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

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,503 2,296 3,671
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.47% 7.86% 8.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.53% 25.54% 27.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,475 1,329 1,989
10th Percentile £263 £250 £205
25th Percentile £386 £385 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £739 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £455 £500
% change year-on-year +5.05% -9.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 179 384
10th Percentile £16.74 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.12 £28.46 £22.31
Median hourly rate £50.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £83.00 £70.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.79% +15.75% -11.11%

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 15,140 8,990 13,478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.08% 30.76% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,059 5,720 8,344
10th Percentile £343 £294 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.05% -2.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.08% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,103 491 1,023
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.82 £23.00 £17.66
Median hourly rate £41.94 £45.00 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -6.80% +16.13% -26.19%
75th Percentile £69.44 £67.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.27% +19.51% -19.22%

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 11 April 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 11 April 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 11 April 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 -7 2,191 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -7 1,314 £478 +5.05% 2,012
London -12 954 £507 -7.91% 866
Work from Home -4 689 £500 -2.91% 927
South East -6 358 £500 - 660
North of England -7 329 £408 -13.67% 472
Midlands -25 198 £500 +56.25% 318
North West -4 182 £400 -15.25% 244
South West 0 154 £650 +22.87% 220
West Midlands -31 143 £500 +66.67% 181
East of England -7 137 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -15 130 £475 -6.17% 164
Scotland -4 97 £500 +12.99% 94
East Midlands -21 54 £525 +47.47% 136
Wales -13 40 £291 -4.53% 61
North East -17 18 £407 -4.24% 71
Northern Ireland -7 17 £406 +30.00% 17

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
1 181 (7.23%) Confluence
2 122 (4.87%) SharePoint
3 70 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.12%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.72%) Apache
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.080%) Appian
12 2 (0.080%) IIS
12 2 (0.080%) nginx
12 2 (0.080%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.080%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 317 (12.66%) Microsoft Office
2 242 (9.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 207 (8.27%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.64%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
7 11 (0.44%) Trello
8 7 (0.28%) Sketch
9 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.20%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.12%) InVision
11 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.12%) Revit
12 2 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) FrameMaker
13 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.040%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 73 (2.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.88%) Primavera
4 17 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
6 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 533 (21.29%) Azure
2 292 (11.67%) AWS
3 217 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 205 (8.19%) Power Platform
5 112 (4.47%) Entra ID
6 109 (4.35%) GCP
7 107 (4.27%) SaaS
8 103 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
9 67 (2.68%) GitHub
10 49 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
11 40 (1.60%) Power Automate
12 39 (1.56%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.32%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.28%) Google Workspace
15 31 (1.24%) PaaS
15 31 (1.24%) PowerApps
16 30 (1.20%) IaaS
17 28 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.12%) Serverless
18 25 (1.00%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 122 (4.87%) Firewall
2 63 (2.52%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.48%) WAN
4 60 (2.40%) LAN
5 59 (2.36%) DNS
6 49 (1.96%) Network Security
7 39 (1.56%) VPN
8 31 (1.24%) BGP
9 29 (1.16%) Wireless
10 27 (1.08%) HTTP
11 26 (1.04%) Ethernet
12 25 (1.00%) OSPF
12 25 (1.00%) Skype
13 20 (0.80%) DHCP
14 18 (0.72%) VLAN
15 17 (0.68%) Internet
16 16 (0.64%) SAN
16 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.60%) VXLAN
18 14 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (6.67%) Power BI
2 103 (4.12%) SQL Server
3 73 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.00%) Big Data
5 50 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.64%) Tableau
7 39 (1.56%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.48%) Metadata
9 35 (1.40%) MySQL
10 29 (1.16%) Hadoop
11 28 (1.12%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
17 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
18 9 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 288 (11.51%) JIRA
2 115 (4.59%) Git
3 52 (2.08%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.60%) GitLab
5 31 (1.24%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (1.04%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.96%) Selenium
8 18 (0.72%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) Burp Suite
9 14 (0.56%) Postman
10 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
13 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.28%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,190 (47.54%) Social Skills
2 767 (30.64%) Finance
3 562 (22.45%) Analytical Skills
4 236 (9.43%) Banking
5 215 (8.59%) Public Sector
6 124 (4.95%) Presentation Skills
7 121 (4.83%) Organisational Skills
8 95 (3.80%) Marketing
9 89 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.24%) Manufacturing
12 76 (3.04%) Legal
13 74 (2.96%) Aerospace
14 65 (2.60%) Telecoms
15 59 (2.36%) Military
16 49 (1.96%) Front Office
17 48 (1.92%) Retail
18 46 (1.84%) Electronics
18 46 (1.84%) Law
19 45 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 350 (13.98%) Analyst
2 249 (9.95%) Senior
3 207 (8.27%) Architect
4 203 (8.11%) Lead
5 193 (7.71%) Project Manager
6 190 (7.59%) Developer
7 160 (6.39%) Business Analyst
8 94 (3.76%) Consultant
9 66 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.56%) Delivery Manager
10 64 (2.56%) Senior Analyst
11 57 (2.28%) Security Engineer
12 56 (2.24%) Technical Support
13 52 (2.08%) Data Scientist
14 51 (2.04%) Software Engineer
15 49 (1.96%) Designer
16 45 (1.80%) IT Support
16 45 (1.80%) Product Manager
17 44 (1.76%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.64%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.04%) REST
2 77 (3.08%) .NET
3 54 (2.16%) HTML
4 53 (2.12%) Middleware
5 52 (2.08%) React
6 50 (2.00%) RESTful
7 46 (1.84%) Kafka
8 40 (1.60%) CSS
9 39 (1.56%) XML
10 38 (1.52%) JSON
10 38 (1.52%) SOAP
11 36 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.44%) PyTorch
11 36 (1.44%) Spring Boot
12 33 (1.32%) Spring
13 32 (1.28%) Pandas
13 32 (1.28%) TensorFlow
14 29 (1.16%) OAuth
15 27 (1.08%) .NET Framework
16 25 (1.00%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 201 (8.03%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.67%) Product Ownership
3 126 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.48%) Cloud Native
5 83 (3.32%) Virtual Team
6 78 (3.12%) Algorithms
7 70 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
8 69 (2.76%) Data Centre
9 63 (2.52%) Data Structures
10 58 (2.32%) PMI
11 55 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
11 55 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
12 44 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
13 41 (1.64%) Derivative
14 34 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
15 33 (1.32%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.28%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.28%) Robotics
17 31 (1.24%) Greenfield Project
18 29 (1.16%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 291 (11.63%) Windows
2 184 (7.35%) Linux
3 76 (3.04%) Windows Server
4 66 (2.64%) Unix
5 58 (2.32%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Android
7 29 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 14 (0.56%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.20%) AIX
14 5 (0.20%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) CentOS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 905 (36.16%) Computer Science
2 767 (30.64%) Agile
3 670 (26.77%) Problem-Solving
4 409 (16.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 369 (14.74%) Continuous Improvement
6 357 (14.26%) Project Management
7 347 (13.86%) AI
8 345 (13.78%) DevOps
9 284 (11.35%) CI/CD
10 279 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 272 (10.87%) Analytics
12 265 (10.59%) Cybersecurity
13 263 (10.51%) Change Management
14 262 (10.47%) ITIL
15 257 (10.27%) Decision-Making
16 248 (9.91%) Migration
17 235 (9.39%) Project Delivery
18 231 (9.23%) PRINCE2
19 212 (8.47%) Risk Management
20 211 (8.43%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.06%) Python
2 366 (14.62%) SQL
3 174 (6.95%) Java
4 124 (4.95%) PowerShell
5 88 (3.52%) C#
5 88 (3.52%) JavaScript
6 72 (2.88%) C++
7 41 (1.64%) Bash
8 38 (1.52%) TypeScript
9 32 (1.28%) R
10 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.76%) Go
11 19 (0.76%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.68%) C
12 17 (0.68%) Perl
12 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.60%) Kotlin
13 15 (0.60%) Rust
14 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 559 (22.33%) Computer Science Degree
2 486 (19.42%) Security Cleared
3 349 (13.94%) SC Cleared
4 324 (12.94%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.15%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.27%) PMP
7 117 (4.67%) CISSP
8 86 (3.44%) Microsoft Certification
9 65 (2.60%) CISM
9 65 (2.60%) TOGAF Certification
10 63 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
10 63 (2.52%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (2.40%) DV Cleared
12 59 (2.36%) PhD
13 55 (2.20%) Azure Certification
14 42 (1.68%) CCNP
15 40 (1.60%) MBA
16 37 (1.48%) AWS Certification
17 33 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
17 33 (1.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.59%) QA
2 116 (4.63%) GDPR
3 113 (4.51%) PMO
4 109 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 99 (3.96%) Data Quality
5 99 (3.96%) NIST
6 47 (1.88%) PCI DSS
7 45 (1.80%) SLA
8 44 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.96%) GRC
11 19 (0.76%) NCSC
12 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) Basel III
14 13 (0.52%) COBIT
14 13 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.48%) WCAG
16 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 164 (6.55%) Active Directory
2 152 (6.07%) Docker
3 44 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.88%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.80%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) vSphere
8 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.080%) HDFS
12 2 (0.080%) NDS
12 2 (0.080%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.080%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 153 (6.11%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.36%) Terraform
3 68 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.36%) Ansible
5 41 (1.64%) Grafana
6 37 (1.48%) SCCM
7 31 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.20%) OPNET
9 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.60%) Puppet
12 13 (0.52%) Nmap
13 11 (0.44%) Kibana
13 11 (0.44%) SCOM
14 9 (0.36%) Kiali
15 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.32%) WSUS
16 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 560 (22.37%) Microsoft
2 160 (6.39%) Oracle
3 159 (6.35%) SAP
4 126 (5.03%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.76%) Google
6 82 (3.28%) Cisco
7 67 (2.68%) Splunk
8 55 (2.20%) Databricks
9 52 (2.08%) VMware
10 51 (2.04%) Remedy
11 47 (1.88%) Citrix
12 46 (1.84%) Atlassian
13 44 (1.76%) Salesforce
14 42 (1.68%) IBM
15 38 (1.52%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.32%) CheckPoint
17 25 (1.00%) Adobe
18 24 (0.96%) Informatica
19 21 (0.84%) Aruba
19 21 (0.84%) Red Hat