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 23 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 22 22
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,486 2,869 3,659
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.96% 7.77% 7.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.91% 26.38% 26.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,409 1,596 2,229
10th Percentile £268 £225 £229
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £629 £638
90th Percentile £750 £759 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 163 217
10th Percentile £15.30 £19.86 £17.75
25th Percentile £22.84 £24.35 £27.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £39.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.10% -22.00% +11.86%
75th Percentile £50.00 £66.88 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.95 £79.08 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -10.67% -25.00% +13.64%

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 11,891 10,876 13,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.28% 29.44% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,647 6,566 8,616
10th Percentile £303 £311 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £523 £538
% change year-on-year -4.31% -2.79% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,031 534 771
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.78 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £53.67
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -20.80% +19.26%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +16.67%

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 23 November 2025.

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 23 November 2025.

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 23 November 2025. 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 2,116 £523 +0.53% 3,104
UK excluding London -2 1,244 £475 - 2,607
London -4 1,016 £541 +0.70% 854
Work from Home +1 725 £500 - 1,414
North of England -7 302 £450 -14.29% 452
South East +2 264 £475 -5.00% 1,004
Midlands -9 217 £475 -4.81% 357
North West -6 177 £425 -19.43% 243
West Midlands -11 166 £500 - 223
South West +3 152 £600 - 315
East of England -7 131 £505 +18.82% 345
Scotland -2 123 £463 +8.82% 128
Yorkshire -9 116 £476 -6.71% 148
East Midlands -4 51 £447 +11.75% 127
Wales -4 45 £226 -43.50% 55
Northern Ireland -3 37 £370 -22.11% 39
North East -14 10 £298 -40.31% 66

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
1 173 (6.96%) Confluence
2 126 (5.07%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.85%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 15 (0.60%) CMS
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) IIS
9 12 (0.48%) Apache
10 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Moodle
10 7 (0.28%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Alfresco
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) Ethereum
13 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 298 (11.99%) Microsoft Office
2 231 (9.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 165 (6.64%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (4.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.86%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 18 (0.72%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Trello
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 6 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.24%) Sketch
13 5 (0.20%) Navisworks
13 5 (0.20%) Revit
14 4 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
14 4 (0.16%) InDesign
14 4 (0.16%) Maya
14 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
15 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 67 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.84%) Primavera
4 14 (0.56%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
7 9 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.24%) Endur
10 6 (0.24%) Maximo
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.20%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.20%) SAP PLM
11 5 (0.20%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 483 (19.43%) Azure
2 321 (12.91%) AWS
3 192 (7.72%) Microsoft 365
4 173 (6.96%) Power Platform
5 160 (6.44%) GCP
6 102 (4.10%) GitHub
7 97 (3.90%) SaaS
8 84 (3.38%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.94%) Azure DevOps
10 70 (2.82%) Serverless
11 48 (1.93%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.53%) Amazon S3
12 38 (1.53%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.41%) Azure Sentinel
13 35 (1.41%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.29%) Amazon ECS
14 32 (1.29%) PowerApps
15 30 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Purview
15 30 (1.21%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.22%) Firewall
2 86 (3.46%) DNS
3 56 (2.25%) VPN
4 50 (2.01%) Network Security
5 44 (1.77%) DHCP
6 37 (1.49%) HTTP
6 37 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.45%) LAN
7 36 (1.45%) WAN
8 32 (1.29%) Wireless
9 29 (1.17%) Internet
10 27 (1.09%) Skype
11 26 (1.05%) Unified Communications
11 26 (1.05%) VoIP
12 25 (1.01%) SSH
12 25 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
13 22 (0.88%) BGP
13 22 (0.88%) Cisco IOS
14 18 (0.72%) Ethernet
15 16 (0.64%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (5.31%) Power BI
2 103 (4.14%) PostgreSQL
3 80 (3.22%) SQL Server
4 71 (2.86%) NoSQL
5 58 (2.33%) Relational Database
6 57 (2.29%) Tableau
7 54 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
8 33 (1.33%) MySQL
9 32 (1.29%) Big Data
10 31 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
11 29 (1.17%) Data Lake
12 24 (0.97%) Metadata
13 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.72%) Hadoop
15 17 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 16 (0.64%) Redis
17 14 (0.56%) Oracle Database
18 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
19 12 (0.48%) BigQuery
19 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 271 (10.90%) JIRA
2 125 (5.03%) Git
3 104 (4.18%) Jenkins
4 77 (3.10%) GitLab
5 29 (1.17%) Liquibase
6 25 (1.01%) Postman
7 21 (0.84%) Selenium
8 15 (0.60%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.40%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.36%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 8 (0.32%) Subversion
14 7 (0.28%) IntelliJ
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
14 7 (0.28%) MLflow
15 6 (0.24%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,297 (52.17%) Social Skills
2 795 (31.98%) Finance
3 611 (24.58%) Analytical Skills
4 273 (10.98%) Banking
5 171 (6.88%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.03%) Manufacturing
7 104 (4.18%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.06%) Organisational Skills
9 96 (3.86%) Marketing
10 90 (3.62%) Influencing Skills
11 84 (3.38%) Legal
12 77 (3.10%) Telecoms
13 69 (2.78%) Financial Institution
14 64 (2.57%) Investment Banking
15 62 (2.49%) Front Office
16 60 (2.41%) Pharmaceutical
17 58 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
18 56 (2.25%) Military
19 53 (2.13%) Aerospace
20 42 (1.69%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 376 (15.12%) Analyst
2 241 (9.69%) Developer
3 237 (9.53%) Senior
4 184 (7.40%) Lead
5 172 (6.92%) Architect
6 154 (6.19%) Business Analyst
7 152 (6.11%) Project Manager
8 109 (4.38%) Consultant
9 80 (3.22%) Software Engineer
10 66 (2.65%) IT Support
11 64 (2.57%) Support Analyst
12 53 (2.13%) Security Engineer
12 53 (2.13%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (1.93%) Technical Support
14 47 (1.89%) Support Engineer
15 46 (1.85%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.77%) IT Manager
16 44 (1.77%) Senior Developer
17 41 (1.65%) Data Analyst
17 41 (1.65%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (5.43%) REST
2 90 (3.62%) RESTful
3 76 (3.06%) HTML
4 72 (2.90%) .NET
5 59 (2.37%) CSS
6 53 (2.13%) Kafka
7 52 (2.09%) XML
8 50 (2.01%) JSON
9 45 (1.81%) SOAP
10 42 (1.69%) Web Services
11 41 (1.65%) Elastic Stack
11 41 (1.65%) Middleware
11 41 (1.65%) React
12 39 (1.57%) OAuth
13 37 (1.49%) TensorFlow
14 34 (1.37%) Node.js
15 33 (1.33%) AngularJS
15 33 (1.33%) Spring
16 31 (1.25%) PyTorch
17 29 (1.17%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.17%) Management Information System
2 109 (4.38%) Product Ownership
3 97 (3.90%) Cloud Native
4 91 (3.66%) Algorithms
5 79 (3.18%) Onboarding
6 67 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
7 64 (2.57%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
9 58 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 55 (2.21%) Data Centre
11 51 (2.05%) Public Cloud
12 50 (2.01%) Derivative
13 46 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
14 44 (1.77%) Life Science
15 42 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
16 41 (1.65%) PKI
17 40 (1.61%) Mobile App
18 39 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
19 36 (1.45%) PMI
19 36 (1.45%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 270 (10.86%) Windows
2 196 (7.88%) Linux
3 78 (3.14%) Unix
4 59 (2.37%) Windows Server
5 36 (1.45%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 27 (1.09%) Android
8 25 (1.01%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.68%) VMS
11 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.080%) Mac OS X
16 2 (0.080%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 978 (39.34%) Computer Science
2 768 (30.89%) Agile
3 759 (30.53%) Problem-Solving
4 401 (16.13%) Project Management
5 373 (15.00%) Stakeholder Management
6 340 (13.68%) DevOps
7 297 (11.95%) ITIL
8 296 (11.91%) Change Management
9 260 (10.46%) Analytics
10 258 (10.38%) CI/CD
10 258 (10.38%) Continuous Improvement
11 248 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
11 248 (9.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 247 (9.94%) AI
13 230 (9.25%) Migration
14 223 (8.97%) Software Engineering
15 220 (8.85%) Project Delivery
16 207 (8.33%) Decision-Making
17 187 (7.52%) Risk Management
18 179 (7.20%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 477 (19.19%) Python
2 353 (14.20%) SQL
3 191 (7.68%) Java
4 125 (5.03%) PowerShell
5 122 (4.91%) JavaScript
6 81 (3.26%) C#
7 77 (3.10%) C++
8 63 (2.53%) Go
9 49 (1.97%) TypeScript
10 47 (1.89%) Bash
11 39 (1.57%) R
12 23 (0.93%) MATLAB
12 23 (0.93%) Perl
13 21 (0.84%) Ruby
14 20 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
15 19 (0.76%) C
16 17 (0.68%) PL/SQL
16 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
18 15 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 645 (25.95%) Computer Science Degree
2 370 (14.88%) Master's Degree
3 349 (14.04%) Security Cleared
4 275 (11.06%) SC Cleared
5 143 (5.75%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.19%) PMP
7 118 (4.75%) CISSP
8 99 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.30%) PhD
10 74 (2.98%) Azure Certification
11 71 (2.86%) Cisco Certification
12 68 (2.74%) AWS Certification
12 68 (2.74%) CISM
13 54 (2.17%) HND
14 47 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
15 44 (1.77%) CCNP
16 43 (1.73%) DV Cleared
17 42 (1.69%) HNC
18 38 (1.53%) CCNA
18 38 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (5.55%) QA
2 125 (5.03%) GDPR
3 97 (3.90%) Data Quality
4 95 (3.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.46%) NIST
6 66 (2.65%) PMO
7 45 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 35 (1.41%) SLA
9 32 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.05%) GRC
12 23 (0.93%) HIPAA
13 20 (0.80%) NCSC
14 18 (0.72%) COBIT
15 16 (0.64%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
16 15 (0.60%) P3O
17 14 (0.56%) WCAG
18 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
19 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 167 (6.72%) Docker
2 158 (6.36%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.17%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
7 10 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 144 (5.79%) Kubernetes
2 121 (4.87%) Terraform
3 87 (3.50%) Ansible
4 64 (2.57%) Grafana
5 55 (2.21%) Prometheus
6 52 (2.09%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.89%) SCCM
8 17 (0.68%) Puppet
9 16 (0.64%) OPNET
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 11 (0.44%) QRadar
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
16 6 (0.24%) Kibana
16 6 (0.24%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 549 (22.08%) Microsoft
2 168 (6.76%) SAP
3 131 (5.27%) Oracle
4 128 (5.15%) ServiceNow
5 98 (3.94%) Google
6 90 (3.62%) Cisco
7 88 (3.54%) Splunk
8 71 (2.86%) Salesforce
9 58 (2.33%) VMware
10 48 (1.93%) Atlassian
11 36 (1.45%) Databricks
11 36 (1.45%) IBM
11 36 (1.45%) Remedy
12 33 (1.33%) Citrix
13 31 (1.25%) Adobe
14 26 (1.05%) Workday
15 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
16 20 (0.80%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.76%) Apple
18 15 (0.60%) Fortinet