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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,463 2,472 3,655
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.50% 7.80% 8.39%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.13% 26.10% 27.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,452 1,349 2,085
10th Percentile £275 £230 £209
25th Percentile £400 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £510
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -1.47% -6.85%
75th Percentile £640 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £471 £500
% change year-on-year +0.96% -5.90% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 150 305
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.11 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.25 £26.56 £22.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% -0.62% +0.63%
75th Percentile £55.00 £65.00 £60.25
90th Percentile £81.00 £85.00 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -10.67% -17.05% +8.29%

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 12,876 9,472 13,196
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.96% 29.89% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,514 5,723 8,241
10th Percentile £316 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.24% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £636 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year -0.05% -7.02% +2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 960 468 851
10th Percentile £15.99 £19.12 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £47.75
Median % change year-on-year -36.36% -17.24% +6.11%
75th Percentile £61.18 £66.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.87 £77.54 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.69 £48.40
% change year-on-year -41.09% -11.80% +7.56%

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 23 January 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 23 January 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 23 January 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 -3 2,143 £500 -4.76% 4,574
UK excluding London -4 1,229 £475 +0.96% 4,359
London -4 1,002 £525 -4.55% 803
Work from Home -1 707 £500 - 1,855
North of England -4 321 £447 -8.78% 765
South East +1 274 £475 -5.00% 1,408
Midlands -14 211 £500 +21.21% 604
North West -3 175 £394 -17.11% 334
South West +7 168 £650 +21.95% 569
West Midlands -19 150 £520 +15.56% 249
Yorkshire -10 136 £525 +5.00% 306
East of England -14 117 £550 +18.92% 683
Scotland -2 102 £488 +11.75% 172
East Midlands -10 61 £471 +32.30% 347
Wales -3 46 £260 -9.50% 210
Northern Ireland -13 18 £425 -10.53% 89
North East -15 11 £364 -27.20% 132

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
1 206 (8.36%) Confluence
2 119 (4.83%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (1.54%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.65%) nginx
7 15 (0.61%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.49%) IIS
9 11 (0.45%) CMS
10 10 (0.41%) Apache
11 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 6 (0.24%) SAS
13 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
14 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.16%) Luigi
14 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
15 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
15 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
15 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 295 (11.98%) Microsoft Office
2 246 (9.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 183 (7.43%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.25%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.69%) Simulink
8 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.49%) FrameMaker
10 10 (0.41%) Trello
11 9 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 9 (0.37%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.081%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.081%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.081%) Revit
Business Applications
1 58 (2.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.85%) Primavera
4 18 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.61%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.53%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
10 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
11 8 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
12 7 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 7 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
13 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 503 (20.42%) Azure
2 297 (12.06%) AWS
3 218 (8.85%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (7.63%) Power Platform
5 143 (5.81%) GCP
6 102 (4.14%) SaaS
7 98 (3.98%) GitHub
8 85 (3.45%) Entra ID
9 84 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (2.64%) Serverless
11 55 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
12 44 (1.79%) Power Automate
13 40 (1.62%) Cloud Computing
14 35 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (1.38%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.34%) OCI
17 32 (1.30%) IaaS
17 32 (1.30%) PowerApps
18 29 (1.18%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.18%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.59%) Firewall
2 71 (2.88%) DNS
3 52 (2.11%) LAN
4 50 (2.03%) WAN
5 47 (1.91%) Network Security
6 44 (1.79%) VPN
7 42 (1.71%) TCP/IP
8 37 (1.50%) HTTP
9 33 (1.34%) Skype
10 28 (1.14%) DHCP
10 28 (1.14%) Internet
11 26 (1.06%) Wireless
12 23 (0.93%) BGP
12 23 (0.93%) SSH
13 20 (0.81%) OSPF
13 20 (0.81%) Unified Communications
13 20 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
14 18 (0.73%) VLAN
15 17 (0.69%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (5.89%) Power BI
2 91 (3.69%) SQL Server
3 88 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.40%) NoSQL
5 57 (2.31%) Relational Database
6 56 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
7 51 (2.07%) Tableau
8 40 (1.62%) MySQL
9 32 (1.30%) Big Data
10 29 (1.18%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.02%) Metadata
12 19 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
12 19 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.73%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.57%) Oracle Database
14 14 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
14 14 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
16 12 (0.49%) GIS
17 11 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 290 (11.77%) JIRA
2 122 (4.95%) Git
3 85 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.48%) GitLab
5 29 (1.18%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.89%) Liquibase
6 22 (0.89%) Selenium
7 20 (0.81%) Postman
8 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.45%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.45%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.45%) JUnit
10 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.41%) Vagrant
11 9 (0.37%) CircleCI
12 8 (0.32%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.32%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.28%) Gradle
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) MLflow
General
1 1,274 (51.73%) Social Skills
2 794 (32.24%) Finance
3 590 (23.95%) Analytical Skills
4 268 (10.88%) Banking
5 202 (8.20%) Public Sector
6 110 (4.47%) Presentation Skills
7 109 (4.43%) Manufacturing
8 99 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
9 91 (3.69%) Marketing
10 82 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
11 79 (3.21%) Legal
12 68 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
13 66 (2.68%) Military
14 61 (2.48%) Financial Institution
15 60 (2.44%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.07%) Front Office
17 49 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
18 47 (1.91%) Investment Banking
19 40 (1.62%) Law
20 39 (1.58%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 362 (14.70%) Analyst
2 250 (10.15%) Senior
3 233 (9.46%) Developer
4 199 (8.08%) Lead
5 177 (7.19%) Architect
6 164 (6.66%) Project Manager
7 160 (6.50%) Business Analyst
8 99 (4.02%) Consultant
9 86 (3.49%) Software Engineer
10 65 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
11 64 (2.60%) IT Support
12 61 (2.48%) Technical Support
13 56 (2.27%) Security Engineer
13 56 (2.27%) Support Analyst
14 43 (1.75%) Senior Software Engineer
15 42 (1.71%) Designer
16 40 (1.62%) IT Analyst
17 39 (1.58%) Senior Developer
18 38 (1.54%) IT Manager
19 36 (1.46%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (4.91%) REST
2 85 (3.45%) RESTful
3 80 (3.25%) HTML
4 79 (3.21%) .NET
5 60 (2.44%) CSS
6 56 (2.27%) XML
7 50 (2.03%) React
8 48 (1.95%) Middleware
9 46 (1.87%) Elastic Stack
9 46 (1.87%) JSON
10 42 (1.71%) OAuth
10 42 (1.71%) SOAP
11 37 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.46%) Kafka
13 31 (1.26%) TensorFlow
14 30 (1.22%) AngularJS
14 30 (1.22%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.18%) Node.js
16 28 (1.14%) Spring
17 27 (1.10%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.44%) Management Information System
2 119 (4.83%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.43%) Cloud Native
4 80 (3.25%) Onboarding
5 78 (3.17%) Algorithms
6 66 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
8 62 (2.52%) Data Centre
9 57 (2.31%) PMI
9 57 (2.31%) Virtual Team
10 56 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
10 56 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
11 45 (1.83%) Derivative
12 43 (1.75%) Security Posture
13 42 (1.71%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.66%) Life Science
15 34 (1.38%) Mobile App
15 34 (1.38%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 300 (12.18%) Windows
2 216 (8.77%) Linux
3 93 (3.78%) Unix
4 70 (2.84%) Windows Server
5 53 (2.15%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Android
7 28 (1.14%) Mac OS
8 24 (0.97%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.73%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
10 15 (0.61%) VMS
10 15 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
11 13 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
14 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
15 3 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 2 (0.081%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 919 (37.31%) Computer Science
2 789 (32.03%) Agile
3 721 (29.27%) Problem-Solving
4 403 (16.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 371 (15.06%) DevOps
6 370 (15.02%) Project Management
7 293 (11.90%) Change Management
8 286 (11.61%) AI
9 283 (11.49%) CI/CD
10 282 (11.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 263 (10.68%) Cybersecurity
11 263 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 256 (10.39%) ITIL
13 253 (10.27%) Analytics
14 241 (9.78%) Migration
15 231 (9.38%) Software Engineering
16 229 (9.30%) Project Delivery
17 223 (9.05%) Decision-Making
18 220 (8.93%) Risk Management
19 199 (8.08%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 441 (17.90%) Python
2 376 (15.27%) SQL
3 173 (7.02%) Java
4 131 (5.32%) PowerShell
5 123 (4.99%) JavaScript
6 93 (3.78%) C#
7 85 (3.45%) C++
8 58 (2.35%) TypeScript
9 51 (2.07%) Go
10 50 (2.03%) Bash
11 30 (1.22%) R
12 26 (1.06%) Perl
13 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.85%) C
14 21 (0.85%) MATLAB
14 21 (0.85%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.73%) Kotlin
16 16 (0.65%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.65%) SystemVerilog
17 14 (0.57%) Rust
Qualifications
1 622 (25.25%) Computer Science Degree
2 418 (16.97%) Security Cleared
3 380 (15.43%) Master's Degree
4 322 (13.07%) SC Cleared
5 161 (6.54%) PMI Certification
6 137 (5.56%) PMP
7 123 (4.99%) CISSP
8 94 (3.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.21%) CISM
10 74 (3.00%) Azure Certification
11 72 (2.92%) PhD
12 70 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
13 65 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
14 58 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
15 55 (2.23%) DV Cleared
16 48 (1.95%) AWS Certification
17 42 (1.71%) HND
18 39 (1.58%) CCNP
19 38 (1.54%) MBA
20 36 (1.46%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (6.50%) QA
2 127 (5.16%) GDPR
3 100 (4.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 90 (3.65%) PMO
5 75 (3.05%) Data Quality
6 71 (2.88%) NIST
7 43 (1.75%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.71%) PCI DSS
9 36 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 34 (1.38%) SLA
11 29 (1.18%) GRC
12 19 (0.77%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.61%) WCAG
14 14 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.53%) Basel III
15 13 (0.53%) NCSC
15 13 (0.53%) P3O
16 12 (0.49%) Def Stans
17 11 (0.45%) IFRS
System Software
1 195 (7.92%) Docker
2 154 (6.25%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.85%) Firmware
5 18 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) DFS Replication
7 9 (0.37%) Dovecot
7 9 (0.37%) Postfix
7 9 (0.37%) Squid
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 6 (0.24%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 177 (7.19%) Kubernetes
2 125 (5.08%) Terraform
3 77 (3.13%) Ansible
4 61 (2.48%) Grafana
4 61 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (2.07%) Prometheus
6 49 (1.99%) SCCM
7 30 (1.22%) OPNET
8 26 (1.06%) Puppet
9 15 (0.61%) Kibana
10 14 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.53%) SCOM
12 12 (0.49%) Nmap
13 11 (0.45%) Nessus
14 10 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 9 (0.37%) Proxmox
15 9 (0.37%) QRadar
15 9 (0.37%) WSUS
16 8 (0.32%) Kiali
17 7 (0.28%) Argo
Vendors
1 519 (21.07%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.15%) Oracle
3 159 (6.46%) SAP
4 118 (4.79%) ServiceNow
5 109 (4.43%) Splunk
6 97 (3.94%) Google
7 74 (3.00%) Cisco
8 59 (2.40%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.19%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.07%) Remedy
11 48 (1.95%) VMware
12 45 (1.83%) Databricks
13 36 (1.46%) Citrix
14 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.10%) IBM
16 23 (0.93%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.89%) Adobe
18 20 (0.81%) BiZZdesign
18 20 (0.81%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.77%) Red Hat