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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,453 2,428 2,985
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.37% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.54% 23.56% 25.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,361 1,707
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £358 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £624
90th Percentile £728 £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 275 203 244
10th Percentile £16.78 £18.24 £18.20
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.86
Median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -20.95% +9.95%
75th Percentile £77.50 £59.13 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £39.32 £57.35
% change year-on-year -1.53% -31.44% +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 16,874 10,306 11,483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.40% 31.27% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,276 6,389 7,208
10th Percentile £350 £299 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £621 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 826 732
10th Percentile £17.41 £17.99 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.72% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.94 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.98 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -15 2,250 £500 - 4,898
UK excluding London -16 1,311 £475 +5.56% 3,077
London -20 984 £525 -4.55% 2,489
Work from Home -21 653 £500 +1.32% 1,654
South East +9 470 £521 +9.74% 892
North of England -18 323 £453 +1.34% 609
North West -14 193 £453 -0.98% 315
Midlands -32 178 £463 +2.78% 427
East of England -9 133 £350 -30.00% 399
West Midlands -31 132 £471 +4.67% 242
South West -24 120 £404 -10.28% 497
Yorkshire -5 116 £500 +23.84% 182
Scotland -50 65 £488 +8.33% 202
East Midlands -25 44 £475 +9.57% 184
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 78
North East -38 14 £450 +130.77% 121
Northern Ireland -14 12 £238 -58.24% 60
Channel Islands - 1 - - 5

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 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.40%) Confluence
3 56 (2.28%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) Camunda
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
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
1 251 (10.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 243 (9.91%) Microsoft Office
3 134 (5.46%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.32%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) 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 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 47 (1.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.65%) Primavera
4 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
7 7 (0.29%) HFM
7 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 557 (22.71%) Azure
2 317 (12.92%) AWS
3 226 (9.21%) Power Platform
4 223 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (5.79%) Entra ID
6 140 (5.71%) GCP
7 111 (4.53%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.22%) SaaS
9 67 (2.73%) GitHub
10 56 (2.28%) Dynamics 365
11 53 (2.16%) Serverless
12 47 (1.92%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.92%) PowerApps
13 44 (1.79%) Snowflake
14 41 (1.67%) Figma
15 40 (1.63%) OneDrive
16 36 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
17 27 (1.10%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
18 26 (1.06%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.65%) Firewall
2 87 (3.55%) DNS
3 65 (2.65%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.57%) VPN
5 62 (2.53%) Network Security
6 47 (1.92%) DHCP
7 37 (1.51%) WAN
8 35 (1.43%) LAN
9 28 (1.14%) Wireless
10 21 (0.86%) BGP
11 20 (0.82%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) 3GPP
12 19 (0.77%) Internet
13 18 (0.73%) SSH
13 18 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (0.69%) 5G
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
15 16 (0.65%) MPLS
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
15 16 (0.65%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (7.13%) Power BI
2 108 (4.40%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.24%) Relational Database
4 52 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
5 49 (2.00%) Metadata
6 46 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.43%) Tableau
8 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.10%) Big Data
10 26 (1.06%) MySQL
10 26 (1.06%) Oracle Database
11 22 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
16 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 183 (7.46%) JIRA
2 135 (5.50%) Git
3 62 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.04%) GitLab
5 26 (1.06%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.90%) Selenium
7 19 (0.77%) JUnit
8 18 (0.73%) SonarQube
9 17 (0.69%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.61%) Maven
11 14 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Gradle
13 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 11 (0.45%) MLflow
14 11 (0.45%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 9 (0.37%) Mockito
15 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,091 (44.48%) Social Skills
2 729 (29.72%) Finance
3 572 (23.32%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (7.99%) Public Sector
5 195 (7.95%) Banking
6 157 (6.40%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (4.61%) Aerospace
8 108 (4.40%) Manufacturing
9 100 (4.08%) Marketing
10 95 (3.87%) Legal
11 93 (3.79%) Influencing Skills
11 93 (3.79%) Telecoms
12 86 (3.51%) Presentation Skills
13 76 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.57%) Retail
15 52 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 52 (2.12%) Law
16 49 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
17 43 (1.75%) Front Office
17 43 (1.75%) Military
Job Titles
1 337 (13.74%) Analyst
2 276 (11.25%) Senior
3 197 (8.03%) Lead
4 188 (7.66%) Developer
5 168 (6.85%) Architect
6 158 (6.44%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.22%) Project Manager
8 71 (2.89%) Consultant
9 70 (2.85%) Support Engineer
10 69 (2.81%) IT Support
11 67 (2.73%) Senior Manager
12 58 (2.36%) Designer
13 57 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
14 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
15 50 (2.04%) IT Manager
16 49 (2.00%) Product Manager
17 45 (1.83%) Administrator
18 44 (1.79%) Delivery Manager
18 44 (1.79%) Software Engineer
19 43 (1.75%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.32%) REST
1 106 (4.32%) Terraform
2 101 (4.12%) .NET
3 66 (2.69%) React
4 63 (2.57%) HTML
5 59 (2.41%) Kafka
6 52 (2.12%) CSS
7 49 (2.00%) RESTful
8 45 (1.83%) OAuth
9 42 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
10 37 (1.51%) Middleware
10 37 (1.51%) Web Services
11 35 (1.43%) OAuth2
11 35 (1.43%) XML
12 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
13 33 (1.35%) Spring Boot
14 32 (1.30%) SAML
15 31 (1.26%) OpenID
15 31 (1.26%) Spring
16 30 (1.22%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.48%) Management Information System
2 136 (5.54%) Onboarding
3 130 (5.30%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.28%) Self-Motivation
5 95 (3.87%) Cloud Native
6 77 (3.14%) Data Structures
7 65 (2.65%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.57%) Data Centre
9 54 (2.20%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.92%) Security Posture
11 44 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
12 43 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
12 43 (1.75%) Virtual Team
13 41 (1.67%) Life Science
14 39 (1.59%) AI Agents
15 34 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
15 34 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
16 32 (1.30%) SCADA
17 31 (1.26%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 293 (11.94%) Windows
2 180 (7.34%) Linux
3 75 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.45%) Unix
5 50 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 32 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.02%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) 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
1 838 (34.16%) Computer Science
2 666 (27.15%) Agile
3 643 (26.21%) Problem-Solving
4 476 (19.40%) Stakeholder Management
5 440 (17.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 384 (15.65%) AI
7 336 (13.70%) DevOps
8 318 (12.96%) Project Management
9 308 (12.56%) CI/CD
10 304 (12.39%) Analytics
11 275 (11.21%) ITIL
12 256 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (9.70%) Decision-Making
14 228 (9.29%) Change Management
14 228 (9.29%) Cybersecurity
15 221 (9.01%) Software Engineering
16 217 (8.85%) Scrum
17 213 (8.68%) PRINCE2
18 211 (8.60%) Roadmaps
19 204 (8.32%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 421 (17.16%) Python
2 356 (14.51%) SQL
3 168 (6.85%) Java
3 168 (6.85%) PowerShell
4 116 (4.73%) C#
4 116 (4.73%) JavaScript
5 59 (2.41%) Bash
6 49 (2.00%) C++
7 47 (1.92%) TypeScript
8 29 (1.18%) Bicep
9 27 (1.10%) Shell Script
10 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.02%) T-SQL
11 24 (0.98%) C
12 22 (0.90%) R
13 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
13 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.49%) X++
14 11 (0.45%) Scala
15 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 503 (20.51%) Computer Science Degree
2 462 (18.83%) Security Cleared
3 310 (12.64%) SC Cleared
4 212 (8.64%) Master's Degree
5 139 (5.67%) PMI Certification
6 119 (4.85%) PMP
7 117 (4.77%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.36%) CISSP
9 81 (3.30%) Azure Certification
9 81 (3.30%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.14%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
12 52 (2.12%) PhD
13 51 (2.08%) CISM
14 43 (1.75%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
15 41 (1.67%) CCNA
16 39 (1.59%) CCNP
17 36 (1.47%) ISTQB
18 33 (1.35%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.46%) QA
2 133 (5.42%) Data Quality
3 101 (4.12%) NIST
4 99 (4.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.59%) PMO
6 65 (2.65%) GDPR
7 50 (2.04%) Accessibility
8 46 (1.88%) SLA
9 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.98%) GRC
11 22 (0.90%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.65%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.45%) COBIT
16 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 8 (0.33%) GxP
System Software
1 196 (7.99%) Active Directory
2 123 (5.01%) Docker
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) Firmware
5 26 (1.06%) Hyper-V
6 18 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) RACF
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 131 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
3 64 (2.61%) Ansible
4 37 (1.51%) SCCM
5 31 (1.26%) Grafana
6 29 (1.18%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.69%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.37%) SCOM
12 8 (0.33%) WSUS
13 7 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.29%) Argo
13 7 (0.29%) Control-M
13 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
13 7 (0.29%) vCenter Server
14 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
14 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 631 (25.72%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.26%) Oracle
3 135 (5.50%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.46%) SAP
5 93 (3.79%) Google
6 72 (2.94%) VMware
7 69 (2.81%) Cisco
7 69 (2.81%) Salesforce
8 63 (2.57%) Adobe
9 59 (2.41%) Databricks
10 54 (2.20%) IBM
11 42 (1.71%) Splunk
12 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.18%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.06%) Citrix
15 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba
19 19 (0.77%) OpenAI