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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,459 2,424 3,003
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.41% 7.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.62% 23.65% 26.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,284 1,363 1,733
10th Percentile £204 £259 £263
25th Percentile £360 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £619
90th Percentile £726 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.21% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 208 249
10th Percentile £16.93 £17.71 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £23.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% -19.05% +7.95%
75th Percentile £78.75 £62.25 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.81 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year -4.30% -29.45% +19.32%

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 16,824 10,249 11,551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.30% 31.33% 29.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,250 6,336 7,274
10th Percentile £350 £294 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,262 823 762
10th Percentile £17.43 £17.96 £14.19
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +93.72% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £52.50 £67.02
90th Percentile £87.47 £72.50 £75.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -6.96%

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 August 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 August 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 28 August 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 -17 2,257 £500 - 8,943
UK excluding London -17 1,316 £475 +5.56% 4,736
London -20 985 £525 -4.55% 5,211
Work from Home -22 653 £500 +0.30% 3,101
South East +6 471 £521 +9.74% 1,279
North of England -20 324 £459 +3.79% 908
North West -12 193 £453 -0.98% 502
Midlands -30 180 £463 +2.78% 593
West Midlands -31 134 £466 +3.44% 333
East of England -13 133 £350 -30.00% 684
South West -17 121 £408 -9.44% 694
Yorkshire -5 117 £500 +26.90% 261
Scotland -44 65 £475 +5.56% 419
East Midlands -25 44 £475 +9.57% 260
Wales -34 14 £530 +73.50% 120
North East -41 14 £450 +130.77% 165
Northern Ireland -14 12 £238 -58.24% 147
Channel Islands - 1 - - 3

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
1 153 (6.22%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.39%) Confluence
3 57 (2.32%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) Camunda
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 254 (10.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 244 (9.92%) Microsoft Office
3 137 (5.57%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.36%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 9 (0.37%) Windchill
12 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 8 (0.33%) Simulink
12 8 (0.33%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 47 (1.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.12%) Actimize
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 559 (22.73%) Azure
2 321 (13.05%) AWS
3 228 (9.27%) Power Platform
4 224 (9.11%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (5.77%) Entra ID
6 139 (5.65%) GCP
7 111 (4.51%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.25%) SaaS
9 65 (2.64%) GitHub
10 56 (2.28%) Dynamics 365
11 52 (2.11%) Serverless
12 47 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.91%) PowerApps
13 44 (1.79%) Snowflake
14 41 (1.67%) Figma
15 40 (1.63%) OneDrive
16 37 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
17 27 (1.10%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
18 26 (1.06%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.60%) Firewall
2 86 (3.50%) DNS
3 65 (2.64%) Network Security
3 65 (2.64%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.56%) VPN
5 46 (1.87%) DHCP
6 37 (1.50%) WAN
7 35 (1.42%) LAN
8 27 (1.10%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) BGP
10 19 (0.77%) 3GPP
10 19 (0.77%) Internet
10 19 (0.77%) VLAN
11 18 (0.73%) HTTP
11 18 (0.73%) SSH
11 18 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.69%) 5G
13 16 (0.65%) MPLS
13 16 (0.65%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (7.20%) Power BI
2 109 (4.43%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 52 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
5 47 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (1.91%) Metadata
6 36 (1.46%) Tableau
7 32 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.10%) Big Data
9 26 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.02%) MySQL
11 22 (0.89%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 20 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
16 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.53%) Power Query
17 13 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 187 (7.60%) JIRA
2 136 (5.53%) Git
3 62 (2.52%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.03%) GitLab
5 30 (1.22%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.94%) Selenium
7 19 (0.77%) JUnit
8 18 (0.73%) SonarQube
9 17 (0.69%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.61%) Maven
11 14 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Gradle
13 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 11 (0.45%) MLflow
14 11 (0.45%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 9 (0.37%) Mockito
15 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,089 (44.29%) Social Skills
2 731 (29.73%) Finance
3 577 (23.46%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (7.93%) Banking
5 194 (7.89%) Public Sector
6 157 (6.38%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (4.64%) Aerospace
8 106 (4.31%) Manufacturing
9 100 (4.07%) Marketing
10 96 (3.90%) Legal
11 92 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
11 92 (3.74%) Telecoms
12 86 (3.50%) Presentation Skills
13 77 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.56%) Retail
15 53 (2.16%) Law
16 51 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 49 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
18 43 (1.75%) Front Office
19 42 (1.71%) Military
Job Titles
1 337 (13.70%) Analyst
2 273 (11.10%) Senior
3 196 (7.97%) Lead
4 190 (7.73%) Developer
5 169 (6.87%) Architect
6 159 (6.47%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.21%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.01%) Consultant
9 69 (2.81%) IT Support
9 69 (2.81%) Support Engineer
10 66 (2.68%) Senior Manager
11 58 (2.36%) Designer
12 57 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.11%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.03%) IT Manager
14 50 (2.03%) Product Manager
15 45 (1.83%) Delivery Manager
16 44 (1.79%) Administrator
17 43 (1.75%) Data Analyst
17 43 (1.75%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.35%) REST
2 103 (4.19%) .NET
2 103 (4.19%) Terraform
3 67 (2.72%) React
4 63 (2.56%) HTML
5 59 (2.40%) Kafka
6 52 (2.11%) CSS
7 50 (2.03%) RESTful
8 45 (1.83%) OAuth
9 42 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
10 37 (1.50%) Middleware
10 37 (1.50%) Web Services
11 35 (1.42%) .NET Framework
11 35 (1.42%) OAuth2
11 35 (1.42%) XML
12 33 (1.34%) Spring Boot
13 32 (1.30%) SAML
14 31 (1.26%) JSON
14 31 (1.26%) OpenID
14 31 (1.26%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.50%) Management Information System
2 136 (5.53%) Onboarding
2 136 (5.53%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
4 93 (3.78%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.29%) Data Structures
6 65 (2.64%) Algorithms
6 65 (2.64%) Data Centre
7 53 (2.16%) Operational Technology
8 48 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
9 47 (1.91%) Security Posture
10 43 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
11 41 (1.67%) Life Science
11 41 (1.67%) Virtual Team
12 37 (1.50%) AI Agents
13 35 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
14 33 (1.34%) PMI
15 32 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 292 (11.87%) Windows
2 180 (7.32%) Linux
3 73 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.44%) Unix
5 50 (2.03%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 32 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.02%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) Rocky
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 842 (34.24%) Computer Science
2 673 (27.37%) Agile
3 643 (26.15%) Problem-Solving
4 477 (19.40%) Stakeholder Management
5 445 (18.10%) Continuous Improvement
6 383 (15.58%) AI
7 336 (13.66%) DevOps
8 316 (12.85%) Project Management
9 307 (12.48%) CI/CD
10 304 (12.36%) Analytics
11 278 (11.31%) ITIL
12 259 (10.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (9.64%) Decision-Making
14 231 (9.39%) Cybersecurity
15 228 (9.27%) Change Management
16 219 (8.91%) Software Engineering
17 217 (8.82%) Scrum
18 215 (8.74%) PRINCE2
19 211 (8.58%) Roadmaps
20 205 (8.34%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 423 (17.20%) Python
2 357 (14.52%) SQL
3 168 (6.83%) Java
4 166 (6.75%) PowerShell
5 116 (4.72%) C#
6 115 (4.68%) JavaScript
7 59 (2.40%) Bash
8 49 (1.99%) C++
9 47 (1.91%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.18%) Bicep
11 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) C
13 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 23 (0.94%) R
15 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 504 (20.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 460 (18.71%) Security Cleared
3 305 (12.40%) SC Cleared
4 214 (8.70%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.69%) PMI Certification
6 118 (4.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 118 (4.80%) PMP
7 107 (4.35%) CISSP
8 81 (3.29%) Azure Certification
9 79 (3.21%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.13%) DV Cleared
11 66 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
12 52 (2.11%) PhD
13 51 (2.07%) CISM
14 42 (1.71%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.59%) CCNA
17 38 (1.55%) CCNP
18 35 (1.42%) ISTQB
19 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.53%) QA
2 134 (5.45%) Data Quality
3 103 (4.19%) NIST
4 100 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (3.66%) PMO
6 66 (2.68%) GDPR
7 50 (2.03%) Accessibility
8 48 (1.95%) SLA
9 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
10 23 (0.94%) NCSC
11 17 (0.69%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.53%) IFRS
14 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.45%) COBIT
15 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.45%) P3O
16 9 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.33%) GxP
System Software
1 195 (7.93%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.96%) Docker
3 56 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) Firmware
5 25 (1.02%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.29%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 65 (2.64%) Ansible
4 37 (1.50%) SCCM
5 31 (1.26%) Grafana
6 29 (1.18%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.69%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.33%) SCOM
11 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.28%) Argo
12 7 (0.28%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 635 (25.82%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.24%) Oracle
3 137 (5.57%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.49%) SAP
5 92 (3.74%) Google
6 72 (2.93%) VMware
7 69 (2.81%) Salesforce
8 68 (2.77%) Cisco
9 63 (2.56%) Adobe
10 59 (2.40%) Databricks
11 58 (2.36%) IBM
12 42 (1.71%) Splunk
13 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.18%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.06%) Citrix
16 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.89%) Apple
18 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
19 20 (0.81%) Ariba
20 18 (0.73%) HP