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

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,495 2,407 3,817
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.38% 7.74% 8.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.92% 26.07% 27.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,460 1,309 2,152
10th Percentile £274 £225 £208
25th Percentile £398 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year - -1.33% -6.16%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +0.11% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 143 349
10th Percentile £15.03 £20.94 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.91 £30.11 £22.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.18% +6.25% -1.23%
75th Percentile £57.88 £68.75 £59.92
90th Percentile £81.00 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -11.11%

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 13,188 9,233 13,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.71% 29.69% 30.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,702 5,579 8,543
10th Percentile £319 £296 £295
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.37% +1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 983 448 958
10th Percentile £15.77 £19.93 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -13.38% +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.58 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.40 £77.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -44.11% -2.56% +2.62%

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 8 February 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 8 February 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 8 February 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 -4 2,154 £500 -4.76% 2,494
UK excluding London -5 1,266 £476 +0.11% 2,045
London -5 992 £517 -6.07% 837
Work from Home -2 718 £500 -1.23% 1,051
North of England -6 329 £419 -12.71% 403
South East -3 282 £475 -5.00% 736
Midlands -12 210 £520 +22.35% 329
South West +8 176 £650 +21.95% 229
North West -2 171 £388 -18.42% 239
West Midlands -20 146 £520 +6.67% 211
Yorkshire -10 144 £508 +1.50% 115
East of England -15 117 £550 +18.92% 248
Scotland +1 115 £475 +11.76% 98
East Midlands -3 64 £523 +46.77% 118
Wales -4 49 £238 -17.93% 53
Northern Ireland -12 17 £425 -8.11% 15
North East -12 15 £364 -27.20% 50

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
1 212 (8.50%) Confluence
2 120 (4.81%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.04%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.64%) Apache
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.24%) nginx
10 6 (0.24%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.20%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 296 (11.86%) Microsoft Office
2 247 (9.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 193 (7.74%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.17%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.64%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.40%) Trello
10 9 (0.36%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.24%) FrameMaker
12 6 (0.24%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.080%) InDesign
14 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.080%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 61 (2.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.92%) Primavera
4 20 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP EWM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP ERP
7 11 (0.44%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
9 7 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
12 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 531 (21.28%) Azure
2 294 (11.78%) AWS
3 224 (8.98%) Microsoft 365
4 195 (7.82%) Power Platform
5 151 (6.05%) GCP
6 110 (4.41%) SaaS
7 94 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
8 89 (3.57%) Entra ID
9 85 (3.41%) GitHub
10 59 (2.36%) Serverless
11 55 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.80%) Cloud Computing
13 42 (1.68%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.40%) Snowflake
15 34 (1.36%) OCI
16 32 (1.28%) PaaS
17 31 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
17 31 (1.24%) IaaS
18 30 (1.20%) PowerApps
19 26 (1.04%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.57%) Firewall
2 74 (2.97%) DNS
3 57 (2.28%) WAN
4 56 (2.24%) LAN
5 46 (1.84%) TCP/IP
6 44 (1.76%) Network Security
6 44 (1.76%) VPN
7 35 (1.40%) Skype
8 34 (1.36%) HTTP
9 30 (1.20%) DHCP
10 27 (1.08%) Internet
11 26 (1.04%) Wireless
12 25 (1.00%) BGP
13 24 (0.96%) Unified Communications
13 24 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.92%) OSPF
15 19 (0.76%) VLAN
16 17 (0.68%) SSH
17 16 (0.64%) Ethernet
18 15 (0.60%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (6.17%) Power BI
2 96 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
3 91 (3.65%) SQL Server
4 63 (2.53%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
6 53 (2.12%) Tableau
7 51 (2.04%) Relational Database
8 47 (1.88%) Big Data
9 45 (1.80%) MySQL
10 36 (1.44%) Metadata
11 33 (1.32%) Data Lake
12 22 (0.88%) Hadoop
13 21 (0.84%) MongoDB
14 20 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
15 15 (0.60%) GIS
16 14 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
17 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
18 12 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 10 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 295 (11.82%) JIRA
2 122 (4.89%) Git
3 80 (3.21%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.40%) GitLab
5 30 (1.20%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.88%) Liquibase
6 22 (0.88%) Selenium
7 19 (0.76%) Postman
8 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.40%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.40%) MLflow
11 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 8 (0.32%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.32%) JMeter
13 6 (0.24%) Artifactory
13 6 (0.24%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.24%) Gradle
13 6 (0.24%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,276 (51.14%) Social Skills
2 806 (32.30%) Finance
3 589 (23.61%) Analytical Skills
4 275 (11.02%) Banking
5 210 (8.42%) Public Sector
6 112 (4.49%) Presentation Skills
7 110 (4.41%) Manufacturing
8 103 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
9 99 (3.97%) Marketing
10 82 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
11 78 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
12 69 (2.77%) Legal
13 63 (2.53%) Military
14 61 (2.44%) Financial Institution
15 60 (2.40%) Telecoms
16 50 (2.00%) Front Office
17 46 (1.84%) Pharmaceutical
18 44 (1.76%) Investment Banking
19 42 (1.68%) Electronics
20 40 (1.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 373 (14.95%) Analyst
2 251 (10.06%) Senior
3 220 (8.82%) Developer
4 211 (8.46%) Lead
5 190 (7.62%) Architect
6 174 (6.97%) Project Manager
7 166 (6.65%) Business Analyst
8 100 (4.01%) Consultant
9 84 (3.37%) Software Engineer
10 72 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
11 63 (2.53%) IT Support
11 63 (2.53%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.16%) Security Engineer
13 50 (2.00%) Support Analyst
14 44 (1.76%) Designer
15 42 (1.68%) Senior Software Engineer
16 41 (1.64%) Senior Analyst
17 38 (1.52%) Data Scientist
18 37 (1.48%) Data Analyst
18 37 (1.48%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.81%) REST
2 78 (3.13%) .NET
3 76 (3.05%) RESTful
4 70 (2.81%) HTML
5 57 (2.28%) CSS
5 57 (2.28%) React
6 51 (2.04%) Middleware
7 49 (1.96%) Elastic Stack
8 44 (1.76%) Kafka
8 44 (1.76%) XML
9 40 (1.60%) JSON
9 40 (1.60%) SOAP
10 39 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
11 38 (1.52%) OAuth
12 33 (1.32%) PyTorch
12 33 (1.32%) TensorFlow
13 31 (1.24%) Spring
14 30 (1.20%) AngularJS
15 29 (1.16%) Node.js
15 29 (1.16%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 207 (8.30%) Management Information System
2 121 (4.85%) Product Ownership
3 113 (4.53%) Cloud Native
4 90 (3.61%) Onboarding
5 80 (3.21%) Algorithms
6 71 (2.85%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.53%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.53%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
9 57 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
10 55 (2.20%) PMI
11 53 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.76%) Derivative
12 44 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
13 42 (1.68%) Security Posture
14 41 (1.64%) Life Science
14 41 (1.64%) Public Cloud
15 37 (1.48%) Data Structures
15 37 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
16 31 (1.24%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 304 (12.18%) Windows
2 207 (8.30%) Linux
3 87 (3.49%) Unix
4 71 (2.85%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.28%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.04%) Android
7 24 (0.96%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.72%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 15 (0.60%) Ubuntu
9 15 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
10 14 (0.56%) VMS
11 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.24%) Amazon Linux
15 4 (0.16%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.12%) CentOS
16 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.080%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 916 (36.71%) Computer Science
2 785 (31.46%) Agile
3 744 (29.82%) Problem-Solving
4 415 (16.63%) Stakeholder Management
5 377 (15.11%) DevOps
6 365 (14.63%) Project Management
7 312 (12.51%) AI
8 294 (11.78%) Change Management
9 289 (11.58%) CI/CD
10 285 (11.42%) Analytics
11 279 (11.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 271 (10.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 258 (10.34%) Cybersecurity
14 255 (10.22%) Migration
15 241 (9.66%) Decision-Making
16 239 (9.58%) ITIL
17 230 (9.22%) Project Delivery
17 230 (9.22%) Software Engineering
18 225 (9.02%) Risk Management
19 214 (8.58%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 444 (17.80%) Python
2 392 (15.71%) SQL
3 172 (6.89%) Java
4 126 (5.05%) PowerShell
5 118 (4.73%) JavaScript
6 90 (3.61%) C#
7 83 (3.33%) C++
8 57 (2.28%) TypeScript
9 53 (2.12%) Go
10 46 (1.84%) Bash
11 31 (1.24%) R
12 26 (1.04%) Perl
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.84%) C
15 20 (0.80%) T-SQL
16 18 (0.72%) MATLAB
17 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
18 15 (0.60%) Rust
18 15 (0.60%) SystemVerilog
19 12 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 614 (24.61%) Computer Science Degree
2 439 (17.60%) Security Cleared
3 408 (16.35%) Master's Degree
4 342 (13.71%) SC Cleared
5 154 (6.17%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.25%) PMP
7 114 (4.57%) CISSP
8 90 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
10 74 (2.97%) CISM
11 73 (2.93%) PhD
12 72 (2.89%) Azure Certification
13 68 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
14 57 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
15 56 (2.24%) DV Cleared
16 47 (1.88%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.60%) CCNP
17 40 (1.60%) MBA
18 38 (1.52%) CBAP
19 32 (1.28%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (6.85%) QA
2 130 (5.21%) GDPR
3 94 (3.77%) Data Quality
4 92 (3.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 92 (3.69%) PMO
5 61 (2.44%) NIST
6 43 (1.72%) Accessibility
7 40 (1.60%) PCI DSS
8 34 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 32 (1.28%) SLA
10 28 (1.12%) GRC
11 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
12 16 (0.64%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.56%) Basel III
14 14 (0.56%) WCAG
15 13 (0.52%) NCSC
16 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.48%) IFRS
17 11 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 195 (7.82%) Docker
2 161 (6.45%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.76%) Firmware
4 19 (0.76%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
7 6 (0.24%) DFS Replication
7 6 (0.24%) Dovecot
7 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (0.24%) Postfix
7 6 (0.24%) Squid
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 4 (0.16%) NDS
9 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.16%) vSphere
9 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
Systems Management
1 186 (7.45%) Kubernetes
2 122 (4.89%) Terraform
3 77 (3.09%) Ansible
4 67 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 60 (2.40%) Grafana
6 52 (2.08%) Prometheus
6 52 (2.08%) SCCM
7 30 (1.20%) OPNET
8 24 (0.96%) Puppet
9 16 (0.64%) Kibana
9 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.52%) SCOM
12 12 (0.48%) Nmap
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) Nessus
15 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
15 6 (0.24%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 530 (21.24%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.05%) Oracle
3 170 (6.81%) SAP
4 113 (4.53%) ServiceNow
5 106 (4.25%) Google
6 105 (4.21%) Splunk
7 76 (3.05%) Cisco
8 57 (2.28%) Salesforce
9 56 (2.24%) Atlassian
10 54 (2.16%) Remedy
11 52 (2.08%) VMware
12 49 (1.96%) Databricks
13 38 (1.52%) Citrix
14 30 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.12%) Informatica
16 27 (1.08%) IBM
17 24 (0.96%) MuleSoft
18 22 (0.88%) Adobe
19 20 (0.80%) BiZZdesign
19 20 (0.80%) CheckPoint