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 17 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 20 24
Rank change year-on-year -5 +4 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,371 2,985 3,671
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 7.20% 7.81% 7.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.92% 26.68% 26.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,302 1,688 2,269
10th Percentile £260 £232 £262
25th Percentile £383 £389 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £613 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £761
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 211 200
10th Percentile £18.56 £20.12 £16.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £26.42 £24.71
Median hourly rate £38.50 £54.00 £49.14
Median % change year-on-year -28.70% +9.89% +9.20%
75th Percentile £56.00 £70.75 £65.63
90th Percentile £81.00 £79.17 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.75 £57.35 £49.14
% change year-on-year -39.41% +16.71% +9.39%

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 10,344 11,188 13,953
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.40% 29.26% 28.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,455 6,894 9,010
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £707 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 831 654 726
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.00 £16.42
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.50 £54.44
Median % change year-on-year -49.19% -9.08% +20.98%
75th Percentile £45.00 £68.00 £69.91
90th Percentile £71.00 £76.00 £78.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £52.50 £51.90
% change year-on-year -52.10% +1.16% +16.21%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Degree 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 -5 1,966 £500 -1.38% 5,797
UK excluding London -3 1,123 £450 -5.26% 4,548
London -2 1,022 £550 +4.76% 2,320
Work from Home +1 700 £492 -1.60% 2,789
North of England -7 244 £449 -14.57% 890
Midlands -1 219 £456 -5.19% 677
South East -9 206 £456 -3.95% 1,642
West Midlands -6 160 £475 -5.00% 390
North West -5 159 £458 -16.82% 510
Scotland 0 144 £450 +2.86% 272
South West -7 122 £475 -6.40% 451
East of England -1 117 £488 +14.71% 494
Yorkshire -20 71 £420 -16.00% 276
East Midlands +4 59 £434 +8.38% 272
Wales 0 40 £305 -23.63% 129
Northern Ireland -4 37 £588 +28.77% 74
North East -8 14 £348 -22.61% 112

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 119 (5.02%) Confluence
2 105 (4.43%) SharePoint
3 77 (3.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.15%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.76%) nginx
7 15 (0.63%) CMS
7 15 (0.63%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.59%) IIS
9 11 (0.46%) Apache
9 11 (0.46%) OpenStack
10 10 (0.42%) SAS
11 7 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.30%) Moodle
12 5 (0.21%) JBoss
12 5 (0.21%) Luigi
12 5 (0.21%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.17%) Alfresco
13 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 254 (10.71%) Microsoft Office
2 212 (8.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 120 (5.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 112 (4.72%) Microsoft Project
5 74 (3.12%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.67%) Simulink
7 15 (0.63%) Trello
8 11 (0.46%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 7 (0.30%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.25%) Maya
12 5 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.21%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.21%) Navisworks
12 5 (0.21%) Revit
12 5 (0.21%) Sketch
13 3 (0.13%) Camtasia
13 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 57 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 14 (0.59%) Oracle EBS R12
5 13 (0.55%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.51%) FLEXCUBE
6 12 (0.51%) Primavera
6 12 (0.51%) SAP EWM
7 11 (0.46%) Oracle BPM
7 11 (0.46%) Oracle General Ledger
8 10 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
8 10 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
8 10 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.38%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 8 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.34%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.34%) Workday HCM
11 7 (0.30%) Endur
12 6 (0.25%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.25%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 409 (17.25%) Azure
2 315 (13.29%) AWS
3 164 (6.92%) Microsoft 365
4 145 (6.12%) Power Platform
5 123 (5.19%) GCP
6 83 (3.50%) SaaS
7 74 (3.12%) GitHub
8 60 (2.53%) Entra ID
9 59 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
10 52 (2.19%) Serverless
11 42 (1.77%) Amazon S3
12 36 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
13 34 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
14 33 (1.39%) Cloud Computing
15 27 (1.14%) OneDrive
16 26 (1.10%) PaaS
17 24 (1.01%) OpenShift
17 24 (1.01%) PowerApps
18 23 (0.97%) Amazon ECS
18 23 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 124 (5.23%) Firewall
2 99 (4.18%) DNS
3 90 (3.80%) VPN
4 55 (2.32%) Network Security
5 51 (2.15%) TCP/IP
6 50 (2.11%) DHCP
7 43 (1.81%) Wireless
8 37 (1.56%) LAN
8 37 (1.56%) WAN
9 35 (1.48%) Skype
10 32 (1.35%) BGP
11 27 (1.14%) HTTP
11 27 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
12 26 (1.10%) WebEx
13 25 (1.05%) Internet
13 25 (1.05%) OSPF
14 23 (0.97%) MPLS
14 23 (0.97%) SMTP
14 23 (0.97%) Unified Communications
15 21 (0.89%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (5.02%) Power BI
2 93 (3.92%) SQL Server
3 74 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.57%) Tableau
5 58 (2.45%) NoSQL
6 57 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
6 57 (2.40%) Relational Database
7 46 (1.94%) Big Data
8 38 (1.60%) Amazon RDS
9 28 (1.18%) Hadoop
10 25 (1.05%) Data Lake
11 22 (0.93%) MySQL
12 20 (0.84%) Metadata
12 20 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 19 (0.80%) Redis
14 18 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
16 16 (0.67%) MongoDB
16 16 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 13 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 235 (9.91%) JIRA
2 108 (4.56%) Git
3 95 (4.01%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.70%) GitLab
5 25 (1.05%) Postman
6 20 (0.84%) Liquibase
6 20 (0.84%) Selenium
7 16 (0.67%) Artifactory
7 16 (0.67%) JUnit
8 14 (0.59%) Bitbucket
8 14 (0.59%) SpecFlow
9 11 (0.46%) MLflow
9 11 (0.46%) TeamCity
9 11 (0.46%) Vagrant
10 9 (0.38%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.38%) Subversion
11 8 (0.34%) IntelliJ
11 8 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
12 7 (0.30%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.30%) webpack
General
1 1,267 (53.44%) Social Skills
2 749 (31.59%) Finance
3 602 (25.39%) Analytical Skills
4 266 (11.22%) Banking
5 167 (7.04%) Public Sector
6 114 (4.81%) Presentation Skills
7 109 (4.60%) Marketing
8 107 (4.51%) Manufacturing
9 101 (4.26%) Organisational Skills
10 83 (3.50%) Legal
11 81 (3.42%) Influencing Skills
12 73 (3.08%) Telecoms
13 66 (2.78%) Investment Banking
14 57 (2.40%) Front Office
15 56 (2.36%) Financial Institution
16 55 (2.32%) Pharmaceutical
17 47 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 45 (1.90%) Aerospace
19 44 (1.86%) Military
20 42 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 355 (14.97%) Analyst
2 253 (10.67%) Developer
3 245 (10.33%) Senior
4 162 (6.83%) Business Analyst
5 145 (6.12%) Architect
6 140 (5.90%) Lead
7 126 (5.31%) Project Manager
8 91 (3.84%) Consultant
9 75 (3.16%) Support Engineer
10 64 (2.70%) Software Engineer
11 51 (2.15%) Support Analyst
12 48 (2.02%) IT Support
13 47 (1.98%) Data Engineer
13 47 (1.98%) Network Engineer
13 47 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
14 46 (1.94%) Java Developer
15 45 (1.90%) Data Analyst
15 45 (1.90%) Designer
15 45 (1.90%) IT Manager
16 42 (1.77%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.77%) REST
2 86 (3.63%) HTML
3 78 (3.29%) .NET
4 72 (3.04%) RESTful
5 66 (2.78%) CSS
6 58 (2.45%) Kafka
7 56 (2.36%) Web Services
8 52 (2.19%) Middleware
9 48 (2.02%) XML
10 42 (1.77%) SOAP
11 39 (1.64%) AngularJS
12 38 (1.60%) JSON
12 38 (1.60%) React
13 32 (1.35%) Spring
13 32 (1.35%) TensorFlow
14 28 (1.18%) OAuth
14 28 (1.18%) PyTorch
15 27 (1.14%) Pandas
16 25 (1.05%) .NET Framework
17 23 (0.97%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.65%) Management Information System
2 92 (3.88%) Product Ownership
3 82 (3.46%) Data Protection Act
4 71 (2.99%) Cloud Native
5 70 (2.95%) Algorithms
6 54 (2.28%) Onboarding
7 53 (2.24%) Data Centre
8 52 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
9 51 (2.15%) Self-Motivation
10 47 (1.98%) Virtual Team
11 46 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
13 43 (1.81%) PKI
14 39 (1.64%) Life Science
14 39 (1.64%) Security Posture
15 37 (1.56%) Data Structures
15 37 (1.56%) Derivative
16 34 (1.43%) Public Cloud
17 32 (1.35%) PMI
18 30 (1.27%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 227 (9.57%) Windows
2 186 (7.84%) Linux
3 62 (2.61%) Unix
4 60 (2.53%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.18%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.10%) Apple iOS
7 25 (1.05%) Android
8 21 (0.89%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.63%) VMS
10 14 (0.59%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
12 12 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 10 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
14 5 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 5 (0.21%) Solaris
15 4 (0.17%) CentOS
15 4 (0.17%) SUSE
15 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.13%) AIX
17 2 (0.084%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 964 (40.66%) Computer Science
2 762 (32.14%) Problem-Solving
3 671 (28.30%) Agile
4 408 (17.21%) Project Management
5 308 (12.99%) DevOps
6 295 (12.44%) Stakeholder Management
7 257 (10.84%) Change Management
8 249 (10.50%) ITIL
9 236 (9.95%) Analytics
10 229 (9.66%) CI/CD
11 202 (8.52%) Migration
12 198 (8.35%) Decision-Making
13 197 (8.31%) Continuous Improvement
14 196 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 189 (7.97%) Roadmaps
16 183 (7.72%) Software Engineering
17 180 (7.59%) Cybersecurity
18 168 (7.09%) Artificial Intelligence
18 168 (7.09%) Risk Management
19 160 (6.75%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 423 (17.84%) Python
2 355 (14.97%) SQL
3 221 (9.32%) Java
4 112 (4.72%) JavaScript
5 104 (4.39%) PowerShell
6 82 (3.46%) C#
7 75 (3.16%) C++
8 46 (1.94%) R
9 45 (1.90%) Bash
10 39 (1.64%) Go
11 29 (1.22%) TypeScript
12 22 (0.93%) Perl
13 21 (0.89%) MATLAB
14 19 (0.80%) Apex Code
14 19 (0.80%) C
14 19 (0.80%) PL/SQL
15 18 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
15 18 (0.76%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.72%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.59%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 627 (26.44%) Computer Science Degree
2 309 (13.03%) Master's Degree
3 278 (11.73%) Security Cleared
4 214 (9.03%) SC Cleared
5 147 (6.20%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.53%) PMP
7 89 (3.75%) CISSP
8 82 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.33%) AWS Certification
10 77 (3.25%) Azure Certification
10 77 (3.25%) Cisco Certification
11 65 (2.74%) PhD
12 48 (2.02%) CCNP
12 48 (2.02%) CISM
13 47 (1.98%) DV Cleared
14 45 (1.90%) CCNA
15 44 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
16 42 (1.77%) HND
17 39 (1.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 36 (1.52%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (4.85%) QA
2 109 (4.60%) Data Quality
3 93 (3.92%) GDPR
3 93 (3.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 66 (2.78%) NIST
5 51 (2.15%) PMO
6 48 (2.02%) Accessibility
7 36 (1.52%) SLA
8 25 (1.05%) GRC
9 23 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.89%) PCI DSS
11 20 (0.84%) HIPAA
12 18 (0.76%) COBIT
13 14 (0.59%) Def Stans
14 13 (0.55%) NCSC
15 12 (0.51%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 12 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 12 (0.51%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.46%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.46%) WCAG
System Software
1 146 (6.16%) Active Directory
2 123 (5.19%) Docker
3 40 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.10%) Firmware
5 24 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 18 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.55%) BitLocker
9 10 (0.42%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.42%) Dovecot
9 10 (0.42%) Postfix
9 10 (0.42%) Squid
10 9 (0.38%) Microsoft App-V
10 9 (0.38%) Terminal Services
10 9 (0.38%) XenApp
11 7 (0.30%) vSphere
12 6 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
12 6 (0.25%) VMware NSX
13 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 130 (5.48%) Kubernetes
2 109 (4.60%) Terraform
3 99 (4.18%) Ansible
4 53 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
5 47 (1.98%) Grafana
6 39 (1.64%) Prometheus
7 33 (1.39%) SCCM
8 21 (0.89%) Puppet
9 15 (0.63%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.51%) Nessus
12 11 (0.46%) QRadar
13 10 (0.42%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.38%) Nagios
14 9 (0.38%) vMotion
15 8 (0.34%) AirWatch
15 8 (0.34%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.30%) Argo
16 7 (0.30%) CSIRT
16 7 (0.30%) WSUS
Vendors
1 508 (21.43%) Microsoft
2 155 (6.54%) SAP
3 143 (6.03%) Oracle
4 128 (5.40%) ServiceNow
5 91 (3.84%) Cisco
6 88 (3.71%) Google
7 79 (3.33%) Salesforce
8 63 (2.66%) Splunk
9 52 (2.19%) VMware
10 46 (1.94%) Citrix
11 33 (1.39%) IBM
12 31 (1.31%) Adobe
12 31 (1.31%) Databricks
13 26 (1.10%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.01%) Workday
15 23 (0.97%) Apple
16 20 (0.84%) Fortinet
17 19 (0.80%) Atlassian
17 19 (0.80%) Polycom
18 17 (0.72%) HP