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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,439 2,406 2,988
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.55% 7.35% 7.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.51% 23.51% 26.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,270 1,346 1,707
10th Percentile £204 £259 £263
25th Percentile £357 £376 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.32% -1.30% -4.76%
75th Percentile £609 £625 £624
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.21% -3.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 201 244
10th Percentile £16.62 £17.80 £18.20
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.86
Median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -20.95% +9.95%
75th Percentile £77.50 £60.00 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £38.91 £57.35
% change year-on-year -0.49% -32.15% +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 16,805 10,236 11,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.32% 31.26% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,233 6,338 7,203
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 £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 822 732
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.43 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 2,233 £500 - 9,369
UK excluding London -16 1,305 £475 +5.56% 5,033
London -20 973 £525 -3.67% 5,501
Work from Home -19 650 £500 +1.63% 3,265
South East +5 463 £514 +8.16% 1,300
North of England -15 326 £470 +8.73% 950
North West -14 197 £465 +1.81% 548
Midlands -33 175 £463 +2.78% 614
East of England -12 132 £350 -22.22% 685
West Midlands -33 129 £473 +2.16% 367
South West -22 121 £404 -10.28% 724
Yorkshire -3 114 £500 +23.84% 268
Scotland -53 66 £475 +5.56% 487
East Midlands -24 44 £475 +9.57% 246
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 151
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 126
Northern Ireland -14 12 £238 -58.24% 242
Channel Islands - 1 - - 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
1 151 (6.19%) SharePoint
2 108 (4.43%) Confluence
3 56 (2.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.11%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) Camunda
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.21%) 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%) Moodle
Applications
1 250 (10.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (9.88%) Microsoft Office
3 134 (5.49%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.30%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.66%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 9 (0.37%) Windchill
12 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 8 (0.33%) Simulink
12 8 (0.33%) Sketch
13 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.25%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 46 (1.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.66%) Primavera
4 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
6 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
7 7 (0.29%) HFM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.21%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.21%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 556 (22.80%) Azure
2 315 (12.92%) AWS
3 230 (9.43%) Power Platform
4 223 (9.14%) Microsoft 365
5 140 (5.74%) Entra ID
6 139 (5.70%) GCP
7 114 (4.67%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.24%) SaaS
9 67 (2.75%) GitHub
10 58 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
11 54 (2.21%) Serverless
12 48 (1.97%) Power Automate
12 48 (1.97%) PowerApps
13 43 (1.76%) Snowflake
14 41 (1.68%) Figma
15 40 (1.64%) OneDrive
16 36 (1.48%) Microsoft Copilot
17 27 (1.11%) IaaS
18 26 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
19 25 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.63%) Firewall
2 85 (3.49%) DNS
3 65 (2.67%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.54%) Network Security
4 62 (2.54%) VPN
5 47 (1.93%) DHCP
6 36 (1.48%) WAN
7 35 (1.44%) LAN
8 28 (1.15%) Wireless
9 20 (0.82%) BGP
9 20 (0.82%) VLAN
10 19 (0.78%) Internet
10 19 (0.78%) SSL
11 18 (0.74%) 3GPP
11 18 (0.74%) SSH
11 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.70%) HTTP
13 16 (0.66%) 5G
13 16 (0.66%) MPLS
13 16 (0.66%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (7.34%) Power BI
2 110 (4.51%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.26%) Relational Database
4 50 (2.05%) Metadata
4 50 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
5 46 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (1.44%) Tableau
7 29 (1.19%) MySQL
7 29 (1.19%) NoSQL
8 27 (1.11%) Big Data
9 25 (1.03%) Oracle Database
9 25 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 21 (0.86%) MongoDB
11 20 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.66%) Data Mining
14 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.53%) Power Query
15 13 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 181 (7.42%) JIRA
2 132 (5.41%) Git
3 61 (2.50%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.05%) GitLab
5 24 (0.98%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.90%) Selenium
7 19 (0.78%) JUnit
8 18 (0.74%) SonarQube
9 17 (0.70%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.70%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.62%) Maven
11 14 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Gradle
13 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 11 (0.45%) MLflow
14 11 (0.45%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 9 (0.37%) Mockito
15 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,087 (44.57%) Social Skills
2 721 (29.56%) Finance
3 572 (23.45%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (8.00%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.87%) Banking
6 158 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
7 110 (4.51%) Aerospace
8 107 (4.39%) Manufacturing
9 100 (4.10%) Marketing
10 92 (3.77%) Legal
10 92 (3.77%) Telecoms
11 90 (3.69%) Influencing Skills
12 88 (3.61%) Presentation Skills
13 77 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.58%) Retail
15 52 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 50 (2.05%) Law
17 49 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
18 43 (1.76%) Front Office
18 43 (1.76%) Military
Job Titles
1 340 (13.94%) Analyst
2 275 (11.28%) Senior
3 197 (8.08%) Lead
4 188 (7.71%) Developer
5 166 (6.81%) Architect
6 163 (6.68%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.25%) Project Manager
8 71 (2.91%) Consultant
9 70 (2.87%) Support Engineer
10 69 (2.83%) IT Support
11 67 (2.75%) Senior Manager
12 57 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.21%) Designer
14 53 (2.17%) IT Analyst
15 50 (2.05%) IT Manager
16 47 (1.93%) Product Manager
17 45 (1.85%) Administrator
18 44 (1.80%) Software Engineer
19 43 (1.76%) Data Analyst
19 43 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.39%) REST
2 104 (4.26%) Terraform
3 99 (4.06%) .NET
4 66 (2.71%) React
5 64 (2.62%) HTML
6 58 (2.38%) Kafka
7 53 (2.17%) CSS
8 49 (2.01%) RESTful
9 45 (1.85%) OAuth
10 43 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
11 37 (1.52%) Middleware
11 37 (1.52%) Web Services
12 35 (1.44%) OAuth2
12 35 (1.44%) XML
13 33 (1.35%) .NET Framework
13 33 (1.35%) Spring Boot
14 32 (1.31%) SAML
15 31 (1.27%) Spring
16 30 (1.23%) JSON
16 30 (1.23%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.57%) Management Information System
2 138 (5.66%) Onboarding
3 123 (5.04%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.31%) Self-Motivation
5 94 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 74 (3.03%) Data Structures
7 64 (2.62%) Algorithms
8 60 (2.46%) Data Centre
9 54 (2.21%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.93%) Security Posture
11 45 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
12 44 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
13 43 (1.76%) Virtual Team
14 42 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
15 41 (1.68%) Life Science
16 38 (1.56%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
18 32 (1.31%) SCADA
19 31 (1.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 293 (12.01%) Windows
2 178 (7.30%) Linux
3 77 (3.16%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.42%) Unix
5 49 (2.01%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Mac OS
7 31 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.03%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.25%) VMS
11 6 (0.25%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 827 (33.91%) Computer Science
2 661 (27.10%) Agile
3 642 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 474 (19.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 434 (17.79%) Continuous Improvement
6 378 (15.50%) AI
7 338 (13.86%) DevOps
8 315 (12.92%) Project Management
9 307 (12.59%) Analytics
10 305 (12.51%) CI/CD
11 271 (11.11%) ITIL
12 254 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (9.76%) Decision-Making
14 228 (9.35%) Cybersecurity
15 225 (9.23%) Change Management
16 222 (9.10%) Software Engineering
17 215 (8.82%) Scrum
18 213 (8.73%) Roadmaps
19 209 (8.57%) PRINCE2
20 203 (8.32%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 417 (17.10%) Python
2 358 (14.68%) SQL
3 171 (7.01%) PowerShell
4 165 (6.77%) Java
5 117 (4.80%) JavaScript
6 116 (4.76%) C#
7 59 (2.42%) Bash
8 47 (1.93%) C++
8 47 (1.93%) TypeScript
9 29 (1.19%) Bicep
10 28 (1.15%) T-SQL
11 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.03%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.98%) C
13 22 (0.90%) R
14 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 12 (0.49%) X++
16 11 (0.45%) Scala
17 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 504 (20.66%) Computer Science Degree
2 457 (18.74%) Security Cleared
3 311 (12.75%) SC Cleared
4 208 (8.53%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.58%) PMI Certification
6 120 (4.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 117 (4.80%) PMP
8 107 (4.39%) CISSP
9 83 (3.40%) Azure Certification
10 81 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
11 76 (3.12%) DV Cleared
12 68 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.17%) PhD
14 51 (2.09%) CISM
15 43 (1.76%) AWS Certification
15 43 (1.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 41 (1.68%) CCNA
17 39 (1.60%) CCNP
18 36 (1.48%) ISTQB
19 33 (1.35%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.49%) Data Quality
2 133 (5.45%) QA
3 101 (4.14%) NIST
4 99 (4.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.57%) PMO
6 65 (2.67%) GDPR
7 49 (2.01%) Accessibility
8 45 (1.85%) SLA
9 26 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
11 18 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.74%) NCSC
12 16 (0.66%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.57%) IFRS
14 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.45%) COBIT
15 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.45%) P3O
16 8 (0.33%) GxP
16 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 193 (7.91%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.92%) Docker
3 54 (2.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Firmware
5 26 (1.07%) Hyper-V
6 20 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.21%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.21%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.50%) Ansible
4 37 (1.52%) SCCM
5 29 (1.19%) Grafana
6 27 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.70%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.49%) SCOM
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.29%) Control-M
12 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
13 6 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.25%) Argo
13 6 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.25%) Nessus
13 6 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 632 (25.91%) Microsoft
2 177 (7.26%) Oracle
3 136 (5.58%) ServiceNow
4 133 (5.45%) SAP
5 93 (3.81%) Google
6 71 (2.91%) VMware
7 69 (2.83%) Cisco
7 69 (2.83%) Salesforce
8 64 (2.62%) Adobe
9 58 (2.38%) Databricks
10 52 (2.13%) IBM
11 42 (1.72%) Splunk
12 30 (1.23%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.19%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.07%) Citrix
15 23 (0.94%) Apple
16 22 (0.90%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba
19 19 (0.78%) OpenAI