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 13 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,458 2,467 3,063
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.61% 7.49% 7.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.71% 23.97% 26.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,306 1,399 1,780
10th Percentile £206 £250 £260
25th Percentile £363 £371 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £715 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £497
% change year-on-year +5.56% -9.37% +1.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 215 274
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.68 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.62
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.52 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +0.51% -27.64% +19.16%

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 16,707 10,290 11,688
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.24% 30.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,195 6,340 7,414
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,256 811 852
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.81 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 2,251 £500 - 9,121
UK excluding London -16 1,342 £475 +5.56% 4,678
London -21 962 £525 -4.55% 5,274
Work from Home -21 647 £500 - 3,000
South East +3 475 £500 +5.26% 1,281
North of England -15 329 £470 +4.50% 946
North West -11 191 £459 -3.37% 525
Midlands -32 177 £450 +0.67% 576
East of England -7 142 £413 -8.33% 693
West Midlands -36 133 £450 - 332
Yorkshire -11 124 £500 +20.12% 271
South West -20 122 £415 +10.67% 534
Scotland -42 69 £493 +9.44% 436
East Midlands -25 42 £475 +32.68% 243
Wales -28 16 £530 +73.50% 140
Northern Ireland -12 15 £252 -52.00% 151
North East -47 14 £450 +130.77% 169
Channel Islands - 1 - - 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
1 150 (6.10%) SharePoint
2 115 (4.68%) Confluence
3 65 (2.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.85%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.41%) SAS
10 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Service Bus
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 262 (10.66%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 136 (5.53%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (4.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.48%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 11 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) Windchill
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 55 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 556 (22.62%) Azure
2 316 (12.86%) AWS
3 225 (9.15%) Power Platform
4 221 (8.99%) Microsoft 365
5 150 (6.10%) Entra ID
6 134 (5.45%) GCP
7 103 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.50%) SaaS
9 62 (2.52%) GitHub
10 51 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.99%) PowerApps
12 48 (1.95%) Power Automate
13 47 (1.91%) Serverless
13 47 (1.91%) Snowflake
14 44 (1.79%) Figma
15 43 (1.75%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
17 27 (1.10%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
19 25 (1.02%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.72%) Firewall
2 82 (3.34%) DNS
3 80 (3.25%) TCP/IP
4 68 (2.77%) Network Security
5 61 (2.48%) VPN
6 41 (1.67%) DHCP
6 41 (1.67%) WAN
7 39 (1.59%) LAN
8 28 (1.14%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) HTTP
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 17 (0.69%) Internet
13 16 (0.65%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSH
14 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (7.28%) Power BI
2 102 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
5 50 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.67%) Metadata
7 35 (1.42%) Tableau
8 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.14%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.98%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.98%) MySQL
11 24 (0.98%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.57%) Power Query
15 13 (0.53%) GIS
Development Applications
1 188 (7.65%) JIRA
2 128 (5.21%) Git
3 55 (2.24%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.87%) GitLab
5 36 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.53%) JUnit
8 13 (0.53%) MLflow
9 12 (0.49%) Postman
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.45%) Subversion
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,092 (44.43%) Social Skills
2 712 (28.97%) Finance
3 572 (23.27%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (8.01%) Public Sector
5 177 (7.20%) Banking
6 157 (6.39%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (4.56%) Aerospace
8 104 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
9 101 (4.11%) Legal
10 98 (3.99%) Marketing
11 94 (3.82%) Manufacturing
12 88 (3.58%) Telecoms
13 87 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
14 73 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.56%) Retail
16 60 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 53 (2.16%) Law
18 48 (1.95%) Pharmaceutical
19 41 (1.67%) Front Office
20 38 (1.55%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 338 (13.75%) Analyst
2 277 (11.27%) Senior
3 187 (7.61%) Lead
4 177 (7.20%) Developer
5 169 (6.88%) Architect
6 158 (6.43%) Business Analyst
7 134 (5.45%) Project Manager
8 72 (2.93%) Consultant
9 71 (2.89%) Senior Manager
10 64 (2.60%) IT Support
11 60 (2.44%) Designer
11 60 (2.44%) Support Engineer
12 59 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.20%) Product Manager
14 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
14 53 (2.16%) IT Manager
15 48 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
16 47 (1.91%) Administrator
16 47 (1.91%) Software Engineer
16 47 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.23%) REST
2 98 (3.99%) .NET
3 58 (2.36%) React
4 54 (2.20%) Kafka
5 46 (1.87%) RESTful
6 45 (1.83%) HTML
6 45 (1.83%) OAuth
7 37 (1.51%) Middleware
8 36 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
9 35 (1.42%) CSS
10 34 (1.38%) SAML
10 34 (1.38%) Web Services
11 33 (1.34%) OAuth2
12 31 (1.26%) .NET Framework
13 30 (1.22%) OpenID
14 29 (1.18%) JSON
14 29 (1.18%) XML
15 28 (1.14%) LDAP
15 28 (1.14%) SOAP
16 27 (1.10%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.30%) Management Information System
2 147 (5.98%) Product Ownership
3 140 (5.70%) Onboarding
4 109 (4.43%) Self-Motivation
5 92 (3.74%) Cloud Native
6 77 (3.13%) Data Structures
7 67 (2.73%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.56%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.16%) Security Posture
10 49 (1.99%) Operational Technology
11 47 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
11 47 (1.91%) Virtual Team
12 46 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
14 39 (1.59%) Life Science
15 38 (1.55%) AI Agents
15 38 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.38%) PMI
16 34 (1.38%) SCADA
17 32 (1.30%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 290 (11.80%) Windows
2 174 (7.08%) Linux
3 70 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.40%) Unix
5 51 (2.07%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 25 (1.02%) Android
9 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) AIX
10 6 (0.24%) Solaris
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 838 (34.09%) Computer Science
2 663 (26.97%) Agile
3 649 (26.40%) Problem-Solving
4 450 (18.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 427 (17.37%) Continuous Improvement
6 376 (15.30%) AI
7 324 (13.18%) DevOps
8 316 (12.86%) Project Management
9 298 (12.12%) Analytics
10 291 (11.84%) CI/CD
11 283 (11.51%) ITIL
12 261 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 252 (10.25%) Decision-Making
14 240 (9.76%) Cybersecurity
15 220 (8.95%) Change Management
16 215 (8.75%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.50%) Roadmaps
18 206 (8.38%) PRINCE2
19 204 (8.30%) Project Delivery
19 204 (8.30%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 421 (17.13%) Python
2 344 (14.00%) SQL
3 163 (6.63%) PowerShell
4 161 (6.55%) Java
5 108 (4.39%) C#
6 96 (3.91%) JavaScript
7 54 (2.20%) Bash
8 47 (1.91%) C++
9 41 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.06%) R
11 25 (1.02%) Bicep
12 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 22 (0.90%) C
14 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.45%) Scala
15 11 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 489 (19.89%) Computer Science Degree
2 449 (18.27%) Security Cleared
3 294 (11.96%) SC Cleared
4 212 (8.62%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.70%) PMI Certification
6 121 (4.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 120 (4.88%) PMP
8 117 (4.76%) CISSP
9 85 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.17%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.05%) DV Cleared
12 63 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.32%) CISM
14 49 (1.99%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.63%) CCNP
18 39 (1.59%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 34 (1.38%) CISA
20 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.29%) Data Quality
2 126 (5.13%) QA
3 112 (4.56%) NIST
4 104 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (3.82%) PMO
6 70 (2.85%) GDPR
7 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 48 (1.95%) SLA
9 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
10 23 (0.94%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.85%) NCSC
12 13 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) COBIT
14 11 (0.45%) IFRS
14 11 (0.45%) P3O
15 8 (0.33%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.33%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 196 (7.97%) Active Directory
2 118 (4.80%) Docker
3 54 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Firmware
5 24 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
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
1 128 (5.21%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.95%) Terraform
3 79 (3.21%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.64%) Ansible
5 38 (1.55%) SCCM
6 30 (1.22%) Grafana
7 27 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) Control-M
15 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.28%) SCOM
16 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 632 (25.71%) Microsoft
2 168 (6.83%) Oracle
3 142 (5.78%) ServiceNow
4 138 (5.61%) SAP
5 91 (3.70%) Google
6 71 (2.89%) Cisco
7 70 (2.85%) VMware
8 64 (2.60%) Salesforce
9 62 (2.52%) Databricks
10 59 (2.40%) Adobe
11 53 (2.16%) IBM
12 40 (1.63%) Splunk
13 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 29 (1.18%) Citrix
15 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.14%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Apple
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.81%) Ariba
18 19 (0.77%) BeyondTrust