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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,479 2,310 3,649
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.41% 7.89% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.38% 25.64% 27.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,452 1,328 1,972
10th Percentile £263 £250 £208
25th Percentile £386 £383 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £740 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 185 380
10th Percentile £16.92 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £28.50 £21.93
Median hourly rate £51.49 £54.00 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -4.65% +35.27% -11.29%
75th Percentile £83.56 £68.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +15.05% +19.51% -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 15,137 9,008 13,345
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.01% 30.75% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,063 5,719 8,249
10th Percentile £350 £293 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,107 499 1,023
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.48 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.82 £22.61 £17.50
Median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £38.16
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +17.94% -29.34%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.10 £80.67 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £48.31 £40.00
% change year-on-year -9.56% +20.78% -20.00%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 2,170 £500 -4.76% 2,622
UK excluding London -7 1,309 £475 +5.56% 1,985
London -14 939 £513 -6.82% 913
Work from Home -8 678 £500 -2.91% 1,004
South East -7 359 £500 - 644
North of England -6 328 £408 -11.89% 469
Midlands -24 200 £500 +61.29% 333
North West -7 182 £400 -14.12% 257
South West -5 147 £688 +30.95% 201
West Midlands -30 144 £498 +65.83% 206
East of England -8 138 £498 -2.36% 219
Yorkshire -16 129 £475 -5.00% 147
Scotland -5 97 £500 +12.49% 97
East Midlands -16 55 £525 +47.47% 126
Wales -11 40 £291 -4.60% 49
North East -20 18 £407 -4.24% 71
Northern Ireland -7 16 £406 +30.00% 18

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
1 178 (7.18%) Confluence
2 120 (4.84%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.73%) 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 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Drupal
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Appian
13 2 (0.081%) IIS
13 2 (0.081%) nginx
13 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.081%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 319 (12.87%) Microsoft Office
2 243 (9.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 202 (8.15%) Microsoft Project
4 141 (5.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
7 11 (0.44%) Trello
8 7 (0.28%) Sketch
9 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.12%) InVision
11 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.12%) Revit
12 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 73 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.85%) Primavera
4 17 (0.69%) 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 EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 528 (21.30%) Azure
2 285 (11.50%) AWS
3 215 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 202 (8.15%) Power Platform
5 111 (4.48%) Entra ID
5 111 (4.48%) GCP
6 107 (4.32%) SaaS
7 101 (4.07%) Azure DevOps
8 68 (2.74%) GitHub
9 49 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
10 39 (1.57%) Power Automate
11 38 (1.53%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
13 32 (1.29%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.25%) PaaS
15 29 (1.17%) IaaS
15 29 (1.17%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
17 27 (1.09%) Serverless
18 25 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 122 (4.92%) Firewall
2 64 (2.58%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.50%) WAN
4 61 (2.46%) LAN
5 58 (2.34%) DNS
6 50 (2.02%) Network Security
7 38 (1.53%) VPN
8 31 (1.25%) BGP
9 29 (1.17%) Wireless
10 26 (1.05%) Ethernet
10 26 (1.05%) HTTP
11 25 (1.01%) OSPF
11 25 (1.01%) Skype
12 19 (0.77%) DHCP
13 18 (0.73%) VLAN
14 16 (0.65%) Internet
14 16 (0.65%) SAN
14 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.61%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (6.74%) Power BI
2 103 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 71 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (1.98%) Big Data
5 49 (1.98%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.65%) Tableau
7 39 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.49%) Metadata
9 34 (1.37%) MySQL
10 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.05%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.77%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
17 10 (0.40%) Power Query
17 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 284 (11.46%) JIRA
2 115 (4.64%) Git
3 51 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (1.05%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.97%) Selenium
8 18 (0.73%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.52%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.36%) JUnit
14 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,180 (47.60%) Social Skills
2 756 (30.50%) Finance
3 560 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (9.44%) Banking
5 211 (8.51%) Public Sector
6 124 (5.00%) Presentation Skills
7 121 (4.88%) Organisational Skills
8 95 (3.83%) Marketing
9 89 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
10 86 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
11 80 (3.23%) Manufacturing
12 75 (3.03%) Aerospace
12 75 (3.03%) Legal
13 65 (2.62%) Telecoms
14 57 (2.30%) Military
15 50 (2.02%) Retail
16 46 (1.86%) Electronics
16 46 (1.86%) Front Office
16 46 (1.86%) Law
17 41 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 340 (13.72%) Analyst
2 246 (9.92%) Senior
3 206 (8.31%) Architect
4 204 (8.23%) Lead
5 187 (7.54%) Developer
5 187 (7.54%) Project Manager
6 157 (6.33%) Business Analyst
7 94 (3.79%) Consultant
8 66 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
9 65 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
10 64 (2.58%) Delivery Manager
11 55 (2.22%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.14%) Data Scientist
13 51 (2.06%) Security Engineer
14 50 (2.02%) Designer
14 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
15 44 (1.77%) IT Support
15 44 (1.77%) Product Manager
15 44 (1.77%) Systems Engineer
16 42 (1.69%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.07%) REST
2 75 (3.03%) .NET
3 54 (2.18%) React
4 53 (2.14%) Middleware
5 52 (2.10%) HTML
6 49 (1.98%) RESTful
7 46 (1.86%) Kafka
8 39 (1.57%) XML
9 38 (1.53%) CSS
9 38 (1.53%) JSON
9 38 (1.53%) SOAP
10 36 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
10 36 (1.45%) PyTorch
10 36 (1.45%) Spring Boot
11 33 (1.33%) Pandas
11 33 (1.33%) Spring
12 32 (1.29%) TensorFlow
13 28 (1.13%) OAuth
14 27 (1.09%) .NET Framework
15 25 (1.01%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 198 (7.99%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.70%) Product Ownership
3 125 (5.04%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.51%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 77 (3.11%) Algorithms
7 71 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
8 67 (2.70%) Data Centre
9 62 (2.50%) Data Structures
10 58 (2.34%) PMI
11 54 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
11 54 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
12 44 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
13 39 (1.57%) Derivative
14 34 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
15 33 (1.33%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.29%) Robotics
17 31 (1.25%) Operational Technology
18 29 (1.17%) AI Agents
18 29 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 288 (11.62%) Windows
2 183 (7.38%) Linux
3 76 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.54%) Unix
5 59 (2.38%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.29%) Android
7 29 (1.17%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.56%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.52%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.20%) AIX
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) VMS
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 896 (36.14%) Computer Science
2 752 (30.33%) Agile
3 664 (26.78%) Problem-Solving
4 402 (16.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 363 (14.64%) Continuous Improvement
6 354 (14.28%) Project Management
7 347 (14.00%) AI
8 342 (13.80%) DevOps
9 279 (11.25%) CI/CD
10 278 (11.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 268 (10.81%) Analytics
12 264 (10.65%) Change Management
13 262 (10.57%) ITIL
14 258 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
15 253 (10.21%) Decision-Making
16 248 (10.00%) Migration
17 233 (9.40%) Project Delivery
18 229 (9.24%) PRINCE2
19 211 (8.51%) Business Intelligence
20 210 (8.47%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.22%) Python
2 366 (14.76%) SQL
3 170 (6.86%) Java
4 122 (4.92%) PowerShell
5 87 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 86 (3.47%) C#
7 70 (2.82%) C++
8 42 (1.69%) Bash
9 40 (1.61%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.29%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.73%) Go
12 18 (0.73%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.69%) Perl
14 16 (0.65%) C
14 16 (0.65%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.56%) Rust
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 554 (22.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 478 (19.28%) Security Cleared
3 342 (13.80%) SC Cleared
4 319 (12.87%) Master's Degree
5 153 (6.17%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.28%) PMP
7 110 (4.44%) CISSP
8 85 (3.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 64 (2.58%) TOGAF Certification
10 63 (2.54%) CISM
11 62 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
11 62 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (2.30%) PhD
13 56 (2.26%) DV Cleared
14 54 (2.18%) Azure Certification
15 42 (1.69%) CCNP
16 40 (1.61%) MBA
17 36 (1.45%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
18 33 (1.33%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.66%) QA
2 117 (4.72%) GDPR
3 113 (4.56%) PMO
4 109 (4.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 101 (4.07%) Data Quality
6 100 (4.03%) NIST
7 47 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.82%) SLA
9 40 (1.61%) Accessibility
10 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.93%) GRC
12 18 (0.73%) NCSC
13 17 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.56%) IFRS
15 13 (0.52%) Basel III
15 13 (0.52%) COBIT
16 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
16 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
17 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 164 (6.62%) Active Directory
2 151 (6.09%) Docker
3 43 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.89%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) 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%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) NDS
12 2 (0.081%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 150 (6.05%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.39%) Terraform
3 67 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.42%) Ansible
5 40 (1.61%) Grafana
6 36 (1.45%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
7 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.69%) Puppet
9 16 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.52%) Nmap
11 11 (0.44%) Kibana
11 11 (0.44%) SCOM
12 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.32%) WSUS
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 558 (22.51%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.41%) Oracle
2 159 (6.41%) SAP
3 127 (5.12%) ServiceNow
4 95 (3.83%) Google
5 82 (3.31%) Cisco
6 66 (2.66%) Splunk
7 55 (2.22%) Databricks
8 51 (2.06%) Remedy
8 51 (2.06%) VMware
9 47 (1.90%) Citrix
10 46 (1.86%) Atlassian
11 43 (1.73%) Salesforce
12 42 (1.69%) IBM
13 38 (1.53%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.05%) Adobe
16 24 (0.97%) Informatica
17 21 (0.85%) Aruba
17 21 (0.85%) Red Hat