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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,487 2,352 2,992
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.55% 7.17% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.33% 22.57% 27.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,274 1,280 1,690
10th Percentile £204 £268 £230
25th Percentile £363 £400 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.62% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.67% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 213 191
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.94 £25.00 £25.99
Median hourly rate £40.18 £33.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.94% -29.47% -1.62%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £84.40 £81.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +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 17,350 10,423 11,061
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.75% 31.76% 29.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,514 6,507 6,697
10th Percentile £351 £283 £310
25th Percentile £447 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £703 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,440 885 603
10th Percentile £16.80 £17.87 £18.01
25th Percentile £25.20 £18.87 £25.36
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -47.05% -11.69%
75th Percentile £71.43 £41.94 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -4.49%

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 6 October 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 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 October 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 -16 2,264 £510 +2.00% 13,027
UK excluding London -18 1,339 £480 +6.67% 7,448
London -20 983 £525 -4.55% 6,438
Work from Home -21 662 £505 +4.34% 4,854
South East +5 460 £525 +16.67% 2,029
North of England -9 341 £475 +5.56% 1,379
North West -7 217 £479 +4.70% 722
Midlands -29 185 £450 -3.23% 989
West Midlands -28 137 £450 -5.26% 583
East of England -14 135 £425 -15.00% 1,035
South West -25 127 £400 -23.81% 771
Yorkshire -12 107 £500 +17.65% 428
Scotland -55 69 £500 +11.11% 735
East Midlands -12 47 £478 +6.70% 406
North East -28 17 £460 +2.22% 233
Northern Ireland -13 13 £238 -59.57% 311
Wales -36 12 £530 +73.50% 283
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 5

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
1 158 (6.35%) SharePoint
2 114 (4.58%) Confluence
3 59 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.92%) Apache
6 21 (0.84%) IIS
7 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.64%) CMS
9 14 (0.56%) Camunda
9 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.32%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) nginx
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 241 (9.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 236 (9.49%) Microsoft Office
3 113 (4.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 110 (4.42%) Microsoft Project
5 57 (2.29%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Simulink
9 12 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) AutoCAD
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
15 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 33 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
11 3 (0.12%) Loan IQ
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 561 (22.56%) Azure
2 306 (12.30%) AWS
3 221 (8.89%) Power Platform
4 217 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
5 155 (6.23%) GCP
6 139 (5.59%) Entra ID
7 129 (5.19%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (3.10%) SaaS
9 69 (2.77%) GitHub
10 61 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
10 61 (2.45%) Serverless
11 60 (2.41%) Power Automate
12 52 (2.09%) PowerApps
13 49 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
14 48 (1.93%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.57%) Figma
15 39 (1.57%) Snowflake
16 31 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 31 (1.25%) IaaS
17 29 (1.17%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.14%) Firewall
2 82 (3.30%) DNS
3 65 (2.61%) Network Security
4 64 (2.57%) TCP/IP
5 57 (2.29%) VPN
6 44 (1.77%) DHCP
7 32 (1.29%) WAN
8 31 (1.25%) LAN
9 27 (1.09%) Wireless
10 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
11 21 (0.84%) 5G
11 21 (0.84%) VLAN
12 20 (0.80%) Internet
13 19 (0.76%) SSH
13 19 (0.76%) SSL
14 18 (0.72%) Wireshark
15 17 (0.68%) BGP
15 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
16 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
17 15 (0.60%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (6.39%) Power BI
2 113 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.21%) Metadata
5 50 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.53%) MySQL
8 34 (1.37%) NoSQL
9 32 (1.29%) Tableau
10 31 (1.25%) Big Data
11 29 (1.17%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.09%) Elasticsearch
13 25 (1.01%) Oracle Database
14 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.76%) Data Lake
16 18 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
17 16 (0.64%) GIS
18 12 (0.48%) Redis
Development Applications
1 170 (6.84%) JIRA
2 149 (5.99%) Git
3 65 (2.61%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.25%) GitLab
5 25 (1.01%) JUnit
6 24 (0.97%) Maven
7 23 (0.92%) SonarQube
8 22 (0.88%) Gradle
9 20 (0.80%) Cucumber
9 20 (0.80%) Selenium
10 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
11 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.68%) Mockito
13 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.48%) Postman
15 10 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
15 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
16 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,120 (45.03%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.15%) Finance
3 585 (23.52%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (8.60%) Public Sector
5 203 (8.16%) Banking
6 167 (6.71%) Organisational Skills
7 141 (5.67%) Manufacturing
8 124 (4.99%) Aerospace
9 121 (4.87%) Influencing Skills
10 106 (4.26%) Marketing
11 90 (3.62%) Telecoms
12 88 (3.54%) Presentation Skills
13 83 (3.34%) Legal
14 82 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
15 67 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 63 (2.53%) Retail
17 59 (2.37%) Pharmaceutical
18 49 (1.97%) Law
19 48 (1.93%) Military
20 43 (1.73%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 333 (13.39%) Analyst
2 282 (11.34%) Senior
3 208 (8.36%) Developer
4 194 (7.80%) Lead
5 165 (6.63%) Business Analyst
6 159 (6.39%) Architect
7 108 (4.34%) Project Manager
8 78 (3.14%) Consultant
9 70 (2.81%) Support Engineer
10 69 (2.77%) IT Support
11 60 (2.41%) Senior Manager
12 54 (2.17%) IT Manager
12 54 (2.17%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.09%) Administrator
14 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
15 47 (1.89%) IT Analyst
16 46 (1.85%) Delivery Manager
16 46 (1.85%) Designer
17 45 (1.81%) Software Engineer
18 43 (1.73%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.62%) REST
1 115 (4.62%) Terraform
2 105 (4.22%) .NET
3 76 (3.06%) React
4 74 (2.98%) HTML
5 66 (2.65%) Kafka
6 65 (2.61%) CSS
7 61 (2.45%) RESTful
8 51 (2.05%) OAuth
9 49 (1.97%) XML
10 46 (1.85%) Oracle Fusion
11 45 (1.81%) Web Services
12 44 (1.77%) Middleware
13 40 (1.61%) OAuth2
13 40 (1.61%) SOAP
13 40 (1.61%) Spring Boot
14 38 (1.53%) SAML
15 36 (1.45%) JSON
15 36 (1.45%) OpenID
16 34 (1.37%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 231 (9.29%) Management Information System
2 137 (5.51%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.83%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.30%) Self-Motivation
5 103 (4.14%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.57%) Algorithms
7 61 (2.45%) Data Centre
8 60 (2.41%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.37%) Operational Technology
10 53 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
11 52 (2.09%) Life Science
12 51 (2.05%) Security Posture
13 46 (1.85%) AI Agents
14 45 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
15 40 (1.61%) Virtual Team
16 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.45%) SCADA
18 35 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
19 29 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
19 29 (1.17%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.82%) Windows
2 186 (7.48%) Linux
3 84 (3.38%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.81%) Unix
5 44 (1.77%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) zOS
13 5 (0.20%) Solaris
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.16%) AIX
15 3 (0.12%) Mac OS X
15 3 (0.12%) MVS
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (32.29%) Computer Science
2 684 (27.50%) Agile
3 674 (27.10%) Problem-Solving
4 556 (22.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 438 (17.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 399 (16.04%) AI
7 371 (14.92%) DevOps
8 337 (13.55%) CI/CD
9 316 (12.71%) Analytics
10 305 (12.26%) Project Management
11 279 (11.22%) ITIL
12 268 (10.78%) Decision-Making
13 254 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 247 (9.93%) Roadmaps
15 246 (9.89%) Scrum
16 240 (9.65%) Change Management
17 232 (9.33%) Software Engineering
18 226 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
19 220 (8.85%) Project Delivery
20 218 (8.77%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.16%) Python
2 364 (14.64%) SQL
3 178 (7.16%) PowerShell
4 159 (6.39%) Java
5 131 (5.27%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.95%) C#
7 65 (2.61%) Bash
8 46 (1.85%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.53%) C++
10 31 (1.25%) Bicep
11 30 (1.21%) Shell Script
12 28 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) R
15 21 (0.84%) C
16 17 (0.68%) Scala
17 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.48%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) Go
Qualifications
1 493 (19.82%) Computer Science Degree
1 493 (19.82%) Security Cleared
2 366 (14.72%) SC Cleared
3 211 (8.48%) Master's Degree
4 150 (6.03%) PMI Certification
5 133 (5.35%) PMP
6 119 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
7 106 (4.26%) CISSP
8 94 (3.78%) Azure Certification
9 93 (3.74%) DV Cleared
10 85 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
11 82 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
12 61 (2.45%) PhD
13 53 (2.13%) CISM
14 46 (1.85%) AWS Certification
14 46 (1.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 39 (1.57%) DBS Check
15 39 (1.57%) ISTQB
16 35 (1.41%) CCNA
17 34 (1.37%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (5.87%) Data Quality
1 146 (5.87%) QA
2 94 (3.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (3.58%) NIST
4 85 (3.42%) GDPR
5 76 (3.06%) PMO
6 48 (1.93%) Accessibility
7 40 (1.61%) SLA
8 32 (1.29%) GRC
9 21 (0.84%) NCSC
10 19 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.64%) IFRS
13 13 (0.52%) IEC 61508
14 12 (0.48%) ISO 31000
14 12 (0.48%) P3O
15 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 187 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.91%) Docker
3 59 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 26 (1.05%) Firmware
6 21 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.36%) vSphere
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
9 6 (0.24%) RACF
10 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 136 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 72 (2.90%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.41%) Ansible
4 31 (1.25%) SCCM
5 26 (1.05%) Grafana
6 25 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Functional Safety
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) CASB
11 10 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.32%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 613 (24.65%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.32%) Oracle
3 135 (5.43%) ServiceNow
4 133 (5.35%) SAP
5 112 (4.50%) Google
6 72 (2.90%) VMware
7 71 (2.85%) Cisco
7 71 (2.85%) Salesforce
8 65 (2.61%) Adobe
9 57 (2.29%) Databricks
10 46 (1.85%) IBM
11 45 (1.81%) Splunk
12 31 (1.25%) Red Hat
13 27 (1.09%) OpenAI
14 26 (1.05%) CyberArk
15 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.88%) Apple
17 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.84%) Citrix
18 20 (0.80%) Ariba