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 6 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 27 21 23
Rank change year-on-year -6 +2 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,425 2,812 3,531
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.00% 7.70% 7.61%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.35% 26.30% 26.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,348 1,593 2,205
10th Percentile £268 £225 £242
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £750 £755 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £499
% change year-on-year - -4.81% +2.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 146 214
10th Percentile £15.25 £20.06 £17.58
25th Percentile £23.17 £22.81 £26.91
Median hourly rate £33.50 £41.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.79% -17.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £50.00 £63.45 £70.00
90th Percentile £86.25 £75.00 £82.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £41.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -19.28% -17.00% +11.11%

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 11,360 10,694 13,322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.81% 29.28% 28.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,236 6,499 8,519
10th Percentile £300 £310 £302
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £635 £650
90th Percentile £714 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £516 £534
% change year-on-year -3.10% -3.37% +1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 982 485 749
10th Percentile £17.32 £18.66 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.06 £24.18 £26.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +16.67%
75th Percentile £43.63 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.14 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.84 £51.89
% change year-on-year -47.43% -7.80% +15.31%

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 6 November 2025.

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 6 November 2025.

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 6 November 2025. 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 2,072 £517 +2.81% 7,459
UK excluding London 0 1,186 £475 - 5,613
London -4 1,024 £550 +4.76% 3,427
Work from Home 0 709 £500 - 3,691
North of England -11 280 £458 -12.86% 811
South East 0 252 £475 +3.54% 2,777
Midlands -7 220 £475 -4.33% 554
West Midlands -9 169 £500 -2.44% 306
North West -7 166 £458 -13.92% 437
South West 0 137 £550 +0.46% 439
East of England -6 126 £503 +18.24% 546
Scotland -3 117 £450 +5.88% 299
Yorkshire -12 109 £475 -9.09% 225
East Midlands -9 51 £448 +12.00% 238
Wales -5 42 £266 -33.42% 126
Northern Ireland -2 36 £315 -33.68% 120
North East -21 6 £298 -33.68% 156

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
1 150 (6.19%) Confluence
2 122 (5.03%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.06%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.70%) nginx
7 16 (0.66%) CMS
7 16 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.54%) Apache
9 12 (0.49%) IIS
10 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.29%) Moodle
11 5 (0.21%) Luigi
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) Alfresco
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
Applications
1 270 (11.13%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (9.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.73%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (4.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (2.85%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.91%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.62%) Simulink
8 12 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
8 12 (0.49%) Trello
9 11 (0.45%) FrameMaker
10 10 (0.41%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.25%) Maya
11 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.25%) Revit
12 5 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.21%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.21%) Sketch
13 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 61 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.74%) Primavera
4 13 (0.54%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.45%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
7 10 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle BPM
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.33%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.33%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.29%) Dynamics GP
10 7 (0.29%) Endur
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 466 (19.22%) Azure
2 314 (12.95%) AWS
3 182 (7.51%) Microsoft 365
4 160 (6.60%) Power Platform
5 157 (6.47%) GCP
6 102 (4.21%) GitHub
7 91 (3.75%) SaaS
8 80 (3.30%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.89%) Serverless
10 69 (2.85%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (1.61%) Cloud Computing
11 39 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.53%) Amazon S3
13 36 (1.48%) Azure Sentinel
14 31 (1.28%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.11%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (1.11%) OneDrive
16 27 (1.11%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.11%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.41%) Firewall
2 88 (3.63%) DNS
3 60 (2.47%) VPN
4 51 (2.10%) Network Security
5 41 (1.69%) DHCP
6 39 (1.61%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.48%) WAN
8 35 (1.44%) LAN
9 34 (1.40%) HTTP
10 32 (1.32%) Wireless
11 31 (1.28%) Internet
12 28 (1.15%) Unified Communications
12 28 (1.15%) VoIP
13 25 (1.03%) BGP
13 25 (1.03%) SSH
13 25 (1.03%) Wi-Fi
14 24 (0.99%) Skype
15 20 (0.82%) MPLS
15 20 (0.82%) VLAN
16 19 (0.78%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.11%) Power BI
2 96 (3.96%) PostgreSQL
3 79 (3.26%) SQL Server
4 75 (3.09%) NoSQL
5 59 (2.43%) Tableau
6 57 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
6 57 (2.35%) Relational Database
7 33 (1.36%) Big Data
8 28 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 27 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
9 27 (1.11%) MySQL
10 22 (0.91%) Metadata
11 19 (0.78%) Hadoop
11 19 (0.78%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.66%) Oracle Database
13 16 (0.66%) Redis
14 15 (0.62%) RDBMS
15 12 (0.49%) GIS
15 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 250 (10.31%) JIRA
2 115 (4.74%) Git
3 109 (4.49%) Jenkins
4 74 (3.05%) GitLab
5 29 (1.20%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.07%) Postman
7 20 (0.82%) Selenium
8 13 (0.54%) Bitbucket
8 13 (0.54%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) SpecFlow
9 12 (0.49%) Visual Studio
10 11 (0.45%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.41%) Artifactory
11 10 (0.41%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.41%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.37%) MLflow
13 8 (0.33%) IntelliJ
13 8 (0.33%) Subversion
14 7 (0.29%) JMeter
14 7 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,257 (51.84%) Social Skills
2 770 (31.75%) Finance
3 579 (23.88%) Analytical Skills
4 268 (11.05%) Banking
5 155 (6.39%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.91%) Manufacturing
7 106 (4.37%) Presentation Skills
8 96 (3.96%) Marketing
9 93 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
10 86 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
11 82 (3.38%) Legal
12 75 (3.09%) Telecoms
13 64 (2.64%) Investment Banking
14 62 (2.56%) Financial Institution
14 62 (2.56%) Front Office
15 61 (2.52%) Pharmaceutical
16 51 (2.10%) Aerospace
17 49 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
18 47 (1.94%) Military
19 42 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 386 (15.92%) Analyst
2 250 (10.31%) Senior
3 244 (10.06%) Developer
4 172 (7.09%) Lead
5 154 (6.35%) Business Analyst
6 145 (5.98%) Architect
7 141 (5.81%) Project Manager
8 98 (4.04%) Consultant
9 80 (3.30%) Software Engineer
10 65 (2.68%) Support Analyst
11 62 (2.56%) IT Support
12 50 (2.06%) Security Engineer
13 49 (2.02%) Support Engineer
14 48 (1.98%) Senior Developer
14 48 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
15 45 (1.86%) Data Analyst
15 45 (1.86%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.81%) Technical Support
17 43 (1.77%) Data Engineer
17 43 (1.77%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (5.44%) REST
2 88 (3.63%) RESTful
3 77 (3.18%) HTML
4 68 (2.80%) .NET
5 61 (2.52%) CSS
6 58 (2.39%) Kafka
7 48 (1.98%) XML
8 45 (1.86%) JSON
9 42 (1.73%) React
9 42 (1.73%) Web Services
10 41 (1.69%) Elastic Stack
10 41 (1.69%) Middleware
11 40 (1.65%) SOAP
12 37 (1.53%) AngularJS
12 37 (1.53%) TensorFlow
13 34 (1.40%) Node.js
13 34 (1.40%) OAuth
14 32 (1.32%) Spring
15 31 (1.28%) PyTorch
16 30 (1.24%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.49%) Management Information System
2 94 (3.88%) Cloud Native
3 93 (3.84%) Product Ownership
4 91 (3.75%) Algorithms
5 69 (2.85%) Data Protection Act
5 69 (2.85%) Onboarding
6 65 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.60%) Virtual Team
8 55 (2.27%) Data Centre
9 52 (2.14%) Analytical Mindset
10 48 (1.98%) Public Cloud
11 47 (1.94%) Derivative
12 42 (1.73%) Life Science
12 42 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
13 40 (1.65%) Mobile App
14 36 (1.48%) Data Structures
14 36 (1.48%) Security Posture
15 35 (1.44%) PKI
16 33 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 255 (10.52%) Windows
2 195 (8.04%) Linux
3 79 (3.26%) Unix
4 51 (2.10%) Windows Server
5 33 (1.36%) Windows 10
6 27 (1.11%) Apple iOS
7 26 (1.07%) Android
8 25 (1.03%) Mac OS
9 18 (0.74%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.70%) VMS
11 10 (0.41%) Amazon Linux
11 10 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.21%) CentOS
14 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
15 2 (0.082%) Kali Linux
15 2 (0.082%) Mac OS X
16 1 (0.041%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 978 (40.33%) Computer Science
2 758 (31.26%) Problem-Solving
3 717 (29.57%) Agile
4 391 (16.12%) Project Management
5 342 (14.10%) Stakeholder Management
6 333 (13.73%) DevOps
7 281 (11.59%) Change Management
8 274 (11.30%) ITIL
9 251 (10.35%) Analytics
10 248 (10.23%) CI/CD
11 243 (10.02%) Cybersecurity
12 232 (9.57%) Continuous Improvement
13 230 (9.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 224 (9.24%) Migration
15 223 (9.20%) AI
16 222 (9.15%) Software Engineering
17 196 (8.08%) Project Delivery
18 195 (8.04%) Decision-Making
19 188 (7.75%) Risk Management
20 177 (7.30%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 473 (19.51%) Python
2 362 (14.93%) SQL
3 201 (8.29%) Java
4 123 (5.07%) JavaScript
5 111 (4.58%) PowerShell
6 82 (3.38%) C++
7 72 (2.97%) C#
8 63 (2.60%) Go
9 48 (1.98%) TypeScript
10 41 (1.69%) Bash
11 36 (1.48%) R
12 22 (0.91%) Perl
13 21 (0.87%) Kusto Query Language
13 21 (0.87%) Ruby
14 20 (0.82%) C
14 20 (0.82%) MATLAB
15 19 (0.78%) PL/SQL
15 19 (0.78%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.62%) Apex Code
16 15 (0.62%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 629 (25.94%) Computer Science Degree
2 357 (14.72%) Master's Degree
3 320 (13.20%) Security Cleared
4 248 (10.23%) SC Cleared
5 131 (5.40%) PMI Certification
6 120 (4.95%) PMP
7 118 (4.87%) CISSP
8 87 (3.59%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.46%) PhD
10 75 (3.09%) Cisco Certification
11 71 (2.93%) Azure Certification
12 68 (2.80%) AWS Certification
13 66 (2.72%) CISM
14 50 (2.06%) HND
15 49 (2.02%) DV Cleared
16 47 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
17 46 (1.90%) CCNP
18 42 (1.73%) HNC
19 40 (1.65%) CCNA
20 32 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.36%) QA
2 121 (4.99%) GDPR
3 104 (4.29%) Data Quality
4 97 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.59%) NIST
6 56 (2.31%) PMO
7 47 (1.94%) Accessibility
8 34 (1.40%) SLA
9 30 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 29 (1.20%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.07%) GRC
12 24 (0.99%) HIPAA
13 20 (0.82%) NCSC
14 19 (0.78%) COBIT
15 16 (0.66%) NIST 800
15 16 (0.66%) WCAG
16 14 (0.58%) Def Stans
17 13 (0.54%) P3O
18 12 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
18 12 (0.49%) JSP 440
System Software
1 162 (6.68%) Docker
2 153 (6.31%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Firmware
5 13 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.41%) DFS Replication
6 10 (0.41%) Dovecot
6 10 (0.41%) Postfix
6 10 (0.41%) Squid
7 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.33%) XenApp
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.25%) vSphere
11 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.082%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 144 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 116 (4.78%) Terraform
3 85 (3.51%) Ansible
4 60 (2.47%) Grafana
5 55 (2.27%) Prometheus
6 52 (2.14%) Microsoft Intune
7 42 (1.73%) SCCM
8 13 (0.54%) Nessus
8 13 (0.54%) Puppet
8 13 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (0.49%) QRadar
10 10 (0.41%) Proxmox
11 9 (0.37%) SCOM
12 8 (0.33%) WSUS
13 7 (0.29%) AirWatch
13 7 (0.29%) Argo
13 7 (0.29%) CSIRT
14 6 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.25%) Kibana
14 6 (0.25%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 514 (21.20%) Microsoft
2 149 (6.14%) SAP
3 133 (5.48%) Oracle
4 112 (4.62%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.92%) Google
6 91 (3.75%) Cisco
7 89 (3.67%) Splunk
8 68 (2.80%) Salesforce
9 55 (2.27%) VMware
10 37 (1.53%) IBM
11 34 (1.40%) Databricks
12 32 (1.32%) Citrix
13 29 (1.20%) Adobe
14 27 (1.11%) Atlassian
15 25 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 24 (0.99%) Workday
17 20 (0.82%) Apple
18 19 (0.78%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.74%) Remedy
20 16 (0.66%) Fortinet