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 26 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,504 2,441 3,179
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.72% 7.41% 7.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.04% 24.06% 26.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,338 1,385 1,840
10th Percentile £206 £253 £240
25th Percentile £361 £371 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 207 298
10th Percentile £16.47 £17.68 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.40
Median hourly rate £43.00 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.18% -15.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £82.43 £64.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £40.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +7.50% -30.25% +11.90%

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 16,651 10,147 12,096
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 30.82% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,121 6,299 7,676
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,218 758 929
10th Percentile £17.73 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -24.15%
75th Percentile £73.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 26 July 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 -13 2,259 £500 - 2,983
UK excluding London -12 1,383 £450 - 1,830
London -21 953 £525 -4.55% 1,470
Work from Home -20 663 £500 - 1,038
South East +3 471 £500 +4.99% 605
North of England -11 334 £450 -0.11% 390
North West -14 188 £447 -5.89% 191
Midlands -28 188 £481 +10.32% 256
East of England -3 148 £450 - 239
West Midlands -33 144 £487 +8.11% 144
Yorkshire -8 128 £450 +6.51% 127
South West -25 120 £415 -7.78% 220
Scotland -33 87 £450 - 74
East Midlands -22 42 £481 +34.36% 112
Wales -29 23 £490 +57.05% 46
North East -44 18 £450 +130.77% 76
Northern Ireland -11 15 £252 -46.95% 50

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
1 150 (5.99%) SharePoint
2 127 (5.07%) Confluence
3 65 (2.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.76%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.28%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.96%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.080%) nginx
Applications
1 277 (11.06%) Microsoft Office
2 240 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 151 (6.03%) Microsoft Project
4 132 (5.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
9 8 (0.32%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
10 6 (0.24%) Trello
10 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.68%) Primavera
3 14 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 578 (23.08%) Azure
2 326 (13.02%) AWS
3 233 (9.31%) Power Platform
4 215 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
5 154 (6.15%) Entra ID
6 136 (5.43%) GCP
7 106 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.39%) SaaS
9 65 (2.60%) GitHub
10 49 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
11 45 (1.80%) Figma
11 45 (1.80%) Serverless
11 45 (1.80%) Snowflake
12 44 (1.76%) PowerApps
13 43 (1.72%) Power Automate
14 40 (1.60%) OneDrive
15 36 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
16 30 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (1.16%) IaaS
17 29 (1.16%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.59%) Firewall
2 76 (3.04%) DNS
2 76 (3.04%) TCP/IP
3 64 (2.56%) Network Security
4 58 (2.32%) VPN
5 45 (1.80%) WAN
6 42 (1.68%) LAN
7 37 (1.48%) DHCP
8 25 (1.00%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) BGP
10 22 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.80%) SSL
12 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.76%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) VLAN
13 15 (0.60%) HTTP
13 15 (0.60%) Internet
13 15 (0.60%) SSH
14 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.56%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (7.51%) Power BI
2 116 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 64 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.08%) Relational Database
6 48 (1.92%) Metadata
7 45 (1.80%) Big Data
8 39 (1.56%) Tableau
9 35 (1.40%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.12%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.12%) MySQL
11 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 23 (0.92%) Hadoop
13 22 (0.88%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 15 (0.60%) GIS
18 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 211 (8.43%) JIRA
2 131 (5.23%) Git
3 54 (2.16%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.56%) GitLab
5 34 (1.36%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.76%) MLflow
7 17 (0.68%) Selenium
7 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.56%) JUnit
9 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.48%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Gradle
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,094 (43.69%) Social Skills
2 733 (29.27%) Finance
3 542 (21.65%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 194 (7.75%) Banking
6 160 (6.39%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
8 102 (4.07%) Marketing
9 101 (4.03%) Legal
10 95 (3.79%) Aerospace
11 90 (3.59%) Manufacturing
12 87 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
13 83 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
14 76 (3.04%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.48%) Retail
16 59 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.16%) Law
18 43 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.36%) Financial Institution
19 34 (1.36%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 344 (13.74%) Analyst
2 286 (11.42%) Senior
3 196 (7.83%) Architect
4 191 (7.63%) Lead
5 176 (7.03%) Developer
6 159 (6.35%) Project Manager
7 151 (6.03%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.88%) Consultant
8 72 (2.88%) Senior Manager
9 65 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
10 63 (2.52%) Designer
11 56 (2.24%) IT Manager
11 56 (2.24%) IT Support
12 53 (2.12%) Software Engineer
12 53 (2.12%) Support Engineer
13 51 (2.04%) Administrator
14 50 (2.00%) Product Manager
15 49 (1.96%) Senior Analyst
16 48 (1.92%) IT Analyst
17 47 (1.88%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.15%) REST
2 98 (3.91%) .NET
3 68 (2.72%) React
4 51 (2.04%) Kafka
5 44 (1.76%) RESTful
6 42 (1.68%) OAuth
7 39 (1.56%) HTML
8 38 (1.52%) Middleware
9 35 (1.40%) .NET Framework
10 34 (1.36%) Web Services
11 33 (1.32%) Spring
12 32 (1.28%) CSS
12 32 (1.28%) SAML
13 31 (1.24%) AngularJS
13 31 (1.24%) JSON
13 31 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
13 31 (1.24%) Spring Boot
14 30 (1.20%) OAuth2
15 29 (1.16%) LDAP
15 29 (1.16%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.23%) Management Information System
2 155 (6.19%) Onboarding
3 153 (6.11%) Product Ownership
4 116 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.07%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.88%) Data Structures
7 71 (2.84%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.60%) Data Centre
9 59 (2.36%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.08%) Operational Technology
11 51 (2.04%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
13 43 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
13 43 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
14 41 (1.64%) Life Science
15 37 (1.48%) AI Agents
16 35 (1.40%) PMI
17 33 (1.32%) Robotics
18 32 (1.28%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 307 (12.26%) Windows
2 175 (6.99%) Linux
3 76 (3.04%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.44%) Unix
5 50 (2.00%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.16%) Android
9 28 (1.12%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 842 (33.63%) Computer Science
2 688 (27.48%) Agile
3 665 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
4 435 (17.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 410 (16.37%) Continuous Improvement
6 400 (15.97%) AI
7 334 (13.34%) DevOps
8 315 (12.58%) Analytics
9 312 (12.46%) Project Management
10 306 (12.22%) CI/CD
11 270 (10.78%) Decision-Making
11 270 (10.78%) ITIL
12 265 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 247 (9.86%) Cybersecurity
14 226 (9.03%) Change Management
15 220 (8.79%) Roadmaps
16 214 (8.55%) Software Engineering
17 205 (8.19%) PRINCE2
17 205 (8.19%) Project Delivery
17 205 (8.19%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 430 (17.17%) Python
2 362 (14.46%) SQL
3 174 (6.95%) Java
4 149 (5.95%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.23%) C#
6 92 (3.67%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.92%) Bash
8 47 (1.88%) C++
9 40 (1.60%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.16%) R
11 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.96%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.96%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.92%) Bicep
14 21 (0.84%) C
15 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.44%) X++
17 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 485 (19.37%) Computer Science Degree
2 452 (18.05%) Security Cleared
3 298 (11.90%) SC Cleared
4 251 (10.02%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.03%) PMP
7 118 (4.71%) CISSP
8 108 (4.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.31%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.12%) DV Cleared
11 77 (3.08%) Azure Certification
12 69 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.28%) CISM
14 56 (2.24%) PhD
15 43 (1.72%) AWS Certification
16 41 (1.64%) CCNA
17 39 (1.56%) CCNP
18 37 (1.48%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 36 (1.44%) CISA
20 33 (1.32%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (5.51%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.15%) QA
3 112 (4.47%) NIST
4 109 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (4.15%) PMO
6 82 (3.27%) GDPR
7 52 (2.08%) SLA
8 51 (2.04%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.08%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.04%) GRC
12 22 (0.88%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) COBIT
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 197 (7.87%) Active Directory
2 126 (5.03%) Docker
3 48 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.92%) Firmware
4 23 (0.92%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
8 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.24%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 138 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.75%) Terraform
3 79 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.40%) Ansible
5 36 (1.44%) SCCM
6 32 (1.28%) Grafana
7 29 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Argo
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 626 (25.00%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.63%) Oracle
3 147 (5.87%) SAP
4 133 (5.31%) ServiceNow
5 98 (3.91%) Google
6 70 (2.80%) Cisco
7 65 (2.60%) Databricks
8 63 (2.52%) VMware
9 58 (2.32%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.20%) Adobe
11 51 (2.04%) IBM
12 35 (1.40%) Citrix
12 35 (1.40%) Splunk
13 33 (1.32%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.12%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.84%) Ariba
16 21 (0.84%) Siemens
17 20 (0.80%) BeyondTrust
18 19 (0.76%) HP