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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,508 2,365 3,021
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.14% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.40% 22.61% 27.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,293 1,288 1,710
10th Percentile £204 £263 £225
25th Percentile £363 £400 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.89% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 216 194
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.74 £25.60 £25.99
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.49 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.53% -31.02% +4.17%
75th Percentile £65.31 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £84.40 £81.00 £77.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +14.70%

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 17,419 10,458 11,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.73% 31.58% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,570 6,527 6,779
10th Percentile £350 £288 £312
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £635
90th Percentile £713 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,421 884 611
10th Percentile £16.88 £17.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £25.71 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £45.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +80.91% -48.21% -9.23%
75th Percentile £71.43 £42.44 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -3.64%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 2,283 £510 +2.00% 12,742
UK excluding London -16 1,360 £481 +6.89% 7,083
London -19 984 £525 -4.55% 6,656
Work from Home -21 662 £505 +5.21% 4,506
South East +3 464 £525 +16.67% 2,004
North of England -7 345 £475 +5.56% 1,267
North West -9 217 £479 +4.70% 689
Midlands -30 189 £450 -4.26% 880
West Midlands -29 141 £450 -5.26% 534
East of England -12 136 £425 -15.00% 960
South West -19 131 £400 -20.00% 772
Yorkshire -9 112 £500 +18.34% 387
Scotland -51 71 £500 +11.11% 701
East Midlands -17 47 £478 +6.94% 346
North East -35 16 £460 +2.22% 198
Northern Ireland -10 14 £250 -57.45% 312
Wales -32 13 £530 +73.50% 260
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 3

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
1 162 (6.46%) SharePoint
2 115 (4.59%) Confluence
3 61 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.88%) Apache
6 21 (0.84%) IIS
7 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.64%) CMS
9 14 (0.56%) Camunda
9 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.32%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 247 (9.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 238 (9.49%) Microsoft Office
3 116 (4.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 112 (4.47%) Microsoft Project
5 56 (2.23%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Simulink
10 11 (0.44%) Windchill
11 9 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.36%) Revit
12 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.32%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) AutoCAD
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
15 4 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 33 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 565 (22.53%) Azure
2 309 (12.32%) AWS
3 225 (8.97%) Power Platform
4 223 (8.89%) Microsoft 365
5 154 (6.14%) GCP
6 140 (5.58%) Entra ID
7 129 (5.14%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.15%) SaaS
9 71 (2.83%) GitHub
10 63 (2.51%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.43%) Power Automate
11 61 (2.43%) Serverless
12 54 (2.15%) PowerApps
13 49 (1.95%) Microsoft Copilot
14 48 (1.91%) OneDrive
15 40 (1.59%) Snowflake
16 39 (1.56%) Figma
17 31 (1.24%) Amazon S3
18 30 (1.20%) IaaS
19 29 (1.16%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.15%) Firewall
2 82 (3.27%) DNS
3 65 (2.59%) Network Security
4 63 (2.51%) TCP/IP
5 57 (2.27%) VPN
6 45 (1.79%) DHCP
7 33 (1.32%) LAN
7 33 (1.32%) WAN
8 27 (1.08%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.84%) 5G
11 20 (0.80%) Internet
11 20 (0.80%) VLAN
12 19 (0.76%) SSH
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
13 18 (0.72%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.64%) BGP
16 15 (0.60%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (6.50%) Power BI
2 114 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.27%) Metadata
5 50 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.48%) MySQL
8 33 (1.32%) NoSQL
9 32 (1.28%) Tableau
10 30 (1.20%) Big Data
11 27 (1.08%) MongoDB
12 26 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
13 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
14 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
15 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
16 18 (0.72%) Data Lake
17 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
17 16 (0.64%) GIS
18 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 173 (6.90%) JIRA
2 146 (5.82%) Git
3 66 (2.63%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.27%) GitLab
5 25 (1.00%) JUnit
6 23 (0.92%) Maven
7 22 (0.88%) Selenium
7 22 (0.88%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.84%) Gradle
9 19 (0.76%) Cucumber
9 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
11 16 (0.64%) Mockito
11 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.48%) Postman
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,134 (45.22%) Social Skills
2 735 (29.31%) Finance
3 588 (23.44%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (8.53%) Public Sector
5 201 (8.01%) Banking
6 171 (6.82%) Organisational Skills
7 142 (5.66%) Manufacturing
8 124 (4.94%) Aerospace
9 119 (4.74%) Influencing Skills
10 104 (4.15%) Marketing
11 91 (3.63%) Telecoms
12 90 (3.59%) Presentation Skills
13 84 (3.35%) Legal
14 81 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
15 68 (2.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 63 (2.51%) Retail
17 57 (2.27%) Pharmaceutical
18 50 (1.99%) Law
19 48 (1.91%) Military
20 43 (1.71%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 331 (13.20%) Analyst
2 290 (11.56%) Senior
3 209 (8.33%) Developer
4 196 (7.81%) Lead
5 164 (6.54%) Architect
5 164 (6.54%) Business Analyst
6 113 (4.51%) Project Manager
7 80 (3.19%) Consultant
8 69 (2.75%) IT Support
8 69 (2.75%) Support Engineer
9 63 (2.51%) Senior Manager
10 55 (2.19%) IT Manager
10 55 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
11 54 (2.15%) Administrator
12 50 (1.99%) Security Engineer
13 48 (1.91%) IT Analyst
14 47 (1.87%) Designer
15 46 (1.83%) Delivery Manager
16 45 (1.79%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.67%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (4.70%) REST
2 116 (4.63%) Terraform
3 106 (4.23%) .NET
4 76 (3.03%) React
5 73 (2.91%) HTML
6 64 (2.55%) CSS
6 64 (2.55%) Kafka
7 60 (2.39%) RESTful
8 51 (2.03%) OAuth
9 49 (1.95%) XML
10 46 (1.83%) Oracle Fusion
11 44 (1.75%) Middleware
11 44 (1.75%) Web Services
12 40 (1.59%) OAuth2
12 40 (1.59%) SOAP
13 39 (1.56%) Spring Boot
14 38 (1.52%) SAML
15 36 (1.44%) JSON
15 36 (1.44%) OpenID
16 34 (1.36%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 234 (9.33%) Management Information System
2 137 (5.46%) Onboarding
3 122 (4.86%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.27%) Self-Motivation
5 104 (4.15%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.55%) Algorithms
7 62 (2.47%) Data Centre
8 60 (2.39%) Operational Technology
9 59 (2.35%) Data Structures
10 53 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
11 51 (2.03%) Security Posture
12 50 (1.99%) Life Science
13 45 (1.79%) AI Agents
13 45 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
14 42 (1.67%) Virtual Team
15 39 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
16 37 (1.48%) SCADA
17 36 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
18 30 (1.20%) PMI
19 29 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 298 (11.88%) Windows
2 183 (7.30%) Linux
3 85 (3.39%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.75%) Unix
5 46 (1.83%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) zOS
13 5 (0.20%) Solaris
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.16%) AIX
15 3 (0.12%) MVS
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
16 2 (0.080%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 805 (32.10%) Computer Science
2 690 (27.51%) Agile
3 675 (26.91%) Problem-Solving
4 558 (22.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 443 (17.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 402 (16.03%) AI
7 372 (14.83%) DevOps
8 337 (13.44%) CI/CD
9 315 (12.56%) Analytics
10 312 (12.44%) Project Management
11 281 (11.20%) ITIL
12 265 (10.57%) Decision-Making
13 259 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 250 (9.97%) Scrum
15 246 (9.81%) Roadmaps
16 240 (9.57%) Change Management
17 231 (9.21%) Software Engineering
18 227 (9.05%) Cybersecurity
19 223 (8.89%) Project Delivery
20 218 (8.69%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 405 (16.15%) Python
2 366 (14.59%) SQL
3 179 (7.14%) PowerShell
4 159 (6.34%) Java
5 132 (5.26%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.90%) C#
7 66 (2.63%) Bash
8 47 (1.87%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.52%) C++
10 31 (1.24%) Bicep
11 29 (1.16%) Shell Script
11 29 (1.16%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.88%) R
14 21 (0.84%) C
15 17 (0.68%) Scala
16 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 12 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 495 (19.74%) Security Cleared
2 493 (19.66%) Computer Science Degree
3 367 (14.63%) SC Cleared
4 211 (8.41%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 136 (5.42%) PMP
7 120 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 108 (4.31%) CISSP
9 94 (3.75%) DV Cleared
10 93 (3.71%) Azure Certification
11 86 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
12 80 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.39%) PhD
14 54 (2.15%) CISM
15 48 (1.91%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 46 (1.83%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.56%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.52%) DBS Check
19 35 (1.40%) CCNA
19 35 (1.40%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (5.90%) Data Quality
2 147 (5.86%) QA
3 94 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 90 (3.59%) NIST
5 85 (3.39%) GDPR
6 77 (3.07%) PMO
7 49 (1.95%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.59%) SLA
9 32 (1.28%) GRC
10 20 (0.80%) NCSC
10 20 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.64%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) ISO 31000
15 12 (0.48%) IEC 61508
15 12 (0.48%) P3O
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.40%) Basel III
System Software
1 189 (7.54%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.86%) Docker
3 60 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 27 (1.08%) Firmware
6 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) vSphere
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
10 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
11 6 (0.24%) RACF
12 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.20%) NFS
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
14 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 134 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 75 (2.99%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.35%) Ansible
4 33 (1.32%) SCCM
5 26 (1.04%) Grafana
6 24 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 11 (0.44%) Functional Safety
12 10 (0.40%) CASB
13 8 (0.32%) Control-M
14 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.24%) Argo
14 6 (0.24%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) WSUS
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 627 (25.00%) Microsoft
2 183 (7.30%) Oracle
3 136 (5.42%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.38%) SAP
5 110 (4.39%) Google
6 75 (2.99%) VMware
7 72 (2.87%) Cisco
8 71 (2.83%) Salesforce
9 65 (2.59%) Adobe
10 56 (2.23%) Databricks
11 46 (1.83%) IBM
12 45 (1.79%) Splunk
13 30 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 28 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 26 (1.04%) CyberArk
16 22 (0.88%) Apple
16 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.84%) Citrix
18 19 (0.76%) Ariba