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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 26 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -6 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,500 2,362 2,996
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.58% 7.13% 7.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.37% 22.40% 26.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,274 1,287 1,698
10th Percentile £205 £268 £239
25th Percentile £373 £400 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £617 £633 £613
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +8.61% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 309 207 183
10th Percentile £16.43 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £23.72 £25.00 £25.99
Median hourly rate £39.50 £33.50 £42.88
Median % change year-on-year +17.91% -21.88% -10.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.60 £81.80 £79.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £33.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +14.18% -36.19% +5.00%

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 17,399 10,546 11,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.87% 31.84% 29.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,516 6,585 6,719
10th Percentile £356 £285 £312
25th Percentile £448 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £631
90th Percentile £713 £706 £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 1,459 889 590
10th Percentile £16.50 £17.69 £18.03
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.87 £25.40
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.55%
75th Percentile £72.25 £41.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.49
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 10 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 10 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 10 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 2,274 £513 +2.50% 13,054
UK excluding London -17 1,337 £489 +8.61% 6,889
London -18 993 £528 -4.09% 6,869
Work from Home -16 671 £511 +3.60% 4,419
South East +8 464 £525 +16.67% 1,869
North of England -15 336 £475 +5.56% 1,274
North West -8 217 £479 +4.70% 688
Midlands -30 183 £450 -5.26% 899
East of England -14 136 £425 -15.00% 995
West Midlands -32 136 £450 -5.26% 545
South West -28 127 £415 -20.95% 704
Yorkshire -18 102 £500 +11.11% 398
Scotland -48 69 £463 +2.78% 661
East Midlands -17 46 £478 +6.70% 354
North East -33 17 £460 +2.22% 192
Wales -32 13 £530 +71.67% 225
Northern Ireland -13 12 £250 -57.45% 335
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 5

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
1 154 (6.16%) SharePoint
2 122 (4.88%) Confluence
3 57 (2.28%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.92%) Apache
6 21 (0.84%) IIS
7 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.80%) CMS
8 14 (0.56%) Camunda
8 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.28%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) nginx
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 246 (9.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 230 (9.20%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 107 (4.28%) Microsoft Project
5 59 (2.36%) 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%) Navisworks
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
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 30 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.48%) 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%) Dynamics NAV
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
11 3 (0.12%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 568 (22.72%) Azure
2 308 (12.32%) AWS
3 221 (8.84%) Power Platform
4 213 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
5 156 (6.24%) GCP
6 138 (5.52%) Entra ID
7 132 (5.28%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (3.00%) SaaS
9 71 (2.84%) GitHub
10 62 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
10 62 (2.48%) Serverless
11 60 (2.40%) Power Automate
12 52 (2.08%) PowerApps
13 50 (2.00%) Microsoft Copilot
14 48 (1.92%) OneDrive
15 41 (1.64%) Snowflake
16 40 (1.60%) Figma
17 31 (1.24%) Amazon S3
17 31 (1.24%) IaaS
18 29 (1.16%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.08%) Firewall
2 82 (3.28%) DNS
3 65 (2.60%) TCP/IP
4 64 (2.56%) Network Security
5 58 (2.32%) VPN
6 45 (1.80%) DHCP
7 30 (1.20%) WAN
8 29 (1.16%) LAN
9 27 (1.08%) Wireless
10 21 (0.84%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.84%) 5G
10 21 (0.84%) VLAN
11 20 (0.80%) SSL
12 19 (0.76%) SSH
13 18 (0.72%) Internet
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.64%) BGP
15 16 (0.64%) Wireshark
16 15 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
17 14 (0.56%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.32%) Power BI
2 109 (4.36%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.40%) Metadata
3 60 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (1.96%) Relational Database
5 47 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.56%) MySQL
7 34 (1.36%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.28%) Tableau
9 31 (1.24%) Big Data
10 30 (1.20%) MongoDB
11 27 (1.08%) Elasticsearch
12 26 (1.04%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (0.76%) Data Lake
15 18 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
16 16 (0.64%) GIS
17 12 (0.48%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 173 (6.92%) JIRA
2 150 (6.00%) Git
3 66 (2.64%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.24%) GitLab
5 26 (1.04%) Gradle
5 26 (1.04%) JUnit
6 25 (1.00%) Maven
7 24 (0.96%) SonarQube
8 22 (0.88%) Selenium
9 20 (0.80%) Cucumber
10 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
11 18 (0.72%) Mockito
11 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
12 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
13 15 (0.60%) Postman
14 11 (0.44%) SpecFlow
15 10 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
16 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
16 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,124 (44.96%) Social Skills
2 724 (28.96%) Finance
3 585 (23.40%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.36%) Public Sector
5 205 (8.20%) Banking
6 165 (6.60%) Organisational Skills
7 146 (5.84%) Manufacturing
8 131 (5.24%) Aerospace
9 127 (5.08%) Influencing Skills
10 104 (4.16%) Marketing
11 91 (3.64%) Telecoms
12 86 (3.44%) Presentation Skills
13 85 (3.40%) Legal
14 80 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
15 69 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 63 (2.52%) Retail
17 61 (2.44%) Pharmaceutical
18 49 (1.96%) Law
19 47 (1.88%) Military
20 44 (1.76%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 334 (13.36%) Analyst
2 290 (11.60%) Senior
3 209 (8.36%) Developer
4 197 (7.88%) Lead
5 168 (6.72%) Business Analyst
6 162 (6.48%) Architect
7 107 (4.28%) Project Manager
8 80 (3.20%) Consultant
9 67 (2.68%) IT Support
9 67 (2.68%) Support Engineer
10 60 (2.40%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.28%) Administrator
12 54 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.08%) IT Manager
14 49 (1.96%) Security Engineer
15 48 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
16 46 (1.84%) Designer
17 44 (1.76%) Data Analyst
17 44 (1.76%) IT Analyst
17 44 (1.76%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (4.84%) Terraform
2 119 (4.76%) REST
3 105 (4.20%) .NET
4 75 (3.00%) React
5 73 (2.92%) HTML
6 67 (2.68%) Kafka
7 65 (2.60%) CSS
8 64 (2.56%) RESTful
9 52 (2.08%) OAuth
10 49 (1.96%) XML
11 46 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.80%) Web Services
13 43 (1.72%) Middleware
13 43 (1.72%) Spring Boot
14 41 (1.64%) SOAP
15 40 (1.60%) OAuth2
16 39 (1.56%) SAML
17 37 (1.48%) Spring
18 36 (1.44%) OpenID
19 35 (1.40%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 233 (9.32%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.24%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.04%) Product Ownership
4 109 (4.36%) Self-Motivation
5 107 (4.28%) Cloud Native
6 63 (2.52%) Algorithms
7 61 (2.44%) Operational Technology
8 59 (2.36%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.36%) Data Structures
9 58 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
10 53 (2.12%) Life Science
11 52 (2.08%) Security Posture
12 48 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
13 47 (1.88%) AI Agents
14 42 (1.68%) Virtual Team
15 41 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
16 36 (1.44%) SCADA
17 34 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
18 33 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
19 31 (1.24%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 285 (11.40%) Windows
2 183 (7.32%) Linux
3 81 (3.24%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.68%) Unix
5 41 (1.64%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.32%) Mac OS
6 33 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 20 (0.80%) Android
9 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.32%) VMS
11 5 (0.20%) Solaris
11 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) zOS
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) Mac OS X
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.080%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 800 (32.00%) Computer Science
2 688 (27.52%) Agile
3 675 (27.00%) Problem-Solving
4 566 (22.64%) Stakeholder Management
5 445 (17.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 403 (16.12%) AI
7 374 (14.96%) DevOps
8 345 (13.80%) CI/CD
9 321 (12.84%) Analytics
10 304 (12.16%) Project Management
11 277 (11.08%) ITIL
12 267 (10.68%) Decision-Making
13 256 (10.24%) Scrum
14 253 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 252 (10.08%) Roadmaps
16 238 (9.52%) Software Engineering
17 236 (9.44%) Change Management
18 227 (9.08%) Cybersecurity
19 223 (8.92%) Validation
20 221 (8.84%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 396 (15.84%) Python
2 366 (14.64%) SQL
3 175 (7.00%) PowerShell
4 163 (6.52%) Java
5 132 (5.28%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.92%) C#
7 67 (2.68%) Bash
8 47 (1.88%) TypeScript
9 37 (1.48%) C++
10 33 (1.32%) Bicep
11 30 (1.20%) Shell Script
12 26 (1.04%) T-SQL
13 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) R
15 20 (0.80%) Scala
16 19 (0.76%) C
17 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.48%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) Go
Qualifications
1 497 (19.88%) Security Cleared
2 495 (19.80%) Computer Science Degree
3 368 (14.72%) SC Cleared
4 212 (8.48%) Master's Degree
5 150 (6.00%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.24%) PMP
7 120 (4.80%) Microsoft Certification
8 109 (4.36%) CISSP
9 99 (3.96%) Azure Certification
10 98 (3.92%) DV Cleared
11 84 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
12 82 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.40%) PhD
14 55 (2.20%) CISM
15 49 (1.96%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.72%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.64%) ISTQB
18 39 (1.56%) DBS Check
19 36 (1.44%) CCNA
20 34 (1.36%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (6.16%) QA
2 150 (6.00%) Data Quality
3 87 (3.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.40%) GDPR
5 84 (3.36%) NIST
6 74 (2.96%) PMO
7 52 (2.08%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.52%) SLA
9 32 (1.28%) GRC
10 21 (0.84%) NCSC
11 19 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 18 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 180 (7.20%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.88%) Docker
3 60 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 25 (1.00%) Firmware
6 20 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) vSphere
8 8 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.20%) RACF
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 140 (5.60%) Kubernetes
2 71 (2.84%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.44%) Ansible
4 32 (1.28%) SCCM
5 26 (1.04%) Grafana
6 25 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.68%) 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
1 615 (24.60%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.28%) Oracle
3 132 (5.28%) SAP
3 132 (5.28%) ServiceNow
4 114 (4.56%) Google
5 73 (2.92%) VMware
6 72 (2.88%) Salesforce
7 69 (2.76%) Cisco
8 66 (2.64%) Adobe
9 63 (2.52%) Databricks
10 46 (1.84%) Splunk
11 45 (1.80%) IBM
12 30 (1.20%) Red Hat
13 28 (1.12%) OpenAI
14 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.84%) Apple
15 21 (0.84%) Citrix
16 20 (0.80%) Ariba
16 20 (0.80%) CyberArk
17 17 (0.68%) EMC