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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,490 2,383 2,958
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.28% 7.76%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.50% 23.31% 26.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,297 1,323 1,680
10th Percentile £204 £261 £256
25th Percentile £356 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £605 £625 £620
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £484
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.12% -2.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 195 222
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.30 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.45 £27.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £56.92
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -27.09% +19.83%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £87.23 £82.88 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £39.32 £57.35
% change year-on-year -1.53% -31.44% +24.19%

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 17,170 10,225 11,193
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.52% 31.23% 29.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,500 6,338 6,929
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £627 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,295 820 672
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.98 £16.87
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £72.54 £48.13 £67.77
90th Percentile £87.96 £71.27 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +2.12%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 9 September 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 2,265 £505 +1.00% 9,012
UK excluding London -16 1,333 £475 +5.56% 4,725
London -20 986 £525 -4.55% 5,284
Work from Home -19 668 £500 +4.17% 3,055
South East +10 469 £525 +13.51% 1,355
North of England -16 331 £474 +8.97% 851
North West -8 204 £459 +1.32% 485
Midlands -31 178 £450 - 565
East of England -10 134 £300 -33.33% 675
West Midlands -35 132 £450 -5.26% 339
South West -21 124 £400 -15.79% 655
Yorkshire -2 111 £500 +20.12% 247
Scotland -51 70 £475 +5.56% 430
East Midlands -23 45 £475 +6.26% 226
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 139
Northern Ireland -13 15 £250 -56.04% 172
Wales -33 14 £530 +73.50% 121
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 2

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
1 155 (6.22%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.26%) Confluence
3 55 (2.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.76%) Apache
7 17 (0.68%) IIS
8 13 (0.52%) Camunda
8 13 (0.52%) CMS
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
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%) WebLogic
Applications
1 253 (10.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 249 (10.00%) Microsoft Office
3 134 (5.38%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.21%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Windchill
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 45 (1.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.64%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
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%) 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%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 567 (22.77%) Azure
2 320 (12.85%) AWS
3 229 (9.20%) Power Platform
4 225 (9.04%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (5.78%) GCP
6 139 (5.58%) Entra ID
7 120 (4.82%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.29%) SaaS
9 73 (2.93%) GitHub
10 60 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
11 57 (2.29%) Serverless
12 51 (2.05%) Power Automate
13 50 (2.01%) PowerApps
14 42 (1.69%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.65%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.61%) Figma
16 40 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
17 29 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
18 27 (1.08%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.08%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.62%) Firewall
2 85 (3.41%) DNS
3 66 (2.65%) Network Security
3 66 (2.65%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.49%) VPN
5 47 (1.89%) DHCP
6 37 (1.49%) WAN
7 36 (1.45%) LAN
8 30 (1.20%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.80%) 5G
10 20 (0.80%) BGP
10 20 (0.80%) SSL
10 20 (0.80%) VLAN
11 19 (0.76%) Internet
12 18 (0.72%) HTTP
12 18 (0.72%) SSH
12 18 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
14 16 (0.64%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (7.07%) Power BI
2 113 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.17%) Metadata
3 54 (2.17%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
5 43 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.45%) Tableau
7 32 (1.29%) NoSQL
8 31 (1.24%) MySQL
9 28 (1.12%) Big Data
10 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
12 23 (0.92%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.72%) Data Mining
15 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.64%) Data Lake
17 14 (0.56%) Power Query
18 13 (0.52%) GIS
Development Applications
1 183 (7.35%) JIRA
2 138 (5.54%) Git
3 63 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 53 (2.13%) GitLab
5 22 (0.88%) JUnit
5 22 (0.88%) Selenium
6 19 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 18 (0.72%) Maven
7 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
8 17 (0.68%) Rational DOORS
8 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.64%) Gradle
10 15 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.56%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.48%) Mockito
13 11 (0.44%) MLflow
13 11 (0.44%) Postman
13 11 (0.44%) Subversion
14 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,117 (44.86%) Social Skills
2 730 (29.32%) Finance
3 584 (23.45%) Analytical Skills
4 200 (8.03%) Public Sector
5 195 (7.83%) Banking
6 165 (6.63%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (4.58%) Manufacturing
8 112 (4.50%) Aerospace
9 100 (4.02%) Marketing
10 96 (3.86%) Telecoms
11 93 (3.73%) Influencing Skills
11 93 (3.73%) Legal
12 91 (3.65%) Presentation Skills
13 80 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.53%) Retail
15 60 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
17 50 (2.01%) Law
18 43 (1.73%) Military
19 42 (1.69%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 347 (13.94%) Analyst
2 284 (11.41%) Senior
3 196 (7.87%) Developer
3 196 (7.87%) Lead
4 168 (6.75%) Architect
5 163 (6.55%) Business Analyst
6 125 (5.02%) Project Manager
7 77 (3.09%) Consultant
8 73 (2.93%) Support Engineer
9 71 (2.85%) IT Support
10 67 (2.69%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
12 53 (2.13%) IT Analyst
13 52 (2.09%) Designer
14 49 (1.97%) Administrator
14 49 (1.97%) IT Manager
15 44 (1.77%) Data Analyst
15 44 (1.77%) Delivery Manager
15 44 (1.77%) Senior Analyst
15 44 (1.77%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.38%) REST
2 107 (4.30%) Terraform
3 104 (4.18%) .NET
4 68 (2.73%) React
5 66 (2.65%) HTML
6 63 (2.53%) Kafka
7 54 (2.17%) CSS
8 52 (2.09%) RESTful
9 46 (1.85%) OAuth
10 43 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
11 39 (1.57%) Middleware
11 39 (1.57%) XML
12 37 (1.49%) Web Services
13 36 (1.45%) OAuth2
13 36 (1.45%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.33%) SAML
14 33 (1.33%) Spring
15 32 (1.29%) JSON
16 31 (1.24%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 219 (8.80%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.74%) Onboarding
3 119 (4.78%) Product Ownership
4 108 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (3.94%) Cloud Native
6 70 (2.81%) Data Structures
7 67 (2.69%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.49%) Data Centre
9 54 (2.17%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
11 46 (1.85%) Life Science
11 46 (1.85%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.77%) Virtual Team
13 42 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.65%) AI Agents
15 37 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
16 34 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
17 32 (1.29%) SCADA
18 31 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 301 (12.09%) Windows
2 182 (7.31%) Linux
3 83 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.41%) Unix
5 48 (1.93%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.00%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 831 (33.37%) Computer Science
2 669 (26.87%) Agile
3 660 (26.51%) Problem-Solving
4 492 (19.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 442 (17.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 386 (15.50%) AI
7 349 (14.02%) DevOps
8 318 (12.77%) CI/CD
9 317 (12.73%) Project Management
10 313 (12.57%) Analytics
11 283 (11.37%) ITIL
12 253 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 250 (10.04%) Decision-Making
14 231 (9.28%) Change Management
15 226 (9.08%) Cybersecurity
16 225 (9.04%) Scrum
17 224 (9.00%) Software Engineering
18 222 (8.92%) Roadmaps
19 212 (8.51%) PRINCE2
20 203 (8.15%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 419 (16.83%) Python
2 367 (14.74%) SQL
3 179 (7.19%) PowerShell
4 168 (6.75%) Java
5 123 (4.94%) JavaScript
6 122 (4.90%) C#
7 60 (2.41%) Bash
8 46 (1.85%) C++
8 46 (1.85%) TypeScript
9 30 (1.20%) Bicep
10 29 (1.16%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.04%) Shell Script
12 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.96%) C
14 23 (0.92%) R
15 16 (0.64%) Scala
16 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 12 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 505 (20.28%) Computer Science Degree
2 467 (18.76%) Security Cleared
3 334 (13.41%) SC Cleared
4 211 (8.47%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.46%) PMI Certification
6 124 (4.98%) Microsoft Certification
7 118 (4.74%) PMP
8 107 (4.30%) CISSP
9 89 (3.57%) Azure Certification
10 84 (3.37%) Cisco Certification
11 79 (3.17%) DV Cleared
12 72 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.25%) PhD
14 51 (2.05%) CISM
15 45 (1.81%) AWS Certification
16 44 (1.77%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.65%) CCNA
18 40 (1.61%) CCNP
19 38 (1.53%) ISTQB
20 34 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (5.70%) QA
2 139 (5.58%) Data Quality
3 97 (3.90%) NIST
4 96 (3.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.53%) PMO
6 73 (2.93%) GDPR
7 49 (1.97%) Accessibility
8 46 (1.85%) SLA
9 27 (1.08%) GRC
10 26 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.68%) NCSC
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
13 14 (0.56%) P3O
14 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.44%) COBIT
15 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
15 9 (0.36%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.32%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 197 (7.91%) Active Directory
2 123 (4.94%) Docker
3 57 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.08%) Firmware
4 27 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) NFS
9 5 (0.20%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) RACF
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.49%) Ansible
4 36 (1.45%) SCCM
5 30 (1.20%) Grafana
6 28 (1.12%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.32%) WSUS
12 7 (0.28%) CASB
12 7 (0.28%) Control-M
12 7 (0.28%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 639 (25.66%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.15%) Oracle
3 141 (5.66%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.42%) SAP
5 96 (3.86%) Google
6 74 (2.97%) VMware
7 72 (2.89%) Cisco
8 68 (2.73%) Salesforce
9 64 (2.57%) Adobe
10 57 (2.29%) Databricks
11 47 (1.89%) IBM
12 44 (1.77%) Splunk
13 32 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.16%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.04%) Citrix
16 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 22 (0.88%) Apple
18 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
18 21 (0.84%) OpenAI
19 20 (0.80%) Ariba