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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -14 -6 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,447 2,269 3,544
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.81% 7.56% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.36% 24.38% 27.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,352 1,298 1,896
10th Percentile £210 £235 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £636 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +0.67% -7.69% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 182 415
10th Percentile £16.85 £20.00 £15.51
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.59 £21.93
Median hourly rate £45.00 £47.05 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.36% +17.63% -17.15%
75th Percentile £82.25 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.58 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.50 £40.50 £41.25
% change year-on-year +19.75% -1.82% -13.61%

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 15,927 9,305 12,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.29% 30.98% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,652 5,773 7,988
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £531
% change year-on-year +1.20% -5.84% +0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,169 617 1,124
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £19.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.25 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +70.94% -27.46% -26.85%
75th Percentile £72.54 £62.24 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.62 £75.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.85 £42.50
% change year-on-year +79.53% -34.47% -20.80%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 2,188 £500 - 1,805
UK excluding London -10 1,335 £453 +0.67% 1,593
London -19 937 £514 -6.59% 512
Work from Home -17 667 £500 -4.76% 856
South East 0 412 £500 +4.99% 546
North of England -14 333 £447 -1.22% 349
Midlands -22 192 £505 +41.06% 242
North West -10 183 £443 -2.74% 192
East of England -5 145 £450 -10.00% 174
West Midlands -27 143 £492 +23.00% 123
Yorkshire -8 135 £500 +11.86% 111
South West -25 120 £443 -6.84% 193
Scotland -22 92 £475 +5.56% 56
East Midlands -17 47 £550 +55.81% 119
Wales -19 30 £490 +60.40% 32
Northern Ireland -10 15 £254 -40.24% 48
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
1 133 (5.44%) Confluence
1 133 (5.44%) SharePoint
2 67 (2.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 48 (1.96%) Apache Spark
4 33 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (0.90%) Apache
6 12 (0.49%) IIS
7 9 (0.37%) CMS
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.33%) SAS
9 7 (0.29%) Camunda
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 2 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.082%) nginx
13 2 (0.082%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 279 (11.40%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 143 (5.84%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (2.74%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 12 (0.49%) 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 (0.20%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.69%) Primavera
3 10 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.16%) HFM
9 4 (0.16%) Magento
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 546 (22.31%) Azure
2 322 (13.16%) AWS
3 207 (8.46%) Microsoft 365
4 202 (8.26%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.48%) Entra ID
6 120 (4.90%) GCP
7 96 (3.92%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.47%) SaaS
9 63 (2.57%) GitHub
10 43 (1.76%) Figma
11 39 (1.59%) Snowflake
12 37 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.51%) Serverless
13 35 (1.43%) Power Automate
14 34 (1.39%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.31%) OneDrive
15 32 (1.31%) PaaS
16 28 (1.14%) IaaS
17 27 (1.10%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.74%) Firewall
2 76 (3.11%) TCP/IP
3 75 (3.06%) DNS
4 64 (2.62%) Network Security
5 50 (2.04%) WAN
6 46 (1.88%) VPN
7 45 (1.84%) LAN
8 34 (1.39%) DHCP
9 28 (1.14%) BGP
10 26 (1.06%) Wireless
11 24 (0.98%) OSPF
12 21 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.82%) Ethernet
14 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
14 15 (0.61%) HTTP
14 15 (0.61%) SAN
14 15 (0.61%) SSL
15 14 (0.57%) VLAN
16 13 (0.53%) Skype
16 13 (0.53%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 173 (7.07%) Power BI
2 111 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.00%) Big Data
6 48 (1.96%) Relational Database
7 43 (1.76%) Metadata
8 40 (1.63%) Tableau
9 37 (1.51%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.14%) Hadoop
10 28 (1.14%) MySQL
11 27 (1.10%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
13 19 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
14 18 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.49%) Power Query
18 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 224 (9.15%) JIRA
2 120 (4.90%) Git
3 49 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.82%) MLflow
8 18 (0.74%) Selenium
9 15 (0.61%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.49%) JUnit
12 11 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
16 6 (0.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,115 (45.57%) Social Skills
2 743 (30.36%) Finance
3 510 (20.84%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.58%) Public Sector
5 202 (8.26%) Banking
6 144 (5.88%) Organisational Skills
7 125 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.25%) Marketing
9 93 (3.80%) Legal
10 90 (3.68%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (3.35%) Manufacturing
13 75 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
14 74 (3.02%) Telecoms
15 57 (2.33%) Retail
16 52 (2.13%) Law
17 49 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.63%) Front Office
19 38 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
20 34 (1.39%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 358 (14.63%) Analyst
2 276 (11.28%) Senior
3 195 (7.97%) Architect
4 181 (7.40%) Lead
5 166 (6.78%) Developer
6 161 (6.58%) Business Analyst
6 161 (6.58%) Project Manager
7 72 (2.94%) Consultant
7 72 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
8 67 (2.74%) Designer
9 64 (2.62%) Senior Analyst
10 62 (2.53%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.33%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.21%) Software Engineer
13 51 (2.08%) Security Engineer
14 50 (2.04%) Product Manager
15 48 (1.96%) Administrator
15 48 (1.96%) IT Support
16 47 (1.92%) Data Scientist
16 47 (1.92%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.13%) REST
2 93 (3.80%) .NET
3 69 (2.82%) React
4 51 (2.08%) Kafka
5 46 (1.88%) Middleware
6 45 (1.84%) HTML
7 43 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
8 41 (1.68%) RESTful
9 39 (1.59%) .NET Framework
10 38 (1.55%) OAuth
11 34 (1.39%) CSS
12 31 (1.27%) Spring Boot
13 30 (1.23%) Spring
13 30 (1.23%) Web Services
14 29 (1.19%) JSON
14 29 (1.19%) XML
15 28 (1.14%) SOAP
16 26 (1.06%) AngularJS
16 26 (1.06%) Pandas
16 26 (1.06%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 207 (8.46%) Management Information System
2 146 (5.97%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.80%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.80%) Cloud Native
6 73 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.62%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.53%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.45%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
11 48 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (1.96%) Operational Technology
12 47 (1.92%) Security Posture
13 44 (1.80%) PMI
14 39 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.47%) Robotics
16 35 (1.43%) Life Science
17 32 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
17 32 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
18 30 (1.23%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 313 (12.79%) Windows
2 179 (7.32%) Linux
3 75 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.82%) Unix
5 56 (2.29%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.23%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.19%) Android
8 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.45%) 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 5 (0.20%) VMS
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.16%) Debian
14 4 (0.16%) Rocky
14 4 (0.16%) Solaris
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 813 (33.22%) Computer Science
2 682 (27.87%) Agile
3 644 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 396 (16.18%) Stakeholder Management
5 377 (15.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 374 (15.28%) AI
7 333 (13.61%) DevOps
8 301 (12.30%) Project Management
9 292 (11.93%) CI/CD
10 287 (11.73%) Analytics
11 261 (10.67%) Decision-Making
12 256 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (9.77%) Cybersecurity
14 233 (9.52%) ITIL
15 226 (9.24%) Change Management
16 224 (9.15%) Migration
17 218 (8.91%) Roadmaps
18 200 (8.17%) Software Engineering
19 191 (7.81%) Validation
20 189 (7.72%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 412 (16.84%) Python
2 364 (14.88%) SQL
3 171 (6.99%) Java
4 131 (5.35%) PowerShell
5 101 (4.13%) C#
6 95 (3.88%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.96%) C++
8 41 (1.68%) Bash
9 33 (1.35%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) R
11 24 (0.98%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.65%) C
14 14 (0.57%) Perl
15 13 (0.53%) Go
15 13 (0.53%) Rust
16 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 492 (20.11%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (17.41%) Security Cleared
3 289 (11.81%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.54%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.88%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.23%) CISSP
7 122 (4.99%) PMP
8 92 (3.76%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.35%) Cisco Certification
10 71 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (2.70%) CISM
12 60 (2.45%) DV Cleared
13 59 (2.41%) Azure Certification
14 49 (2.00%) PhD
15 41 (1.68%) CCNP
16 40 (1.63%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.59%) CCNA
18 37 (1.51%) CBAP
19 36 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
20 35 (1.43%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.48%) QA
2 122 (4.99%) Data Quality
3 118 (4.82%) NIST
4 115 (4.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 105 (4.29%) PMO
6 98 (4.00%) GDPR
7 50 (2.04%) SLA
8 48 (1.96%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.59%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.19%) GRC
10 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 20 (0.82%) NCSC
12 19 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.69%) IFRS
14 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.49%) COBIT
16 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
18 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 184 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.56%) Docker
3 43 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.23%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.25%) 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
10 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.12%) XenApp
11 3 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 146 (5.97%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.47%) Terraform
3 79 (3.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.57%) Ansible
5 38 (1.55%) Grafana
6 36 (1.47%) Prometheus
7 35 (1.43%) SCCM
8 23 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
11 14 (0.57%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) 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%) Control-M
17 5 (0.20%) Nmap
Vendors
1 567 (23.17%) Microsoft
2 172 (7.03%) Oracle
3 140 (5.72%) SAP
4 115 (4.70%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.00%) Google
6 67 (2.74%) Cisco
7 61 (2.49%) Databricks
8 51 (2.08%) VMware
9 47 (1.92%) Adobe
10 46 (1.88%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.76%) Citrix
11 43 (1.76%) IBM
12 42 (1.72%) Splunk
13 34 (1.39%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.10%) CheckPoint
14 27 (1.10%) CyberArk
15 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.86%) Informatica
17 20 (0.82%) Ariba
17 20 (0.82%) Siemens