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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,467 2,427 2,976
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.58% 7.37% 7.72%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.59% 23.55% 25.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,292 1,360 1,709
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £362 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £499 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% -0.30% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £727 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £480
% change year-on-year +5.56% -6.15% -4.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 203 244
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.24 £18.20
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.86
Median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -20.95% +8.91%
75th Percentile £77.50 £59.13 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.49 £39.32 £57.35
% change year-on-year -2.12% -31.44% +20.10%

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 16,913 10,304 11,457
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 31.27% 29.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,307 6,385 7,210
10th Percentile £350 £297 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,262 825 738
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.99 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.56
Median hourly rate £48.61 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.28% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.37 £75.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -4.85%

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 29 August 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 29 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 29 August 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 -15 2,262 £500 - 9,412
UK excluding London -16 1,317 £475 +5.56% 5,014
London -20 990 £525 -4.55% 5,525
Work from Home -20 655 £500 +1.63% 3,195
South East +7 471 £525 +10.53% 1,334
North of England -18 324 £459 +2.68% 949
North West -16 193 £453 -0.98% 531
Midlands -32 180 £463 +2.78% 634
West Midlands -31 134 £466 +3.44% 369
East of England -12 133 £350 -30.00% 707
South West -22 121 £408 -9.44% 722
Yorkshire -8 117 £500 +23.84% 282
Scotland -52 66 £475 +5.56% 472
East Midlands -24 44 £475 +9.57% 265
Wales -32 14 £530 +73.50% 133
North East -39 14 £450 +130.77% 157
Northern Ireland -14 12 £238 -58.24% 167
Channel Islands - 1 - - 4

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
1 154 (6.24%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.38%) Confluence
3 57 (2.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) Camunda
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 254 (10.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 244 (9.89%) Microsoft Office
3 137 (5.55%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.35%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 9 (0.36%) Windchill
12 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.32%) Revit
12 8 (0.32%) Simulink
12 8 (0.32%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 47 (1.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 563 (22.82%) Azure
2 321 (13.01%) AWS
3 228 (9.24%) Power Platform
4 225 (9.12%) Microsoft 365
5 143 (5.80%) Entra ID
6 140 (5.67%) GCP
7 112 (4.54%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.24%) SaaS
9 67 (2.72%) GitHub
10 56 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
11 53 (2.15%) Serverless
12 47 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.91%) PowerApps
13 44 (1.78%) Snowflake
14 41 (1.66%) Figma
15 40 (1.62%) OneDrive
16 37 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.13%) IaaS
18 26 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
18 26 (1.05%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.66%) Firewall
2 87 (3.53%) DNS
3 65 (2.63%) Network Security
3 65 (2.63%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.55%) VPN
5 47 (1.91%) DHCP
6 37 (1.50%) WAN
7 35 (1.42%) LAN
8 28 (1.13%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) BGP
10 20 (0.81%) VLAN
11 19 (0.77%) 3GPP
11 19 (0.77%) Internet
12 18 (0.73%) HTTP
12 18 (0.73%) SSH
12 18 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.69%) 5G
14 16 (0.65%) MPLS
14 16 (0.65%) OSPF
14 16 (0.65%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (7.17%) Power BI
2 110 (4.46%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
5 49 (1.99%) Metadata
6 47 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
7 36 (1.46%) Tableau
8 32 (1.30%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.09%) Big Data
10 26 (1.05%) MySQL
10 26 (1.05%) Oracle Database
11 22 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
16 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.53%) Power Query
17 13 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 187 (7.58%) JIRA
2 136 (5.51%) Git
3 62 (2.51%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.03%) GitLab
5 27 (1.09%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.93%) Selenium
7 19 (0.77%) JUnit
8 18 (0.73%) SonarQube
9 17 (0.69%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.61%) Maven
11 14 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Gradle
13 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 11 (0.45%) MLflow
14 11 (0.45%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 9 (0.36%) Mockito
15 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,094 (44.35%) Social Skills
2 735 (29.79%) Finance
3 577 (23.39%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (7.94%) Banking
4 196 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 157 (6.36%) Organisational Skills
6 114 (4.62%) Aerospace
7 108 (4.38%) Manufacturing
8 100 (4.05%) Marketing
9 96 (3.89%) Legal
10 93 (3.77%) Influencing Skills
10 93 (3.77%) Telecoms
11 88 (3.57%) Presentation Skills
12 77 (3.12%) Documentation Skills
13 63 (2.55%) Retail
14 52 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 52 (2.11%) Law
15 49 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
16 43 (1.74%) Front Office
16 43 (1.74%) Military
Job Titles
1 340 (13.78%) Analyst
2 275 (11.15%) Senior
3 197 (7.99%) Lead
4 190 (7.70%) Developer
5 170 (6.89%) Architect
6 161 (6.53%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.19%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.00%) Consultant
9 69 (2.80%) IT Support
9 69 (2.80%) Support Engineer
10 66 (2.68%) Senior Manager
11 58 (2.35%) Designer
12 57 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.15%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.03%) IT Manager
14 50 (2.03%) Product Manager
15 45 (1.82%) Administrator
15 45 (1.82%) Delivery Manager
16 44 (1.78%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.74%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.34%) REST
2 106 (4.30%) Terraform
3 103 (4.18%) .NET
4 67 (2.72%) React
5 63 (2.55%) HTML
6 59 (2.39%) Kafka
7 52 (2.11%) CSS
8 50 (2.03%) RESTful
9 45 (1.82%) OAuth
10 42 (1.70%) Oracle Fusion
11 37 (1.50%) Middleware
11 37 (1.50%) Web Services
12 35 (1.42%) .NET Framework
12 35 (1.42%) OAuth2
12 35 (1.42%) XML
13 33 (1.34%) Spring Boot
14 32 (1.30%) SAML
15 31 (1.26%) JSON
15 31 (1.26%) OpenID
15 31 (1.26%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.47%) Management Information System
2 136 (5.51%) Onboarding
3 133 (5.39%) Product Ownership
4 104 (4.22%) Self-Motivation
5 95 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 78 (3.16%) Data Structures
7 65 (2.63%) Algorithms
7 65 (2.63%) Data Centre
8 54 (2.19%) Operational Technology
9 48 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
10 47 (1.91%) Security Posture
11 44 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
12 43 (1.74%) Virtual Team
13 41 (1.66%) Life Science
14 39 (1.58%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
17 33 (1.34%) PMI
18 32 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.92%) Windows
2 181 (7.34%) Linux
3 75 (3.04%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.43%) Unix
5 50 (2.03%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 32 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.01%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 843 (34.17%) Computer Science
2 677 (27.44%) Agile
3 646 (26.19%) Problem-Solving
4 479 (19.42%) Stakeholder Management
5 445 (18.04%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (15.61%) AI
7 338 (13.70%) DevOps
8 317 (12.85%) Project Management
9 310 (12.57%) CI/CD
10 305 (12.36%) Analytics
11 281 (11.39%) ITIL
12 260 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (9.69%) Decision-Making
14 232 (9.40%) Change Management
15 230 (9.32%) Cybersecurity
16 221 (8.96%) Software Engineering
17 218 (8.84%) Scrum
18 216 (8.76%) PRINCE2
19 214 (8.67%) Roadmaps
20 205 (8.31%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 425 (17.23%) Python
2 359 (14.55%) SQL
3 168 (6.81%) Java
3 168 (6.81%) PowerShell
4 117 (4.74%) C#
5 116 (4.70%) JavaScript
6 59 (2.39%) Bash
7 49 (1.99%) C++
8 48 (1.95%) TypeScript
9 29 (1.18%) Bicep
10 27 (1.09%) Shell Script
11 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.01%) T-SQL
12 24 (0.97%) C
13 23 (0.93%) R
14 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 12 (0.49%) X++
16 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 506 (20.51%) Computer Science Degree
2 462 (18.73%) Security Cleared
3 309 (12.53%) SC Cleared
4 214 (8.67%) Master's Degree
5 141 (5.72%) PMI Certification
6 119 (4.82%) PMP
7 118 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 108 (4.38%) CISSP
9 82 (3.32%) Azure Certification
10 81 (3.28%) Cisco Certification
11 77 (3.12%) DV Cleared
12 66 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
13 52 (2.11%) CISM
13 52 (2.11%) PhD
14 42 (1.70%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 41 (1.66%) AWS Certification
15 41 (1.66%) CCNA
16 39 (1.58%) CCNP
17 35 (1.42%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.55%) QA
2 134 (5.43%) Data Quality
3 104 (4.22%) NIST
4 101 (4.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (3.65%) PMO
6 66 (2.68%) GDPR
7 50 (2.03%) Accessibility
8 49 (1.99%) SLA
9 27 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.97%) GRC
11 22 (0.89%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.69%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.45%) COBIT
16 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 8 (0.32%) GxP
System Software
1 196 (7.94%) Active Directory
2 123 (4.99%) Docker
3 56 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.09%) Firmware
5 26 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 18 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) 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%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 132 (5.35%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 65 (2.63%) Ansible
4 37 (1.50%) SCCM
5 31 (1.26%) Grafana
6 29 (1.18%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.69%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.36%) SCOM
12 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.32%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.32%) WSUS
13 7 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.28%) Argo
13 7 (0.28%) Control-M
14 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
14 6 (0.24%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 638 (25.86%) Microsoft
2 179 (7.26%) Oracle
3 137 (5.55%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.47%) SAP
5 93 (3.77%) Google
6 73 (2.96%) VMware
7 70 (2.84%) Cisco
8 69 (2.80%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.55%) Adobe
10 59 (2.39%) Databricks
11 55 (2.23%) IBM
12 43 (1.74%) Splunk
13 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.18%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.05%) Citrix
16 23 (0.93%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.89%) Apple
18 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
19 20 (0.81%) Ariba
20 19 (0.77%) OpenAI