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 13 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,463 2,381 3,007
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.53% 7.23% 7.80%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.39% 23.10% 26.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,273 1,307 1,705
10th Percentile £204 £262 £250
25th Percentile £354 £381 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +7.83% -5.26% -3.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 200 219
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.39 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.92 £25.60 £27.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £39.89 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% -29.39% +17.37%
75th Percentile £68.75 £56.56 £70.25
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.18 £79.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £37.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +2.11% -34.68% +19.32%

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 17,120 10,307 11,327
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.49% 31.31% 29.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,434 6,417 7,008
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £439 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,313 822 674
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.88 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £71.50 £45.00 £67.95
90th Percentile £86.85 £71.00 £75.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +0.95%

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 13 September 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 13 September 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 13 September 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 -16 2,239 £510 +2.00% 7,386
UK excluding London -16 1,323 £485 +7.83% 3,940
London -20 974 £525 -4.55% 4,123
Work from Home -23 648 £500 +4.17% 7,065
South East +4 458 £525 +12.00% 1,197
North of England -19 329 £483 +8.05% 717
North West -10 206 £475 +4.00% 379
Midlands -32 177 £450 -1.37% 507
East of England -10 135 £300 -38.46% 567
West Midlands -37 130 £450 -5.26% 301
South West -21 125 £400 -13.51% 516
Yorkshire -7 107 £513 +23.12% 217
Scotland -52 72 £500 +11.11% 306
East Midlands -23 46 £463 +6.69% 206
North East -38 16 £455 +1.11% 132
Northern Ireland -11 15 £250 -57.45% 122
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 110
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 2

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
1 164 (6.66%) SharePoint
2 103 (4.18%) Confluence
3 63 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.06%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 18 (0.73%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
8 13 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 247 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 245 (9.95%) Microsoft Office
3 127 (5.16%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (4.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.15%) 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 9 (0.37%) Revit
10 9 (0.37%) Windchill
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 41 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.53%) Primavera
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) Actimize
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 561 (22.78%) Azure
2 314 (12.75%) AWS
3 231 (9.38%) Microsoft 365
4 228 (9.26%) Power Platform
5 142 (5.77%) GCP
6 135 (5.48%) Entra ID
7 118 (4.79%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.33%) SaaS
9 73 (2.96%) GitHub
10 62 (2.52%) Dynamics 365
11 58 (2.35%) Serverless
12 56 (2.27%) Power Automate
13 54 (2.19%) PowerApps
14 47 (1.91%) Microsoft Copilot
14 47 (1.91%) OneDrive
15 40 (1.62%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.54%) Figma
17 29 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
18 28 (1.14%) IaaS
19 27 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.43%) Firewall
2 84 (3.41%) DNS
3 66 (2.68%) Network Security
4 65 (2.64%) TCP/IP
5 61 (2.48%) VPN
6 46 (1.87%) DHCP
7 34 (1.38%) LAN
7 34 (1.38%) WAN
8 29 (1.18%) Wireless
9 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.85%) Internet
11 20 (0.81%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 18 (0.73%) BGP
13 18 (0.73%) SSH
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.69%) Wireshark
15 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.86%) Power BI
2 114 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.15%) Metadata
5 42 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (1.38%) Tableau
7 33 (1.34%) MySQL
8 30 (1.22%) NoSQL
9 25 (1.02%) Big Data
9 25 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
9 25 (1.02%) MongoDB
10 24 (0.97%) Oracle Database
10 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.61%) GIS
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 176 (7.15%) JIRA
2 135 (5.48%) Git
3 63 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.11%) GitLab
5 23 (0.93%) JUnit
6 21 (0.85%) Selenium
7 20 (0.81%) Maven
7 20 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 18 (0.73%) Gradle
8 18 (0.73%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.61%) Cucumber
10 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.53%) Mockito
12 11 (0.45%) MLflow
12 11 (0.45%) Postman
12 11 (0.45%) Rational DOORS
12 11 (0.45%) Subversion
13 10 (0.41%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 1,111 (45.11%) Social Skills
2 729 (29.60%) Finance
3 564 (22.90%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.28%) Public Sector
5 198 (8.04%) Banking
6 165 (6.70%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (4.87%) Manufacturing
8 109 (4.43%) Aerospace
9 101 (4.10%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (3.94%) Marketing
11 92 (3.74%) Telecoms
12 90 (3.65%) Presentation Skills
13 89 (3.61%) Legal
14 78 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 61 (2.48%) Retail
17 52 (2.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 51 (2.07%) Law
19 44 (1.79%) Military
20 41 (1.66%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 337 (13.68%) Analyst
2 291 (11.81%) Senior
3 202 (8.20%) Developer
4 199 (8.08%) Lead
5 165 (6.70%) Architect
6 158 (6.41%) Business Analyst
7 120 (4.87%) Project Manager
8 75 (3.05%) Support Engineer
9 74 (3.00%) Consultant
10 72 (2.92%) IT Support
11 68 (2.76%) Senior Manager
12 56 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.15%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.03%) Administrator
14 50 (2.03%) Designer
14 50 (2.03%) IT Manager
15 46 (1.87%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.83%) Technical Support
17 44 (1.79%) Security Engineer
18 43 (1.75%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.51%) REST
2 110 (4.47%) Terraform
3 106 (4.30%) .NET
4 71 (2.88%) React
5 68 (2.76%) HTML
6 64 (2.60%) Kafka
7 56 (2.27%) CSS
8 53 (2.15%) RESTful
9 46 (1.87%) OAuth
10 44 (1.79%) XML
11 43 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
12 39 (1.58%) Spring Boot
12 39 (1.58%) Web Services
13 37 (1.50%) Middleware
14 36 (1.46%) OAuth2
15 34 (1.38%) .NET Framework
15 34 (1.38%) JSON
15 34 (1.38%) Spring
16 33 (1.34%) SAML
17 31 (1.26%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 223 (9.05%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.60%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.75%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (4.02%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.52%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.44%) Algorithms
8 58 (2.35%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.15%) Operational Technology
10 48 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
11 47 (1.91%) Life Science
11 47 (1.91%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.87%) Virtual Team
13 45 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
14 41 (1.66%) AI Agents
15 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
16 36 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
17 33 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
17 33 (1.34%) SCADA
18 30 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 299 (12.14%) Windows
2 183 (7.43%) Linux
3 82 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.48%) Unix
5 47 (1.91%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.34%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.22%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 800 (32.48%) Computer Science
2 659 (26.76%) Agile
3 652 (26.47%) Problem-Solving
4 496 (20.14%) Stakeholder Management
5 436 (17.70%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (15.63%) AI
7 346 (14.05%) DevOps
8 314 (12.75%) CI/CD
9 311 (12.63%) Project Management
10 304 (12.34%) Analytics
11 280 (11.37%) ITIL
12 253 (10.27%) Decision-Making
13 251 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 231 (9.38%) Scrum
15 228 (9.26%) Change Management
16 224 (9.09%) Software Engineering
17 222 (9.01%) Cybersecurity
17 222 (9.01%) Roadmaps
18 205 (8.32%) PRINCE2
19 203 (8.24%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 411 (16.69%) Python
2 359 (14.58%) SQL
3 179 (7.27%) PowerShell
4 169 (6.86%) Java
5 128 (5.20%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.99%) C#
7 61 (2.48%) Bash
8 47 (1.91%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.83%) C++
10 30 (1.22%) Bicep
11 29 (1.18%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.97%) C
15 23 (0.93%) R
16 15 (0.61%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.49%) X++
19 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 492 (19.98%) Computer Science Degree
2 459 (18.64%) Security Cleared
3 333 (13.52%) SC Cleared
4 206 (8.36%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.44%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.16%) Microsoft Certification
7 120 (4.87%) PMP
8 105 (4.26%) CISSP
9 89 (3.61%) Azure Certification
10 84 (3.41%) Cisco Certification
11 81 (3.29%) DV Cleared
12 73 (2.96%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.31%) PhD
14 52 (2.11%) CISM
15 45 (1.83%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 43 (1.75%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.58%) CCNA
18 38 (1.54%) CCNP
18 38 (1.54%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.85%) QA
2 136 (5.52%) Data Quality
3 93 (3.78%) NIST
4 91 (3.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.57%) PMO
6 70 (2.84%) GDPR
7 47 (1.91%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.75%) SLA
9 27 (1.10%) GRC
10 24 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.77%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.73%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.57%) IFRS
13 14 (0.57%) P3O
14 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.41%) COBIT
15 10 (0.41%) ISO 31000
16 9 (0.37%) IEC 61508
17 8 (0.32%) GxP
System Software
1 193 (7.84%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.95%) Docker
3 54 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.18%) Firmware
5 25 (1.02%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 5 (0.20%) vSphere
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.16%) RACF
13 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.48%) Ansible
4 35 (1.42%) SCCM
5 27 (1.10%) Grafana
6 25 (1.02%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.53%) SCOM
11 8 (0.32%) CASB
11 8 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.32%) WSUS
12 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 637 (25.86%) Microsoft
2 180 (7.31%) Oracle
3 136 (5.52%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.48%) SAP
5 95 (3.86%) Google
6 72 (2.92%) Cisco
7 71 (2.88%) VMware
8 66 (2.68%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.56%) Adobe
10 52 (2.11%) Databricks
11 44 (1.79%) Splunk
12 42 (1.71%) IBM
13 32 (1.30%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.18%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.02%) Citrix
16 22 (0.89%) OpenAI
17 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.85%) Palo Alto
18 20 (0.81%) Apple
19 19 (0.77%) Ariba