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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -14 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,429 2,261 3,603
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.80% 7.57% 8.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.33% 24.47% 27.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,335 1,292 1,928
10th Percentile £210 £235 £225
25th Percentile £364 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £623
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 181 420
10th Percentile £17.23 £20.00 £15.33
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.32 £21.83
Median hourly rate £47.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +25.00% -17.75%
75th Percentile £82.34 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.96 £72.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £44.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +13.64% +9.11% -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 15,844 9,241 13,090
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.28% 30.95% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,572 5,751 8,089
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £411 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,165 599 1,132
10th Percentile £17.24 £17.86 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £19.23
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.47% -27.24%
75th Percentile £72.54 £63.13 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £42.25
% change year-on-year +78.57% -33.73% -19.52%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -11 2,173 £500 - 2,244
UK excluding London -9 1,329 £465 +3.33% 1,792
London -18 929 £506 -8.05% 782
Work from Home -17 657 £500 -4.76% 851
South East -2 410 £500 +4.99% 602
North of England -12 334 £447 -0.67% 418
Midlands -26 193 £513 +43.16% 251
North West -9 185 £443 -2.74% 249
West Midlands -27 143 £492 +23.00% 135
East of England -6 141 £450 -10.00% 199
Yorkshire -11 134 £500 +14.68% 126
South West -24 119 £450 -5.26% 220
Scotland -20 91 £500 +11.11% 72
East Midlands -17 48 £538 +52.27% 116
Wales -20 30 £490 +60.40% 31
Northern Ireland -8 15 £254 -40.24% 50
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 53

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
1 132 (5.43%) SharePoint
2 131 (5.39%) Confluence
3 66 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.93%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.91%) 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%) nginx
14 2 (0.082%) Skype for Business
14 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 279 (11.49%) Microsoft Office
2 229 (9.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 142 (5.85%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.68%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.70%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.58%) 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 63 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.70%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
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%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 539 (22.19%) Azure
2 317 (13.05%) AWS
3 207 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 199 (8.19%) Power Platform
5 133 (5.48%) Entra ID
6 118 (4.86%) GCP
7 94 (3.87%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.46%) SaaS
9 61 (2.51%) GitHub
10 43 (1.77%) Figma
11 38 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
11 38 (1.56%) Snowflake
12 36 (1.48%) Serverless
13 35 (1.44%) Power Automate
14 34 (1.40%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.32%) OneDrive
15 32 (1.32%) PaaS
16 30 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.15%) Google Workspace
17 28 (1.15%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.69%) Firewall
2 78 (3.21%) TCP/IP
3 76 (3.13%) DNS
4 64 (2.63%) Network Security
5 50 (2.06%) WAN
6 44 (1.81%) LAN
6 44 (1.81%) VPN
7 33 (1.36%) DHCP
8 26 (1.07%) BGP
9 25 (1.03%) Wireless
10 23 (0.95%) OSPF
11 21 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.82%) Ethernet
13 15 (0.62%) HTTP
13 15 (0.62%) SAN
13 15 (0.62%) SSL
14 14 (0.58%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.58%) Skype
15 13 (0.54%) Internet
15 13 (0.54%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (7.00%) Power BI
2 112 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (1.98%) Big Data
5 48 (1.98%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.77%) Metadata
7 41 (1.69%) Tableau
8 36 (1.48%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
10 27 (1.11%) MongoDB
11 26 (1.07%) 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 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.49%) Power Query
17 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 223 (9.18%) JIRA
2 117 (4.82%) Git
3 48 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.77%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.82%) MLflow
8 16 (0.66%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
12 11 (0.45%) Gradle
12 11 (0.45%) JUnit
13 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
16 6 (0.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,107 (45.57%) Social Skills
2 742 (30.55%) Finance
3 502 (20.67%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.48%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.11%) Banking
6 141 (5.80%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
8 102 (4.20%) Marketing
9 92 (3.79%) Legal
10 90 (3.71%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (3.38%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
14 70 (2.88%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.31%) Retail
16 51 (2.10%) Law
17 47 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.65%) Front Office
19 38 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
20 33 (1.36%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 356 (14.66%) Analyst
2 271 (11.16%) Senior
3 195 (8.03%) Architect
4 181 (7.45%) Lead
5 168 (6.92%) Developer
6 162 (6.67%) Project Manager
7 156 (6.42%) Business Analyst
8 73 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
9 71 (2.92%) Consultant
10 67 (2.76%) Designer
11 64 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
12 59 (2.43%) Senior Manager
13 56 (2.31%) Technical Support
14 55 (2.26%) Software Engineer
15 51 (2.10%) Security Engineer
16 50 (2.06%) Product Manager
17 48 (1.98%) Administrator
18 47 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
18 47 (1.93%) IT Manager
18 47 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.08%) REST
2 92 (3.79%) .NET
3 66 (2.72%) React
4 50 (2.06%) Kafka
5 45 (1.85%) Middleware
6 43 (1.77%) HTML
6 43 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
7 40 (1.65%) .NET Framework
8 39 (1.61%) RESTful
9 37 (1.52%) OAuth
10 32 (1.32%) CSS
11 31 (1.28%) Web Services
12 30 (1.24%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.24%) XML
13 29 (1.19%) JSON
13 29 (1.19%) Spring
14 27 (1.11%) SOAP
15 26 (1.07%) AngularJS
15 26 (1.07%) Pandas
15 26 (1.07%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 201 (8.28%) Management Information System
2 144 (5.93%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.85%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.41%) Self-Motivation
5 92 (3.79%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.96%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.59%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.55%) Algorithms
9 59 (2.43%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
11 49 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.93%) Security Posture
13 46 (1.89%) Operational Technology
14 44 (1.81%) PMI
15 39 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
16 36 (1.48%) Robotics
17 35 (1.44%) Life Science
18 32 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
18 32 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
19 30 (1.24%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 317 (13.05%) Windows
2 183 (7.53%) Linux
3 76 (3.13%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.92%) Unix
5 58 (2.39%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.19%) Android
9 28 (1.15%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Solaris
15 4 (0.16%) VMS
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 808 (33.26%) Computer Science
2 668 (27.50%) Agile
3 637 (26.22%) Problem-Solving
4 384 (15.81%) Stakeholder Management
5 372 (15.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 371 (15.27%) AI
7 327 (13.46%) DevOps
8 296 (12.19%) Project Management
9 287 (11.82%) CI/CD
10 284 (11.69%) Analytics
11 255 (10.50%) Decision-Making
12 251 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (9.80%) Cybersecurity
14 230 (9.47%) Change Management
15 225 (9.26%) Migration
16 224 (9.22%) ITIL
17 215 (8.85%) Roadmaps
18 200 (8.23%) Software Engineering
19 188 (7.74%) Risk Management
20 186 (7.66%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 407 (16.76%) Python
2 363 (14.94%) SQL
3 169 (6.96%) Java
4 128 (5.27%) PowerShell
5 100 (4.12%) C#
6 88 (3.62%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.06%) C++
8 40 (1.65%) Bash
9 32 (1.32%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.11%) R
11 25 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.99%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.70%) C
15 14 (0.58%) Perl
16 13 (0.54%) Go
16 13 (0.54%) Rust
17 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
18 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.45%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 490 (20.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 427 (17.58%) Security Cleared
3 291 (11.98%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.62%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.89%) PMI Certification
6 128 (5.27%) CISSP
7 123 (5.06%) PMP
8 89 (3.66%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.29%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
11 67 (2.76%) CISM
12 61 (2.51%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.31%) Azure Certification
14 47 (1.93%) PhD
15 40 (1.65%) CCNP
16 39 (1.61%) AWS Certification
17 38 (1.56%) CCNA
18 36 (1.48%) TOGAF Certification
19 35 (1.44%) CBAP
19 35 (1.44%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.52%) QA
2 119 (4.90%) Data Quality
2 119 (4.90%) NIST
3 115 (4.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.28%) PMO
5 98 (4.03%) GDPR
6 49 (2.02%) SLA
7 48 (1.98%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.61%) PCI DSS
9 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.15%) GRC
11 19 (0.78%) NCSC
12 18 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.66%) IFRS
14 15 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.54%) 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
1 181 (7.45%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.64%) Docker
3 41 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.28%) 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
1 146 (6.01%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.38%) Terraform
3 77 (3.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.59%) Ansible
5 38 (1.56%) Grafana
6 36 (1.48%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.48%) SCCM
7 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.62%) Puppet
10 14 (0.58%) 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
1 560 (23.05%) Microsoft
2 169 (6.96%) Oracle
3 136 (5.60%) SAP
4 111 (4.57%) ServiceNow
5 98 (4.03%) Google
6 67 (2.76%) Cisco
7 60 (2.47%) Databricks
8 48 (1.98%) VMware
9 47 (1.93%) Citrix
10 46 (1.89%) Adobe
10 46 (1.89%) Splunk
11 43 (1.77%) Salesforce
12 41 (1.69%) IBM
13 32 (1.32%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.11%) CheckPoint
14 27 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 24 (0.99%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.91%) Informatica
17 20 (0.82%) Ariba
17 20 (0.82%) Siemens