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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,456 2,467 3,061
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.60% 7.49% 7.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.69% 23.97% 26.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,306 1,394 1,778
10th Percentile £206 £250 £257
25th Percentile £363 £369 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £715 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £498
% change year-on-year +5.56% -9.64% +1.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 215 272
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.68 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.90 £25.75 £25.86
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.52 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +0.51% -27.64% +19.16%

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 16,719 10,293 11,685
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.27% 30.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,204 6,336 7,411
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £704 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,256 815 849
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.97 £15.06
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.78% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.81 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £76.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -15 2,252 £500 - 4,811
UK excluding London -16 1,335 £475 +5.56% 2,808
London -21 966 £525 -4.55% 2,406
Work from Home -22 649 £500 - 1,533
South East +1 477 £500 +5.26% 849
North of England -17 331 £474 +5.33% 592
North West -8 192 £465 -2.11% 313
Midlands -32 175 £450 +0.67% 410
East of England -9 137 £413 -8.33% 387
West Midlands -38 131 £450 - 231
Yorkshire -9 125 £500 +20.12% 171
South West -26 123 £415 +10.67% 323
Scotland -44 66 £475 +5.56% 177
East Midlands -29 42 £475 +33.80% 179
Northern Ireland -12 15 £252 -52.00% 59
Wales -33 14 £530 +73.50% 76
North East -48 14 £450 +130.77% 117
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

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
1 150 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.52%) Confluence
3 66 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.22%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.86%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.41%) SAS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Service Bus
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 256 (10.42%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 135 (5.50%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (4.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 59 (2.40%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 11 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) Windchill
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 54 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
6 7 (0.29%) HFM
6 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 561 (22.84%) Azure
2 319 (12.99%) AWS
3 224 (9.12%) Power Platform
4 223 (9.08%) Microsoft 365
5 151 (6.15%) Entra ID
6 136 (5.54%) GCP
7 104 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 88 (3.58%) SaaS
9 62 (2.52%) GitHub
10 51 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.04%) PowerApps
12 49 (2.00%) Power Automate
13 48 (1.95%) Serverless
14 46 (1.87%) Snowflake
15 43 (1.75%) OneDrive
16 42 (1.71%) Figma
17 40 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
18 28 (1.14%) IaaS
19 26 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
19 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.72%) Firewall
2 82 (3.34%) DNS
3 74 (3.01%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.73%) Network Security
5 62 (2.52%) VPN
6 42 (1.71%) DHCP
7 40 (1.63%) WAN
8 38 (1.55%) LAN
9 28 (1.14%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 17 (0.69%) Internet
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
16 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
16 15 (0.61%) SSH
17 14 (0.57%) Ethernet
17 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.25%) Power BI
2 104 (4.23%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.24%) Relational Database
4 54 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
5 50 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.71%) Metadata
7 35 (1.43%) Tableau
8 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.14%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.98%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.98%) MySQL
11 24 (0.98%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.57%) Power Query
15 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 183 (7.45%) JIRA
2 130 (5.29%) Git
3 55 (2.24%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.87%) GitLab
5 36 (1.47%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) MLflow
9 12 (0.49%) Postman
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.45%) Subversion
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,086 (44.22%) Social Skills
2 719 (29.28%) Finance
3 572 (23.29%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (8.06%) Public Sector
5 181 (7.37%) Banking
6 156 (6.35%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (4.56%) Aerospace
8 100 (4.07%) Legal
8 100 (4.07%) Presentation Skills
9 98 (3.99%) Marketing
10 94 (3.83%) Manufacturing
11 89 (3.62%) Telecoms
12 88 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
13 75 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.57%) Retail
15 59 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (2.08%) Law
17 48 (1.95%) Pharmaceutical
18 41 (1.67%) Front Office
19 38 (1.55%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 336 (13.68%) Analyst
2 280 (11.40%) Senior
3 189 (7.70%) Lead
4 177 (7.21%) Developer
5 169 (6.88%) Architect
6 157 (6.39%) Business Analyst
7 134 (5.46%) Project Manager
8 75 (3.05%) Consultant
9 71 (2.89%) Senior Manager
10 64 (2.61%) IT Support
11 61 (2.48%) Support Engineer
12 59 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
13 58 (2.36%) Designer
14 54 (2.20%) Product Manager
15 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
15 53 (2.16%) IT Manager
16 48 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
16 48 (1.95%) Software Engineer
17 47 (1.91%) Administrator
18 44 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.23%) REST
2 98 (3.99%) .NET
3 59 (2.40%) React
4 54 (2.20%) Kafka
5 47 (1.91%) RESTful
6 45 (1.83%) HTML
6 45 (1.83%) OAuth
7 39 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
8 37 (1.51%) Middleware
9 34 (1.38%) CSS
9 34 (1.38%) SAML
9 34 (1.38%) Web Services
10 33 (1.34%) OAuth2
11 31 (1.26%) .NET Framework
11 31 (1.26%) OpenID
12 28 (1.14%) JSON
12 28 (1.14%) LDAP
12 28 (1.14%) XML
13 27 (1.10%) SOAP
13 27 (1.10%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.39%) Management Information System
2 145 (5.90%) Product Ownership
3 140 (5.70%) Onboarding
4 109 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.79%) Cloud Native
6 75 (3.05%) Data Structures
7 68 (2.77%) Algorithms
8 64 (2.61%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.16%) Security Posture
10 50 (2.04%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.95%) Virtual Team
12 46 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
12 46 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
13 42 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.67%) Life Science
15 40 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
16 38 (1.55%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.38%) SCADA
18 33 (1.34%) PMI
19 31 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 290 (11.81%) Windows
2 174 (7.08%) Linux
3 70 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.40%) Unix
5 50 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 25 (1.02%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.20%) AIX
11 5 (0.20%) Solaris
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 841 (34.24%) Computer Science
2 660 (26.87%) Agile
3 640 (26.06%) Problem-Solving
4 452 (18.40%) Stakeholder Management
5 429 (17.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 377 (15.35%) AI
7 325 (13.23%) DevOps
8 317 (12.91%) Project Management
9 301 (12.26%) Analytics
10 293 (11.93%) CI/CD
11 287 (11.69%) ITIL
12 261 (10.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 250 (10.18%) Decision-Making
14 240 (9.77%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (9.08%) Change Management
16 215 (8.75%) Software Engineering
17 210 (8.55%) Roadmaps
18 207 (8.43%) PRINCE2
19 206 (8.39%) Project Delivery
20 203 (8.27%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 422 (17.18%) Python
2 346 (14.09%) SQL
3 164 (6.68%) PowerShell
4 162 (6.60%) Java
5 108 (4.40%) C#
6 98 (3.99%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.24%) Bash
8 47 (1.91%) C++
9 41 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.02%) Bicep
11 25 (1.02%) R
11 25 (1.02%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 22 (0.90%) C
14 15 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.45%) Scala
15 11 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 492 (20.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 452 (18.40%) Security Cleared
3 296 (12.05%) SC Cleared
4 213 (8.67%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.70%) PMI Certification
6 121 (4.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 120 (4.89%) PMP
8 117 (4.76%) CISSP
9 86 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (3.26%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.05%) DV Cleared
12 63 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.32%) CISM
14 51 (2.08%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.63%) CCNP
17 40 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 34 (1.38%) CISA
19 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.42%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.25%) QA
3 112 (4.56%) NIST
4 104 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (3.83%) PMO
6 71 (2.89%) GDPR
7 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
8 48 (1.95%) SLA
9 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
10 23 (0.94%) PCI DSS
11 20 (0.81%) NCSC
12 13 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) COBIT
13 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) IFRS
14 11 (0.45%) P3O
15 8 (0.33%) GxP
15 8 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 198 (8.06%) Active Directory
2 119 (4.85%) Docker
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Firmware
5 24 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.29%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) 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%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (5.25%) Kubernetes
2 99 (4.03%) Terraform
3 81 (3.30%) Microsoft Intune
4 66 (2.69%) Ansible
5 39 (1.59%) SCCM
6 30 (1.22%) Grafana
7 27 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.29%) Argo
15 7 (0.29%) Control-M
15 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.29%) SCOM
16 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 634 (25.81%) Microsoft
2 172 (7.00%) Oracle
3 144 (5.86%) ServiceNow
4 137 (5.58%) SAP
5 91 (3.71%) Google
6 71 (2.89%) Cisco
6 71 (2.89%) VMware
7 64 (2.61%) Salesforce
8 62 (2.52%) Databricks
9 59 (2.40%) Adobe
10 53 (2.16%) IBM
11 41 (1.67%) Splunk
12 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.18%) Citrix
14 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.14%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.86%) Apple
16 20 (0.81%) Ariba
17 19 (0.77%) BeyondTrust
18 18 (0.73%) HP