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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,445 2,435 3,010
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.55% 7.43% 7.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.60% 23.68% 26.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,281 1,368 1,735
10th Percentile £204 £259 £263
25th Percentile £360 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £621
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.21% -3.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 213 251
10th Percentile £16.70 £18.24 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £23.76
Median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £78.75 £62.25 £67.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -6.70% -27.64% +18.97%

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 16,749 10,283 11,572
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.19% 31.39% 29.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,197 6,349 7,284
10th Percentile £350 £291 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 829 769
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £14.42
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.50 £67.02
90th Percentile £87.96 £72.75 £76.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +88.87% -48.21% -6.42%

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 August 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 August 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 27 August 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 2,245 £500 - 9,076
UK excluding London -16 1,308 £475 +5.56% 4,772
London -21 978 £525 -4.55% 5,296
Work from Home -21 652 £500 +0.60% 3,036
South East +4 467 £510 +7.37% 1,299
North of England -16 324 £467 +6.63% 923
North West -14 193 £453 -0.98% 522
Midlands -28 180 £463 +2.78% 586
West Midlands -30 134 £466 +3.44% 331
East of England -13 130 £350 -26.32% 695
South West -20 122 £408 -9.44% 695
Yorkshire -5 117 £500 +27.23% 261
Scotland -51 63 £475 +5.56% 410
East Midlands -26 44 £475 +22.11% 255
Wales -29 14 £530 +73.50% 119
North East -43 14 £450 +130.77% 160
Northern Ireland -15 12 £238 -58.24% 150
Channel Islands - 1 - - 4

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
1 151 (6.18%) SharePoint
2 107 (4.38%) Confluence
3 57 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) Camunda
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.25%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 251 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (9.86%) Microsoft Office
3 135 (5.52%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.33%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 9 (0.37%) Windchill
12 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 8 (0.33%) Simulink
12 8 (0.33%) Sketch
13 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.25%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 47 (1.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.70%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
6 7 (0.29%) HFM
6 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
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%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 554 (22.66%) Azure
2 320 (13.09%) AWS
3 224 (9.16%) Power Platform
4 222 (9.08%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (5.81%) Entra ID
6 138 (5.64%) GCP
7 110 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.27%) SaaS
9 65 (2.66%) GitHub
10 55 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
11 52 (2.13%) Serverless
12 47 (1.92%) Power Automate
13 46 (1.88%) PowerApps
14 44 (1.80%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.68%) Figma
16 40 (1.64%) OneDrive
17 37 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
18 26 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
18 26 (1.06%) IaaS
19 25 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.58%) Firewall
2 85 (3.48%) DNS
3 66 (2.70%) Network Security
4 64 (2.62%) TCP/IP
5 62 (2.54%) VPN
6 45 (1.84%) DHCP
7 37 (1.51%) WAN
8 35 (1.43%) LAN
9 27 (1.10%) Wireless
10 21 (0.86%) BGP
11 19 (0.78%) 3GPP
11 19 (0.78%) Internet
12 18 (0.74%) HTTP
12 18 (0.74%) SSH
12 18 (0.74%) VLAN
12 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.70%) 5G
14 16 (0.65%) MPLS
14 16 (0.65%) OSPF
14 16 (0.65%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (7.16%) Power BI
2 107 (4.38%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 52 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
5 47 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 46 (1.88%) Metadata
7 35 (1.43%) Tableau
8 32 (1.31%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.10%) Big Data
10 26 (1.06%) Oracle Database
11 25 (1.02%) MySQL
12 22 (0.90%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
16 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
17 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
18 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 185 (7.57%) JIRA
2 136 (5.56%) Git
3 61 (2.49%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.00%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.94%) Selenium
7 18 (0.74%) JUnit
8 17 (0.70%) SonarQube
8 17 (0.70%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.65%) REST Assured
10 14 (0.57%) Maven
11 13 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.49%) Gradle
13 11 (0.45%) MLflow
13 11 (0.45%) Postman
13 11 (0.45%) Subversion
14 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.33%) Mockito
15 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,079 (44.13%) Social Skills
2 730 (29.86%) Finance
3 575 (23.52%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (7.98%) Public Sector
5 193 (7.89%) Banking
6 157 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
7 111 (4.54%) Aerospace
8 102 (4.17%) Manufacturing
9 96 (3.93%) Legal
10 95 (3.89%) Marketing
11 92 (3.76%) Telecoms
12 91 (3.72%) Influencing Skills
13 86 (3.52%) Presentation Skills
14 74 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.62%) Retail
16 53 (2.17%) Law
17 51 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 49 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
19 42 (1.72%) Front Office
20 41 (1.68%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 338 (13.82%) Analyst
2 272 (11.12%) Senior
3 196 (8.02%) Lead
4 187 (7.65%) Developer
5 167 (6.83%) Architect
6 161 (6.58%) Business Analyst
7 127 (5.19%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.03%) Consultant
9 69 (2.82%) IT Support
9 69 (2.82%) Support Engineer
10 67 (2.74%) Senior Manager
11 58 (2.37%) Designer
12 56 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.17%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.09%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.04%) Product Manager
16 45 (1.84%) Administrator
16 45 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
17 43 (1.76%) Software Engineer
18 42 (1.72%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.42%) REST
2 102 (4.17%) Terraform
3 101 (4.13%) .NET
4 66 (2.70%) React
5 58 (2.37%) Kafka
6 57 (2.33%) HTML
7 50 (2.04%) RESTful
8 46 (1.88%) CSS
8 46 (1.88%) OAuth
9 42 (1.72%) Oracle Fusion
10 38 (1.55%) Middleware
11 37 (1.51%) Web Services
12 35 (1.43%) OAuth2
13 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.39%) XML
14 33 (1.35%) SAML
15 32 (1.31%) Spring Boot
16 31 (1.27%) OpenID
16 31 (1.27%) SOAP
17 30 (1.23%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.64%) Product Ownership
3 137 (5.60%) Onboarding
4 105 (4.29%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (3.72%) Cloud Native
6 81 (3.31%) Data Structures
7 65 (2.66%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.58%) Data Centre
9 52 (2.13%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
10 47 (1.92%) Security Posture
11 43 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
12 41 (1.68%) Life Science
13 40 (1.64%) Virtual Team
14 38 (1.55%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
16 33 (1.35%) PMI
17 32 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
17 32 (1.31%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 289 (11.82%) Windows
2 178 (7.28%) Linux
3 71 (2.90%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.45%) Unix
5 50 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Mac OS
6 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.02%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.25%) VMS
10 6 (0.25%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 831 (33.99%) Computer Science
2 666 (27.24%) Agile
3 639 (26.13%) Problem-Solving
4 473 (19.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 444 (18.16%) Continuous Improvement
6 379 (15.50%) AI
7 334 (13.66%) DevOps
8 316 (12.92%) Project Management
9 304 (12.43%) CI/CD
10 298 (12.19%) Analytics
11 279 (11.41%) ITIL
12 258 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 234 (9.57%) Decision-Making
14 229 (9.37%) Cybersecurity
15 225 (9.20%) Change Management
16 219 (8.96%) Software Engineering
17 215 (8.79%) Scrum
18 214 (8.75%) PRINCE2
19 209 (8.55%) Roadmaps
20 203 (8.30%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 420 (17.18%) Python
2 355 (14.52%) SQL
3 167 (6.83%) Java
4 163 (6.67%) PowerShell
5 114 (4.66%) C#
6 110 (4.50%) JavaScript
7 58 (2.37%) Bash
8 49 (2.00%) C++
9 46 (1.88%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.15%) Bicep
11 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) C
13 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 23 (0.94%) R
15 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 496 (20.29%) Computer Science Degree
2 456 (18.65%) Security Cleared
3 302 (12.35%) SC Cleared
4 215 (8.79%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.64%) PMI Certification
6 117 (4.79%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (4.74%) PMP
8 106 (4.34%) CISSP
9 80 (3.27%) Azure Certification
10 79 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
11 75 (3.07%) DV Cleared
12 66 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
13 52 (2.13%) PhD
14 50 (2.04%) CISM
15 42 (1.72%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 41 (1.68%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.60%) CCNA
18 38 (1.55%) CCNP
19 34 (1.39%) ISTQB
20 33 (1.35%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.52%) QA
2 134 (5.48%) Data Quality
3 102 (4.17%) NIST
4 98 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (3.68%) PMO
6 66 (2.70%) GDPR
7 50 (2.04%) Accessibility
8 49 (2.00%) SLA
9 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
11 21 (0.86%) NCSC
12 17 (0.70%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.45%) COBIT
16 11 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 9 (0.37%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 195 (7.98%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.99%) Docker
3 53 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.98%) Firmware
5 23 (0.94%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.25%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (5.28%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 63 (2.58%) Ansible
4 36 (1.47%) SCCM
5 31 (1.27%) Grafana
6 29 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.70%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.29%) Argo
12 7 (0.29%) Control-M
12 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
12 7 (0.29%) SCOM
13 6 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.25%) Nessus
13 6 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 628 (25.69%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.28%) Oracle
3 140 (5.73%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.48%) SAP
5 91 (3.72%) Google
6 70 (2.86%) Cisco
7 69 (2.82%) Salesforce
7 69 (2.82%) VMware
8 59 (2.41%) Adobe
8 59 (2.41%) Databricks
9 57 (2.33%) IBM
10 44 (1.80%) Splunk
11 30 (1.23%) CyberArk
12 28 (1.15%) Red Hat
13 26 (1.06%) Citrix
14 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.90%) Apple
16 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
17 20 (0.82%) Ariba
18 18 (0.74%) OpenAI