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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,488 2,404 2,969
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.29% 7.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.49% 23.29% 26.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,286 1,334 1,686
10th Percentile £204 £260 £257
25th Percentile £353 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £498 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -0.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £619
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £484
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.02% -2.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 198 222
10th Percentile £16.46 £16.97 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.30 £27.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £41.25 £56.92
Median % change year-on-year -6.13% -27.53% +21.52%
75th Percentile £69.63 £60.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £87.16 £82.81 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £38.91 £57.35
% change year-on-year -0.49% -32.15% +24.19%

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 17,176 10,322 11,238
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.52% 31.29% 29.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,481 6,406 6,958
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,308 824 674
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.97 £16.90
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £72.54 £48.13 £67.69
90th Percentile £87.96 £71.39 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +2.14%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -17 2,260 £503 +0.55% 9,042
UK excluding London -16 1,336 £475 +5.56% 4,729
London -20 980 £525 -4.55% 5,316
Work from Home -21 664 £500 +4.17% 3,046
South East +7 468 £525 +13.51% 1,358
North of England -16 336 £475 +9.08% 855
North West -8 209 £473 +5.00% 486
Midlands -33 174 £450 - 558
East of England -13 135 £300 -33.33% 674
West Midlands -39 128 £450 -5.26% 335
South West -20 124 £400 -13.51% 660
Yorkshire -9 111 £500 +19.05% 253
Scotland -58 72 £475 +5.56% 433
East Midlands -26 45 £475 +6.26% 223
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 136
Northern Ireland -12 15 £250 -56.04% 168
Wales -29 14 £530 +73.50% 122
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 3

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
1 161 (6.47%) SharePoint
2 104 (4.18%) Confluence
3 60 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.17%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.76%) Apache
7 17 (0.68%) IIS
8 13 (0.52%) Camunda
8 13 (0.52%) CMS
9 12 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
10 9 (0.36%) SAS
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
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%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 252 (10.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 250 (10.05%) Microsoft Office
3 132 (5.31%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (4.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 54 (2.17%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Windchill
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
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 43 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.60%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
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%) NEC Housing
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%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 569 (22.87%) Azure
2 317 (12.74%) AWS
3 230 (9.24%) Power Platform
4 229 (9.20%) Microsoft 365
5 143 (5.75%) GCP
6 139 (5.59%) Entra ID
7 117 (4.70%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.38%) SaaS
9 72 (2.89%) GitHub
10 60 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
11 57 (2.29%) Serverless
12 56 (2.25%) Power Automate
13 55 (2.21%) PowerApps
14 45 (1.81%) Microsoft Copilot
14 45 (1.81%) OneDrive
15 42 (1.69%) Snowflake
16 39 (1.57%) Figma
17 29 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
18 28 (1.13%) IaaS
19 27 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.62%) Firewall
2 86 (3.46%) DNS
3 67 (2.69%) TCP/IP
4 64 (2.57%) Network Security
5 61 (2.45%) VPN
6 47 (1.89%) DHCP
7 37 (1.49%) WAN
8 36 (1.45%) LAN
9 30 (1.21%) Wireless
10 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
11 21 (0.84%) Internet
12 20 (0.80%) 5G
12 20 (0.80%) BGP
12 20 (0.80%) SSL
12 20 (0.80%) VLAN
13 18 (0.72%) HTTP
13 18 (0.72%) SSH
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.64%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 173 (6.95%) Power BI
2 114 (4.58%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
3 54 (2.17%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.13%) Metadata
5 42 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.45%) Tableau
7 32 (1.29%) MySQL
8 30 (1.21%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.09%) Big Data
10 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
11 24 (0.96%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
13 18 (0.72%) Data Mining
14 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.64%) Data Lake
16 15 (0.60%) GIS
17 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 179 (7.19%) JIRA
2 136 (5.47%) Git
3 62 (2.49%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.17%) GitLab
5 22 (0.88%) JUnit
5 22 (0.88%) Selenium
6 19 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 18 (0.72%) Maven
7 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
8 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.64%) Gradle
10 15 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
10 15 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.56%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.48%) Mockito
13 11 (0.44%) Postman
13 11 (0.44%) Subversion
14 10 (0.40%) MLflow
14 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,118 (44.94%) Social Skills
2 726 (29.18%) Finance
3 577 (23.19%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (8.00%) Public Sector
5 195 (7.84%) Banking
6 166 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
7 118 (4.74%) Manufacturing
8 111 (4.46%) Aerospace
9 100 (4.02%) Marketing
10 95 (3.82%) Influencing Skills
11 94 (3.78%) Telecoms
12 91 (3.66%) Legal
13 90 (3.62%) Presentation Skills
14 79 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.49%) Retail
16 60 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 53 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
18 50 (2.01%) Law
19 45 (1.81%) Military
20 42 (1.69%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 342 (13.75%) Analyst
2 283 (11.37%) Senior
3 199 (8.00%) Lead
4 198 (7.96%) Developer
5 164 (6.59%) Architect
6 161 (6.47%) Business Analyst
7 123 (4.94%) Project Manager
8 75 (3.01%) Consultant
9 74 (2.97%) Support Engineer
10 71 (2.85%) IT Support
11 67 (2.69%) Senior Manager
12 55 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.13%) IT Analyst
14 52 (2.09%) Administrator
14 52 (2.09%) Designer
15 50 (2.01%) IT Manager
16 45 (1.81%) Technical Support
17 43 (1.73%) Data Analyst
17 43 (1.73%) Security Engineer
17 43 (1.73%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.38%) REST
2 108 (4.34%) Terraform
3 104 (4.18%) .NET
4 69 (2.77%) React
5 67 (2.69%) HTML
6 63 (2.53%) Kafka
7 55 (2.21%) CSS
8 53 (2.13%) RESTful
9 46 (1.85%) OAuth
10 43 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
11 41 (1.65%) XML
12 37 (1.49%) Middleware
12 37 (1.49%) Web Services
13 36 (1.45%) OAuth2
13 36 (1.45%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.33%) SAML
15 32 (1.29%) JSON
16 31 (1.25%) OpenID
16 31 (1.25%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 222 (8.92%) Management Information System
2 141 (5.67%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.70%) Product Ownership
4 109 (4.38%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.73%) Algorithms
7 67 (2.69%) Data Structures
8 60 (2.41%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.13%) Operational Technology
10 49 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
10 49 (1.97%) Life Science
11 46 (1.85%) Security Posture
12 45 (1.81%) Virtual Team
13 44 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
14 41 (1.65%) AI Agents
14 41 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
15 37 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
16 34 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.37%) SCADA
17 30 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 299 (12.02%) Windows
2 182 (7.32%) Linux
3 82 (3.30%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.37%) Unix
5 47 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.00%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) 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
1 824 (33.12%) Computer Science
2 663 (26.65%) Agile
3 656 (26.37%) Problem-Solving
4 497 (19.98%) Stakeholder Management
5 441 (17.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 382 (15.35%) AI
7 347 (13.95%) DevOps
8 319 (12.82%) Project Management
9 314 (12.62%) CI/CD
10 308 (12.38%) Analytics
11 283 (11.37%) ITIL
12 254 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 252 (10.13%) Decision-Making
14 231 (9.28%) Change Management
15 228 (9.16%) Scrum
16 224 (9.00%) Cybersecurity
17 222 (8.92%) Roadmaps
18 219 (8.80%) Software Engineering
19 211 (8.48%) PRINCE2
20 204 (8.20%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 419 (16.84%) Python
2 365 (14.67%) SQL
3 179 (7.19%) PowerShell
4 163 (6.55%) Java
5 124 (4.98%) JavaScript
6 122 (4.90%) C#
7 60 (2.41%) Bash
8 47 (1.89%) TypeScript
9 46 (1.85%) C++
10 30 (1.21%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.96%) C
14 24 (0.96%) R
15 16 (0.64%) Scala
16 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 12 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 498 (20.02%) Computer Science Degree
2 465 (18.69%) Security Cleared
3 334 (13.42%) SC Cleared
4 210 (8.44%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.55%) PMI Certification
6 124 (4.98%) Microsoft Certification
7 121 (4.86%) PMP
8 104 (4.18%) CISSP
9 88 (3.54%) Azure Certification
10 83 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
11 81 (3.26%) DV Cleared
12 71 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.25%) PhD
14 50 (2.01%) CISM
15 45 (1.81%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.61%) CCNA
18 39 (1.57%) CCNP
18 39 (1.57%) ISTQB
19 34 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.79%) QA
2 140 (5.63%) Data Quality
3 95 (3.82%) NIST
4 93 (3.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (3.62%) PMO
6 71 (2.85%) GDPR
7 48 (1.93%) Accessibility
8 45 (1.81%) SLA
9 27 (1.09%) GRC
10 25 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.72%) NCSC
12 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
13 14 (0.56%) P3O
14 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.44%) COBIT
15 10 (0.40%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.36%) IEC 61508
16 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 196 (7.88%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.86%) Docker
3 56 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.13%) Firmware
5 27 (1.09%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) 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
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
10 5 (0.20%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) RACF
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 125 (5.02%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.49%) Ansible
4 35 (1.41%) SCCM
5 28 (1.13%) Grafana
6 26 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 8 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.32%) WSUS
12 7 (0.28%) CASB
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 642 (25.80%) Microsoft
2 180 (7.23%) Oracle
3 140 (5.63%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.39%) SAP
5 94 (3.78%) Google
6 73 (2.93%) VMware
7 70 (2.81%) Cisco
8 68 (2.73%) Salesforce
9 64 (2.57%) Adobe
10 57 (2.29%) Databricks
11 45 (1.81%) IBM
12 44 (1.77%) Splunk
13 32 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.17%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.05%) Citrix
16 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.84%) OpenAI
18 20 (0.80%) Apple
19 19 (0.76%) Ariba