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

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,449 2,504 3,468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.67% 7.84% 8.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.68% 26.24% 27.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,445 1,382 2,053
10th Percentile £289 £230 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £502 £513
Median % change year-on-year -0.30% -2.15% -6.65%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 152 231
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.01 £17.00
25th Percentile £22.00 £26.42 £25.75
Median hourly rate £35.00 £39.50 £46.39
Median % change year-on-year -11.39% -14.85% +14.54%
75th Percentile £59.43 £68.06 £68.32
90th Percentile £89.63 £85.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -10.67% -25.00% +11.11%

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 12,446 9,543 12,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.91% 29.87% 30.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,167 5,796 8,031
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £633 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 952 464 731
10th Percentile £16.01 £18.55 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.04 £23.90 £25.44
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -36.33% -24.76% +16.67%
75th Percentile £55.00 £66.00 £68.32
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.47 £79.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £51.89
% change year-on-year -39.40% -20.02% +15.31%

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 9 January 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 9 January 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 9 January 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 -3 2,130 £500 -4.76% 3,711
UK excluding London -4 1,227 £475 - 3,409
London -4 995 £525 -4.55% 772
Work from Home +3 712 £500 - 1,569
North of England -5 311 £425 -13.27% 642
South East +1 279 £475 -5.00% 1,162
Midlands -13 213 £500 +17.65% 429
North West -5 169 £400 -20.00% 287
South West +2 166 £649 +21.76% 432
West Midlands -16 153 £500 - 176
Yorkshire -6 132 £476 +0.21% 263
East of England -11 117 £503 +14.86% 497
Scotland -1 105 £475 +11.76% 139
East Midlands -9 60 £450 +26.26% 249
Wales -2 41 £232 -14.07% 141
Northern Ireland -11 22 £425 -10.53% 65
North East -14 11 £364 -27.20% 101

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
1 193 (7.88%) Confluence
2 119 (4.86%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.47%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.69%) nginx
6 16 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (0.57%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.53%) Apache
8 13 (0.53%) IIS
9 9 (0.37%) CMS
10 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.29%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 301 (12.29%) Microsoft Office
2 250 (10.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 188 (7.68%) Microsoft Project
4 131 (5.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 78 (3.18%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.65%) Simulink
8 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.45%) FrameMaker
9 11 (0.45%) Trello
10 10 (0.41%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 9 (0.37%) Sketch
12 7 (0.29%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.082%) InDesign
14 2 (0.082%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.082%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 60 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.78%) Primavera
4 18 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.57%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.53%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.53%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
9 9 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 485 (19.80%) Azure
2 312 (12.74%) AWS
3 207 (8.45%) Microsoft 365
4 184 (7.51%) Power Platform
5 143 (5.84%) GCP
6 99 (4.04%) GitHub
7 95 (3.88%) SaaS
8 82 (3.35%) Entra ID
9 78 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
10 70 (2.86%) Serverless
11 56 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.84%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.43%) Cloud Computing
14 33 (1.35%) Amazon S3
14 33 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
14 33 (1.35%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.31%) Snowflake
16 31 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
16 31 (1.27%) OCI
17 27 (1.10%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.78%) Firewall
2 66 (2.69%) DNS
3 50 (2.04%) VPN
4 44 (1.80%) Network Security
5 43 (1.76%) LAN
6 39 (1.59%) HTTP
6 39 (1.59%) WAN
7 38 (1.55%) TCP/IP
8 32 (1.31%) Skype
9 30 (1.22%) DHCP
9 30 (1.22%) Wireless
10 27 (1.10%) Internet
11 25 (1.02%) SSH
12 20 (0.82%) Unified Communications
13 19 (0.78%) BGP
13 19 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
14 18 (0.73%) VoIP
15 16 (0.65%) Ethernet
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
16 15 (0.61%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (5.80%) Power BI
2 94 (3.84%) PostgreSQL
3 90 (3.67%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.53%) NoSQL
5 58 (2.37%) Relational Database
6 52 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
7 50 (2.04%) Tableau
8 36 (1.47%) MySQL
9 32 (1.31%) Big Data
10 26 (1.06%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
12 23 (0.94%) Metadata
13 19 (0.78%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.65%) Oracle Database
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 14 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
18 12 (0.49%) Amazon Aurora
18 12 (0.49%) GIS
18 12 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 288 (11.76%) JIRA
2 124 (5.06%) Git
3 91 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 67 (2.74%) GitLab
5 27 (1.10%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.06%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.94%) Selenium
8 20 (0.82%) Postman
9 13 (0.53%) Cypress.io
10 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.45%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.45%) JUnit
11 11 (0.45%) Vagrant
12 10 (0.41%) Artifactory
12 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
13 9 (0.37%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.33%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.29%) Gradle
15 7 (0.29%) Jaeger
15 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,269 (51.82%) Social Skills
2 781 (31.89%) Finance
3 578 (23.60%) Analytical Skills
4 288 (11.76%) Banking
5 197 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 116 (4.74%) Manufacturing
7 104 (4.25%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
9 90 (3.67%) Marketing
10 83 (3.39%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.31%) Legal
12 66 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
12 66 (2.69%) Financial Institution
12 66 (2.69%) Military
13 59 (2.41%) Telecoms
14 55 (2.25%) Investment Banking
15 54 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
16 53 (2.16%) Front Office
17 47 (1.92%) Aerospace
18 38 (1.55%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 364 (14.86%) Analyst
2 253 (10.33%) Senior
3 228 (9.31%) Developer
4 186 (7.59%) Lead
5 180 (7.35%) Architect
6 166 (6.78%) Project Manager
7 163 (6.66%) Business Analyst
8 98 (4.00%) Consultant
9 85 (3.47%) Software Engineer
10 63 (2.57%) IT Support
11 61 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
12 56 (2.29%) Support Analyst
13 53 (2.16%) Technical Support
14 49 (2.00%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.76%) Senior Software Engineer
16 42 (1.71%) Senior Developer
17 39 (1.59%) Data Scientist
17 39 (1.59%) Support Engineer
18 38 (1.55%) Designer
18 38 (1.55%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (5.51%) REST
2 88 (3.59%) RESTful
3 78 (3.18%) HTML
4 76 (3.10%) .NET
5 61 (2.49%) CSS
6 58 (2.37%) XML
7 53 (2.16%) Middleware
8 48 (1.96%) Elastic Stack
8 48 (1.96%) JSON
8 48 (1.96%) React
9 45 (1.84%) Kafka
10 44 (1.80%) SOAP
11 42 (1.71%) OAuth
12 36 (1.47%) TensorFlow
13 33 (1.35%) Oracle Fusion
14 32 (1.31%) AngularJS
14 32 (1.31%) PyTorch
15 30 (1.22%) Node.js
16 29 (1.18%) LangChain
16 29 (1.18%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.37%) Management Information System
2 117 (4.78%) Product Ownership
3 106 (4.33%) Cloud Native
4 81 (3.31%) Algorithms
5 70 (2.86%) Onboarding
6 69 (2.82%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.53%) Data Centre
8 60 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
9 57 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 55 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
11 54 (2.20%) Virtual Team
12 53 (2.16%) PMI
13 48 (1.96%) Public Cloud
14 46 (1.88%) Derivative
15 43 (1.76%) Life Science
15 43 (1.76%) Security Posture
16 40 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
17 37 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
18 36 (1.47%) Mobile App
19 35 (1.43%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 294 (12.00%) Windows
2 218 (8.90%) Linux
3 87 (3.55%) Unix
4 68 (2.78%) Windows Server
5 47 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Android
7 29 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.90%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
11 15 (0.61%) VMS
12 13 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
13 12 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 10 (0.41%) Amazon Linux
15 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
16 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.082%) Kali Linux
18 2 (0.082%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 909 (37.12%) Computer Science
2 793 (32.38%) Agile
3 723 (29.52%) Problem-Solving
4 385 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (15.23%) Project Management
6 367 (14.99%) DevOps
7 301 (12.29%) Change Management
8 278 (11.35%) CI/CD
9 272 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
10 259 (10.58%) AI
11 257 (10.49%) ITIL
12 256 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 255 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
14 249 (10.17%) Analytics
15 241 (9.84%) Migration
16 234 (9.55%) Decision-Making
17 229 (9.35%) Software Engineering
18 221 (9.02%) Project Delivery
19 216 (8.82%) Risk Management
20 197 (8.04%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 437 (17.84%) Python
2 354 (14.45%) SQL
3 173 (7.06%) Java
4 135 (5.51%) PowerShell
5 122 (4.98%) JavaScript
6 91 (3.72%) C#
7 81 (3.31%) C++
8 58 (2.37%) TypeScript
9 53 (2.16%) Go
10 48 (1.96%) Bash
11 31 (1.27%) R
12 25 (1.02%) Perl
13 22 (0.90%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.86%) C
15 20 (0.82%) MATLAB
15 20 (0.82%) T-SQL
16 18 (0.73%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
17 15 (0.61%) SystemVerilog
18 14 (0.57%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 616 (25.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 406 (16.58%) Security Cleared
3 377 (15.39%) Master's Degree
4 315 (12.86%) SC Cleared
5 164 (6.70%) PMI Certification
6 143 (5.84%) PMP
7 117 (4.78%) CISSP
8 98 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.06%) Azure Certification
10 72 (2.94%) CISM
11 69 (2.82%) PhD
12 64 (2.61%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.49%) AWS Certification
14 58 (2.37%) TOGAF Certification
15 56 (2.29%) Cisco Certification
16 53 (2.16%) DV Cleared
17 46 (1.88%) HND
18 36 (1.47%) MCSE
19 35 (1.43%) CCNP
20 34 (1.39%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (6.61%) QA
2 133 (5.43%) GDPR
3 101 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.47%) PMO
5 84 (3.43%) Data Quality
6 71 (2.90%) NIST
7 44 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.55%) PCI DSS
9 35 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 33 (1.35%) SLA
11 24 (0.98%) GRC
12 17 (0.69%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.61%) NCSC
13 15 (0.61%) WCAG
14 14 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.57%) P3O
15 13 (0.53%) Basel III
15 13 (0.53%) Def Stans
16 10 (0.41%) DO-254
System Software
1 187 (7.64%) Docker
2 144 (5.88%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.98%) Firmware
5 18 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.41%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.41%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.41%) Postfix
6 10 (0.41%) Squid
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.33%) XenApp
8 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 167 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 133 (5.43%) Terraform
3 81 (3.31%) Ansible
4 67 (2.74%) Grafana
5 56 (2.29%) Prometheus
6 51 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.92%) SCCM
8 30 (1.22%) OPNET
9 24 (0.98%) Puppet
10 14 (0.57%) SCOM
11 13 (0.53%) Kibana
12 12 (0.49%) Nessus
12 12 (0.49%) Nmap
12 12 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
13 11 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.41%) Proxmox
14 10 (0.41%) QRadar
15 9 (0.37%) WSUS
16 7 (0.29%) Argo
16 7 (0.29%) Kiali
Vendors
1 523 (21.36%) Microsoft
2 163 (6.66%) Oracle
3 160 (6.53%) SAP
4 119 (4.86%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.53%) Splunk
6 91 (3.72%) Google
7 74 (3.02%) Cisco
8 62 (2.53%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.16%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.08%) Remedy
11 48 (1.96%) VMware
12 44 (1.80%) Databricks
13 40 (1.63%) Citrix
14 32 (1.31%) IBM
15 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.90%) Adobe
16 22 (0.90%) MuleSoft
16 22 (0.90%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.78%) CheckPoint
17 19 (0.78%) Informatica