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 26 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,452 2,296 3,552
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.82% 7.59% 8.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.39% 24.56% 27.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,346 1,308 1,907
10th Percentile £210 £239 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 259 185 411
10th Percentile £16.90 £20.00 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.32 £22.50
Median hourly rate £48.50 £46.30 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.75% +15.75% -17.75%
75th Percentile £82.31 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.88 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £39.66 £42.50
% change year-on-year +26.07% -6.68% -10.99%

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 15,931 9,348 12,944
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 30.91% 29.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,644 5,798 7,991
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £527
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.12% -0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,165 614 1,119
10th Percentile £17.43 £17.67 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.78 £20.00 £20.06
Median hourly rate £50.49 £28.34 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +78.14% -30.78% -25.90%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.35 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.38 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.65% -36.34% -19.87%

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 26 June 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 26 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 17 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 26 June 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 -11 2,194 £500 - 2,379
UK excluding London -11 1,337 £450 - 1,681
London -17 940 £515 -6.36% 996
Work from Home -16 669 £500 -4.76% 834
South East 0 419 £500 +5.26% 564
North of England -10 327 £447 -1.70% 371
Midlands -25 193 £505 +36.12% 260
North West -5 182 £443 -2.80% 212
East of England -3 146 £450 -10.00% 198
West Midlands -29 146 £487 +17.94% 136
Yorkshire -7 131 £500 +11.86% 109
South West -22 120 £435 -8.42% 214
Scotland -21 91 £475 +5.56% 72
East Midlands -12 45 £550 +54.49% 124
Wales -21 30 £490 +60.40% 34
Northern Ireland -8 15 £254 -40.24% 21
North East -34 14 £450 +130.77% 56

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
1 133 (5.42%) SharePoint
2 131 (5.34%) Confluence
3 64 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.96%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.90%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 2 (0.082%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.082%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 278 (11.34%) Microsoft Office
2 231 (9.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.71%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.69%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 13 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.65%) Primavera
3 10 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
6 6 (0.24%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 5 (0.20%) Magento
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 554 (22.59%) Azure
2 325 (13.25%) AWS
3 208 (8.48%) Microsoft 365
4 200 (8.16%) Power Platform
5 139 (5.67%) Entra ID
6 123 (5.02%) GCP
7 98 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.43%) SaaS
9 63 (2.57%) GitHub
10 44 (1.79%) Figma
11 40 (1.63%) Snowflake
12 38 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.55%) Serverless
13 34 (1.39%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.39%) PowerApps
14 33 (1.35%) PaaS
15 31 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
15 31 (1.26%) OneDrive
16 29 (1.18%) IaaS
17 26 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.73%) Firewall
2 77 (3.14%) DNS
2 77 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.69%) Network Security
4 51 (2.08%) WAN
5 48 (1.96%) VPN
6 46 (1.88%) LAN
7 35 (1.43%) DHCP
8 29 (1.18%) BGP
9 28 (1.14%) Wireless
10 25 (1.02%) OSPF
11 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.82%) Ethernet
13 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
13 15 (0.61%) HTTP
13 15 (0.61%) SAN
13 15 (0.61%) SSL
13 15 (0.61%) VLAN
14 14 (0.57%) Internet
15 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (6.97%) Power BI
2 111 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 64 (2.61%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.00%) Big Data
5 49 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.75%) Metadata
7 39 (1.59%) Tableau
8 38 (1.55%) NoSQL
9 29 (1.18%) MySQL
10 28 (1.14%) Hadoop
10 28 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.90%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
13 18 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
16 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 222 (9.05%) JIRA
2 122 (4.98%) Git
3 51 (2.08%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.75%) GitLab
5 31 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.82%) MLflow
8 18 (0.73%) Selenium
9 15 (0.61%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.49%) JUnit
12 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.41%) Gradle
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 8 (0.33%) Subversion
15 6 (0.24%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,111 (45.31%) Social Skills
2 748 (30.51%) Finance
3 515 (21.00%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.40%) Public Sector
5 200 (8.16%) Banking
6 147 (6.00%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (4.98%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.24%) Marketing
9 92 (3.75%) Legal
10 90 (3.67%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
12 84 (3.43%) Manufacturing
13 80 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
14 74 (3.02%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.28%) Retail
16 52 (2.12%) Law
17 51 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.63%) Front Office
19 38 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
20 34 (1.39%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 356 (14.52%) Analyst
2 276 (11.26%) Senior
3 197 (8.03%) Architect
4 183 (7.46%) Lead
5 170 (6.93%) Developer
6 159 (6.48%) Business Analyst
7 158 (6.44%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.02%) Consultant
9 72 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.73%) Designer
11 64 (2.61%) Senior Analyst
12 62 (2.53%) Senior Manager
13 57 (2.32%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.20%) Software Engineer
15 52 (2.12%) Security Engineer
16 49 (2.00%) IT Support
16 49 (2.00%) Product Manager
17 48 (1.96%) Administrator
18 47 (1.92%) Data Scientist
18 47 (1.92%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.12%) REST
2 98 (4.00%) .NET
3 70 (2.85%) React
4 50 (2.04%) Kafka
5 45 (1.84%) Middleware
6 43 (1.75%) HTML
7 42 (1.71%) RESTful
8 40 (1.63%) .NET Framework
8 40 (1.63%) OAuth
9 38 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
10 33 (1.35%) CSS
11 32 (1.31%) Web Services
12 31 (1.26%) Spring
12 31 (1.26%) Spring Boot
13 30 (1.22%) JSON
13 30 (1.22%) XML
14 29 (1.18%) SOAP
15 28 (1.14%) SAML
16 27 (1.10%) AngularJS
17 26 (1.06%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.32%) Management Information System
2 145 (5.91%) Onboarding
3 141 (5.75%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.32%) Self-Motivation
5 96 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 73 (2.98%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.61%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.49%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.45%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.04%) Security Posture
11 49 (2.00%) Operational Technology
12 48 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
12 48 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
13 41 (1.67%) PMI
14 35 (1.43%) Life Science
14 35 (1.43%) Robotics
15 34 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
16 32 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (1.22%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 313 (12.77%) Windows
2 182 (7.42%) Linux
3 75 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.90%) Unix
5 55 (2.24%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.22%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.14%) Android
10 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.20%) VMS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
16 4 (0.16%) Solaris
17 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 816 (33.28%) Computer Science
2 690 (28.14%) Agile
3 646 (26.35%) Problem-Solving
4 400 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 383 (15.62%) AI
5 383 (15.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 336 (13.70%) DevOps
7 297 (12.11%) Project Management
8 292 (11.91%) CI/CD
9 290 (11.83%) Analytics
10 266 (10.85%) Decision-Making
11 261 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 245 (9.99%) Cybersecurity
13 239 (9.75%) ITIL
14 227 (9.26%) Change Management
15 222 (9.05%) Migration
16 218 (8.89%) Roadmaps
17 204 (8.32%) Software Engineering
18 195 (7.95%) Project Delivery
19 189 (7.71%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 416 (16.97%) Python
2 369 (15.05%) SQL
3 170 (6.93%) Java
4 132 (5.38%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.28%) C#
6 95 (3.87%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.96%) C++
8 42 (1.71%) Bash
9 36 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.06%) R
11 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.73%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.69%) C
14 14 (0.57%) Perl
15 13 (0.53%) Go
16 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.49%) Rust
17 11 (0.45%) Bicep
17 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 495 (20.19%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (17.37%) Security Cleared
3 287 (11.70%) SC Cleared
4 259 (10.56%) Master's Degree
5 141 (5.75%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.22%) CISSP
7 120 (4.89%) PMP
8 90 (3.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (2.69%) CISM
12 61 (2.49%) DV Cleared
13 58 (2.37%) Azure Certification
14 49 (2.00%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNP
16 41 (1.67%) CCNA
17 40 (1.63%) AWS Certification
18 36 (1.47%) CBAP
18 36 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
19 32 (1.31%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (5.55%) QA
2 122 (4.98%) Data Quality
3 117 (4.77%) NIST
4 115 (4.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 105 (4.28%) PMO
6 96 (3.92%) GDPR
7 51 (2.08%) SLA
8 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.59%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.26%) GRC
11 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.90%) NCSC
13 20 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
14 17 (0.69%) IFRS
15 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.49%) COBIT
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 186 (7.59%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.55%) Docker
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.22%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 3 (0.12%) XenApp
11 3 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 147 (6.00%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.59%) Terraform
3 77 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
4 64 (2.61%) Ansible
5 37 (1.51%) Grafana
6 35 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 35 (1.43%) SCCM
7 22 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Functional Safety
16 6 (0.24%) Kibana
17 5 (0.20%) Control-M
17 5 (0.20%) Nmap
Vendors
1 574 (23.41%) Microsoft
2 171 (6.97%) Oracle
3 142 (5.79%) SAP
4 120 (4.89%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.00%) Google
6 71 (2.90%) Cisco
7 62 (2.53%) Databricks
8 53 (2.16%) VMware
9 49 (2.00%) Adobe
10 47 (1.92%) Salesforce
11 44 (1.79%) IBM
12 43 (1.75%) Citrix
13 42 (1.71%) Splunk
14 35 (1.43%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.14%) CyberArk
16 26 (1.06%) CheckPoint
17 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.86%) Informatica
18 21 (0.86%) Siemens
19 20 (0.82%) Ariba