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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,419 2,229 3,565
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.87% 7.61% 8.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.48% 24.58% 27.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,331 1,267 1,930
10th Percentile £218 £235 £225
25th Percentile £375 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £622
90th Percentile £713 £755 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £450 £490
% change year-on-year +2.06% -8.16% +0.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 183 418
10th Percentile £17.12 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £27.74 £27.67 £21.76
Median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.32 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +22.22% +11.59% -19.35%

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 15,625 9,067 12,961
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.45% 30.97% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,368 5,651 8,039
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 £621 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,152 554 1,109
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.53 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.91 £22.23 £18.19
Median hourly rate £49.36 £32.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.25% -20.00% -27.27%
75th Percentile £72.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.25 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £30.91 £40.97
% change year-on-year +53.70% -24.57% -21.96%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -12 2,158 £500 - 2,318
UK excluding London -7 1,319 £459 +2.06% 1,868
London -15 920 £514 -6.59% 769
Work from Home -15 651 £500 -3.66% 1,145
South East -1 392 £500 +5.26% 607
North of England -13 331 £447 -2.67% 425
Midlands -22 207 £520 +45.25% 249
North West -6 179 £418 -10.36% 223
West Midlands -32 148 £478 +15.88% 136
East of England -6 138 £450 -10.00% 215
Yorkshire -11 137 £500 +11.86% 154
South West -21 118 £477 +0.42% 235
Scotland -13 94 £500 +11.11% 83
East Midlands -17 57 £541 +51.97% 113
Wales -22 27 £450 +44.23% 52
Northern Ireland -6 16 £254 -18.72% 54
North East -28 15 £450 +130.77% 60

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
1 133 (5.50%) Confluence
2 129 (5.33%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.07%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.99%) Apache
7 10 (0.41%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
9 7 (0.29%) SAS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
Applications
1 266 (11.00%) Microsoft Office
2 226 (9.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 138 (5.70%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.52%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
9 9 (0.37%) Sketch
10 8 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.17%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 67 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.58%) Primavera
3 13 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.17%) HFM
10 4 (0.17%) Magento
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
11 3 (0.12%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 533 (22.03%) Azure
2 314 (12.98%) AWS
3 204 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.81%) Power Platform
5 126 (5.21%) Entra ID
6 111 (4.59%) GCP
7 87 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.56%) SaaS
9 62 (2.56%) GitHub
10 44 (1.82%) Figma
11 40 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 35 (1.45%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.36%) PaaS
14 32 (1.32%) Google Workspace
15 31 (1.28%) Power Automate
15 31 (1.28%) Serverless
16 30 (1.24%) PowerApps
17 29 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (1.20%) IaaS
17 29 (1.20%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.59%) Firewall
2 75 (3.10%) DNS
2 75 (3.10%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.48%) Network Security
4 54 (2.23%) WAN
5 50 (2.07%) LAN
6 39 (1.61%) VPN
7 30 (1.24%) DHCP
8 26 (1.07%) BGP
9 23 (0.95%) Ethernet
9 23 (0.95%) OSPF
9 23 (0.95%) Wireless
10 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 17 (0.70%) SAN
12 15 (0.62%) Skype
12 15 (0.62%) SSL
13 14 (0.58%) HTTP
13 14 (0.58%) VLAN
14 13 (0.54%) SSH
14 13 (0.54%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.53%) Power BI
2 111 (4.59%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.11%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.03%) Big Data
7 39 (1.61%) Metadata
7 39 (1.61%) Tableau
8 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
10 27 (1.12%) MySQL
11 24 (0.99%) MongoDB
12 20 (0.83%) Data Lake
12 20 (0.83%) Oracle Database
13 19 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 11 (0.45%) GIS
Development Applications
1 218 (9.01%) JIRA
2 114 (4.71%) Git
3 49 (2.03%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.82%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
7 19 (0.79%) Selenium
8 14 (0.58%) Cucumber
8 14 (0.58%) Gradle
8 14 (0.58%) Postman
9 13 (0.54%) JUnit
10 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.41%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.41%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) Artifactory
General
1 1,112 (45.97%) Social Skills
2 744 (30.76%) Finance
3 490 (20.26%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.56%) Public Sector
5 206 (8.52%) Banking
6 136 (5.62%) Organisational Skills
7 125 (5.17%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.18%) Marketing
9 90 (3.72%) Legal
10 85 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
11 84 (3.47%) Aerospace
12 80 (3.31%) Manufacturing
13 73 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
14 68 (2.81%) Telecoms
15 55 (2.27%) Law
16 52 (2.15%) Retail
17 47 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 38 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.49%) Front Office
19 36 (1.49%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 355 (14.68%) Analyst
2 277 (11.45%) Senior
3 193 (7.98%) Architect
4 185 (7.65%) Lead
5 168 (6.95%) Developer
6 161 (6.66%) Project Manager
7 159 (6.57%) Business Analyst
8 69 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.81%) Senior Analyst
10 66 (2.73%) Designer
11 65 (2.69%) Consultant
12 61 (2.52%) Software Engineer
13 57 (2.36%) Senior Manager
14 56 (2.32%) Technical Support
15 53 (2.19%) Delivery Manager
15 53 (2.19%) Security Engineer
16 49 (2.03%) Administrator
17 48 (1.98%) Product Manager
18 46 (1.90%) Data Scientist
18 46 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.34%) REST
2 85 (3.51%) .NET
3 69 (2.85%) React
4 52 (2.15%) Kafka
5 50 (2.07%) HTML
6 49 (2.03%) Middleware
6 49 (2.03%) Oracle Fusion
7 43 (1.78%) RESTful
8 41 (1.69%) CSS
9 36 (1.49%) .NET Framework
10 35 (1.45%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.32%) AngularJS
11 32 (1.32%) OAuth
11 32 (1.32%) XML
12 30 (1.24%) Spring
12 30 (1.24%) Web Services
13 28 (1.16%) JSON
14 27 (1.12%) SOAP
15 26 (1.07%) Pandas
15 26 (1.07%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 186 (7.69%) Management Information System
2 141 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 140 (5.79%) Onboarding
4 99 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.68%) Cloud Native
6 70 (2.89%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.60%) Virtual Team
8 61 (2.52%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.48%) Data Structures
10 54 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
11 51 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
12 44 (1.82%) PMI
13 42 (1.74%) Operational Technology
14 39 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
14 39 (1.61%) Security Posture
15 38 (1.57%) Robotics
16 35 (1.45%) Life Science
17 33 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.28%) Derivative
18 31 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 310 (12.82%) Windows
2 191 (7.90%) Linux
3 74 (3.06%) Unix
3 74 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 58 (2.40%) Windows 10
5 33 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 31 (1.28%) Android
7 28 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 27 (1.12%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.33%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.29%) AIX
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 830 (34.31%) Computer Science
2 648 (26.79%) Agile
3 634 (26.21%) Problem-Solving
4 372 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 361 (14.92%) Continuous Improvement
6 353 (14.59%) AI
7 324 (13.39%) DevOps
8 289 (11.95%) Project Management
9 287 (11.86%) CI/CD
10 268 (11.08%) Analytics
11 260 (10.75%) Decision-Making
12 253 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
14 232 (9.59%) Migration
15 228 (9.43%) Change Management
16 212 (8.76%) Roadmaps
17 209 (8.64%) Software Engineering
18 207 (8.56%) ITIL
19 190 (7.85%) Risk Management
20 186 (7.69%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 399 (16.49%) Python
2 369 (15.25%) SQL
3 185 (7.65%) Java
4 124 (5.13%) PowerShell
5 96 (3.97%) C#
6 94 (3.89%) JavaScript
7 59 (2.44%) C++
8 42 (1.74%) Bash
9 35 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 23 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.91%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.70%) C
14 15 (0.62%) Rust
14 15 (0.62%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.58%) Go
15 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.58%) Perl
16 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.37%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 509 (21.04%) Computer Science Degree
2 436 (18.02%) Security Cleared
3 291 (12.03%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.67%) Master's Degree
5 137 (5.66%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.00%) CISSP
7 117 (4.84%) PMP
8 83 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
8 83 (3.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (2.73%) CISM
11 64 (2.65%) DV Cleared
12 56 (2.32%) Azure Certification
13 45 (1.86%) CCNP
14 44 (1.82%) PhD
15 38 (1.57%) CCNA
16 37 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
17 36 (1.49%) CBAP
18 35 (1.45%) AWS Certification
19 33 (1.36%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (5.91%) QA
2 115 (4.75%) NIST
3 113 (4.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 112 (4.63%) Data Quality
5 105 (4.34%) PMO
6 101 (4.18%) GDPR
7 52 (2.15%) Accessibility
8 49 (2.03%) SLA
9 40 (1.65%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.07%) GRC
12 19 (0.79%) NCSC
13 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.66%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 168 (6.95%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.66%) Docker
3 39 (1.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.28%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.95%) Firmware
6 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 151 (6.24%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.43%) Terraform
3 73 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.56%) Ansible
5 40 (1.65%) Grafana
6 38 (1.57%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.49%) SCCM
8 21 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 13 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
11 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) Kibana
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 6 (0.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 546 (22.57%) Microsoft
2 179 (7.40%) Oracle
3 142 (5.87%) SAP
4 101 (4.18%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.80%) Google
6 73 (3.02%) Cisco
7 61 (2.52%) Databricks
8 57 (2.36%) Splunk
9 46 (1.90%) VMware
10 45 (1.86%) Adobe
10 45 (1.86%) Citrix
10 45 (1.86%) Salesforce
11 39 (1.61%) IBM
12 34 (1.41%) Palo Alto
13 32 (1.32%) CheckPoint
14 26 (1.07%) Red Hat
15 24 (0.99%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.87%) Aruba
16 21 (0.87%) Fortinet
16 21 (0.87%) Informatica