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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,437 2,263 3,560
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.80% 7.55% 8.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.36% 24.34% 27.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,345 1,291 1,905
10th Percentile £210 £235 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +0.33% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 184 418
10th Percentile £17.09 £20.00 £15.15
25th Percentile £26.25 £27.12 £21.76
Median hourly rate £45.50 £47.81 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.82% +19.51% -17.75%
75th Percentile £82.31 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.60 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.25 £42.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +15.88% +5.39% -15.99%

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 15,865 9,299 12,970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.24% 31.03% 29.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,601 5,774 8,010
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £618 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £533
% change year-on-year +1.20% -6.19% +1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,166 618 1,129
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £19.17
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.26 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +70.88% -27.30% -26.82%
75th Percentile £72.54 £62.44 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £76.25 £75.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.84 £27.94 £42.50
% change year-on-year +74.80% -34.26% -20.80%

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 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 23 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 23 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 -10 2,179 £500 - 2,525
UK excluding London -10 1,329 £452 +0.33% 1,746
London -19 935 £505 -8.18% 1,112
Work from Home -15 661 £500 -4.76% 874
South East -1 409 £500 +4.99% 592
North of England -12 332 £447 -0.67% 386
Midlands -25 192 £505 +41.06% 246
North West -7 183 £443 -2.74% 218
East of England -4 143 £450 -10.00% 191
West Midlands -27 143 £492 +23.00% 133
Yorkshire -7 134 £500 +14.68% 122
South West -22 120 £443 -6.84% 207
Scotland -21 92 £475 +5.56% 71
East Midlands -19 47 £550 +55.81% 113
Wales -20 30 £490 +60.40% 36
Northern Ireland -9 15 £254 -40.24% 66
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 52

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 (5.46%) SharePoint
2 132 (5.42%) Confluence
3 68 (2.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.97%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.90%) Apache
7 12 (0.49%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
11 5 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 2 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.082%) Ethereum
14 2 (0.082%) Skype for Business
14 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 280 (11.49%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 142 (5.83%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 68 (2.79%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 12 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 10 (0.41%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.70%) Primavera
3 10 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.16%) HFM
9 4 (0.16%) Magento
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 543 (22.28%) Azure
2 319 (13.09%) AWS
3 209 (8.58%) Microsoft 365
4 203 (8.33%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.50%) Entra ID
6 119 (4.88%) GCP
7 94 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.49%) SaaS
9 62 (2.54%) GitHub
10 43 (1.76%) Figma
11 39 (1.60%) Snowflake
12 37 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
13 36 (1.48%) Serverless
14 35 (1.44%) Power Automate
15 34 (1.40%) PowerApps
16 33 (1.35%) OneDrive
17 32 (1.31%) PaaS
18 31 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
19 28 (1.15%) IaaS
20 27 (1.11%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.72%) Firewall
2 75 (3.08%) TCP/IP
3 74 (3.04%) DNS
4 64 (2.63%) Network Security
5 49 (2.01%) WAN
6 45 (1.85%) VPN
7 44 (1.81%) LAN
8 34 (1.40%) DHCP
9 27 (1.11%) BGP
10 26 (1.07%) Wireless
11 23 (0.94%) OSPF
12 21 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.82%) Ethernet
14 15 (0.62%) HTTP
14 15 (0.62%) SAN
14 15 (0.62%) SSL
15 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.53%) Internet
16 13 (0.53%) SSH
16 13 (0.53%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 174 (7.14%) Power BI
2 113 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.01%) Big Data
6 48 (1.97%) Relational Database
7 43 (1.76%) Metadata
8 41 (1.68%) Tableau
9 37 (1.52%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
11 27 (1.11%) MongoDB
11 27 (1.11%) MySQL
12 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
13 19 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
13 19 (0.78%) Oracle Database
13 19 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.49%) Power Query
17 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 223 (9.15%) JIRA
2 120 (4.92%) Git
3 49 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.90%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.82%) MLflow
8 17 (0.70%) Selenium
9 15 (0.62%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.49%) JUnit
12 11 (0.45%) Gradle
13 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
16 6 (0.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,110 (45.55%) Social Skills
2 740 (30.37%) Finance
3 507 (20.80%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.58%) Public Sector
5 199 (8.17%) Banking
6 142 (5.83%) Organisational Skills
7 125 (5.13%) Presentation Skills
8 103 (4.23%) Marketing
9 94 (3.86%) Legal
10 90 (3.69%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (3.36%) Manufacturing
13 73 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
14 72 (2.95%) Telecoms
15 55 (2.26%) Retail
16 52 (2.13%) Law
17 48 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.64%) Front Office
19 38 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
20 33 (1.35%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 358 (14.69%) Analyst
2 273 (11.20%) Senior
3 194 (7.96%) Architect
4 179 (7.35%) Lead
5 168 (6.89%) Developer
6 159 (6.52%) Business Analyst
6 159 (6.52%) Project Manager
7 72 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
8 71 (2.91%) Consultant
9 67 (2.75%) Designer
10 64 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
11 60 (2.46%) Senior Manager
12 57 (2.34%) Technical Support
13 54 (2.22%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.09%) Security Engineer
15 50 (2.05%) Product Manager
16 49 (2.01%) Administrator
17 48 (1.97%) IT Support
18 47 (1.93%) Data Scientist
18 47 (1.93%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.06%) REST
2 93 (3.82%) .NET
3 68 (2.79%) React
4 51 (2.09%) Kafka
5 45 (1.85%) HTML
5 45 (1.85%) Middleware
6 43 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
7 41 (1.68%) RESTful
8 40 (1.64%) .NET Framework
9 37 (1.52%) OAuth
10 34 (1.40%) CSS
11 31 (1.27%) Spring Boot
11 31 (1.27%) Web Services
12 30 (1.23%) Spring
12 30 (1.23%) XML
13 29 (1.19%) JSON
14 27 (1.11%) SOAP
15 26 (1.07%) AngularJS
15 26 (1.07%) Pandas
15 26 (1.07%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.41%) Management Information System
2 147 (6.03%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.83%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.39%) Self-Motivation
5 92 (3.78%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.95%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.59%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.54%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.46%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
11 48 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.93%) Operational Technology
12 47 (1.93%) Security Posture
13 44 (1.81%) PMI
14 39 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.48%) Robotics
16 35 (1.44%) Life Science
17 32 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
17 32 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
18 30 (1.23%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 314 (12.88%) Windows
2 180 (7.39%) Linux
3 76 (3.12%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.87%) Unix
5 57 (2.34%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.23%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.19%) Android
8 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (33.24%) Computer Science
2 674 (27.66%) Agile
3 643 (26.38%) Problem-Solving
4 389 (15.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 375 (15.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 371 (15.22%) AI
7 330 (13.54%) DevOps
8 297 (12.19%) Project Management
9 289 (11.86%) CI/CD
10 288 (11.82%) Analytics
11 258 (10.59%) Decision-Making
12 252 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (9.73%) Cybersecurity
14 230 (9.44%) ITIL
15 229 (9.40%) Change Management
16 225 (9.23%) Migration
17 215 (8.82%) Roadmaps
18 198 (8.12%) Software Engineering
19 190 (7.80%) Business Intelligence
20 188 (7.71%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 410 (16.82%) Python
2 365 (14.98%) SQL
3 171 (7.02%) Java
4 131 (5.38%) PowerShell
5 102 (4.19%) C#
6 92 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.97%) C++
8 42 (1.72%) Bash
9 32 (1.31%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.11%) R
11 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.98%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.66%) C
15 14 (0.57%) Perl
16 13 (0.53%) Go
16 13 (0.53%) Rust
17 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.45%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 490 (20.11%) Computer Science Degree
2 426 (17.48%) Security Cleared
3 289 (11.86%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.59%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.25%) CISSP
7 122 (5.01%) PMP
8 92 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
10 71 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (2.71%) CISM
12 59 (2.42%) DV Cleared
13 58 (2.38%) Azure Certification
14 48 (1.97%) PhD
15 40 (1.64%) CCNP
16 39 (1.60%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.60%) CCNA
17 36 (1.48%) CBAP
17 36 (1.48%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.44%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.50%) QA
2 121 (4.97%) Data Quality
3 118 (4.84%) NIST
4 115 (4.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 105 (4.31%) PMO
6 98 (4.02%) GDPR
7 50 (2.05%) SLA
8 48 (1.97%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.60%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.15%) GRC
12 19 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.78%) NCSC
13 16 (0.66%) IFRS
14 15 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.49%) COBIT
16 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
18 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 184 (7.55%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.62%) Docker
3 43 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.27%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 5 (0.21%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.16%) XenApp
11 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) NFS
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 147 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.41%) Terraform
3 79 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.59%) Ansible
5 38 (1.56%) Grafana
6 36 (1.48%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.48%) SCCM
7 23 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.62%) Puppet
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 7 (0.29%) Functional Safety
14 7 (0.29%) Kibana
15 5 (0.21%) Kiali
15 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 567 (23.27%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.98%) Oracle
3 137 (5.62%) SAP
4 114 (4.68%) ServiceNow
5 97 (3.98%) Google
6 66 (2.71%) Cisco
7 61 (2.50%) Databricks
8 50 (2.05%) VMware
9 46 (1.89%) Adobe
9 46 (1.89%) Citrix
10 44 (1.81%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.76%) IBM
11 43 (1.76%) Splunk
12 33 (1.35%) Palo Alto
13 27 (1.11%) CheckPoint
13 27 (1.11%) CyberArk
14 24 (0.98%) Red Hat
15 22 (0.90%) Informatica
16 20 (0.82%) Ariba
16 20 (0.82%) Siemens