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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,424 2,262 3,605
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.80% 7.58% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.32% 24.50% 27.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,334 1,290 1,935
10th Percentile £211 £235 £225
25th Percentile £364 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £636 £619
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £486
% change year-on-year +2.78% -7.36% -2.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 251 184 419
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.90 £15.24
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.30 £21.93
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.15%
75th Percentile £82.68 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.90 £72.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £42.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +20.00% +5.39% -15.66%

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 15,823 9,233 13,084
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 30.96% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,544 5,740 8,094
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £614 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.40% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,167 599 1,124
10th Percentile £17.22 £17.76 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.72 £20.00 £19.13
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%
75th Percentile £72.52 £63.13 £63.88
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.84 £28.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +74.43% -32.53% -20.95%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -11 2,166 £500 - 2,247
UK excluding London -9 1,330 £463 +2.78% 1,791
London -19 921 £506 -8.05% 787
Work from Home -17 656 £500 -4.76% 840
South East -2 407 £500 +4.99% 603
North of England -10 333 £447 -1.76% 415
Midlands -22 197 £523 +46.36% 254
North West -7 182 £437 -4.28% 245
West Midlands -27 144 £487 +23.56% 137
East of England -4 141 £450 -10.00% 197
Yorkshire -12 136 £500 +11.86% 127
South West -22 119 £450 -5.26% 216
Scotland -21 92 £496 +10.28% 73
East Midlands -13 51 £545 +54.39% 117
Wales -21 30 £490 +60.40% 32
Northern Ireland -8 15 £254 -40.24% 53
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 53

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
1 130 (5.36%) SharePoint
2 129 (5.32%) Confluence
3 66 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.90%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 12 (0.50%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
11 5 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.17%) Appian
12 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 2 (0.083%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.083%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.083%) Ethereum
14 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 276 (11.39%) Microsoft Office
2 226 (9.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.73%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.64%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
8 12 (0.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.66%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.17%) HFM
9 4 (0.17%) Magento
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 538 (22.19%) Azure
2 311 (12.83%) AWS
3 208 (8.58%) Microsoft 365
4 196 (8.09%) Power Platform
5 136 (5.61%) Entra ID
6 117 (4.83%) GCP
7 94 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.51%) SaaS
9 61 (2.52%) GitHub
10 43 (1.77%) Figma
11 38 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.49%) Snowflake
13 35 (1.44%) Serverless
14 34 (1.40%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.36%) PowerApps
16 32 (1.32%) OneDrive
16 32 (1.32%) PaaS
17 30 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.24%) Google Workspace
18 28 (1.16%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.70%) Firewall
2 77 (3.18%) TCP/IP
3 75 (3.09%) DNS
4 64 (2.64%) Network Security
5 50 (2.06%) WAN
6 44 (1.82%) LAN
7 42 (1.73%) VPN
8 33 (1.36%) DHCP
9 25 (1.03%) BGP
9 25 (1.03%) Wireless
10 22 (0.91%) OSPF
11 21 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.83%) Ethernet
13 16 (0.66%) SSL
14 15 (0.62%) HTTP
14 15 (0.62%) SAN
15 14 (0.58%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.58%) Skype
16 13 (0.54%) SSH
17 12 (0.50%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (6.89%) Power BI
2 113 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (1.98%) Big Data
6 47 (1.94%) Relational Database
7 42 (1.73%) Metadata
8 41 (1.69%) Tableau
9 35 (1.44%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.07%) MySQL
12 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.87%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
14 19 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 19 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
16 14 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.45%) Power Query
17 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 219 (9.03%) JIRA
2 117 (4.83%) Git
3 48 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.77%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.83%) MLflow
8 16 (0.66%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
12 11 (0.45%) Gradle
12 11 (0.45%) JUnit
13 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
16 6 (0.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,110 (45.79%) Social Skills
2 741 (30.57%) Finance
3 502 (20.71%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.54%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.13%) Banking
6 141 (5.82%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.03%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.29%) Marketing
9 92 (3.80%) Legal
10 90 (3.71%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (3.22%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
14 69 (2.85%) Telecoms
15 55 (2.27%) Retail
16 51 (2.10%) Law
17 47 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.65%) Front Office
19 38 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
20 33 (1.36%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 356 (14.69%) Analyst
2 272 (11.22%) Senior
3 194 (8.00%) Architect
4 178 (7.34%) Lead
5 166 (6.85%) Developer
6 162 (6.68%) Project Manager
7 156 (6.44%) Business Analyst
8 73 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
9 71 (2.93%) Consultant
10 67 (2.76%) Designer
11 65 (2.68%) Senior Analyst
12 59 (2.43%) Senior Manager
13 56 (2.31%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.23%) Software Engineer
15 52 (2.15%) Security Engineer
16 50 (2.06%) Product Manager
17 49 (2.02%) Administrator
18 47 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
18 47 (1.94%) IT Manager
18 47 (1.94%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.13%) REST
2 92 (3.80%) .NET
3 66 (2.72%) React
4 49 (2.02%) Kafka
5 45 (1.86%) HTML
5 45 (1.86%) Middleware
6 43 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
7 40 (1.65%) .NET Framework
8 39 (1.61%) RESTful
9 37 (1.53%) OAuth
10 34 (1.40%) CSS
11 31 (1.28%) Web Services
12 30 (1.24%) XML
13 29 (1.20%) Spring Boot
14 28 (1.16%) JSON
14 28 (1.16%) Spring
15 27 (1.11%) SOAP
16 26 (1.07%) AngularJS
16 26 (1.07%) Pandas
16 26 (1.07%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 199 (8.21%) Management Information System
2 146 (6.02%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.86%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.41%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (3.75%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.97%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.60%) Data Structures
8 60 (2.48%) Algorithms
9 59 (2.43%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
11 49 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.90%) Operational Technology
13 45 (1.86%) Security Posture
14 44 (1.82%) PMI
15 39 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
16 36 (1.49%) Robotics
17 35 (1.44%) Life Science
18 32 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
18 32 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
19 30 (1.24%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 315 (13.00%) Windows
2 183 (7.55%) Linux
3 76 (3.14%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.93%) Unix
5 57 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.20%) Android
7 29 (1.20%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.16%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.17%) Debian
14 4 (0.17%) Rocky
14 4 (0.17%) Solaris
14 4 (0.17%) VMS
15 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 804 (33.17%) Computer Science
2 661 (27.27%) Agile
3 634 (26.16%) Problem-Solving
4 386 (15.92%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (15.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 365 (15.06%) AI
7 326 (13.45%) DevOps
8 292 (12.05%) Project Management
9 284 (11.72%) CI/CD
10 281 (11.59%) Analytics
11 252 (10.40%) Decision-Making
11 252 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 237 (9.78%) Cybersecurity
13 232 (9.57%) Change Management
14 228 (9.41%) Migration
15 222 (9.16%) ITIL
16 216 (8.91%) Roadmaps
17 199 (8.21%) Software Engineering
18 188 (7.76%) Risk Management
19 186 (7.67%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 400 (16.50%) Python
2 365 (15.06%) SQL
3 168 (6.93%) Java
4 129 (5.32%) PowerShell
5 99 (4.08%) C#
6 90 (3.71%) JavaScript
7 49 (2.02%) C++
8 40 (1.65%) Bash
9 31 (1.28%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.11%) R
11 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.99%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.70%) C
15 14 (0.58%) Perl
16 13 (0.54%) Go
16 13 (0.54%) Rust
17 12 (0.50%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.45%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 486 (20.05%) Computer Science Degree
2 428 (17.66%) Security Cleared
3 290 (11.96%) SC Cleared
4 254 (10.48%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.90%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.20%) CISSP
7 123 (5.07%) PMP
8 89 (3.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (2.72%) CISM
12 60 (2.48%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.31%) Azure Certification
14 46 (1.90%) PhD
15 39 (1.61%) CCNP
16 38 (1.57%) CCNA
17 37 (1.53%) AWS Certification
18 36 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
19 35 (1.44%) CBAP
19 35 (1.44%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.53%) QA
2 117 (4.83%) Data Quality
2 117 (4.83%) NIST
3 114 (4.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.29%) PMO
5 99 (4.08%) GDPR
6 50 (2.06%) SLA
7 48 (1.98%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.61%) PCI DSS
9 29 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.16%) GRC
11 18 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.74%) NCSC
12 16 (0.66%) IFRS
13 15 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.54%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.50%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 182 (7.51%) Active Directory
2 135 (5.57%) Docker
3 40 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.28%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.17%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.17%) XenApp
10 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 145 (5.98%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.38%) Terraform
3 78 (3.22%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.60%) Ansible
5 37 (1.53%) Grafana
6 36 (1.49%) SCCM
7 35 (1.44%) Prometheus
8 24 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 14 (0.58%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Kibana
16 5 (0.21%) Control-M
16 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 556 (22.94%) Microsoft
2 169 (6.97%) Oracle
3 138 (5.69%) SAP
4 111 (4.58%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.04%) Google
6 66 (2.72%) Cisco
7 60 (2.48%) Databricks
8 48 (1.98%) Citrix
9 47 (1.94%) VMware
10 46 (1.90%) Adobe
10 46 (1.90%) Splunk
11 45 (1.86%) Salesforce
12 40 (1.65%) IBM
13 31 (1.28%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.11%) CheckPoint
14 27 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 24 (0.99%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.87%) Informatica
17 20 (0.83%) Ariba
17 20 (0.83%) Siemens