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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,482 2,440 3,279
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.71% 7.48% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.05% 24.27% 26.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,328 1,389 1,885
10th Percentile £206 £250 £225
25th Percentile £362 £367 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £710 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £489
% change year-on-year +0.67% -7.93% +0.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 202 327
10th Percentile £16.70 £18.02 £17.72
25th Percentile £26.58 £26.27 £25.36
Median hourly rate £45.50 £44.51 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.23% -6.30% -12.84%
75th Percentile £82.75 £65.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.50 £40.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +13.75% -27.27% +4.76%

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 16,493 10,054 12,373
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.27% 30.81% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,021 6,237 7,796
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,192 742 985
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £20.75
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -25.00%
75th Percentile £73.46 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £86.93 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 -13 2,237 £500 - 3,027
UK excluding London -9 1,373 £453 +0.67% 1,799
London -21 943 £525 -4.55% 1,527
Work from Home -21 659 £500 - 1,110
South East +3 466 £500 +4.71% 607
North of England -15 323 £449 +0.45% 371
Midlands -25 195 £500 +18.34% 253
North West -13 181 £447 -3.35% 183
East of England -4 147 £450 - 221
West Midlands -33 145 £492 +9.33% 144
Yorkshire -9 125 £475 +12.43% 122
South West -26 119 £415 -7.78% 201
Scotland -37 86 £475 +5.56% 92
East Midlands -14 48 £515 +43.85% 109
Wales -27 25 £450 +45.75% 44
North East -37 17 £450 +130.77% 70
Northern Ireland -11 15 £252 -46.95% 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
1 142 (5.72%) SharePoint
2 128 (5.16%) Confluence
3 59 (2.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Appian
10 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 279 (11.24%) Microsoft Office
2 233 (9.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 145 (5.84%) Microsoft Project
4 131 (5.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.64%) Primavera
3 12 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 578 (23.29%) Azure
2 324 (13.05%) AWS
3 222 (8.94%) Power Platform
4 208 (8.38%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (6.12%) Entra ID
6 132 (5.32%) GCP
7 107 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.34%) SaaS
9 65 (2.62%) GitHub
10 46 (1.85%) Figma
10 46 (1.85%) Snowflake
11 44 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
12 42 (1.69%) Serverless
13 38 (1.53%) PowerApps
14 36 (1.45%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.33%) OneDrive
16 31 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
18 28 (1.13%) IaaS
18 28 (1.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.59%) Firewall
2 78 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 77 (3.10%) DNS
4 66 (2.66%) Network Security
5 58 (2.34%) VPN
6 45 (1.81%) WAN
7 40 (1.61%) LAN
8 38 (1.53%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) BGP
10 23 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) OSPF
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
12 17 (0.68%) VLAN
13 15 (0.60%) Internet
13 15 (0.60%) SAN
13 15 (0.60%) SSH
14 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
15 13 (0.52%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (7.49%) Power BI
2 116 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.05%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.85%) Big Data
6 46 (1.85%) Metadata
7 39 (1.57%) Tableau
8 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 29 (1.17%) MySQL
10 28 (1.13%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
12 23 (0.93%) Hadoop
13 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.60%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 213 (8.58%) JIRA
2 131 (5.28%) Git
3 54 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.61%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.77%) MLflow
7 17 (0.68%) Selenium
8 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.48%) Postman
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,082 (43.59%) Social Skills
2 735 (29.61%) Finance
3 537 (21.64%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.61%) Banking
6 156 (6.29%) Organisational Skills
7 105 (4.23%) Marketing
8 104 (4.19%) Presentation Skills
9 99 (3.99%) Legal
10 92 (3.71%) Aerospace
11 89 (3.59%) Manufacturing
12 84 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
13 82 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
14 76 (3.06%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.50%) Retail
16 59 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 53 (2.14%) Law
18 43 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
19 34 (1.37%) Front Office
19 34 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 343 (13.82%) Analyst
2 284 (11.44%) Senior
3 196 (7.90%) Architect
4 186 (7.49%) Lead
5 173 (6.97%) Developer
6 158 (6.37%) Project Manager
7 147 (5.92%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.90%) Consultant
8 72 (2.90%) Senior Manager
9 67 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (2.62%) Designer
11 56 (2.26%) IT Manager
11 56 (2.26%) IT Support
12 55 (2.22%) Software Engineer
13 51 (2.05%) Support Engineer
14 50 (2.01%) Administrator
14 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
14 50 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
15 49 (1.97%) Technical Support
16 48 (1.93%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.15%) REST
2 98 (3.95%) .NET
3 67 (2.70%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 43 (1.73%) RESTful
6 39 (1.57%) HTML
6 39 (1.57%) OAuth
7 37 (1.49%) Middleware
8 35 (1.41%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) Spring
9 33 (1.33%) Web Services
10 32 (1.29%) CSS
11 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
11 31 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
11 31 (1.25%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.21%) JSON
12 30 (1.21%) LDAP
13 29 (1.17%) SAML
14 28 (1.13%) XML
15 27 (1.09%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.30%) Management Information System
2 155 (6.24%) Onboarding
3 153 (6.16%) Product Ownership
4 114 (4.59%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.66%) Algorithms
7 65 (2.62%) Data Centre
8 64 (2.58%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.42%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.10%) Operational Technology
11 51 (2.05%) Security Posture
12 43 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
13 42 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
14 40 (1.61%) Life Science
15 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
16 35 (1.41%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.37%) PMI
17 34 (1.37%) Robotics
18 31 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 309 (12.45%) Windows
2 181 (7.29%) Linux
3 77 (3.10%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.62%) Unix
5 49 (1.97%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.13%) Android
8 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) Rocky
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 835 (33.64%) Computer Science
2 684 (27.56%) Agile
3 663 (26.71%) Problem-Solving
4 429 (17.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (16.24%) Continuous Improvement
6 396 (15.95%) AI
7 334 (13.46%) DevOps
8 313 (12.61%) Analytics
9 307 (12.37%) Project Management
10 301 (12.13%) CI/CD
11 270 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 269 (10.84%) ITIL
13 264 (10.64%) Decision-Making
14 250 (10.07%) Cybersecurity
15 227 (9.15%) Change Management
16 216 (8.70%) Roadmaps
17 215 (8.66%) Software Engineering
18 204 (8.22%) Scrum
19 203 (8.18%) Migration
20 199 (8.02%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 427 (17.20%) Python
2 366 (14.75%) SQL
3 174 (7.01%) Java
4 145 (5.84%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.23%) C#
6 89 (3.59%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.01%) C++
8 48 (1.93%) Bash
9 39 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.21%) R
11 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.93%) Bicep
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 21 (0.85%) C
15 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.44%) Perl
17 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 481 (19.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 445 (17.93%) Security Cleared
3 291 (11.72%) SC Cleared
4 252 (10.15%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.76%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.00%) PMP
7 120 (4.83%) CISSP
8 106 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.14%) Azure Certification
11 73 (2.94%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.38%) CISM
14 52 (2.10%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.69%) CCNA
17 39 (1.57%) CCNP
18 36 (1.45%) CISA
18 36 (1.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 34 (1.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.44%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.20%) QA
3 115 (4.63%) NIST
4 110 (4.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.15%) PMO
6 84 (3.38%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 50 (2.01%) SLA
9 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.05%) GRC
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.52%) IFRS
16 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.40%) P3O
18 9 (0.36%) COBIT
18 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 197 (7.94%) Active Directory
2 127 (5.12%) Docker
3 47 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 16 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 137 (5.52%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.75%) Terraform
3 76 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.42%) Ansible
5 37 (1.49%) SCCM
6 32 (1.29%) Grafana
7 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 616 (24.82%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.69%) Oracle
3 148 (5.96%) SAP
4 131 (5.28%) ServiceNow
5 102 (4.11%) Google
6 71 (2.86%) Cisco
7 65 (2.62%) Databricks
8 63 (2.54%) VMware
9 55 (2.22%) Adobe
9 55 (2.22%) Salesforce
10 51 (2.05%) IBM
11 35 (1.41%) Splunk
12 34 (1.37%) Citrix
13 33 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 30 (1.21%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Ariba
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.81%) CheckPoint
17 20 (0.81%) Informatica