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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,483 2,440 3,259
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.71% 7.47% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.04% 24.24% 26.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,328 1,390 1,876
10th Percentile £206 £250 £228
25th Percentile £360 £370 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £629 £625
90th Percentile £704 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £498
% change year-on-year - -9.64% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 203 316
10th Percentile £16.80 £18.24 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.29 £25.36
Median hourly rate £44.50 £45.02 £47.75
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% -5.73% -12.39%
75th Percentile £82.50 £66.25 £64.44
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.28 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.00 £56.92
% change year-on-year +12.50% -29.73% +8.42%

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 16,505 10,067 12,307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.30% 30.82% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,025 6,245 7,756
10th Percentile £350 £277 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,198 744 971
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £20.75
Median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +107.75% -41.51% -25.00%
75th Percentile £73.46 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -13 2,242 £500 - 3,041
UK excluding London -9 1,373 £450 - 1,803
London -21 943 £525 -4.55% 1,525
Work from Home -19 661 £500 - 1,068
South East +1 469 £500 +3.90% 596
North of England -15 326 £449 +0.11% 376
Midlands -27 194 £498 +17.06% 255
North West -13 180 £447 -5.89% 179
East of England -4 147 £450 - 235
West Midlands -33 145 £492 +9.33% 147
Yorkshire -10 129 £450 +6.51% 132
South West -24 119 £415 -7.78% 196
Scotland -31 83 £475 +5.56% 85
East Midlands -18 47 £503 +40.36% 108
Wales -28 23 £490 +58.71% 47
North East -40 17 £450 +130.77% 69
Northern Ireland -9 15 £252 -46.95% 55

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
1 144 (5.80%) SharePoint
2 127 (5.11%) Confluence
3 60 (2.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Appian
10 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.081%) nginx
12 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 280 (11.28%) Microsoft Office
2 239 (9.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 150 (6.04%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.68%) Primavera
3 14 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.08%) Azure
2 324 (13.05%) AWS
3 224 (9.02%) Power Platform
4 208 (8.38%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (6.16%) Entra ID
6 134 (5.40%) GCP
7 106 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.38%) SaaS
9 65 (2.62%) GitHub
10 46 (1.85%) Snowflake
11 45 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
11 45 (1.81%) Figma
12 42 (1.69%) Serverless
13 38 (1.53%) PowerApps
14 37 (1.49%) Power Automate
15 34 (1.37%) OneDrive
16 30 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
16 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.13%) IaaS
17 28 (1.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.55%) Firewall
2 76 (3.06%) TCP/IP
3 75 (3.02%) DNS
4 65 (2.62%) Network Security
5 58 (2.34%) VPN
6 45 (1.81%) WAN
7 40 (1.61%) LAN
8 38 (1.53%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) BGP
10 23 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) OSPF
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
12 17 (0.68%) VLAN
13 15 (0.60%) Internet
13 15 (0.60%) SSH
14 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.56%) SAN
15 13 (0.52%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (7.53%) Power BI
2 117 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
5 53 (2.13%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.85%) Metadata
7 45 (1.81%) Big Data
8 40 (1.61%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.17%) MySQL
11 28 (1.13%) MongoDB
12 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 23 (0.93%) Hadoop
14 22 (0.89%) Data Lake
15 20 (0.81%) Oracle Database
16 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
17 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
18 15 (0.60%) GIS
19 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 212 (8.54%) JIRA
2 130 (5.24%) Git
3 54 (2.17%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.57%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.77%) MLflow
7 17 (0.68%) Selenium
8 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.48%) Postman
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,085 (43.70%) Social Skills
2 734 (29.56%) Finance
3 540 (21.75%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 190 (7.65%) Banking
6 157 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
8 103 (4.15%) Marketing
9 99 (3.99%) Legal
10 94 (3.79%) Aerospace
11 91 (3.66%) Manufacturing
12 85 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
13 84 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
14 75 (3.02%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.50%) Retail
16 59 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 53 (2.13%) Law
18 43 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.37%) Front Office
19 34 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 341 (13.73%) Analyst
2 284 (11.44%) Senior
3 197 (7.93%) Architect
4 189 (7.61%) Lead
5 170 (6.85%) Developer
6 158 (6.36%) Project Manager
7 148 (5.96%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.90%) Senior Manager
9 71 (2.86%) Consultant
10 66 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
11 64 (2.58%) Designer
12 56 (2.26%) IT Manager
12 56 (2.26%) IT Support
13 53 (2.13%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.05%) Administrator
14 51 (2.05%) Support Engineer
15 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
15 50 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
16 48 (1.93%) Technical Support
17 47 (1.89%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.15%) REST
2 97 (3.91%) .NET
3 66 (2.66%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 43 (1.73%) RESTful
6 39 (1.57%) HTML
6 39 (1.57%) OAuth
7 37 (1.49%) Middleware
8 35 (1.41%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) Spring
9 33 (1.33%) Web Services
10 32 (1.29%) CSS
11 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
11 31 (1.25%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.21%) JSON
12 30 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
13 29 (1.17%) LDAP
13 29 (1.17%) SAML
14 28 (1.13%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.13%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.18%) Management Information System
2 154 (6.20%) Product Ownership
3 153 (6.16%) Onboarding
4 115 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.66%) Algorithms
7 65 (2.62%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.62%) Data Structures
8 59 (2.38%) Virtual Team
9 51 (2.05%) Operational Technology
9 51 (2.05%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
11 42 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
12 41 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
13 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
13 40 (1.61%) Life Science
14 36 (1.45%) AI Agents
15 34 (1.37%) PMI
16 33 (1.33%) Robotics
17 31 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 305 (12.28%) Windows
2 176 (7.09%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 62 (2.50%) Unix
5 48 (1.93%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.13%) Android
8 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) Rocky
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 834 (33.59%) Computer Science
2 685 (27.59%) Agile
3 660 (26.58%) Problem-Solving
4 431 (17.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 407 (16.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 396 (15.95%) AI
7 334 (13.45%) DevOps
8 316 (12.73%) Analytics
9 311 (12.53%) Project Management
10 300 (12.08%) CI/CD
11 268 (10.79%) Decision-Making
11 268 (10.79%) ITIL
11 268 (10.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 246 (9.91%) Cybersecurity
13 228 (9.18%) Change Management
14 220 (8.86%) Roadmaps
15 210 (8.46%) Software Engineering
16 204 (8.22%) Scrum
17 202 (8.14%) Migration
17 202 (8.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 430 (17.32%) Python
2 368 (14.82%) SQL
3 172 (6.93%) Java
4 146 (5.88%) PowerShell
5 104 (4.19%) C#
6 89 (3.58%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.93%) Bash
8 46 (1.85%) C++
9 38 (1.53%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
11 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
12 23 (0.93%) Bicep
13 21 (0.85%) C
14 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.44%) Perl
16 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
16 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 481 (19.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 444 (17.88%) Security Cleared
3 292 (11.76%) SC Cleared
4 249 (10.03%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.76%) PMI Certification
6 124 (4.99%) PMP
7 118 (4.75%) CISSP
8 104 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.10%) Azure Certification
11 73 (2.94%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.26%) CISM
14 55 (2.22%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.69%) CCNA
17 39 (1.57%) CCNP
18 36 (1.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 35 (1.41%) CISA
20 32 (1.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (5.56%) Data Quality
2 128 (5.16%) QA
3 113 (4.55%) NIST
4 109 (4.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.15%) PMO
6 84 (3.38%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 50 (2.01%) SLA
9 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.05%) GRC
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) COBIT
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 195 (7.85%) Active Directory
2 127 (5.11%) Docker
3 47 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 16 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 137 (5.52%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.75%) Terraform
3 75 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.42%) Ansible
5 37 (1.49%) SCCM
6 32 (1.29%) Grafana
7 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 615 (24.77%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.69%) Oracle
3 149 (6.00%) SAP
4 132 (5.32%) ServiceNow
5 100 (4.03%) Google
6 71 (2.86%) Cisco
7 65 (2.62%) Databricks
8 62 (2.50%) VMware
9 55 (2.22%) Adobe
9 55 (2.22%) Salesforce
10 51 (2.05%) IBM
11 34 (1.37%) Citrix
12 33 (1.33%) CyberArk
12 33 (1.33%) Splunk
13 30 (1.21%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.85%) Ariba
15 21 (0.85%) Siemens
16 20 (0.81%) BeyondTrust
16 20 (0.81%) Informatica