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 7 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 26 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -6 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,505 2,370 2,989
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.18% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.36% 22.58% 27.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,282 1,291 1,689
10th Percentile £204 £266 £229
25th Percentile £363 £400 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £617 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +7.11% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 211 189
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.74 £25.00 £25.99
Median hourly rate £40.18 £33.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.94% -29.47% -1.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £81.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +14.70%

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 17,448 10,498 11,050
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.78% 31.80% 29.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,584 6,552 6,692
10th Percentile £354 £282 £310
25th Percentile £447 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £703 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,444 883 595
10th Percentile £16.50 £17.87 £18.13
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.87 £25.53
Median hourly rate £44.48 £25.15 £48.18
Median % change year-on-year +76.86% -47.80% -10.25%
75th Percentile £71.43 £42.05 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.66%

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 7 October 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 7 October 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 7 October 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 -16 2,281 £510 +2.03% 12,404
UK excluding London -15 1,351 £482 +7.11% 6,705
London -19 988 £525 -4.55% 6,383
Work from Home -20 666 £505 +5.21% 4,185
South East +8 471 £525 +16.67% 1,893
North of England -10 340 £475 +5.56% 1,220
North West -5 216 £475 +3.83% 662
Midlands -27 186 £450 -3.23% 882
West Midlands -31 137 £450 -5.26% 544
East of England -13 135 £425 -15.00% 915
South West -26 128 £408 -22.38% 691
Yorkshire -17 107 £500 +17.65% 369
Scotland -51 69 £500 +11.11% 627
East Midlands -21 48 £481 +7.37% 339
North East -30 17 £460 +2.22% 192
Northern Ireland -13 13 £238 -59.57% 319
Wales -34 12 £530 +71.67% 223
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 158 (6.31%) SharePoint
2 117 (4.67%) Confluence
3 59 (2.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.20%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.92%) Apache
6 21 (0.84%) IIS
7 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.68%) CMS
9 14 (0.56%) Camunda
9 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.32%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) nginx
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) Appian
Applications
1 245 (9.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 234 (9.34%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (4.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 112 (4.47%) Microsoft Project
5 58 (2.32%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Simulink
9 12 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) AutoCAD
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
15 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 33 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.12%) Loan IQ
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 569 (22.71%) Azure
2 310 (12.38%) AWS
3 222 (8.86%) Power Platform
4 216 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
5 155 (6.19%) GCP
6 140 (5.59%) Entra ID
7 133 (5.31%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.03%) SaaS
9 69 (2.75%) GitHub
10 61 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
10 61 (2.44%) Serverless
11 60 (2.40%) Power Automate
12 52 (2.08%) PowerApps
13 49 (1.96%) Microsoft Copilot
14 48 (1.92%) OneDrive
15 40 (1.60%) Figma
16 39 (1.56%) Snowflake
17 31 (1.24%) Amazon S3
17 31 (1.24%) IaaS
18 29 (1.16%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.15%) Firewall
2 83 (3.31%) DNS
3 66 (2.63%) Network Security
4 64 (2.55%) TCP/IP
5 58 (2.32%) VPN
6 45 (1.80%) DHCP
7 32 (1.28%) WAN
8 31 (1.24%) LAN
9 27 (1.08%) Wireless
10 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
11 21 (0.84%) 5G
11 21 (0.84%) VLAN
12 20 (0.80%) Internet
12 20 (0.80%) SSH
12 20 (0.80%) SSL
13 18 (0.72%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.68%) BGP
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.60%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (6.39%) Power BI
2 114 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.24%) Metadata
5 50 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.52%) MySQL
8 34 (1.36%) NoSQL
9 32 (1.28%) Tableau
10 31 (1.24%) Big Data
11 29 (1.16%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.08%) Elasticsearch
13 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
14 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.76%) Data Lake
16 18 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
17 16 (0.64%) GIS
18 12 (0.48%) Redis
Development Applications
1 173 (6.91%) JIRA
2 149 (5.95%) Git
3 65 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.24%) GitLab
5 25 (1.00%) JUnit
6 24 (0.96%) Maven
7 23 (0.92%) SonarQube
8 22 (0.88%) Gradle
9 21 (0.84%) Selenium
10 20 (0.80%) Cucumber
11 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
12 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
13 17 (0.68%) Mockito
14 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
15 13 (0.52%) Postman
16 11 (0.44%) SpecFlow
17 10 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
18 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
18 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
18 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,129 (45.07%) Social Skills
2 733 (29.26%) Finance
3 588 (23.47%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (8.54%) Public Sector
5 204 (8.14%) Banking
6 170 (6.79%) Organisational Skills
7 141 (5.63%) Manufacturing
8 129 (5.15%) Aerospace
9 126 (5.03%) Influencing Skills
10 106 (4.23%) Marketing
11 91 (3.63%) Telecoms
12 86 (3.43%) Presentation Skills
13 84 (3.35%) Legal
14 82 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
15 68 (2.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 63 (2.51%) Retail
17 59 (2.36%) Pharmaceutical
18 50 (2.00%) Law
19 48 (1.92%) Military
20 43 (1.72%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 334 (13.33%) Analyst
2 287 (11.46%) Senior
3 209 (8.34%) Developer
4 196 (7.82%) Lead
5 167 (6.67%) Business Analyst
6 162 (6.47%) Architect
7 110 (4.39%) Project Manager
8 78 (3.11%) Consultant
9 69 (2.75%) Support Engineer
10 67 (2.67%) IT Support
11 61 (2.44%) Senior Manager
12 54 (2.16%) IT Manager
12 54 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.12%) Administrator
14 48 (1.92%) Security Engineer
15 47 (1.88%) Delivery Manager
16 46 (1.84%) Designer
16 46 (1.84%) IT Analyst
16 46 (1.84%) Software Engineer
17 43 (1.72%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (4.71%) REST
2 117 (4.67%) Terraform
3 105 (4.19%) .NET
4 76 (3.03%) React
5 74 (2.95%) HTML
6 67 (2.67%) Kafka
7 65 (2.59%) CSS
8 61 (2.44%) RESTful
9 51 (2.04%) OAuth
10 49 (1.96%) XML
11 46 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.80%) Web Services
13 44 (1.76%) Middleware
14 41 (1.64%) Spring Boot
15 40 (1.60%) OAuth2
15 40 (1.60%) SOAP
16 38 (1.52%) SAML
17 36 (1.44%) JSON
17 36 (1.44%) OpenID
18 35 (1.40%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 236 (9.42%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.51%) Onboarding
3 124 (4.95%) Product Ownership
4 109 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
5 103 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.55%) Algorithms
7 61 (2.44%) Data Centre
8 60 (2.40%) Data Structures
8 60 (2.40%) Operational Technology
9 55 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
10 51 (2.04%) Life Science
10 51 (2.04%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.84%) AI Agents
12 45 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
13 40 (1.60%) Virtual Team
14 39 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
15 36 (1.44%) SCADA
16 30 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
17 29 (1.16%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.74%) Windows
2 189 (7.54%) Linux
3 86 (3.43%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.83%) Unix
5 42 (1.68%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 32 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.16%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) zOS
13 5 (0.20%) Solaris
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.16%) AIX
15 3 (0.12%) Mac OS X
15 3 (0.12%) MVS
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (32.34%) Computer Science
2 692 (27.62%) Agile
3 675 (26.95%) Problem-Solving
4 565 (22.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 444 (17.72%) Continuous Improvement
6 404 (16.13%) AI
7 377 (15.05%) DevOps
8 342 (13.65%) CI/CD
9 321 (12.81%) Analytics
10 310 (12.38%) Project Management
11 280 (11.18%) ITIL
12 271 (10.82%) Decision-Making
13 255 (10.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 251 (10.02%) Roadmaps
15 250 (9.98%) Scrum
16 240 (9.58%) Change Management
17 235 (9.38%) Software Engineering
18 229 (9.14%) Cybersecurity
19 223 (8.90%) Validation
20 222 (8.86%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.05%) Python
2 366 (14.61%) SQL
3 180 (7.19%) PowerShell
4 160 (6.39%) Java
5 131 (5.23%) JavaScript
6 125 (4.99%) C#
7 66 (2.63%) Bash
8 46 (1.84%) TypeScript
9 39 (1.56%) C++
10 32 (1.28%) Bicep
11 30 (1.20%) Shell Script
12 28 (1.12%) T-SQL
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) R
15 21 (0.84%) C
16 17 (0.68%) Scala
17 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.48%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) Go
Qualifications
1 502 (20.04%) Security Cleared
2 496 (19.80%) Computer Science Degree
3 374 (14.93%) SC Cleared
4 212 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 151 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.35%) PMP
7 118 (4.71%) Microsoft Certification
8 109 (4.35%) CISSP
9 98 (3.91%) Azure Certification
10 96 (3.83%) DV Cleared
11 85 (3.39%) Cisco Certification
12 83 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.44%) PhD
14 54 (2.16%) CISM
15 49 (1.96%) AWS Certification
16 46 (1.84%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 40 (1.60%) ISTQB
18 39 (1.56%) DBS Check
19 35 (1.40%) CCNA
20 34 (1.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (5.95%) QA
2 147 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 95 (3.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 90 (3.59%) NIST
5 85 (3.39%) GDPR
6 76 (3.03%) PMO
7 48 (1.92%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.60%) SLA
9 32 (1.28%) GRC
10 21 (0.84%) NCSC
11 19 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.64%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) IEC 61508
15 12 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 12 (0.48%) P3O
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.40%) Basel III
System Software
1 187 (7.47%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.87%) Docker
3 59 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 26 (1.04%) Firmware
6 21 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.36%) vSphere
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
9 6 (0.24%) RACF
10 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 136 (5.43%) Kubernetes
2 73 (2.91%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.44%) Ansible
4 32 (1.28%) SCCM
5 26 (1.04%) Grafana
6 25 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Functional Safety
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) CASB
11 10 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.32%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 617 (24.63%) Microsoft
2 184 (7.35%) Oracle
3 136 (5.43%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.35%) SAP
5 112 (4.47%) Google
6 73 (2.91%) VMware
7 71 (2.83%) Cisco
7 71 (2.83%) Salesforce
8 65 (2.59%) Adobe
9 58 (2.32%) Databricks
10 46 (1.84%) IBM
11 45 (1.80%) Splunk
12 31 (1.24%) Red Hat
13 27 (1.08%) OpenAI
14 26 (1.04%) CyberArk
15 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.84%) Apple
16 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.84%) Citrix
17 20 (0.80%) Ariba