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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 17
Rank change year-on-year -14 -8 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,445 2,310 3,581
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.79% 7.56% 8.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.34% 24.48% 27.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,341 1,316 1,929
10th Percentile £208 £242 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 260 187 409
10th Percentile £16.95 £20.00 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.80 £22.50
Median hourly rate £47.00 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.62% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.28 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.70 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £40.23 £42.50
% change year-on-year +24.29% -5.34% -11.70%

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 15,943 9,435 12,967
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.26% 30.88% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,653 5,854 8,007
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -0.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.40% -4.76% -0.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,163 625 1,119
10th Percentile £17.64 £17.83 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.22 £20.24 £20.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £28.55 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +78.63% -30.26% -26.47%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.39 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.57% -36.31% -21.19%

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 28 June 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 28 June 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 28 June 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 -12 2,188 £500 - 2,412
UK excluding London -10 1,337 £450 - 1,726
London -19 935 £515 -6.36% 1,008
Work from Home -17 663 £500 -4.76% 859
South East 0 419 £500 +4.99% 571
North of England -8 327 £449 -1.26% 368
Midlands -25 194 £505 +36.12% 272
North West -7 181 £447 -1.97% 216
West Midlands -29 146 £487 +17.94% 148
East of England -4 145 £450 -10.00% 197
Yorkshire -8 132 £500 +11.86% 105
South West -26 121 £435 -8.42% 207
Scotland -21 91 £475 +5.56% 69
East Midlands -16 46 £550 +54.49% 124
Wales -23 29 £450 +47.31% 36
Northern Ireland -11 15 £254 -40.24% 57
North East -39 14 £450 +130.77% 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
1 133 (5.44%) SharePoint
2 131 (5.36%) Confluence
3 61 (2.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (2.00%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.39%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.94%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.41%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.33%) SAS
11 7 (0.29%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.082%) nginx
14 2 (0.082%) Skype for Business
14 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 275 (11.25%) Microsoft Office
2 225 (9.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.69%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (2.74%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 13 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Sketch
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.25%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 63 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.65%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.25%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) Magento
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
9 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 553 (22.62%) Azure
2 321 (13.13%) AWS
3 206 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (8.22%) Power Platform
5 140 (5.73%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.07%) GCP
7 99 (4.05%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.39%) SaaS
9 64 (2.62%) GitHub
10 44 (1.80%) Figma
11 41 (1.68%) Snowflake
12 38 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.55%) Serverless
13 34 (1.39%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.39%) PowerApps
14 33 (1.35%) PaaS
15 32 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.27%) OneDrive
17 29 (1.19%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.70%) Firewall
2 77 (3.15%) DNS
2 77 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.70%) Network Security
4 51 (2.09%) WAN
5 49 (2.00%) VPN
6 46 (1.88%) LAN
7 34 (1.39%) DHCP
8 29 (1.19%) BGP
9 25 (1.02%) OSPF
9 25 (1.02%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.82%) Ethernet
12 17 (0.70%) SSL
13 15 (0.61%) VLAN
14 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.57%) HTTP
14 14 (0.57%) Internet
14 14 (0.57%) SAN
15 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (7.03%) Power BI
2 115 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 65 (2.66%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.00%) Big Data
7 44 (1.80%) Metadata
8 39 (1.60%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.60%) Tableau
9 31 (1.27%) MySQL
10 29 (1.19%) MongoDB
11 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.94%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.78%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
17 14 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 220 (9.00%) JIRA
2 121 (4.95%) Git
3 51 (2.09%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.82%) MLflow
6 20 (0.82%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.78%) Selenium
8 15 (0.61%) Postman
9 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
10 12 (0.49%) JUnit
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) Gradle
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) Subversion
14 6 (0.25%) Zephyr
General
1 1,102 (45.07%) Social Skills
2 742 (30.35%) Finance
3 518 (21.19%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 196 (8.02%) Banking
6 146 (5.97%) Organisational Skills
7 119 (4.87%) Presentation Skills
8 107 (4.38%) Marketing
9 92 (3.76%) Legal
10 89 (3.64%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
12 85 (3.48%) Manufacturing
13 79 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
14 73 (2.99%) Telecoms
15 57 (2.33%) Retail
16 52 (2.13%) Law
17 51 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.64%) Front Office
19 38 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
20 34 (1.39%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 348 (14.23%) Analyst
2 273 (11.17%) Senior
3 198 (8.10%) Architect
4 181 (7.40%) Lead
5 171 (6.99%) Developer
6 156 (6.38%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.22%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.03%) Consultant
9 72 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.74%) Designer
11 63 (2.58%) Senior Manager
12 58 (2.37%) Senior Analyst
13 57 (2.33%) Technical Support
14 53 (2.17%) Software Engineer
15 51 (2.09%) Security Engineer
16 49 (2.00%) Administrator
16 49 (2.00%) IT Support
16 49 (2.00%) Product Manager
17 48 (1.96%) IT Manager
18 47 (1.92%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.09%) .NET
2 98 (4.01%) REST
3 70 (2.86%) React
4 50 (2.04%) Kafka
5 44 (1.80%) HTML
5 44 (1.80%) Middleware
6 41 (1.68%) RESTful
7 40 (1.64%) .NET Framework
8 38 (1.55%) OAuth
9 37 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
10 33 (1.35%) CSS
11 32 (1.31%) Spring
11 32 (1.31%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.31%) Web Services
12 28 (1.15%) JSON
12 28 (1.15%) SAML
12 28 (1.15%) XML
13 27 (1.10%) AngularJS
13 27 (1.10%) SOAP
14 26 (1.06%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.38%) Management Information System
2 146 (5.97%) Onboarding
3 141 (5.77%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.90%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.58%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.54%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.45%) Virtual Team
10 49 (2.00%) Operational Technology
10 49 (2.00%) Security Posture
11 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
12 46 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
13 40 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
14 38 (1.55%) PMI
15 35 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
15 35 (1.43%) Life Science
15 35 (1.43%) Robotics
16 30 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (1.15%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.72%) Windows
2 182 (7.44%) Linux
3 74 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 73 (2.99%) Unix
5 55 (2.25%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.23%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.15%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.25%) VMS
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 816 (33.37%) Computer Science
2 683 (27.93%) Agile
3 645 (26.38%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (16.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 384 (15.71%) AI
6 380 (15.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 334 (13.66%) DevOps
8 294 (12.02%) Analytics
8 294 (12.02%) CI/CD
9 293 (11.98%) Project Management
10 263 (10.76%) Decision-Making
10 263 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 246 (10.06%) Cybersecurity
12 242 (9.90%) ITIL
13 224 (9.16%) Change Management
14 217 (8.88%) Roadmaps
15 216 (8.83%) Migration
16 203 (8.30%) Software Engineering
17 191 (7.81%) Project Delivery
18 190 (7.77%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 416 (17.01%) Python
2 373 (15.26%) SQL
3 171 (6.99%) Java
4 131 (5.36%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.38%) C#
6 95 (3.89%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.96%) C++
8 42 (1.72%) Bash
9 35 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.06%) R
11 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
12 21 (0.86%) T-SQL
13 16 (0.65%) C
14 14 (0.57%) Perl
15 13 (0.53%) Go
16 12 (0.49%) Bicep
17 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 494 (20.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (17.42%) Security Cleared
3 288 (11.78%) SC Cleared
4 256 (10.47%) Master's Degree
5 137 (5.60%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.32%) CISSP
7 118 (4.83%) PMP
8 90 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.48%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (2.74%) CISM
11 65 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 61 (2.49%) Azure Certification
12 61 (2.49%) DV Cleared
13 48 (1.96%) PhD
14 43 (1.76%) CCNP
15 41 (1.68%) CCNA
16 40 (1.64%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
18 33 (1.35%) CISA
18 33 (1.35%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.40%) QA
2 123 (5.03%) Data Quality
3 119 (4.87%) NIST
4 115 (4.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 101 (4.13%) PMO
6 94 (3.84%) GDPR
7 50 (2.04%) SLA
8 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.51%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.27%) GRC
11 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.90%) NCSC
13 20 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.65%) IFRS
15 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.49%) COBIT
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 183 (7.48%) Active Directory
2 138 (5.64%) Docker
3 41 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.15%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.82%) Firmware
6 12 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.12%) XenApp
11 3 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 149 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 87 (3.56%) Terraform
3 74 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.58%) Ansible
5 36 (1.47%) Grafana
6 35 (1.43%) SCCM
7 34 (1.39%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
15 6 (0.25%) Kibana
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 573 (23.44%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.95%) Oracle
3 140 (5.73%) SAP
4 122 (4.99%) ServiceNow
5 99 (4.05%) Google
6 71 (2.90%) Cisco
7 62 (2.54%) Databricks
8 51 (2.09%) VMware
9 50 (2.04%) Adobe
10 48 (1.96%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.76%) Citrix
11 43 (1.76%) IBM
12 42 (1.72%) Splunk
13 35 (1.43%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.06%) CheckPoint
16 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.86%) Informatica
17 21 (0.86%) Siemens
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba