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

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,556 2,349 3,800
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.27% 7.64% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.44% 25.73% 28.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,472 1,294 2,130
10th Percentile £284 £227 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.03%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.89% -4.04% +4.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 142 349
10th Percentile £15.45 £20.97 £14.04
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.05 £22.50
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £65.25 £70.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £83.15 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -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 13,861 9,128 13,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.00% 29.69% 30.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,140 5,598 8,327
10th Percentile £326 £294 £290
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £615 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £715 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,019 438 970
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.08 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.24 £24.18 £20.98
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.25 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.52% -10.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63.88 £67.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £82.15 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.88
% change year-on-year -45.54% +0.65% +1.96%

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 22 February 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 22 February 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 22 February 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 2,211 £500 -4.76% 2,401
UK excluding London -5 1,331 £489 +2.89% 1,957
London -7 981 £517 -6.07% 808
Work from Home -1 718 £500 -2.44% 1,016
North of England -5 345 £438 -10.71% 450
South East -3 308 £475 -5.00% 684
Midlands -19 213 £525 +31.25% 302
North West 0 181 £393 -17.18% 265
South West +7 179 £650 +20.93% 213
West Midlands -21 153 £523 +10.00% 191
Yorkshire -18 147 £516 +3.25% 136
East of England -8 133 £550 +22.22% 232
Scotland 0 115 £525 +22.09% 82
East Midlands -11 60 £525 +47.47% 111
Wales -6 51 £254 -12.35% 44
North East -16 18 £364 -27.20% 57
Northern Ireland -14 16 £425 +15.25% 13

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
1 217 (8.49%) Confluence
2 114 (4.46%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.19%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 12 (0.47%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) CMS
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.23%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
11 5 (0.20%) nginx
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 316 (12.36%) Microsoft Office
2 239 (9.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (7.75%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.13%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.63%) Simulink
8 14 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.35%) Sketch
9 9 (0.35%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 4 (0.16%) InVision
12 3 (0.12%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.078%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.078%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
13 2 (0.078%) Revit
Business Applications
1 66 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.94%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 11 (0.43%) SAP EWM
7 10 (0.39%) Oracle General Ledger
7 10 (0.39%) SAP WM
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.27%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 534 (20.89%) Azure
2 308 (12.05%) AWS
3 213 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
4 192 (7.51%) Power Platform
5 157 (6.14%) GCP
6 111 (4.34%) SaaS
7 95 (3.72%) Entra ID
8 94 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 92 (3.60%) GitHub
10 60 (2.35%) Serverless
11 55 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.76%) Cloud Computing
13 39 (1.53%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.37%) OCI
15 34 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (1.33%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.25%) PaaS
17 31 (1.21%) IaaS
18 30 (1.17%) PowerApps
19 27 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.50%) Firewall
2 69 (2.70%) DNS
3 62 (2.43%) TCP/IP
4 60 (2.35%) WAN
5 59 (2.31%) LAN
6 46 (1.80%) VPN
7 45 (1.76%) Network Security
8 33 (1.29%) Skype
9 31 (1.21%) Ethernet
10 29 (1.13%) DHCP
10 29 (1.13%) HTTP
11 27 (1.06%) Internet
12 26 (1.02%) BGP
12 26 (1.02%) Wireless
13 25 (0.98%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.90%) OSPF
14 23 (0.90%) Unified Communications
15 18 (0.70%) SSH
15 18 (0.70%) VLAN
16 16 (0.63%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (5.75%) Power BI
2 97 (3.79%) PostgreSQL
3 96 (3.76%) SQL Server
4 67 (2.62%) NoSQL
5 58 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
6 51 (2.00%) Big Data
7 49 (1.92%) Tableau
8 46 (1.80%) Relational Database
9 44 (1.72%) MySQL
10 37 (1.45%) Metadata
11 32 (1.25%) Data Lake
12 27 (1.06%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.94%) MongoDB
14 21 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
15 15 (0.59%) GIS
16 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
16 13 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.43%) Geospatial Data
18 11 (0.43%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 298 (11.66%) JIRA
2 123 (4.81%) Git
3 80 (3.13%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.50%) GitLab
5 30 (1.17%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.86%) Liquibase
7 21 (0.82%) Selenium
8 18 (0.70%) Postman
9 14 (0.55%) MLflow
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
13 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.31%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
16 5 (0.20%) PyCharm
General
1 1,299 (50.82%) Social Skills
2 815 (31.89%) Finance
3 594 (23.24%) Analytical Skills
4 267 (10.45%) Banking
5 219 (8.57%) Public Sector
6 128 (5.01%) Presentation Skills
7 117 (4.58%) Organisational Skills
8 108 (4.23%) Manufacturing
9 101 (3.95%) Marketing
10 85 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
11 83 (3.25%) Influencing Skills
12 69 (2.70%) Legal
13 61 (2.39%) Military
14 58 (2.27%) Financial Institution
14 58 (2.27%) Telecoms
15 48 (1.88%) Front Office
15 48 (1.88%) Pharmaceutical
16 46 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 45 (1.76%) Retail
18 44 (1.72%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 375 (14.67%) Analyst
2 254 (9.94%) Senior
3 214 (8.37%) Lead
4 209 (8.18%) Developer
5 203 (7.94%) Architect
6 182 (7.12%) Project Manager
7 168 (6.57%) Business Analyst
8 106 (4.15%) Consultant
9 86 (3.36%) Software Engineer
10 75 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
11 66 (2.58%) Technical Support
12 60 (2.35%) IT Support
13 57 (2.23%) Security Engineer
14 48 (1.88%) Senior Analyst
15 46 (1.80%) Data Scientist
16 45 (1.76%) Designer
17 44 (1.72%) Support Analyst
18 41 (1.60%) Senior Software Engineer
19 39 (1.53%) Data Engineer
20 37 (1.45%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (4.66%) REST
2 78 (3.05%) .NET
3 74 (2.90%) RESTful
4 69 (2.70%) HTML
5 64 (2.50%) React
6 56 (2.19%) CSS
7 53 (2.07%) Middleware
8 50 (1.96%) Elastic Stack
9 44 (1.72%) Kafka
10 41 (1.60%) Oracle Fusion
10 41 (1.60%) XML
11 40 (1.56%) JSON
11 40 (1.56%) SOAP
12 36 (1.41%) PyTorch
12 36 (1.41%) TensorFlow
13 35 (1.37%) OAuth
14 31 (1.21%) AngularJS
14 31 (1.21%) Spring
15 29 (1.13%) Node.js
15 29 (1.13%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 210 (8.22%) Management Information System
2 129 (5.05%) Product Ownership
3 118 (4.62%) Cloud Native
4 106 (4.15%) Onboarding
5 85 (3.33%) Algorithms
6 74 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
6 74 (2.90%) Virtual Team
7 64 (2.50%) Data Centre
8 63 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
9 62 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
10 55 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
11 53 (2.07%) PMI
12 44 (1.72%) Security Posture
13 43 (1.68%) Derivative
14 41 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.60%) Public Cloud
15 39 (1.53%) Data Structures
16 38 (1.49%) Life Science
17 36 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
18 34 (1.33%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.17%) Windows
2 214 (8.37%) Linux
3 88 (3.44%) Unix
4 76 (2.97%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.31%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.13%) Android
7 26 (1.02%) Mac OS
8 20 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (0.70%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
10 16 (0.63%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
12 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
13 11 (0.43%) VMS
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 925 (36.19%) Computer Science
2 791 (30.95%) Agile
3 754 (29.50%) Problem-Solving
4 425 (16.63%) Stakeholder Management
5 387 (15.14%) DevOps
6 342 (13.38%) Project Management
7 334 (13.07%) AI
8 304 (11.89%) CI/CD
9 298 (11.66%) Change Management
10 296 (11.58%) Analytics
11 290 (11.35%) Continuous Improvement
12 276 (10.80%) Cybersecurity
13 271 (10.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 267 (10.45%) Decision-Making
15 255 (9.98%) Migration
16 245 (9.59%) ITIL
17 239 (9.35%) Software Engineering
18 234 (9.15%) Project Delivery
19 231 (9.04%) Risk Management
20 209 (8.18%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 460 (18.00%) Python
2 387 (15.14%) SQL
3 177 (6.92%) Java
4 130 (5.09%) PowerShell
5 116 (4.54%) JavaScript
6 91 (3.56%) C#
7 79 (3.09%) C++
8 54 (2.11%) Go
8 54 (2.11%) TypeScript
9 50 (1.96%) Bash
10 32 (1.25%) R
11 25 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.90%) Perl
13 19 (0.74%) MATLAB
14 18 (0.70%) C
14 18 (0.70%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.70%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.59%) Rust
15 15 (0.59%) SystemVerilog
16 13 (0.51%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 604 (23.63%) Computer Science Degree
2 452 (17.68%) Security Cleared
3 410 (16.04%) Master's Degree
4 353 (13.81%) SC Cleared
5 149 (5.83%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.09%) PMP
7 126 (4.93%) CISSP
8 90 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.21%) CISM
10 76 (2.97%) PhD
11 74 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 74 (2.90%) TOGAF Certification
12 68 (2.66%) Azure Certification
13 59 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
14 53 (2.07%) DV Cleared
15 44 (1.72%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.53%) CCNP
16 39 (1.53%) MBA
17 37 (1.45%) CBAP
18 32 (1.25%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (6.42%) QA
2 131 (5.13%) GDPR
3 101 (3.95%) PMO
4 100 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (3.83%) Data Quality
6 77 (3.01%) NIST
7 45 (1.76%) Accessibility
7 45 (1.76%) PCI DSS
8 35 (1.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 32 (1.25%) SLA
10 31 (1.21%) GRC
11 19 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
12 17 (0.67%) HIPAA
12 17 (0.67%) WCAG
13 16 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.59%) NCSC
15 14 (0.55%) Basel III
15 14 (0.55%) IFRS
16 12 (0.47%) COBIT
16 12 (0.47%) DO-254
System Software
1 197 (7.71%) Docker
2 159 (6.22%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.74%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.70%) Firmware
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Postfix
11 3 (0.12%) Squid
11 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 193 (7.55%) Kubernetes
2 123 (4.81%) Terraform
3 77 (3.01%) Ansible
4 66 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.19%) Grafana
6 48 (1.88%) Prometheus
7 47 (1.84%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 23 (0.90%) Puppet
10 17 (0.67%) Kibana
11 16 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
12 14 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.51%) Nmap
14 11 (0.43%) SCOM
15 9 (0.35%) Kiali
15 9 (0.35%) WSUS
16 7 (0.27%) Argo
17 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
17 6 (0.23%) Nessus
17 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 532 (20.81%) Microsoft
2 173 (6.77%) Oracle
3 172 (6.73%) SAP
4 112 (4.38%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.34%) Google
6 97 (3.79%) Splunk
7 81 (3.17%) Cisco
8 54 (2.11%) Atlassian
8 54 (2.11%) Databricks
8 54 (2.11%) Remedy
9 52 (2.03%) Salesforce
10 50 (1.96%) VMware
11 42 (1.64%) Citrix
12 33 (1.29%) Palo Alto
13 27 (1.06%) IBM
13 27 (1.06%) Informatica
14 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
14 25 (0.98%) CheckPoint
15 24 (0.94%) Red Hat
16 23 (0.90%) MuleSoft