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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,484 2,397 3,017
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.55% 7.26% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.45% 23.15% 26.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,285 1,323 1,710
10th Percentile £204 £260 £252
25th Percentile £356 £381 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £619
90th Percentile £724 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.89% -5.26% -4.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 201 223
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.60 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.96 £25.75 £27.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £40.46 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -5.46% -29.45% +20.10%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £85.20 £82.75 £78.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £38.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -0.65% -32.87% +20.74%

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 17,195 10,356 11,331
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.52% 31.37% 29.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,490 6,444 7,004
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 £628 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,314 827 672
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.97 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £72.06 £47.50 £68.00
90th Percentile £87.11 £71.33 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £54.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -53.43% +2.86%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 2,259 £510 +1.90% 7,079
UK excluding London -16 1,332 £481 +6.89% 3,969
London -20 984 £525 -4.55% 3,790
Work from Home -21 658 £500 +4.17% 6,971
South East +7 462 £525 +12.00% 1,252
North of England -16 332 £483 +11.03% 704
North West -9 206 £475 +4.86% 365
Midlands -34 177 £450 -1.37% 529
East of England -13 135 £300 -38.46% 540
West Midlands -35 130 £450 -5.26% 295
South West -22 127 £404 -12.70% 518
Yorkshire -11 110 £507 +21.68% 223
Scotland -51 72 £500 +11.11% 300
East Midlands -24 46 £463 +3.47% 233
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 129
Northern Ireland -12 15 £250 -56.04% 126
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 104
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 1

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
1 164 (6.60%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.27%) Confluence
3 64 (2.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.76%) Apache
7 18 (0.72%) IIS
8 13 (0.52%) Camunda
8 13 (0.52%) CMS
8 13 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 248 (9.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 247 (9.94%) Microsoft Office
3 129 (5.19%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (4.95%) 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%) Revit
10 9 (0.36%) Windchill
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 41 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) 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
6 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) Actimize
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 570 (22.95%) Azure
2 319 (12.84%) AWS
3 232 (9.34%) Microsoft 365
3 232 (9.34%) Power Platform
4 144 (5.80%) GCP
5 136 (5.48%) Entra ID
6 119 (4.79%) Azure DevOps
7 82 (3.30%) SaaS
8 73 (2.94%) GitHub
9 62 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
10 58 (2.33%) Power Automate
10 58 (2.33%) Serverless
11 56 (2.25%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.89%) Microsoft Copilot
12 47 (1.89%) OneDrive
13 40 (1.61%) Snowflake
14 38 (1.53%) Figma
15 29 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
16 28 (1.13%) IaaS
17 27 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.47%) Firewall
2 86 (3.46%) DNS
3 66 (2.66%) Network Security
4 65 (2.62%) TCP/IP
5 62 (2.50%) VPN
6 48 (1.93%) DHCP
7 35 (1.41%) LAN
7 35 (1.41%) WAN
8 29 (1.17%) Wireless
9 24 (0.97%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.85%) 5G
10 21 (0.85%) Internet
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.76%) BGP
12 19 (0.76%) VLAN
13 18 (0.72%) HTTP
13 18 (0.72%) Radio Access Network
13 18 (0.72%) SSH
14 17 (0.68%) Wireshark
15 16 (0.64%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 173 (6.96%) Power BI
2 115 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (2.25%) Relational Database
4 54 (2.17%) Metadata
5 43 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.41%) Tableau
7 33 (1.33%) MySQL
8 30 (1.21%) NoSQL
9 26 (1.05%) Big Data
10 25 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
10 25 (1.01%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.01%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
12 18 (0.72%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.64%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.60%) GIS
15 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 181 (7.29%) JIRA
2 137 (5.52%) Git
3 64 (2.58%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.17%) GitLab
5 23 (0.93%) JUnit
6 22 (0.89%) Selenium
7 20 (0.81%) Maven
7 20 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 18 (0.72%) Gradle
8 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.60%) Cucumber
10 15 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.52%) Mockito
12 11 (0.44%) MLflow
12 11 (0.44%) Postman
12 11 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
12 11 (0.44%) Subversion
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,117 (44.97%) Social Skills
2 733 (29.51%) Finance
3 577 (23.23%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 198 (7.97%) Banking
6 166 (6.68%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (4.83%) Manufacturing
8 109 (4.39%) Aerospace
9 102 (4.11%) Influencing Skills
10 99 (3.99%) Marketing
11 94 (3.78%) Telecoms
12 91 (3.66%) Presentation Skills
13 90 (3.62%) Legal
14 78 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 61 (2.46%) Retail
17 53 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
18 51 (2.05%) Law
19 44 (1.77%) Military
20 41 (1.65%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 341 (13.73%) Analyst
2 291 (11.71%) Senior
3 202 (8.13%) Developer
4 200 (8.05%) Lead
5 167 (6.72%) Architect
6 160 (6.44%) Business Analyst
7 121 (4.87%) Project Manager
8 76 (3.06%) Consultant
9 75 (3.02%) Support Engineer
10 72 (2.90%) IT Support
11 68 (2.74%) Senior Manager
12 56 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.17%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.01%) Administrator
14 50 (2.01%) Designer
14 50 (2.01%) IT Manager
15 46 (1.85%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.81%) Technical Support
17 44 (1.77%) Security Engineer
18 43 (1.73%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.51%) REST
2 110 (4.43%) Terraform
3 106 (4.27%) .NET
4 71 (2.86%) React
5 68 (2.74%) HTML
6 64 (2.58%) Kafka
7 56 (2.25%) CSS
8 54 (2.17%) RESTful
9 46 (1.85%) OAuth
10 44 (1.77%) XML
11 43 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
12 39 (1.57%) Spring Boot
12 39 (1.57%) Web Services
13 37 (1.49%) Middleware
14 36 (1.45%) OAuth2
15 34 (1.37%) .NET Framework
15 34 (1.37%) JSON
15 34 (1.37%) Spring
16 33 (1.33%) SAML
17 31 (1.25%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 226 (9.10%) Management Information System
2 139 (5.60%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.71%) Product Ownership
4 108 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
5 100 (4.03%) Cloud Native
6 62 (2.50%) Data Structures
7 61 (2.46%) Algorithms
7 61 (2.46%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.13%) Operational Technology
9 48 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
10 47 (1.89%) Life Science
10 47 (1.89%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.85%) Virtual Team
12 45 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.65%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
15 34 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
16 33 (1.33%) SCADA
17 30 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 301 (12.12%) Windows
2 185 (7.45%) Linux
3 83 (3.34%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.46%) Unix
5 47 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.01%) 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%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 814 (32.77%) Computer Science
2 662 (26.65%) Agile
3 661 (26.61%) Problem-Solving
4 502 (20.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 441 (17.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 387 (15.58%) AI
7 351 (14.13%) DevOps
8 316 (12.72%) CI/CD
9 315 (12.68%) Project Management
10 306 (12.32%) Analytics
11 286 (11.51%) ITIL
12 254 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 253 (10.19%) Decision-Making
14 232 (9.34%) Change Management
15 231 (9.30%) Scrum
16 225 (9.06%) Cybersecurity
16 225 (9.06%) Roadmaps
17 224 (9.02%) Software Engineering
18 208 (8.37%) PRINCE2
19 203 (8.17%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 416 (16.75%) Python
2 364 (14.65%) SQL
3 180 (7.25%) PowerShell
4 169 (6.80%) Java
5 128 (5.15%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.95%) C#
7 61 (2.46%) Bash
8 48 (1.93%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.81%) C++
10 30 (1.21%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.97%) C
14 24 (0.97%) R
15 15 (0.60%) 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
1 498 (20.05%) Computer Science Degree
2 464 (18.68%) Security Cleared
3 335 (13.49%) SC Cleared
4 209 (8.41%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.56%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.11%) Microsoft Certification
7 124 (4.99%) PMP
8 106 (4.27%) CISSP
9 91 (3.66%) Azure Certification
10 84 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
11 82 (3.30%) DV Cleared
12 73 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.29%) PhD
14 52 (2.09%) CISM
15 45 (1.81%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 44 (1.77%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.57%) CCNA
17 39 (1.57%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.53%) CCNP
19 34 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (5.92%) QA
2 139 (5.60%) Data Quality
3 95 (3.82%) NIST
4 93 (3.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.54%) PMO
6 72 (2.90%) GDPR
7 47 (1.89%) Accessibility
8 45 (1.81%) SLA
9 27 (1.09%) GRC
10 25 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.76%) NCSC
12 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
13 14 (0.56%) P3O
14 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.44%) COBIT
15 10 (0.40%) ISO 31000
16 9 (0.36%) IEC 61508
17 8 (0.32%) GxP
System Software
1 196 (7.89%) Active Directory
2 123 (4.95%) Docker
3 56 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.17%) Firmware
5 27 (1.09%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
9 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 5 (0.20%) vSphere
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.16%) RACF
12 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) ACF2
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.50%) Ansible
4 35 (1.41%) SCCM
5 27 (1.09%) Grafana
6 25 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 8 (0.32%) CASB
11 8 (0.32%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.32%) WSUS
12 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) Control-M
12 6 (0.24%) Nessus
12 6 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 643 (25.89%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.33%) Oracle
3 140 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.43%) SAP
5 97 (3.90%) Google
6 73 (2.94%) VMware
7 72 (2.90%) Cisco
8 66 (2.66%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.54%) Adobe
10 55 (2.21%) Databricks
11 44 (1.77%) Splunk
12 42 (1.69%) IBM
13 33 (1.33%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.17%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.05%) Citrix
16 22 (0.89%) OpenAI
17 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.85%) Palo Alto
18 20 (0.81%) Apple
19 19 (0.76%) Ariba