) JIRA
2 113 (4.68%) Git
3 47 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.83%) MLflow
6 20 (0.83%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.66%) Selenium
8 14 (0.58%) Postman
9 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.50%) Gradle
10 12 (0.50%) JUnit
10 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
12 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,110 (45.96%) Social Skills
2 742 (30.72%) Finance
3 499 (20.66%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 198 (8.20%) Banking
6 141 (5.84%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.09%) Presentation Skills
8 107 (4.43%) Marketing
9 94 (3.89%) Legal
10 88 (3.64%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (3.23%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
14 68 (2.82%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.19%) Retail
16 51 (2.11%) Law
17 47 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.66%) Front Office
19 38 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
20 33 (1.37%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 357 (14.78%) Analyst
2 273 (11.30%) Senior
3 193 (7.99%) Architect
4 182 (7.54%) Lead
5 165 (6.83%) Developer
6 162 (6.71%) Project Manager
7 157 (6.50%) Business Analyst
8 76 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
9 70 (2.90%) Consultant
10 68 (2.82%) Designer
11 66 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
12 59 (2.44%) Senior Manager
13 56 (2.32%) Technical Support
14 55 (2.28%) Software Engineer
15 54 (2.24%) Security Engineer
16 50 (2.07%) Delivery Manager
17 49 (2.03%) Administrator
17 49 (2.03%) Product Manager
18 47 (1.95%) IT Manager
19 45 (1.86%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.18%) REST
2 90 (3.73%) .NET
3 66 (2.73%) React
4 50 (2.07%) Kafka
5 49 (2.03%) Middleware
6 46 (1.90%) HTML
7 44 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.61%) RESTful
9 37 (1.53%) .NET Framework
10 36 (1.49%) OAuth
11 35 (1.45%) CSS
12 30 (1.24%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.24%) XML
13 29 (1.20%) Web Services
14 28 (1.16%) JSON
14 28 (1.16%) Spring
15 27 (1.12%) AngularJS
15 27 (1.12%) SOAP
16 26 (1.08%) Pandas
17 25 (1.04%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 195 (8.07%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.00%) Onboarding
3 141 (5.84%) Product Ownership
4 104 (4.31%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.61%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.53%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.53%) Virtual Team
9 52 (2.15%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (2.03%) Data Protection Act
11 45 (1.86%) Operational Technology
11 45 (1.86%) PMI
12 42 (1.74%) Security Posture
13 41 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.53%) Robotics
15 34 (1.41%) Life Science
16 32 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.28%) Derivative
18 30 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 307 (12.71%) Windows
2 183 (7.58%) Linux
3 76 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.94%) Unix
5 55 (2.28%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.24%) Android
8 28 (1.16%) Apple iOS
9 27 (1.12%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
15 4 (0.17%) VMS
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 805 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 657 (27.20%) Agile
3 634 (26.25%) Problem-Solving
4 387 (16.02%) Stakeholder Management
5 372 (15.40%) Continuous Improvement
6 362 (14.99%) AI
7 320 (13.25%) DevOps
8 292 (12.09%) Project Management
9 283 (11.72%) CI/CD
10 277 (11.47%) Analytics
11 257 (10.64%) Decision-Making
12 254 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (9.94%) Cybersecurity
14 229 (9.48%) Change Management
14 229 (9.48%) Migration
15 215 (8.90%) ITIL
16 214 (8.86%) Roadmaps
17 199 (8.24%) Software Engineering
18 187 (7.74%) Project Delivery
18 187 (7.74%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 394 (16.31%) Python
2 366 (15.16%) SQL
3 171 (7.08%) Java
4 124 (5.13%) PowerShell
5 98 (4.06%) C#
6 92 (3.81%) JavaScript
7 51 (2.11%) C++
8 41 (1.70%) Bash
9 32 (1.33%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 25 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.99%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.70%) C
13 17 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) Perl
15 14 (0.58%) Rust
16 13 (0.54%) Go
17 12 (0.50%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 488 (20.21%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (17.64%) Security Cleared
3 288 (11.93%) SC Cleared
4 254 (10.52%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.13%) CISSP
6 124 (5.13%) PMP
7 86 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
8 78 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
9 70 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (2.82%) CISM
11 59 (2.44%) DV Cleared
12 54 (2.24%) Azure Certification
13 44 (1.82%) PhD
14 39 (1.61%) CCNP
15 37 (1.53%) CCNA
15 37 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
16 36 (1.49%) CBAP
17 35 (1.45%) AWS Certification
17 35 (1.45%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.55%) QA
2 118 (4.89%) NIST
3 115 (4.76%) Data Quality
3 115 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.31%) PMO
5 102 (4.22%) GDPR
6 49 (2.03%) SLA
7 48 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.66%) PCI DSS
9 29 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.16%) GRC
11 18 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.75%) NCSC
12 16 (0.66%) IFRS
13 15 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.58%) COBIT
15 13 (0.54%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 176 (7.29%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.67%) Docker
3 40 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.28%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.17%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.17%) XenApp
10 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 146 (6.05%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.27%) Terraform
3 76 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.61%) Ansible
5 38 (1.57%) Grafana
6 36 (1.49%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.49%) SCCM
7 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.62%) Puppet
10 14 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
13 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 7 (0.29%) Kibana
15 6 (0.25%) Kiali
16 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 552 (22.86%) Microsoft
2 170 (7.04%) Oracle
3 142 (5.88%) SAP
4 110 (4.55%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.93%) Google
6 67 (2.77%) Cisco
7 57 (2.36%) Databricks
8 49 (2.03%) Splunk
9 48 (1.99%) Salesforce
10 47 (1.95%) Citrix
10 47 (1.95%) VMware
11 45 (1.86%) Adobe
12 39 (1.61%) IBM
13 32 (1.33%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.12%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.08%) CyberArk
16 24 (0.99%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.87%) Ariba
17 21 (0.87%) Informatica
18 20 (0.83%) Siemens