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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,441 2,385 2,985
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.33% 7.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.52% 23.45% 25.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,275 1,329 1,706
10th Percentile £204 £260 £263
25th Percentile £357 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -4.76%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £624
90th Percentile £726 £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 269 200 243
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.77 £18.17
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.60 £25.74
Median hourly rate £38.25 £41.25 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% -21.43% +9.95%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.69 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.77 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £38.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -0.65% -32.87% +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 16,812 10,171 11,483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 31.27% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,258 6,292 7,204
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 £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 819 732
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.00 £71.66 £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 2 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 2 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 2 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 2,236 £500 - 9,836
UK excluding London -16 1,302 £475 +5.56% 5,148
London -20 980 £525 -3.67% 5,867
Work from Home -19 653 £500 +3.90% 3,551
South East +5 462 £518 +8.95% 1,385
North of England -14 327 £470 +9.68% 935
North West -14 200 £466 +2.81% 544
Midlands -32 173 £475 +5.56% 616
East of England -10 132 £350 -22.22% 709
West Midlands -35 128 £463 -2.63% 363
South West -22 120 £400 -11.11% 737
Yorkshire -8 112 £500 +23.84% 259
Scotland -53 66 £475 +5.56% 518
East Midlands -22 44 £475 +9.57% 252
North East -43 15 £450 +39.53% 150
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 128
Northern Ireland -15 12 £238 -58.24% 219
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 (4.42%) Confluence
3 55 (2.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 14 (0.57%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
9 12 (0.49%) Camunda
10 9 (0.37%) SAS
11 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.16%) Appian
14 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 250 (10.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 242 (9.91%) Microsoft Office
3 132 (5.41%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.34%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.66%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) 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 47 (1.93%) 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 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 3 (0.12%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 560 (22.94%) Azure
2 319 (13.07%) AWS
3 229 (9.38%) Power Platform
4 222 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (5.82%) GCP
6 138 (5.65%) Entra ID
7 118 (4.83%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.32%) SaaS
9 69 (2.83%) GitHub
10 58 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
11 56 (2.29%) Serverless
12 48 (1.97%) Power Automate
12 48 (1.97%) PowerApps
13 44 (1.80%) Snowflake
14 41 (1.68%) Figma
14 41 (1.68%) OneDrive
15 37 (1.52%) Microsoft Copilot
16 28 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
17 27 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
17 27 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.67%) Firewall
2 85 (3.48%) DNS
3 66 (2.70%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.58%) Network Security
5 62 (2.54%) VPN
6 47 (1.93%) DHCP
7 36 (1.47%) WAN
8 35 (1.43%) LAN
9 29 (1.19%) Wireless
10 20 (0.82%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.82%) BGP
10 20 (0.82%) SSL
10 20 (0.82%) VLAN
11 18 (0.74%) 5G
11 18 (0.74%) Internet
11 18 (0.74%) SSH
11 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.70%) HTTP
13 16 (0.66%) MPLS
13 16 (0.66%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.29%) Power BI
2 112 (4.59%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 52 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
5 50 (2.05%) Metadata
6 45 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
7 36 (1.47%) Tableau
8 30 (1.23%) MySQL
8 30 (1.23%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.11%) Big Data
10 26 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 25 (1.02%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.90%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.86%) Elasticsearch
14 18 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.74%) Data Mining
15 17 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.61%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 181 (7.41%) JIRA
2 137 (5.61%) Git
3 62 (2.54%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.09%) GitLab
5 23 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.90%) Selenium
7 20 (0.82%) JUnit
8 18 (0.74%) SonarQube
9 17 (0.70%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.70%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.66%) Maven
11 14 (0.57%) Gradle
11 14 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.49%) MLflow
14 11 (0.45%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 10 (0.41%) Mockito
16 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
17 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,088 (44.57%) Social Skills
2 726 (29.74%) Finance
3 576 (23.60%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (7.99%) Public Sector
5 194 (7.95%) Banking
6 157 (6.43%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.42%) Aerospace
7 108 (4.42%) Manufacturing
8 99 (4.06%) Marketing
9 93 (3.81%) Legal
9 93 (3.81%) Telecoms
10 90 (3.69%) Influencing Skills
11 88 (3.61%) Presentation Skills
12 78 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (2.62%) Retail
14 53 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 50 (2.05%) Law
16 48 (1.97%) Pharmaceutical
17 44 (1.80%) Investment Banking
18 43 (1.76%) Military
Job Titles
1 345 (14.13%) Analyst
2 276 (11.31%) Senior
3 193 (7.91%) Lead
4 188 (7.70%) Developer
5 166 (6.80%) Architect
6 164 (6.72%) Business Analyst
7 125 (5.12%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.99%) Consultant
9 71 (2.91%) IT Support
9 71 (2.91%) Support Engineer
10 67 (2.74%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
12 54 (2.21%) Designer
13 53 (2.17%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.05%) IT Manager
15 45 (1.84%) Administrator
15 45 (1.84%) Data Analyst
15 45 (1.84%) Product Manager
16 44 (1.80%) Senior Analyst
16 44 (1.80%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.38%) REST
2 106 (4.34%) Terraform
3 100 (4.10%) .NET
4 66 (2.70%) React
5 64 (2.62%) HTML
6 60 (2.46%) Kafka
7 53 (2.17%) CSS
8 49 (2.01%) RESTful
9 46 (1.88%) OAuth
10 43 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
11 37 (1.52%) Middleware
11 37 (1.52%) Web Services
12 36 (1.47%) OAuth2
12 36 (1.47%) XML
13 34 (1.39%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.35%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.35%) SAML
15 32 (1.31%) Spring
16 31 (1.27%) OpenID
17 30 (1.23%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 212 (8.68%) Management Information System
2 141 (5.78%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.08%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 73 (2.99%) Data Structures
7 66 (2.70%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.50%) Data Centre
9 51 (2.09%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
11 46 (1.88%) Security Posture
12 45 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
13 42 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.68%) AI Agents
14 41 (1.68%) Life Science
14 41 (1.68%) Virtual Team
15 35 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
16 33 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 30 (1.23%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 297 (12.17%) Windows
2 180 (7.37%) Linux
3 79 (3.24%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.46%) Unix
5 48 (1.97%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 30 (1.23%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.25%) VMS
11 6 (0.25%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 830 (34.00%) Computer Science
2 665 (27.24%) Agile
3 644 (26.38%) Problem-Solving
4 476 (19.50%) Stakeholder Management
5 437 (17.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 381 (15.61%) AI
7 344 (14.09%) DevOps
8 313 (12.82%) CI/CD
9 312 (12.78%) Project Management
10 308 (12.62%) Analytics
11 274 (11.22%) ITIL
12 253 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (9.83%) Decision-Making
14 226 (9.26%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (9.14%) Change Management
15 223 (9.14%) Software Engineering
16 219 (8.97%) Scrum
17 212 (8.68%) Roadmaps
18 205 (8.40%) PRINCE2
19 204 (8.36%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 420 (17.21%) Python
2 359 (14.71%) SQL
3 174 (7.13%) PowerShell
4 166 (6.80%) Java
5 117 (4.79%) JavaScript
6 116 (4.75%) C#
7 60 (2.46%) Bash
8 47 (1.93%) C++
8 47 (1.93%) TypeScript
9 30 (1.23%) Bicep
10 29 (1.19%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.07%) Shell Script
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) C
14 23 (0.94%) R
15 14 (0.57%) Scala
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 506 (20.73%) Computer Science Degree
2 454 (18.60%) Security Cleared
3 314 (12.86%) SC Cleared
4 208 (8.52%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.45%) PMI Certification
6 121 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (4.71%) PMP
8 108 (4.42%) CISSP
9 86 (3.52%) Azure Certification
10 82 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
11 76 (3.11%) DV Cleared
12 69 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.21%) PhD
14 52 (2.13%) CISM
15 44 (1.80%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.68%) CCNA
18 39 (1.60%) CCNP
19 36 (1.47%) ISTQB
20 34 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.61%) Data Quality
2 135 (5.53%) QA
3 99 (4.06%) NIST
4 98 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.52%) PMO
6 66 (2.70%) GDPR
7 49 (2.01%) Accessibility
8 45 (1.84%) SLA
9 26 (1.07%) GRC
9 26 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 18 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (0.74%) NCSC
11 17 (0.70%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.57%) IFRS
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.45%) COBIT
14 11 (0.45%) P3O
15 9 (0.37%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.33%) GxP
16 8 (0.33%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 195 (7.99%) Active Directory
2 124 (5.08%) Docker
3 55 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Firmware
5 26 (1.07%) Hyper-V
6 21 (0.86%) 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 (0.20%) 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%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.33%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.50%) Ansible
4 36 (1.47%) SCCM
5 30 (1.23%) Grafana
6 28 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.74%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) SCOM
10 8 (0.33%) WSUS
11 7 (0.29%) Control-M
11 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
12 6 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.25%) Argo
12 6 (0.25%) CASB
12 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.25%) Nessus
12 6 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 635 (26.01%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.29%) Oracle
3 141 (5.78%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.53%) SAP
5 94 (3.85%) Google
6 72 (2.95%) VMware
7 70 (2.87%) Cisco
8 69 (2.83%) Salesforce
9 64 (2.62%) Adobe
10 59 (2.42%) Databricks
11 51 (2.09%) IBM
12 43 (1.76%) Splunk
13 30 (1.23%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.07%) Citrix
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
16 22 (0.90%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.86%) OpenAI
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba