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

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,479 2,443 3,144
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.70% 7.41% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.97% 24.06% 26.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,324 1,385 1,820
10th Percentile £205 £253 £232
25th Percentile £363 £371 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 209 291
10th Percentile £16.47 £17.74 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £42.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.18% -15.00% -5.99%
75th Percentile £82.43 £64.52 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.88 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +6.28% -29.45% +14.70%

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 16,555 10,154 12,002
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.35% 30.81% 29.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,058 6,302 7,618
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £522 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.62% -0.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,215 762 913
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -23.82%
75th Percentile £73.23 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.49%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -13 2,242 £500 - 2,908
UK excluding London -10 1,370 £450 - 1,816
London -21 945 £525 -4.55% 1,402
Work from Home -20 654 £500 - 1,005
South East +3 469 £500 +4.99% 623
North of England -13 329 £450 -0.06% 377
North West -15 186 £447 -5.89% 190
Midlands -28 185 £478 +9.63% 257
East of England -5 148 £450 - 240
West Midlands -33 142 £481 +6.89% 143
Yorkshire -12 126 £450 +6.51% 116
South West -26 120 £415 -7.78% 222
Scotland -28 83 £475 +5.56% 70
East Midlands -22 41 £478 +33.52% 114
Wales -27 23 £490 +57.05% 46
North East -42 17 £450 +130.77% 75
Northern Ireland -11 15 £252 -46.95% 32

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
1 147 (5.93%) SharePoint
2 124 (5.00%) Confluence
3 65 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 42 (1.69%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.29%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.97%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 275 (11.09%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 148 (5.97%) Microsoft Project
4 130 (5.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
9 8 (0.32%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
10 6 (0.24%) Trello
10 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.69%) Primavera
3 13 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 574 (23.15%) Azure
2 325 (13.11%) AWS
3 232 (9.36%) Power Platform
4 213 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (6.13%) Entra ID
6 136 (5.49%) GCP
7 104 (4.20%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.39%) SaaS
9 65 (2.62%) GitHub
10 47 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
11 45 (1.82%) Figma
11 45 (1.82%) Snowflake
12 44 (1.77%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.77%) Serverless
13 43 (1.73%) Power Automate
14 40 (1.61%) OneDrive
15 36 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
16 30 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.13%) IaaS
17 28 (1.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.60%) Firewall
2 75 (3.03%) TCP/IP
3 74 (2.99%) DNS
4 64 (2.58%) Network Security
5 58 (2.34%) VPN
6 45 (1.82%) WAN
7 42 (1.69%) LAN
8 36 (1.45%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) BGP
11 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.81%) SSL
13 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.77%) OSPF
13 19 (0.77%) VLAN
14 15 (0.61%) HTTP
14 15 (0.61%) SSH
15 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.56%) Internet
15 14 (0.56%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (7.54%) Power BI
2 116 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.10%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.86%) Metadata
7 43 (1.73%) Big Data
8 39 (1.57%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.13%) MySQL
11 27 (1.09%) MongoDB
12 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (0.89%) Data Lake
14 21 (0.85%) Hadoop
15 20 (0.81%) Oracle Database
16 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
17 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
18 15 (0.61%) GIS
19 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 207 (8.35%) JIRA
2 127 (5.12%) Git
3 54 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.57%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.77%) MLflow
7 17 (0.69%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.56%) JUnit
9 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.48%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Gradle
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,085 (43.77%) Social Skills
2 721 (29.08%) Finance
3 539 (21.74%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 191 (7.70%) Banking
6 160 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.28%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.07%) Legal
8 101 (4.07%) Marketing
9 94 (3.79%) Aerospace
10 91 (3.67%) Manufacturing
11 86 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
12 81 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
13 75 (3.03%) Telecoms
14 61 (2.46%) Retail
15 59 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 54 (2.18%) Law
17 43 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
18 34 (1.37%) Automotive
18 34 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 342 (13.80%) Analyst
2 284 (11.46%) Senior
3 196 (7.91%) Architect
4 188 (7.58%) Lead
5 175 (7.06%) Developer
6 158 (6.37%) Project Manager
7 150 (6.05%) Business Analyst
8 71 (2.86%) Consultant
9 70 (2.82%) Senior Manager
10 65 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.50%) Designer
12 56 (2.26%) IT Support
13 55 (2.22%) IT Manager
14 53 (2.14%) Software Engineer
14 53 (2.14%) Support Engineer
15 51 (2.06%) Administrator
16 50 (2.02%) Product Manager
17 49 (1.98%) IT Analyst
17 49 (1.98%) Senior Analyst
18 46 (1.86%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.20%) REST
2 98 (3.95%) .NET
3 67 (2.70%) React
4 50 (2.02%) Kafka
5 43 (1.73%) RESTful
6 41 (1.65%) OAuth
7 39 (1.57%) HTML
8 37 (1.49%) Middleware
9 35 (1.41%) .NET Framework
10 34 (1.37%) Web Services
11 33 (1.33%) Spring
12 32 (1.29%) CSS
12 32 (1.29%) SAML
13 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
13 31 (1.25%) JSON
14 30 (1.21%) OAuth2
14 30 (1.21%) Spring Boot
15 29 (1.17%) LDAP
15 29 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
15 29 (1.17%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.23%) Management Information System
2 154 (6.21%) Onboarding
3 148 (5.97%) Product Ownership
4 116 (4.68%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (3.99%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.90%) Data Structures
7 70 (2.82%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.62%) Data Centre
9 56 (2.26%) Virtual Team
10 51 (2.06%) Operational Technology
10 51 (2.06%) Security Posture
11 45 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
12 43 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
12 43 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
13 41 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
13 41 (1.65%) Life Science
14 37 (1.49%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.41%) PMI
16 33 (1.33%) Robotics
17 31 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 305 (12.30%) Windows
2 171 (6.90%) Linux
3 75 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.46%) Unix
5 50 (2.02%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.17%) Android
9 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) Rocky
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 836 (33.72%) Computer Science
2 680 (27.43%) Agile
3 654 (26.38%) Problem-Solving
4 426 (17.18%) Stakeholder Management
5 406 (16.38%) Continuous Improvement
6 397 (16.01%) AI
7 328 (13.23%) DevOps
8 311 (12.55%) Analytics
9 310 (12.51%) Project Management
10 301 (12.14%) CI/CD
11 269 (10.85%) ITIL
12 264 (10.65%) Decision-Making
13 259 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 244 (9.84%) Cybersecurity
15 220 (8.87%) Change Management
16 218 (8.79%) Roadmaps
17 213 (8.59%) Software Engineering
18 205 (8.27%) PRINCE2
19 203 (8.19%) Project Delivery
20 201 (8.11%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 429 (17.31%) Python
2 359 (14.48%) SQL
3 172 (6.94%) Java
4 148 (5.97%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.28%) C#
6 91 (3.67%) JavaScript
7 48 (1.94%) Bash
8 47 (1.90%) C++
9 40 (1.61%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.93%) Bicep
14 22 (0.89%) C
15 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.44%) X++
17 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 481 (19.40%) Computer Science Degree
2 449 (18.11%) Security Cleared
3 295 (11.90%) SC Cleared
4 248 (10.00%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.04%) PMP
7 118 (4.76%) CISSP
8 108 (4.36%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.35%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.11%) Azure Certification
10 77 (3.11%) DV Cleared
11 67 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (2.30%) CISM
13 55 (2.22%) PhD
14 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
15 41 (1.65%) CCNA
16 39 (1.57%) CCNP
17 37 (1.49%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 36 (1.45%) CISA
19 32 (1.29%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.41%) Data Quality
2 127 (5.12%) QA
3 112 (4.52%) NIST
4 108 (4.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.11%) PMO
6 78 (3.15%) GDPR
7 51 (2.06%) Accessibility
7 51 (2.06%) SLA
8 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
10 26 (1.05%) GRC
11 21 (0.85%) NCSC
12 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.44%) IFRS
16 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) COBIT
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 195 (7.87%) Active Directory
2 124 (5.00%) Docker
3 47 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.97%) Firmware
5 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 137 (5.53%) Kubernetes
2 92 (3.71%) Terraform
3 78 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.38%) Ansible
5 36 (1.45%) SCCM
6 31 (1.25%) Grafana
7 28 (1.13%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 11 (0.44%) Puppet
10 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Argo
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 619 (24.97%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.62%) Oracle
3 146 (5.89%) SAP
4 133 (5.37%) ServiceNow
5 97 (3.91%) Google
6 69 (2.78%) Cisco
7 65 (2.62%) Databricks
8 62 (2.50%) VMware
9 58 (2.34%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.22%) Adobe
11 51 (2.06%) IBM
12 34 (1.37%) Citrix
13 33 (1.33%) CyberArk
13 33 (1.33%) Splunk
14 29 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Ariba
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.81%) BeyondTrust
18 19 (0.77%) HP