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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,497 2,405 3,001
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.28% 7.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.50% 23.25% 26.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,291 1,333 1,700
10th Percentile £204 £260 £252
25th Percentile £350 £381 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £619
90th Percentile £723 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 200 223
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.39 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.13 £25.60 £27.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £40.73 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -4.93% -28.98% +24.19%
75th Percentile £69.50 £60.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £86.08 £82.77 £78.34
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 17,217 10,344 11,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.53% 31.33% 29.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,496 6,423 7,004
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 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,318 826 676
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.97 £16.93
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -8.73%
75th Percentile £72.44 £47.97 £67.77
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.35 £75.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +2.14%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 2,270 £505 +1.00% 6,931
UK excluding London -16 1,344 £475 +5.56% 3,972
London -20 983 £525 -4.55% 3,655
Work from Home -20 656 £500 +4.17% 5,619
South East +4 467 £525 +13.51% 1,244
North of England -15 334 £475 +9.83% 710
North West -9 207 £475 +5.56% 367
Midlands -33 179 £450 - 530
East of England -12 137 £300 -36.84% 540
West Midlands -36 131 £450 -5.26% 288
South West -24 127 £404 -12.70% 527
Yorkshire -10 111 £500 +20.12% 227
Scotland -43 73 £488 +8.33% 297
East Midlands -21 47 £475 +6.26% 242
North East -43 16 £455 +41.09% 129
Northern Ireland -13 15 £250 -56.04% 124
Wales -29 14 £530 +73.50% 108
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
1 165 (6.61%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.25%) Confluence
3 64 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.12%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.76%) Apache
7 17 (0.68%) IIS
8 13 (0.52%) Camunda
8 13 (0.52%) CMS
8 13 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 251 (10.05%) Microsoft Office
2 249 (9.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 129 (5.17%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (4.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.20%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
10 9 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Windchill
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 42 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 572 (22.91%) Azure
2 319 (12.78%) AWS
3 233 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
3 233 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 145 (5.81%) GCP
5 138 (5.53%) Entra ID
6 119 (4.77%) Azure DevOps
7 83 (3.32%) SaaS
8 73 (2.92%) GitHub
9 62 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
10 58 (2.32%) Power Automate
10 58 (2.32%) Serverless
11 56 (2.24%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.88%) Microsoft Copilot
12 47 (1.88%) OneDrive
13 41 (1.64%) Snowflake
14 38 (1.52%) Figma
15 29 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
16 28 (1.12%) IaaS
17 27 (1.08%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.45%) Firewall
2 87 (3.48%) DNS
3 66 (2.64%) Network Security
3 66 (2.64%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.48%) VPN
5 48 (1.92%) DHCP
6 35 (1.40%) LAN
6 35 (1.40%) WAN
7 29 (1.16%) Wireless
8 24 (0.96%) 3GPP
9 21 (0.84%) 5G
9 21 (0.84%) Internet
10 20 (0.80%) SSL
11 19 (0.76%) BGP
11 19 (0.76%) VLAN
12 18 (0.72%) HTTP
12 18 (0.72%) Radio Access Network
12 18 (0.72%) SSH
13 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.68%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 174 (6.97%) Power BI
2 115 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
3 55 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 54 (2.16%) Metadata
5 43 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.44%) Tableau
7 33 (1.32%) MySQL
8 30 (1.20%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.08%) Big Data
10 25 (1.00%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
12 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
13 18 (0.72%) Data Mining
14 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 16 (0.64%) Data Lake
16 15 (0.60%) GIS
17 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 181 (7.25%) JIRA
2 137 (5.49%) Git
3 64 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.16%) GitLab
5 23 (0.92%) JUnit
6 22 (0.88%) Selenium
7 20 (0.80%) SonarQube
8 19 (0.76%) Maven
9 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
10 17 (0.68%) Gradle
10 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.60%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.52%) Mockito
12 13 (0.52%) Rational DOORS
13 11 (0.44%) MLflow
13 11 (0.44%) Postman
13 11 (0.44%) Subversion
14 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,122 (44.93%) Social Skills
2 730 (29.24%) Finance
3 579 (23.19%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.17%) Public Sector
5 198 (7.93%) Banking
6 165 (6.61%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (4.81%) Manufacturing
8 113 (4.53%) Aerospace
9 99 (3.96%) Influencing Skills
9 99 (3.96%) Marketing
10 95 (3.80%) Telecoms
11 91 (3.64%) Legal
11 91 (3.64%) Presentation Skills
12 80 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 62 (2.48%) Retail
14 54 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
15 51 (2.04%) Law
16 45 (1.80%) Military
17 42 (1.68%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 344 (13.78%) Analyst
2 292 (11.69%) Senior
3 200 (8.01%) Developer
3 200 (8.01%) Lead
4 164 (6.57%) Architect
5 161 (6.45%) Business Analyst
6 122 (4.89%) Project Manager
7 76 (3.04%) Support Engineer
8 75 (3.00%) Consultant
9 73 (2.92%) IT Support
10 68 (2.72%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
12 55 (2.20%) IT Analyst
13 51 (2.04%) Administrator
14 50 (2.00%) Designer
14 50 (2.00%) IT Manager
15 46 (1.84%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.80%) Technical Support
17 44 (1.76%) Security Engineer
18 43 (1.72%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.41%) REST
2 109 (4.37%) Terraform
3 105 (4.21%) .NET
4 70 (2.80%) React
5 67 (2.68%) HTML
6 64 (2.56%) Kafka
7 55 (2.20%) CSS
8 54 (2.16%) RESTful
9 46 (1.84%) OAuth
10 43 (1.72%) Oracle Fusion
10 43 (1.72%) XML
11 38 (1.52%) Spring Boot
11 38 (1.52%) Web Services
12 37 (1.48%) Middleware
13 36 (1.44%) OAuth2
14 33 (1.32%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.32%) JSON
14 33 (1.32%) SAML
14 33 (1.32%) Spring
15 31 (1.24%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 226 (9.05%) Management Information System
2 141 (5.65%) Onboarding
3 117 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 109 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.64%) Algorithms
7 65 (2.60%) Data Structures
8 59 (2.36%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.12%) Operational Technology
10 49 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
10 49 (1.96%) Life Science
11 47 (1.88%) Security Posture
11 47 (1.88%) Virtual Team
12 44 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.64%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
15 34 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
16 33 (1.32%) SCADA
17 30 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 302 (12.09%) Windows
2 184 (7.37%) Linux
3 82 (3.28%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.40%) Unix
5 47 (1.88%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.00%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 826 (33.08%) Computer Science
2 664 (26.59%) Agile
3 663 (26.55%) Problem-Solving
4 500 (20.02%) Stakeholder Management
5 442 (17.70%) Continuous Improvement
6 388 (15.54%) AI
7 351 (14.06%) DevOps
8 317 (12.70%) Project Management
9 316 (12.66%) CI/CD
10 306 (12.25%) Analytics
11 283 (11.33%) ITIL
12 255 (10.21%) Decision-Making
12 255 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 232 (9.29%) Change Management
13 232 (9.29%) Scrum
14 226 (9.05%) Cybersecurity
15 225 (9.01%) Roadmaps
16 222 (8.89%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.37%) PRINCE2
18 203 (8.13%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 421 (16.86%) Python
2 366 (14.66%) SQL
3 180 (7.21%) PowerShell
4 168 (6.73%) Java
5 126 (5.05%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.93%) C#
7 61 (2.44%) Bash
8 47 (1.88%) TypeScript
9 46 (1.84%) C++
10 30 (1.20%) Bicep
11 29 (1.16%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.04%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 25 (1.00%) R
14 24 (0.96%) C
15 15 (0.60%) Scala
16 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
17 12 (0.48%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 502 (20.10%) Computer Science Degree
2 465 (18.62%) Security Cleared
3 335 (13.42%) SC Cleared
4 212 (8.49%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.53%) PMI Certification
6 127 (5.09%) Microsoft Certification
7 124 (4.97%) PMP
8 105 (4.21%) CISSP
9 90 (3.60%) Azure Certification
10 83 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
11 82 (3.28%) DV Cleared
12 73 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.28%) PhD
14 51 (2.04%) CISM
15 45 (1.80%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 43 (1.72%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.56%) CCNA
17 39 (1.56%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.52%) CCNP
19 34 (1.36%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (5.85%) QA
2 140 (5.61%) Data Quality
3 95 (3.80%) NIST
4 94 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.52%) PMO
6 71 (2.84%) GDPR
7 47 (1.88%) Accessibility
8 45 (1.80%) SLA
9 26 (1.04%) GRC
10 25 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.76%) NCSC
12 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
13 14 (0.56%) P3O
14 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.44%) COBIT
15 9 (0.36%) IEC 61508
15 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
15 9 (0.36%) NIST 800
System Software
1 196 (7.85%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.89%) Docker
3 56 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) Firmware
5 27 (1.08%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
10 5 (0.20%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) RACF
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.09%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.12%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.48%) Ansible
4 35 (1.40%) SCCM
5 27 (1.08%) Grafana
6 25 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.56%) Puppet
9 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.52%) SCOM
10 8 (0.32%) Functional Safety
10 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
10 8 (0.32%) WSUS
11 7 (0.28%) CASB
12 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) Control-M
12 6 (0.24%) Nessus
12 6 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 646 (25.87%) Microsoft
2 181 (7.25%) Oracle
3 139 (5.57%) ServiceNow
4 136 (5.45%) SAP
5 96 (3.84%) Google
6 73 (2.92%) VMware
7 71 (2.84%) Cisco
8 67 (2.68%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.52%) Adobe
10 57 (2.28%) Databricks
11 44 (1.76%) IBM
11 44 (1.76%) Splunk
12 33 (1.32%) Red Hat
13 29 (1.16%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.04%) Citrix
15 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.84%) OpenAI
15 21 (0.84%) Palo Alto
16 20 (0.80%) Apple
17 19 (0.76%) Ariba