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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,455 2,364 2,997
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.23% 7.80%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.40% 23.07% 26.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,267 1,297 1,703
10th Percentile £204 £260 £250
25th Percentile £355 £381 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £603 £625 £613
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +7.83% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 200 216
10th Percentile £16.46 £19.76 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.92 £25.75 £26.85
Median hourly rate £38.25 £39.89 £56.18
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% -28.99% +16.87%
75th Percentile £68.63 £56.56 £70.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.18 £79.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £37.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +2.11% -34.68% +19.48%

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 17,050 10,245 11,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.50% 31.34% 29.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,384 6,379 6,977
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,315 820 666
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.98 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £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 £71.47 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £86.70 £71.00 £75.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +0.95%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -15 2,234 £510 +2.00% 11,165
UK excluding London -16 1,321 £485 +7.83% 5,685
London -20 970 £525 -4.55% 6,524
Work from Home -21 647 £500 +3.31% 7,971
South East +8 457 £525 +13.51% 1,612
North of England -17 329 £475 +5.91% 1,063
North West -12 206 £475 +3.83% 603
Midlands -33 177 £450 -2.70% 709
East of England -13 135 £300 -38.46% 813
West Midlands -34 130 £450 -5.26% 424
South West -27 125 £400 -13.51% 690
Yorkshire -6 107 £513 +22.02% 310
Scotland -50 71 £500 +11.11% 540
East Midlands -23 46 £463 +6.69% 283
North East -36 16 £455 +1.11% 175
Northern Ireland -10 15 £250 -57.45% 223
Wales -29 14 £530 +73.50% 146
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
1 164 (6.68%) SharePoint
2 101 (4.11%) Confluence
3 63 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.06%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 18 (0.73%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
8 13 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
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%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 244 (9.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (9.82%) Microsoft Office
3 126 (5.13%) Microsoft Project
4 119 (4.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.16%) 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 9 (0.37%) Revit
10 9 (0.37%) Windchill
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) 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 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.53%) Primavera
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.29%) HFM
6 7 (0.29%) 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%) Changepoint
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 562 (22.89%) Azure
2 311 (12.67%) AWS
3 232 (9.45%) Microsoft 365
4 229 (9.33%) Power Platform
5 142 (5.78%) GCP
6 136 (5.54%) Entra ID
7 118 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.30%) SaaS
9 70 (2.85%) GitHub
10 62 (2.53%) Dynamics 365
11 58 (2.36%) Serverless
12 56 (2.28%) Power Automate
13 54 (2.20%) PowerApps
14 47 (1.91%) Microsoft Copilot
14 47 (1.91%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.59%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.55%) Figma
17 29 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
18 28 (1.14%) IaaS
19 27 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.44%) Firewall
2 84 (3.42%) DNS
3 66 (2.69%) Network Security
4 65 (2.65%) TCP/IP
5 61 (2.48%) VPN
6 46 (1.87%) DHCP
7 34 (1.38%) LAN
7 34 (1.38%) WAN
8 29 (1.18%) Wireless
9 23 (0.94%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.86%) Internet
11 20 (0.81%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 18 (0.73%) BGP
13 18 (0.73%) SSH
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.69%) Wireshark
15 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.88%) Power BI
2 114 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.16%) Metadata
5 42 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (1.38%) Tableau
7 33 (1.34%) MySQL
8 30 (1.22%) NoSQL
9 25 (1.02%) Big Data
9 25 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
9 25 (1.02%) MongoDB
10 24 (0.98%) Oracle Database
10 24 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.61%) GIS
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 174 (7.09%) JIRA
2 134 (5.46%) Git
3 62 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.12%) GitLab
5 23 (0.94%) JUnit
6 21 (0.86%) Selenium
7 20 (0.81%) Maven
7 20 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 18 (0.73%) Gradle
8 18 (0.73%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.61%) Cucumber
10 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.53%) Mockito
12 11 (0.45%) Postman
12 11 (0.45%) Subversion
13 10 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
13 10 (0.41%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.37%) MLflow
14 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 1,109 (45.17%) Social Skills
2 727 (29.61%) Finance
3 562 (22.89%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.02%) Banking
6 165 (6.72%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (4.89%) Manufacturing
8 108 (4.40%) Aerospace
9 101 (4.11%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (3.95%) Marketing
11 92 (3.75%) Telecoms
12 89 (3.63%) Legal
12 89 (3.63%) Presentation Skills
13 77 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 60 (2.44%) Retail
16 51 (2.08%) Law
16 51 (2.08%) Pharmaceutical
17 44 (1.79%) Military
18 40 (1.63%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 334 (13.60%) Analyst
2 290 (11.81%) Senior
3 202 (8.23%) Developer
4 198 (8.07%) Lead
5 165 (6.72%) Architect
6 156 (6.35%) Business Analyst
7 119 (4.85%) Project Manager
8 75 (3.05%) Support Engineer
9 73 (2.97%) Consultant
10 72 (2.93%) IT Support
11 68 (2.77%) Senior Manager
12 56 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.04%) Administrator
14 50 (2.04%) Designer
14 50 (2.04%) IT Manager
15 46 (1.87%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.83%) Security Engineer
16 45 (1.83%) Technical Support
17 43 (1.75%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.52%) REST
2 109 (4.44%) Terraform
3 105 (4.28%) .NET
4 71 (2.89%) React
5 68 (2.77%) HTML
6 64 (2.61%) Kafka
7 56 (2.28%) CSS
8 53 (2.16%) RESTful
9 46 (1.87%) OAuth
10 44 (1.79%) XML
11 43 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
12 39 (1.59%) Spring Boot
12 39 (1.59%) Web Services
13 37 (1.51%) Middleware
14 36 (1.47%) OAuth2
15 34 (1.38%) .NET Framework
15 34 (1.38%) JSON
15 34 (1.38%) Spring
16 33 (1.34%) SAML
17 31 (1.26%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 223 (9.08%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.62%) Onboarding
3 116 (4.73%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.32%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (3.99%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.48%) Data Structures
7 59 (2.40%) Algorithms
8 57 (2.32%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.16%) Operational Technology
10 48 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
10 48 (1.96%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.87%) Life Science
11 46 (1.87%) Virtual Team
12 45 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.67%) AI Agents
14 39 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
16 33 (1.34%) SCADA
17 32 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
18 30 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 298 (12.14%) Windows
2 182 (7.41%) Linux
3 82 (3.34%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.48%) Unix
5 47 (1.91%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.34%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.22%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) 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
1 798 (32.51%) Computer Science
2 655 (26.68%) Agile
3 652 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
4 495 (20.16%) Stakeholder Management
5 434 (17.68%) Continuous Improvement
6 385 (15.68%) AI
7 344 (14.01%) DevOps
8 311 (12.67%) CI/CD
9 310 (12.63%) Project Management
10 304 (12.38%) Analytics
11 280 (11.41%) ITIL
12 252 (10.26%) Decision-Making
13 249 (10.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 230 (9.37%) Scrum
15 227 (9.25%) Change Management
16 224 (9.12%) Software Engineering
17 223 (9.08%) Cybersecurity
18 220 (8.96%) Roadmaps
19 204 (8.31%) PRINCE2
20 202 (8.23%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 408 (16.62%) Python
2 355 (14.46%) SQL
3 179 (7.29%) PowerShell
4 168 (6.84%) Java
5 127 (5.17%) JavaScript
6 123 (5.01%) C#
7 61 (2.48%) Bash
8 47 (1.91%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.83%) C++
10 30 (1.22%) Bicep
11 29 (1.18%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.98%) C
15 23 (0.94%) R
16 15 (0.61%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.49%) X++
19 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 491 (20.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 459 (18.70%) Security Cleared
3 334 (13.60%) SC Cleared
4 204 (8.31%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.46%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 120 (4.89%) PMP
8 104 (4.24%) CISSP
9 89 (3.63%) Azure Certification
10 84 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
11 81 (3.30%) DV Cleared
12 73 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.32%) PhD
14 52 (2.12%) CISM
15 46 (1.87%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 43 (1.75%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.59%) CCNA
17 39 (1.59%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.55%) CCNP
19 34 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.87%) QA
2 136 (5.54%) Data Quality
3 92 (3.75%) NIST
4 90 (3.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.54%) PMO
6 70 (2.85%) GDPR
7 47 (1.91%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.71%) SLA
9 27 (1.10%) GRC
10 24 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.77%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.69%) PCI DSS
14 14 (0.57%) IFRS
15 13 (0.53%) P3O
16 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
17 10 (0.41%) COBIT
17 10 (0.41%) ISO 31000
18 9 (0.37%) IEC 61508
19 8 (0.33%) GxP
System Software
1 194 (7.90%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.89%) Docker
3 54 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.18%) Firmware
5 25 (1.02%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 5 (0.20%) vSphere
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.16%) RACF
13 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.48%) Ansible
4 35 (1.43%) SCCM
5 27 (1.10%) Grafana
6 25 (1.02%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.53%) SCOM
11 8 (0.33%) CASB
11 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 637 (25.95%) Microsoft
2 180 (7.33%) Oracle
3 136 (5.54%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.50%) SAP
5 95 (3.87%) Google
6 72 (2.93%) Cisco
7 71 (2.89%) VMware
8 66 (2.69%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.57%) Adobe
10 52 (2.12%) Databricks
11 44 (1.79%) Splunk
12 41 (1.67%) IBM
13 32 (1.30%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.18%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.02%) Citrix
16 22 (0.90%) OpenAI
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.86%) Palo Alto
18 20 (0.81%) Apple
19 19 (0.77%) Ariba