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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,442 2,308 3,551
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.79% 7.61% 8.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.33% 24.61% 27.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,339 1,314 1,909
10th Percentile £209 £241 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £636 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £480
% change year-on-year - -6.15% -4.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 260 187 409
10th Percentile £16.95 £20.00 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.80 £22.50
Median hourly rate £47.00 £46.30 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.51% +15.75% -19.31%
75th Percentile £82.28 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.83 £74.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +23.46% -4.71% -11.58%

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 15,929 9,377 12,937
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.25% 30.92% 29.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,644 5,812 7,975
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £526
% change year-on-year +1.40% -4.85% -0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,162 619 1,118
10th Percentile £17.63 £17.76 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.21 £20.24 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.74 £28.55 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +77.73% -30.26% -26.23%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.10 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.39 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.57% -36.31% -21.19%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -12 2,185 £500 - 2,312
UK excluding London -11 1,337 £450 - 1,689
London -19 932 £515 -6.36% 950
Work from Home -16 664 £500 -4.76% 810
South East -2 418 £500 +5.26% 558
North of England -11 327 £449 -0.72% 361
Midlands -25 194 £505 +34.67% 264
North West -9 181 £447 -1.87% 204
East of England -5 146 £450 -10.00% 195
West Midlands -29 146 £487 +16.18% 137
Yorkshire -5 132 £500 +11.86% 108
South West -25 121 £435 -8.42% 206
Scotland -21 91 £475 +5.56% 65
East Midlands -14 46 £550 +54.49% 127
Wales -23 29 £450 +47.31% 35
Northern Ireland -11 15 £254 -40.24% 57
North East -39 14 £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
1 133 (5.45%) SharePoint
2 131 (5.36%) Confluence
3 61 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.97%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.90%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.082%) nginx
13 2 (0.082%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 275 (11.26%) Microsoft Office
2 225 (9.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.69%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (2.74%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 13 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Sketch
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.25%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 63 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.66%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.25%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) Magento
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 551 (22.56%) Azure
2 320 (13.10%) AWS
3 206 (8.44%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (8.23%) Power Platform
5 140 (5.73%) Entra ID
6 123 (5.04%) GCP
7 98 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.40%) SaaS
9 64 (2.62%) GitHub
10 44 (1.80%) Figma
11 40 (1.64%) Snowflake
12 38 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.56%) Serverless
13 34 (1.39%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.39%) PowerApps
14 33 (1.35%) PaaS
15 32 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.27%) OneDrive
17 29 (1.19%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.71%) Firewall
2 77 (3.15%) DNS
2 77 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.70%) Network Security
4 51 (2.09%) WAN
5 49 (2.01%) VPN
6 46 (1.88%) LAN
7 34 (1.39%) DHCP
8 29 (1.19%) BGP
9 25 (1.02%) OSPF
9 25 (1.02%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.82%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.70%) SSL
13 15 (0.61%) VLAN
14 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.57%) HTTP
14 14 (0.57%) Internet
14 14 (0.57%) SAN
15 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (7.04%) Power BI
2 114 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 64 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.01%) Big Data
5 49 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.76%) Metadata
7 39 (1.60%) Tableau
8 38 (1.56%) NoSQL
9 31 (1.27%) MySQL
10 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
10 28 (1.15%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.90%) Data Lake
12 21 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
16 14 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
17 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 221 (9.05%) JIRA
2 121 (4.95%) Git
3 51 (2.09%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.82%) MLflow
6 20 (0.82%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.78%) Selenium
8 15 (0.61%) Postman
9 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
10 12 (0.49%) JUnit
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) Gradle
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) Subversion
14 6 (0.25%) Zephyr
General
1 1,101 (45.09%) Social Skills
2 741 (30.34%) Finance
3 517 (21.17%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.44%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.07%) Banking
6 146 (5.98%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (4.91%) Presentation Skills
8 106 (4.34%) Marketing
9 92 (3.77%) Legal
10 89 (3.64%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
11 85 (3.48%) Manufacturing
12 79 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (2.99%) Telecoms
14 56 (2.29%) Retail
15 52 (2.13%) Law
16 51 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 40 (1.64%) Front Office
18 38 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.39%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 347 (14.21%) Analyst
2 273 (11.18%) Senior
3 198 (8.11%) Architect
4 181 (7.41%) Lead
5 171 (7.00%) Developer
6 156 (6.39%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.22%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.03%) Consultant
9 72 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.74%) Designer
11 63 (2.58%) Senior Manager
12 59 (2.42%) Senior Analyst
13 57 (2.33%) Technical Support
14 53 (2.17%) Software Engineer
15 52 (2.13%) Security Engineer
16 49 (2.01%) Administrator
16 49 (2.01%) IT Support
16 49 (2.01%) Product Manager
17 48 (1.97%) IT Manager
18 47 (1.92%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.05%) .NET
2 98 (4.01%) REST
3 70 (2.87%) React
4 49 (2.01%) Kafka
5 44 (1.80%) Middleware
6 43 (1.76%) HTML
7 41 (1.68%) RESTful
8 40 (1.64%) .NET Framework
9 38 (1.56%) OAuth
10 37 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
11 33 (1.35%) CSS
12 32 (1.31%) Web Services
13 31 (1.27%) Spring
13 31 (1.27%) Spring Boot
14 28 (1.15%) JSON
14 28 (1.15%) SAML
15 27 (1.11%) AngularJS
15 27 (1.11%) SOAP
15 27 (1.11%) XML
16 26 (1.06%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.39%) Management Information System
2 146 (5.98%) Onboarding
3 141 (5.77%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.91%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.58%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.50%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.46%) Virtual Team
10 49 (2.01%) Operational Technology
10 49 (2.01%) Security Posture
11 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
12 46 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
13 40 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
14 39 (1.60%) PMI
15 35 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.43%) Life Science
15 35 (1.43%) Robotics
16 30 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (1.15%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.74%) Windows
2 182 (7.45%) Linux
3 74 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 73 (2.99%) Unix
5 55 (2.25%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.23%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.15%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.25%) VMS
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 813 (33.29%) Computer Science
2 682 (27.93%) Agile
3 644 (26.37%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (16.13%) Stakeholder Management
5 381 (15.60%) AI
6 380 (15.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 333 (13.64%) DevOps
8 293 (12.00%) CI/CD
8 293 (12.00%) Project Management
9 292 (11.96%) Analytics
10 262 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 261 (10.69%) Decision-Making
12 246 (10.07%) Cybersecurity
13 242 (9.91%) ITIL
14 226 (9.25%) Change Management
15 216 (8.85%) Roadmaps
16 215 (8.80%) Migration
17 202 (8.27%) Software Engineering
18 192 (7.86%) Project Delivery
19 190 (7.78%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 415 (16.99%) Python
2 371 (15.19%) SQL
3 170 (6.96%) Java
4 131 (5.36%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.34%) C#
6 95 (3.89%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.97%) C++
8 42 (1.72%) Bash
9 35 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.06%) R
11 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
12 21 (0.86%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.70%) C
14 14 (0.57%) Perl
15 13 (0.53%) Go
16 12 (0.49%) Bicep
16 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 491 (20.11%) Computer Science Degree
2 428 (17.53%) Security Cleared
3 289 (11.83%) SC Cleared
4 257 (10.52%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.65%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.32%) CISSP
7 118 (4.83%) PMP
8 90 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.48%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (2.74%) CISM
11 65 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 61 (2.50%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.50%) DV Cleared
13 48 (1.97%) PhD
14 43 (1.76%) CCNP
15 41 (1.68%) CCNA
16 40 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
18 33 (1.35%) CISA
18 33 (1.35%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.41%) QA
2 122 (5.00%) Data Quality
3 119 (4.87%) NIST
4 115 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 101 (4.14%) PMO
6 94 (3.85%) GDPR
7 50 (2.05%) SLA
8 49 (2.01%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.52%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.27%) GRC
11 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.90%) NCSC
13 20 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.66%) IFRS
15 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.49%) COBIT
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.33%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 183 (7.49%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.61%) Docker
3 41 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.15%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.82%) Firmware
6 12 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.12%) XenApp
11 3 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 148 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.56%) Terraform
3 74 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.58%) Ansible
5 36 (1.47%) Grafana
6 35 (1.43%) SCCM
7 34 (1.39%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Functional Safety
16 6 (0.25%) Kibana
17 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
18 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 573 (23.46%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.96%) Oracle
3 140 (5.73%) SAP
4 122 (5.00%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.01%) Google
6 71 (2.91%) Cisco
7 62 (2.54%) Databricks
8 51 (2.09%) VMware
9 49 (2.01%) Adobe
10 48 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.76%) Citrix
11 43 (1.76%) IBM
12 42 (1.72%) Splunk
13 35 (1.43%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.06%) CheckPoint
16 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.86%) Siemens
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba
18 20 (0.82%) HP