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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,458 2,480 3,057
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.61% 7.52% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.69% 24.09% 26.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,310 1,409 1,777
10th Percentile £206 £250 £259
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £499
% change year-on-year +5.56% -9.82% +2.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 215 272
10th Percentile £17.08 £17.62 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.41 £25.75 £25.47
Median hourly rate £43.50 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.35% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £63.88 £67.63
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £41.25 £57.35
% change year-on-year +3.03% -28.07% +19.16%

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 16,734 10,294 11,675
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.35% 31.23% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,212 6,355 7,404
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £715 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 806 851
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +104.77% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.75 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.11%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 - 9,230
UK excluding London -15 1,342 £475 +5.56% 4,693
London -21 962 £525 -4.55% 5,343
Work from Home -21 649 £500 - 3,062
South East +2 473 £500 +5.26% 1,290
North of England -13 329 £466 +3.50% 956
North West -14 189 £453 -4.63% 534
Midlands -32 176 £450 +0.67% 559
East of England -6 141 £413 -8.33% 703
West Midlands -36 133 £450 - 334
Yorkshire -9 125 £500 +20.12% 276
South West -18 123 £415 +10.67% 542
Scotland -46 70 £493 +9.44% 432
East Midlands -21 41 £475 +32.68% 225
Wales -26 16 £530 +71.67% 141
Northern Ireland -12 15 £252 -52.00% 150
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 166
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

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
1 146 (5.94%) SharePoint
2 114 (4.64%) Confluence
3 63 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.85%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.41%) SAS
10 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Service Bus
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.081%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 264 (10.74%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.70%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (4.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.52%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 11 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) Windchill
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 55 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 556 (22.62%) Azure
2 316 (12.86%) AWS
3 224 (9.11%) Power Platform
4 219 (8.91%) Microsoft 365
5 148 (6.02%) Entra ID
6 131 (5.33%) GCP
7 103 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.46%) SaaS
9 65 (2.64%) GitHub
10 51 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
11 48 (1.95%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.91%) Snowflake
13 46 (1.87%) Serverless
14 44 (1.79%) Figma
15 41 (1.67%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.14%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
18 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.72%) Firewall
2 81 (3.30%) DNS
3 80 (3.25%) TCP/IP
4 68 (2.77%) Network Security
5 61 (2.48%) VPN
6 41 (1.67%) DHCP
6 41 (1.67%) WAN
7 39 (1.59%) LAN
8 28 (1.14%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) HTTP
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 17 (0.69%) Internet
13 16 (0.65%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSH
14 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.24%) Power BI
2 103 (4.19%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
3 54 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 50 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
5 41 (1.67%) Metadata
6 33 (1.34%) Tableau
7 32 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.14%) Big Data
9 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 24 (0.98%) MongoDB
10 24 (0.98%) MySQL
11 22 (0.90%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.57%) Power Query
15 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 187 (7.61%) JIRA
2 131 (5.33%) Git
3 56 (2.28%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.91%) GitLab
5 36 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.61%) MLflow
9 12 (0.49%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.45%) Postman
10 11 (0.45%) Subversion
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,091 (44.39%) Social Skills
2 717 (29.17%) Finance
3 573 (23.31%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (8.10%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.24%) Banking
6 160 (6.51%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.43%) Aerospace
8 104 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
9 101 (4.11%) Legal
10 96 (3.91%) Marketing
11 90 (3.66%) Manufacturing
12 86 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
12 86 (3.50%) Telecoms
13 74 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
14 64 (2.60%) Retail
15 61 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.16%) Law
17 49 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
18 40 (1.63%) Front Office
19 38 (1.55%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 334 (13.59%) Analyst
2 279 (11.35%) Senior
3 186 (7.57%) Lead
4 177 (7.20%) Developer
5 168 (6.83%) Architect
6 155 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 139 (5.66%) Project Manager
8 72 (2.93%) Senior Manager
9 71 (2.89%) Consultant
10 63 (2.56%) IT Support
11 60 (2.44%) Designer
11 60 (2.44%) Support Engineer
12 58 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.20%) IT Manager
14 53 (2.16%) Product Manager
15 52 (2.12%) IT Analyst
16 48 (1.95%) Administrator
16 48 (1.95%) Software Engineer
17 46 (1.87%) Delivery Manager
17 46 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.27%) REST
2 96 (3.91%) .NET
3 58 (2.36%) React
4 50 (2.03%) Kafka
5 45 (1.83%) HTML
5 45 (1.83%) OAuth
5 45 (1.83%) RESTful
6 38 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.46%) CSS
8 35 (1.42%) Middleware
9 34 (1.38%) SAML
10 33 (1.34%) OAuth2
10 33 (1.34%) Web Services
11 32 (1.30%) .NET Framework
12 30 (1.22%) JSON
12 30 (1.22%) OpenID
13 28 (1.14%) LDAP
13 28 (1.14%) XML
14 27 (1.10%) AngularJS
14 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 148 (6.02%) Product Ownership
3 143 (5.82%) Onboarding
4 111 (4.52%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.78%) Cloud Native
6 76 (3.09%) Data Structures
7 69 (2.81%) Algorithms
8 64 (2.60%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.16%) Security Posture
10 49 (1.99%) Operational Technology
11 47 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
11 47 (1.91%) Virtual Team
12 46 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
14 39 (1.59%) Life Science
15 38 (1.55%) AI Agents
16 37 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
17 35 (1.42%) PMI
18 32 (1.30%) Robotics
18 32 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 291 (11.84%) Windows
2 173 (7.04%) Linux
3 71 (2.89%) Windows Server
4 57 (2.32%) Unix
5 50 (2.03%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 25 (1.02%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) AIX
10 6 (0.24%) Solaris
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.16%) Debian
11 4 (0.16%) Rocky
11 4 (0.16%) VMS
12 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 833 (33.89%) Computer Science
2 662 (26.93%) Agile
3 648 (26.36%) Problem-Solving
4 453 (18.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 425 (17.29%) Continuous Improvement
6 382 (15.54%) AI
7 327 (13.30%) DevOps
8 316 (12.86%) Project Management
9 299 (12.16%) Analytics
10 293 (11.92%) CI/CD
11 282 (11.47%) ITIL
12 260 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 257 (10.46%) Decision-Making
14 242 (9.85%) Cybersecurity
15 220 (8.95%) Change Management
16 218 (8.87%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.50%) PRINCE2
18 206 (8.38%) Roadmaps
19 205 (8.34%) Project Delivery
20 203 (8.26%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 423 (17.21%) Python
2 346 (14.08%) SQL
3 161 (6.55%) Java
3 161 (6.55%) PowerShell
4 108 (4.39%) C#
5 95 (3.86%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.24%) Bash
7 47 (1.91%) C++
8 40 (1.63%) TypeScript
9 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
9 26 (1.06%) R
10 25 (1.02%) Bicep
11 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
12 23 (0.94%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.90%) C
14 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.45%) Scala
15 11 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 492 (20.02%) Computer Science Degree
2 447 (18.19%) Security Cleared
3 292 (11.88%) SC Cleared
4 214 (8.71%) Master's Degree
5 142 (5.78%) PMI Certification
6 122 (4.96%) PMP
7 120 (4.88%) CISSP
8 119 (4.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.17%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.05%) DV Cleared
12 63 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.32%) CISM
14 50 (2.03%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.63%) CCNP
17 40 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 37 (1.51%) CISA
19 32 (1.30%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (5.21%) Data Quality
2 126 (5.13%) QA
3 113 (4.60%) NIST
4 106 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 99 (4.03%) PMO
6 72 (2.93%) GDPR
7 50 (2.03%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.02%) GRC
10 25 (1.02%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.85%) NCSC
12 14 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.53%) COBIT
14 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.49%) IFRS
14 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.45%) P3O
16 9 (0.37%) ISO 31000
17 8 (0.33%) SOC 2
System Software
1 196 (7.97%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.88%) Docker
3 52 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Firmware
5 24 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) 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
1 128 (5.21%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.99%) Terraform
3 81 (3.30%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.64%) Ansible
5 38 (1.55%) SCCM
6 30 (1.22%) Grafana
7 27 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.28%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.28%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Control-M
Vendors
1 633 (25.75%) Microsoft
2 165 (6.71%) Oracle
3 140 (5.70%) ServiceNow
4 132 (5.37%) SAP
5 89 (3.62%) Google
6 69 (2.81%) Cisco
7 68 (2.77%) VMware
8 62 (2.52%) Databricks
9 61 (2.48%) Salesforce
10 57 (2.32%) Adobe
11 49 (1.99%) IBM
12 38 (1.55%) Splunk
13 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.18%) Citrix
15 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.14%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Apple
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.81%) Ariba
18 19 (0.77%) BeyondTrust