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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,528 2,436 3,483
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.78% 7.51% 8.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.23% 24.42% 27.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,360 1,398 1,940
10th Percentile £205 £250 £214
25th Percentile £363 £375 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 198 382
10th Percentile £16.40 £19.34 £16.85
25th Percentile £26.13 £26.56 £24.39
Median hourly rate £41.71 £45.63 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.60% +9.96% -17.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £64.88 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.53 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £40.23 £50.00
% change year-on-year +6.89% -19.54% +2.81%

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 16,603 9,976 12,858
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.39% 30.74% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,094 6,194 8,008
10th Percentile £350 £280 £310
25th Percentile £428 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £524 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.24% -0.24% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £713 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,198 706 1,091
10th Percentile £17.56 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.20 £20.00 £20.24
Median hourly rate £50.00 £27.45 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +82.15% -33.86% -24.72%
75th Percentile £72.54 £58.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -20.54%

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 July 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 July 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 11 July 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 -14 2,264 £500 - 2,535
UK excluding London -12 1,389 £450 - 1,699
London -18 965 £515 -6.36% 1,125
Work from Home -17 675 £500 -2.72% 886
South East -3 442 £500 +3.90% 594
North of England -12 334 £449 +0.50% 354
Midlands -23 204 £500 +23.08% 257
North West -10 188 £447 -1.97% 172
East of England -5 152 £450 -10.00% 197
West Midlands -32 151 £495 +16.47% 126
Yorkshire -10 130 £500 +17.65% 129
South West -25 121 £435 -8.42% 199
Scotland -24 95 £475 +5.56% 57
East Midlands -15 51 £550 +54.49% 130
Wales -23 29 £450 +47.31% 31
Northern Ireland -9 16 £254 -40.24% 56
North East -35 16 £450 +130.77% 59

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
1 141 (5.58%) SharePoint
2 138 (5.46%) Confluence
3 61 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.94%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 26 (1.03%) Apache
7 13 (0.51%) IIS
8 12 (0.47%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.079%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.079%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.079%) WinCC
Applications
1 283 (11.19%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 141 (5.58%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.81%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.67%) Adobe After Effects
7 15 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 14 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.55%) Photoshop
9 13 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
12 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
12 7 (0.28%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CATIA
15 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.63%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.28%) Magento
5 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) HFM
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 584 (23.10%) Azure
2 331 (13.09%) AWS
3 217 (8.58%) Power Platform
4 214 (8.47%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (5.70%) Entra ID
6 132 (5.22%) GCP
7 108 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.28%) SaaS
9 71 (2.81%) GitHub
10 46 (1.82%) Figma
11 43 (1.70%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.66%) Serverless
13 39 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.38%) PowerApps
15 34 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (1.34%) Power Automate
16 32 (1.27%) OneDrive
16 32 (1.27%) PaaS
17 28 (1.11%) IaaS
18 27 (1.07%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.47%) Firewall
2 81 (3.20%) TCP/IP
3 80 (3.16%) DNS
4 70 (2.77%) Network Security
5 54 (2.14%) VPN
6 53 (2.10%) WAN
7 49 (1.94%) LAN
8 35 (1.38%) DHCP
9 28 (1.11%) BGP
10 26 (1.03%) Wireless
11 24 (0.95%) OSPF
12 23 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.79%) Ethernet
14 19 (0.75%) SSL
15 18 (0.71%) VLAN
16 16 (0.63%) Internet
17 14 (0.55%) 3GPP
17 14 (0.55%) SAN
18 13 (0.51%) HTTP
18 13 (0.51%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (7.32%) Power BI
2 120 (4.75%) SQL Server
3 69 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
5 53 (2.10%) Relational Database
6 50 (1.98%) Big Data
7 47 (1.86%) Metadata
8 40 (1.58%) Tableau
9 39 (1.54%) NoSQL
10 32 (1.27%) MySQL
11 30 (1.19%) MongoDB
12 26 (1.03%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.95%) Data Lake
13 24 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.79%) Oracle Database
15 19 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
17 14 (0.55%) GIS
18 13 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 224 (8.86%) JIRA
2 132 (5.22%) Git
3 55 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.74%) GitLab
5 33 (1.31%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.83%) MLflow
7 18 (0.71%) Selenium
8 17 (0.67%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.51%) JUnit
10 13 (0.51%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.47%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 10 (0.40%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) Maven
15 7 (0.28%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,124 (44.46%) Social Skills
2 757 (29.94%) Finance
3 548 (21.68%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.59%) Banking
6 157 (6.21%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (4.51%) Presentation Skills
8 112 (4.43%) Marketing
9 97 (3.84%) Legal
10 91 (3.60%) Aerospace
11 90 (3.56%) Manufacturing
12 85 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
13 84 (3.32%) Influencing Skills
14 72 (2.85%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.45%) Retail
16 57 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 55 (2.18%) Law
18 42 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.54%) Front Office
20 33 (1.31%) Military
Job Titles
1 355 (14.04%) Analyst
2 283 (11.19%) Senior
3 203 (8.03%) Architect
4 189 (7.48%) Lead
5 182 (7.20%) Developer
6 161 (6.37%) Project Manager
7 157 (6.21%) Business Analyst
8 75 (2.97%) Consultant
9 71 (2.81%) Senior Manager
9 71 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
10 67 (2.65%) Designer
11 58 (2.29%) Technical Support
12 56 (2.22%) Software Engineer
13 55 (2.18%) IT Manager
14 53 (2.10%) IT Support
15 51 (2.02%) Senior Analyst
16 50 (1.98%) Administrator
16 50 (1.98%) Product Manager
17 49 (1.94%) Support Engineer
18 48 (1.90%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.19%) .NET
2 103 (4.07%) REST
3 70 (2.77%) React
4 51 (2.02%) Kafka
5 49 (1.94%) RESTful
6 43 (1.70%) HTML
7 40 (1.58%) Middleware
8 39 (1.54%) OAuth
9 38 (1.50%) .NET Framework
10 35 (1.38%) Spring
11 33 (1.31%) CSS
11 33 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
11 33 (1.31%) Spring Boot
12 32 (1.27%) Web Services
13 30 (1.19%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.19%) XML
14 28 (1.11%) JSON
14 28 (1.11%) PySpark
14 28 (1.11%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.11%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.11%) Management Information System
2 153 (6.05%) Onboarding
3 149 (5.89%) Product Ownership
4 112 (4.43%) Self-Motivation
5 104 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 67 (2.65%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.53%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.45%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 53 (2.10%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
11 48 (1.90%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.74%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.62%) Life Science
14 40 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
15 39 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.34%) Robotics
17 33 (1.31%) PMI
18 32 (1.27%) AI Agents
18 32 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 314 (12.42%) Windows
2 178 (7.04%) Linux
3 77 (3.05%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.77%) Unix
5 54 (2.14%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.23%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.47%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
12 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) Solaris
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 853 (33.74%) Computer Science
2 701 (27.73%) Agile
3 682 (26.98%) Problem-Solving
4 427 (16.89%) Stakeholder Management
5 405 (16.02%) AI
6 394 (15.59%) Continuous Improvement
7 345 (13.65%) DevOps
8 312 (12.34%) Analytics
9 310 (12.26%) CI/CD
10 305 (12.06%) Project Management
11 281 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 269 (10.64%) Decision-Making
13 263 (10.40%) ITIL
14 253 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (8.82%) Change Management
15 223 (8.82%) Roadmaps
16 219 (8.66%) Software Engineering
17 213 (8.43%) Migration
18 196 (7.75%) Project Delivery
19 195 (7.71%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 436 (17.25%) Python
2 387 (15.31%) SQL
3 183 (7.24%) Java
4 136 (5.38%) PowerShell
5 108 (4.27%) C#
6 92 (3.64%) JavaScript
7 50 (1.98%) C++
8 43 (1.70%) Bash
9 39 (1.54%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.19%) R
11 27 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 26 (1.03%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.95%) T-SQL
14 19 (0.75%) C
15 14 (0.55%) Bicep
16 13 (0.51%) Go
17 12 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.47%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.47%) Perl
18 11 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 516 (20.41%) Computer Science Degree
2 437 (17.29%) Security Cleared
3 291 (11.51%) SC Cleared
4 275 (10.88%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.46%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.22%) CISSP
7 121 (4.79%) PMP
8 99 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
10 74 (2.93%) Azure Certification
11 68 (2.69%) CISM
12 65 (2.57%) DV Cleared
13 64 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
14 52 (2.06%) PhD
15 43 (1.70%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.66%) CCNA
16 42 (1.66%) CCNP
17 38 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.38%) CISA
19 34 (1.34%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (5.18%) Data Quality
2 130 (5.14%) QA
3 118 (4.67%) NIST
4 111 (4.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 105 (4.15%) PMO
6 92 (3.64%) GDPR
7 52 (2.06%) SLA
8 51 (2.02%) Accessibility
9 34 (1.34%) PCI DSS
10 30 (1.19%) GRC
11 29 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.87%) NCSC
13 18 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.59%) IFRS
15 13 (0.51%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.47%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.44%) COBIT
17 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.40%) P3O
System Software
1 195 (7.71%) Active Directory
2 138 (5.46%) Docker
3 46 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.83%) Firmware
6 14 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 5 (0.20%) Embedded Firmware
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.079%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 150 (5.93%) Kubernetes
2 92 (3.64%) Terraform
3 77 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.37%) Ansible
5 34 (1.34%) Grafana
5 34 (1.34%) SCCM
6 31 (1.23%) Prometheus
7 20 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.55%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.47%) Puppet
12 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.20%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
17 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 607 (24.01%) Microsoft
2 175 (6.92%) Oracle
3 148 (5.85%) SAP
4 130 (5.14%) ServiceNow
5 107 (4.23%) Google
6 73 (2.89%) Cisco
7 68 (2.69%) Databricks
8 59 (2.33%) VMware
9 56 (2.22%) Salesforce
10 54 (2.14%) Adobe
11 47 (1.86%) IBM
12 40 (1.58%) Splunk
13 37 (1.46%) Citrix
14 34 (1.34%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.27%) CyberArk
16 26 (1.03%) Red Hat
17 24 (0.95%) CheckPoint
18 21 (0.83%) Ariba
18 21 (0.83%) Siemens
19 20 (0.79%) Informatica